Diary Entry-4

My loving D,

You are the repertoire of all my thoughts and delicately captured moments of my ever-growing life. As I sit down to write, you become my sole listener and me, the speaker or writer. A narrator of sorts, dolling out monologues with no pauses per se.

Time flies, sometimes really fast, and at times not so. When we are over and done with an episode of our life and look back on it years later, we perceive it in ways, entirely different from what we did then.

Today, while cleaning up my shelf, I accidentally came across one school book of mine. Every time I clean the shelf, that book keeps popping up and I shove it aside. It's an essay book which I used during my school days. It's hardbound, with a cover in pink floral patterns. That pattern used to be quite popular during my school days. I don't require that book anymore. But today, I felt like opening that book again, a sort of deja vu feeling swept across my mind. But the most surprising part of opening that book was that, I found a letter, folded into two parts. Out of sheer curiosity, I opened it.

The letter had been sent by a dear friend of mine when I was in high school. I had almost forgotten about the existence of this letter. And with time, her memories resided only in my subconscious regime. We were not best friends, yet we connected so well. She had left the school when we were in 12th grade. She went to London as her father got posted there. The letter, which she had sent me from there, was full of her experience and feelings. How she missed me, about her admission into a new school, the subjects she chose and that she had to repeat a year.

Her house was in the outskirts of London city, a very long drive from Heathrow airport. She had described her house in the letter. It was on two floors. The ground floor had a living area, kitchen, washroom, and storeroom. The first floor had two bedrooms, a study room, and a washroom. That time we used the word toilet in place of the washroom. With time, diction has changed but the function of the place still remains the same.

She had asked me to reply to her. "Please do write to me. I miss you." Her last words in the letter. But I never replied to her, though I missed her as well. Now, when so many years have passed on, I wonder why I did so. As I reread the letter several times, I felt like replying to her. But a huge time has lapsed and it's too late now. Her father must have been retired by now and she must be married with kids. I don't know where she is but I bless her with lots of love and a fulfilled life. We cannot undo our life backward. Yet, if my writing ever reaches her heart, she would know, I still miss her somewhere down the memory lane, in a small corner of my heart.

I must stop here. Ample works piled up for today.

Adios!!

"you dwell in my heart

in that very space

in those loving moments

we shared together

those peals of laughter

in our Hindi class

horrible solutions

spilling in the chemistry lab

and then you were gone

leaving behind, a void

forever ..."

By Nandini Sengupta

@metaphors_of_life