STAINS

 STAINS 

“are bhaiya Nehru street se lena tha aapko, jp road kyu pahunch gaye, uturn lo aur jaldi aao” she said this as she was getting late for somewhere, she was not getting late at all, she was just shifting to another place, big stuff was moved before , a pickup arrived with written ‘rab di meher,sab utha lunga’ on it, we were a bit scared as if ‘ye sab to nahi utha lega?’ but the service was quite decent , he managed to shift every piece of furniture, he just broke a mirror, scratched an almirah and missed a bag on the way , that’s it nothing more .

“he’ll take 20 minutes to reach” she said as she sits on the couch and exhaled remembering “are yaar ye couch bhi to shift karna tha bhenchod” , I was sitting on a chair near the dining table, using my phone to give an appearance that I am busy “I’ll drop it sometime when I am around” I said “no don’t worry, abhinav will take care of it” she said

I didn't want her to go, and more than that, I didn't want her to know that I still love her more than ever. I kept quiet and looked at the ceiling watch. What? Only a minute had passed. Damn it! I knew that if I spoke to her in these last couple of minutes we had together, I would end up creating a lovingly, entertaining, beautiful dramatic scene. So, I stood up and asked, 'Coffee for the last time?' She looked at me as if she was expecting me to ask for a coffee and said, 'Please.' I went into the kitchen and took out a coffee sachet. I make a decent amount with my job, but I never wanted to buy a whole jar or packet of coffee. I always wanted my coffee to finish so that I could rush to the market and get 4 to 5 sachets. It makes me love my coffee even more.

"Coffee help for the last time?" She came into the kitchen and asked. "Uhm, no, I'm okay. Thank you." We both liked to drink black coffee. I was a sucker for cappuccino before she came into my life, but for the last four years, I have known everything bad about milk and sugar, so I decided to switch to black coffee and that to without sugar. It's easy to make black coffee too; it's ready in less than two minutes. We still had 18 minutes left. I gave her the cup. As we were parting ways now, everything that we bought together was going back to us separately. It was quite hard at first, but you get to know the importance of stuff when people leave.

She sat on the kitchen platform, and I stood by the other platform. Oh my god, I must say, if Godard could capture this frame, it would have the caliber of going to Cannes and shit. I had predicted that some intense conversation was going to happen between us. "Do you still watch porn?" she asked out of nowhere. But supposing this was one of her last questions, I answered straightforwardly,

"Yes, I do."

"How? They have blocked the websites, right?" she asked.

"You can watch them through VPN," I replied.

"Teach me how." The rest of the five minutes went on teaching her how to watch porn through VPN. In between, I also gave her recommendations to browse premium content for free. Strange, but how people become less self-aware and their weirdest true self at the time of parting. We finished our coffee. "I can wash them," she said, and I gave her my cup. "This coffee is really hard to be honest. The stains couldn't go that easily," she said while washing the cup. "I bought them on purpose. I prefer the stains. It reminds me that coffee has been poured in it," I said. She looked at me. "What if the stains never get removed?" she asked. Without hesitation, I replied, "It would work as evidence that you have drunk your coffee in it." She turned away and left the tap on. I turned it off. It was perfectly silent for ten seconds. I could hear her and my heartbeat. It was the last time of me hearing our heartbeats together. She went to the hall and took her bag. "I'll wait downstairs. He might get confused in the building too," she said. "He might," I added. She took a look at the apartment, looked at herself in the mirror, and came to give or take a hug. We hugged each other for the last time. I couldn't feel anything; I just felt a stain on my body. "Will…..you…….come……down..?" she stuttered. "No, I won't," I replied. She smiled and went to the door and gave me the key of the apartment. I took the key and waited for the lift to arrive. I didn't want to bang the door on her face unceremoniously. The lift arrived, and we both waved at each other, and I closed the door.

I went to the kitchen again, took the cup from which she drank her coffee, boiled water, and poured a sachet of coffee into it. I then went to her couch and sat on it. As I was about to take the first sip, I heard the bell, I went to the door along with my coffee, as I opened the door I saw her standing, panting

“Can I have my cup back” she said