Vubon Raihan
Continued from lat week
Our delinquency just by the thought of causing disturbance to that particular couple, the man was somewhat older then the girl and they both were seated across each so I counted them out to be married, they wore identity cards of the same firm and were involved enough to stroll through each other's fingers amidst the food tray on the table and thus I presumed the man of having an extramarital affair and thus ended my concern of being ashamed by social norms but not because I presumed extramarital affairs to be insulting but since only typical and conservative, family-oriented folks glare with judgmental eyes upon overhearing loud and inappropriate jokes and upon my glance backwards I saw no such glare.
While this conversing carousel of catching ups and revelations of a younger boy from school already had married and tales of how valiantly Anila drowned an entire liter of vodka in a single gulp during the boys wedding and how peculiarly Avik and a few others accompanied upon to the boys honeymoon was draining me off energy since even immense laughter while under exhaustion takes its toll, I knew I had to sharpen my focus and the remedy of good old fashioned street tea struck first in my mind and upon constant pestering, I could convince the lot to depart from the slightly comfortable couches of the fast food and outwards into the hot and dusty streets of Adabor.
Finding a tea stall in a semi-commercial locality was not tough albeit it was delirious to comprehend as to why the other three except me and Avik didn't want to drink tea in the hours of the evening, especially since I was singing rave remarks of how little slices of ginger and lemon flakes transformed the ordinary raw tea to the status of drinkable at the very least.
After feeling reinvigorated and refreshed courtesy to the tea, I quickly agreed upon Avik's offer of having a few games of pool in a local café although which later resulted in utter comedy as virtually most of us haven't touched a cue stick for years prior to this and Anila on her debut mistook the game to be that of hockey, sweeping horizontally, pocketing stripes and solids, defying the laws of nine-ball while the rest of us laughed at our own efforts of missing the white cue ball, entirely at times and hoping no from the adjacent tables acknowledge our efforts to add to our shame.
After four games of turmoil and humiliation, we decided our lost form of the sport was not to return soon and departed the café.
With no idea of what to do the next two or three hours before we return to the fast-food again, Abeer proposes to relax a bit in his ancestral home also located in Adabor to which Lisan pounces upon, proposing to bring weed from his house nearby, the scent of weed itself is nauseating to me and I disagree to accompany, offering to bring kebab while they had smoked off the malodorous plant but that notion was disregarded as a horde of food delivery services was proposed and Anila had offered me a surgical mask assuring me it would keep out the stench, unwilling though I agreed upon the logistics of Anila's innocent proposal, that of to wear the mask and stay away while they ignited and blasted off into the abyss.
I went on to the roof of Abeer's house precautious with the surgical mask tucking neatly upon my mouth and nose even though Lisan hadn't arrived with the weed till shortly afterwards but by then, abruptly and increasingly every minute or so I was tipsy due to being sleep deprived.
Soon afterwards I didn't need intoxication to spot a star or too under the cloud-covered sky, while I could spot flares of matchsticks being ignited illuminating faces, I dozed off for fifteen or so minutes and was shaken awake by Abeer, who was concerned as the chair was inching close to the edges of the roof, which in fact was just an excuse to awake me since he didn't consume weed too and wanted to indulge in our shared boredom. I was revitalized completely with newfound energy courtesy to the short power nap.
The first inquiry from Abeer was did I dreamt in my short doze and if so, of who, before I could, he answered for me proclaiming it to be of Rafsan, a boy who now resides in the States and whom Abeer perceives me of having kissed during class five, now bear with me, nothing of such sorts occurred, in what was a moment of heated argument following a grueling session of basketball,
Me and Rafsan got into a quarrel, I cannot recall at all about for what reasons but It must have been significant since it forced me to go up in front of Rafsan desk while a class was underway, totally ignoring the teacher whatsoever and with shared fury to mine Rafsan stood up fiercely, a bit too energetically and hit his knees on the edges of the desk, forcing him to lean forwards with his nose touching my chin, deceiving the rest of class into thinking that a romantic expression was expressed which resulted into a volcanic eruption of laughter but the teacher who stood right behind us both had clear views and perceived what could have transpired - a brutal brawl between two boys and did not hesitate to send us both to the principal's office for further scrutiny, the rest of the day me and Rafsan endured detention and rest of our days afterwards being a laughing stock. I can't account for how many times Abeer so innovatively brought this joke up whenever the slightest opportunity arose during the day since I was fed up off it after the eleventh time.
Just when Abeer's cheap bullying was enticing the thoughts of driving myself across the edges of the roof, the knock on the roof's door startled us both, it was Sriya, another of our classmates whom I haven't had the slightest of ideas was going to appear, I hadn't seen her in the last decade entirely and she wasted no time tightening her arms around both of our necks simultaneously.
We sat down, she on the sole chair while me on a pile of old bricks next to her while Adeeb went to check on the other three in their gallant endeavors.
She inquired how I was and cut me off short while I was answering, with a photograph of a two-year-old infant, the next words she uttered took me by storm, it was that of her son and instantaneously questions bombarded through my head onto my lips as I wasn't aware she was even married, to begin with, let alone the child, cute in all his majestic rights.
She looked down with a frowning smile and spotted the pack of cigarettes pointing out through my shirt's pocket and asked for one. I too put one in my lips and failed to light on consequent tries as she noticed my eyes didn't lower from her face and she found that amusing enough to muster a smile but before she could begin her phone interrupted to which he hurriedly attended, I interpreted it to be from her work, she was expected elsewhere.
Astonishingly enough to render me speechless to the point of incapable to apprehend communication of any sorts as she went on, I found out she met a boy five years back, one who showed dreams left only visualized of a life together that resulted into a child and broken promises of a marriage and a few violent relatives of the boy supporting him stead found which allowed him to abandon his responsibility- his son and Sriya to endure this horrific scenario.
I didn't inquire about the boy, I knew he was happier than her and that was enough to make me hate him. Sriya stopped and gazed at me, dumbfounded with an open mouth a dozen flies could slide into - smiled generously and asked again as to how was I, to which the only words I could utter in a pretentious but confused manner, "Pretty Good"!
She knew our conversation was over and walked across the other side of the roof with little waste of time for the formal "Hi's" and "Hello's" with the others.
While empathy had eroded backwards onto my conscience and bewilderment as to how cruelly lives, mostly that of a young woman can be set ablaze by the repercussions of just a single and solitary act or decision across this beautiful yet bestial country of mine.
Sriya left Abeer's house soon but not before fulfilling the formalities of tightly hugging this lost friend, her sole parting words were "Don't be a stranger" followed by that gracious smile but as she left, I wondered - a stranger I was, to her experience and her endurances, to her entirely and all I could think of was a younger version of her wearing ribbons in her braids, who I mercilessly bullied for being overweight.
Thereafter from the rest, I found out Sriya was working that of two jobs as a chef in two different restaurants during morning and night shifts individually to support herself and her son, while her family has abandoned her entirely since the revelations of her pregnancy came before them.
How so selfish and immature these fundamentalist and stereotypical parents that think way too much about what their small and insignificant societies' thoughts can be towards their life's dismays, the thought furiously ravaged in circles across my head, distancing me from the rest of them for some minutes.
Eventually, I found my way back into the present and hearing, just listening upon carefully to the stories of the present times of my friends, stories of which in past I was also a part of and now once again for the time being. Avik was diligently working alongside his father's manufacturing plant while having a stint in student politics. He was and is an epitome of the masculine personality and I didn't expect anything less from him other than subconsciously focused on making his father proud.
Lisan was a class younger than us, mostly over the handful of games of Dota, we've played together, he's always represented in the role of a support, and in reality is just identical to that of a gentle and helping guy who very thoughtfully had already begun ordering food on one of the delivery services.
Anila is a thriving resonation of independence but with a keen interest in all things peculiar courtesy to chemistry- her majoring subject in university but with a keen sense of respect for norms, particularly those inherited by blood which I transcribed by the act of her putting a cloth to cover her head when microphones from the nearby mosques started to spread religiousness but my hypothesis of her was shoved to the drain when she declared her skills of rolling a joint where not inherited from blood thus demoralizing me into thinking my skills of deduction was inferior to that of Arthur Conan Doyle's epic creation, along with leaving me with a sense of being the insignia of imbeciles.
Just as when our thoughts and attentions and topics of conversion where changing swifter than the clouds passing the moon, off whose gleams I was highly praising for, came Theodore, a suave dude with no regards for Catholicism or his culturally rich tribal heritages but with a keen devotion towards that of the horrifying and disgraceful pop-culture of the South Koreans known widely as "K-Pop" and "Anime".
He was and still is the shortest of us and had decided to show up on the one hour of the day when none of us were trying to contact him over the telephone.
Afterwards an hour of the continuance of remomorations, my reunion with the lot was forced to an end sooner than scheduled as I was needed elsewhere, bidding adieu was never a specialty and finding time for one's self can be challenging at times in an urbanscape with a thriving rate of traffic but also to that fact you can and cannot at times, evade your daily robotic modern way of life.
Later that night while laying my head over a pillow, I dreamt but not dreams albeit visions in forms of carousel and glossaries of an enclosed time or simply one's childhood and of those acquaintances whose juvenile faces you can recall. (ended)
The writer is a freelancer
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