Nidhi Mukherjee, 3/19 Week 13 - End of Summer
“I don’t want you to go.”
A tranquil silence follows, only interrupted by the soft whispers of the summer wind and rustles of the already yellowing leaves.
Those were the last few words I heard from my childhood friend, spoken face-to-face.
And so, we sat, our feet dangling off the rooftop. We basked in each other’s presence one last time, our unspoken words doing the talking for us. We stole tacit glances, our eyes meeting a few times, saying all there is to say.
“I don’t want to leave.”
My voice barely registered in volume above the cool summer breeze. Say something, Sunny, I thought. Anything.
Alas, the only thing that followed was more deafening silence. Subtle glances. Eyes locked for fractions of a second.
Only when I heard a barely audible sniffle did I look up again. I looked up to see his gaze averted, his palms cupping his eyes.
And just like that, summer came to an end. Warmth. Joy. Laughter. Sunny. All gone.
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| Boy and girl sitting on a roof - Courtesy of Dreamstime.com |
We’re still in contact. It started out with a phone call on a chosen day per week. We chattered on for hours.
You know, Soumia got a puppy!
We don’t have to wear uniforms at school in America!
Ugh, summer is so hot here.
Yeah? At least you don’t have to freeze into an icicle in winter.
Gradually, we talked more and more, two days out of the week. Three. Four. Five. We were invested in each other’s lives.
We trivially bickered with each other. We insulted and reassured each other.
I barely suppressed my laughter at his voice cracks, his voice becoming slightly deeper with age.
Oh my god, you sound like a pipsqueak Batman!
Hey, what?!
You heard me, buddy.
Uh huh, well, at least I don’t have twigs for hands.
Right, because you have kebab skewers for hands instead.
Nuh-uh, I'm a tall, strong man.
Sunny, buddy, you’re 14. You’re still a boy.
Ugh, what’s your point? We’re both the same age!
We grew up around each other. The distance only drew us closer. The vast oceans that separated us were laid forgotten, mere puddles to our blossoming amity.
P.S.: The Batman quip was most definitely warranted.
Hi Nidhi! I absolutely loved your use of descriptions paired with dialogue in order to convey the feeling of nostalgia and childhood innocence. Your blog reads just like one of my favorite childhood book series, The Penderwicks, which deals with similar themes of growing up and retaining relationships in spite of the distance. I love your use of metaphor, with summer being associated with the warm bliss of the time before you moved away–the lack of which signals the end of an era, replaced by cold distance. It definitely adds to the contrast between the bittersweet feeling of loss and the rejuvenation of that joy by retaining that connection.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have kept in touch with one of my oldest friends for the same reason of retaining the laughter and memories. When I moved away in first grade, she was the one who suggested we exchange letters. Strangely, neither of us thought of exchanging our parents’ phone numbers or emails (perhaps because we were not yet familiar with the concept of online communication), but the tradition has continued on for ten years now. Every winter break, I handwrite pages upon pages, filling the blank space with the passions and aspirations I have accumulated over the past year–and every year, I await a response that I know will contain similar updates. We complain about our siblings, excitedly chatter about our progression through our musical careers, and anxiously discuss our hopes for the future. Eventually, we started to communicate on a more frequent basis with video calls like you and Sunny, but the use of mail has persisted through the years. It has definitely taught me that relationships are a means to retain memories, even as they are shaped to suit our present situations.
Hi Nidhi, I love the small scene you opened your blog with; it almost seems cliché, as if it was right out of a movie plotline. It’s quite regrettable that you had to part from your best friend; I can imagine the pain of spending most of your free time with them only for the memories to be the only one staying. I often read web comics that have similar plotlines, and they always make me cry because of how the troubled main character has to face everything on their own, even though they are already used to the comfort of someone else being there with them. Like you’ve said, I do agree that distance makes everything you do together more precious, like being able to spend time with them has now become a blessing, instead of something taken for granted. I totally relate with the mutual bullying that happens between friends—bullying that does not cause either parties harm; I feel like that is one of my favorite things to do with my friends, at least the ones who share the laugh when I make those jokes.
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