Remorse

It was almost noon and the sun shined through the curtains, casting shadows on the kitchen floor. She slowly walked in and saw all the mess from the night before - broken dishes, disheveled cutlery and stains of alcohol on the curtains and the door. Her hair was just as unkempt as the kitchen and from the emotionless eyes of her stoic face you could tell that she had been crying. She made herself a cup of coffee and sat near the dining table and stared right through the window. And a slight hint of pain showed up on her sunlit face. Maybe it was not pain but suffering, you couldn’t really tell. And she thought of all the memories - memories of love, of happiness, of a joy that can only be felt and never expressed, a pleasure that soared from the depths of her heart. And all of these joys and delights were shattered just like the crockery which lay on the floor.

“Would you ever choose a short-lived happiness which you know would end in sadness and despair?“ He had asked her once. She hadn’t replied – she couldn’t reply. She had been lost in her thoughts and her own hubris.

Now that she knew the answer, it wasn’t relevant anymore. Life keeps throwing stuff at random and it is most often only in retrospect that you realize that what you didn’t hold on to was a crucial part which could have resolved a lot of issues. She should have answered it, she thought now, or at least put more thought into what was being asked.

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The window wasn't out of the ordinary and the home too wasn't noteworthy. It was a rather long room and the sliding window had diamond shaped grills. A pale curtain blew slowly in the moist breeze, acting as a veil which let him gaze outside without being seen.

He was sitting in a small corner of a room with a note pad into which he was scribbling something, and his presence was almost nonexistent in the minimalist room consisting of nothing more than a table and a chair. As he silently thought of her, he realized that he didn't like the grills on the windows and resented the curtain. They obstructed the view and the ruffling curtain was distracting him.

“Would you ever choose a short-lived happiness which you know would end in sadness and despair?“ He had asked her once. She hadn’t replied – he wept. And he now resented that he had asked that question. He rued the fact that he expected too much from people.

Now that he knew it was not the right question to ask, it was important to make sure he never asked such questions again. But he couldn’t help expecting someone to just listen to what he was saying, and he wished that someone would be willing to meet him halfway through.