The Last Call

She looked around. The place was beautiful. She was at a hill station in North India. On one side of her were a lot of tall cliffs and on the other was a forest of tall pine trees. It looked like the view of a European hill station from the 90's Bollywood flicks. Even though it was summer and the middle of the day the weather was still cool and pleasant.

She had come here with her husband for a week’s holiday. They needed the break after the hectic two weeks they had just had at work. It was the March year end rush at office and they had slogged and burned the midnight oil to complete their targets. After the workload had subsided they took a week off to come and relax at the hill station which was famous for its breathtaking views and its adventure sports. Her husband and she worked at the same office and that is how they met. It was not love at first sight or anything; they got to know each other; she found out that he is a level headed, hardworking and ambitious person. Slowly they started liking each other and they ended up marrying in a beautiful ceremony. There was a lot of love between them at the starting but the romance had slowly died out. He was too much involved in his work, even now at the hill station he was constantly on his phone talking to work. He was a good husband, he took care of her well, but they didn't really have any common interests, he didn't challenge her on an intellectual level. This trip was sort of a rekindle the romance trip also. Fat chance of that happening with him being on the phone all the time, she thought. They haven’t had had a conversation of more than 2 sentences that day.

She got a call on her phone. She was expecting this call and for the first time in the day, she smiled. To be honest she was expecting this call much earlier in the day and she was pissed at the caller for calling so late. She still answered the call with a smile on her face.

“Hey, Look to the top of the cliffs” said the caller

She did and he continued “Do you see a man standing at the top of the cliffs north east from you?” She said she did. 

“Well that is me and I am going to jump” The caller cut the call

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He was standing on top of the cliff. He had wanted to do this for a long time, and it was would be poetic and anti climatic for him to do it in front of the woman he loved the most, and the one who has broken his heart in an irreparable way. She was always afraid that he would do something like this.

As he stood on top of the cliff, he started reminiscing about his time with her, one of the happiest years of his life. He remembered the first time she met her; he had fallen for her beauty at that very moment and their first conversation after which he thought she was an arrogant bitch and she thought he was a pretentious, stuck-up nerd; oh man! How wrong were those first impressions? He remembered the first time she took his hand in hers and asked will you always be there for me, all the time they spent talking about technology and other stuff, all the time she listened to his lame jokes, he remembered their first date, the flowers he had got her for it, the numerous outings and all the fun times they had. He remembered all the fights and the small break ups that they had, he remembered their final breakup when she said he was too egoistic and angry for them to have any real future. Well, she did find a person who is not egoistic and can control his emotions; he hoped that she was really happy with this guy, because she deserved all the happiness in the world. He remembered how he had cried in front of her begging for her to take him back. But most of all he remembered the love they had for each other, a love which he still possessed for her.   

  He had paid good money to a photographer with a telephoto lens to take a picture of him before he jumped and give it to her. He could see the photographer as well as her standing at the bottom of the cliff. Even the photographer didn’t know what he was going to do after the photo was taken, but he had made sure that irrespective of what happens the photographer will hand over the photo to her.

The time had come. He saw the photographer focusing his camera and taking his picture and then walking away to get it printed on his handheld printer. He took his phone and dialed her number; he still knew it by heart. He asked her to look up at the cliff at him and cut the call. He was ready to jump, everyone told this was the scariest part of all and what came after that was easy. But he felt no fear whatsoever, he was feeling unexpectedly calm, maybe it was the feeling of surprising her again as he always did. He took a deep breath and he jumped.

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She was shocked and had lost all the ability to think. As she was looking up at him jumping she was approached by a guy who handed her a photo. It was a photo of him just before jumping; he was smiling ear to ear and was holding a placard which said Happy Birthday. He hadn't forgotten it was her birthday after all, even though her husband had.

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As he got nearer to the bottom of the cliff he could see her face and see that she had gotten the photo. As the bungee cord became taut and his jump came to a stop he couldn't help grinning at the look of surprise on her face.