My head hurts. Or may be it does not. I don’t know. Morphine? Yes, that. No not that. I don’t need it now. A gun maybe, but then there are no bullets. I regret for having fired at the clouds and the last bullet at myself; well, myself on the mirror. A struggle and scrabble through the floor dampened in ink, dirtied by broken pencils, notes and doodles; in seconds, I find myself staring at myself with eyes that was not mine.

People said that we were crazy. We said we were not. Doctors could not decide. They kept on saying that they were a complicated case. She would then turn her head towards me, her hair hanging low and say, “I told you. You are a special case!”

It was a coincidence that we happened to be at the psychiatrist’s on the same day at the same time. Initial tests had shown that we were fine or even better than average. But authorities said that we were not what would be called ‘normal’ either. And we would never be, for our minds rejected the idea of normalcy in absence of artistry. 

She was a rather weird artist. Her arts hung in art shops of narrow alleys of Bhaktapur and Patan. But all of them lacked two things: the colour ‘Red’ and her name. 

Once on a session, Doctor asked if it had some meaning. Her answer was expectedly unexpected. She just said that, “Creating is destructing. My name has to be destroyed for the art that is created.”

And then we winked at each other. In the same session the doctor inquired about my background.

“I teach English at a school and do write poems and stories that people think are avoidably depressing.” 

The doctor smirked and said, “Quite an odd thing.”

With a theatrical gesture I stood up and shouted, “I hold a madman who is a writer, a saint who teaches and the devil who is now about to walk out of the door and is never coming back.”

The doctor sat dumbfounded as she followed me.

Our meetings had frequented. Once I stopped teaching and decided to devote myself to (unsuccessful) writing, we were mostly making and unmaking arts and stories at her studio. That would go hard at times when she said that she cannot get what she had in her mind into the canvass. She would then throw at me what she has in her hand and cry out loud. And what could I do, I just stood there. Looking at how her madness blends well with the beauty that she is. 

I was a reader to her. I would read to her  random poems and stories. At one random reading we came across this line, “Sane come together to be mad. Insane come together and love.” We laughed so hard, as if it was the first time we had discovered that we could laugh at silly things like that. 

Then she asked, “Have you ever been in love?” 

I could not think of an answer. 

“Do you know the Mersault guy or something from The Stranger?” I asked. 

“The one who could not care less just about anything?” She wanted to be sure. 

“Yes, I mean him. Maybe I am just too indifferent to it. Have you?”

“I would have been dead if I had.”

“And why is that?”

“What’s there to live for after you have found one?”

There was a silence but not the one that was awkward. If I should write a story, I was sure I would not want other people to know of her. She was precious. Something that I wanted to keep for myself. But then she seemed the only saviour. 

I was sure that if I could give life to the words on her I could get away from the failure that I lived as a writer (I did not even wanted to be called that now). But I feared that I would just fail her. Four of my submissions had been rejected embarrassingly. And I was afraid that I will never be able to find words to describe what she really is. 

While she could see me frustrated I could see the queer peace in her face. I was staring at the blank paper and pen whose ink should have dried by then, unable to write a word when she came, put her hands on my shoulders and asked, “Can you write a love story for me?”

I could not. I will never be able to have her with my pointless story. I did not realise that I had been crying until I heard her close the door as she left. 

I had been where I had been the day earlier when someone called. It could not have been that. I rushed to her rented apartment where people were in rush but were trying to make sure that they would not make noise. She would have liked the drizzle outside had she not been sleeping till late. She did not wake up. People took her away while she was still asleep. They even took the empty bottle of sleeping pills from her room. I had never seen her as calm and satisfied as she was now. 

There was nothing in my ear but the sound of rain hitting the floor and in my sight was my picture staring at me with the eyes that resembled hers. It was all in hues of red and had her sign right below the title: love found, find love. 

It has been about 11 years now. I have not counted the times I have tried writing a suicide note but then I remember that I have not written a love story for her yet. 

I rise from my insanity to write about her, for her, of love. Something I wish I had done when she was here.