Cherry Blossoms
an excerpt

Einmal Ist Keinmal - What happens but once might as well not have happened at all.
- 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', Milan Kundera

Sifting through a thousand hazy memories, some clearer than the others, some startling in their nakedness and some vivid in what they represent, he thought of the years gone by and the many loves of his life. He smiled, a dimple instantly visible in his right cheek. Those years seemed as beautiful in retrospect, as they were tumultuous in their present.

Stretching out on his lush, tan couch, he wondered why he felt the vibrations of the past so strongly, so physically. It was a few minutes before he realized that it was the persistent vibrating of his cellphone, lodged somewhere between his torso and arm. Startled out of his reverie, he mumbled dazedly into the phone, "Randeep Srinivasan".

"It's been too long.", said a voice from the past that he instantly recognized. He sat up at once, as if in reflex, all semblance of incoherence vanishing from his mind, only to be replaced with faint anxiety and anticipation.