I still love you

Lisa gazed out over the Arabian Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face - eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered the last time she had been here.

     She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as his looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort on the Arabian sea beach . They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the travelling they would do together - it was all certain, so they had thought then.

     But that seemed such a long time ago now. A lot can change in just a few years - a lot of heartache can change a person and drive a wedge through the strongest ties, break even the deepest love. Three years to the day and they had returned, though this time not for the beachside marriages the island was famous for but for one of its equally popular quickie divorces.

     Lisa let out a sigh that was filled with pain and regret. What could she do but move on, find a new life and new dreams? - the old one was beyond repair. How could this beautiful place, with its lush green coastline, eternity of azure blue sea and endless sands be a place for the agony she felt now?

     The man stood watching from the edge of the palm trees. He couldn't take his eyes of the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water's edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something - or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself. It wasn't her looks that attracted him though; he came across many beautiful women in his work as a freelance photographer. It was her loneliness and intensity that lured him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he could meet.

     Lisa sensed the man approaching even before she turned around. She had been aware of him standing there staring at her and had felt strangely calm about being observed. She looked at him and felt the instant spark of connection she had only experienced once before. He walked slowly towards her and they held each other's gaze. It felt like meeting a long lost friend - not a stranger on a strange beach.

     Later, sitting at one of the many bars on the resort, sipping the local cocktails they began to talk. First pleasantries, their hotels, the quality of the food and friendliness of the locals. Their conversation was strangely hesitant considering the naturalness and confidence of their earlier meeting. Onlookers, however, would have detected the subtle flirtation as they mirrored each other's actions and spoke directly into each other's eyes. Only later, after the alcohol had had its loosening effect, did the conversation deepen. They talked of why they were here and finally, against her judgement, Lisa opened up about her heartache of the past year and how events had led her back to the place where she had married the only man she believed she could ever love. She told him of things that had been locked deep inside her, able to tell no one. She told him how she had felt after she had lost her baby.

     She was six months pregnant and the happiest she had ever been when the pains had started. She was staying with her mother as James was working out of town. He hadn't made it back in time. The doctor had said it was just one of those things, that they could try again. But how could she when she couldn't even look James in the eye. She hated him then, for not being there, for not hurting as much as her but most of all for looking so much like the tiny baby boy that she held for just three hours before the took him away. All through the following months she had withdrawn from her husband, family, friends. Not wanting to recover form the pain she felt - that would have been a betrayal of her son. At the funeral she had refused to stand next to her husband and the next day she had left him.

     Looking up, Lisa could see her pain reflected in the man's eyes. For the first time in months she didn't feel alone, she felt the unbearable burden begin to lift from her, only a bit but it was a start. She began to believe that maybe she had a future after all and maybe it could be with this man, with his kind hazel eyes, wet with their shared tears.

     They had come here to dissolve their marriage but maybe there was hope. Lisa stood up and took James by the hand and led him away from the bar towards the beech where they had made their vows to each other three years ago. Tomorrow she would cancel the divorce; tonight they would work on renewing their promises.

Can money buy happiness ?

A guy was in a relationship with a girl for over two years. She was everything to him. She was the only one who could make him smile when he had a bad day. 
He loved her a lot. Things changed and they broke up. He was heartbroken. He just couldn't get over her.

Someone advised him to smoke weed(cannabis) to get over her. He thought that maybe weed can help him.

He asked a friend who smokes weed to take him to the nearest place where they sell weed. It was a slum. As he was waiting outside for him to score some weed for him, he saw an ice-cream vendor passing through.
Then his eyes stopped at the three kids pleading their mother to buy them ice-cream. She scolded them as maybe she didn't have the money to buy them what they demanded. A veil of sadness surrounded the little kids.
He took the kids to the vendor and bought them the ones they wanted. It cost him 25 rupees. The smile on their face, it was priceless.

He asked them if he could take their picture.

They said yes without hesitating. It seemed like it was the first time someone clicked their picture.

This incident changed his life and he did not smoke weed that day or ever after.

yes, money can buy happiness.

Never And Always

One morning, everyone wakes to find that the days are getting shorter. It is a peaceful day. No one notices the difference, really.

A father goes to work and comes home early to teach his son Cricket. “It’s all about timing,” he says. “Timing and placement.”

Two friends are caught up in an argument. One says that she was taken for granted. The other doesn’t see it that way.

A bookworm purchases twenty-four used paperbacks and excitedly brings them home. He vows to read one a day for the next twenty-four days.

And two lovers spend the day in bed, oblivious to the time lost, the hour that was taken from them.

The next day, the lost hour is all over the news. Astronomers think the Earth’s rotation is speeding up. Environmentalists think we are the cause of this fluke in nature. Politicians think it’s all a hoax. Everyone else does not know what to think at all. They wait.

The father, Jatin, continues to teach his son, Karan. They do not discuss the news. Jatin shows him how to perform a cover drive, and then they work on his layup. The sun sets early, and they head in for dinner.

The two friends, Krati and Niharika, are not speaking to each other. Beth hears the phone ring, but it is only her landlord. She is going to be kicked out of her apartment. Why is money the source of all problems? she wonders. Beth eats a bowl of noodles and waits for her favorite TV show to come on. It doesn’t.

The bookworm, Himesh, spends the evening finishing up another paperback. Curled up in his blanket, basking in the lamplight, he turns the last page of a book as the morning light filters into the room. Himesh yawns, shuts the book, and picks up another.

The two lovers, Shubham and Sharin, wonder if time really is slipping away. “What if it’s true?” Shubham asks over breakfast.

Sharin shrugs and takes a bite of cereal. “If the days are gone,” she says, “if we really are losing time,” and she gives him a seductive look, “then we’ll just have to make the most of the nights, won’t we?”

Six more days pass, and with them, six more hours of the day. The nights remain the same, and everyone is grateful for this constancy, but still they feel time draining. Some sleep less and try to make the most of the day. Others wake up at their usual time, go about their business, but sense that something is missing. The night begins, with no time given back, no minutes and seconds returned to their proper owners.

Jatin continues to teach his son, but he knows that if the rumors are true, soon there will be no daylight left, and they will play no more. But Jatin is stubborn, and he loves his son, so they use the time they have left, and Karan makes a foul shot with his eyes closed. He looks at his father, smiling as if he knew the shot would go in the whole time, and Jatin smiles back.

Krati and Niharika decide to meet and try to be friends again. They go to the park, between their childhood homes, and Niharika swings on the swing. She gives Bipul the money, even if it is too late, and they each look away, distracted. “Do you think it’s true?” Niharika asks. “Do you think it’s really gone for good?”

Krati doesn’t know what to say. She wonders if she and Niharika would have made up this soon, had the world not been ending. And even now, with the daylight receding, and time unwinding, and existence itself threatened to the core, still there was something between them, and they could never go back, never rewind and start over.

“It’s true,” Krati says.

Himesh stays in his room all day and night, only leaving to eat and go to the bathroom. He is aware that the days are leaving him, but this only motivates Himesh to read faster. Even though he sleeps less, it becomes harder for Himesh to meet his goal, to finish a book a day. He begins to skim the boring parts, wishing to reach the end in time. He sits down to read a novel called The Waves, and when he looks up the light is almost gone, and he can barely see the words. But he drudges on, holding the book closer to his eyes, refusing to place it down even for a moment to turn on the lamp. The hours are so precious now.

Shubham and Sharin spend more time together, even as each day robs them of another hour. They receive phone calls from employers, friends, relatives, but they ignore them all. On the dawn of the eleventh day since this all began, Shubham and Sharin wake up knowing that they only have an hour left. Twelve days have passed and soon the twelfth hour will be stolen. But what next? Sharin is scared, and so is Shubham. They listen to their favorite band, and a song plays: The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older / Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. They take a walk outside, and somehow the sun is bigger and brighter for that brief moment it is in the sky, but then they head home, hand in hand, with dark thoughts in their heads.

As the sun sets, the days end for good. Everyone wonders if they will ever see natural light again. The night goes on, and though they have no way of knowing, it is happening again. They make the calculations, and they realize that for every twelve hours, they will lose another hour. Within twelve nights, or seventy-eight hours, they will be down to their last hour. A simple permutation. What will happen next? Will the process reverse, or will the world end? Will time restart, or will it cease to exist? The astronomers are silent. The environmentalists are silent. The politicians are silent. Nobody knows the answer.

Jatin and Karan realize it is now too dark to play . They keep the porch light on, but it isn’t enough. Karan asks if everything will be okay, and Jatin lies and says yes.

“We can still play,” Karan says. “I know it’s dark, but the basket’s still there, and we can still play.”

Karan doesn’t hear a response, so he goes back inside.

Krati and Niharika are friends again, but it can never be the same. They can barely recall what their fight was about, only that it involved money. If it had occurred earlier, maybe they would have had time to apologize and be friends again. If it had occurred later, maybe they would have let go of their trivial concerns and forgiven each other before it was too late. But it didn’t happen this way, and it felt strange talking to each other, knowing what brought them together again.

“I’ve never missed the sun this much,” Krati says.

Niharika nods, looking out into the endless, eternal night. “Me either.”

Himesh is speed reading. He knows he will never have time to finish all twenty-four books, but he is going to try. Volume after volume, he turns the pages, letting his eyes decide which lines to read. He picks out a section he likes from an author named Calvino. It is about the beginning of the universe: “Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?” Himesh is envious. He’d much prefer if the universe were at its beginning than at its end. Time wouldn’t have begun yet, and he wouldn’t be sitting here, cramming all this knowledge in the few moments he had left. Himesh laughs at himself cruelly, and for just a moment he stops reading. Soon he will be gone, and these books and everything he’s learned with him. Why read, when there may be no tomorrow? Why learn, when there is no longer any today?

Shubham and Sharin watch the clock and count the nights as they pass. There is no indication of when one fades into the next. They remove an hour each night, following the system the universe has set in place. They hardly do anything now but look at the clock. They don’t even hold hands anymore, they are so afraid. Neither says anything for a long time, and they sit in the darkness, alone.

“How many?” Sharin asks, quieter than a whisper. “How many nights left?”

“Two,” Shubham responds, and this means they only have three hours. Two for this night, one for the last night, and an eternity of nothingness for whatever comes next. Sharin thinks that maybe, when it is over, time will restart, and they will gain the hours back, and eventually the day will return, and everything will go back to normal. Shubham does not entertain such hopes. Everything must have an end, and time is no exception. They count their final moments.

It is the last night, the final hour, and everyone is waiting for the end of time. They go outside, bringing flashlights and lanterns and candles. They hold hands, they pray, they watch the stars, they gather together in the night. No one tries to guess what will happen next. There is no time for guessing. Either they will wake up tomorrow, a new day will begin, and they will retrieve their lost hours, or they will be gone, and nobody will be around to question anything anymore. So they wait, and they watch.

The father calls back to his son, and they find each other in the darkness. “It’s your shot,” he says, and hands him the ball.

The two friends meet for the last time. “I’m sorry,” one says to the other, and this will have to be enough.

The bookworm returns to his books. He doubted himself before, but he picks up the last one, Einstein’s Dreams, and gets lost in the pages.

And the two lovers gather their families together, and they hold each other, deathly afraid, but not alone.