Courage to Return

Mental Illness
Opposes
Mental Stillness.
But most of us
Experience life
Somewhere in between.

Those lines were from a book Dolphin was currently reading.He stopped suddenly in thought, trying to recollect something. Not sure what it was, but he kept looking out of the window on to the moonlight which was bouncing off the glasspanes in his bedroom.
Dolphin closed his eyes for a minute, he actually wanted to go back in time.Somehow he derived a certain pleasure from it. Yes he could acually see her face, her eyes and her lips, her hair.Dolphin actually did this sometimes just to see if he had forgotten anything, he was trying to erase, desperately and as usual he was not getting anywhere. Everything was as fresh as if it was yesterday.
Damn, it's 3 am already .Dolphin was not tired, almost restless.He looked at his brother sleeping silently and smiled.
Dolphin put the book aside and got up to put on some music. Yes Beethovan will be nice, Ave Maria.

Death

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

- Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral -

Dolphin kept staring at the poem for some time.Taking every word and tasting it with his every breath.Dolphin had always wanted to ask her, where she wanted to have her last breath and whom she would like to have by her side when she was ready to go.
This question had been troubling him lately too.
He felt sad for her.He had already seen the final chapters of her destiny and it was not going to be a pretty end, it was ugly.Only if she knew.He had always wanted to meet her parents, but somehow she always had excuses.He just wanted to ask them what twist of fate or sin had they commited to have given birth to such a daughter.

Christmas and New Year's come and gone. But dolphin still has an emptiness inside, not sure what.Is it sadness, an utter sense of loss.....answers answers, always eluding.
The day he walked out of the house dolphin had decided that he will not allow self-pity to take over him.Dolphin hated the very definition of it.He had almost sacrificed his career for the cause of love.Ya he still remembers the day when he was called into the conference room, and they told him to get ready to go to beyond the seves seas.Dolphin said no, the boss had virtually abused him "Khajoor, kya kar raha hai" :)
oh...those were the days....Great, Dolphin was actually smiling. :)