Anniversary Celebrations

Short videos on You-Tube were her latest obsession. Priya could not have enough of it. About history, she was enriched, about geography interested, about ecology concerned and about economics, worried. She felt learned. And lonely. Even with the job satisfaction and financial empowerment, she lacked a something she could not address. It was her anniversary in a week. So, she typed 'gifts idea' on you-tube and got busy for another fifteen minutes slot.

She approved of the 'gift-a-vacation' idea most. And that of the spa membership. She decided on the second and checked online for the spa options. After scanning through some, she filtered Three Valleys Spa. On the brink of the call being received, she cancelled it. What if Rakesh does not like it? She picked up her phone and typed, "Dinner? 27th?" To avoid the tension of probable reply, she typed 'isis on islam' and waited for it. 

In the midst of an engrossing video, she missed the reply. Priya left the computer and went about the rest of the day, cooking bathing, eating and finally setting for a siesta. In a habit of returning to the level of Diamond Digger she was last held up in, she got back to her phone and saw it. 'Yes' he had replied. After an hour, he asked, 'Where?'

Thinking in a series of things, she typed, 'Will inform.' As if charged of a kind of insufficiency, sleep gripped her. She dreamt of her wedding. He, in his black suit, standing against the cross of the church. Just as they were about to exchange rings, he brought out a gun from his pocket and handed it to her. Immediately the police came in from nowhere and arrested her for being in position of the gun. 'You are a jihadi!' they accused. Rakesh left the podium and she was behind bars. Except that she was cooking and cleaning withing, with a smile. Suddenly, Rakesh came in and shouted at her, 'Sign the papers, you!' He was wearing a mask but she knew it was him from his voice. The police immediately gunned him down and before she could scream, gave her a slice of pizza. It had bullet shaped olives. She threw it and ran to Rakesh. The room changed to a Hindu-wedding scenario where she was circling around the fire. Except that it was a funeral pyre and had Rakesh's body on it. She woke up with a start.

Grabbing the bottle beside her, she finished half of the water in it. These days, Sundays afternoons would inadvertently bring in a nightmare. Mutton, it must be indigestion and got off the bed towards the medicine cabinet. With a cup of tea in her hand, she sat in the over-sized swing in her balcony thinking of the Sundays of the yesteryears where she and Rakesh would plan all week to spend on a evening in a movie theater and a dinner after that. Or a drive. The Sundays post-divorce were the most traumatic. It was five years now.

She decided to celebrate it with him.