Page 110 - Love Story of a Commando

‘That you are! Your wish was fulfilled.’ I giggled.
‘What did you want?’ he asked.
‘I wanted to be a painter, then a mommy, then a sailor, then a teacher,
then a nurse before settling for engineering, which seemed like the best
available option to me at that time,’ I replied.
‘A mommy?’
‘Yes, I was five, maybe six and I was hugely fascinated by my mom.
I wanted to be like her, dress like her and tend to babies the way she would
tend to me. I wanted to do everything she would do. I literally believed that
being a mommy was a job.’ I giggled some more.
‘Let me know if you ever try to fulfil your childhood dream, maybe I
could be of some help.’ He winked.
‘You! Pervert! You know what, you are an arse. Shut up!’ I slapped
him coyly on his cheeks.
Suddenly there was a downpour, and the night plunged into a sudden
chill.
‘Oh shit! Virat, do something! Should we seek shelter? Should we
move?’ I asked desperately.
‘No! This is the best case scenario for a sniper who might be waiting
for a moment just like this. Stay low and quiet. I will tell you when we have
to move,’ he said.
‘But it’s getting cold.’ I was shivering by then.
He pulled me towards him and wrapped his arms around me, trying
to cover me as much as he could beneath him. I tried to pull away.
‘What the fuck ? What are you doing?’ I groaned, coming out of his
grip.
‘Come here! It is strictly professional. You will feel warmer.’ At first,
he held his arms out away from his huge, masculine body. Then slowly,
awkwardly, he wrapped his arms around me once again and patted my
shoulders.
There! The resilience inside me surrendered.
The rebel was long gone, and I dissolved into deep hiccupping sobs,
my head was nestled against his chest, tears wetting his already soggy
uniform and my arms wrapped in a death grip around his waist. There had
been a void inside me for the past few months, like a black hole which
absorbs everything inside it and anything that passes by, sucking it up
silently, and escape is literally forbidden around it.
I had become like that, pain, grief, anger, anguish, desolation and
everything else was sucked up inside my heart silently. But do you know
what happens when a black hole explodes? It fills up the sky with an
explosion never experienced before, creating new universes, making space
for new lives.