by Dr. Smita Anand Sriwastav
They were not just friends keeping in
touch by phone calls and sharing the occasional lunch together.
They were not lukewarm acquaintances,
scribbled names in some address book, a smile shared on mutual
sidewalks, a hand waved in greeting. They were more, much more,
sharing a more close knit relation. They were not lovers, sharing
intimate gazes over flickering candlelight and their lingering touch
scribing poetry on the skin of another. Their realms did not spoon
together to make one perfect whole. They were strangers bound
together by cords of loneliness; as the lonely moon becomes
acquainted with the bay, yet their existences are destined to be
separate. They fill the vacuum of their haunting silences with
innocuous words, just to make those moments more palatable, but it is
not a communication, a sharing of thoughts, a blending of ideas—just
meaningless tirade to fill empty hours. They recognize each other,
are familiar with their habits and idiosyncrasies but the thoughts of
one are not reflected in the gaze of another. Understanding is
elusive, for they are just archipelagos disjointed and separated with
no bridge joining them but the frail threads of necessity.
