03-09-2025, 09:32 AM
Ravi Alone in Flat 205
The door clicked shut behind Sirisha, and silence rushed in like a tide. It was only noon, yet the flat already felt hollow, deserted, as though a festival had ended and everyone had gone home. Her laughter still clung to the walls, sweet and warm, mixed with the faint trace of jasmine she left behind. Ravi stood in the middle of the living room, motionless, staring at nothing.
His eyes drifted to the couch. The cushions still carried her imprint, the fabric wrinkled where she had shifted nervously before leaving. On the table, the tea cups sat like evidence: one drained, the other half-full, its surface faintly disturbed. They looked ordinary, but to him they felt like scars left behind, reminders of something he wished he could wipe away.
For a long time he didn’t move. His body felt heavy, rooted. Finally, he lowered himself into the chair opposite the couch, elbows on his knees, hands pressing against his face.
“Priya Didi…” he whispered, and the name came out as if it had been dragged from somewhere deep, raw, broken.
Her face swam before him. The way her eyes had slowly, cautiously softened after weeks of keeping distance. The delicate way she had begun to speak to him again, as though testing whether he was still the boy she thought she knew. And then, those moments that had felt like promises: the quiet questions, the half-smiles, the silence that felt like confession.
He remembered the evening on the couch when his breath hovered near her cheek, a moment away from crossing into something irreversible, until Amit’s call shattered it. That memory had burned inside him ever since, and now, today, he had thrown it all away.
He glanced at his phone on the table. Her name glowed in the list of unanswered calls, and his last message, “Please, Didi… let me explain”, stared back like a wound. His thumb hovered over the keypad.
He wanted to send more. Ten more. A hundred more. But what could he write? What excuse could carry the weight of this betrayal? He didn’t even understand it himself, this weakness with Sirisha, this confusion he couldn’t explain even to himself.
The afternoon light stretched across the floor, bright but lifeless. Outside, the city went on: car horns, vendors shouting, children playing somewhere below. Life refused to pause even though Ravi’s world had cracked.
He sat there for hours, not noticing the time. His stomach growled once or twice, but he ignored it. Hunger seemed trivial compared to the ache inside him. When the shadows lengthened and the room turned dusky, he realized he had eaten nothing since morning. Still, he felt no appetite.
Only when his phone buzzed with a food delivery notification, an app he had opened earlier without thinking, did he stir. Mechanically, he accepted the order, and sometime later, he opened the door to the delivery boy, exchanged the parcel without a word, and returned inside.
The food was tasteless. He forced it down bite by bite, chewing mechanically, swallowing not out of hunger but duty, like a man trying to keep a weak flame from dying out. He left the wrappers on the table, next to the tea cups from earlier. Evidence piled on evidence.
By nightfall, the flat was dark except for the pale glow of his phone screen. Ravi sat slouched on the couch, staring at nothing, his chest heavy, his thoughts circling endlessly around Priya. Should he try again? Should he call one last time, just to hear her voice, even if she cut the line? Or should he leave her alone, let her anger settle? He didn’t know.
The phone buzzed suddenly in his hand. The vibration startled him so much he nearly dropped it.
His heart leapt wildly, her. Maybe she had softened.
Maybe she was ready to listen.
Maybe there was still a chance to explain, to undo, to beg.
The door clicked shut behind Sirisha, and silence rushed in like a tide. It was only noon, yet the flat already felt hollow, deserted, as though a festival had ended and everyone had gone home. Her laughter still clung to the walls, sweet and warm, mixed with the faint trace of jasmine she left behind. Ravi stood in the middle of the living room, motionless, staring at nothing.
His eyes drifted to the couch. The cushions still carried her imprint, the fabric wrinkled where she had shifted nervously before leaving. On the table, the tea cups sat like evidence: one drained, the other half-full, its surface faintly disturbed. They looked ordinary, but to him they felt like scars left behind, reminders of something he wished he could wipe away.
For a long time he didn’t move. His body felt heavy, rooted. Finally, he lowered himself into the chair opposite the couch, elbows on his knees, hands pressing against his face.
“Priya Didi…” he whispered, and the name came out as if it had been dragged from somewhere deep, raw, broken.
Her face swam before him. The way her eyes had slowly, cautiously softened after weeks of keeping distance. The delicate way she had begun to speak to him again, as though testing whether he was still the boy she thought she knew. And then, those moments that had felt like promises: the quiet questions, the half-smiles, the silence that felt like confession.
He remembered the evening on the couch when his breath hovered near her cheek, a moment away from crossing into something irreversible, until Amit’s call shattered it. That memory had burned inside him ever since, and now, today, he had thrown it all away.
He glanced at his phone on the table. Her name glowed in the list of unanswered calls, and his last message, “Please, Didi… let me explain”, stared back like a wound. His thumb hovered over the keypad.
He wanted to send more. Ten more. A hundred more. But what could he write? What excuse could carry the weight of this betrayal? He didn’t even understand it himself, this weakness with Sirisha, this confusion he couldn’t explain even to himself.
The afternoon light stretched across the floor, bright but lifeless. Outside, the city went on: car horns, vendors shouting, children playing somewhere below. Life refused to pause even though Ravi’s world had cracked.
He sat there for hours, not noticing the time. His stomach growled once or twice, but he ignored it. Hunger seemed trivial compared to the ache inside him. When the shadows lengthened and the room turned dusky, he realized he had eaten nothing since morning. Still, he felt no appetite.
Only when his phone buzzed with a food delivery notification, an app he had opened earlier without thinking, did he stir. Mechanically, he accepted the order, and sometime later, he opened the door to the delivery boy, exchanged the parcel without a word, and returned inside.
The food was tasteless. He forced it down bite by bite, chewing mechanically, swallowing not out of hunger but duty, like a man trying to keep a weak flame from dying out. He left the wrappers on the table, next to the tea cups from earlier. Evidence piled on evidence.
By nightfall, the flat was dark except for the pale glow of his phone screen. Ravi sat slouched on the couch, staring at nothing, his chest heavy, his thoughts circling endlessly around Priya. Should he try again? Should he call one last time, just to hear her voice, even if she cut the line? Or should he leave her alone, let her anger settle? He didn’t know.
The phone buzzed suddenly in his hand. The vibration startled him so much he nearly dropped it.
His heart leapt wildly, her. Maybe she had softened.
Maybe she was ready to listen.
Maybe there was still a chance to explain, to undo, to beg.
-- oOo --
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