The blue smoke was slowly rising from the ash tray kept on the table as she sat next to it, staring into infinity. Mrs. K rarely smoked, but for the past two three days she had been smoking a lot, a thing highly detested by her dog, who suddenly found sitting next to Mrs. K very difficult. Mrs. K was a widow with no child. She lived alone in the busiest part of the city on the tenth floor of a building. She had bought the apartment when her husband was alive; he had liked the big window on the front side of the apartment. Now a new building was being built in front of it, destroying the view more or less completely.
Mrs. K was a primary school teacher. She had been teaching for a really long time, even she didn`t know how long. She didn`t really like the job but she didn`t hate it either, working with kids somehow made up for the lack of them in her own life. Every day she woke up at 6 o`clock in the morning did her daily chores, filled water and cooked her breakfast. Her biggest apprehension in the mornings was looking in the mirror. Once she looked into it, she could not tear herself away from it. Slowly her surprised eyes traced all the features of her face and painfully registered the signs of aging on it. Her complexion was fair and she had a beautiful face, a face younger than the body, still attractive, still desirable and this was what Mrs. K feared the most, looking at a beautiful face which was lonely. The mirror reminded her of the loneliness of her life.
It wasn`t that Mrs. K had no suitors after her husband`s death, but she somehow couldn`t forget her husband and give his place to someone else and after sometime she had grown used to her situation, her work, her life, and weeks turned into months, months turned into years which rolled on and on till she finally realized that she was lonely.
It was a usual morning when Mrs. K had like every day after finishing her daily morning chores sat down to comb her hair in front of the mirror and she realized that she had grown old, alone. For the first time she saw those faint but growing wrinkles on her skin and she sat there for hours looking amazed and surprised at her own face which had suddenly turned so different as if someone else`s.
Although the revelation was painful, it didn`t have much effect on Mrs. K, who had the company of young kids in the school. She silently acquiesced to the new dictate of life and resigned to her new role, of an old widow. Things had remained much the same after that. She went about her work, cooked her meals, met friends, went for occasional trips to hill stations, but inside her there was this aching realization that she was getting old and sooner or later the pangs of loneliness would grow with her age and the mirror was there to always remind her of this.
As she sat surrounded by smoke Mrs. K was thinking of her life, all the years she had spent to reach where she was today, alone and aging. She was thinking of her workplace and the people there. She was close to a few of them. She had gone to the house warming party of Mrs. Biswas and was highly delighted to see her new house. She was also good friends with a certain Mrs. Seema but for the last couple of days Mrs. K was thinking of someone else, someone whose thoughts made her anxious and a little uncomfortable. It was the new guy who had moved into her neighboring flat. He was a university student and Mrs. K could not help but notice his blush when he talked to her or his nervous deportment as if he was crumbling under the weight of Mrs. K`s stare. She liked to keep her gaze fixed at him when they met; she derived a secret pleasure from it, seeing him wither under it.
His name was Toma and he was a college sophomore who had been thrown out of his college residence, reason why he had to take up a private room. He was quiet a charming fellow and had a beautiful smile, a fact not unnoticed by Mrs. K. They had met on the elevator and since then had become good friends, Mrs. K helped him with his cooking and he bought books for Mrs. K from his college library.
For once Mrs. K felt a serene calm descend on her. The inner void which she had felt seemed to be suddenly filled, surprisingly she wasn`t scared of the mirror anymore, rather it became a friend. After a long time she felt as if life had given her something, not a pain but a ticklish pleasure which she could rub between her figures and feel good about. The face in the mirror wasn`t terrible anymore, but it was gay, happily waiting to be seen by someone else.
But was what she was thinking right? Did she want the boy? Or was she happy with a casual relationship? These were the questions which were haunting Mrs. K. After so many years of staying away from love she was uncertain of herself when it came so close. Whatever the case, Mrs. K could not help but feel a warm rush of pleasure when Toma came to her place as she sat enveloped in smoke, her dog sitting far away from her. He came for no apparent reason and stood in the doorway, smiling, his eyes sparkling with a mysterious mischief.
‘Stayed home today?’ he asked smiling.
‘You stayed home too.’ She answered.
‘Yeah I have my exams coming up so I’m on PL.’ he replied through his smile.
Then Toma did something which answered all the questions in Mrs. K`s mind, he took her in her arms and kissed her there at the doorway, without even bothering to close the door as if he expected no resistance from Mrs. K and Mrs. K hungrily returned his kiss softly saying through her kissing lips, ‘I`m in love. I`m in love.’
Speechless