The Love That Never Was...

   The Love That Never Was....

She was born in his mind.She was a precocious product of his fertile imagination and frustrating loneliness. He had wanted to carve her out perfectly-the artist in him pushing him towards perfection. Yet somehow,there was something which told him that it was her shapeless, floating presence that would serve him better. He, afterall, wanted a companion who was perfect. Her being shapeless was as perfect as it could get.

She would be with him-always. She would be only with him- the best part. He could talk to her. Only he could talk to her. He could walk with her. Only he could walk with her. It was companionship at its best.

No..he didn't want to call it a relationship yet. He was getting to know her slowly. Only when he was sure that they would click-would he start calling it a relationship. But what if he found she didn't suit him?

Well...he would probably create a better person,erasing the flaws.

But that she wouldn't suit him was a remote possibility.He had created her. And none of his creations had failed-not just yet! Slowly, he started filling her with the values and qualities he cherished. And he cherished too many for any real world girl to have all of them. He had searched one for too long-and  had decided that creating his own was the best choice he had.

He mixed and matched the qualities like a kid would play with his toys,yet with the precision of an expert. The right amount of humility,yet that little streak of pride. That earthly touch of simplicity, yet that delicate dash of vanity. She was a bundle of joy, yet personified the depths of melancholy....he never felt such control over anything he had created so far.

They would talk for hours together.(He conveniently forgot that his mind was the one framing the replies all the time). And her replies would be just what he expected and wanted to be.She would start conversations too..and they would proceed just the right way. He was falling for her slowly-like he had always wanted to.

The artist now missed something in her. She wasn't lacking anything-but he felt he could enrich her presence in some way. He would give her a voice. And a wonderful one at that. It would be his first acknowledgement   of her physical presence- something he never wanted to happen. But he wanted to hear how she would sound-when she was happy,when she was sad,when she was angry and most of all,when she was at her lovely best.

It took quite sometime for him to find that perfect voice. And when he finally did,the pair of them talked through the night. The charm in her voice,along with the sense of emotional connect that she brought to him drew him closer to her. They were inching towards the obvious.He now wanted things to happen sooner rather than later. Somehow he restrained himself. Not that they never got into conflicts- she being more vocal now with a voice for her opinions, but they always had a meaningful outcome.

She isolated him from the outer world entirely.His obsession with her grew. She personified perfection for him and he wanted nothing less,after all the flaws he had seen in the mundane world.He stopped thinking about other girls.Some time later, he stopped speaking to them. He found a weird sense of solace in her voice that was tailored for him. But, he found that he couldn't stop looking at other girls. Not that he meant any harm, but there was something about physical form that no amount of shapeless imagination could compensate for.

He was in a fix. On one hand, he had vowed never to give her a physical form in his mind. On the other, the whole exercise seemed pointless without her physical presence- he would always be distracted by others. The battle raged on. He asked her if she wanted to take shape-and she was as confused as he was. They finally decided she would take form.It wouldn't hurt to have a presence in the mind,was their mutual justification.

And when he gave her the form, the artist drained himself completely for what seemed an eternity. She simply had to be the most beautiful girl that creation would allow. There was no point if there was someone more beautiful and attractive-he would obviously be distracted again. She would be the crown of all his creations; the envy of all women; the dream of all men.The process of giving her a shape was tedious and they fought many a time over issues like the shape of the eyes or the length of her hair. The artist even wanted to design each strand of her hair-but she would hear none of it. Both bore the ordeal for a long time till one fine day the artist declared her complete.Their happiness knew no bounds.For him, it was the triumph of his creation. For her, it was the triumph of her Creator. 

" Have a look at yourself in the mirror dear-you'll know how perfect you are" he said.

"I don't need a mirror..your eyes serve just as well..Thank you" she replied.

The reply took the artist by surprise.He was sure he hadn't prepared this reply.It was too romantic a reply even by his standards. He felt all the barriers melting away. All he now wanted to do was confess his Love.

Without thinking twice, he did it. It was a soulful confession, honest and direct-something he had wanted to say a girl in the real world, but never got a chance. 

And suddenly,she came to life. It was as though his confession had breathed life into her. He could see her form-solid. He could feel her presence. He could sense her breath. "Thank you" she said. He could hear her voice too! This was too good to be true. He inched a step closer- an arm's distance away now. He wanted to hold her hand and..never let it go. And at this thought- she simply started walking away. He tried to catch up with her. But inexplicably, he could not. She was always only a step ahead-yet there seemed to be a world between them.

The artist gave up on following her. His rationale was that if she was his creation, she would have to come back to him sooner than later. She did. But did so in the strangest way. A week after the whole episode,the artist thought he saw her in a crowd. On a closer look, he found that it was someone with a similar pair of eyes. The next day again he thought he spotted her; but it was just someone else who had that single strand of hair in front of her eyes-just like she had. A few days later he thought he saw her crossing the road. It turned out to be someone who had that wonderful grace he had given her. And when a saleswoman called him over phone,he went all the way down to the company only to find that the saleswoman only had a similar voice.

His vision of perfection was crumbling in front of him.And reality hit him hard. The perfection he imagined was utopia. It would never exist. The world thrived on flaws-for that was what being mortal was all about.

Perfection was an act of God-if at all he existed. Had he tried to play God, by trying to create her? He shuddered at the thought. Come to think of it, all Gods he knew had some or the other flaw. What was he doing then,confining himself to that claustrophobic compartment of perfection? He had to agree that she was too perfect to belong to any mortal in the real world.

The moment he faced this reality, he could see her form on his horizon. There she was, walking towards him, just as perfect as she was when she had left. He knew what to do. He smiled at her and captured her form in his mind's eye. The next moment she vanished. He went back home and painted her as he had seen her.

Only this time, she had a squint in her right eye.

                                                                                 -22nd December,2012.