Missing something...?

It was an unearthly hour.

All was quiet and deathly silent. There he lay covered under a warm quilt, sunk in his soft bed but unable to sleep. His gaze hovered everywhere and odds and ends of thoughts noisily swam about him. Looking out the window, he could see snow falling. The fire in his room made a music all its own - wood crackled and crushed under the weight of white heat.

All was hushed. Everything seemed lulled. Except him.

The abundance of empty space about him oddly discomfited him right now.

Usually it did not. He liked it empty and vast. But right now he wished for something more, something other than vast, empty space.

***

It was pleasantly cool outside her home. Inside her room it was cozy. All was quiet and deathly silent. A golden lamp shed beams of ethereal light. A slight aroma of cigarette smoke wafted around her lazily. She was at her table. Reading. Bidding sleep to come, but it did not. Abruptly she raised her head to look out the window. City lights twinkled unassumingly. The ugliness, filth and dirt hid under the cover of the night to let a hazy beauty shine. Seemed like it was an unearthly hour.

Getting up from her chair, she walked to the window, opened it, lighted a cigarette and gazed outside. From somewhere in the mist of her arbitrary thoughts she kept feeling that something was missing. She glances about her room. All was to her desire - the sheet on the bed, fluffy pillows, and mellow beams of light; now an old song was slipping in through the open window. Everything was just as how she wanted it.

And yet she felt she was missing something.

***

It was an unearthly hour, he felt.

Lights buzzed around them. Music beat off the walls. The place was packed thick with bodies.

He was having a good time. Having come with a big group of friends whom he was meeting after ages. And then they had suddenly decided to come to this pub! He had been drinking. Smoke was twirling around in seductive circles. Though he did not like to smoke, he was always fascinated by how seductive it looked. Slow, almost drawling lazily, drawing him into a certain inviting stupor of merely gazing at things. Not thinking, not even looking. Just gazing.

Friends burst into cacophonous laughter. He was startled. On the dance floor a couple was moving so well to the rhythm of smoke and sound he suddenly felt inspired to take dancing lessons.

But he couldn't quite get over the feeling that he was missing something. He was surprised at himself! Here he was, with a set of treasured people, who meant something important, with whom he could be himself and laugh out loud without a care in the world! And he couldn't get over the sensation in the small of his back that something was missing from the picture.

What was it? he asked as he looked around himself. His friends talking about some joke from the past, the couple on the dance floor, music and the sheer sensuality of smoke. What was it?

***

It was a long drive to the hills. Took almost all of the day away. But a treat was waiting for them on the top and they knew that. The girls got out of the car, tired after a long drive, relaxed and in the mood to laugh at the smallest of things. The sky was getting ready to put on its rarer dress. After rounds of food and water they felt sufficiently replenished to gather round and watch the sky unfurling its beauty. All of a sudden myriad colors splashed across a canvas so vast, it took their breath away.

It was an unearthly hour, she thought, gazing in wonder.

Feeling so grateful that she could witness it. This mad rush of colors! Streaks of delicious oranges, the struggle of a dying crimson sun, reds, deep purples, violets, spreads of indigo and just as suddenly, the angry defeated red dome vanished behind the hills. She sighed. Infected by the blue of the sky, inexplicably she felt a little blue too. Looking up at the darkening sky, she wondered what it was that made her blue.

All was quiet and deathly silent at this hour. Except the chattering of her friends. They had turned away from the sky and were talking about dinner. And camping for the night.

She wandered off alone, to be with her thoughts.

Stars started shimmering silently. She looked up and the stars reflected in her eyes. But what was it that made her blue, she seemed to ask them.

What was it?