It was just another day at work..and as usual I was multitasking – switching my view from the software that I work on to the many pages on chrome ranging from Gmail to Facebook – whilst keeping my mind off a chatathon which had commenced in the neighbouring cubicle.
**
That’s when I saw your name on the Gmail chat list in green – available – and that’s how my very perfectly mundane day ceased to be. For one whole minute I couldn’t take my eyes off your name. You were online and your chat status signalled that you were available. How I wish you WERE available.
**
Suddenly the world around me seemed to dissolve into a deep abyss. I was oblivious to the passersby or the chatter. I could neither shift to the software I was working on nor to another tab on the browser. I fell into a chasm of memories that I had kept hidden from myself for some time now.
**
I remember getting excited whenever your name appeared on the chat list ensuring endless conversations ending with a smile on my face. In that little box on the corner of the screen, I shared my secrets, my joy, my pain and my world with you. That little box was where we met, day after day, strengthening our bond, closing in the distance that lay between the two of us. It was in that little box that I fell in love with you.
**
One day, you turned from green to grey. Perhaps you need some time away from being green was what I thought. Little did I know that you would choose to remain that way forever. The little box – my refuge, my respite– only popped up in my head when I had a lament against you or when I lashed at you in frustration but it never turned green.
**
I came out of the reverie and found myself still staring at your name. The chatter around me hadn’t ceased and I have no clue if someone had caught me staring at the screen. I couldn’t care less.
**
I stretched my hand longingly towards your name to feel it.. half hoping that I would feel your fingers touching mine. Hopelessly..but I waited. Thought you would open the box for old time’s sake. I waited, but it only took a few seconds to know I would wait forever. I uncrossed my fingers.
**
You were gone. Your name had turned from green to grey.
**
A Libran, Rashmi Ramachandra dotes on her morning cup of coffee. The family’s official juke box, Rashmi is a trained classical singer, an MBA in Marketing and HR who very soon found out that radio was her actual calling as it kept her close to the one thing that she loves the most – Music. A huge Harry Potter fan, she is trying to create a broomless version of the quidditch. ‘Life is too precious to complicate’ is what she lives by.