Fantasy Fable: Hope lives on

He looked at his cell phone. It still didn’t show any notifications. No new messages.

“Why do you always remain buried with your phone?” asked Ravish in an impermeable manner.

“He’s got a secret life within his phone!” replied Aaarav with an impish smile.

“Our friend has so many mysteries lying beneath him!” joked Ravish.

 The phone looked like a dead device. Well, ignorance is never bliss. He didn’t mind not being appreciated nor loved but bewilderment was beyond his imagination. He never expected that. As such, he hadn’t heard from her for days.

“I think I am destined to be eluded by love forever!” he sighed.

“You are still an amateur, my boy. You know nothing about the game of love!” laughed off Ravish.

For him, it was never a game. Love was a new thing for him. And it became something more than precious. Even then, his love was different. He couldn’t really explain but somehow it was very distinctive for him. He wanted to express it to someone but he never did. In fact, he never could.

Aarav and Ravish knew the inside out of him. They knew that his adoration towards that girl was a different one. But somehow they felt he didn’t understand everything about love and affection.

He smiled his way through everything. Aarav and Ravish never saw him in an angry or sad frame of mind. They knew him as the one with the never ending smile. But here, they knew his smile was a fake one.

“You should stop thinking about her. She is happy and blessed with somebody else.” Said Ravish.

“Ravish is absolutely correct. Ordain both of them. You haven't committed any crime that you are trying to incarcerate yourself!” replied Aarav with a grin.

Maybe, that’s the only atrocity he could have thought of now. Her heart lay elsewhere. And he knew that. But some things are beyond jurisdiction. Still, he had affection for her.

“I should apologize to her! But she hasn’t replied to any of my pursuit to contact her. I don’t know what is happening here!” he sighed heavily.

“Apologize? Are you out of your mind?” shouted Ravish in astonishment.

“You know nothing, Mr. Akshat Malhotra!” said Aaarav, a dialogue, copied from a popular TV series.

Looking at the phone wasn’t helping his cause. It reminded him of the sad reality he was surviving in. A single response was all he was longing for. Sadly, there was an immense amount of silence from her side.

He gave her a call but she didn’t pick it up. After a few more tries, he finally gave up. Boys gave up too easily, she told him once. And he clearly recalls that instance of her asserting that law. But little did she know that boys give everything in those very countable attempts. Irrespective of what she felt for him, he still adored her. She still filled his alluring thoughts. He feels lucky to have a friend like her. But her ignorance was giving him enough twinge to endanger that smile from his face.

That night, he had a heavy urge to shed a few tears. But he held back.

“Mom, am I not perfect?” he asked his mother with a tinge of expectation running within him.

For his mom, he was the perfect gentleman. No matter the situation, she always stood behind him. Nothing in this world would deter her motherly love towards him. That amount of love gave him the fortitude to live upon his soul. She was the one iron lady in his life. She single-handedly fought the crusades of life and had brought him up as the fine young lad everybody saw in him.

“You have always been a superhero!” his mom replied with a firm radiance in her eyes.

His eyes filled up. He had his mother’s eyes. Those glimmering brown eyes made him connected to his mother in more ways than one could imagine. Keeping a smirk on his face was important. He couldn’t let his mother get a hint about the situation prevailing in his heart. But for some reasons, she knew. She always had a penchant of knowing what was going through her son. She somehow knew he kept secrets within him. But, she respected that habit of her son. She never let him get an impression about that.

She gave him a delicate pat on his back. With a smile reflecting on both their faces, they parted for their separate rooms.

The moon shone through the window. The rays meant to depict hope. Hope was everything he could do right now. He looked beyond the dark sky. The innumerable twinkling stars looked down towards him. He wished someone was glancing down at him in the form of a star. He knew the conclusion of his one-sided yearning story. He was the super-hero, as his mom exclaimed earlier. He knew the consequences. He had read enough comic books in his entire childhood. The hero never manages to enact love. He never unites with his special one, be it Superman or Batman. He had to live with that very fact. But he had to fight on, keep his mom’s dreams ticking and obviously keep the smiles around him live on.

With a smile that eluded him for most of the day, he rushed to his mother's room and with a diligent voice, wished her:
"Good Night, mom!"