Aslam had long believed that motorcars were further than finagled essence — they were vessels of memory. Within their polished frames dallied horselaugh, within their worn seats slept silence, and beneath the metrical palpitation of their machines lived feelings too profound to articulate. This conviction led him to an automotive restoration council one dim evening, a place where obsolete machines were revivified and forgotten stories still resurfaced.
That was where he noticed Shakila.
She stood beside a tableware-argentine auto, her win resting on its hood with reverence, as though admitting a cognizant presence. Grease soiled her fritters, yet there was an unmistakable fineness in her address — someone privately acquainted with both fragility and force.
“ You do n’t touch a auto like that unless you’re emotionally invested, ” Aslam remarked, approaching with measured curiosity.
Shakila glanced up, her lips curving into a knowing smile. “ And you would n’t notice unless you were inversely devoted. ”
That exchange, putatively inoffensive, sparked a quiet but unrecoverable connection.
They conversed for hours — about machines that defied fustiness, night drives devoid of destinations, and how certain vehicles transuded familiarity, nearly like home. Aslam spoke of his nonage seductiveness with haste and sound. Shakila reported learning mechanics from her father, discovering solace in ministry when mortal language failed her.
By the evening’s conclusion, they stood beside the same auto.
“ It listens, ” Shakila muttered.
Aslam exhaled a soft laugh. “ also I begrudge it. ”
From that night forward, motorcars came their shoptalk.
They met constantly — at shops, vacated roadways, and under sodium- lit thoroughfares before dawn. occasionally silence enveloped them, filled only by music and stir. Other times, their exchanges were indefatigable, horselaugh rebounding against glass windows, bournes stretching endlessly beyond the asphalt ahead.
The tableware-argentine auto came necessary.
It was n't ostentatious nor exceptionally nippy, but it was loyal — invested with familiarity and affection. They washed it together on weekends, batted mechanical advancements with sportful intensity, indeed nominated it with a name, as one would a cherished companion. Within that confined innards, girdled by participated playlists and half- finished dreams, their affection progressed organically.
Aslam succumbed first.
He honored it in the unconscious way he awaited for Shakila’s horselaugh before accelerating, in the spontaneous gentleness with which he drove when she rested her head against the window. Shakila followed — still, profoundly, irrevocably.
Their love was n't flamboyant.
It was harmonious.
It was cheering.
Yet life, much like business, is unpredictable.
One evening, after an total day at the factory, Shakila proposed a brief drive. City lights lustered , the road appearing surprisingly benevolent. They situated shortly near a familiar stretch, engaged in trivial badinage, mooting homemade versus automatic transmissions.
Aslam exited the auto first, intent on examining an strange sound near the hinder wheel.
“ Stay outside, ” he said casually. “ I’ll be quick. ”
Predictably, Shakila disregarded him. She stepped out, circled the front of the auto, teasing him for his habitual caution.
also chaos interposed.
A treble screech fractured the air. Tires screamed. Time dilated cruelly.
Aslam turned.
Another vehicle — reckless, unbridled — veered disastrously.
He cried her name.
But ineluctability prevailed.
The collision was brutal. Arbitrary. unrecoverable.
The tableware-argentine auto stood paralyzed, headlights glowing mutely, as Shakila collapsed beneath the weight of a machine neither of them trusted nor loved.
Aslam reached her too late.
Her eyes remained open — fear mingled with recognition. She tried to speak, but language abandoned her, just as life gradationally retreated. Aslam clasped her hand, pulsing, praying, offering pledges delayed by complacency.
“ I’m then, ” he rumored, voice fracturing. “ I’m right then. ”
Shakila smiled noiselessly.
And also — stillness.
The machine of their cherished auto continued its restrained murmur, unconscious to the irrevocable loss it had just witnessed.
Days dissolved into weeks.
Aslam desisted driving.
The auto remained stationary, untouched, accumulating dust like silent grief. Each regard summoned recollections Shakila’s horselaugh, her capability, her belief that machines could hear.
On certain nights, Aslam sat alone inside the auto, hands resting upon the steering wheel, eyes closed. He imagined her beside him — debating, smiling, breathing.
The auto still heeded.
But the road ahead had lost its consonance.
Some love stories do n't conclude with farewell.
They end with a unforeseen boscage .
And the machine noway truly ignites again.
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