To Live, To Love

It’s been a while since Rebecca stared through the window of her Volkswagen Beetle, parked near the treeline of the country road where she had chosen to spend her afternoon; alone. The sharp bend of the road ahead hides her presence from cars coming from the opposite.

Slouching on the driver's seat, she stretches her left hand out of the opened window with a cigarette between the index and thumb fingers. Stimulated by the dust carried out by the wind following every passing car, she sneezes. Her body shakes a bit, and the cigarette burns brighter as the ash builds up on the top it drops.

She takes a puff, a longer one and gallops all the smoke inside— unusual for her as she usually releases a bit into the air and intakes the rest, making her head less dizzy.

She is there from the early afternoon, smoking cigarettes one after another with her reddish shade on. Nothing interrupted her stillness until a Starling with a tiny insect in its beak landed on the hood. Its tiny claws struggle to stand still on the slippery slope of the frontier; screeches, and finally, flaps to get in the right position. Rebecca turns around.

Ah, a bird; she would exclaim, but not today. Something is clouding her mind today, an innate struggle to find a reason to live, to love, again.

Assuming her as harmless, the feathery creature puts the insect on the hood and rests the beak for a while before swallowing it inside. The ash drops again— time to take another puff. But she hesitates, lest her enthusiastic companion would take off scared. The stillness continues.

Time’s flying fast, sunlight getting dimmer, but the bird seems not to be bothered by the declining daylight— nor does Rebecca. She is watching the sun going down as it slowly moves towards the horizon and turns deep orange from yellow.

There stands an English Oak, just a metre down from the bend between her and the sun. She checks her wristwatch; Nah, there is still time before it’s dark.

She rechecks her watch and looks out of the window— black clouds are forming beyond that treeline. She has hallucinated; the sun is not setting down; instead, an army of dark clouds is overpowering it, seizing its bright rays— rain, oh how she loved it once!

A warm cup of coffee with a cigarette in one hand would often steal her attention as she experienced the raindrops rushing towards her but would crash against the transparent window— like a bird confuses it with an open route and breaking its wings in return after landing hard on it.

Sometimes he would join; Lenny— the most handsome fella in her eyes. With a beer in one hand, he would hold her tight and kiss her lips until she gasped in short breaths. Sometimes they would spend the whole night talking to each other on the balcony— or counting stars and decorating their dream of togetherness in silence.

But the memory lane is deserted now. A loud bang has separated their paths as a moving saw slices the wood apart. But it all seems like yesterday— a day of countless hours.

The Starling has had enough; it has to reach its nest before the cloud downpours, making its wings heavy. Rebecca follows the bird as it takes off and heads to that English Oak. Soon it disappears into the dancing branches of the tree. She opens the glove; the smell of newly applied gun oil fills the interior— the pitch black metallic finishing of the handgun has made the compartment darker and is waiting for the index finger to pull the trigger with the safety pin disabled. Lenny bought it the night before he was shot dead by the stalker.

My Lenny, poor Lenny— she weeps.

She reaches for it with tears blurring her vision; soon after she stumbles on the metallic body of the gun; she takes another puff and turns the safety on— not today, she murmurs.

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Photo by Christina Deravedisian on Unsplash