Cold sweat

The loud argument of the next door neighbors woke her up, again. One of these days she might have to call the cops on them, she thought. Her room was about a hundred square feet with a small window and an attached washroom-the best she could afford. It had two doors that she could use; one that opened near the gate and the other that opened into the small hallway next to which the sparring couple lived. She kept that door padlocked and only used the exterior one.

She opened her eyes and instinctively reached for her smartphone. She jumped from her bed with a startled look on her face when she saw that the screen of her mobile was broken but, thankfully, it still worked. She couldn’t remember how that could have happened as she never parted with it so much so that it could practically be considered a part of her body. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recall what might have caused that. Did it break falling from her nightstand and she picked it up in her sleep without realizing? Possible, she thought. 

Alisha was not a very sociable person and she kept to herself mostly. She had precious little time for the ‘friends’ of today and she was too busy with her studies to notice anyone, anyways. She finally let up in her efforts to recall how that crack had formed in her cell. She sat up in her bed, memories of the past flooding into her mind. She revisited the day she, finally, had saved enough to buy a decent phone and even though she was sad, a faint smile formed on her lips. Yes, her family was not a rich one but they could definitely afford to help her out financially. But she was way too proud to ask their help and besides, her parents knew not to push the subject too much. She had always been independent and even earned her own pocket money when she was a little girl by tutoring kids in her neighborhood during her vacations. She didn’t need the money per se; she just had an insatiable desire for freedom and independence and monetary freedom was the only one she could attain then. Her parents understood her and respected her for that. They knew she would make them proud someday.

Alisha had a part time job to sustain herself in the capital, Kathmandu. After a couple of years toiling away as a temp in a small newspaper, she lucked out and found a slightly better job, as a content writer for a new magazine, which she continues to hold. The pay didn’t see a particularly good upgrade from her old job but she loves this job. She has a flexible work schedule and even has the freedom to work from anywhere as the only thing that mattered was that by the end of the deadline, she had to submit her writings.

She finally got up from her bed, thoughts still hovering over her broken mobile phone. She had a little money saved in her bank account and she thought of buying a new phone but she had been planning to use that to gift her parents something for their marriage anniversary. She could imagine the pride gleaning in her parents’ eyes. So, she thought maybe she could just get the screen replaced. She quickly freshened up and realized she had ample time for a breakfast before leaving for college. A corner of her room acted as the kitchen. She saw a couple of eggs and a loaf of bread. She quickly whipped up an omelette and had a few pieces of bread along with it. It was almost 8.30 AM by then, so she got dressed up for college and packed her bag with her notebook and her wallet. She plugged in her earphone, started her favorite playlist, put on her shoes and locked up. When she was locking up, she saw that her landlord was standing near the gate looking towards her locked door with a confused look on his face. Her rent wasn’t due for a week. So, she turned up the volume on her mobile as she so often did to drown out any and all unwanted disturbances. Her room was pretty close to her college and she didn’t mind the 10-15 minutes walk as she loved walking with music in her ears.

Just as she turned right towards her college at the intersection, her peripheral vision picked up a speeding taxi. There were two people in the taxi, of that she was sure. She looked at the back of the taxi as it was heading in the direction she came from. She could almost swear that that was her father in the taxi but she quickly dismissed the notion as she knew her father was most certainly at home along with her mother. She had classes from 9 am to 1 pm for 4 days a week and as it was the last semester of her Bachelors in Communications course. She had grown up thinking how she could become the voice of change, the voice of youth in the world of news media dominated by old graying men. Punctuality was one of her virtues and she had never been late to a class her entire life and she wasn’t planning on starting now.  So, she turned around and started hurriedly towards her college as it was almost 9.

She did reach her college on time. However, she saw a crowd gathered just inside the main gate where a huge notice board was placed. Some sort of a notice was stuck there but the crowd put her off. So, she didn’t bother to get near. She hung around the periphery of the crowd, the music paused but earphones still in her ears. She heard people talking excitedly about how that an intoxicated driver had lost control and hit a student not far from the college and that classes for that day were cancelled. Apparently, there was going to be some sort of a remembrance ceremony before classes started the next day. She tried to empathize with the victim and his/her family but she didn’t even know who it was. So, she started the paused music, put her cell back in her pocket.Walking away, she was thinking of what to make of the day.

Though she lived near BuddhaNagar and her college was in Sankhamul, she had never been to the Patan Durbar Square which was barely a fifteen minutes walk from her college. So, at the intersection, she went straight towards the square instead of going left towards her room. She reached the Square and sat in the steps of the temple adjacent to the “Krishna Mandir”. She just sat there not particularly looking at anything but just soaking in the environment. She was marveling at the grandeur of the temples and the buildings when she saw a tea vendor, a kid no older than 14, walk across the temple with a portable kettle strapped on his shoulders and she called out to him, “भाइ चिया देउ त.”("hey, a cup of tea please"). The kid paused, turned to his right towards her but continued walking. “What the hell was all that about?”, She thought but didn’t give it a second thought as some other vendor would be around soon enough. “Maybe he was out of tea”, she tried to shake that weird feeling off.

She sat there for a few more minutes and got up, dusted her behind and saw a couple sitting to her left in the corner, kissing. They looked ecstatic. She never did understand the concept of love. Apart from a few infatuations in the teenage years, no boy (or even a girl for that matter) ever had the substance to make her even look twice, let alone fall in love. As she was walking around the square, she passed a small nondescript shop, the smell of freshly made momos caught her attention. Even though she wasn’t particularly hungry, she called out to the shopkeeper, “दाइ, मोमो छ?”("Brother is Momo ready?") The shopkeeper seemed engrossed in his newspaper and didn’t even look up. “How rude”, she thought to herself and called up again. Again, he didn’t even look at her. “What an ass”, she said loud enough for him to hear before walking away, enraged. She felt tired and just wanted to return to her room thinking that maybe she could finish a few pages before lunch. 

She resumed the music and inserted the earphone in her ears. As she was walking, she thought of getting her phone repaired at the repair shop near her room but thought against it because she had heard how some creeps steal pictures and data from the phones. So, she planned to find an authorized service centre the next day and quickly made her way towards her room.

The gate to her building was open and a few kids were playing there. She got along pretty well with kids, however she didn’t have the energy or the patience to deal with them at the moment. So, she walked past them quickly and when she reached her room, was shocked to see that her door was open. Immediately, her mind raced to the worst case scenario and thought that she had been robbed. Trying to rationalize however, she thought she didn’t have anything particularly valuable enough apart from the kitchen utensils and cookware. As she entered, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her parents inside. Then, she remembered, the last time they were here, she had given them an extra key just in case they ever needed one.

Then she saw something strange. All her books, clothes and stuff were neatly folded and packed. Only the corner kitchen remained as she had left it. She was surprised and angry. She screamed at her mom,”Mom! What’s the meaning of this? Why is all my stuff packed?” But as she got closer while screaming, she saw her mother sitting in her bed with swollen, red eyes. It looked like she had been crying. She turned to her father who sat slumped in a chair in another corner. He looked shabby with unkempt hair, wrinkled clothes and looked generally tired with a solitary tear rolling down his cheek from the right eye. She realized that her parents hadn’t noticed her come in and didn’t even turn look at her while she screamed.

Quickly, her anger faded and it was displaced by fear and apprehension. She knew something terrible must have happened. She moved closer to her mother and softly asked her, “आमा, के भयो? किन रुनुभएको?”("Mom, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"). Still no answer. She turned to her father and asked, “बुवा, के भयो? किन केही नबोल्नुभएको??”("Dad, what's wrong? Why are you silent?"). Her father looked up. Alisha was scared shitless now. She realized that he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was looking right through her at the wall ...It was as if she wasn’t even there.

Then, her father turned his head up as if looking at the ceiling and let out  a soul piercing cry, “Why God!? Why her? Why not me?” Her mother moved closer to her father and embraced him, crying.

At this moment, Alisha knew. She knew why her college was closed and why people seemed to be acting weird around her today. She couldn’t bear to see her parents in such a distraught state and kept calling out to them, “बुवा! आमा!”("Dad!! Mom!!")

Her heart sank and she felt as though the ground beneath her feet was suddenly removed.

She woke up panting, cold sweat trickling down her forehead; her throat dry. “Phew! What a dream”, she thought to herself. She sat up in her bed and picked up the water bottle. She downed a few gulps and sat still, thinking about her parents. She, suddenly, had the urge to hear their voice. As she picked up her phone, she saw a crack on her screen, exactly the same as the one she had seen in her dream.