Regret

It was getting hotter. He dragged his feet. Crossing just two lanes was being a burden today. Though the road was the same, and the distance unaltered; he felt something not quite right.

The trees were same green, the whitewashed buildings still looked the same, but he was not.

It was he who had changed. Gradually though.

An established doctor, and his practice reaching its zenith, he was a contented man. Overtly. He still was troubled with the past trailing behind him.

Constant flashes of ‘that’ evening.

The car being hit on the tree stump and the glass cracking… The thrust strong enough to let his wife fly through the glass and get a fatal; blow… The redness of the blood. The glass pieces… Her torn garments… Her broken bangles.

The wound on his head had made him fall unconscious. But the last scene, remained fresh on his mind.

The deshaped car bumper, the loose tyre… The steering wheel he had last gripped onto. And the blurr sounds of the past…

He walked with the suitcase in his hand and the stethoscope dangling around his neck. He ignored the chirping of the birds, the horn of the bus, the speeding tongas…He was unaware of the wrong pair of shoes he had worn. All on his mind was, ‘that evening’.

‘“If I had not insisted her to come with me…”, “had I not offered her to meet Ramji on the way…”She would have been ALIVE. Very much here, by my side!’, he repeated to himself over and over.

He finally reached a three storeyed bungalow of which he had mentally made a note as ‘home’.  He did not notice the well pruned lawn, the delicately gardened potted plants and the kitchen roses. All on his mind was “If I would have not… she would have been here.”

He pressed the doorbell, and made a mental note of the blurred ‘ting tong’ he felt he heard. She was on his mind. His brain was a havoc of ‘if’s and ‘would’s…

The door opened.

She smiled at him. Looking down, she pointed at his feet. He  looked. With a fake smile, he said to himself, ‘only if she was her.’