Short Story – Aheli Pramanik

A LITTLE QUALITY TIME

I woke up at midnight and I was surrounded with a visuality of lying corpses around me. It was hard, pretty difficult for me to imagine the plight of the Indian families at present. My unconnectedness from my roots started from the day I became rebellious and moved out from my comfort zone – here to the distant land of Bumb-la.
My sole-mate in the army camp from the beginning, Avijit has been out to his homeland for about a month. I hardly knew any reason for his sudden dismissal until yesterday I received a news of outbreak of an epidemic. Being left out in the camp for days I decided to reach out to him. Joy, Ajay and Mira already had enough knowledge about his whereabouts. The idea for me to write a letter to him was quite unpropitious. Those despairing moments, days of unbearable tension and anxiety compelled me to hunt for him to his village.
“As per information received, there is a nation-wide lockdown and the army jeep is the only mode for you’’, suggested Mira.
Ajay made sure to pack for me a good pair of mask, gloves and hand sanitizers. Probably my twinkled eyes and chained lips could easily convey to them about my concern for Avijit. With his address in my hand, I set out to the destination for seeking to the old thread of bond. Our relation was simplistically beautiful in their own special way and thus, needed no explanations for others. Passed four days of travelling along with Joy who undoubtedly made my journey joyful. We had permission in hand that whittled down all kinds of unsurety and agony. Joy’s carelessness in maintaining social distance would arise short time to time conflict between us and it continued till we reached Junput.
As soon as we reached we could feel a pallour look in his wife’s visage which accentuated by her long, messy hair. Maybe, lord was instrumental in taking the initiative in picking me from the pass to Junput just to catch a last sight of my friend. Avijit was just another victim of COVID’19. And this felt like getting hitted again with the same old knife. We knew we were forbid to visit the hospital, we knew that my friend was counting his last hours, we knew that there still was a faint chance for us to meet him and probably for this, we kept our hopes alive. At five, my comrade visited his own house to meet his daughter for one last time. Strangely, the volubility – an inseparable trait of his character disappeared and the numb soldier were only allowed to sit at the courtyard. He was numb and we had tears. He was quiet and we were restless as his five year kid was wrapped in a thick layer of plastic. An atmosphere of brooding silence somehow rejoiced the immediacy of a daughter to his father. They never got time to spend and then, spent the best quality time.