Short Story: He Took The Road Less Travelled.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

He was leaning against the willow tree, on a day when sun was besotted with dimness. October brings with it brume miasma. Reading Yuri Zhivago- the heartbreak Russian poet, the city around him was at war; aroused  and cowed. Frightened, faint-hearted and trembling, he was fighting within. Trying hard. Someone had mumbled in his tiny ears when he was growing along the banks of Vitasta- ' there is never a time for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single thrashing, throbbing moment.' He had held tight to the nursery naivety. In a heart beat, in a moment that he had felt love, it would last till eternity, the Vitasta boy thought. He had no notion of loving people by halves. It was not his nature. Some godly, given virtues he carried. 

Years had piled. Memories heaped in dust and ashes. He thought he had moved on. Silly. The willow tree under which they had sat together still carried her sweetness. The boats that row in the city lake still carried her carefree intimacy. The walks around the ancient gardens through a layer of colored leaves still held the rustle of her feet. The more he tried to forget her, the harder it got. Here, the conflict torn city was his muse, the falling autumn leaves his grief. His wearied heart could not bid her a proper farewell. He commenced wondering, for he could never find what he imagined for. The city was empty of sentiments. War had played pangs too deep in its crate. Love was repressed, hate preached. 

Within weeks, the scene was converted from a mirthful and pleasant wedding celebration of crimsoned chinars and quiet primroses into a coarse and mundane orgy of tipsiness. The dark wings of winter engulfed the city upon which nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth while continuous war crimes by the state layed waste a few more graveyards. A squall of gloom had doused in the city homes, heavy with turmoil. The multitudes raining on the faces, appearing in signs of his remorse. 

The young, feverishly idealogical poet  was charged by the state for speaking against it. His last book being banned. The state had been spying on him for some time. He had run into a suburban old hut, in the dark snarls of eventide, escaping from the trigger-happy cops. In the recess of that hovel was a poor bed on which this dying youth lay, staring at the dim light of his oil lamp, made to flicker by the entering winds. The man in the thaw of his life could clearly see the peaceful hour of freeing himself from the clutches of life fast nearing. He awaited death gratefully, upon his pale face, on his lips a sorrowful smile; in his eyes, disbelief. 

He was a poet perishing from emptiness in the city of living interests. Would she come back for one last time.

Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches on the soul 

And sings the tune without the words 

And never stops at all- Emily Dickson.