The Homecoming
Silence. The rasp of crickets beyond the pane. Silence. Then, the clutter of forks and delicate pouring of liqour. Dinner had become a ritual in the last seven years.
“You’re wearing that French perfume?”, he had asked.
“It’s naphthalene; clings to you like bad memory.” Silence again. She added,” Is that the red tie I gave you?”
He sighed and then said,”Love, this is a limited edition from Tokyo.” Coloured spirits trickled down the table while delicacies and wishes from dear ones waited to be feasted upon. “And please could you not spill that drink? I ordered it for our anniversary today. The vineyard billed me an entire fortune for this bottle.” …
”I see.”
Silence. In all these years silence had grown like a beautiful plant and its tendrils had spread across the place. Forks clutter. The rattling of a discreet nocturnal world outside sounded like the lilt of a wayward rapid. In her mind, the rapid was floating it’s way back to her town.
There, sea wave crests broke on the beach and their song made her sad. There, her trees would bow down under an overwhelming weight of the gooseberries. Under one such tree she would still sit with him, squashing melons and spilling the juice all over their tanned bodies. The mildewed cove they escaped to during sundown would smell exotically of the wild sea and their fistful of plums. The purple sky would burn with their desires as the breeze gently brushed against her hair. In one such nameless face of the world, they would still build their dreams. Here, they could still sit for an entirety and take their pick from the flotilla of ships far away on the sea.
“Meg, you want more wine?” he asked. No; for she had already splattered herself with berries bursting with purple juice. Tonight she would sit alone on the cove and watch their favourite mermaid at sundown.
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