You would follow the sound of my voice.

Hey, how was your day?

You are in a field of swaying grass.

Just the usual, nothing new or exciting. How was yours?

The colour of fresh green caresses your skin.

Pretty much the same. Listen. I know this might be a wrong time but I have been meaning to ask this . . . Is there someone else in your life?

Bathed in the soft sunlight, you open your eyes and there is a lake in front of you.

Please. Say something. Just say that it’s a figment of my imagination. That we have been married far too long and this mundanity is . . . I don’t know. Just natural!

Look at that stone by its embankment. You are that stone.

It’s not. I didn’t know how to say it. But I can’t lie anymore. I met her on a flight.

Can you feel yourself basking in the warmth of the sun.

And she makes me want things and do stuff I never had or did before. Never even believed I could have.

Now you would enter the lake with me. Feel the water enveloping you.

Somehow she makes me feel excited about life itself.

And there is nothing in the world other than the coolness of water all around you. No sound, except the deep silence.

She is everything you and I could never be.

Let yourself sink deep.

Are you there?

Deeper

Can you hear me?

Deeper
Deeper

spring cleaning –
dusting the cobwebs
from my shadow

Paresh Tiwari