slavery

"Could fulfilment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfilment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself." - Kiran Desai, "Inheritance of Loss"


As I used to slide through the soundless midnight streets in Subang; dotted with coloured stars of light, wrapped in the protective shell of Cullum's voice, the gap was physically absent. Life was unusually kind, then.

But, for now, it must wait.

Whatever the gap Kiran Desai meant, I think the gap is the wicked little habit of whisking its way in without warning, slamming the door behind it and throwing fruit and confetti in the air. It tickles behind your knees and itches in the center of your back. It makes buttons fall off blouses and locks itself inside in an adolescent stupor.

It strokes your cheek and lulls you to sleep in itself, mesmerised, only to jolt you awake again with bouncing on the bed. It whispers lovingly and makes a good pillow, or it yelps in your ear in the middle of business.

It does not hurry, but its peripatetic ways make it seem just as wild. It can wait years, but its halcyon lifestyle will not last forever. Its addictive, fragile self has a larger soul than all of us, but its winsome little smile is perpetually teething.

Christmas was only a few days ago, and it came with greater realisation that the gap could only be trained away. But, somehow, when all else was quiet in the same room seven years ago, I felt it; curled on my shoulder beneath my earlobe and stroked its way down and felt its calm, sleepy heartbeat.

And yes, I did forgive it softly and keep it warm until tomorrow.

Same house. Same group of people with an extra few. Same meals. Similar conversations. But, without you. Perhaps, I am now a little more comfortable with fate unwritten, yet, I fear the difference. The difference. With you mentioned in past tense, without you in the present.

And sometimes, I wish the gap could be filled with the mere fact that I am still spoilt by you - the desire. Silently, I wish I would not have turned out to be who I am today - some fulfilment.