Short Story : Missing Her

Today I will take a walk instead of autorickshaw which I normally take while going home. Anyways I am not in a hurry to reach home, as she is not here. Otherwise she would call and shout: where are you?  Why are you late? Yeah she says she is concerned but the way she screams on phone makes me thinks otherwise. Is it really concerned or just curious if I am roaming with somebody? Then she will give a list of things to be purchased like I am some shopkeeper providing home delivery service. And in the end, she will say, come fast, I am waiting.  I use to control my anger because I use to feel dominated by her but I ignore it and would just say Okay.

When I rang the door bell of the house, I half expected her to run from the bedroom to open the door but it’s my father who opens it. And I enter the house and still half expecting her to take my wallet to keep it safely in the cupboard, she says she loves it but I like it more than her, though I have never told her this. But alas, there is no sign of her anywhere in the house. I go to my room and open the cupboard to place the watch, and change my clothes.  She is not in the balcony so that I could pinch her at the back and tease her for being fat. Not that it matters to me, but she gets irritated, so I do it. I lie on the bed, imaging her face, her giggles and her long curly hair, she looked like an innocent child but she is not here, I can only smell her perfume on the pillow cover.

My head is splitting with headache. It’s being there, since the time she went away. When she was here, she liked massaging my face and the body. She used to enjoy it and it was her regular chore before we cuddled in the night. Then one day, she wanted to make love under the open sky, she had fantasized it for a long time, so we did it in once at 2 am in the terrace. She loved singing. She didn’t have a great voice but just to irritate me, she would do it. She never liked taking orders from me. If I did, I would end up hearing her set of complaints about how much she is compromising in her life by marrying me. She behaved like a queen and indeed she was for me, a prized possession I enjoyed my life with. We were married for two years but still behaved like kids fighting for a single toy. She was a darling of my parents.  Not that she did any housework, infract she didn’t do any work at all in the house. She knew her way around with my mom. She loaded her with gifts and use to pamper her. And get special whisky bottles for my dad. And I had fallen in love with her at first sight. So she had us all under her charm.

One night she surprised me by singing a lullaby. And it sounded so horrible, that I had to kiss her for a longest time before she finally gave up. I can still feel her laughing under my lips.  It’s being two months since I lost her in a car accident. She wasn’t even driving, Oh god! It was not even her fault.  We had our lovers tiff and just to prove that she can manage alone, she went off alone to have her roadside delicacies. I only wish I had gone with her. That unfateful day, destiny had made plans for her. A young boy in his twenties, royally drunk, lost control of his car and hit her and she died on the spot due to internal bleeding. In death also, she proved herself right that she can manage alone. It’s only I who cannot manage alone now. I am missing her.