Two Lives

“Tring Tring”, the ring was far too distinct to miss out. The time was not the most appropriate though. She tried in her sleep to play the guessing game yet again. She loved doing that and even her sleepy state did not dissuade her from doing so. The ringing stopped, a little too soon. She grabbed the phone and wondered who the mysterious caller was. A weird number, not one in her ever growing address book. She wondered why she took down numbers when she did not even care about them. It was like a game they played, one pretended to be interested in giving the number and other fumbling with the keys to enter it, both actors in their own accord. The world is of course a stage, they all say all the time.
“Tring, Tring”, the distinct cry from the electronic device shook her awake, away from those faraway thoughts. It was the same number. What else could she expect? She could not have too many mysterious callers on the same night, could she? It was not like she was Cleopatra. Why was her mind dwelling so much on Shakespeare and all his characters today?
“Hello”, she bellowed trying to keep the anticipation off her tone.
A long pause and the caller mustered the courage to say what came so easily, “Princess”.
Princess, after all these years! Was she supposed to jump with joy or just feel the deep sense of melancholy rising? Was her heart supposed to feel light with the joy or a great heaviness? Why was it always associated with mixed feelings?
“I just called to say hi”, he muttered not convincing her and not even feeling convinced.
“She is dead”, he managed to say, not able to keep the trembling in his tone.
That came as a jolt. How could she? She was all of 25 or maybe even lesser. What had happened?
“I mean her soul is dead”, he said after what had seemed like an eternity.
Where is this heading, she was wondering? Why was he telling her all of this in parts? Can he not stop being mysterious and just get on with it?
“She has lost her sense of humour and you do know that a person without a sense of humour is like a dead soul. She has changed so much. I can’t even recognize her any more. Oh, by the way she is married.”
Married, but that can’t happen. This is not the way it should be.
How could he sound cheerful when he said all of this?
The deep sense of melancholy was surging again within her. This time for him and the other her!

Two lives torn apart, so afar
Not by blasts, not even war.
They could have been so jolly,
And now they were sundered by their own folly.
A deep sense of melancholy was surging within her,
For him and the other her!