Twenty seventh.

     She was seeing a patient who had come for a follow up. Follow ups gave her jitters sometimes. A failure wasn't something she could manage. It feels better not to choose than to try and fail.
     She told the patient to sit straight and dangle her leg mid-air. Mid-air, the worst position for all possible affairs in life. She was going to test her for the knee jerk reflex. The patient's Gullian Barre syndrome had been almost cured, the jerk should be present there now. Autoimmune diseases seem to be so funny, she thought. It is one thing not to recognize oneself, and another thing to allow our white cells to launch an attack. Against a  supposedly foreign object. Its difficult to realise that some things don't belong to us; and even more difficult to accept all those that sure do.
     She was about to strike the hammer end on her knee. Absence of an unconditioned reflex will decide her failure. He always cringed his eyes in a certain lovely way when she tried to kiss him right between his nose and eyes. The only reason for his not trusting her will be an unconditioned reflex, like this one, she thought. She should admit the truth and be ready to give it her best. Her life won't be based upon reflexes and responses anymore. She was ready to strike the hammer. Henceforth, it was going to be more about the efforts.

Twenty sixth.

     She had found it cute, the way he covered his phone with his hand, the moment she walked in to sit besides her. She smiled. He knew she already knew. His plans for her birthday next month. Next month, till when they would have fought a thousand times more. And realised how much more she had wanted him every single time. She wondered whether he felt the same for her. He made her want to live this same life over and over again.
     The terrace cafe was giving out a great ambience. She looked up at the night sky. It was darker. On every fifteenth day the moon doesn't show up, and yet, the sun doesn't hurt itself. It is only the heart that feels forlorn. But even in its absence, the sun is aware of the moon. It always knows when its time to rise. And ensure a bright day. Mistakes can be very much relative. What matters is being ready to resolve all the issues. It always felt very much secure with him. The way the sun must now be feeling about the moon. She asked for his hand in hers.
     He was looking into her eyes. Maybe he wanted to be seeing her forever. She looked down. He wasn't hiding his phone and his birthday plans from her. But her name written on his hand. In black ink. Probably at some insane, unconscious moment. He smiled. She knew he already knew. About his daydreams that were being woven around her love. At this moment and till the end of the times.

Twenty fifth.

     The black ghost fish looks like it dons a cover over itself. She, too, for a multiple times, had wished for the same. A cover, that hid all the inner weaknesses, giving the fish its chance at hiding everything that isn't to be shown.
     It swam different than any other fishes kept in the entire aquarium, she noticed. It wriggled its way into one of the dark tunnels the corals had made. She had drifted apart. From his care and his longings that he never showed, his desires that she might have never even realised. She almost expected it to come out the next second, out of somewhere else. Even from no-where, if it needs to be. But there wasn't the slightest of movement in the water. She had lost all her attention to that one thing, the one that had once been.
     She had accepted that love wasn't the right choice always. Some compromises have to be done. He looked like he could make her feel right in every possible way. She had said yes to someone else. Even without getting her heart into his story. Without taking it off from where it seemed to be stuck, since an eternity. It did find its way out of an another coral, but she had realised the futility of chasing a phantom. Happiness has to be pursued, but only from where it can be sought. The time might not be right, but choices have to be made, to suit situations in the wake of a corrected time.
       A blue fluroscent stripe, laced upon orange, with the most promising fins, they felt alluring in this broken state of mind. She knew her decision was right, her heart would understand, sooner or later. She let the black ghost swim out of her eyesight. For ever.

Twenty fourth

Slips away the sand from where it isn't meant to be,

Buried under the dunes of time are things for no one to see.

With the days too hot and the nights too cold,

The vastness of all void lures promises untold.

The winds have been shaping it since ages long,

They have been whistling in your ears..

To keep hidden the desert's true song.

Twenty third.

     Confabulations. She was lying wondering on the hospital bed, to fill in gaps in memory. By fabrication. No, but she was sure she had felt that strong emotional surge just before they hit the barricade. Was it for real? Or was it really a confabulation?
     However hard she tried to remember what he was saying or was going to say, she couldnt think of anything. Not even enough to fabricate the rest. When you are put into a fix, you start loving your original dull life. She never realised she had wanted him, because she never wanted to realise it.  But now, if he was about to confess his love, she was sure of her decision. It would be something she was since long been waiting for. It was enough to turn her world upside down.
     Usually there's a nurse standing near the patient when she regains consciousness, but that happens only in movies, she thought. She was desperately waiting for someone to enter. Someone who could tell her that he was as fine as she was. Even if the thing he was talking about before the crash was his dead dog. Even if it was about the bad weather. Even if it was about the recession. Even if she wasn't the girl he had fallen for. She would let him walk out of her life.
     She wanted the surge to be true. But there was so much risk in it. Risk, if she wasn't the one. Risk, even if she was the one. The one with no courage to take the risk. She rather wished he would walk back, smile at her and say it was nothing. Just a confabulation.

Twenty second.

     She watched the magician pull out exactly the same card he had told he will. There was that obvious smirk, the usual one, the one that cannot be forgotten.
     It was amazing to her, seeing how surprised people were, even when they already knew that the magician was going to be right. We are so accustomed to our ideas of happiness, she thought. We are able to surprise ourselves, even with the most expected of all things. And when it comes to pain, we don't know, for most of the times, the exact cause of all the hurt. And it feels good to know that others, at some point of time, have been through that too. As if it was just equally and justly distributed. As if you loved seeing people hurt. As if you have understood the mechanism of how the universe plays with you. You never will.
     You never will understand how and why things hurt. You will then keep on chasing 'things that last forever'. And eventually realise, that nothing ever might. It dwells upon you, to revel in today. As for the things left out here, the Afghanis rightly say, zendagi migzara.

Twenty first

You walk through the darkest of my secrets,
And say you've stumbled upon a beautiful heart;
You put up a bargain like never before,
When you ask for a smile, to hide all my flaws.
Meeting me in these entangled turns of life,
You change love enough, to fit in those knots.
You strike me first with the differences we share,
But you melt in me like we are meant to be;
The way it rains over the sea.