The inert bench, an innocent onlooker, dirty and doomed, sat right beneath the shade of a neem tree outside the dilapidated boundary wall of a disused cemetery.

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A pigeon forsook the tree, perched itself on the top of the backrest of the bench, cooed for a while, and, before darting to the cloudless sky, left behind several untidy marks on it. The freckles of the desert sun blazed upon the green coloured bench through the thick foliage of the tree, and the soggy droppings froze faster.

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The coating of excreta and chipped green paint made the bench appear shabby and neglected.

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Fursan Street was a lonely lane. Apart from lovers who took advantage of its gifted solitude—sitting every so often on the bench, promising each other grand romance as they carved their initials into its wood, leaving small dents of devotion—it seldom saw even a casual passer-by pause to take a seat.

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One afternoon, as the sun shifted behind the tree, a girl not more than seventeen walked down that empty path with a brown duffel bag. The heat blurred her vision, strands of hair stuck to her damp forehead, and thirst clung to her maw, making her pant with every step.

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After a long journey, the lone bench felt like her only refuge—for her tired legs and her heavy mind. At the very sight of it, a flurry of excitement trickled through her love-ridden nerves, and she hurried toward it like a beloved running into the passionate embrace of a lover. Ignoring the splodges left by birds, she sat at the extreme left, where it was a little tidier, and placed her bag to her right. She gulped some water from her bottle, pulled out her phone, rested her elbow on the armrest, and let her fingers trace a love carving on the backrest of the bench. Smiling, she dialled a number that went unanswered.

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Soon, a husky voice drifted to her along with a gust of wind thick with sand. “Madam!”

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She lifted her gaze. A man stood next to the bench. Dressed in a beige uniform, his sunburnt face was beaded with sweat along his forehead and around his lips, and his eyes were sunken. The dust in the air and the sun made him scrunch his eyes. His uniform was splotched with paint. His one hand held a tin of paint, while the other gripped a broad, sturdy block brush.

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“I must paint this bench.” He grinned at her.                  

“Please wait for some time, until my friend turns up, or I’ll have to stand with this heavy bag. Why don’t you have a seat and rest a bit?” She anxiously scrolled through her phone.

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Looking at the bird muck crusted all over the bench, the man’s smile vanished, replaced by a frown. He said, “Well, I’ll wait—but not for more than ten minutes, dear lady. Once I finish painting this bench, I’m off duty for the day.”

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The girl smiled at him, nodded before turning to her phone. With desperation, she pressed the call button. Her call went unanswered. She tried it the second time, and the third, but the person on the other end perhaps deliberately ignored her.

She then dialled her friend. The phone rang, and from the other side a sweet voice floated to her. “Where are you?”

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"Near the cemetery, sitting on the same bench where we sat last and promised to start a new life. This is where he asked me to wait for him. He hasn’t turned up yet and is not picking up my call. I’ve been messaging him, but without a reply. It’s been more than an hour." Her voice recoiled. She stared at the love carving and kept scratching it with her hairpin. It left a deep dent along the initials of her and her lover’s names within a heart carved on the bench.

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“Well, I’ll give his number a go too, and if he still doesn’t pick up, he’s clearly tricked you, darling. You must then go back home." Her friend disconnected the phone, only to call her back and say, “I called him. He didn’t pick, but he messaged me saying that he is out of town with his family and that you must henceforth stop calling him.”

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The girl wished she could cry, scream, and vanish in that broad daylight like those restless spirits in the cemetery behind her, those who might have died desiring love. She could feel the chisel etching false promises of her lover upon her soul as cold as an epitaph on a tombstone. All she could do was wail, her lips tightly pursed

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I argued in his favour before leaving home, and now I’m sitting on this dirty bench in the middle of nowhere. How am I supposed to justify my actions to them?” she wheezed, glancing askance at the man sauntering up and down near the bench.

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“Calm down. I agree that they’ll be mad at you initially, but believe me, they’ll understand, and it’ll die down in a few days. So, now you must go back home. I’ll come to meet you in the evening.”

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A cad lover hoodwinking her in the middle of a deserted street, her friend’s words, and the thought of returning home carrying the load of being jilted bogged her down.

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As she sat lost in her thoughts, the man strolling nearby had eavesdropped on every word she spoke. Wanting to confirm his suspicion, he walked up to the bench with a feigned smile and said, “So, you’re a runaway teenager! Girls your age rarely make the right choices. Tsk, tsk!”

The girl shot him a steely glare. With her own troubles to sort out, she had no intention of wasting words on a labourer. “Paint this stupid bench and go home.”

She pressed her lips together at once, determined not to let another word slip, and walked away from the bench.

She walked up to the cemetery wall behind the bench and leaned against its rough surface, breathing heavily as she kept dialling her lover—but in vain. The love that had once sparked excitement had now left her pale.

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“You can sit for a few more minutes.” The man cleared his throat and checked his watch as the seconds stretched into minutes. Then, no sooner had the ten minutes passed than he began his work. He first scrubbed off the old paint with sandpaper, then dipped his brush into the green paint. Slosh—squelch—swish—he coated the bench with fresh layers of green.

He shot the girl a reproachful glance as he worked. She stared blankly at the man’s deft movements and at the bench. The sanding had erased the shallow love carvings. “Rub. Rub out the heart he’d carved with our initials in it. It doesn’t matter who the letters belong to. There are countless names sharing the same alphabet.” Saying so, she threw the bag aside, rushed to the man, grabbed the sandpaper and began erasing the trace of fake promises.

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The girl’s eccentricity flabbergasted the man.

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“Leave it! I say, leave it. It’s not your job. You should go home.” He snatched the sandpaper from her and continued his work. Every other blemish on the bench vanished under his hard work. But hers and her lover’s inscription ran deeper. Efforts to erase it left behind visible scratches.

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After he had finished applying the final coat of paint, his ears caught a faint whimper. He turned to the girl. Tears ran down her rosy cheeks as she picked up her duffel bag and began to leave the spot. He scoffed quietly and mumbled, “Poor girl, wasted time for a swindler.”

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Then he turned at the bench. Pleased with his own work, he cast a look at his last labour of the day before leaving. Spectacular! He thought to himself, and in that moment, a bird on the neem branch relieved itself. Its droppings bled into the fresh paint, robbing him of all the contentment he had gathered.

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In that golden haze of the late afternoon, the man and the girl from either side of the bench exchanged a fleeting glance before parting ways. An imperceptible wry smile brushed the man’s lips, while the girl sighed with a deadpan stare, allowing illusions drift away.  

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The bench, unable to cradle either love or labour, remained smudged with paint and excreta, a silent witness to failed hopes. The bird, true to its capricious nature, simply flitted away from the spot.