THE 8 SAVIOURS

A NEW HOME

A 9-hour long drive to the new city passed in a blur, I kept reminiscing about the times I spent with Akash, I was not crying but tears seemed to flow on their own accord and finally when the crying part was over, I dozed off. When my sleep is disturbed by excessive honking, I realised I am in one of the major cities of India, Kolkata. I have lived 16 years of my life in a small city that you can’t even pinpoint on a map, so now that I am in, which I think should be the busiest road of the city, I am confused it couldn’t possibly be that every single person’s wife is pregnant or someone is dying in their family. You see in small cities people are never in such a hurry unless someone’s wife is pregnant or someone is dying. My thoughts are interrupted again when somebody starts cursing people loudly, I guess when excessive honking fails cursing works coz the traffic starts to move, in small cities people don’t go around cursing so freely it’s a taboo. It’s going to take a while to adjust.

2 hours later my father announces that we are going to reach our destination and I am a bit scared because all I can see to my left and right are slums, please god don’t let my new house be a slum. Then suddenly we enter inside a housing colony and its beautiful, definitely not a slum, but not a filthy rich one as well, the apartments are not very tall 4-5 storey max, but the thing I like best about this place is that in a polluted city like this, the colony sure has a hell lot of greenery. Our car stops outside a yellow-coloured building, I climb up the stairs and unlock the door, our furniture has already been placed by the packers and movers, but there are still cardboard boxes lying around with our things in it. I go into my room, it’s a lot spacious than my previous room and it has two windows for ventilation, one overlooks the slums and from the other window I can see room of a student the time-table pasted on the wall clearly shows that. I am just about to unpack my things when suddenly I see a boy my age walking towards his desk, it reminds me of Akash, I look at my w******p and see there is a message from Akash, it said, “You could have told me you are leaving today, but you choose not to, I think I know why, I am sorry that I yelled at you the day before, but I don’t wanna believe that this fight means the end of our friendship. I know it’s not possible but you promised me that I won’t ever have to be alone when I visit my father’s grave on my birthday, I know it’s stupid even to say but I will be waiting for you.”

Tears form in my eyes, I did remember the promise but I won’t be able to be there, I am here in a new city but how will I ever talk to him knowing that I wasn’t able to fulfil one promise I made to him, that I wasn’t with him when he needed me the most.

To push this guilty feeling away I start to unpack my stuff and arrange them, but my mind is fixated on Akash and only Akash. When I rip open tape on the carboard box with my clothes, I see it, the handkerchief and suddenly I remember the first time I went to his father’s grave with him.

He was in class 6 when he lost his father, it was his birthday the next day and he was waiting for his father to return home, his father had promised to wish him at midnight in person. I still remember that evening, he didn’t come to play, he was busy preparing the helicopter model to show to his father. It was after so long that uncle Alex was coming home, he had always been travelling because of his job. Uncle Alex was not Indian, he came to India for a job and fell in love with Amisha aunty and married her, Amisha aunty was not bitchy before, her husband’s death made her that way. She had left her home and family to marry uncle Alex, all she had was him, when she lost him, it broke her.

Akash sat near his window since evening and suddenly at 11:30 Amisha aunty gets a call and she comes to our house crying, my parents drop me at Akash’s house and take Amisha aunty to the hospital in the car and at 12:00 am uncle Alex body arrives home, his chest had many holes and later we found out he had been shot. Akash didn’t cry at all; he just quietly placed the helicopter beside his dad’s dead body and went back to his room. At four am his body was buried in the graveyard and when everyone left, he cried, he cried for an hour and kept yelling “you didn’t keep your promise dad” and I wiped his tears with the same handkerchief, that was the day I promised him that every year at this day, at this time, I will be there for him, with this handkerchief, the hanky had a knot at one of its ends which was the symbol of our promise.

Promise meant something deeper than just words to him, I had to go there I had to keep my promise, so I quickly went online and booked a flight to our town, the plane was at 12a.m. I will reach there by 1 am and booked a flight back at 5 am, half of my saving went on the tickets, now all I had to do was sneak out and be back before anyone wakes up.

Everyone will sleep at 9 because they are exhausted and they don’t wakeup before 8 am and I will be back before 7.

After dinner, when everybody went to bed, I took my bag and climbed out of the window, trying to jump out of the colony wall, when suddenly two strong arms pull me down and one hand covers my mouth, I failed my arms in an attempt to escape, but his other hand holds my both hand with ease and he drags me towards a thick bush, when thorny shrub bush ends, I see a small room in the forgot corner of the colony. s**t, PLZ GOD KEEP ME SAFE.