Happy Birthday, my love

DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional story. All the characters are fictional. The incident itself is a creation. Any resemblance to people or to the situations in the real world, is purely coincidental.

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Abhi was staring at the computer, hoping for some miracle, as his new problem does not seem to dissolve at his persuasive attempts. The clock keeps ticking as the seconds tick to minutes and into hour. At the strike of six O’clock in the evening, his calendar snoozed reminding him that he promised his girl friend a ride and dinner, as her birthday present. His heart did a flip flop as he realized he might not make it and ruin her perfectly good day.

“Are you done?”, his manager was standing next to him.

“Not even close”, he responded.

His manager grunted and went his way. Abhi was frustrated. He loved his work and prided himself on his priorities and days like this, he wished he was working else where than this timeless job he landed himself in.

At seven, knowing that he would be spending more than a reasonable amount of time in the office, he took a deep breath and called his girl friend. They were married, but he fancied calling her his girl friend. Her only demand ever was that he spent some quality time with her, particularly on occasions, than purchase mindless gifts that are not worth the money or time, as he fancied giving her. And thus, though the broken promise particularly as trivial as a dinner should have been understandable between a wife and husband, when they share every breath together, left him displeased endlessly.

The phone was unanswered. He called the landline and got the answering machine.

“Hi honey, I am sorry, but I seem to be held with work, do you think you can forgive me? Promise, I will make it up to you”, he said into the phone. Knowing that she would be listening, he said, “Promise that I will take the rest of the week off, please answer the phone”, shuddering that he would never get an entire week off, particularly with the tender date approaching. After a moment’s silence, he hung up the phone. He had some very long persuasion to do.

He looked at the screen again and decided to give it a fresh start. He struggled for another beastly hour to tally the figures on the excel sheet. The numbers seem to elude him today before he noticed what he was missing. It was glaring right in his face all this time. Cursing at his stupidity, he modified the sheet, verified the figures at the bottom and sent the sheet to his manager. At eight, he was a satisfied man, walking to his car shuddering what lay ahead. He drove home picking his wife’s favourite orchids at a princely price, after all, a man has some charming to do when he reached home.

“Honey, I am home”, he called out as he twisted the door knob. The lights were off. He walked round to switch on the light, noticing that the quietness disturbed him. He was prepared for persuading her, but silence would only make it harder.

He called out, “Swapna??”

A reverberating echo greeted him. He looked around, noticing the picture that hung on his wall. Married for five years seventy eight days, his childhood sweet heart was looking at him, in fact questioning him if he no longer cared to make her feel special. But something was wrong with the photo. It took a minute to notice the dried bouquet of roses below it. Collapsing to the floor, he wept unabashed at the empty house, glad that he had work that demands more of his attention than the harsh cruelties of life.

Gathering himself, he got up and replaced the roses with orchids he bought for her and said, “Happy Birthday, my love. I miss you.”