Unusual

Here’s an usual thing that keeps happening now and then, but there’s something unusual too…

Mornings were sunny, when you use to wait for me to get to school, I use to get both of us into trouble by running late every time, and we both get scolded almost every time. Afternoons were warm but comfortable, when you use to keep the table unoccupied for me, even if you find yourself into a quarrel for that. Evenings were cold and dark, but with you taking me to that favorite park of mine, walking a mile with me, even if your legs hurt in sleep, with you in dark I felt bold. Nights were quiet and shush, but with you helping me out with homework and getting this lazy ass to do tons of homework with that ease, shush were meaningful than a meaningless clatter.

That immature childhood, with maturity of care, compassion, empathy, affection, and childhood with maturity of clueless love, we carved plans for future. I always wanted to own my a café, which you helped me to build in my open-eye dreams, I always appreciated your interior ideas, and you really were good at it. But I never realized this is what, that will take us apart.

Time flew with such a rush, never saw it coming, neither saw ‘us’ going. But the undone future was calling to be done. Eventually you did leave the town, for Architecture Studies, you left home, and that childhood was left behind too. Days pass, weeks faded, calendars get changed, did get changed twice, thrice, did again, but still there was no one waiting in mornings, no one to sit next to in afternoons, no one to walk by at dark evenings, none to tell my nightmares to, in those sore quietness, no one to hold me and say, ‘it’s going to be alright’.

Finally it was a dawn, you came back, after 10 years. I was happiest that day, happiest I could ever be. I came at the station, to see you. There were so many people already, to receive you. There, it was the first eye contact we had after this long time. It was no more like it was before, it didn’t feel like we shared something so beautiful back then. It felt little strange, I wasn’t able to bare this awkwardness, I ran back home. I took my time, with all courage, I left my house to go and to see you, to talk to you. If "the awkwardness I felt, was it mutual?”. With every step closer to your house, my hopes, to find ‘the missing childhood’ and ‘those immature feelings’, my hopes were fading, every next inch felt hard to cover. I was losing it, I wasn’t even sure if I’ll make it to your place. My heart was racing, forehead got sore taking sweat off every few steps.

But to my surprise (oh my good lord!!) you were right there, right in front of my own eyes, walking opposite path as I was walking. I was freaking out, I thought there were uncountable turns and bumps to go through to be there, there just to find the lost'childhood’ and the lost ‘old you’. We were on the same path, but different lanes, going through same turns, same bumps, but looking forward to different directions, again.

With every single step, distance between you and me was dropping to none, with a step forward, my courage was stepping twice backward. It was just few step more for you and me to cross. For a second, I had this weird thought, a thought to hold you, hold you close, close enough to share my place, my situation, and make you see how miserable my thoughts were, and my broken hopes were, for a decade. To hold you and ask, “Why?”

Those few foots towards you felt like the longest distance I’ve ever walked. With all the courage left, with every remaining bit of it, I raised my head up, raised my shattered old, to get shatter again. I looked at you, a second eye contact was the only possibility my mind wanted to think of, and as the only possibility my heart wanted it to be. My raised eyes looked at you, searching for yours, but those quiet eyes of yours felt like they never wanted to be found, they were wondering in all possible directions, like a frightened bird running away from the predator.

Now all my anxious thoughts channeled, wondering “Why?”, “What went wrong?”, “Did I do something wrong?”, and just every crazy thing I can think of.

But the ring on your finger narrated an untold story. The loudness of your quiet past, those quiet 10 years, torn this sunk old childhood of our's apart.

Sakib Tamboli
-A Story Teller