“May I have this dance?”
“Sure.”
—————————–
It was a pleasant morning, one of a kind. Or maybe it was the calm just before the storm.
I parted the curtains, letting in some sunlight. She was sleeping peacefully on the bed.
“This should not have happened!”
I lit a cigarette and sipping on my tea watched her breathe soothingly. As I turn to face the view outside, I was stirred by her mumbling.
“Don’t go, please. I can’t live without you!”
I closed my eyes and let a tear drop on the marble floor.
“She loves me. I don’t know what to do. I love her too, but… she cannot stay with me forever… She will die someday, and I will still be living, alone with this curse… I cannot do this- to her, to me, to us… I have to leave…”
As I start dressing, she wakes up, planting a soft kiss on my dry lips, making me want more of her, now and forever.
I start crying and reveal to her my darkest secret. She is mum.
“What is she thinking?”
“She does not believe me.”
Suddenly I hear some distant shrieking. A fire broke out in the hotel and we need to run for our lives.
“That’s it. I should run away.”
And as we go down the stairs, I grab a blanket and make my way out of the hotel.
———————–
It’s been a week now and she hasn’t called yet. Nor did I look back since my escapade.
“Did she manage to escape?”
“Is she dead?”
The thought terrifies me.
“I NEED TO SEE HER!”
Guilt dawned upon me.
“I could’ve saved her.”
I drink the poison in the hope of finally dying, if not of poison then out of guilt. But I find myself coming out of the river- naked, taking a re-birth per my curse. I’m immortal.
I return to my empty apartment- with an emptier soul and lay flat on my stomach, lost in my dreams.
Nearly 200 years ago I was a scientist, researching life-saving drugs. One of my potions had flared well and saved many lives during the plague. It had potentials to bring back the dead to life. But it had a side effect- it was only for the ill and not the healthy ones. But I drank the potion out of anxiety of not catching the disease, just so that I could save more lives, and that is how I got this curse- immortality.
I wake up from the nightmare and am shocked to see her in all her beauty. She is standing there by the window with a cup of coffee in one hand and the other reaching out to me. I’m confused and she brings me back to reality with a kiss- she is real; alive and teasing me with her curly brown locks, running around the room making me want to chase her.
Phew! It was all a dream- the revelation, the fire, the loss.
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‘May I’ was used just as a compulsion. The phrase couldn’t be the helm of the story. The limit of words, here, became a speed-breaker. Narratives also went wayward somewhere. Somehow the cohesion came at last but two paragraphs.
A lovely sci-fi take on the prompt. The limitations of words prevents your idea from elaborating further. Else, this is a harness prompt kind of story. Would have loved to read more of it