Tears on the Pillow

There is never a disconsolate moment in your life. Your days are filled with work, friends, children, reading, interminable phone calls, piquant little arguments – you live each day uncompromisingly. Night comes, bringing with it a pervading gloominess and somber thoughts. And there are tears on the pillow.

You are sitting in the manicured garden amidst falling dusk. A brisk wind has picked up, promising rain and fecundity. The fishes are swimming in the pond and the children gather their toys to go home. You unwittingly think of great lovers, some historical and some just products of imaginative minds – Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz, Lancelot and Guinevere. You brood over trifles. You take a walk down the meandering jogging track to shake away the gloom. The swimming pool water, ruffled by the wind, laps at the edges inviting you to jump in. You traipse back to your apartment, lounge in front of the TV, get into bed earlier than later. You lie down on your soft king-sized bed, and there are tears on the pillow.

There is somebody playing piano next door. The hesitating notes reach your ears in fits and starts. It can be a Beethoven, you think – perhaps the Moonlight Sonata. A composition of love. There is no bright moon outside. The city lights have dimmed too. You listen harder. The notes, feeble and stuttering, make no music. Then for some unaccountable reason, it stops. And there are tears on the pillow.

Your husband is far away. He has his job. Your rational mind weaves a nest of reasons and justifications. You are cradled in that nest, soothed by a rocking ever so gentle, and you almost drift off to a dreamless slumber. But a memory ignites, your heart elates for no palpable reason. A wisp of a scent, a recollection so fragile, and your legs are out of the cradle. Your body slips through and you fall. There is a bump and there are tears on the pillow.

A close friend relocates, moves far away. She has been your sister, your counselor, your mentor in a foreign land. You are not sure whether the relationship will stand the test of distance. You just know that you will miss her terribly. You say your goodbyes, blink away uninvited tears, and go your way. But at night, there are tears on the pillow.

A friend tells you that he loves you. He has been in love with you perhaps forever. He asks for nothing in return. You try to scrub the emotion clean. You label it nostalgia, romance, madness – something that can be flicked away. You instinctively know that you have lost a friend but you painstakingly maintain the charade. At the end of it all, there are tears on the pillow.

Life is muted in this month of Ramadan, the month devoted to God, purity, and forgiveness. The pale eyes and dry lips of a fasting populace vouch for their rectitude and their silent strength. You do not fast, it is not in your custom to fast, but you still feel a subtle sense of shame lurking somewhere in the corner of the heart. And when you go to bed, it might be with a full stomach, but the mind is starved. You wake up before dawn to a muezzin’s call and the pillow is still a little wet – vestiges of those tears on the pillow.