“You won’t feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“It.”
“What’sit?”
“You’ll know.”
“Doctor, the waves are receding.”
“They will come back. Stand here.”
“My feet are sinking.”
“They will stabilise, let yourself loose.”
“My toes are silty.”
“You’ll clean it later on, play with it.”
Silence. The roar of the sea. The sun setting.
“Deep breath,” Ritu inhaled, feeling him inhale with her. She released it, and felt his go too. She did not say it again, just took deep, cleansing breaths. And his breath automatically synced with hers. She saw it then, the waves flow ashore. She kept breathing deep, eyes ahead, feeling his body still more and more. Water lapped over her toes, and she knew it was lapping over his too. Ritu remained still, breathing, feeling the cool water throw itself over her feet and ankles, submerge them into itself. Deep inhales, deep exhales.
The water began to recede, and took with it the silt that had held her feet steady. “Oops.” They began to sink and she caught herself in time, giggling, just as his hand reached out to catch hers.
She stabilised herself, leaving his hand and turning to him. “It?”
His eyes rolled skywards and he turned to the sun that had now fully sunk into the sea, leaving behind the last of its shine in a quickly darkening sky.
“It?” She pushed, sensing how his breaths were slower, deeper, the tautness of his face and neck relaxed.
“Fine.”
“It?” She kept pushing.
“It,” he repeated, just as a new set of waves crashed ashore and over their feet. This time her feet sank again but his hand closed around hers, holding her steady. She held on, letting both of them find their grounds just as the water swirled around them and stalled.
He let out a long exhale. Out, out, out. It felt like that exhale wouldn’t end. The huff that followed that breath was even more immortal.
“How long has life been?” She asked.
“Mmm?”
“How long has life been?” She repeated.
A pause. Then — “41 years.”
“How long has it felt?”
Silence.
Ritu glanced at him, his profile now anything but stone. His cheekbones were relaxed, his jaw still sharp under that beard but softened as if in repose. The tittering of his eyelashes in the wind was the only movement on that face and she wondered if he also modelled for his own couture?
“Very, very long,” he said quietly.
“This is what I ask my patients all the time. Most heart problems aren’t only the result of eating habits or excess drinking or smoking. They stem from lives that havefelttoo long. Do you know, there is a pattern I have discovered?”
