Getting Over

“It’s over” she said and hung up. The words took a while to make sense, it was too quick. I was still hoping it was one of our regular fights and I just had to apologize for something I hadn’t any clue about. But this time it was beyond repair. The phone suddenly grew too heavy in my hand, unbearable. I had a fleeting sensation to throw it with all my might onto the floor, to break it into countless little pieces, I wanted to hear that shattering noise that it would make, I wanted to see it split apart. But I didn’t, I pressed all the emotions inside me, compressed them, suffocated them. I thought I had overpowered them, but they in turn gave birth to a terrible creature inside me. The presence of that snarling beast made me feel miserable. It strangled me, coiled around me, pressed its mouth close to my ear and whispered that she was gone and had no intention of coming back to me. I tried to struggle against it, but it was too powerful. I succumbed to it and it continued to gobble up my insides.

I fell back on the bed staring blankly at the ceiling and hoping against the credence of the beast that it would all pass and we would be back to normal again. It sounds odd, but looking at that ceiling was one of my favorite stress busters. The ceiling had these numerous unevenly spread droplets of paint spread across it due to careless painting. Whenever I looked at it, I could always spot some shape in those patterns, a cow, a dragon, sometimes even a whole war scene. But that day I couldn’t find any, none, not even the cowboy made of three well placed drops, whom I had named theo.

It was a childish habit of mine but theo always used to cheer me up in stressful situations, sometimes I could even picture him move, going on little expeditions. The ceiling was like a mini theatre to me with its little episodes. That day it all looked lifeless, just paint spread across a stupid ceiling. I looked back at my phone, I could almost picture her name flashing on it, but a closer look told me that it wasn’t. I did not believe what had happened; still not ready to process the fact which the creature kept reminding me of. I was still deep in denial. I fell back on the bed again. Still no sign of theo.

Day 2

I woke up with no recollection of when I fell asleep while struggling with the creature. Accustomed to read her message as soon as I wake, I checked my cell phone. Not a thing. By then the fact had settled into my mind, I had been rejected. I slowly and reluctantly allowed myself to play with the thought; I tried to reason with myself to prove it wrong to regain some of my lost self worth. I couldn’t do any better than to bring the heinous creature back to life. It began to gather the fragments of the emotions loitering in my mind. Cold and devilish as ever it clutched me and told me that I was useless, I did not deserve her; had no right to be with her; I was bad; unworthy of her attention; unfit to be happy and undeserving enough to lose everything I love. ‘Love’ it seemed too heavy a word, its meaning which I swore by, now unclear to me. Too vague, too empty, too hoarse to be of any significance, let alone be true.

I felt like a used tissue paper. That too, one which had been used to wipe a leaking nose. With my self esteem now below waist level, I tried to push the thoughts away from my mind. But they always came rushing back, more severe every time. I was wandering aimlessly in a nearby park. Still deep down in my ‘mind dumpster’, I would have called it ‘mind palace’ a few months earlier, before I got into that relationship with her. But since then the palace was brought down by loads of data such as the birthdates of hers’ and of everyone in her family tree right up to her fourth cousins. As I thought hard and went deeper down the dumpster, I could find heaps of documents with information like her favorite color, movie,…, chips’ flavor, web browser… I even knew her dog’s dinner menu. I suddenly found myself wondering about what went wrong. Then I instinctively felt something pass by me, leaving a gush of sweet aroma. Almost as a reflex I turned around and found myself looking at a girl passing by. ‘Staring’ would define more appropriately what I actually was doing. ‘Wow’ my mind said. I had seen her many times in the park walking alone. The creature came rushing back, this time guilt was his weapon. It made me realize how wrong it was for me to look (read stare) at other girls when I was just out of a relationship with someone I love. ‘Thrown out’ would I think, make better sense. I went back to my place dripping with guilt, leaving a trace of it instead of footsteps.

I suddenly looked at my watch and instantly a sense of panic surrounded me, it was 3 minutes past her evening nap wakeup time. I hastily reached out for my phone when the creature hit me right on the head with the bat of realization. I hated to make those calls; she never picked it up the first time. The high score was 37 straight calls. When she actually picked it up, when I expected a ‘thank you’ all she said was that I was 2 and a half minutes late and how careless I was and even gave me a 13 minute long lecture about the importance of her waking up on time. And the funny part is you can’t even tell her that you were on time, if she picked up the first time you called. That would be suicide and would end up with consumption of 4 tablets of Disprin. And every time she got one less mark in her test it was because of me going to the loo at the time of waking her up. Not having to make that call actually made me feel good, independent I guess.

With confused thoughts went back and did what I did best, lay on my bed staring at the ceiling.

Day 3

By that time I had started to feel better for myself and had started to look at the brighter side of life which was really promising. I looked at the ceiling and that day I noticed those familiar looking spots of paint, Theo was there. I concentrated hard looking for patterns, and then I noticed something. A set of three well placed spots looking like a girl looking towards our protagonist. I assumed it literally to be a sign from above. By then I was well over the feeling of worthlessness. Maybe it was her fault, maybe she did not deserve me, and maybe it was her who should be sad. Now when I looked back, I felt I could not have been a better person to be with and it was completely her fault to not appreciate it and have overlooked. Pumped with this feeling and a hell lot of testosterone I think. I decided that I was back in the market and there is a lot of fish in the sea. Beaming with confidence I went out of the house as napoleon would have before he set out to conquer Europe. Then I, like napoleon realized that it was not as simple as to just go out and attack a neighboring territory. I had to lay out a strategic plan first. I slowly tip toed inside the house and started thinking of possible targets. i realized that during those three month I did not have a backup plan. Suddenly it struck me the girl at the park. ‘Nice’ I thought. That evening I went out to the park an hour earlier to when she usually used to come. I sat on a bench and waited. Finally she came, looking gorgeous as ever. I checked out if she had a trailing boyfriend, brother or relative. None. Then I checked if she was under surveillance, a stalker, a friend or maybe a sniper. None either. She was clean. ‘Cool’ I thought and approached her with a well chosen and rehearsed pickup line.

“Is your last name Gillette” I asked, and prepared myself for counterattack if maybe she belonged to those ‘hit on me and get a slap’ types.

“What?!, No! Why?” she said and giggled. ‘She is game for it’ I thought.

“Cos you are the best a man can get” I said, and prepared myself for counterattack if maybe she belonged to those ‘give me a pathetic pickup line and get a slap’ types.

She laughed. ‘Level one cleared’ I thought and started walking with her. After that it was all me. I released the flirting kraken who hadn’t seen the light of day since long. She told me that she also just had a breakup. ‘She is out fishing too’ I deduced. After a while we went and sat on a bench under a streetlight still talking. I told her I could teach her to make shadow figures. She gave me her hand and told me to. As I took her hand I saw someone was watching us. I looked closely it was my girlfriend with a flower in one hand and a sorry card in other. That day I realized that she was one of ‘flirt with other girls and get a slap’ types.

It wasn’t over two days back, but then it sure was.