Short Story - UNREQUITED LOVE

UNREQUITED LOVE

           
 The clock had stopped. I couldn’t wake up at the time that I had hoped to wake up. I felt that day would be an important day in my life; that there would be a change in my life. New hopes began to bloom in my heart as I prepared to go. I promised my friend Mahesh who was a psychiatrist at the Colombo General hospital that I would meet him. I went quickly to the bus halt. The bus was a little late that day. When it arrived I got in and sat down. My mind was filled with what had happened and what I was going to do that day. As my mind went over the past I felt I had been; too precipitate.

            Mahesh and I were very close friends. He had a friend called Kasun. One day I invited Mahesh to our dance concert. He came with his friend. He introduced his friend to me. My first impression of his friend was a bad one. I didn’t know why. Perhaps I felt that way because of the manner in which he looked at me. While the concert was on I felt that he was paying more attention to me than to the other dancers. After the concert I had no time to talk with my friends and I went quickly to my vehicle. I saw Mahesh’s friend running after me, but I didn’t pay any attention. Two days later I got a call from Mahesh.

“Hello Rangana, are you busy now?”

“No why?”

“I have something special to talk over with you. Do you remember my friend Kasun?”

“Ah the one who came to my concert?”

“Yes he told me that he wanted to speak with you. I feel that he has an interest in you, because after the concert he talks only about you.”

“What a fool! Mahesh don’t be angry with me. I don’t like your friend. When he looked at me on that day I felt that he had not seen a girl before.”

“I gave him your phone number.”

“Oh! What have you done?”

            After that day I got a phone call everyday from Kasun. I got upset and confused. Sometimes I didn’t answer him. Mahesh also phoned me and tried to convince me that Kasun was a good man and tried to persuade me, not to rebuff him. But the unending telephone calls only increased my dislike of Kasun. I even began to move away from Mahesh because of this persistence. I didn’t get any phone call from them for three months. Then I began to feel sorry for Kasun.

“Why did he persue me in this way?”

I looked into myself. I began to blame myself. I had been too harsh. I had a hard heart. I was an artist and normally an artist has a sensitive heart. My feelings began to change. I decided to talk with Kasun. But I couldn’t do it directly. So I phoned Mahesh and told him that I wanted to meet him.   

*                                          *                                          *

The bus stopped at the Colombo hpspital. I went to Mahesh’s room. He was reading a diary and didn’t pay any attention to me.

“Mahesh I want to talk with you.”

“Yes of cause.” He replied in a formal voice.

“I have been thinking things over. I think that I have been too harsh on Kasun. He has not phoned me for a longtime. I like to talk with him. I don’t know why I brushed him off like I did.”

            Mahesh gave me the diary which he was reading and said that I could get to know more about Kasun from it. I began to read. This is what he had written in it.

            “I went to watch a concert with my friend Mahesh. He had got an invitation from one of his friends for that concert. He introduced me for his friend who was a dancer.        “What a pretty girl.” She was really beautiful. She attracted me at once. I wanted to speak more with her. So, at the end of the concert I ran to meet her. She ran away to her vehicle. I saw that one of her anklets had fallen on the road. I picked it up and followed her. But the car drove off and she did not even look at me. I asked more about her from Mahesh. He gave me her phone number. I tried to phone her, she did not respond. I do not know why. I phoned her continously. She still didn’t respond. But I loved her. I began to keep her anklet always with me and it was like a chalice to me. When I was going to work I kept it in my pocket and thought that she was with me. When I was eating in a restaurent I kept it on the table and thought that she was eating with me. Even when I was going to sleep I kept it next to my pillow. I was madly in love with her.

            “Love will withstand cruelty and persist even in death, but it will within under indifference. Pitty will not replace it.”

            This is what he had written in his diary. Tears came into my eyes.

“Mahesh, please tell me where is your friend? I want to talk with him and tell him that he has won my love.”

“If you like to see him I can take you. He is in here.”

“Is he working here?”

“Let’s go.”

I went with him. He took me into an isolated room led to an iron cell. Then he pointed to the cell and told me that there was the man who was madly in love with me. I looked at it. I saw him with a black beard which fully covered his face. I went near him and saw that he was keeping my anklet in his hand. He looked at me. Mahesh began to talk. He told me that I was too late. He has lost his proper senses as a result of meaningless love. So, they were going to trasfer him to the asylum.