Love and beyond

Arman held Noor in his lap, never wanting to let her go.

So delicate and beautiful as the moonlight lit up her radiant face. Indeed she was aptly named Noor  - The light.

The light of his life. The light that kept him going.

She made him feel alive in the dark and damp alcove far ashore from the beach.

The only sounds were of the waves lashing against the rocks and the their gentle breathing. Time stood still.

He thought about her with fierce obsession. He simply loved her. He relived his first encounter with Noor.

He was only 14 when she walked near the well at the village where the boys were swimming. The frail little girl with beautiful big eyes that spoke beyond words. She fetched water and walked away with her friends, the only one who made no attempt to catch the attention of the adolescent boys. That was the day he was smitten.

Umpteen times that he followed her, he felt euphoric about her responses to him.

Arman and Noor sneaked in as much time as they could together. He felt deliriously happy as he thought about  the day when she sneaked out of her classes in college to be with him at the gymnasium. Cycling with her on the handle bar with gay abandon on the beaches was their cherished memory.

He adored the way she nuzzled asleep in his lap in the corn field, as if there were no tomorrow.

He loved the feeling of being beyond the world as they cozied up on a mango tree, oblivious to everything other than the warmth of their bodies

He read her like a book. The twinkle in her eye for happiness, the faraway look when she was sad, the anxious eyes when she felt uncomfortable.

The child in her enticed him and touched him. He could watch her enjoy the feeling of the sand slipping beneath her feet at the beach, while the winds caressed her tresses. He yearned for a surfing wave, so she could hug him in mock fear.

He adored the butterfly kisses she planted on his eyelids and the giggles, when she did that.

Noor was the butterfly of his life, flitting in with joy.

Alas the life of a butterfly is short lived and Noor had chosen to spend the last moments of her life in his lap by the alcove in the dark.

Light faded away and so did Noor, into the darkness and beyond, and what else could Arman do, but to join her in her journey into nothingness for indeed he was empty without her.

They were found by the fishermen the next day, their bodies entwined in a tight embrace .

A lesson irreversible for people near and dear. 

Some ties are bound by soul and even death cannot do them apart indeed. 

Noor & Arman had chosen to be together in life and beyond.

Indeed the lovers lived in a third world country, where love was enslaved to approvals from society and a caste system.