The Forest of Enchantments

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

TIME PASSED. THE DAYS FELL on us like gentle rain; the nights wrapped us in gauzy arms embroidered with stars.

Though we’d been married for so long, we still played courtship games, I pretending to be upset over little things, he wooing me back into good humour with a small forest-gift. Sometimes he sang to me, making me smile because he was always slightly off-key, my husband who was so perfect at everything else. For me, that was part of his charm.

TIME PASSED. BUT AH, how slowly it passed, the moments like grains that ants were carrying from a mountain of sugar, one at a time.

How entangled love is with expectation, that poison vine! The stronger the expectation, the more our anger towards the beloved if he doesn’t fulfil it—and the less our control over ourselves.