Negator

(Inspiration: Drama serial “Munkir")

“Aaj aap bilkul hoor lag rhe hein" (You look like a houri today)



Dear Runa,



The first time I saw you, I thought of heaven. Ironic isn’t it? The heaven I had so wanted to reach, that you had stopped me from entering, you reminded me of the same heaven. And I had wondered if God really had granted me the gift before the sacrifice.



You weren’t a dream, you were a mirage, a living, breathing mirage I fed with every ounce of my imagination. A life worth eons that I lived in moments. In one fell swoop, my trivial, evanescent existence had experienced consequence.

My life had meaning for the first time, before you I only had paths and obligations. And I know that you were way above my station, that you were an outlier in the events of the common misery that has been my life. We no longer live in a world where a princess can fall for a woodcutter’s son.



If this letter is only a record of my hopes, then I’ll tell you, I did hope. How could I not? How could I not hope for the sun after having basked in sunlight? To not want a forever after tasting the elixir of immortality?



To not want to see after spending infinities blind?



They told me I had strayed from a path that led straight to God. But how could I have not, when it was you who took my hand and made me walk away from the paradise that was a button’s press away?

Is this transgression then? To have found heaven in your eyes, the sun in your smile? Did I sin every time I cried to God for you?

But then why is it, that when I heard your voice, it felt like God had called me for the first time? Why did falling for you feel like submitting to Him?



I looked at you, and questioned for the first time. Questioned all the hatred for this temporary world my mind had been brewed in, questioned the path of the martyr I was destined to be.



And see, this is why, Runa, this is why I did what I did. The only purpose I had in life before, it was gone the second I laid eyes on you. All the fire that I had wanted to burn this infidel world in, it doused in my dreams of you.

I had let all I had believed in, all that had sustained me go, what else did I have to live for except you?

And it’s not that I didn’t try. I tried to forget you, to find the fire of hate again. But my mind failed me, it gave in to the heart that had betrayed all it had lived for before you. This heart that was supposed to beat for one purpose and one purpose only, it thundered in rebellion for you. Rebellion of missions, heavens and duties.



And when had I ever pretended to be strong, Runa? Especially when it came to you? When had I ever been the kind of man who deserved you?

You, whose love led me away from the ever-lasting bliss of heaven, who destroyed me by saving me. Who was my salvation and my undoing.



I hope when you look back at your life, you remember me as providence. Not as a blessing, or a curse. Just a prophecy, meant to be fulfilled, not to last.



Will you say a prayer for me at my funeral, Runa? I deserve at least that right? I need you to promise that you will. That you will only remember the human you saw in me, not the animal. That when we are raised to question on that Day, you will take my hand without regrets.



Until we meet again.

G.