Short Fiction
Kulpreet Yadav
Mr. Pain and my ex girlfriend Pain is a dangerous partner—it hurts, stays latent for some time, and hurts all over again. Can you get rid of pain completely? Can you? Can you say, ‘Okay here, Mr. Pain, I have had enough of you, I have allowed you to screw my mood so many times, so many bloody times. Can you now please stop cohabiting with me? Please? Go find someone else?’ But Mr. Pain just stays, staring like a dumb child who has forgotten all his naughtiness. It’s not the physical pain I am referring to. It’s about a loss—that bereavement you experience when you lose a person. Or when you get uprooted from a place. Or when you are forced to kick a habit you loved, however harmful. Mind you, this Mr. Pain remains invisible to the outside world. All organs, limbs, body functions coordinate well and you look healthy, so others think you are OK. Have you lost your girlfriend too? If yes, you will sympathize with me. If you haven’t, she isn’t your girlfriend for real. OK, the last bit was to make you laugh. (If you got scared, you are normal too). Serious business: Losing a girlfriend can unleash Mr. Pain. Yes, that painful Mr. Pain, who has been living in your body. That Mr. Pain. Now if you have a question it will be: How did I deal with Mr. Pain when I met my Ex-girlfriend? Is that your question? Cool! I never, for a moment, thought meeting my ex girlfriend after two decades would be simple. When the evening began, it seemed nice and good. Maybe because she didn’t look herself—neither did I, perhaps. We started with our awkward ‘hellos’. She looked like someone I knew maybe, like from another time, another planet, and it felt peculiar. But Mr. Pain stayed inside, latent. I stared at her closely, after we had discussed the weather—Delhi should have been colder in October, she quipped,
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