Fifteen minutes back

She inhaled in the smells of the neighborhood as she walked. They were present every day, welcoming her into reality, a striking contrast to where she lives, a sparsely furnished single bed pad that smelled of nicotine and bath salts. A few restless street hawkers trying hard to sell their goods, the same familiar nameless faces that waited in anticipation for the bus and a few idle travellers of life. Each reeking the aura of a hard-earned existence.

A hand brushed past as she made her way into a narrow passage between two people. A few dozen eyes leered playfully at her gait. A flower vendor smiled charmingly, as he groped the garland. And a balloon seller thought she was mighty interested. She breezed past this every day turmoil quite easily, as she had been through this drill, a thousand times. She was familiar with the brisk pace of the city life, the non-existing forms living up moments if they were lucky enough and also with the feeling on remaining disconnected.

But today was different. Because, from between the dozens of people, emerged a shadow on the wall.While her eyes were still observing the haunting figure carefully, her head spiraled into a series of thoughts " Was she hallucinating? He (she was sure) looked like some one you would encounter in books. Did she display the money that she had  while paying the auto wallah yesterday? She wouldn't know. She wasn't aware of  anything much these days". She paused the thoughts momentarily with an ironic smile. She wasn't one of those people who would go down without a fight. If it is indeed a shady figure, she better face the truth of who he was and what he wanted, then and there.

She turned around and walked briskly towards the figure. She decided to break the rhythm of her steps, as soon as the figure revealed itself. A man nearly in his thirties, dressed to be an executive, sporting the belly weight of a mid-life dweller faced with a crisis. Nothing charming about him, he could be anybody.This fact greatly troubled her.  She walked away briskly from him and reached home in a rush.

Her husband was the same lifeless corpse watching German Cinema. She glanced at his ash-tray to assess how much pot he had smoked. She picked up his guitar and began to sing a song. That was the only way to make him aware of the existence of another person, these days. She deliberately stopped the song and began narrating the shady follower story, as soon as he woke up from something like a slumber.

As soon as she finished narrating the bit about the shady follower, her husband said, with a snigger on his face, " That is because, baby you are beautiful!"

A wave of anger engulfed her. She had been holding on, but couldn't any longer. She lifted the guitar and started thrashing him hard. His constant requests to stop, couldn't hold her back. That she was beautiful was the truth, but she was in no mood for reality now. Her husband should have known that her every day walk ended, fifteen minutes back.