The Bowl of Soup

The bowl of soup lay untouched on the kitchen slab. The microwave door was half opened. The cool air rushed in from the open window and brought along with it a few drops of rain. They kissed her and rolled over closed eyes and trickled down her beautiful face. Taking with them a few tears which were also making their way down the same route.

It was another lonely evening as she remembered him.

She stood frozen in time for a long time. Lost in her thoughts. In her world. Amongst her memories.

She remembered every debate she had with him on politics. His overtly left leaning ways annoyed her more than she could ever convey. His hatred for the well off was embarrassing to her at times. His impulsive outbursts at times especially with people known to her made her squirm. She recalled their differences in art. She disliked his kind of cinema (“serious and meaningful” as he would call them as opposed to her “dull and boring” labelling) with a passion she could never overstate. Their tastes in music (or his lack of as she would classify it) clashed more often than not. They disagreed on almost everything. But when they did agree it was magic. And it was this magic perhaps which kept their spark alive. She felt well and truly alive every time they were on the same wavelength.

She kept standing still at the exact same spot for God knows how long. The rain splashes had drenched her properly. She seemed stuck in time. Lost in her world. Engulfed in memories. She clicked her mobile which was in her hand to see an old photograph. The way his sideburns had a tinge of grey always appealed to her at that young age. She looked at the photograph and found herself smiling almost spontaneously. Her almond eyes drenched with her tears contrasted beautifully with the smile on her lips which was still as mesmerisingly beautiful as it was back then. He still had that power to move her.

By the time she got married she had stopped believing in love. In fact she had stopped believing in almost everything by then. The way she’d seen love go out of the window she didn’t want to believe in anything after that. Her sense of betrayal overshadowed everything in her conscious frame of mind. She knew she had lost the love of her life forever. She just existed now.

Is the soup going to take ages?

The gruff voice from the dining table made her come back to the present. She stared vacantly for a couple of seconds before hurriedly putting it in the microwave to heat up.

In a minute darling she replied composing herself in a few moments. She quickly wiped her face dry as she focussed on the soup bowl revolving inside the oven.

Her husband was everything opposite to what her love had been. Insensitive, cold, calculating and almost robot-like in his desire to succeed in life. Money, position designation were his prime focus. And it was on these parameters that he gauged and judged everyone around him. She found it stifling to be around him. She heard a few more groans of disapproval from the dining table as the soup seemed to take an eternity in getting warmed up.

The beep of the microwave was almost in sync with his hollering yet again for his dinner. She fumbled as she handled the hot bowl on to the bigger plate and carried it over for him. He looked at her angrily as she kept the bowl in front of him.

You never learn do you. Always lost in God knows what thoughts that go through your head constantly. She felt his insults even more strongly since they were in direct contrast to her lovely thoughts of the past a few moments ago. They seemed to pinch her more.

He loved his red meat and kababs back in those heady days of their youth. As she watched him devour the tasteless and bland soup she noticed that touch of grey on his side burns. They were perhaps the only thing which had remained the same in all these years. For all the changes that had happened with him over the last 20 years that bit hadn’t changed at all. She realised it still made her heart warm up despite all the ice that had gathered on top for two decades.

It kept raining all through that September evening. He had finished his bowl of soup and gone back to his own bedroom to do some more office work.

She sat on her chair staring blankly at the bowl of soup as the rain continued. Inside her.

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