Twenty minutes... Meet me if you can!

It was a beautiful night. I was all by myself, standing on the rooftop and gazing at a near by lake. The water in it, with the reflection of hundreds of stars and the full moon was breathtaking. The breeze around was making me feel nostalgic. There were some dark clouds far away in the sky. It might rain today. 

How I wish she was with me!

Suddenly the silence around me was broken, with the song "You and I will be together till the end of time..." piercing through the air. Bothered by the interruption, I reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone.

"Hello?".

"Yeah. Hello. Reach the coffee shop at MG road in next twenty minutes", a familiar commanding voice summoned me over the call, "I have precisely an hour free with me. Meet me if you can!".

It must have been around ten o'clock that Wednesday night.

The things had changed, with a few exceptions, drastically in ten years, since she had broken away from the city. It felt like a smooth eternity. The city itself was not the same. It was now a overpopulated, underfunded, and lesser green city. With the time I had moved on too, not completely though. A part of me was still left behind in the past, as it is, as it was, for her.

"I will be there in lesser time than that", I told her. I was numb for a minute, not entirely convinced if it was really her. We had not been in touch for last couple of years, after she asked me to relinquish all my hopes of her coming back.

Is she really back? 

After all these years, that part of me was still dying to seize every possible second to see her. I did not know how would I manage to reach there in time with the city's infamous traffic. But a 'part of me' knew, I had to. It felt like it was my only chance to meet her.

Certainly she cannot be back forever. God could not have been that kind to bestow me with that.

I did not care to change, I had no time to look into the mirror before I jumped in to my car seat and zoomed off to get my life back. I was nervous within. My precarious thoughts were killing me every second.

Will we be the same, as we were, with each other?

I had lost the count of times I had met her in my imaginations. In the comfort of my fancy world, we had always met like two persons, insanely in love with each other, would.

Will it be awkward for her or for me or for both of us? Will I be able to drown myself into those gorgeous sea colored eyes yet again? Will the love, I held for her for so long, explode? Even, if it does, will she care at all?

The car was cruising at 100 Mph.  It was like a god's gift on the city roads. I was half way through in five minutes. I was sure of making it in time. I was excited. I had goosebumps all over me. My mind was going through a jittery ride. Everything, we had between us, was flashing hard in my mind, like it happened just yesterday. The memories were pellucidly clear.

What is it that she might be thinking of right now? Does she remember anything that we had between us? She could not have forgotten the things we shared then. It was too beautiful and too intense for her to just forget it.

The last chocolate cake, our daily favorite, we had at the coffee shop still had its sweet bitterness on my tongue. I never had it again after she left.

"How could I ever have it without her?"

It was a part of the love we shared. It gave us so many hours, so many heavenly hours, of looking into each other's eyes, with the urge of becoming one forever. It used to be there, nicely lying down on the table between us, patiently waiting for hours for us to have a bite of it, to finish it eventually, while we used to be lost in each other. The place, I visited a couple of times later, was still the same, like an epitome of  'our' love.

Will I get a chance to have that cake today?

I reached the coffee shop in fifteen minutes. It was not crowded, I assumed, with barely four cars parked in the parking area. I thanked god for keeping the people of this city back in their homes. I had a trembling feeling within, with a sense of anxiety and excitement. I had no idea how would it be when I would finally see her.

I rang her up after parking my car. She did not answer my call. I called her up again, but to my dismal, there was no response. I tried a couple of times, only to disappoint myself more. I was confounded, till I received a message from her.

"Sorry, had to leave. Some other time may be".

It felt like some one had stabbed me.

":(", I replied, because I had no words left with me. I was shattered. It was not a matter of life and death I thought. Then why this disappointment? Why did I, for sometime, feel like not living anymore? It was so unfair of me. I should have been accustomed to not seeing her by then.

But it was still pinching me hard. I stood there for few minutes, waiting for some magic to happen. It could not have been so bad, I thought. Not even five minutes in ten years!?

I trudged back to my car with my head down, my thoughts ridiculing me for every single minute I thought of the time with her while driving down there.

"You still drive the same car?", Suddenly a hand clamped down on my shoulder from the back of my driving seat. I turned back, with my heart in my mouth, out of fear, only to see my angel smiling at me.

I had my mouth wide open, in awe, without a word.

"Know me?", she asked.

Silence is all I had from my side.

"Alright, you look sad. Care for a chocolate cake?" she smiled with a piece of cake in her hands.
As I moved forward to have a bite of it, a drop of water fell over me.

It took me a few seconds to realize I was still standing on the rooftop. It had started raining.

Damn you, Imaginations!