The Distance Between two Books.

It had been six years since Shyam’s wife died.

It was a love marriage, won after long struggles to persuade parents and relatives. They lived happily for two years. His wife was a special educator who dreamed of working with special children. When she got an opportunity to work in the United Kingdom, it filled them with joy. They felt God was showering them with grace; they felt lucky. But fate had a different plan. His wife lost her life in a train accident before she could leave. His life was ruined; without her, it felt like hell.

The first few years were filled with visitors, condolences, and rituals. The second year brought loneliness. By the third year, people stopped asking if he was all right.

Life settled into a quiet routine: work, home, television, sleep.

Shyam tried to distract himself with books, concerts, exhibitions, and book launches. He often visited temples to find peace. Kapaleeswara Temple in Mylapore became a ritual; every Friday he could be seen sitting alone near a pillar, lost in his own world, sometimes eating the prasad.

He took the suburban train to commute. Riding trains engaged him — observing people, overhearing conversations, sometimes sneaking a glance at what others were reading. Lately his favourite author was Paulo Coelho. Someone had suggested The Alchemist; he started reading Coelho after that.

Jothi worked in the same building as Shyam but in a different office. They knew each other by sight and often bumped into each other in the elevator. Shyam noticed she always carried a book and listened to music through earphones. He wondered what she would be listening to.

Once they happened to sit opposite each other in the cafeteria. Both had books. She ordered coffee; he ordered tea. Shyam put a bookmark between the pages and left his book on the table. As if mirroring him, Jothi did the same. Her book had a blue cover: Veronica Decides to Die; his cover read Eleven Minutes. Both were Paulo Coelho novels. There was an excitement and surprise between them.

It began with sharing Coelho’s books; later they discovered other common interests. They argued and discussed Motorcycle Diaries and Che’s Guerrilla Warfare, debated art — realism versus abstract — compared Western classical and Carnatic music, and argued Ilaiyaraaja versus A. R. Rahman. They both liked Yanni and Kenny G. The conversations grew daily.

Jothi had been married for five years. She was cheerful and known for her integrity. Besides books, music, and art, she often spoke about her husband and daughter — not to boast, but because they were naturally woven into her conversation.

What began as casual friendship and conversation matured into message exchanges and sometimes phone calls. Shyam always tried to keep a line of caution.

As days passed, they spoke every day. If Shyam woke to a message from her, the day felt lighter. He waited for her like a sunflower waits for the sun. Van Gogh’s sunflowers had always intrigued him. On days she was busy and didn’t call, a strange ache settled inside him.

At first he dismissed it: loneliness, nothing more. But as months passed, her presence occupied every corner of his thoughts. When she laughed, he replayed it later. When she was sad, he carried her sadness home. When she travelled with her family, he found himself staring at his phone, waiting for a message that never came.

The realization frightened him. He loved her. Or at least he thought he did. Jothi was happily married. There was no unhappiness in her marriage that might justify his feelings — no cruelty, no neglect, no secret misery waiting to be rescued. She loved her husband, and Shyam respected that. He never crossed a boundary. He never confessed. He never flirted. He never allowed an inappropriate word to escape his lips. Yet the pain remained.

Though he remained a gentle man in front of her, he was unable to resist her beauty: the way she carried herself, the way she moved her hand, the way she laughed. He even felt that her slightly tilted incisors somehow added to the beauty of her laughter.

Every night he lay awake wondering whether his feeling was truly love. Perhaps, he reasoned, it was merely desire. He had been alone for years; perhaps his body had mistaken loneliness for love. Perhaps his mind had built a shrine around a woman simply because he missed intimacy. The thought comforted him: if it was lust, it could be cured.

One evening, after weeks of wrestling with himself, he made a decision. He visited a brothel.

His hands trembled and started sweating as he climbed the stairs.

There were three women; he was given a choice. One of them was reserved, smiling little. She introduced herself as Jasmine. She was twenty-six, dusky, and said she was the mother of a special child. To care for the child, she had often turned to sex work after her husband deserted her when the child was born. Her face carried the exhaustion of countless strangers and forgotten names.

Shyam entered a dimly lit room; the smell of herbal oil hung in the air. A white towel hung on a hanger.

“You can take a show if you want,” she said.

“This is my first time,” Shyam admitted. His voice trembled.

“You seem nervous,” she observed.

“I’ve never done this before,” he said.

She smiled faintly. “Everyone says that.”

“What do you want — a simple oil massage, a happy ending, or something more?” she asked.

“Sex,” he said bluntly.

She named her price: six thousand rupees. Shyam paid without bargaining.

He tried to talk; he always felt a physical relationship should extend from emotion.

For a few moments he was silent. She asked whether he was married.

“I was.”

The word surprised even him. Was—such a small word—so cruel? The woman nodded quietly. Then she stood and began removing her clothes without ceremony. He could hear the sound of the zipper; he could sense the smell of cheap deodorant.

Shyam looked away. She laughed softly. “No need to be shy.” When she turned, she asked him to unbuckle her bra. His fingers shook. The clasp came loose and the garment fell. She turned fully exposed.

Suddenly nothing happened. No excitement. No hunger. No desire. Only a strange emptiness. He looked at her face, not her body — tired eyes that narrated many painful stories, the sadness beneath practiced smiles, the invisible wounds of a life that had reduced affection to a transaction.

For a moment her face transformed into Jothi’s in his imagination. Not physically, but emotionally. He remembered Jothi speaking proudly about her daughter’s performance in school, remembered her concern when he had fallen ill, remembered her laughter and small quarrels during long conversations. In that moment he understood: he had never desired Jothi’s body. He desired her presence, her kindness, her voice, her existence. What he longed for was connection, not possession.

The realization struck him with the force of grief. True love, unlike lust, offered no cure. It simply remained: silent, unfulfilled, eternal.

Without a word, Shyam picked up his wallet and walked to the door. The woman stared, confused. “Where are you going?”

He paused but did not turn back. Then he left. The woman remained standing, unable to understand why a man would pay six thousand rupees only to walk away.

Outside, the night air felt colder than before. For the first time in months, however, Shyam was no longer confused. His love would never be spoken. It would never become a relationship. It would never be returned. But it was not lust. And somehow that truth hurt more than any lie he had told himself.

As he walked home through the sleeping city, he realized that some loves do not die because they are rejected. They die because the person who carries them chooses silence over selfishness. Beneath the indifferent stars, Shyam buried his love where no one would ever find it — not even the woman he loved.

Would you like this tightened further (shorter, more lyrical) or kept at this length?