Not so sad, not so happy, yet with a smile Ruchi entered her room that day. Only one thought was in her mind, "I'll write diary today". It had been long since she had written something. Even she wasn't properly remembering where she had kept the diary. She searched for it and it took a while before she could find it in the shelf. Stacked between old books it was there. Wiping the brown cushiony cover of it, she gave couple of pats to take the dust off. From between the pages, a leaf fell down. The dried up leaf of banyan tree with faint trails of ink. She knew what it was and she didn't have to read it to know what was written.
The faded smile echoed in her mind saying "and we'll build a plane of dreams and a boat of desire...". With the flashbacks, she felt heavy in her chest. The etching of those words was more conspicuous on her heart than that of leaf. Though tears poised in her eyelids, she didn't cry. If this were the case two months back she would have laid in bed crying for couple days. But now she has moved on. She thinks she has. But what now has poised in her eyes is just rage. "Should have burnt this too that day" she said to herself. And even then, she wasn't able to just crumple it and throw away.
Summoning all strength, she gathered herself to write something. Kept aside the leaf, gripped her pen between her fingers and held it on a page of diary. Blank mind, no thoughts to drive the pen through the page. That day when he had slipped that leaf in her book came to life in her mind. First year of college, on a college day-out to the nearby river bank. While the awkward social interaction between each other was a thing among others, somehow Prateek had managed to break the ice with Ruchi. And within no time she had fallen for him. That day, he had surprised her with a dairy milk fruit and nuts chocolate. The leaf was there with it and she was so happy reading it.
Her red face, still determined to write something was holding her together. Her hand was still firm holding the pen. While she battled with her blank mind, again the thoughts hit her. She remembered how Prateek changed through the period the two years of college and dumped her finally. And it almost took an year to become normal.
It hurts when she realizes how lonely she has become and what it took to stand for herself all these days. That melt her this time. Tears making their trail on the cheeks set the pen in motion. Her mind still blank, she scribbled,
" The plane of our dreams to crash in your apathetic lands.
The boat of desire has capsized in my teary eyes".
She felt exhausted and vulnerable. She crumpled the leaf and threw away the diary. Then the tears rolled rapidly and the rest only the pillow knew, like every other night.
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