Add Two to Twelve Times Two

She is small in size; his built is big, and round.

In his prime, he was named “Best P.T” in his batch, not once, but twice - once in B.M.T and in S.I.S.P.E.C.

His hang out place of choice at that time was Dairy Farm. He biked in the trails and ran round and round. Yet what he loved most was to scale the rock wall there. But, his fall from grace at the rock face changed how he had to live his life from then on.

He owns a shop in town where he sells sports stuff straight from the States and which he holds the rights of. It was in there that he first laid eyes on her.

She loves to race; though now he can not race due to his wrecked feet, he is still in the sports scene. In his spare time, he plans and runs a race each year; three to date and all in his one-man show style.

She speaks in a soft voice. His gift from God is that he would not be missed. If one fails to see him, one will hear him for sure. He has to strain to hear her laugh while his is one that she can hear from a block down the road.

She is mild and meek. He is rough. Just.plain.rough.

Men shun his path when he comes. Things fall when he turns left or swings right. The best thing is - he does not know what has come to pass. But with kids, oh how he plays with them. His touch is firm, yet it does no harm to them. He loves them, and they love him with all their hearts too.

When he talks about her, which is all the time, we joke from time to time that we are on “Channel E”: Her name starts with an “E”. He should be a D.J. He makes use of his mouth, we - our ears. She loves the Smurfs, or at least we think she does. He bought the soft toy for her and grew to like the blue folks too.

She has a soft spot for dogs. So has he. Thank God he does not live in a flat; quite a few strays have come to live in his house since he caught sight of them in the streets. When he bought his own dog in March, it was dubbed “E”. So was the mouse that he kept as a pet. In the month of June, E the dog dashed out of the front gate and has not been seen since. The small white fur ball soon died too.

He calls her “Sweet”. Yet she has not had the chance to hear. Till now, we doubt she knows.

She falls sick quite a fair bit. And in the three years that I have known him, I have not seen him ill, all but that one time; the first and the last.

It was a short fight. All it took was four days for his strength to fade and his fire was snuffed out just like that.

At such a young age.