Oh Mary!

Every Wednesday Mary went to Pink Room, a hip and popular club in the heart of the city. Her date was Fred, a lawyer friend around whom the complexities of sexual politics were sidelined as they soared high in pink twilight. It was in this very luminescent room that Mary saw John, who was accompanying two women and a man. Conversations happened and they engulfed each other with the warmth of ‘knowing’ and eliminating ‘complexities’ under the pink blanket of romance. Time flew by. Mary got close with John’s friends. The women were his sisters and the man, a co-worker.

Mary and John liked taking long walks in parks and early morning quiet roads. The silence made their voice loud and thoughts louder. Mary liked latching onto his fingers now and then. No matter where he moved, sat or walked. She kept her fingerscrossed and tightly tangled, and somehow got himself to like that. Before seeing in her eyes the assurance of finding ‘the One’, he had seen something else. One of those peaceful mornings when John and Mary were sitting beside the road on a cold wooden bench, Mary talked about her life. Her childhood, the motorcycle her father had and the innumerable rides she took on it late at night. She said,

“My father liked taking me to stranded places as well. On his dark grey Honda. We always went past 11:30.”

John replied, “11:30 PM? Isn’t that quite late? What did you do out so late?”

“Pretty much what we do in the light of day. My father and me, we talked. About how love works, how bicycles wear out and how much mother loves me.”

“That is still pretty late at night. For how long did you wander?”

“Oh! It was not that late, dear Time passed rather quickly in his warm and delightful company. I still cherish those nights.”

“Well, what else you did except talking?”

“We just talked, love!”

“All night?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. Tell me more about the bike.”

“No.”

John saw her eyes change. They seemed to have turned night black from chocolate brown. The warmth of her entwined fingers went cold, and though John tried to get the grip, she pulled back her hand to make him fail. He assumed that she probably started missing her father who had been dead for 7 years now. So, he let her be.

Days passed and John was right, Mary had slipped into fried. She had a fragile mind after the appropriate amount of courting and anticipating John proposed and Mary, with all her innocent love, accepted. They were elated and announced the world of their love and marriage. They vowed before the formal vows to never lie. Mary had made him repeat one specific night,

“ ‘Mary, I will never ever ever lie to you’, repeat this three times John.”

And like an obedient lover, John did. “Mary, I will never ever ever lie to you. Mary, I will never ever ever lie to you. Mary, I will never ever ever lie to you.”

Mary leapt at him and held him in her embrace. She was happy. Really truly happy. She had the perfect job, the perfect man with the perfect job perfect!

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Madge was dating an older man, of nearly forty. Though she liked the stimulating and challenging sex life, but he never took her on motorcycle rides like her father did when she was young. So, Madge put on her hottest dress, revealing her luscious curves and drove to the nearest biker-pub downtown. The nearest one was 25 kilometers from John’s posh and sophisticated neighborhood. Over there she was able to be her youthful exciting self. Weekly appearances made her the pub’s favorite singer. She would climb up the bar-top and perform hottest and demanding numbers. That is exactly when Madge caught James’ eyes. Madge’s voice filled the room with enthusiasm and exhilarated James’ wishful heart. Not too long after that night did Madge followed James to his house. James was the perfect man for her. He had the perfect body and the perfect bike! Just perfect. One day James brought some top-grade California hybrid, which elevated him and Madge to impossible levels. In that ecstasy they swam all night and until the next afternoon. But the ‘trip’ didn’t last very long, as Madge had to go back to the older man in her life, John. Who she had escaped from lying about a visit to her relatives.

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As soon as Mary reached home from her sister’s place, she hugged John and went on and on about how much she missed him. And she really did, her heart anticipated his phone calls. Settling down John asked her,

“How was the stay, love?”

“”Oh God! All I could do was miss you. All day I could keep lying in the bed, waiting for it to smell like you.”

“Aww dear! I missed you very much too. Anyways, how is your sister?

“I don’t remember much. I even had a headache this morning. Just hold me and enquire all this later.”

And the loving husband that he was, John followed. They sat in each other’s embrace all night people wondered and envied their love, which refused to diminish despite 15 years of matrimony. But only John knew, the small battles they fought whose memory retained only in his life. It was like they were walking parallel paths, which intersected often, but Mary had no memory of them. So, whenever she came complaining about a headache, John held her till it went away, knowing she would have no recollection whatsoever.  It had all began that morning on the bench when Mary talked about her father for the first and last time. He tired asking her again about his death, and neither did the conversation last long nor did she remember it few hours later. This is how it went -

“Mary, you never did tell me about your father’s death.”

“I didn’t?” Mary replied rather reluctantly.

“No, never. I heard he had a terrible accident. Case of hit and run.”

“The papers said he was murdered.”

A surprised John asked, “What! When? How old were you?”

“I was 20. Late at night. While he was on his motorcycle.”

“Oh God! Were you with him when this happened? Did you see?”

A blank silence followed this and the three more questions John had asked. Mary was cold again and he decided to stop there. Forever. But that night also took away one of the things John had deeply loved in her, her singing. Mary never sang to him anymore saying she was never good anyways and had almost forgotten all harmony. John was disheartened and promised himself never to ask of her father again.

But tonight when she came back with a headache after a two-day visit John felt worried and scared of what unmentionable and irrevocable thing had she gotten herself into. so he decided to find out where she goes when she does next.

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Madge had been yearning for James. The twenty-something who made the twenty year old Madge feel divine and unstoppable. Freedom had not been the same for Madge, it never is for girls. So with James, Madge was liberated and free. Yearning and craving for the exhilaration as she reached his doorstop. Madge had again told John that the relatives needed her help with some housework. Seeing James her heart skipped a beat, the excitement took over her body as she shuddered for his tight grip. His weight over her body thrusting in the magnificent dreams and juices he had made her addicted to. The smell of their bodies filled the room.  They had not exchanged a single word, knowing the honesty and motives behind their meetings. The friction was still radiating heat when a banging was heard. They ignored too absorbed in each other’s enigma they swam higher and higher. The banging continued on the door, but they couldn’t give the smallest attention to it. The loud noise finally stopped. James and Madge both sat up as they heard footsteps coming to the room. Madge pulled the sheet over her breasts trying heard to be decent, until she saw the man staring at her from the room’s door.

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John had followed Mary to see whether she was getting herself in trouble. He had been terribly worried since the last visit. Hours getting erased were affordable, but entire days getting lost terrified him. So this time when Mary said that her sister needed her, John decided to take care of her quietly without being too loud of encroaching in his pursuit. The pursuit brought him to a man’s house which he saw Mary entering. After no response or movement for half and hour, he decided to enter and assure her safety. He picked a baseball bat before leaving the car, as he had no idea of what he was walking into. He really had no idea that he would be standing and staring at his forty-year old wife, covering her breasts in bed with a very young man. John saw Mary, with her pupils dilated and hair tied. Mary never tied her hair. The first shock that took over him was not seeing her in another man’s bed, but the trouble he had recognizing her. Her face was distorted by unknown expressions, she never lifted her eyebrows like that nor did she ever paint her lips bright ink. Somehow the woman he had married was lost in this seemingly younger lookalike. But he knew it was her. He had followed her there. After taking time to grasp the condition she was in and with whom, John dropped the baseball bat and screamed,

“OH MARY!”

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The sight of an unfamiliar man freaked James out. Moreover, that man was screaming somebody else’s name. Being of the reckless youth that he was, James reached for his drawer where he kept a small revolver, bought with the help of some biker friends. Whereas this other man kept screaming,

“OH MARY! OH MARY! OH MARY!”

Raising the tempo with every shout. James was petrified now and in a moment of fear took the revolver out pointing towards the stranger. Madge on the other hand didn’t understand why was John calling her ‘Mary’. Sure they had started spending very little time together now, and she didn’t even remember most of it but he can’t forget possibly her. Finally she spoke,

“John! This is MADGE not MARY. Don’t you remember me?”

But she was too late; James already had the gun pointed at John.

John’s screaming quiet down when he saw the gun facing him. He slowly bent down to pick up the bat again. The guy in the bed was palpitating. John knew he didn’t have it in him to shoot. So he held the bat in his hand and started moving towards the man with his wife, in order to get rid of the gun. He kept shouting, “I will shoot you, man!” John couldn’t care less; he had anyways lost the love of his life to an abyss of multiplicity. He kept moving forward, and then the shot. The trembling man did have it in him to fire, and so he did in John’s stomach. Instead of falling immediately, John took a blow at him and so did James.

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Madge sat beside John she saw the blood in her hands, James’ was still splattered in her back. Her naked body was trying to hard to caress and gather the almost lifeless body of John. Right before closing his eyes John saw Mary’s eyes change to the one’s he fell in love with. And he saw the twenty year old vanishing. The one who hadn’t aged a day since her father was killed in front of her. The one who was young and thirsty. He saw her leave, and the warmth of his wife’s body finally arriving and soothing him. Right before he could close his eyes, Mary screamed,

“JOHN!!”

And the man, caked in his own blood sighed with great affection,

“Oh Mary! You really never lied.”