ANOTHER YEAR

"Another year went by." She remarked looking over her shoulders at our house, standing silent and away from the shore in the dark, amid an hemisphere of barren trees.

I followed her gaze. A tide of cool, crisp wind from the ocean swept across my face. It smelt of salt and the damp grits of sand riding the wind.

The house from the distance, surrounded by the night's calm, looked both desolate and beautiful. Pale light of the moon danced to a slippery gentleness on 

the walls and window panes. It was dark within, except the electric bulb within a lampshade she had made for the new year's eve from coconut shells and colored beads, 

hanging from the veranda roof, coating the place in a soft, affectionate glow. 

"With you, I had known that time is a selfless well. It exhausts its water to quench our ever thirsty togetherness." 

I said stretching my legs on the sand as the dark ocean sends another muffled set of waves racing towards us, the glint of moonlight sparking on their crests. 

It crashes on the rocks ahead of us, the foamy splashes reaching to wet our toes.

"Old line. I read it on your laptop long back." I smiled listening to her soft laughter against the crash and hum of the waves, rising and falling on the dark, 

infinite chest of the ocean. 

She upturns two long crystal glasses on the square cloth spread between us and fills them with wine. I watched the thin liquid roll down the slides

to the brim as I fetch from the bowl, few roasted nuts. 

"Does it matter? It still brings the same effect on you as it did on the first day. And you still lowered your eyes, beneath that warm, honest smile." 

She took a small sip from her glass and leaned against me. 

"By the way, how's the lampshade?" 

"It's nice.'

"You didn't notice it."

"I did"

"Ahan! Nopes"

And then I looked back at the house, spotting the light slowly sway with the wind from the veranda roof inside that carved coconut shell,

throwing speckles of soft yellow light on the surrounding walls, like the darting of a child - untamed and random. From that distance and the mist that floated low,

it took me a somewhat long gaze to read the carvings and when I did, I felt happiness lurch inside me in tiny waves, spilling over the banks of my heart. It was nothing

extravagant, but I know when spring hits, it does in the woods with one leaf at a time against the branches, till it is all green and blooming again. 

The night around, like an invisible quilt wrapped us in the mutual warmth transpiring our bodies and it was then, I knew, I never felt this good. The lamp shade had our initials cut out on the shell, dim yet glowing, amid all the darkness and chill and the mist our lives were held among. 

That night, like many other nights, I tasted the wine from her lips and we sat there, on the cold sand, the waves crashing at our feet and her head comfortably 

settled against the steady thumping of my chest. We held our faces against the sky and watched the night swell in the container of its dark sky with the overflowing glitter of the stars coming to float around us, with us, transporting us to a world we had always dreamt of. 

Happy New Year 2015  

Sobhan Pramanik