The Last Hug

It was the perfect life.

A life he could not have possibly envisioned for himself. A life he that he always yearned for – it was like the miniature couple dancing inside the glass encasement – observable but untouchable.

He had however touched it, he thought to himself as he curled up and pressed the soft body against his. He tightened the embrace and allowed her head to rest gracefully on his chest and a smile adorned his otherwise forlorn face as her hand slowly wrapped itself across his stomach.

He could not believe he was actually being loved. He fell asleep content.

Smiling.

Happy.

Broken pieces of the blue vase lay strewn across the hardwood floor. Broken pieces of two hearts mingled invisibly with those pieces. Two feet, usually dainty and soft stormed about today, carefully avoiding the shards of glass but vengefully stomping on the shards of the hearts. Truth be told, the feet had no idea what they were stepping on, it was the mouth doing the damage. After a few minutes, the two feet walked away and out through the front door. The glass pieces exhaled a sigh of relief but another pair of feet, not too far away, could no longer carry the weight of their master and he collapsed onto the divan. His sigh was one of despair.

He tried sleeping with the side pillows but there was always something missing in them. They were just not her. He went up to the terrace, went out running, read a few books, saw a few movies but sleep was playing hard to get. Twenty four gradually turned to forty eight and forty eight to seventy two. He picked up the phone but he knew her and he knew that anything he said would probably make it worse. He threw the phone onto the bed. It lay there still and unmoving yet when he threw himself onto the very same bed, he writhed about restlessly unable to welcome sleep.

Seventy two turned to ninety six and then, an old friend returned. She kissed him but it wasn’t the warm, wet kisses that he had come to cherish – it was a cold, dry kiss that seemed to freeze his insides. She hugged him tight but it wasn’t the warm, comforting embrace that he yearned for, it was instead a grip that’s sent a chill of despair down his spine. She caressed his hair and playfully seduced his eyelids into closing. His insides protested vociferously although his neighbours didn’t even hear a whisper. In the arms of his old friend, he fell asleep finally. Her name was ‘Loneliness’.

Ninety six had turned into one sixty eight.

The front door opened and the dainty feet stepped back into the house once again. Her voice called out repeatedly one name yet there was no answer. He’s sleeping, she thought. Nonetheless she had to see him with her own eyes to make sure. She went into their bedroom and saw him curled up on the floor, with his head resting against the bed. She inched closer and caught a glimpse of his face. There was no smile.

She touched his shoulder gently and in the moment that it took for his body to fall like a log of wood onto the hardwood floor with a thudding sound, she knew something was terribly wrong.

The doctor said that death had come peacefully-a massive heart attack in his sleep had deprived her of his life.

Neither she nor the doctor could see the other lady in the room, laughing uncontrollably. Finally, she had her old friend all to herself. She bent down and hugged him tight. Today he was as cold as she had been all his life. The last time he had found a way out – he had escaped but this time there was no escaping.