The Boat

Years ago, we stole a small boat and set sail on choppy waters.

You carried the bread you had baked and I brought a blanket for us to share and we started off without a map and a care in the world. The boat had no provision to carry any extra baggage or space for anyone else to sail with us and yet it was large enough for us to carry our whole world along.

We had no knowledge of the sea or any inkling of what might follow. We made mistakes and learnt from those mistakes to maneuver the sails. We learnt to use the power of winds to push and pull our boat and together we braved the storms and understood the finer nuances about each other too.

We ate what we fished, we drank from the rains, we filled our lungs with the vast emptiness of the sea and entertained ourselves with the play of waves and the sunrises and sunsets. Between the unending stretches of the horizon we had all the time in the world and not a worry to spend it on.

Life was good.

It could have gone on like this forever but we hadn’t accounted for time as a variable in our equation. Over the years, we grew old and lost our physical and mental strength. Age caught up with us and we lost our sensibilities and often snapped at each other. There were times when we nearly toppled the boat over and almost threw each other overboard. We would knock things over in a fit of rage and swear at each other and say other hurtful things and it would often take days to settle down and be civil with each other again. During all such days we would sleep with our eyes open.

Over time, we realized that these fights were meaningless. The beating Sun had baked us stubborn and our ways were now cast in stone. We were obstinate and resistant to any change. Time had made us brittle and any resilience we showed stemmed only for the lack of an exit gate for us. We took each other for granted and resigned and submitted to this monotony.

This could have again gone on till eternity but then something happened on a night when the moon hid behind some clouds and the sea went calm. The stars flanked the blanket of the sky and my gaze ran over to the corner where you were snug and sleeping peacefully. Your face was radiant and you looked not a day older than when I had first set my eyes at you. Your countenance had a cherubic charm to it. The sweet seraphical magic that oozed out of your expression won me many times all over again that very instant. I knew this angelic appeal would be lost forever when the first rays of the sun would hit us again and remind us of our ghastly demeanour towards each other in recent times.

That moment summed up our entire life. I realized that this universe doesn’t permit us eternity. Every path that we choose, will eventually either fork out or lead us to a destination which will mark the end of our journey. There is never really a choice. We got on this boat hoping to escape everyone else but eventually lost ourselves in the whole process. It was that moment that I realized that it was only a matter of time that one of us will die in due course and the one left behind wouldn’t know how to deal with it. 

I went up to her and ran my fingers through her hair. She opened her eyes and looked at me. I expected her to be puzzled and ask me a few questions, but she just smiled and flung her arms across my neck as if she knew I will come and wake her up. I embraced her and we sat in silence on the deck for hours until the first rays drilled holes into the horizon and came bleeding through the clouds.

I held her close and watched her wrinkles make their way back on her face. I stood up on the deck, picked her up in my arms and asked her the same question I always did before leading her into anything new.

“May, I?” I asked.

She smiled, nodded, closed her eyes and clasped me tightly with her fragile arms.

I kissed her forehead and together we jumped into the water.

The boat rocked a little over the steady waves and then stood still as the sole witness to our life, our story, our love.. and our end.