Maisah

Continued from blog, Dear Rain.

Dear rain,

yesterday, I met her. It was not the kind of meeting one would wish for but somehow it melted the ice between us. It was half past 5 in the evening and as usual I was sitting near the basketball court, with all my senses completely lost somewhere in between her and the red basketball. To seat in the corner and watch her passionately between 5-7, I had been addicted to it. Yes, it became my favourite pastime because it was the only place where I could see her for too long without facing any consequences.

I don’t know when and how, I went too deep in conversation with my brain and my heart about her and of course that Red basketball, that when I came out of hallucination, figured out someone is sitting near me by a mere gap of 2 inches probably. So I quickly looked around the court, for her. But saw, only you there, rain. And how many times I told you “not to roam with those fast moving local winds?” You even came with the thunderstorm that day, rain.

“It’s raining too heavily and too cold to be out there; do you have cigarettes?” – it was her voice, and that someone was she. I hold my breath for few seconds, I didn’t know what to say? How to say? So I preferred silence over our unwilling conversation. “you don’t have one, right?” – this time her voice was polite and I nodded my head with a “yes”.  

“you live there, three blocks away from my house, in that white building. Right?” – I nodded again. “I saw you 3-4 times, there, with earphone plugged in your ear and eyes towards me” – she added. I started sweating, I wanted to run away from there, from her, from everything. I really felt ashamed, my head was down and I don’t know how many expressions my face made.

“it’s already 7, raining heavily and light started fading, too. Do you want to come? I can drop you home” – For the first time I looked toward Her eyes, eyes that was waiting for my answer, eyes that had a thousand secrets captured inside them. I tried a lot to decipher them. But I failed more often than I succeeded. How could I? Her eyelids held those tiny little secrets with utmost care. And I wondered, if I even belong to this place? Maybe I did or maybe I didn't. The very possibilities were endless. 

“Are you coming?” – this time she literally giggled, so for due apology I nodded again. But wait I wanted to run away but then there was some part of me wanted to live every seconds with her. I, again, were in totally chaos, followed her to parking area until she started her scooter. “Look, we are stranger and I don’t even know your name, how can I go with you?” – I still don’t know why I said this when 70% part of me just wanted to not end this moment. “If this is stopping you from coming. I’m Maisah, Maisah khan. Now sit at the back” – she concluded with that smile on her face. God, her smile was even more charming and I felt little weak in the knees. I started to fall, for her.

when we reached, she parked the scooter and I waited outside her house to say her “sorry and Thank you”. “it’s too cold and we both are wet. Let’s have a hot coffee, come inside”- this time with all my senses, all I wanted to say a “big no” but my mouth doesn’t cooperate so my feet’s and in a few second I found myself looking awkwardly towards the walls inside her big hall. “it looks like you live here alone” – I exclaimed. “My mom went to USA for two months. So yeah, now I am alone. I’m not good in cooking things but somehow I can make coffee, hope you’ll like it” – she added.

Sitting against each other, comfortably on white sofa, we both started sipping our coffee, started the conversation, and I started craving for her expressions. The way she flicks her hair, those long strands, the times she talked about her dreams and then simply changed the topic, when she had a gloomy face just because her mother forgot to call her the evening before, about those evenings when she was so drunk that she could barely think straight, how those little things she blurted, they felt so real.

About the days she was so confused to choose between two random things that she'd start worrying and The weeks she spent analysing and over analysing the book she read long ago - I smiled listening to her innocence while she continued talking. The months she spent wondering about the little things, all these things were her. They spoke of her. The way she loves to sip her coffee slowly in the start and then drink it all in once, was enough to keep me glued. I had known it all by now.

She called herself a chaotic mess of words. I'd strongly agree. She was a mess, a mess I saw yesterday and admired more and more. And her eyes, they captivated me long enough to step inside all those tangled mysteries she thought she had been hiding well.  For all I knew, I solved one mystery after so many hours (5-11 pm) of being around her.

The colour of her eyes, it was not light brown as everyone thought it to be. They weren't Hazel, definitely not dark brown, not chocolate brown either. Those beautiful eyes were a little darker than exactly light brown. They didn't have a definite word which could ever define them. And then those eyes fell upon me. How I wish to look into them, every day when I wake up and every night before going to sleep. I smiled like an idiot, rain, thinking about those pair of eyes, those little darker than light brown eyes!

But what about the mysteries, her eyes were hiding? People tell that her mother killed her father, but then why she is living with her mother? Why she is still using that old scooter? In her old photographs, she is looking happy with her two brothers and one sister, where are they? Why two rooms were locked permanently and when I asked about them, why she changed the topic? And why her mother killed her father?

Dear rain, I don’t know answer for any of these. I googled her name “Maisah”, which means “walking with a proud swinging gate” but I don’t think she can even crawl with such a burden on her back. She told me to come tomorrow at 5 to her house, should I go??