Tell Me Your Story

While we lie down together on the light creases of bedsheet. I have never liked creases. And I would never do. But when you tell me your story, there is not a thing in this world which can strip me off the attention. I lie close to you, our heads touching slightly, as you whisper your story in my ear. I listen raptly. My arms are stretched upright in the blackness, with a slight bend and fingers dance artlessly, the way I do a lot, while my mind tries to picture your words and the people living in those words, giving them countenances and enlivening them in the nicest manner. 

So tell me more.

Tell me the things which made you the happiest when you were as young as five, the fears, the inhibitions which you had and how you nipped them off as you grew up, the dormant moments of embarrassment which nobody else knows or remembers apart from you. Those cute little lies, those wicked ideas which popped in your head almost all the time. Share with me how you spent the evenings when you were young and alone, a lifetime ago. What kept you busy, I would so love to know. How you devised new pranks and how you executed them. I want to know it all. I want to laugh with you till my stomach hurts and hear the subtle confluence of our echoes. So tell me your story.

The labyrinth of adventures and misadventures, the snippets of love and hate, the unfathomable bouts of melancholy and the ethereal moments of breaking free, the times you failed to devolve coherence out of life, and the times of incessant rush of butterflies in your stomach.

Tell me as we sit here in the sun and I tilt my head slightly to the right, resting the temple on the palm of my hand because I'm so engrossed in those words pouring out of your mouth, those profound and resonating words. I want to keep them with me, some place surreptitiously close so that I can read them again and again. I'm so engrossed in your story that I forget about the hot tea which has been sitting amidst us, for a while. It has lost its steam and now rests still, like a warrior without his armor. You stop for a while to tell me that my eyes are glinting like a kid's. You stop, to push back a few strands of hair hanging with svelte along my left cheek. I smile.

Tell me your story.

And maybe I could be a part of it too. When you struggle in times of making delicate decisions, I could share my thoughts with you. When after an infinitely long day of hopelessness, you come home, I could make you lie on my lap and move my hands smoothly through your hair. When you are in one of the happy moments of your life, I could be there and be a part of your happiness or even better, I could be the reason lurking behind your happiness. Or in those times when you stay up all night and cry to yourself. I could be there to offer you a shoulder. And hush you back to sleep. And silently, I would watch your eyeballs move to and fro as you dream and a smile would slyly place itself on my lips. You'd snore and I would smile a little more.

And years later, when you are old, with grey hair and a fragile body and would sit with your children, your beautiful daughter and handsome son, tell them about me. Would you? About my idiosyncrasies, about my veiled passions, about my habit to make my fingers dance artlessly in the air, about the glint in my eyes and about the sound of my giggle. Because that day my story would begin.

From you.

In your words.

______