Image of the Moon...

Image courtesy : google images / http://www.mdjunction.com

…she dragged him by his hands.  He stopped and turned to see her eyes that were waiting for him to look at her.  “Where are you running?” she asked with little anger in her voice and with little expectation in her eyes.  “I… I am just going…” his words stumbled. “Do I know you? Or do you know me? Have we ever spoken?” she asked.  “No” he replied. “Did I do something to hurt you are frighten you?” she questioned.  “Not absolutely…” he replied with his still stumbling words. “Then why the… why do you walk away wherever you see me or whenever I come across you? Do I look like a demon to you?” I was a little harangue. He stood still. He could answer not though he wants to answer.  He stood as if he never exists, as if he has not been questioned. She left her hand knowing he will not answer.  She let him free, knowing it is no use in holding him back and waiting for an answer.

He came back to reality, jumped down from the moon, woke up from the dream induced anesthesia.  He looked at her in the between her eyebrows. A tiny vermilion stuck like a raising sun between the mountains.  “…because” he said “I do not want to know you”. That was pretty confusing reply which made her think for a while and make her next statement “could you please explain”.  “There is no explanation… I don't want to know anything about you… because…” his words stumbled again. “Because…?” she asked. “You are not ‘what-you-are’ for me… a princess… a humble woman… an exceptional warrior… and incarnation of Ishtar” he replied in a husky tone.

“Not a word of you I understand…” she said.  “Nobody could…” he said and continued “it has to be felt in heart. You have to listen to the beats of the heart and translate and then decipher to know its meaning. Otherwise it is just like any other sound you hear” he said. “Tell me more… tell me what I should do…” she replied.  “I have no intension in explaining it to anybody, including you… but since you have asked I think I have to… I feel like my Ishtar has come down to ask for an explanation”.  “I don't understand your Ishtar-thing… tell me if you are interested to… else… it’s up to you” she said.  “I am willing to… only if you come with me…” He said.  Thinking for a minute she said okay without asking where and when.  “Come…” he said and walked out and she followed him without questions.

“…listen to me without questions.  I could tell you only in the way I know… I am not sure if you could understand it, rightly, or not.” He said without turning to her.  She nodded. “…few things could not get into our hearts with eyes opened. So…”

“Okay, I will close my eyes…” she said.

“…I request if you could tie this handkerchief on to your eyes…” he gave her his white cotton handkerchief. She closed her eyes and opened her arms signalling ‘go ahead’.  He wrapped her eyes with that piece of cotton and said “never have I thought I would blind a goddesses for a moment” she blushed but hid it behind her lips and said “what do you mean…” in her fake angry voice. “Nothing, come lets go…” he replied.

The elevator travelled up and after half of a minute it stopped. He guided her out.  “Now we have to walk a little up in the stairs… do you mind if I hold your hands” he asked for her hands and she gave.  When the stairs ended and the floor below them became flat to walk a breeze engulfed her.  She stood mesmerized. Both of them walked a few more steps hand in hand.  Hand-in-hand, the mesmerizing breeze made them forgot that he was holding her hand. “Sit down here… and be comfortable and relaxed before I could blabber” he said.  Both of them sat down on the floor and the breeze continue to flow.

“I’m all ears…” she said.

“…it is tough to start with.  I am good at putting things in paper rather in voice.  I will try my best.

“When I saw you after years, you were in your maroon wardrobe that of a princess. The dress peculiarly made for you, exposing little of your waist, embedded with flickering stones all over the dress. You had neatly and naturally carved eye brows with a vermillion in between the brows just like what I see now.  Matching your maroon wardrobe, a tiny nose pin stood at your left side of the nose with a tiny ruby stone in it. Just like a star below the crescent moon you had twinkling dropping ear rings in diamond.  Dropping from your forehead was a jewel with an emerald embedded in it, over your bosom slept a priceless necklace in diamond stuck in gold. Above all the God has decorated you with an enchanting smile of yours.  It was about to become dark and lamps started to burn themselves.  It was not night yet, end of the horizon still had little light which could compete not with you. We stood in a temple. Like an epitome of humbleness you stood looking down at the earth and my eyes stuck to you.  You walked a little making music with you golden anklet. I wondered why your hip chain is not making any sound; I then realized that you swayed it with your hip to make it sleep. I came near you; I felt fragrance of jasmine spreading romance in air and perfuming your well combed hair.

“It became dark and the lamps glowing around the temple in dark made you glow like a diamond over the black cloth. You are of the same thin and height to my shoulders. I asked you to look at me but you shook your head. I kneeled with my one leg before you to give you a ring that I brought for you. When I showed it to you, you gave your hand to me and I put it in you ring finger. You looked in to my eyes and looked away blushing.  Your anklet sang the same song.  You stepped back two steps and said ‘please get up’.  I got up and called you to come with me. You followed me and once we came out of the temple I told you to close your eyes and you did.  After a little I stopped you and you asked me ‘why’. I said that the path is not for rose palms and I scooped you in my arms. You succumbed in my arms with your eyes closed. I walked to the place where I wanted to take you. I released you from my arms and asked you to open your eyes.  It was a garden made especially for you on the shore of the divine river. A chilled breeze engulfed us and you leaned back on me.  There is no other lamp in garden other than you; from behind I lifted your face by your chin to look at the garden above us.  It was a full moon day and the sky was clear filled with millions of stars; just like the flowers in garden and a shining moon like you. ‘I didn’t see you, I didn’t see anything matching you in the sky’ you said and I replied ‘it might be behind the moon, holding the beauty in its arms’ I said holding her by arms.

         

“We sat there with your shoulders on my chest and my hands on your hips counting the beads of your hip chain. You scratched my chest with thousand lines of poetry with your nails and finished it with a kiss.”

He stopped.  Silence prevailed for a minute. She didn’t talk anything. “Untie the kerchief” he said. Slowly she removed the cotton cloth from her eyes but didn’t open her eyes.  “Open your eyes” he said.  She opened her eyes and it was night, they both were in the terrace of the building fifteen floors above. At a good distance they could see the sea shore and a full moon rising from the horizon. “There you are, in a minute or two the moon will enter the garden and stand among the blossomed stars.”  She didn’t talk. She sat still looking at moon and the stars.

“I am a writer” he continued “I could not pick a girl for my story from heaven so I picked you from the earth.  I put myself in the place of my hero only then I could write the love of him to his beloved.  I picked you as my heroin” he said. “But what is the point of avoiding me…” she asked. “I don't know you, I don't know whether you are soft or hard, humble or egoistic, brave or a coward, but you are soft like a blooming rose and brave like scorching Sun in my story, your eyes talk the language of love.  I don't want to break that image of you with the original image that you carry.”  She didn’t reply.

“All that I told you were a part of my story I was writing… and…” he stopped.  She looked at him as if telling him to continue “I never thought something similar to that will happen today though I have not scooped you physically in my arms. You are soft and I know you are brave” He said and looked at the sky. “The moon entered the garden” she said and continued “but there is somebody else standing behind the moon, I am afraid there is no place for you.” she said as he could see the moon light entering the tiny diamond at the edge of her eyes.

         

          “I know…” he continued “but the moon is always a moon. I could hold a large mirror in front of me to see its reflection and stand behind it.” The moon entered deep inside the garden of stars and for a minute a row of clouds hid the moon. “Before the moon reappears from the cloud leave from this place and go home safely” he said. “Come let’s go” she said.  “No, I cannot come now, I want to talk with this moon today, and it was an enchanting night today with a real and image of the moon” she nodded and started walking. “I will talk with the image of the moon and will come down after sometime” he said.  She stopped for a second and left the place.