The Gift

He would have liked a daughter. Someone he could play with, someone he could kiss, someone he could cuddle with. He wanted someone to love. I was not the one. No one could be the one. It had to be a part of him.

It was raining again in Hanley and it was as usual settling the scores with the city. The buildings were soaking in the sadness of the city. It was sharing the grief of the people. This city had seen a lot of pain, but over the years even the buildings had become immune to it. The buildings could not be blamed, they were brown in colour. There was nothing to be cheerful about, so they tried level reducing the pain by soaking in the dullness. It rained, the city wiped the silence, it rained again and city wiped the hints again. It was a constant battle the two were fighting for. Shikha liked this battle. She always felt she was part of this great epic, a mere silent spectator for whom this battle meant something.

And this time Shikha was not alone, she was going to deliver a child, and she really wanted it to be a girl. He would have liked it. The girl and Shikha had clearly understood each other. This was an act of love , a gift from someone who loved someone, a gift for someone who wanted to love someone and a gift which was to be loved. It was supposed to be a surprise. He hated surprises. He hated losing control of his life.

He had taught her to cry in the rain, it was the only way to share your life with nature. He used to believe that rain was a message from heaven. Rain had to pour, there was no way out, and we had to be part of this ceremony. Shikha wanted him to be romantic in the rain. To hold her, and tell her how much he loved her. She wanted him to speak, talk , say things, share. And this was all possible in the rain, after all rain wanted us to share.

But nothing. He had never once said he loved her. For that matter, loved anthing. He knew what love was. But he was not ready to trade it off with anything in the world. He wanted that for himself. He wanted that deseparetly. He never cried either in the rain.

Shikha never wanted a family, never wanted attachments. She was well verse with idea of love and was blindly in love with love. She never wanted to have children but had  dreamt of being pregnant. Even when she was with him, she would always have his hand on her stomach.She loved the glow she had on her cheeks, the idea of a bulging stomach, the idea of being loved, the idea of having a life within oneself, everything gave her a tingle. She had given a lot of thought to it. She had sorted out this well written script where she would get to play the lead. She loved the idea of it.

Shikha still remembered the first time she met him. He was in the library and she was scribbling down notes. He came over and took her for coffee. It was as simple as that. And within one hour of being with him, she was sure that she would carry his child one day. She wanted to. She wanted to have that bulge around her stomach. She had fixations about her body. She had always thought she would look good with her stomach out. After the first night, he had complemented her tummy and he told her one day that she would make a wonderful old lady.

Shikha had wonderful dreams that night.

And then he asked her to marry her and walked away from her life with the negatives of their lives. Shikha could not hold him back, he was looking for love and she was not the one. It was raining that day. She wanted to cry, but there were no memories to etch in her tears. She was unable to remember any romantic moments with him.She only remembered his touch and only craved for his body. She knew that she had to gift him. She had to give him the parting gift.