UN-NAMED
Agneesh Ghosh
What was the most important day of your life? Most of you will say that it was the day when I first got my job, or the person came into my life and so on. But how many of you will say a date? Sometimes days do have identities apart from their dates. Their identities remain in the memories associated with them. Same is the case with humans. In case of us it is just names apart from dates. I am such an unnamed person narrating an unregistered rainy day of my life, which I remember, not when I see the calendar, but when I am in a storm or just after it.
The day started when I woke up. Now this is not the unusual thing that happened, of course. Neither it was when I made my own tea, took hold of the newspaper, still in my night shirt and pajamas and settle myself over the crumbled blanket on my bed. It all started when my cell phone buzzed the table beside my bed. It was Hope. I knew I was going to hear it, I knew it was coming; I knew it would shatter me to hear the words. But still, I received the call. Hope told me that she had to meet me in our usual place and cuts the call off. It was just delayed I knew it ........
It was a rainy day. I wore my raincoat from which I did not bother to brush the dust and mud off. It was brown once, but now it is black. I take my umbrella and get off my house on my way to the abandoned cafeteria. The shop had been famous once but had suffered losses and the owner sold it off to someone who did not pay off the debts. The case is on, which might never get resolved, so it is one the best places to be alone with someone, or be lonelier in the colony. It was raining heavily; though winter snow had covered the streets of London. The trails of my footprints were indicating my way towards the cafeteria. I opened the almost non existing gate of it. The huge window panes make it possible for only the brief residents to see outside but also restricting the pedestrians to do so. Hope was standing there, perfectly dry. The rain might have started after she had made her way in there. She started to spit the inevitable on my face, before even, perhaps seeing it properly once. I did not hear it all. Her voice was drowned away by both the heavy rain and the dizziness of my head. I only caught the words which she put emphasis on, like 'do not ever ', 'near me 'and 'hate ', etc. I just looked into the glass which had been made translucent and somewhat of a mirror now, because of the rain. On it I saw a mid- aged man dressed in a raincoat, stained with mud. His hands are clenched on the crook handle of the umbrella, as if he would never let it go. On the inside he seems to wear dark shade of blue with denim jeans to keep him warm. His long face wore the expression as if he was being delivered the strongest blow to his guts without allowing him to feel the wrenching physical pain of it. I woke up to my senses again when Hope pressed the keys to my apartment in my hand and said "Good Bye". I never knew when I came outside the door of the cafeteria. Hope went inside her car. The engine roared to life, and with that..........she drove away. The realization of the words made their way to my lips although I will never be sure if I actually said it out loud or not--------------------
"Hope was gone."
I then started to walk by the pavement, don't bothering to think where I was going. I just started walking. It started raining more heavily than before. My umbrella got crumpled due to the heavy rain and the storm. It was like the lightning was daring me to stay outdoors. The mechanism of the watch which I wore got crippled. It lost the track of time. Unable to walk due to the heavy rain I settled on a bench on the pavement.
I noticed a crow was sitting on the extended part of one of the closed windows of an office. The office was evidently called off due to the weather extremities. It was very wet. I had pity on it. It was obvious that it had to go inside the building to save itself. The presence of the crow made me realize that there was apparently no one besides me on this part of the street. On the opposite side of the building there was an opened window. The crow was trying to reach into it, but being unable to flap its wings in this heavy shower it could not bring itself to do so. I started observing more carefully. How would it save itself, when all the possible ways were blocked out? But it did. It unbelievingly used its beak to open the bolt of the window on which it was sitting. The window opened and the crow threw itself inside. I was stunned. An old saying came up to my mind. When there is will, there is a way.
