A Midnoon Mirage

His Beautiful Atlantis. Calm and serene, he had always been fascinated by the seemingly infinite land where he supposed that the sea and the sky met. A seemingly never ending paradise where everything was hedonistic. A place which would mysteriously invite anyone trying to reach out to it, pulling them further into the water, giving the pursuer the impression of a never ending pursuit. He had always felt a mystic aura around the sea something which he could not place or understand. She had always left him nonplussed, with a desire to know more about her secrets.. in a greater state of yearning than he was when he came to her … But she was always there, like the Sphinx, beaming her Lisa smile at him .. mocking him of how little he knew of her.

Today was no different. Maybe that was the reason he was standing by the railing of the speeding boat which was precariously bouncing off the waves into the sea threatening anyone on the deck. The foam was thick and lashing against the boat but he wouldn’t relent. With one hand on the side holding the edge of the door, he stood there gazing into the apparent nothingness of crimson and the fading blue. He didn’t know why or how long he was there.. just that he was bound by strange connection which couldn’t be defined by a single lifetime.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?”

He felt like he was pulled back into the realms of reality. So lost was he in the quagmire of his thoughts that had it not been for the way she had said it, he would have assumed that it was the sea which finally spoke to him giving in to his long perseverance. She stood there by his side gazing at him intently, with one hand loosely holding the railing, completely indifferent to the threat which, with a little twist of her fate or her hand, could send her plummeting into the very dark depths below them. He didn’t know what to appreciate; her audacity to reach out to him or the manner in which their minds were in sync. Sure, he thought. Most people find the sea beautiful.

But this was different. Looking into her eyes, he could see the same myriad of emotions traversing through the many folds of her mind, dancing and giving rise to one another to form a continuous school of thought.

He looked at her. To say she was pretty would be an understatement but not the kind he had seen in the chic women who had tried to woo him in the past. She was simple yet there was elegance in her. The manner in which her nimble fingers were wound on the railing as if they were caressing it as opposed to the firm life sustaining grasp one would normally have considering where she was right now. He felt a sudden pang of jealousy towards the railing.

She was relaxed and completely at ease with the turbulent sea and everything about her, even the slight casual lean towards him, was beautiful. Her hair was billowing in the wind; few strands of which had broken free from their sisters and were now adorning her face. Her mascara lined eyes accented their beauty and he had to pull his eyes away from hers to fall back into the boundaries of decency.

“I have always loved it when the sun sets and the way it reflects against the water.. Makes it look like a sheet of fire but one that is calm and peaceful”, she said

There was strange warmth in her voice which he normally didn’t associate with a stranger. He merely nodded keeping his eyes on the water in front of them, even though his mind had begun racing with thoughts about how warm her hand would feel in his.

“It’s cold out here”, she said as if accusing the sea and he was slightly let down. He thought she didn’t appreciate how beautiful the scene was and was almost going to dismiss her as someone who came close enough ,when she continued in the same breath..

“I bet your arms would be a much warmer place.”

He jerked his head around and found nothing had changed. Except she had. Her eyes had the same warmth but there was a faint smile playing on her lips  as if they were trying to tell him about the aeon they had spent together spread across the various ambits of time. Her feet had begun inching towards him as if they knew how she would feel in his arms. The only question was how?

She let go of the railing and her fingers found solace in his. Her eyes loomed closer and closer and the world around him dissolved. Nothing else mattered. Perhaps she was too close for anything else to make sense. He gave in.

His woke up with a start. He was not able to make sense of the wide expanse of white gradually looming into focus. He was in, what one could term it to be as, a momentary morning limbo where the mind has not yet made the transition from the land of dreams to reality even though one was awake. Bit by bit, he relapsed and found his fingers laced in a tender but firm hold akin to that in his dream. He turned his head to find her sleeping on the chair beside him with few strands of her hair falling on her face. He smiled with the cognizance that nothing had changed.

They had met on the very same boat and it had become sort of a ritual to make the same trip once every couple of years. They were married now for six years now and he still saw the same girl in her who had paid heed to the stars on that blessed day and their fates had intertwined. Again.

Her head was slightly tilted to his side as if it had not yet found its proper place. He moved his shoulder to make amends but she subconsciously sought it and rested on it. May be he was imagining but there was a strange contentment in her face; something that he had always associated with soulful beauty of the sea.

He rested his head behind on the cushion of his chair, gazing intently at her face as if he didn’t want to miss a single moment. This was a dream he didn’t ever want to wake up from.. the dream which gave him strength to survive and was also his weakness. The dream which he sought even though it was his own.

She was his dream.