He crosses the river and the storm hits him when he reaches the land. The earth is primitive the wind plundering the rain torrential.He starts running. He has no idea where he is going. The whole earth seems a mystery and white and he knows he is completely lost in this small village. His friend’s house is now far distant and he just wants a shelter now for the night.The rain has drenched him and he trembling in cold  runs till he sees a house and knocks at it.The door opens and he can see a old man is standing and beside him a woman with the lantern in his hand.

I am lost. Just need a shelter. He says.

Come in. It is natural in this type of night.

He steps in. The old person gives him a shirt to change.

Where are you going? He asks.

To my friend’s ancestral house the Roy Villa.

It is quite far. I will make you reach there tomorrow.

Thanks a lot.

Nothing to thanks. I know the Roy Villa very well and their residents.

He settles. Meanwhile the woman came and gave him some food.

He for the first time look at her and he finds strange resemblance with someone.

He thinks. But he cannot remember.But the face looks very known.

 

He gets a guest room near the verandah and after a while the woman comes with a lantern.

 

There is no power tonight.She keeps the lantern.

Have I seen you somewhere before?

He asks.

The woman look at him , and said , ‘I don’t think so.’

But your face is very known very known to me.

The woman keeps quiet. Then said, ‘You must be wrong.’

Then she smiles.

Her smile is beautiful.

He take the bed. It is still raining still windy. And there are still thunder storms.

He thinks and when he is about to sleep a thunder storm cracks and in the flash of blue lightning everything is clear to him.

It is her.

No one else but she.

Only ten years before she was a bit more thin bit young and not so matured.

She is the one from her college days.

He questions himself.

Is it really her?

Yes. She is.

Around midnight the lantern gets low and he searches someone.He calls.

But this time the old man comes and helps him with the lantern.

Sorry to disturb you. He said.

It’s fine.

The man departs and he sleeps thinking when he can meet her.

As he needs to talk with her.

It is important.

The rain continues and in the flashes of lightning he is back ten years before in his college days.

It is her. He tells himself.

At one time he sleeps listening to the rain drops.

In the morning the old person comes and serves him breakfast.

Shall we move? He asks.

We can.

At that moment the woman appears and said at the doorstep,

I think you have left something in your room.’

What?

This.

She opens her palm and there is a pen.

The sunlight of the morning falls on the pen and he has no doubt that this woman is Atreyi, her college mate and it is this pen that have a memory.

It is with this pen he wrote her first poetry and gave it to her.

Is it just the message from her that she is the same woman or she wants to give his pen back?

He look at her for some time.

For a moment their eyes meet.

He nods.

‘This is not my pen.’

He hopes that Atreyi got her message too.

He do not want his pen back which once he has gifted her.

Her lips opened, she tried to say something but do not.

‘Shall we move?’ The old man asks.

Yes. Let;s move.

He starts walking.

Once he turns back and see that Atreyi now standing at the room with the lantern in his hand and looking at them.

And in her other hand he can see clearly.

She holds the pen.