Cemetery Gates

He walked through the open cemetery gates, a gush of wind blew, rustling the leaves on the ground and the trees. His cane became the trusty third leg. Here, he felt calm, as opposed to the bumpy ride he just took in an auto rickshaw a few minutes ago. This was the only trip that he took every week, from the old age home. Sundays an auto would ferry him back and forth. He limped his way to his wife’s tomb. 

He found the old rag he stored behind his wife’s tombstone to dust off leaves and the dried up rose flower from last Sunday. He placed a fresh rose on the tomb, reading her name on it again. 

“Saaar” he turned around to see Raja, the gate keeper of the cemetery with his signature head scratch, expecting something from him. So he felt his pocket and pulled out a hundred rupee note, kept separately for that purpose. Raja was happy, gestured a thank you and brisked away to fix himself with an old monk rum. He was glad, Raja didn’t stay back to chat, gathered his thoughts taking him back to the golden times. 

 A gentle wind blew, just to soothe his soul. His eyes welled up, he missed her. They argued quite a lot about silly things. He remembered how they flirted with each other with one line poems, how she kept a serious face through all the jokes he was spewing out. She pretended to not like his humour, but he knew she enjoyed them, because, sometimes he caught her looking away laughing. He wanted to hold her hands again. Her loved her. 

He took a deep breath that filled his lungs, the air was cool, he couldn’t let go of his breath, he choked, collapsed and fell, hitting the his head on the tombstone on his way down. 

Raja was nowhere to be found.