The Ballad of the One Who Stayed

I watched “The Lunchbox” recently and was reminded of this write here, called “The Nit Picker’s Ballad”, which I then shared on my Facebook Wall. That in turn brought me a couple of requests for a different ending… or the extrapolation of the narrative with a different ending. Here goes 🙂

On the shores, bereft, he stood
(Though it should be she
He having left at her honesty
At her gift of love)

Gazing long at the loyal waves
That came back again and again
Asking him, beseeching sometimes
To find his peace.

He was young, they seemed to say
Love will come around,
Their quiet murmur consoled
The soft splash had nothing to do
Really, with the twin trails of tears
That found their way down his eyes.

Oh no! Not love. Not forever.
He knew they did not exist.
It was a lesson he was taught.

But.
A niggling doubt, a tiny seed sown
By her yearning eyes. Her silent plea.
By her unshed tears, and brave smile
As she watched him back away.
As she watched, and did not cling.
Did not pursue.

Was he wrong?
Must he unlearn?
He would try, he had to try
He knew.
Else there would be no way
To ease the agony of his heavy heart.

Back he went, his footprints
Erased by each happy wave
That egged him on, to seek, to love
Then hold on, and never give up
Or give in, to the
Traitorous thoughts that reneged
On faint promises made to himself!

He followed, swift, the trail of wet prints
In the soft moist sand, landwards
Till he came upon her, seated
Knees drawn up, chin on knee
A faraway sadness enveloping…
In the shadows of her thoughts,
And the small fishing boat!

May I sit? hesitant, he asked.
Mute, she nodded.
May I simply hold your hand?
His voice trembled as he asked.

I couldn’t stand for you to then leave, she said
I won’t, a soft whisper from him, if you’ll let me stay.

Let you stay? When did I ask you to leave?
You walked, away, away…
And will you, again? she did not look at him
As her pain reached out and pierced his heart.

I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t leave…
I went away, but couldn’t leave,
Hoarsely he repeated over and over…
There were loveless shores of such emptiness
He’d wandered, that he knew, unlearned,
And learned yet again…

Trust or not, Love or not,
Forever or not…
His survivor’s heart needed her saviour’s heart…

And as they simply held hands
Leaned into each others’ love,
A flash of insight struck his mind –
He who was doomed to wander ever
Would now find safe harbour

In his sails wafted promises of another day
Another moment, another soul
To love, to be loved.

How glad he was
He chose to stay!

Online, 29 June, 2014

Under 500 words. 😀

Nit-Picker’s Ballad

On the loveless shores of dissatisfaction
He wanders, dark and sombre.
She said she loved him, you see.
And he wonders why.

You, the reader, would now smell a skunk.
You don’t? You’re supposed to. There!
Why does he wonder why! Because, you think?
Fine. But why?

He wonders, that’s why.
Now, why he should, does it matter at all?
No, you think? Why not, I ask.

Walking the shores, with promises of love
Given endless dreams, and lustrous hopes
A hand held warm, a heart cosseted gently
Why would he wonder? Why should he?

But then he is that alter ego of everyman
The one that never takes on trust,
The one that fell foul of love
The one who found no love within.

And yet that one, too, is he
That quietly stood, and braved the angst
When she lost her mooring.
Gathered her when she was washed ashore
From a tumultuous voyage, bereft, and battered.
She knew. Though he did not.
Saviour he was not. Survivor, he was.
As was she.

A pause to this tale, here now;
To tell you how love, it creeps upon you.
Perhaps to envelope, perhaps to smother,
But always to fill each pore, till replete it is.
And so it was, with her. She knew.
And so it was, with him. He did not.

So there comes, then, this moment:
Survivor to survivor; the honesty of a heart,
The unfathomable depths of utterance
And the incomprehensible betrayal of the ear.

She confessed. He ran.
In circles, on that loveless shore afore mentioned.
What then? The storyteller is asked.
What then? And you wait with bated breath.
Willing a fairy tale to happen.
Knowing that some things are never to be.

Will he stay?
Will she accept, then?

But ah! The threads, they dissemble, the weave fragmented…
And the spell of the storyteller is broken.
He sighs. His gnarled fingers wrap themselves around his staff.
And on, he plods.

Thinking, dreaming, of what could have been.
Had he stayed.

1 March, 2013
Online, on yet another silly line of thought 🙂

Part II of this ballad, so-called, is here (LINK) – edited to add on 18 Jan, 2015