The Exit Door

All along I was focused on finding a way to reach you. I walked through the dunes, braved the floods, survived the bruises of the woods and finally reached the bottom of the valley by the river. I waited by the shore an entire lifetime before you showed up. Time is a mighty abrasive. The years that I had spent waiting eroded layers off me. My bones had been scraped, my blood thickened and my eyes had since long gone dry.

I hadn’t imagined a scenario where you would fail to recognize me and hence when the moment arrived and you saw me as just another stranger, I turned to stone. Living as a recluse, I had lost my tongue and my sense of touch. I could no longer make you see how long I had waited and how I craved. I wanted to explain at length how I made my journey following a faint trail, forgot my way more than once and died a few times along the way before reaching the cross road where I met you.

It was heartbreaking to not find the sparkle in your eyes that I chased every night in my dreams. Maybe I had imagined it all along. Perhaps, I was just pursuing a star who had broken off its trail centuries ago. I made a vain attempt and cut myself open for you to see that my heart was, in its place after all. Sadly, you didn’t need it anymore. Before I could gather my pieces from the floor, drops of my blood had already left a stain on your expensive carpet, much to my dismay and your displeasure. The gash on my chest was nothing more than the circumstantial evidence in the larger scheme of things and my final attempt to reach out to you now stood as an indictable offense in your eyes.

Regrettably, I have already consumed all the sap I had in my limbs and I won’t be able to just turn around and go back. The only discourse left for me is to find myself a suitable shade away from your line of sight and carve my name with yours on my epitaph. There is no return, no retreat for me but before I let my frail, decrepit body take the final fall, I will build you an exit door for you to take your carpet away. Maybe you can throw it in the river by which I sat for years. There is a hole I had dug where I used to sit and kindle a little flame of my memories to keep me warm during the cold, starlit nights. Maybe you could dump your carpet there.

Beginning tomorrow, I will start picking up the wood from the yesteryears and carve a frame big enough for you to easily pass through.

I will lay this frame firmly on the ground and support it with a concrete of my promises. I will make the door so strong that it will no longer carry my voice through and screw the hinges with stings of sarcasms, sharp enough to wound the wood, deep enough to bind it forever. I will then paint it white, a symbol of my returning your peace and sanity back to you and to offer a fresh, clean slate. I will then put the bolts only on one side of the door and will lock it from my end, the moment you pass through. 

This exit door remains my final gift to you. Your exit – my retribution.