GIRL LIKE ONION

hs heart dropped! Ofcourse, the voice was new but only slightly unfamiliar, because she hadn heard from him in literally a whole decade! She had last bade him goodbye at the airport when she was boarding a flight back home. They had never spoken to each other again and well, life happened in the meanwhile (so did facebook) and here he was trying to reconnect and she had been so utterly naive!

Oh my God! Dani is that you??? she exclaimed into the mouthpiece. The egg sizzled and she forgot she was in her kitchen. She was back in the playground in the country next door. He was in his shorts and t-shirt and she was the cool older cousin and he was the dumb adorable kid with pimples on his cheeks. Like finally somebody remembers, had a memory loss eh? How are you? Where are you?

You are married, wow I saw only a few of your pictures, accept my friend request let me see pictures please, its been ages! Dani exclaimed back.

Empath was nearly in tears of happiness. This unthinkable and sudden bestow of an old friend, cousin, acquaintance, it was like the fresh splatter of rain on barren, dried up grounds, dull and brown, bringing back colour and life. It was like a hot sizzling pan being put into ice cold water. Dani I am so so sorry, I had my profile privacy settings on and I don respond to unknown requests and ooh boy! You have grown up! How on earth was I supposed to know that the man in the profile picture is supposed to be that introverted dorky kid from a decade ago?!

Empath was laughing and Dani was giggling on the other end. It was like walking in clouds. She was giddy with excitement. She was late to work that day but extremely happy. He hated having to hang up when she told him her meetings with fellow teachers were about to start and she despised disappointing him. She promised she would call back as soon as she returned back home in the afternoon. She told him to catch up on his sleep till then, as they had a lot to catch up on in their next phone call.

She hung up, but all day she was smiling and hanging onto each and every word shed exchanged with Dani. She swung from one corridor to another in school as if there was light wind below her feet lifting her mood and her existence. She was back in the memory of being that silly teenager goofing around the neighbourhood and snooping in the park for dingy figures with Dani. All the infidelity issues of hubster, the wails of her Baby M and the demands of Baby S seemed like things far away. Empath was ecstatic to stumble upon an old companion rekindling a happy time of her life, before life became hell.

She was counting hours to late afternoon, when she would reach home and return his call and finish their interrupted and much-delayed conversation. It wasn until 3pm finally when she was done for the day at school, returned home, prayed, eaten, and resorted to her bed to breastfeed Baby M, that she excitedly grabbed her cell phone and dialled his number. Thank goodness for the internet and calling apps, or else the phone bill would have been out of her expense limit. The dial tone rang for a mere few seconds and he received, okayyy, you are back? Rested? Now where were we? Dani began.

One month, dozens of phone calls and hundreds of texts exchanged later, there was light at the end of the tunnel for Empath.

At Least thats what she thought it was. A break from her sexual frustrations and disrupted marital bliss. But what she believed was light, could also be nothingness, because the colour of nothingness is ALSO white.