Time is linear.

One of the fundamental truths of this Universe we live in is that time is an arrow that only points forward. People describe time like a river, but I find it one of the weaker analogies. At some point in history, rivers were a force of nature, and they still are, but human ingenuity is amazing. We conquered rivers, building dams. We used these rivers to power up our homes, and make lakes where there would've been a desert

Time isn't something like this. You can't stop it, nor can you slow it down. It flows at a fixed pace, and all we can do is wait.

This linearity of time never really scared me, until I lost her.

At one point, I wouldn't have bothered with it. I mean, time is time, I can't really do anything, so might as well go with the flow, right? Taoism says to go with the flow, and I was good at it.

The past is gone, the future awaits, but the present is where we live, so might as well make the most of it I suppose.

This statement was a philosophy I stuck with. It isn't like there weren't any moments when I didn't stop to think of how I messed up in the past, about how I botched my interviews, or bought something I really shouldn't have. It was a regret, but it wasn't something that governed my life. There was something to learn out of it, but it certainly didn't drive the car I'm riding in.

One of my larger regrets in life has been being a failure of a friend to a dear friend of mine, one of the people I knew for the longest. I do not like cheesy phrases, but I think 'best friend' really fit him well. He is a good person, someone I appreciate to this day, at least the time we spent. I think about how things could've been different had I taken a step to help him at his lowest, but what's done is done. People might say that things can still be reconciled, that I should take the first step, but I know that this is a river that I've already crossed, and it's not possible to go back. Sometimes when I think of going back in time, I think of this particular incident. I like to think of myself as a good person, but this event has made me question my own moral integrity.

This is a regret, but it does not plague me, or haunt me. Despite how set in stone things were for this, I did not think much, maybe for a few years I did, but it doesn't bother me now. Maybe I've outgrown his presence, I think time does that.

Yet, despite the gravity of it all, the linearity of time still did not scare me.

Then one day, I met this girl, Shubhangi. It was last year in February, and it didn't take me long to fall for her. I used to consider myself a stoic, someone who puts rationality behind their actions, and not emotions, but funny how the perfect person changes it all. She added sugar, and spice in my life. She was a person who opened me up, and made me appreciate myself more. There's a phrase of how two people in love often are like two complementing puzzle pieces, but we were more than that, her and I, we were the whole puzzle. We did not need any other pieces as long as we had each other. That's how it was, and I assume that's how it is for everyone who truly loves someone.

She was my first love, my first girlfriend, my first kiss, my first hug. She was everything I ever desired for in life. Her shiny hair, her soft eyes, her beautiful lips. There was nothing I did not love about her, but how could I not? She was perfect.

People often talk about soulmates, and I surely found mine. In the eight billion people that live on this planet, I found mine.

Then one day, I lost her, and that was just a week before our first anniversary.

I was excited, and so was she. We both knew we were going to go to the same cafe we went to for the first time, and to eat the same sushi we did that day. It was going to be beautiful but that day didn't really arrive.

Breakups are easy. Breakups are nothing more than being incompatible. Breakups are a closure to a chapter, but Shubhangi and I? There was no closure. This chapter of our lives which we both were writing passionately, now has only one writer, and I am afraid to put down the pen.

I think of her everyday, the moments we spent together, but I can't really go back and relive them. They are nothing more than memories now, and they only exist in my mind, but with each passing day, these same memories begin to blur, and I cannot think of the days we spent in as much detail as I did a few months ago.

It is like everything, the entire world, the laws of the Universe come together to erase this person from existence. Watching my Shubhangi, lifeless, broke me. Her cremation destroyed me, and her absence feels like a harpoon through my heart, and now, my own body, my own brain is betraying me, and it hurts.

This was the first time I ever thought of time as a looming threat over my head.

Shubhangi's mother called me at 4 in the morning. I was waiting for Shubhangi to call me. I saw her location, she was at the clinic. I was sure she was alright. I mean, she's at the doctor's, what could go wrong?

I can never forget the words I heard that day, and every single day, I just wish that I am dreaming, and that when I wake up, I will find my Shubhangi, safe and sound.

Present lost its meaning for me. Hours began to feel like seconds, and the passage of days did not take away the grief. People say time heals all wounds, yet it did not feel like that. My Shubhangi's absence felt greater, and larger. I missed our talks over the phone, her silly jokes, I missed everything.

All I wanted to do was to go back in time.

I still have the same sentiment, to go back, to somehow fix everything, to save her.

I often talked about how unique humans are, and how there never was, nor will there ever be another Shubhangi. I often told her how lucky I am to live in the same moment as her. God knows how much I loved her, but I suppose God is a sadist who does not enjoy seeing happiness. I was the happiest I had been for a long time, and now, all of that feels like a distant memory.

Her passing was nothing more than an avoidable tragedy. She would've lived to see her grandchildren, our grandchildren, we would have raised children of our own, and lay in each other arms for the years to come, but all of that is nothing more than a child's dream now.

If I could go back in time, just an hour before it all happened, maybe I could've saved her. Maybe, if at that instant, I was more careful, she would've been alive.

I can't really hate anyone. I despise her roommates for being ignorant to her condition, but if I blame them, I think I am more responsible than them. How did I not know how much my Shubhangi was suffering? If only I knew, maybe things would've been different.

When you can't really blame someone, who do you get angry on? Who do you cry to?

As a child, I would sometimes break my toys, but I knew that if I begged to my parents, if I cried to them, they would buy me a new one.

Whom do I beg now? Who is even listening?

When there is no one I can get angry on, do I get angry at the laws of this Universe?

Time.

I cry to you, Time. I beg you, Time. I blame you, Time, but you do not listen, do you? You flow, unfazed, unmoved by my wails, because in the supposed grand scheme of things, me and Shubhangi don't really matter to you, do we?

How does one fight with the laws that govern this reality?

I often talked of how I am content with the way my life is right now, and how I wouldn't have changed anything even if I were sent to the past, but now, all of it is in vain. Without my Shubhangi, is there even any point? All I want to do now is go back in time, and find her again. I want to tell her how much I love her, over and over again. I want to hold her till she turns red.

There are so many words left unsaid, because Time decided we do not belong together.

This permanence of life scares me, but more so, it angers me. I want to hold the Time by its throat, and drag it along the curb until it brings my Shubhangi back, but I can't do that. I am not God.

All I want is my Shubhangi back, but I don't think Time is listening.