The hot weather wasn’t doing any mercy to me and the exasperating realisation of my brand new jeans and the hovering fan having an alliance with it, made things worse. For what it was worth, he was sleeping peacefully, supervised by my watchful red strenuous eyes, audibly assuring his semi-anesthetised state with mild snoring, melting away in sweat (loved the smell though but couldn’t puff enough because of a stupid guy’s intention of discovering the Taj Mahal in my fascia from a bed across the room!), face buried deep down the pillow proving his disapproval of having Claustrophobia, which is ironic in the sense that, waking up he will unconsciously display his conscious enchanting passion, his ‘drop-dead’ gorgeous middle eastern appearance, a superbly successful career and the accomplished triumph of an unyielding diligent man through his elevated visage.

There he was, sleeping serenely, partially dead to everyone but completely alive to me, being a tiny part to the universe but being my whole world himself. Our honeymoon, starting from the grandeur of The Hyatt Regency, continuing through the lavishness of The J W Marriott, enduring the spectacular regal landscape surrounding The Royal Retreat, halted in that ordinary public dormitory.

Few things never changed: those enigmatic excitements of our frequent couplings, those eternal emotions resulting in mutual perpetual promises, were never darkened by the sense of the gluttony of luxury, were never disheartened by the sense of time flying, never enough regret, never enough. Minutes unhurriedly departed as the treasured thoughts of us being together yet again lingered in my mind and the soothing similes of you took hold of my soul and through my eyes I envisaged the time I grasped with you in those beautiful days of our lives.

The wind in performance, softly with his silvery shiny silky hair, was being demonstrated by the mysteriously intricate numerous cute ‘cuticle-waves’ composing a rhythmic pattern of strange shadowy tunes on his wrinkled forehead beaconed with sleek leather passages resulted from the merciless abandonment of the tapering task his skin was once ordained to perform, but couldn’t, due to the suffering of an inevitable defeat by the brutal hand of time, against which, even with the help of expensive branded ‘Skin Revitaliser’, he was fighting a losing battle, though it never disputed with his yearning of getting younger with age.

Multiplying his temple’s beauty a hundredfold, two perfectly shaped eye brows, couldn’t help depositing ingredients in the broth of my inquiring subconscious whether they had ever been pleaded guilty of the charge of the painful act of beautification, nevertheless he never made a clean breast to my suspicion, let alone a dirty one!

The prophecy of the ‘Men of the old’ deducing the eyes as the watchtowers over the vast terrain of the mystifying heart underneath, did absolute mercy to the faith of discovering my safe refuge in his heart carved through the passageway of his comforting loyal stares, proving my heart’s capability of captivating the preeminent pronouncement for itself.

Once upon a time those were his eyes which guaranteed me a pile of reliance, a heap of optimism, an accrue of collateral, an endorsement of encouragement and a promising visual rendering of a contented future together. His collection of colored ‘contact lenses’ may perhaps changed the appearance of his Irish occasionally, but could never blur the optimistic display of the comforting conformation of our concurrent future in his eyes, rather they made it look a lot more colorful and bright for me. Ani Difranco might have read my heart accurately while writing ‘Anesthesia’

“I am watching your chest rise and fall

like the tides of my life,

and the rest of it all.

and your bones have been my bed frame

and your flesh has been my pillow

I am waiting for sleep

to offer up the deep with both hands”

Staring at him, I understood, It was wonderful how our roots have become so intertwined together that it was implausible that we should ever disentangle ourselves from that sweetest captivity called life. For the surfeit of my anemic emotional choices directing me to absurdities, for I couldn’t expect to experience positive feelings all the time, I never expected preventing my negative feelings altogether, which I did eventually, because of him, by making me refuse to get puzzled in the negative ones, by not making me baffled by the reality of misery stirring my heart, but by the heartening hopefulness of happiness striking my imagination. It was more than just my dignified feelings for him; it was my unsullied respect building those necessary movements, lifting me one step at a time, from my world to his, but even after that could never make me realise how much I truly loved him.

The hardness that guards my emotion does not reveal my secret in the softness of my own love, the vacillation of my senses whose pedigree stirs his heart’s constituents do not reveal the mysteries of our harmonious matrimony, but by the satisfied laughter of my heart announcing the breathing of my life’s legacy with him, in which, loyalty, love and devotion have contributed.

For us, love was never bewitched by our uncontrollable outlawed lusts; was never possessed with blindness and errors and betrayals, not with illness and wounds; not with weariness and withering and tarnishing; rather was conceived by our awareness of replenishing its source, born out of assurance and allegiance and affection, raised by commitment and consecration; nurtured by feelings and fondness and friendship.

Realising the moisture in my eyes had brimmed over, I slowly rubbed my hand across my cheek, and sure enough, traitor tears were there betraying me. Wiping the drops with my hands and then substituting them with a beautifully tendered dimpled smile, I prepared myself to wake him up from the secluded world of slumber fairies. The widening of my vocal cord conciliated with the coalition of the tip of my tongue and palate, soothing the settling down of my teeth on my trembling lip and secretly, sacredly, solemnly, the soothing sound of his name gushed out sinking its root somewhere deep inside my soul.

Our journey wasn’t finished yet, for it was four in the morning and we had a plane to catch to visit the loveliest destination he was taking me with him…..Our home. I unexpectedly reincarnated the reminiscences surrounding an ironic ‘19th Century’ Poem; ironic, because I never liked it but somehow ended up using a line for a request: “Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.”