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StoriesSep 3rd, 2002
Dear Arpita,
I know I keep asking you the same question, but doesn’t every mail start this way anyways? How’ve you been? It’s been a while since I last heard from you. I don’t know when we went from an email at the end of every day, to a weekly thing, then a fortnightly thing. I was still ok with the monthly mail. The quarterly updates feel like the last straw though. It seems like I will only hear from you at the beginning of a new season. The monsoon this year shows no signs of ending, and as I sit here writing you this email the windowpanes reflect the lightning and the sound of the torrential rain overpowers the music from my headphones.
How eagerly we waited for the rains to give us respite from forty-degree centigrade summer days. Now the farmers weep as the rains wash away the produce that was ready for harvesting. The rain gods pay no heed to their cries. Instead they send more rain to wash away their tears. I too have grown more melancholic with each passing day. It’s not because of the rain. Its because I haven’t heard from you in over three months now.
The worst part is that your last email completely ignored the fact that there was anything wrong between us. You spoke about work and your life and how well things were going for you but said nothing about the reduced frequency of your mails. I don’t think I have it in me to send you an email of this length again. I would prefer that you make it clear to me and sever our connection once and for all.
Regards
Yash
Sep 4th, 2002
Dear Yash,
Life is great here. I went to the store today after shopping for the last three months through an online delivery service. It was a very refreshing experience. Just watching something as mundane as people queuing up at the checkout counter brought me joy. I missed people. I also miss you. This may come as surprise to you, me replying to your email so soon.
It’s not that I didn’t wish to reply sooner. Every time my hands hover over the keys I freeze up. You may be lamenting the extended monsoon, but here it feels like there are no seasons. Only an endless, unrelenting winter. Yet I continue to endure it because the answers I seek can only be found here. The reasons I never mentioned anything about our relationship was because I was afraid to breach that topic at all. I didn’t have it in my heart to end it. I never had a good enough reason to. I still don’t.
I had hoped that you would be the one to dump me for any reason of your choosing. I rather have you think of me as a cruel, cold hearted bitch and kick me out of your life. You deserve better than me. Your understanding and patience over the last few months have really let me know how profound your love truly is. That’s why I feel that there is someone out there more worthy of your love than me. If this was the last time that you were going to email me I hope that this email helps you understand things better.
Love
Arpita
Sep 4rd, 2002
Dear Arpita,
When I saw your email in my inbox I checked twice to see if an older email had somehow resurfaced to the top of the list. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. Everything you said somehow makes sense to me, and yet nothing makes sense. You put the onus of ending this relationship on me. You make it sound like you are cruel person. You know I can’t end it this way and neither can you. We love each other too much to take this kind of an action.
I know I’ve asked you a million times but you can still try telling me why you had to leave. To a place so far away that seasons cease to exist. If you want me to end this I deserve a better explanation than, you aren’t worthy for me. This has nothing to do with love. I need logical answers now.
Regards
Yash
Oct 3rd 2002
Dear Arpita,
The silent treatment again. I had some hope that I would finally get some answers after your last email. As much as it pains me to do this, this truly is the last time I contact you.
Thanks for all the memories.
Love
Yash
January 2nd, 2003
Dear Yash,
I am happy to share with you that I may have finally found what I came here for. If this is something that matters to you, you can continue reading. Before that I wanted to let you know that it breaks my heart that all this had to come at the cost of our relationship and I will feel the pain of it for the rest of my life.
Do you remember when we first met. You summoned the courage to ask me or should I say had the audacity to ask me if I was seeing someone before you could ask me anything else. It was only the third time I had seen you. Well it just wasn’t you that was noticing someone at the medical store. Remembering the moment when it all began for us always fills me with joy.
My father who passed away a few months after I met you was a man full of secrets. He never revealed too many of them until two years after his death. He could have gone the old way of leaving me a letter to discover among his belongings. He somehow found a way to send me an email that was scheduled for exactly two years after his death.
As if seeing it any sooner would have terrible consequences. He was right and he went to great lengths to make sure this happened exactly at the time he wished. Now is the time for you to suspend your beliefs.
Father and mother came here thirty years ago. They told me they had lived here since three generations, but they were from a place far away from here. They were refugees. They were found helpless by a researcher at a facility near the North Pole. He took them in promising to tell no one of their presence.
That was the normal part of the story. After that my father’s mail took a turn for the truly bizarre. It was strange enough that they ended up at the North Pole, but what my father meant by refugees was they were refugees from another planet. A planet like ours that was several generations ahead of us.
The aurora borealis that occurs at the North Pole obscured their ships movements so that they could escape undetected from the planet. They had to because pregnancy was a crime punishable by death. A planet where population was regulated because it could not sustain any more humans. As hard as this was to believe I still wasn’t sure why he had waited two years after his death to tell me this. I was old enough to understand.
He told me the name of the researcher who had found them. I knew I had to go there if I wanted to ascertain if this wasn’t an elaborate hoax played by someone who wasn’t my father. I have been staying here in Greenland trying to track down this man for the past year. I finally got in touch with him and made a plan to meet him tomorrow.
You must now realize that if I had told you the true purpose of my trip, you would never have let me go. A fool’s errand you would have called it. You know me better than most. I can’t let things go. Just like I couldn’t let you go.
Its late and I must prepare for my meeting with the man tomorrow. The only lie I told you was that I was going on a work trip from which I would be back soon. I just stretched the definition of soon until it broke your heart. Sorry.
Love
Arpita