The Road Through That Window

'So you are telling me, I have cultivated the pain I'm living? I sowed the seeds and you just landed up on it from nowhere?' she was now furious, not on him or the situation but at her own self, her vulnerability to still carry the need to discuss what's already showing itself.

'No baby, all I’m telling you is that I'm innocent. I'm just a medium not the cause itself. I'm really sorry that you had to go through all this, it certainly was not required, but then how much of life can we really control?' he countered, his tone mellowed down and his hands steady on the steering wheel of the car.

The car they were in had left past the green lands and was making its way out of a noisy crowded narrow road bustling with people, vehicles and the chaos that was present inside as well.

She was silent, lost and unable to find words which could make him understand what she had to tell. Reluctantly she looked outside the window of the car.

Observing that his statements made no desired effect, he continued,

 'You look at this road, honey. It is so compact and a lot is going on here. So much of turbulence not just on the road but also in the minds of people. This is usual life. Life as we live it, you and me. You see those people on the corner left of the road moving in a file...'

He looks at her for attention, he hasn’t got it. So he continues, ‘Now let’s say you are one amongst them and I'm behind you. I get a push from someone behind and in turn I fall on you and you fall down too and hurt yourself.’

She was now looking at him from the corner of her eye, more so waiting to hear how he ended this.

'So though you get hurt because of me, but was it my fault? I was just pushed from behind,'  he completed.

She was agitated. She yelled, 'Sso what should I do? Go ask that third person to apologize to me?'

Baffled at her reaction (she was usually calm), he looked at her silently and continued to drive.

She turned her head again towards the window, fighting her tears and wondering how and why she should handle his logic which defied her emotions. She knew he had been through bad times and she never questioned him. She also was okay getting pushed around by him but what she couldn’t fathom was why he did not even once let out his hand towards her to lift her up.

Finding it futile to talk to him, she repeated in her mind lines what she wanted to tell him, “No matter whose fault it was ... apology is not what I'm looking for from you ... I want you to not let me fall and if at all I do, you should be the first to come to my rescue ... I can fall as many times as long as I know I have you to pick me up...”

Her thoughts were interrupted by him, ‘We are compatible and we love each other so very much ... what else does one need to live together, sweets?’

Blatantly, without looking at him, she replied softly, ‘Peace. Peace of mind’.

He repeated, “Peace, hmmm”.

And all that remained in that car, then, was the noise of the wind rushing its way in through the little open window, unaware that it has a lot of space to fill.