The Abandoned Book

It was the November of 2018. My official travels had begun after some gap. With an intention to make memories while I travelled, I had recently and carefully picked up a travel companion, a beautiful travel diary and a fascinating pen gifted by my love. After making short notes of diary entries, on this special day, a sight so different drew my attention and thoughts began pouring out of my subconscious self. This blog is an outcome of this outpour. 

With the restart of travels, came some special 'me-time' of reading, writing, observing and everything in between. Reading this amazing book by Mrs. Funny Bones, that I was loving every bit of, certain sections left me wondering. Wondering if that was how life had truly become. The 'hanging in the air' 'keep guessing' ending of the book kept me yearning for more. I really wish she writes more and that she writes another sequel of this book. 

While waiting at the Miami airport for my connecting flight, I came across a strange sight that caught my attention. An empty bottle, a coffee cup and an abandoned book. Though it was quite common to see people leaving an empty bottle or an incomplete cup of coffee in places, it was quite unlikely to see a complete book, 'rather new' be left behind. What was more intriguing was the title of the book 'Sold to be a wife'. My imagination couldn't stop thinking about the owner of this book, about why did they pick it up and what did they abandon it? What went through their mind while reading it and did they complete it or leave it mid-way? And my mind began weaving stories around it... 

A middle-aged man, visibly in his forties walks up to the bookstore. While going through the list of options, he stumbles across this interesting title 'Sold to be wife'. Intrigued to know beyond the summary, he ends up buying it. He is probably interested in how women get treated as wives across the world or may be doing psychological research on why some women do not speak up in domestic violence cases. He sits down to read the book with a cup of coffee and before he knows, he is downed in it. May be so engrossed that he did not hear the announcement of his flight and with the fear of almost missing it, rushes to the boarding gate, in a hurry, leaving this book and his trash behind. 

Or maybe it was a woman. A married woman traveling alone, who probably connected to the subject and picked up the book hoping to find some relevance or some solace. The book was probably so strikingly similar to her life, that it brought back the memories, the suffering, the pain, all back to her. She probably was so troubled by it that she stopped reading it mid-way and deliberately left it behind, as if she was literally leaving her past behind. So engrossed in her thoughts that she forgot to throw her rubbish in the trashcan. Don't we all do this sometimes? We get so entangled in our own world that we fail to see the rubbish we leave behind for others, in happiness or in pain. 

Or was it a young girl? An ardent reader and a fiction lover, bought this book to quench her thirst for some new, captivating, heart wrenching fiction, full of thrill, suspense and romance. As she swiped through the pages of the book, sipping her coffee, staining the cup with her red lipstick, she found it not up to her mark may be. Maybe she felt the author didn't do justice to the topic or live up to her expectations and so left leaving the book behind. 

Just then, the announcements brought me back to the conscious world of the present and I packed my stuff, threw the empty coffee cup, and water bottle that sat there so long, along with my coffee cup, picked up my cabin baggage, and walked towards my boarding gate with the possibilities of the truth behind the 'the abandoned book', still lingering in my subconscious.