Significantly Insignificant

(Based on a True Story)

She, the human-she, was visiting and the hill-fort was on agenda for the day, along with a group of friends. This was on earth. The sky had another her, with him, destined to be on the same hill-fort. 

The weather those days was cloudy and sultry, calling for heavy showers. The Deccan skies of the subcontinent, saw a couple glide in on a weary day. The absence of breeze didn't help. Sighting a watershed seemed a distant dream. The search for the same was going off-path. Being off-path here could mean death.

The about-to-rain skies looked like a sure shelter to the weather-beaten faces. She signalled him to stop. A cannon on top of a hill came in sight, surrounded by greens and a stone floor. It wasn't an ideal place, but looked welcoming. Water pond at the base of a curved precipice leading down from there sealed the deal.

Coming closer, she saw there was hardly any water in it. It smelled of plastic and piss.

But survival triumphs all considerations. Her look said it all and he obliged in drinking from it. A few disenchanted tourists looked their way. But they were too sun-scarred themselves to register the anomaly.

He caressed her. She let him. The day was about to make a silent exit behind the fort but twilight stayed put, as long as he felt her everywhere. There was pity directed in every touch. She met his eyes with the same pitiful eyes. All their times before the last couple of weeks leading up to here had hope, thrill, love as themes. Now, an affected desperation was making way for resignation.

In the heat of the moment, there is always one partner who wakes both to the compulsions of reality, much to the dismay of the other. The setting sun released the predators of the night. Bat squeaks, jackal yaps, the barking dogs of the fort and the lonesome piercing cat eyes announced their reign of the afterhours when all human activity ceased.

That night, they sought a cavern within the precincts of the fort. It reeked of oil and scents of smeared compounds decaying on a stone. A saffron deity was in the making which kept the bats away. Lucky for them none of the other creatures sought it. 

In that foreign land, sleep came unannounced. She drifted off followed by him. Dreams filled in their quota by playing images of home - far up north, where food and shelter was located easily.

Only one of them will wake up the next day whose arrival was soon marked by the cackle of the poultry, the geese, the twitter of the love birds and the song birds. Distant human cracks begun to be registered, although it wasn't light yet. They were sleeping an inch off each other, but only she noticed all the sounds. He couldn't. She sensed his breathe and sent out the most loving, warning and scared cries drifting down the fort.

When confirmation of breath wasn't enough, she set out, miserably seeking anything to review him. But she wasn't aware of the contours of survival in that place.

The day broke her spirits just as a human troop of four came through, when the fort began to let in people. This inquisitive lot stumbled into the cavern and saw him. They sent for help. It wasn't her.

A couple of hours passed before she returned to an empty refuge. Soul crushing calls followed. Tourists turned their heads but none could or would help, seemingly.

Meanwhile, he was already being shifted to a facility for revival far from that place.

Back at the fort, shrieking day calls routinely led to a nightfall. Her sole routine was returning to the mouth of the cave every day. Hopelessness was not a word in the dictionary of the ignorant. She may never understand the ways of the human world, but she knew she will never leave the place or him. 

Even if it meant never seeing the north again. Ever.

Every day was a penance for morning till evening. She came, she cried louder than ever and disappeared into the night. 

Meanwhile he was on IV medications elsewhere, monitored by humans. He thought of her, her safety, her food. Why him? She should have fainted, she should have been rescued, she should have all these equipment attached to her. He would happily swap places to face the uncertain world out there, if separation was the price indeed.

Another day dawned. A different 'she' was among a bunch of enthusiasts who had come visiting. That day the clouds refused to let go off the drops. It was humid enough to make life restless yet not enough to make it stick and the human-she had a headache. She held her head with both her hands as the unbearable cry from her pierced her head like thousand pins.

Cross-species female discomfort duet prompted people to notice the incongruity and send for help. More of them came, the expert sorts, and realized what she was seeking.

Further investigation revealed a touching story of avian fidelity. It culminated in him being brought back to the same place. 

She twittered happiest and loudest that day.

The reunion was on the 48th day since that night. Reunited, the lovers took flight and left the place. Unlike many unnoticed stories this one was recorded.

To this day, people claim to see them every year at the fort.

The headache-girl promised herself one more look of the couple, she had helped reunite with her discomfort. She, herself, was a visitor to the place. Her discomfort from that particular day forged an uneasy relation with the experience.

50 years to the event, the birds are no more. The human-she keeps visiting her friend. And whenever she is in town, she makes it a point to visit the mouth of the fort-cave, sit there and think of those birds, think of what true love is or was; reflect on her own relationships; her life as it happens and has happened thus far. 

Yet another night slides in and she too, like the bird, leaves; maybe to return another year, as she has been doing all these years, seeking something which the world wouldn’t know.