Heaven

By Hemanth Thiyagarajan

   “Come along, Sofia. Let us travel to the distant shores of a wild sea. With no eyes upon us. We’ll sit under those luminous stars, stretched across the vast sky. We’ll bury our toes in the sand & let Varuna caress us with his gentle touch. And we will tell each other beautiful lies like old, married couples do. I will tell you that even if you let out the storm of grief, raging inside you; I’ll put you back together & you’ll be whole as you once were. You tell me that you will be the tether that holds me back from eviscerating the ones I care about, in my mad pursuit of wealth and glory. I will console you by saying that even if you have changed, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. That you are someone new and it is something to be celebrated. You convince me that, inspite of everything I have done and will do, I am worthy of being loved. And then we’ll look at the stars. With a mirthless smile on our faces. As the sea rushes to claim our long buried tears.

                 Come along, Sofia. We’ll cocoon ourselves in a desolate mansion. Where you lose yourself with an empty canvas to paint the tapestry of the emotions raging inside of you. And I’ll find solace in the company of paper, pen and words imprisoned deep inside, begging for release. Only to find that you have destroyed every brush, palette & colour on the white canvas ; as that was the only possible way to express the chaos that you carry inside. And I have thrown away every pen, paper & book because words no longer light up & fill the darkness and hollow, I feel inside.

                Come along Sofia. We’ll do anything that we think will cure us of our affliction. And then, laugh at our naivet-

                 It would have appeared comical to the sardonic creator up above, because that was the moment when Peter’s hand stopped and his body slumped forward. His last thoughts, reminiscing the green glades of Ooty, listening to her mellifluous voice recite their favourite verse;

              “Mritaih praapyah svargo tadiha kathayati etad anritam.

               Paraksho na svargo bahugunamihaiva phalati.”

               “They say that only the dead are allowed to reach heaven. But that is false. True heaven is not beyond us in this life. It is right here on this earth. With the one you love.”

               As it turned out, life or afterlife didn’t have much prospect for Peter, after all that was left of his heaven was a mere photo.

By Hemanth Thiyagarajan