The Second Person

He said, “Accepting the fake present and denying the true future is not about having a strong moral.” Yanki was dumbstruck. She never took her life on her palm and looked at closely like she did that day. She did not want to change the path but maybe the fate was trying to cheat her. Every strong principle crested in her heart was crumbling down. It was futile to think she could build it again.

They shouted at each other. They found faults and pointed fingers—and yet, they talked on the phone every day. Every day they met online. They circled around the same topic everyday and they never seemed to make progress. They were looking into a mirror that was blurred by their own breath to lay path for the future but there was no way they would know what it was going to be like.

She shared what she did not share with many friends. Yanki met him online many years back. But that was a different story. They were both seen under a façade that was designed and named by other people. They never tried to show what they really were within. People at gay talked about them being ruthless about emotions; about not caring about other people’s sentiments. Both of them did not even try to find the truth about each other. And this acquaintance disappeared in the thin cloud. There was a little whisper after that—they never forgot each other but they didn’t meet, and they didn’t even write to each other.

And there he was—popping up the chat window after three long years. Where was he hiding? And he repeated the same words. Finding truth was useless since Lotay and Yanki both had chosen different paths and they were treading path uphill to find achievement in different ways.

It was either of them who denied the truth but it was a scary future they were foreseeing if they faced the truth. Yes, he said it was not a strong moral to accept a fake present and deny the true future but that was what seemed best that time.

And no matter what might pass; no matter how many times they talked on the phone; no matter how many times they tried to wipe the mirror to see their future—only the path they had chosen shined spectacularly concrete. And to try to scatter it was trying to break lives. They chose to be happy; but only they knew if they were.