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The Encounter

9/23/2015

7 Comments

 
Our relationship had been eroding for a while, but it was still a shock when she left me. She just went to her mother’s house and never came back. When I called, she said she had decided not to return.

Five years I nursed my sense of loss. Then I met somebody special. She was very special. I met her at a party and at the end of the hour I felt I had struck a chord. We walked out and preferred to be with each other.

That was just the beginning. I wanted to talk to her every day. I wanted to tell her everything. Clearly she felt the same way. In three months we were a number.

I told her about the other relationship. She said, uncomfortably, that she felt guilty because she was usurping someone else’s place. I said the relationship had ended, definitively, before I met her. I was not sure that she was persuaded.

Seven months later I had an accident. It was late and I was tired. Doubtless I was also careless. The front edge of the car struck a concrete block and caved in. Seat belts weren’t then in common use. The steering wheel ploughed through my chest cracking all the ribs on the right side and breaking the sternum.

A colleague was passing by lucky happenstance. He rushed me to a hospital and arranged for a surgeon. He knew of my long-term relationship and called her. Later he thought of my special friend and called her too.

When I recovered from the painkillers, I thought of them. That, in fact, was all I thought of. But none came to see me.

I lay in bed, took pills, read and watched the lengthening shadows of the day. Some friends and relations visited me, but the two persons I most longed to see did not come. I could not have told either of them, but both teetered endlessly at the edge of my mind.

The day I was finally released from the hospital, the specialists forbade me to use stairs for two months. Since my apartment was on the second floor, my brother insisted that I stay with him and his wife in their large ground floor apartment. They took punctilious care of me.

When I was leaving their place, my brother told me that my special friend had called him regularly to ask about my condition. She did not want it mentioned to me.

I still walked and drove with great difficulty. But I went to see her. How could she not come to see me even when my life was in the balance?
Picture
She listened quietly and then told me something I did not know. The colleague had called and she had rushed to the hospital. She was told she could not see me immediately because the doctors were in my room, examining me and discussing my status. She had to wait.

She went to the waiting room. The room was empty save for one person. This was the person she felt guilty about. She was the usurper. She could not face her. She stood, unseen, at the waiting room door for a long time. Then she went home.

She said she felt now she was wrong. She should have visited me; she owed me that. But she could not, knowing the other person would be there.

Picture
But the other person was never there. She told me years later that, though she was distraught, she had actually noticed my special friend at the door. She felt then she couldn’t be at the hospital or in my room. She couldn’t be with me anywhere if there was another presence. She returned home from the waiting room.

7 Comments
Kuheli
9/23/2015 08:40:05

Many times I have heard of such instances when the second person comes along in one's life...
i would agree with the girl not to be second fiddle ...no matter what.
If ever one is loved then it should be in soul mind n all...or else such encounters will be terrible transient and true ...without meaning ...no life, therefore

Reply
Manish
9/23/2015 09:13:10

Thank you for your sincere comments.
I wonder if, in matters of the heart, there is a 'second fiddle'-- or a third? Of my two daughters, if I love one more, do I necessarily love the other less?

Reply
Prem
9/23/2015 09:40:16

Yes being a second person, I would'nt want to make a relationship worse. After all, I just came in, I'd have to show respect for the one I love and his family. Its been 8 years now, call me a fool but its like respect.

Reply
Manish
9/23/2015 11:42:14

Thank you, Prem. Your name seems to give more significance to your remark!

Reply
Alpana Ghosh
9/23/2015 22:28:47

I think neither of the women had really loved the person concerned.How could they not come to see him when he was vacillating between life and death? Both of them had been suffering from egoism.

Reply
fabiola ortiz
9/24/2015 22:47:27

O sea Manish que perdiste a dos mujeres : tal vez la segunda no queria estar en la sombra y por esto prefirio' renunciar a una relacion , que cuando no tiene futuro ,se hace incierta , creando incertidumbre ; tu no solo tenias un dolor fisico , sino tambien un corazon accidentado por lo ocurrido : lo siento y espero que el tiempo haya curado tus heridas .Me gustan tus historias ,anecdotas y cuentos .Felicitaciones por ese estilo para escribir .

Reply
Manish
9/25/2015 04:41:52

My translation of the previous comment for English readers:

Manish, you lost two women, perhaps the second did not want to be in the shade and therefore preferred to give up a relationship that had no future. It was uncertain, creating further uncertainty. You not only had physical pain, but also an injured heart for what happened: I'm sorry and I hope time has healed your wounds. I like your episodes, anecdotes and stories. Congratulations on your style of writing.

Reply



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    Manish Nandy

    Writer, Speaker, Consultant
    Earlier: Diplomat, Executive


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