The Perfect Ending

By Nazreena Shabnam Anwar

Some questions just dont
have answers.
And even if there were answers, you could not find them.
And yet, sometimes when you finally find the answers,
the questions no longer exist.

Unrequited love. Love that was one-sided. It was a theme that intrigued him. Unable to find a suitable ending for his story, Karthick goes about searching for one and finds himself being dragged into an obsession he can neither resist nor truly enjoy. Unable to shrug off the magnetic pull a strange woman has over him and on his own unfinished story, Karthick finds himself wondering where fantasy ended and fact begun. Ultimately, he finds himself in a situation where he has to let go of his emotions and choose a perfect ending - for his novel and his own life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504925860

Nazreena Shabnam Anwar

Appalled by the inevitable one-hour commute to and from work, Nazreena resorted to crochet and reading her favourite authors’ novels on board public transportation. An avid and imaginative person by nature herself, she mulled over the possibility of having her own literary work published someday. The Perfect Ending, her debut novel, is the result of her wandering mind during the long commute. Originally from India, Nazreena grew up in Malaysia, Kenya, and in the United Arab Emirates. She immigrated to Canada in 2011 and is now based in Calgary, Alberta where she lives with her beloved feline companion, Sephora.

Book preview

The

Perfect

Ending

NAZREENA SHABNAM ANWAR

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 Nazreena Anwar. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/31/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2550-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2586-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

To Kesar, whose memories never cease to haunt me despite the distance.

***

To my parents, Sabreena, Calgary Transit and Canada ICI Capital Corporation.

***

To Harmeet Saroya – who always keeps assuring me of a perfect ending to any rocky beginning.

***

Without you all, this novel would have been impossible.

Some questions just don’t have answers.

Even if there were answers, you could not find them.

And yet, sometimes, when you finally find the answers, the questions no longer exist.

M y eyes were moist as I knelt before the grave and placed the bouquet of red and white roses on it. As I stood watching the grave, my emotions got the better of me, and I broke down.

My wife knelt beside me and placed her hand gently on my shaking shoulder. All I could do was to bury my face in her dark tresses and sob silently.

Shhh, Karthick, she whispered. There was nothing you could do. She paused. "Or can do."

I nodded, blinking away my tears. I took one last look at the grave before I walked out of the cemetery, back into the world of the living. Why were certain things and people so hard to let go?

Promise me that you will never come back here again, my wife asked me softly once we were seated in the car.

I dabbed my eyes with a tissue. This is the last time. I promise.

And I truly meant it this time. It was time to let go of everything and live with the choices I had made. That was the best thing to do. For both of us.

I first saw her in the train station. There was nothing special or unique about her. She was just a face among the million faces. Okay, so that’s where I first saw her. The surprising fact is, nothing about her attracted my attention. Her face was not spectacularly pretty. Come to think of it, she was hardly wearing any makeup. Yet, there was beauty threatening to show through her stony expression. Yeah, that’s right, a stony expression. How can one possibly say ‘beauty’ and ‘stony expression’ in one sentence? But that was precisely what attracted me to her- the empty look, the slightly parted lips, and then the fact that despite the -17 degrees Celsius outside, she was dressed in a mere jacket. Well, maybe it was a thermal one, I thought. But those bare knees? Yeah, she was wearing a short skirt, and her knees were exposed. What kind of a woman walks about in Calgary winter showing her bare knees? I guess that was what probably attracted me to her. Despite the fact that there were a million faces scurrying home after work, my gaze fell on her. She boarded the Somerset train, and for some stupid reason, I kept staring at the train as it sped past.

Chapter One

M y name is Karthick. I am what you can call ‘fresh off the boat’ in Canada. Well, not so very fresh off the boat. Hell, it has been almost a year since I made my landing here. That’s right - I am a new immigrant to Canada, and of all the places in this vast country, I chose to come to Calgary. Oh well, that’s where the money is – or so I had heard. And I opted to come to where the money was. Oil and gas was what made the Arab countries ridiculously rich, and in this city on the other side of the globe, the same two industries made Alberta the richest province in Canada. And the rich get richer! We guys in Alberta pay lower taxes than the rest of Canada. So there you go – a plus one for this city. Yaay! But oh- wait a minute, come winter, we guys in Alberta also get harsher winters. A minus one hundred for this city. Awwrrgh!!! Oh well, you just can’t have it all.

I was among the lucky ones, in the sense - I got a job quickly. Especially given that jobs were still scarce. It wasn’t my dream job or anything – hell, it was something I had done almost ten years ago back in India. Even back then, my supervisor had labelled me too smart for the job. So you can imagine how it felt working in an entry-level position again ten years later. A few months ago I felt like hollering in despair at the top of my lungs, but when one of my acquaintances lost his high paying job owing to the economic downfall, I learnt to shut up and practice being a bit more grateful in life.

I had landed in October, and it was awful. I kept telling myself that I could brave the winter, but once those chilly winds started blowing in, my confidence got blown away too. Added to the fact that I was jobless, the winters were just miserable. Then I got miraculously selected in one of the downtown companies as a junior accountant. Oh man! I was glad that I had finally lived to see the day when my bank account would show some credits instead of debits. Spring came in, along with its rainy spells. But I was just enjoying life – or, rather, celebrating my life in Canada. I took a couple of summer trips with my two best buddies- Kishore and Ram. Yes, I had two best buddies! It was one of those random meetings at the train station, and before we knew it, we had become good friends.

My buddies shared a nice apartment down south and had asked me to move in with them some months ago, but I had politely declined. I mean, come on! I stayed downtown, in the heart of the city and close to the Bow River. I had a small but steady income on hand, a cheap downtown apartment, lots of restaurants close by… What more can a man ask for? My buddies’ apartment was about five stations away – no, wait, seven stations away. Okay, so that was not a big deal. But Calgary was not going to be sunny forever, and the thought of waiting for the train during the freezing winter months seemed rather appalling. So what if I had to dish out a bit more for rent? Work was just a walk away, and besides, I could save on the transit fare. That was a small price to pay for the God-awful freezing wait at the train station during winter. So I stayed all by myself in the little studio apartment by the river, poorer by the wallet but happier by the soul.

But oh yes, be it living downtown or five stations away, winter with all its freeze crawled into my newly immigrated soul and I started feeling lonely. They say that it is when you are lonely that you discover yourself the best. And that’s precisely what I did. I started looking for things to do. And it was then that I realised that it had been almost a year since I had last written anything. By writing I mean …err… story writing.

Story writing was something I had always enjoyed. The very thought of writing stories filled with characters that I alone had invented instilled in me a sense of thrill and adventure. It made me feel like