Page 59 - You Only Live Once [BooksLD]

Her voice is as smooth as butter and as sweet as honey. I have always been
the listen-to-music kind, but tonight I have become the listen-to-words kind.

Appreciating someone’s outer beauty without diving deep into their soul
is like appreciating honey for its golden color and not its sweetness. For me,
it is sweetness over color, always!
While I thought I would never be able to fall in love again, she gives me

a reason to believe otherwise. Life is strange. Often, falling in and out of
love happens simultaneously, with different people though.
She walks down the stage and wishes me luck. I find myself still full of

fright and not even half as confident as she had been out there.
As I get onto the stage, the lights on the audience become dim and the
focus is on me. While others can now have a perfect look at me, I can
perfectly see every nook of Ricky’s. I freeze. I want to speak but can’t
remember a single joke I had prepared. Suddenly, I forget everything and go

blank.
I think of my first time at Ricky’s. It was raining heavily. I had stepped
out of my cab only to see that the lane was flooded, so much so that even

the puddles could not be spotted. I felt that I had to be wary of each step I
took in this unpredictable circumstance, much like life itself.
The most prominent thing that my eyes instantly took to notice was a
board adorned with small neon lamps all around it that read ‘Ricky’s Beach
Shack.’ As I had no idea of what to do next, I started taking long strides

towards that alluring shack without another thought.
The rain had not stopped yet. It could precisely be termed as a sudden
downpour, especially the kind that forces people to stay indoors. Water was

gushing beneath my feet. The pure white shirt that I had put on some four
hours ago right before leaving my hostel had turned translucent.
My choice of ensemble reflected my sanity, and it was mid-March, a
month usually expected to bring with it scorching sunlight. The bizarre
change of weather would definitely have made one question my sanity, as

my clothes were now dirty as mud and I could claim without a mirror that I
looked awful.
While walking towards the shack I heard lightning and thunder so close

to my heart that, for a fraction of a second, I thought that my smartphone
had exploded inside my pocket. The thought did not seem strange to me