Sky Blue

I love you I love you I love you, for sentimental reasons…

Sam Cooke’s eternal classic seemed to echo his thoughts that evening as he sat along by the corner table of the bar. It was retro night and the young crooner was belting out one classic after another. He sat alone with his mug of beer. As the mug perspired from being kept out for that long he drew lines on the glass with his shaking fingers, lost in his own thoughts, absent-mindedly hearing the old familiar tune that wafted across the largish room. It was yet another Thursday.
As he approached the end of the 40s, life seemed to have slowed down for him. A far cry from his jet-setting advertising days or even his brief stint with cinema. He was happy doing some editing work for a friend’s publication these days. Most of his other days he spent alone at his studio apartment. And the evenings were always in the bar across his apartment street.

The bartender walked up to him that evening and asked him if everything was ok. He normally finished 3-4 mugs by this time and today was unusually slow by his standard.

Is everything ok? The bartender’s voice brought back into the present. He was way too lost in his thoughts and it took him a while to reply in the affirmative.

I’ll just take it slow today.

Ah just as well then, the bartender shrugged his shoulders as he walked off. I would’ve given you a couple more on the house today. It’s the wife’s birthday you see, he smiled, a tad relieved perhaps that he didn’t have to keep his promise after all.

He smiled back at the bartender without saying a word. It was my wife’s birthday too today you know, he whispered in his own mind. Her thoughts came flooding back to him all over again.

He left the bar and headed home. There was no staggering for once. It was a rarity that he left the bar after a solitary beer.

The bartender finished arranging the glasses and had one last look before turning off the lights. It had been a relatively light Thursday. He went up the back stairs to enter his apartment which was just above the bar. The modest two room apartment was tastefully done up. The table was nicely laid up for a cosy dinner for two. He had himself cooked the roast to perfection just like she loved it. A small chocolate cake with a couple of strawberries garnished on top took the centre stage on the table he light a solitary candle and went inside their bedroom.
She looked at him lovingly as he approached the bed. Her falling hair and wrinkled skin had done little to lessen her beauty. The innumerable chemos had failed to affect her loveliness which sparkled brightly as she smiled at him. He lifted her frail frame and placed her on the wheelchair. It’ll be the dining table today as you wished, he sighed as he brought her in the outer room. She saw the spread and looked up at him. She softly squeezed his hand which was pushing her wheelchair. She noticed a teardrop fall on her sky blue bracelet. It was the one she never took off. Even after her marriage.

Let’s cut the cake, she said.

He sat alone on his bed, overlooking the rain soaked streets. His trembling hands were on the sepia-tinged crumpled photograph he had taken out from his battered wallet. A tiny teardrop escaped the side of his eyes and fell on the sky blue bracelet the girl in the picture was wearing.

Happy Birthday honey, wherever you are he whispered looking at the photograph with his soaked eyes.

On the street across, the two of them sang happy birthday as she gingerly cut her birthday cake with her sky blue bracelet hand.