A Chance Encounter

I looked outside at the entangled meshes of wire on the poles. It would not be long before they are placed underground. The city is gradually being organized. I did not know why but it made me feel slightly sad.

The crescent figure of the moon palely stared at me. The cold wind came through the window, its cruelty aimed at my sparsely-dressed body. The bus rode with intermittent jerks through the heavy traffic. I had made almost half-circuit of this ring-road. I could not remember how long I had been on this bus, but time seemed to pass hurriedly along these arrays of vehicles. I grew impatient. Did I have to be somewhere? I couldn't remember. But a sense of apprehension of reaching late to somewhere rose in me. Where was I meant to be at this hour? Or the next hour? I couldn't think straight…

Just as I was about to dive deep into this uneasy feeling, someone occupied the vacant seat by my side. A vanilla scent wafted into my nose. I glanced, without moving my head, with the peripheral of my left eye, at the woman. She was dressed in sky-blue jeans, black turtleneck sweater over which rested a velvet coat, with a pashmina scarf on top of that.

I froze in my seat. This happens to me when a woman sits this close to me. I become a shy cat around people. Especially women. I pulled my legs together in an attempt to slightly increase the distance between us, and scooched furtively towards the window and tilted my head on the glass. Outside on the sidewalk, a couple was walking by holding hands. I felt a drop of cold water run through my spine.

The bus drove ahead, and a chilly breeze slammed at us.

‘Are you not feeling cold?’, the woman’s soft voice startled me.

‘I am always cold.’ I felt ashamed after I blurted it out.

To my surprise, the woman laughed meekly. It was a great relief to me. I had heard that if you can make people laugh, it is a sign that they are feeling comfortable. I was relieved that this woman was not dejected by what I said.

‘You are an awkward fellow’, she said, her body slightly tilted towards me.

I flashed out a timid smile. It was a desperate attempt to hide my embarrassment at her remark.

I drew the bag on my lap slightly higher towards my gut and crouched back feebly at the back of my seat. I had my gaze fixed straight.

The bus swerved sharply, and her knee grazed against mine. I was shaking like a leaf.

‘See! You are shivering, heavily!’, she spoke with concern.

I remained quiet. The horns from outside mingled with the silence.

‘Where are you headed?’

‘I cannot remember.’

‘Huh!’, she sounded perplexed.

Somber darkness diffused over the horizon. Dark clouds hovered above the dim outline of hills and they kept merging together. I wanted to doze off, drift somewhere else.

‘Where’s your place?', the way she put this question, it felt like an inquiry.

‘Two stops ahead!’ I whispered as if I was telling a private secret.

She eased. Perhaps my answer had given her some assurance. I cannot understand why when people know someone's name or address, they tend to feel familiar to that person, like such details are sufficient to know a person.

‘Then you know where you are going!’, she pointed out.

I felt irritated. How easily can a stranger orient my life like that!

The bus suddenly infused with blue lights. Its sharp radiance pierced my eyes. It brought a dizzy feeling in me.

‘I am trying to escape from here.’, I realized that I had spoken too much. Little beads of sweat formed in my temple. I turned cold and sweaty.

‘Why is that?’, she asked, with such a genuine air, that a feeling of shame ran through me.

Red tint of vehicles glared in the street. Their swarm hindered the thick gloom of the dusk. The bus came to a halt on the long procession of stalled vehicles.

‘I want to restart my life again,’ I spoke with quivering lips, ‘escape somewhere far away from here.’ A faint exhilaration took hold of me. The moonlight peeked through the somber sky.

I expected humiliation, but instead in an affectionate tone she confided, ‘I too felt that a long time back. I was lost and couldn’t understand anything happening to me or around me.’

As she spoke, she had a perfectly normal face. For the first time, I looked at her. Her eyes were still and penetrative, and they were rolled up in contemplation. The bluish flare made her eyes sparkle a bit, dismissing her pensiveness, somewhat. She had a composure of a stolid character and yet her presence was strikingly tender. Her solid form gave off intellectual charisma.

I didn't intervene. Even when someone speaks about a matter which I have experienced, I do not feel the need to show that I relate with them. I feel like people open up so much in the silence you offer them.

The constant rev of the engine interjected her words. The long standstill though had offered us time to speak of things one usually keeps hidden. A truth that can only be exposed to half-strangers. For the only time till now, I wished to hear her.

‘My life had gone completely astray. I stopped meeting with friends and family. I turned impassively silent. I did not even like doing anything at all. I spent my days sleeping in the bed. It was like laziness had infected my bones. For months, the door stayed locked. I was living alone in my separate arrangement during then, so I had nobody to check up on me in a constant manner. I did not go to my classes, switched off my phone, and disconnected completely from everyone.’

Her voice slowly started to quiver a bit. The streaks of the blue lights were glazing in her eyes. Her hands were stuck firmly on the top bar of the front seat, and her head was tilted low, looking dead-on at her hands.

The bus jerked and started to move on. The darkness had grown denser and encumbering. I felt strangely unsettled by this somberness.

‘I could hardly think ahead. I could not even perceive life beyond the walls of my room. Did anything occur outside of it? Then I began to think if I am really needed in this world. What if I just gave up. Then whatever I was feeling would just end. I would be spared from the daily torments.’

Streaks of tears started to roll down my cheeks and trickled down my chin. I did not wipe them. Their cold tickle felt somewhat warm.

‘C-------!’, the bus-conductor yelled from the front. A number of passengers started to rise up from their seats and made their way out towards the door. While shoving his way through, one of the passengers happened to press hard against her, and she scooched further into the seats. Her whole body slammed into mine. I throbbed. An electric spike ran through me like I was rubbed by an eel. I flushed and grew hot. At the edges of our seats, our hands were brushing against each other.

“Are you running a fever?” She must have caught on that hair-spiking sting I had. She immediately broke her train of thought, and turned her attention to me.

“No…no, it’s not that…” I fumbled. I did not know what else to say. I did not see it as a big fuss anyway. I thought it was because my body is usually iron-hot.

Then she turned her head towards me, put her palm on my forehead and took the feel of my temperature. My ears blew off steam. The heat in my head shot up, and sweats washed my face. “You are indeed burning up!” She accentuated.

“But I am alright, believe me!” I tried to act tough.

“You might want to take some medicine. If you treat it like nothing, then it will only grow worse.”, she advised.

I turned my head towards the window and gave off a heavy sigh. A loud sneeze broke out of me, but I muffled its voice, killing it with my closed mouth.

She laughed with her hands on her mouth. “I have never seen anyone sneeze like that! What was that?”, she murmured with a small grin on her face.

“It’s not like I didn’t want you to catch the cold. I always sneeze like this.”, I said, sniffling a bit.

“That is sweet of you, in any case.”. She flashed a heartily smile at me. I was befuddled.

She unzipped her purse that was sitting on her lap, and she brought out a handkerchief. She held it on her right hand, and passed it towards me.

I was awe-struck. I rubbed the base of my palms together in hesitation.

“It’s alright. Take it to wipe your nose.” She earnestly requested.

A great reserve of tears swelled up in my eyes. I wept profusely. I could not restrain myself at all.

“Now, you definitely need it!” She had a quaint smile in her face.

I took it. It was a white flower-patterned, croqueted handkerchief. It gave off that same vanilla scent she had on her. As I wiped my face and nose with it, I felt bad for ruining her handkerchief. After I wiped my face, I looked at her, my eyes flickering in daze.

She asked me to keep it with me. I rolled it and held it between my hands.

The moon was radiantly glowing in the purplish sky. Bleak patches of clouds were diffusing around it.

“S------!”, the conductor yelled again. She swerved her head towards the conductor. Juggling her scarf a bit, she looked at me, with a blushful grin.

I clutched at the handkerchief firmly. Out of my wits, I only glanced at her with doleful eyes.

She rummaged through her purse, and brought what looked like a small note out. As she stood up, flinging her purse on her shoulder, she handed me the note.

“You might want to visit me.” She said this, and left.

I beamed with joy upon hearing it. She jostled through the standing passengers. I could not hold myself back and stood up to get a final glimpse of her. The top of her beige scarf shone in the blue hue until the glint was out of my sight.

I sat back on my seat. I was feeling a quiver in my chest. I unrolled the kerchief and held it by its tip between the fingers. I could feel a surge of excitement in me. I placed the note on the inner palm of the hand. The top header read:

“Consultant Psychologist”.