Wanting...

When I kissed her I felt her melt, with me. A bubble of pleasure enclosed us, separated us from the world. Through the touch of skin on soft skin blood flows talked to each other. I felt an all-encompassing love for this lovely diminutive creature in my arms. And there was great peace and joy in having her so close. Love and trust seemed to make the moments last forever.

Communion of two loving bodies apparently joins their souls—so people say.

People talk to express themselves; sometimes to hide themselves also. You never know what goes on in another mind. In fact you can never know what you yourself think, what you are, what you want, let alone express it.

But at least I knew that I wanted her.

Much later, sitting high above the ground, floating through the clouds on the way to another city, I asked myself, why did I want her? What did I expect from her? Pleasure? Companionship? Or was I driven by plain primitive instinct of racial continuity and self-preservation!

I thought about my middle-aged friend. She was a divorcee with a child and she poured her heart out to me—on occasions. I felt sad in her loneliness. She said once, “I am a simple woman with simple wants. I wanted someone to care for me, understand me and comfort me when I am distressed. I expect him to take me out to occasional dinner and give me an earring on my birthday. Is it too much to ask for?” My eyes glistened with compassion. I knew her to be a good woman.

A few weeks later I met her accidentally. She was a changed person. Her face was aglow. Her excitement touched me even from a distance. I said, “You must have found your man!” She nodded, “You know, he is so cute. He…….,” she continued merrily.

In human society it is usual for males to make the first advance, to express their wants. And the females wait patiently till the male wants reach them. This creates an illusion in naïve minds of people like me—as if wanting belongs to the domain of males only. My friend’s disarming frankness made me aware of the reality on the other side. Being now aware that females want males as much as males want females, the haunting question popped up in my mind again, why at all the want? What after the want? What can one human get from another that promises to keep both of them happy and oblivious to the eternal loneliness surrounding all creatures?

You know, most of the world is empty. In a molecule, the hapless negatively charged electrons go round the positively charged protons in the nucleus with a vast unreachable empty space between them. No matter exists in this empty space except only some forces of attraction between them that always urge them on to meet.

Same with the earth, the moon, the Sol and the universe outwards.

Most of the space in the universe is filled up with—I must admit at last—with wanting.