Express – Words of Love (short Story)

Evening rain whispered across the road as Thendral sat in the back seat of the taxi, watching water run down the windows like silver threads. It was nearly 5:30 p.m., and the mandapam was still 40 kilometers away. The roads were flooded, no mobile phones to inform anyone—only the constant hum of rain and his thoughts.

Tomorrow, he would marry Menmozhi Meenakshi.

Everything was going just as he had wished. Same girl, same day, same mandapam. Yet, the delay felt heavy in his chest. He wasn’t nervous—just restless. Time was slow, like a sleepy river.

After an hour of riding through the drenched highways, he began to see familiar trees and the scent of wet earth from his hometown. It calmed him. By the time he reached the mandapam at 8 p.m., the bride’s family had also just arrived, equally slowed down by the rain. A small relief.

The hall buzzed with native laughter and distant relatives. Thendral’s eyes searched quietly. So many sarees. So many smiles. Then he saw her—just for a second—as she disappeared into the bride’s room. That brief glimpse brought him a kind of peace.

Inside the groom’s room, he smiled to himself.

She was close. Just fifteen feet away.

Most men think about the future before a wedding. But Thendral drifted back—one month ago.

That day, he’d gone to Madurai to buy notebooks for his younger sister. On the way back, he stopped at a roadside shop. He didn’t notice anything unusual then. A girl passed by, but he was busy buying books and a packet of biscuits.

Later at home, he handed the notebooks to his sister. A few minutes later, she came running back with a small postcard in hand.

“Anna, this was inside the notebook!”

It was a poem. A love poem. Handwritten. Meant for a contest by a magazine called Namkural.

The words stopped him. The poem wasn’t just beautiful. It was real. Thoughtful. Honest.

Her name and address were there at the bottom.

He went to Madurai the very next day and posted the card himself. He didn’t know her yet. But the poem… the words… they stayed with him.

Later he came to know the postcard was misplaced by the shopkeeper. Menmozhi had come to that same shop the day before to give it to the postman. When the postman didn’t show up, she left it with the shopkeeper—who had accidentally placed it inside a notebook.

She had walked away, thinking her poem was lost. But it wasn’t.

Thendral made sure it found its way.

He didn’t know her face. But her words gave her a shape in his mind. A gentle, poetic soul. Day by day, he began to fall for that unknown girl.

When the astrologer M.R.S. Venkatagiri Shastrigal came home, Thendral took a bold step. He gave him the name and address. To his surprise, the pandit already knew her family. It was all easier than he thought.

Both families met at a temple. The match was fixed. The wedding, decided within the same month.

He saw her during the engagement, but only her hands—when he slipped the ring onto her finger.

Still, he was content. Those were the hands that had written that poem.

Now, at 3:15 a.m., someone knocked on his room door at the marriage hall. It was the pandit, smiling his usual cheeky smile.

“Get ready soon, make it fast—the bride is ready!”

Friends teased him. Thendral laughed quietly.

By 7 a.m., the rituals were complete. The sacred knot tied. A lifetime sealed.

She was smiling. She looked happy. But she still didn’t know that her words had already lived in his heart before she even stepped into it.

Later, after the temple visit, they reached Thendral’s home by afternoon. The sky was still cloudy—like nature had stretched a grey curtain above them to bless the union. By 3 p.m., they sat upstairs. A soft breeze danced around them. The sound of leaves, the scent of jasmine, the low hum of post-wedding calm.

Thendral opened the latest issue of Namkural magazine, his favorite edition yet.

Menmozhi walked in, holding a plate of sweets.

“Eduthukonga,” she said gently, offering him one.

As he reached for it, he noticed her fingers again—the handwriting, the same hand that had written that unforgettable poem.

She glanced at the magazine in his hand.

“You read Namkural often?” she asked, in her usual gentle voice.

“No,” he replied, “but from now on, I will.”

“Why?” she asked, a little confused.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he began reciting the poem.

Her poem.

Word by word. Without looking.

She froze.

Her eyes brimmed with tears.

He slowly turned the magazine and pointed to her published piece.

She didn’t speak. She simply smiled through her tears and reached out, holding his hand.

That day, she had written about love.

Today, she lived it.

There were no more words between them. But the rain returned, to say everything they didn’t.

It fell softly, wrapping the couple in nature’s quiet applause.

They stood together in that moment—soaked in rain, in silence, in understanding.

They didn’t chase a fairy tale.

They lived a love that started with a forgotten postcard… and found its way home.