His voice was terrible, his tune even worse, yet somehow the song sounded as the most romantic thing she had heard in a long time.... she giggled, she had given up after continously trying to make him since he started .So, finally when he finished the long forgotten melody in not so melodious voice of his, she honored him with a soft clap. And both of them laughed like kids. A hearty whole laugh, after such an ages, noticed Zen without wanting to notice.
The night was beautiful, the earth lit up by almost a full moon, the breeze neither too harsh, nor too soft, in fact good enough to soothe a soul and at the same time capable enough to send a chill down the spine. Was it the night and the ambience or the person sitting next to her on that wooden bench, what's been making her feel so alive, she wondered. It actually had been a good idea, to agree with Ross, to come to the park after the dinner, Zen affirmed to herself once more. She was lost in her thoughts, when she did not marked that Ross has been observing her so closely, she became cautious. She wondered if he counted all those lines of ages she now had on her face that once used to be so full and fair, she felt a little nervous about the white streaks that now dominated her so once so famous hazel colored hair. Women at any age would be equally cautious of their appearance, she crossly thought. But, Ross too had travel through the time as much as she has, she realized with a relief as well as with a little pang of pain. Ross in fact hardly had any black left on his hair, the specs weren't there before to cover those gleaming eyes which had the child like innocence in them, that well toned body of his was now substituted with a softer and round form, things that time snatches away so mercilessly... she sighed. Her sigh immediately brought a question in Ross' eyes, which were now directly looking into Zen's. And the next moment he got his answer, this is how it has been for them, always, the silence has been way more powerful than the vocals. And why not, after all they shared so many silent things, a silent understanding, a silent love, a silent pain. And the irony was that they were still not sure whether to regret the silence or rejoice it.
Ross and Zen, they shared the best chemistry on stage and off the stage too. Those drama classes in the college were where they had met for the first time, and they instantly got along with each other. It was like, as if, there never existed a time when they had not known each other, even they did not know what that magic was. For every onlooker, it might have been a thing as simple as love, but is love really simple? Ross and Zen themselves could not figure out what it was, or may be they never tried too. They were too happy with whatever it was, and for them it was so very special that they did not want to spoil it, not even at the cost of losing their love. Yes, love, both of them somewhere had this word on their mind, but at the same time they also knew that, it was a love they could not afford.So, why spoil it all by letting it out, wasn't a silent love which shall always be cherished and treasured, much more special than a love which when expressed might fade like the sound of those spoken words. So, instead of letting themselves speak out their heart they chose the silence, that till date prevails.
Till date the sound of silence dominates, even after forty years of their parting ways, when they bumped into each other accidently in this old age home today morning, when Zen's son had come to get his widow mother admitted here, and she was introduced to the monitor of that wing of the building,an old man who had no one in this world to call his own,Ross, and they acknowledged each other with a silent smile which surpassed the sounds of all the expressions of the world.....:)
