A Story — Part 2
The sun suddenly hid behind the clouds. He remembers this path as it gradually steepens, as it had steepened that day, and he had felt that the effort that they were making to walk on that steep path had to count for something.
She had described her work — providing in-home support to patients who were disabled. The work paid her bills, and could often be quite challenging, with different patients facing various issues ranging from physical to emotional. As they had carefully steered clear of the oncoming visitors, he had tried to make sense of what was happening and where all of this might lead to. He imagined a time when they might be married, and what his parents might feel about it. He wondered if marrying her might mean that he might never be able to go back home, for good. They stopped for a moment to decide if they should keep walking. He recommended that they should and that soon they would arrive at a place where they could sit and behold the water.
Finally, they had arrived at the bench that faced the vast San Francisco bay. He had sat at one end of the bench, she on the other. Every now and then, an airplane would fly over them, and both of them would look up at it, trying to be aware of everything around them. She had brought some white wine, and they sat there drinking it in small plastic cups which he had brought. As the wine settled in, he took out his phone and played a spoken word performance, which was titled, “I Won’t Write Your Obituary” by Nora Cooper. As he played it, he handed the phone to her. As she watched it, she told him about how she was a performer herself, doing spoken word while at university and later. The spoken word performance continued in the background.
“And I will write you so many fucking dead friend poems, that people will confuse my tongue with your tombstone and try to plant daisies in my throat before I ever write you an obituary while you’re still fucking here.”
It was a sublime moment, and it seemed the beginning of something wonderful. Both of them were quiet for what seemed like a long time. The spoken word performance ended, and she handed the phone back to him. She went on about the high that one got from performing spoken word poetry, and how she and her friends used to refer to the building where they performed the spoken word as the “church”. Soon after, they got up from the bench and started walking back toward the exit of the park.
At one point, they had come close to one another and kissed each other as if their lives had depended on it. As their tongues had touched, played with each other even, the darkness had fallen suddenly, and he had thought that he would remember this moment forever. The moment comes back to him again today as he walks inside the park alone, revisiting every place they had visited together that day.
He sits on the bench alone, looking to his right multiple times, and each time he looks, he feels a little lonelier. He looks to his left at the warning sign saying to proceed further ahead with caution, and he remembers looking at it that day too when she was sitting to his right. He observes San Francisco bay for a long time. The bench was dedicated by a husband to his wife, who passed away in 2018. He reads the words again, and he feels a little lonelier.
Finally, he gets up from the bench and retraces the steps that they had taken that day. He stops at the restroom just like they had stopped on that day. The restroom is closed, just like it had been closed that day. He waits there for a while, before beginning the long walk to the exit of the park.
He realizes that the park would never mean the same to him again. It has now assumed the color of a failed relationship — something he couldn’t have known when he had met her for the first time. Their conversations over the past few months had reduced significantly, and he could sense that something was imminent. And then, it had arrived: She had told him that she was seeing someone else and that they could still remain friends. He had then experienced a heartbreak so sudden, so swift, that it had caught him off-guard. He had never imagined he could experience a heartbreak like that. He had insisted on a clean break.
As he arrives at the exit of the park, the darkness has deepened around him. He pauses for a moment to think about the park and the significance that it would hold for him, in the time to come. He realizes that now there would be two different parks for him — a park with his memories of her in it, and the other without. He books a cab for the ride home. The Uber Driver greets him and doesn’t bother if he is wearing a mask or not. As he departs, a sadness grabs a firm hold of him, and he finds it difficult to breathe for a while before things seem normal again.
