The Marathon Dusk.

The time and the place had been eventfully decided. They were to see each other and wishfully, this would be the last time would be “seeing” each other. The act of ignorance and hence the subsequent indifference had dug its lair into their brains. They had taken a severe beating from the tiring exhaustion and the infinite degree of boredom heaped upon them by this mounting strangulation. Both of them were mindful of the other’s infidelity; both of them were aware of the either’s bondage and priorities; both of them pined for independence; both of them had resigned.

The wait was a patient one.

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“You can take my overcoat, if it comforts you.”

Joseph “Droll” was a tall man, though not tall enough to snatch your attention. His three-and-a-half feet torso and an uncannily slender waistline gave a copy-book picture of a eucalyptus. His peaceful face bore not a wrinkle and the tight, pinkish skin gave him the look of a cold, wet lobster. The rat-ish nose was just enough to keep him breathing, and alive. The black in his eyes was black enough to instill a sense of uneasy isolation, and the only feature noteworthy in the whole of his countenance was the breadth, or more accurately, the volume of his “lusty” lips, though it bought him more embarrassment, than it earned him laurels. No wonder, but for his lips, he was not popular among women.

His booming voice beat on her eardrums with the frequency, faster than the thrash she was listening to. For a moment or so, she almost seemed to be toppling from the fence she was straddling. Hurriedly, her supple form regained its composure.

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“Thanks, but I think I am better off on my own,” was the reply. The lady wore a teasingly friendly look, friendlier than he had expected. The rest of her was silently gazing at the steadiness in his steps as he walked past her. Proud as a peacock, wondered she. This was the second time the offered had been refused.

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His thoughts were in total control and more disciplined than the clock, and forcefully led him into the state of semi-unconsciousness. His mind and soul screamed noisily, in perfect octave. The bugle of the clock announced the seventeenth hour of the day. The mélange of the dusk had settled into a sensuous mauve.

But the wait was still on, and a patient one.

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Shifting uneasily, the lady kept quiet.

"I thought you might be feeling sort of..."

Joseph tried to act friendlier. A man in his mid-thirties and still unmarried should not have any different thoughts. The time of the year and the hour of the day gave reason enough for the offered to have been offered. The smooth currents were soft on her dusky melanin. With her only in a thin drape of satin, the chill got it feast of the day. April, after all, is not the cruelest month, and the winter wind is crueler than human ingratitude. Joseph was thinking fast. This was not the first time he was strolling in the Green Square, and definitely not the first lady he was trying to help. "What's wrong if I offer her my overcoat. I got it laundered today, and moreover its a pleasant perfume that I am wearing . And besides , its chilly and she is only in a satin."

Confidently, Droll made his second remark: "I thought you might be feeling, you know, kinda..."

"Shut up, or I will pluck your balls and give them to the same child..."

Before he was done with his 'help', and even before his butts found some ground, her icily cold, ferocious glare conveyed her reply.

He was ruffling the hair of the ten year old, who had come by them searching for his balls, while expressing himself. Casually speaking, his eyes met those of hers, and a chill of her look ran down his spine. The gush of his feelings was stopped abruptly by the dam. He could not help imagining his balls...wait a minute, which balls was she talking about? his eyeballs or... no, no second thought. The lady looked decent and aren't decent girls supposed to talk decent things? She must have meant his...whatever. All he could think of was the cruel pain in his eyes, the sadistic grin on her face and a sense of immense satisfaction in the boy's movement, after being  promised the first of their kind balls as the gift. Three different expressions, three reasons, all valid enough.

His daydream was disturbed by the ghoulish vision of bursting balls and the voyeurism of the lady.

After all, the winter wind was really kinder than the human ingratitude.

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