Their Last Date

He walked over to the bench that overlooked the waterfront.

Her laughter echoed over the bay, swathed in blues and greens, but more blue than green. They sat on the brown bench and gazed at the blue waters. He could not have asked for a better place for their last date.

It was their last date in an on-off relationship and he had decided to bend his knee for her, and in his hand would be their ring. And from tomorrow, they would have moved forward, and this would be their last date indeed.

He knew she was the one he had been waiting for. They had had their fair share of fights and misgivings – one fight had seen her aiming a vase at his face. Yet they had stuck together for so long. So, he had realised, they should stick together till death do them apart.

As he went down on his knee, she got up to shield him from the red hot wave that crashed from the shore onto the waves of the sea.

He remembered searching for her eyes but instead finding tears in front of his. He shivered from the overwhelming pain of that memory. It made him drop his phone that played the recordings of the fateful day, when a bomb blast had separated them, over a distance greater than physical.

The video was playing as it always did: at this spot, on this day for every single year for the past 40 years, and he clasping the now chipped ring.

The scene on his mobile ended with an image of the ruckus of the bay blown apart in a bloody red hue. The authorities had set right the place for the public’s eye. But in his mind’s eye, their last date would always be bathed in bloody red.