The neighbours were saying:

“It’s good in a way. Now that he is dead we’ll not have to listen to her loud and complaining shouts anymore.”

“Look how miserable she has made him for these many years.”

“Poor man. May his soul rest in peace in heaven.”

Thirty-five years ago, they were the couple everybody would envy. He was a handsome lad and she, a beautiful lady. They loved and everybody else made endless stories about their love.

“You are my everything, dear. I love you to the stars and beyond. There’s no life without you,” he would say.

And she would think, “I must be the luckiest woman who has ever lived.”

Time passed. With two children, they should have been a happily-ever-after couple, but fate wouldn’t approve. The small problems he had been having with his ears since his mid-teens took a bad turn, changing their life, forever. He suddenly started hearing less and eventually nothing. Of course, the best treatments were tried. But every high-ranking doctor said that there was no point to trying. “His ear drums are completely decayed. We can do nothing to help.” Yes, his ears hurt sometimes and then would often impair his vision. But no one supposed these problems would be life-altering. Had he given some real consideration to them earlier, his life wouldn’t have turned out so badly. Well, lives definitely changed. And love too changed, drastically. He would often sit on a chair on the veranda, trying to listen to the bird’s chirps but failing to hear anything. He looked worried and every one hoped he wouldn’t worry himself into depression.

But instead of standing beside him during his difficult times, she had started avoiding him. When he tried to approach her, she would run away with silly excuses. Only God knew why she had changed overnight. Her love for him had flown away, just like his hearing. Yes, too fast.

“My ears were probably what she had loved for years, while I chose her heart,” he had cried bitterly one day, and he started crying more often.

Shouting at him with her bitter loud voice that he couldn’t hear was her everyday task. Her cold and loud voice and hatred had taken over the silence and love that had previously prevailed in the house. The way she treated him as an outcast, anyone could say she hated him. She shot bitter words at him when he tried

to hold her hand and talk to her while she should have been the one doing it. She would listen to no one, not even her children, when they tried to point out her behaviour towards their father. She knew he couldn’t hear. Yet, she would shout. She would shout at him till her throat went dry. She would shout at him every day and every night. She hated him. Yet, he loved only her.

As time went on, her heart became more brutal. She often said, “It would be so good to see you die. Why don’t you die fast and let me live the rest of my life peacefully?” But who would tell her that she was the one who was in the wrong? He had let her live peacefully but she had chosen chaos.

And today, although dead, he seemed happy for she was sitting beside him. He had tried many times to sit beside her and talk about life, the stars and planets for years, but it had all been in vain. And he hadn’t the slightest idea that this wish of his to sit beside the love of his life would come true only after his death.

She lay numb on the floor, her eyes looking away from his dead body. She eyed the last words he had written on a piece of paper. He had poured his heart out on that paper. She held the paper tight and read it for the hundredth time.

To you, my beloved,

The first time, when your eyes had met mine

I remember your lips stretching into a smile.

Right away we both had fallen in love

mine remained for an eternity and yours for a short time.

Had I died earlier, you must have smiled all your life

your smile disappeared overnight and I didn’t know why.

You knew your smile was one thing I loved

but, sadly your frown never changed into one.

I often talked to those lifeless photographs of ours

whenever you tried to ignore me, my love.

Just so you know,

I shed tears silently

wetting us on the photographs.

If I’d get my hearing powers back

I’d definitely ask what changed you

Is it the stupid ears of mine that lessened your love for me?

Holding your hand, I asked

sitting beside you, whom I wanted

I couldn’t ask for more and I wouldn’t.

I cannot hear, but love, I can feel

the way you looked at me,

I bet you wanted this horrid man to go to sleep, forever.

Had I known you loved my ears more

I could have tried earlier to change it.

You knew I’d do anything to make you happy.

If keeping you happy requires me dead

here I go, my love

this death is nothing but an exchange for your beautiful smile.

We’ll meet again, dear

yes, maybe at the gates of

heaven

or be it anywhere,

more intensely we’ll fall in love

I know I will, for sure,

but will you?