The silent penance continues

I suppose it's okay to make this post as long as I don't disclose names and identify individuals. With that, let me go on.

He is simply unable to get on with his life. Sure, he goes to work and doesn't skip his daily and week-end routine, but I can see that his heart is simply not in it, except when he plays badminton with me. Otherwise, his face has that look which is all too readable to anyone who cares to notice. To wit, he has become a zombie.

I've stopped trying to tell him that she has now gone beyond his reach - you can't inform a man who already knows; you don't need to tell a fish which is out of water that it's going to die - it knows instinctively, but it can't stop thrashing all the same.

I can see him suffering silently. Sometimes, he sets off on his new bike and vanishes for an hour, but when he comes back, it's evident that he has gone on his "pilgrimage" - a visit to the places they used to frequent, and also her last places of residence. I've never seen him cry, and but for the tear stains, I wouldn't have known he was even capable of crying.

Sometimes, I point out to him that his "pilgrimage" does not seem to be helping him at all; that it only seems to deepen his pain. But he doesn't seem to listen, or maybe he feels that his pain is atonement for the grave mistake he'd committed. To him, she was the one, and the memory of how he'd let her go after her heart-breaking entreaties was painful to him beyond words.

I try not to judge him. After all, who can say what's the right thing - right and wrong are extremely subjective even otherwise, and more so in these cases. Especially when a man who has never cried since he passed out of school sobs in front of you, you don't want to be caught judging because his remorse is genuine, even if in vain.