1.
He had been quiet; quiet for a long time now. No, not in the colloquial, general sense of the word 'quiet'- he spoke when spoken to, nodded when the laws of civility compelled, and sometimes he just got away with acknowledging those around him. Nobody noticed this 'quiet'; for them this was 'business as usual'; a routine they were accustomed to like morning joggers are to the yelps of the destitute, vagabond, hobo asking for attention. No, he was quiet... a desolate-Delhi-street-on-a-June-afternoon kind of quiet. A few murmurs to oneself, a half hearted hum of an old tune that would taper off, a few cuss words that would just touch his palate but didn't have the strength to parse through the lips... yes, that kind of quiet. Somewhere in his visceral conscious, he knew he was running out of stories...
2.
'What if...' he would think to himself often; extrapolating one possibility after another and then landing on the same co-ordinates after much deliberation and reflection... he had dissected himself enough with the shards of a few, now fading and blunt but once jagged and kaleidoscopic memories... no, it didn't even hurt now. 'Business as usual', he would tell himself and would drag himself along with each setting sun. Where did the stories go? Will he get back to them once this supposed 'phase' of self-mutilation ceases? Will there be endings- happy or sad or just plain disturbing; grotesque maybe? He didn't have answers now... he understood the questions though... in his own waking nightmares he had made peace with his inadequacy in finding the answers. No disgruntlement towards the web of ennui that Time had placed him in; as long as the spiders of self destruction do not make a chomping noise while gnawing at his insides, he knew his quiet won't be disturbed...
3.
She had 'dreamy' eyes and a curious smile; and she had probing questions. She liked stories; the kind that he once used to tell. She would clap; he would tell some more. He'd push the borders of his limited imagination, dive-deep in the caves of his memories, and like corals and deep-sea gems and rubies and emeralds, bring out tales that made her eyes shine... and he'd live another day. 'What if...', he thought again and on some unfounded haywire belief of his, began writing his own story. Passion is not good for raconteurs, for it obscures the rationality and objectivity of the story-tellers, it rots their insides and churns in them slithery venom; and every story that comes out then, is a vile spit upon the face of the listener; now an object of the aforementioned Passion... he realized it all too late.
Her face now bore caustic burns that his stories had left; her eyes no longer dreamy but sleepless. Her restrained, forced smile now was a constant reminder of fantastic possibilities; unspoken and unheard.
'What if he hadn't...', she wondered...
