He woke up. Not that he was sleeping. At least there’s no way of knowing that. Perhaps he himself didn’t know, too. And still, he woke up. In the middle of the night. A silent night. A silence as eerie as the night itself. A night, when the earth seemed to be still. A night, when everyone else was sleeping. And he, woke up suddenly. Why? He wondered as he sat up on his bed. And he turned his sleepy eyes around, looking for his wife. Just like most married men do, he also expected to find her just beside him, lost in blissful sleep. But she wasn’t there. Neither was any signs of her having been there. His mind raced. He wondered as to where could she be. His still sleepy eyes gazed around the room almost half-expecting to meet hers. But the emptiness of the room taunted them. There he was, sitting alone on the bed, staring at himself. Blankly, through the mirror. And then a wind blew. A chilling wind that shook his bones. A wind that brought him back to reality. And , he remembered.
      Colors play a very important part in our lives. There’s a separate color associated with everything. With every feeling as well. He had known this from his childhood. No one taught him these things. He had known. Perhaps, by observing. He has always been a good observer. A silent observer. When he was in school he used to see lots of green color around him. Different shades. Even the old school building looked green, a graver shade though. The children around him were all bright shades, the girls just only brighter. And on days when it rained, he stared out of the school windows to the lush green world outside. The colors changed with years. As he grew up, the rains became a gloomy gray. People were all of different colors. And they all changed. As he kept looking at them, changing colors over time, he went into some sort of a trance. Where the people didn’t exist, the world was nowhere. Where all he could see, was colors. This night, everything seemed to be a shade of black. Black, which is the color of grief, of emptiness. And it grew darker every minute, as he realized that she had left him. His wife, had left him and perhaps, is not going to come back again.
      As this truth dawned on him, he had this peculiar feeling about it. Not exactly grief, but a sort of an emptiness hanging with it. As if one of his limbs had been amputed. And similarly, there wasn’t much to be done about it. So, he did what he could. He started thinking. Not where to look for her. For he knew it wasn’t of any use. He tried to think what went wrong. Why did she have to leave? He didn’t know. But wanted to. Very much. They were a happy couple. Very content with their life. She was always a bright red to him. For he associated red with love. With desire, too. Until lately, the red began to blur. More appropriately it began to fade. Slowly, but alarmingly. He tried his best to make up for everything. At least he thought he tried. But she didn’t. And then one not so fine morning she left. Just like the flick of a finger. For another man. He wasn’t interested as to who it was. He doesn’t even remember if he tried to stop her. And tonight he wished he had done that. The lonely feeling was getting more and more overbearing. It crept through his senses. Like a cold snake, it twirled around him and gave him shivers. So he got up from the bed, stood before the mirror and stripped himself naked. As he tried to find the man he was before, tears came, finally. He started crying, vehemently, with his head hid between his hands. He cried as if there was no stopping him. He cried as if he hadn’t cried before. The tears poured down as easily as the monsoons do. And the world slept on.

      She wasn’t even sleeping. She kept awake all night. Even after the wild romp she had with her boyfriend. She was tired. Definitely, she was. But not as much as she was, mentally. The night was far from being silent. There was the heavy breathing of the boyfriend lying beside her. Exhausted. And sleeping, soundly. She wished he was awake, too. And talking to her, gently stroking her hair with his masculine fingers. Much like her husband did. And with a sudden flash some memories clouded her mind. She remembered the two of them talking. And talking throughout the night. She remembered how her gaze strolled around him and how she lost herself in his eyes. All sorts of memories came back to her. And suddenly she wanted to go back.
      All of us dream. Dreams are the recluse of the demented mind. They are a platform for getting what we don’t, in reality. She had always loved to dream. Maybe because she was afraid of the world, the real world, and wanted to escape. Maybe because she was unhappy with her life. We would never know the reason. But the fact remains, she loved to dream. As a child she dreamt of becoming an astronaut. Their peculiar dresses fascinated her. As she grew up, she kept dreaming. Only the nature of the dreams changed. And when she married him, she dreamt of having a wonderful married life. She also dreamt of the children she is going to have with his husband. She gave it her all to build up a dream house, complete with the minutest details. But all her dreams were shattered as she left him few days ago. Not that much of it was left before. Still she tried to hang on to it. But, she couldn’t.
      As she stared to the boyfriend lying beside her, she thought to herself. “Can’t I be something more than just blood and flesh, to him?” She wanted a separate identity for herself. She wanted the boyfriend to treat her as a person rather than just a body. She desperately wanted the boyfriend to wake up and hug her, and hug her for the rest of the night. But that was not to be. So, she got up. Searched inside her handbag for a couple of seconds and got out a photograph. He stared at her out of the photo. Not exactly a stare, more of a loving gaze. The blood started to flow quicker through her veins. She felt excited. She almost decided that she would go back to him next morning. The boyfriend would not stop her, she knew that for sure. She dreamt of how her husband would react on seeing her again. And then suddenly, it occurred to her. He had not even looked back at her when she left. Nor did he try look for her, or in the least try sending a message to her or call her once. She doubted if he was discreetly happy that she left. And all her excitement ceased. She tried to recoil into a shell. A shell of indifference. But the shattered images of her dreams kept coming back to her mind until she decided she has had enough. She got up. Looked to the photo once, kissed it gently and tore it up. Then she closed her eyes once and dreamt for the last time. She dreamt of how she would look in a white drape, how he would cry, crouching over her body. And then she went to the toilet, looking for a sharp razor. And the boyfriend slept on.