I lived with her for four months. All love and no fight. She began writing her phd thesis. I began mine too. The shroud of misery that I wear sometimes slowly dissolved in the sunlight. I learned to sidestep my unhappiness. For the first time, I started listening to music in some earnestness. Music that has never entered my ears. I conceded that music, like other art, wants to tell us something. There was an expansion of time within itself. Four months elongated and gave birth to little threads of time. And then they detonated.

It is not that I was attracted to her in any sense. On the contrary, I do not like the extreme virtue combined with a certain reflexivity that renders her sexuality defunct. Perhaps, all I am is sad that she is leaving. I am a diviner of her moods and misgivings, my ears to the ground beneath her feet wherever she is. All those soon-to-be redundant skills need to be rehabilitated. I was oblivious to the upheavals around me. I have terribly neglected them. I must descend to retrieve them.