Numb.

It wasn’t the first time she was thinking about it. It had crossed her mind several times before and perhaps 4-5 times on that particular day. She woke up to a message from her sweetheart. It had a smiley and read I love you. That’s all. Nothing fancy. But given that it was after a massive fight they had last night, it probably deserved a little more. She smiled, half a smile, and went back to sleep. In her dreams, she saw a fat woman screaming at a kid, women talking behind corridors and a man smoking a cigar. What they meant, nobody knows. She woke up 2 hours later. She read the message again, but didn’t smile this time. Inside the bathroom, as she splashed water on her face, she woke up. And it crossed her mind for the first time that day. She turned her wrist and found that it hadn’t healed entirely. The cut had made a funny shape exactly where she’d wanted a tattoo. She sighed at the coincidence. But it didn’t seem to bother her. She pressed it to see if it hurt, but nothing happened. She dried her face and walked out, with the towel still in her hands. There was another message waiting. And two calls she had missed. She read the message first. Missing you, it said. As she read it, she wondered what to have for breakfast. She called him on her way to the kitchen. She smiled through the ten minutes they spoke. She spoke like a kid, argued like one and fiddled with a strand of hair, as she did. After hanging up, she poured the coffee into her cup. Too bitter, she thought. Nothing about their conversation. She decided to have it anyway. As she sipped on it, she let her mind wander into the busy road outside. The loud honks, that normally pierced through her ears, weaved another story in her mind. Of wars and battleships and death. She shrugged. As the sugar that had settled at the bottom of the cup made its way to her mouth. She knew what it was. She’d been there too long. Done that, way too many times. She was tucked in between them and had got used to everything around. With every block that she passed, every pit that she dodged, she felt a Déjà vu. She followed the silvery grey road. Ready with an answer at every turn. If she rammed into someone on the way, she’d brush her hair from her eyes and walk away like it could happen to anyone. Nasty comments at work made her yawn, sometimes just frown. She’d sit on her chair all day and let her fingers dance on the keys. They’d sometimes do an ‘lol’ or form dots with a curve. Her lips, however, refused to bend. When the cute guys smiled, she’d smile right back and forget it right then. While it did help her in several other ways, she knew it wasn’t quite what she had wanted. While they crossed her mind several times a day, it hardly ever went any deeper than that. There was nothing anymore that could pinch her awake or weaken her knees. There was never a moment that she could call a moment anymore. Her phone beeped. One Déjà vu led to another. She got onto her bed, cuddled herself and continued feeling numb.