Paper Boats

I see rains as a force uniting everything.
Not just the parched lands to a long-desired bloom.
But also brings back a better chirp in the birds, if you pay enough attention.
Not just nature, it unites us all too.

Rain is a form of a love of the skies with the earth.
And storms are the tantrums they throw on each other.

And most of you will agree that; Rain is just another synonym for Love.

 

 

He had to walk a mile in the rain to catch a bus. The bike he bought with his first salary gave up for some reason and he was already late.
Cursing the rain he crossed puddles and saving himself from a car’s splashing water, he reaches the bus stop.
In the bus, he overhears someone saying how much more it is going to rain for the next few days in Mumbai. And for sure the whole city will stop for a day or two.

In some time he got on the bus and started to scroll in his mobile.

He kept fiddling with his phone and then he heard a group of girls talking loudly and laughing while they got on the same bus.

Dark blue dress, and eyeliners to perfection.
Little oxidised earrings, not too big, nor too small.
Hair down till her waist, and probably was wet because she stood in rain.
A mild smile always stamped on her face even when she had no reasons for it, maybe.
She passed him and said “Excuse me”, and while he gave her way, her wet hair swept across his arm.
For the first time, getting wet by the rain inside the bus was his favourite.

He just saw her and wondered “How can she be so happy even though it is raining this much?”

He kept stealing glances now and then, she was the only interesting thing in that bus.
She took a lot of time perfecting a perfect picture of the rain from the window and he thought she must be posting the picture with the caption, “Heavy Rains in Mumbai, and I love it a lot” or maybe, “I smile more beautifully than ever when it rains”

He looked away and smiled. And, probably for the first time he has smiled since last evening since he came back home all drenched in rain.
Some people do hate rain, but till when is what the question lies in?

He looked back at her, and there was some other girl sitting on her seat.
He did remember her eyes, nose, lips and, yes, that smile…He was damn sure it wasn’t her.

He looked around, she was gone.
She must have got down at some stop, and he asked the conductor which stop was it?

And he kept mumbling that stop’s name until he got to his office and then it all went away.

Next day, it wasn’t raining and also his bike was all good but he walked down the bus stop and got on the same bus again. And waited for her stop to come, and he kept waiting till her stop came.

He did the same a few days and now, it was about to be a week and she was nowhere to be spotted.

Later That Night

He dreamt of him running behind a bus in which she was on the window seat smiling at him. And he missed that bus
He woke up all in cold sweat and looked outside, it rained again that day.
‘One last time’; he thought, and he walked to the bus stop and got in it.
He waited and waited.

Time gets super slow when you wait for one thing so much where you focus all your energy on.
It is not just a dramatic statement, but also a scientific one.

And then, her stop came and she got in. He smiled at her so wide that she must have got a little scared of a stranger smiling so wide.

She and her friends stood a few feet away from him and they were talking…

It is also scientific that if you want to listen to that one voice you want to hear, you will have amazing noise filtering techniques equipped to yourself and hear whatever that one person you want to hear.

She kept on talking how much she still misses making paper boats and now, she doesn’t do that all because she isn’t seven anymore and they now live on the 8^th floor.
She added, “If I were to live on the first floor of my building I will happily make boats and throw them in the waterlogged parking from the balcony.” When her friend interrupted saying “it won’t float if you even throw from the first floor.”

“I believe it will, and I have still to try it to be sure” she replied with a smile.

And suddenly, she hears a voice “I guess it will float…. for sure if it is from the first floor…”
She and all her three friends turned their heads towards the guy who gave that creepy smile when they got on the bus.

An awkward silence was between five people. And he thought he has screwed up his first impression.
His doubts were getting real with each second…And then she smiled and said “One day we will try” and she walked away and got down the bus.

He wanted to go after her and ask, When? Where? And also, what is your name?

But instead, he walked away from his dreamland and went to his office and the day ended.

Next day again he got on the same bus and waited and she didn’t turn up.
Again the next day, and also the next day… she was never back again.

It was the last weeks of the monsoon, and he hadn’t used his bike for 2 months now.

Nothing changed, the same bus, the same stops he hoped to see her, and when the stop she got off the bus came his hopes would all go vain all over again.

Days passed and one day while he was going back home, the bus had a breakdown so all the passengers were asked to get down and wait for another bus to pick them up.
He carefully walked out of the waterlogged roads and made it to the footpath, and he waited for another bus.
Then he saw a paper boat slowly made its way into the water drains on the road. He looked in the direction it came from and he found another one coming his way.

He slowly walked towards where it came from, and the footpath ended and he saw an apartment with waterlogged parking.
He smiled and looked up to see an old couple on the first floor.

In the dim candlelight, around in their eighties, smiling at each other while folding paper boats.
They made a boat each and threw down from there and one boat sank and one boat floated and made its way out of the building each time.
“You will never learn to drop them from here, even after 50 years of doing this with me, you always miss it,” said the old man.

He kept on seeing them and smiled in joy, and they noticed him and waved at him to come up.
They then dropped a boat writing something on it.

It reached near him, and he picked up and it read,
“It is raining, and we don’t think you will be going home safe in this rain. Flat number 4 is where we old couple live. Come up!”

He walked up inside the apartment and found the apartment No. 4.
He was welcomed and they kept telling about boats and how they do this every year.
He just smiled and kept nodding.

He noticed things in that house very familiar as if he has seen them before.
A wall full of small to large framed pictures and he thought he knew a face in it.
He went close and found that familiar face of her.
Same eyes, the same long hair. Everything the same, the one he fell in love with.

He then noticed she was standing with a guy in garlands and all, it was a wedding picture.

 
He tore his eyes away from her and saw the groom, it shocked him.
It was him standing next to her.
In their wedding picture, and he was shocked and he kept looking at the other picture on the wall.

It all had him and her in different phases of life.
Growing older and older in pictures while he went to the right.
And then he stopped at one picture of a couple in their eighties, it resembled the couple who invited him… he saw the resemblance of him and her getting older and older till this frame.
He saw how the old couple looked exactly the older version of him and her.

Was it a dream? Or something else?
It is now your story.
You make it out.