A lingering trail

He clicked on the link “Home”. A message “Joy, congratulations you turn 28 today” popped up on his screen. He smiled, surprised at himself that how in the middle of such a hectic schedule he had forgotten his own birthday. Another thought passed by, “why the schedule has been so hectic?”, “what was keeping him so busy?”. He tried hard thinking about it, but the answer eluded him. Also, involuntarily he clicked on the link, “Profile”.

After staring for few minutes at “Married to Shivani”, he realized what was occupying his thoughts all these days. Suddenly, the thought of Shivani, fulfilled his mind so overwhelmingly that the words “Shivani, why you have not been in contact with me?“ almost made their way onto his lips. He thought he was being a fool, for sure Shivani has been contacting him. Just yesterday when she was not able to sleep, she had told him “Nt able to sleep, dont knw whats bothring me....”.

A knock woke him up from his sleep. “Shivani, is online now”, he noticed on his screen. He typed “Hi” and clicked send. There was no reply. He waited for few minutes and then typed, “Hi” and clicked on send again. After few seconds there was a knock announcing “Shivani is offline now”.

He clicked on “View Friendship”. It’s been one year since she had replied to his post.

Joy So all set for tonight!
Shivani yup, can’t wait

That was the last conversation. Involuntarily, he clicked on refresh.

Shivani
Joy, missing u a lot today, may u rest in peace.

Seeing this message he panicked. He went back to his homepage and realised that nobody had posted him anything since his last birthday. He went to Shivani’s album and clicked on album Birthdays. He went to comments history and started reading the comments on the same date last year.

Pratibha Hrd abt the accident, sorry for ur loss dear. love.

He couldn’t read further. He realised now why Shivani has not been in touch with him. Almost in tears, he clicked on “deactivate account”.