The gale of fresh air greeted him zealously as he rushed out of his stuffy room. Everything inside there was miserable and in ruin. His writing paraphernalia was emblematic for despair and his personal belongings all huddled in the corner he liked to call his bedroom were a pathetic sight. This was the third week and he still hadn’t gone beyond the first chapter. If he didn’t want to starve and be homeless, he had to write. That’s all they asked for. And there was nothing wrong in that. Isn’t that what he had always wanted to do? To read and write without interruption. But now that he had this autonomy he found it crippling and sometimes even dreary. Oh god! And what did he have to write. He still had no clue what his novel was going to be about. He just had a vague idea about the plot which was basically a bastard amalgam of everything he’d ever liked in mystery novels.
He took a deep breath, glad that he had come out to rejuvenate himself. He stood on the pathway idly looking at the pedestrians. Now and then a motor would go on the otherwise quiet road. Those infernal mechanical beasts! What a filthy spawn of science; constantly corrupting the nature with their acrid fumes. God help us, he thought. Only God can deliver us safely through our own scheduled destruction. He heard a motor car coming from a distance. Bah! Another one. He narrowed his eyes and saw a red car moving swiftly in his direction. The car, even he had to agree was beautiful. Its metallic red glare shouted against the quiet dullness of the region. But perhaps what fascinated him more than the car was its driver. For it was a woman! Of course such a thing wasn’t unheard of. One learnt of these things in pubs and clubs. They’re always narrated as tales from far-fetched land, too strange to occur in the close vicinity. Yet here she was, driving a red motor car.
He found himself looking very carefully at the car and the driver. He wanted to make out more details. What sort of a woman was this? Where was she going? What gave her the courage to do this? His inquiries were left unanswered as the woman and the car whizzed past him down the road. All he saw was a green flurry, perhaps her scarf and then nothing. Sullen and dejected, for he had failed in his petty adventure, he made his way back to the room. He still had to write. But before going in, he made a mental note to come outside the next day too at the same time. Maybe she would come back from wherever she was going through the same route.
She wasn’t there the next day. Or the day after that. Or even the day after that. By this point, he had become curious to a greater degree, who was this woman? Where did she disappear to? He thought of asking around, maybe somebody else had seen her. But then he realized how stupid that would sound. And thus like an idiotic druid, he made it his habit to come out daily at the same time to get some fresh air and maybe even incidentally see her. His solemn efforts were rewarded. It was just another day when he saw the red beast in the distance again. He didn’t look at who was in the driver seat. He knew it would be her. Whoever she was. He tried making out the details of her face and to some extent he did.
She wore glasses. And she had a cute angular face. The effect of her sharp nose was dampened by the softness of her eyes. Her dark brown eyes. Such a common color but then why did they look so dreamy on her. Her lips were pursed. But even then one could see her shapely lips. They looked so soft and full. He felt an immediate urge to lift her chin and kiss her passionately on the lips. However, his fantasy was pulverized as she mercilessly went ahead.
Now it became a pilgrimage. Daily, he would go outside his rooms at the same time, in the hopes to see her. He would comb his oily hair and wash his murky face. He tried to compose poetry for her and not to his surprise failed. He found himself imagining dialogues and possible scenarios with her at night. His sleep vanished and the poise of his days was vanquished. He became a restless soul, waiting every day for the moment when he would catch the singular glance of her and which too he sometimes failed to do. For the women didn’t traverse this road daily. The days she skipped were days of gloom and sadness. The days she passed were days of jubilation and joy. He found his time and his activities revolving around those few moments. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t gone beyond the second chapter and the deadline was too close. The shoddy apartment was merely an inconvenience now. The fact that motor cars were destroying the environment also didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was her. And the few sacred moments in which he saw his glamorous angel riding the red demonic device of hell. Oh the contradictions! She excited him. She was his amusement. She was his secret. His little comfort zone in the vast universe that he didn’t want to share with anyone. By now he had noticed a few more details. Such as her car was faster than most other cars. She had a cleft chin like his favorite singer and this particular oddity exponentially increased her prettiness. It gave her face a symmetry. Once he thought he saw her smiling or maybe she was grinning. It was such a complete smile. The whole of her face seemed to be in sync to this jolly exhibition of the curving of the corners of her mouth. The dimples in her soft round cheeks. Exquisite. Also he had noticed that she always wore a scarf, of perhaps the same material, sometimes just around her neck and at other times over her head too. It gave her appearance a finesse that he couldn’t quite describe. It made her look even more charming.
One day while waiting for her on the footpath, he saw a piece of cloth in a fabric shop across the road. He darted towards it and to the vexation of the shopkeeper started caressing it with his grubby hands. The shopkeeper allowed this perversion to go on for a few seconds but then he had enough and asked him politely to get out. And got out he did, only after he had asked him the name of the material.
“Chiffon, my good-man! It’s the fabric of the wealthy! Now get your bloody arse out of here before I call the coppers.”
And since that day she had become Miss Chiffon.
She was his Miss Chiffon. He would dream about her. As the date of the deadline approached his fervor also exacerbated. He mused over his curse. For that was how he saw it now. She was his lovely curse. The entity he couldn’t behold because he wasn’t worthy of it. What made it more bitter was the fact that he could never be worthy of her. She was from a higher plane. And how could he even claim that he was mad about her? Wasn’t she just a concept of his mind? An anchor that his mind had established before it could’ve flung itself apart? She existed, that was a fact. He couldn’t ignore that, and he couldn’t have imagined something so marvelous. But did she really look like that? Were her eyes really so enveloping and all seeing? Was her skin really so pale and soft? Or was this all his imagination? It really was hard to see details of someone going so fast no matter how hard one tried. So did he love (for want of a better word) her? Or did he love the concept of her that he had built and which was corroborated by some involuntary gestures from her? Maybe she was better than most people. Maybe she didn’t believe in love, like most sensible people don’t. It is after all just a perturbation of soul. It has no meaning and its true value is so confused that it’s hopeless to find it anymore. Maybe that’s what she thought. Maybe she was a better human and didn’t dabble in the sensual arts. His thoughts took on a deeper meaning as he continued down this train of thoughts. Before he knew she was much more than just a human to him. She was his temple. An ethereal being who had shunned the pettiest of vice and ignored the most poking sound. Love. She didn’t believe in love and he loved her just for that. He adored her.
He remembered that people would say how time was going fast than it actually was or how it was passing slowly. It didn’t make sense back then. It did now. Complete days seemed to be agonizingly slow, like they were stretched into years. And the moments when he could espy her on the horizon always seemed too short. Perhaps even shorter than the blink of an eye. Nevertheless, time passed as it should, and unknown to him, the day of deadline came upon him. His frenzy had rendered him useless for anything by this point. He only ate and underwent the requiem of survival so he could live and perhaps catch a glimpse of her. There was no point in being ambitious, she was a queen and he was no one. He couldn’t catch up to her. Some minuscule corner of his chaotic mind had albeit a fancy of its own. It harbored like a malignant tumor, the urge to touch her. To meet her. He didn’t care now that there was a big chance his expectations would be shattered by reality. It would be worthwhile regardless of the long-term consequence. This carnal desire coupled with his savage impulse to lay claim on what he liked, took a deep hold in him that day. The day of the deadline. The day he was supposed to submit the first draft of his novel. Of which he had written only three chapters. The third one being absolute gibberish; the ravings of a mad man.
But he was blissfully ignorant of the impending doom. He casually stood waiting for her. He expected to see her today. It was high time. He heard the familiar sound of the motor engine. Presently he saw the glistening red car emerge on the other side of the road. She wore an indigo colored scarf today. It accentuated the paleness of her skin. The car zoomed towards its normal direction expecting no obstruction as usual. But it did face an obstruction today. The woman in the car, had her chiffon scarf tightly wrapped around her head for it was ignominiously cold. This was a normal drive. She was used to of driving down this road to go see her beautician now. So it wasn’t going to harm anyone if she let her attention falter for a moment. But that’s all it took. A moment. A moment to think, override his instincts and jump in front of the roaring car. She only saw a blur approaching the car and then a loud thud. Immediately she stopped the car, breathing deeply. She had hit something or worse someone. Slowly and mechanically she came out of the car. People had started to gather around now. The undulating sway of her gait gave her movements and motions the grace of a ballet dancer. She paused, shocked by horror. In front of her, bleeding to his death was a homeless bum, for that’s what he looked like. Of course such sort of people died everyday but one read this in the newspapers or heard it as anecdotes in ball rooms. It was impossible to think it could happen to one’s own self. But here she was. She had killed him. She wasn’t bothered by the guilt of killing him, everybody must have seen how he jumped in front of the car, and then she saw through him. He wasn’t homeless. He was a lunatic. He was passionate about something. Even while dying, his face seemed to be lit up by desire. As the pool of blood around him spread, people started calling for medicine men. Then something strange happened. The dying man smiled and raised his arm.
His first thought was that he was wrong. She was even more beautiful than he had thought she was. The slight arch on her bosom and the curves of her hips. He smiled. Then the second thought calmly made its way through his mind. He was dying. And dying fast. There was only one thing left to do anyway, then he could give up trying to live. He raised his arm and did what he thought was meant to beckon her.
There was a silence for a while.
“Miss, I think he’s trying to reach for you.” A woman in the crowd said uncertainly.
Too flummoxed to deal with the sudden change in events, the woman from the car hastily reached for his hand. She felt his grip tightening. Like people do when they are trying to support someone and to show affection. She felt awed that a dying man could have strength left for such meaningless endeavors. She put her other hand on his hand too and slowly caressed it.
A look of content appeared on his despicable face, as the dying man breathed his last.
