‘How does your tea taste like?’, he asked me. He was playing with his cup, rubbing it, slowly moving it or sometimes just touching it. I could sense flurry of words building in his brains yet losing it’s voice when he tried to utter. Staring out of the window, absentmindedly I replied, ‘it’s sweet’. Probably he wanted to ask me about my post-break up life or simply tea, but either way, I was telling the truth.

Like me, he too, was searching for the words. I scanned my whole brain still couldn’t come up with any. And when it did, either they were awkward, silly or offending ones. After all there was nothing left except those broken dreams that we thought were ours or those ruined memories we thought we would cherish or shattered hopes we thought we would build someday . I just wanted to show him that I had no bitterness remained for what happened. Probably he too was trying to do same.

Quietly yet hurriedly I finished my tea. Probably i didn’t want to hear him or just got tired of trying to speak, I gulped down the hot tea that burned my palate and rushed towards my stomach, bringing sense of fire somewhere down. I stood up, took out few hundreds, left at the table ignoring his protest. I ran out of there, as fast as my legs could take me. I ran away from my past, from my misery fearing they would try to make their way towards me, yet again.

It was pouring outside but I stepped out. For the first time, i smelled the earth. ‘When was the last time i felt so?’ I asked myself looking for lost answers. Raindrops slowly fell over me, drop by drop, soaking me, washing away my guilt, washing away my pains. ‘Aah, monsoon!’ I exclaimed much to annoyance of passerby who wanted to rush somewhere he could hide from the downpour. No, I didn’t look back but still I could see him staring wildly at me, slowly he just shrank to nothingness.

When the rain stopped finally, i could see water drops falling down from leaves of a new young plant. It has braved the monsoon dreaming to be big-trunk tree someday. On the television, news reader was describing determination of people to rebuild their washed-away lives and asking viewers to support.

New cycle of life has begun, at last.