Estranged?

It is almost ten in the night when she calls, and I

am half asleep, lazily reading a book, sipping beer. He

sounds tired. Vaguely irritated by the cold, which, she

tells me, is only getting worse- that if this goes on, it

might as snow and be done with it, that it is irritating

to drive in the fog. She stops, suddenly, asks me if I have

had dinner. It is cooked, I lie-I will soon eat. She goes on to tell me

that she has had her dinner-rice and daal, that I should call her sometimes,

once a week, maybe? she suggests tentatively. It has been a month now.

I lazily flip a page, only half-listening. Outside the closed window, traffic

is a muted groan, as if the city is tired to its bones. I am, too. Of the hum of the

AC, the flat beer I am drinking, the book I am reading, my job. I listen to

her speak, and insert perfunctory remarks. Inside the room,

there are some cobwebs in the top right corner, ropy and grey with dust, like

old memories- I must have missed them when I cleaned the room.

I listen to her voice, her urgency to speak, the terror of not

communicating, which is making her talk-now telling me of neighbors

with whom we shared a childhood-who got married, whose son

now has a job in the US, who is merely dating whom, and…

I want to talk to her, to tell her that none of this matters. That

she can call me, and we do not have to fill the gap with what we care nothing

about. That silences are fine with me. Suddenly, the room closed room

is stifling. I get up and open the window, and a flood of noise comes in.

I quietly hang up.