Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Forbidden

Her eyes. Hazel eyes. Eyes lit with dancing flames. Eyes which spoke that which he could not bear to hear. Eyes which betrayed that which she would never bring to her lips. And so it had been, every evening for the past year, when he had walked her home.

"Every finite dimensional vector space, with an inner product defined, has an orthonormal basis." The first line he had ever heard her speak, when he had entered her first class on graduate linear algebra ten minutes late. She was graceful, intelligent and always smiled when anybody gave the correct proof for a theorem. He was not smitten by her instantly. But when she turned out to be the only person who could hold his attention in straight conversation, he had to admit something was different about her.

That had been a year back. Now, as he walked beside her on the concrete pavement, neither of them spoke. He just looked at her. She tried not to hold his gaze for more than a few seconds. The air between them hung like an old curtain, with layers of dust making it too heavy to blow in the gentle breeze. He opened his mouth to speak. She looked up and tilted her head to a side, and he caught her pleading glance. He struggled to keep the words inside. Cars and busses roaring down the road, hawkers on the pavement and the traffic policeman whistling with all his might to halt the flow of cars. He could hear none of these. The only sound he wanted to hear did not come.

They reached her apartment block. As she started climbing the small flight of stairs, she looked back. He caught her eyes, twinkling in the street light reflected from shop windows nearby. He turned away, for he could not bear to hear what they spoke. Her eyes.

10 comments:

  1. I almost cried. You write very well. Of course I didn't have to tell you that.

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  2. lovely! i cud almost see those hazel eyes! but so sad! why so sad FR? *hugs*

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  3. lovely! i cud almost see those hazel eyes! but so sad! why so sad FR? *hugs*

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  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  5. u're truly among the only ones i kno who can capture such deep emotions in such a small piece-i sincerely hope this aint an allusion 2 urself...n btw thanx 2 u i jus remembered i'd almost entirely forgotten vector spaces-gotta do 'em if i've 2 get anywhere in my gate prep...ciao bud

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  6. Your post completely defines the phrase, eyes are the reflection of our souls. Beautifully written, as always.

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  7. hey FR! One of my blogger pals has thought up an interesting game for all of us... it wud be gr8 if u and ur blogmates cud participate. Chk the link below fr the rules...

    http://whatwouldidoifibelikeyou.blogspot.com/

    Take care buddy!

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  8. "her eyes"
    hazel eyes....

    hmmmmm....
    i liked it...u write well

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  9. @sine: Thank you! Had no intention of making anybody cry though. Hope you are smiling now. :o)

    @sonia: When the story popped up, it was sad... what could I do?

    @chipmunk: Best of luck mate, with GATE!

    @mirage: Sigh! Eyes.... As for the game, I'll try but the Christmas deadline is very near (in fact isn't it already over? :D ), so I cannot promise.

    @stilts: Hey stilts! Loong time. Nice to see you here.

    @triplesix: Thank you for the words of encouragement. Welcome to the blog, and hope you wander in here more often :)

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