The Revelation

We came running towards the house up the tree lined dusty lane giggling, like we just had been to the movies in the town and were running home after getting off the bus. The house was quiet outside, the bamboo gate bars partly open, some halfway taken off, the lowest bar still in place to ward off the wandering stray cows. I reached first, you close after, both jumping over that one bar in our strides all the while laughing. I forget what the joke was if there was one.

We went straight into the large front sitting room and beyond into the doorway to the hall. I stopped, leaning on the wall just beyond the door and suddenly realized there were a lot of people around us sitting and chatting in the house. The front room that we just passed was filled with people, some I recognised as neighbours, sitting and chatting lazily. The hallway where I had paused looked rather empty but I could see through the other doors into the other rooms and they were all full of people. Everybody seemed happy in a subdued way. I looked back into the front room and saw that most of them were women dressed in simple traditional daily attires, some colourful, some whites and many were doing chores, preparing traditional snacks and chewables, slicing vegetables, getting crockery ready, while others chatted away, all as if they were a part of a happy gathering. All this I registered in a moment of pausing leaning on the wall by the doorway while you caught your breath half leaning on the wall a couple of feet away from me. And as I was about to look back into the hallway and at you, through the corner of my eye I saw this simple lady walk into the front room with a little toddler and suddenly all the ladies attention was on that kid. I looked at him and had a weird feeling. As if I had seen him somewhere and knew him. But then I looked at you.

I remember consciously noticing at that point that you were wearing a simple traditional dress too, dull-red and green and white. Also that I was wearing a simple cotton half sleeve shirt and plain trousers. Instinctively, I just reached out and put my arm across and pulled you onto me strongly, you still giggling, panting less now and totally caught unawares but very pleasantly surprised. In an instant I held you close, left arm across your low back circling and hand touching your bare midriff. A touch well known but yet mesmerizing to me always. You leaned back trying to pull away unclasping my hand, trying to assert that it was improper. It was evident you liked it but were not easy lest anyone should notice us! A bit confused, I was a bit slow to realize holding you in public there was ‘not acceptable’ in some way. Leaning back you look simply beautiful and my eyes were transfixed on your face. Like the way we always looked at each other. Momentary and yet as if the rest of the world around us melted away. Time stood still again and all there was was our ‘connect’! But then in an instant it registered on me that you, I mean your face, was not the same. You looked like someone else! The very instant you broke free of my grip and ran away towards another room bouncy and giggling. And looking forward suddenly I could see myself in the large mirror on the opposite wall and to my utter disbelief I realized I did not look the same. My face too was different!

Groggy, slowly my eyes focus on the ceiling. First thought I am aware of is how beautiful you looked running away from me and then wait a moment...why did you look different? And me? Why was I so? Startled, I look around for you fully woken now only to realize you are not there. Well well, I do know where you are. Soon we will talk in the morning as usual. And it was at that moment when all of a sudden it dawned on me that I just had a beautiful dream! That is why this elated yet mystifying feeling. Trying to go back into it, I close my eyes again. I start to replay it all, bit by bit, in my mind. I am leaning on the wall panting looking back at the front room again and see the kid, the toddler walking holding his mother’s hand. The familiarity of that face, mystifying I think...and suddenly in an instant the whole thing fell into place! That kid, he was the other older baby in the beautiful old black and white photograph in my home album, our neighbor moms holding us both in their arms. You and I were yet to be born, and the happy occasion was preparation for my parents wedding in the small town. No wonder no one seemed to mind us eternal lovers!