by: Mohammad Jashim Uddin

This morning somehow I felt lonely as I could not pay my concentration anywhere else. Then I was listening to Rabi Tagore’s ‘If no one comes to hear your call, then go alone./ Let’s go alone, let’s go alone, let’s go alone.’ But irritated mind started feeling pain as expecting someone.

Suddenly mobile set gave a signal, and at first I ignored as I thought it’s an unnecessary text. But unwillingly, I took the set and got speechless for a while as she wrote me, “Hello!”

It was a truly incredible feeling that made me funereal. I was thinking what I should do. I couldn’t notice anything because it took few minutes to be easy. Then, she sent a big ‘?’ mark.

I replied, ‘I couldn’t believe that it’s you!’ After that, the environment became gloomy though none of us could see each other. Then, she simply replied, ‘why?’

Oh! I had noticed that without salutation she sent me some words though she always uses at least ‘Dear!’ She realized my agony and then, to make the situation unnecessarily she asked whether the upcoming feelings would be exposed through online. ‘We are not sure as it depends on pandemic.’

The fruitless chat was continued because I expected she would say something so did she. For a long moment, we were silent as grave but sometimes sighed that directly drilled hearts. Suddenly I asked, ‘Do you want to escape from me?’

‘Oh! O! No, I don’t escape from anything generally. I want everything to be okay. I cannot do anything that provokes any situation to go out of control. I want every relationship to be beautiful as it was always, dear.’ I touched the pain of her but wanted her to make trustworthy.

‘One thing, do you think that I interrupt you much?’

‘No, dear. Not at all. I don’t want to do something that can turn the situation complex. So, I am stepping carefully so that none can enter between us.’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘Oh, dear. It’s your love and appreciation!!’

She again broke the silence writing, ‘I’m gona old.’ ‘No. not at all. You’re evergreen to me like you shyly smiling.’

I could listen to her uproarious laughter in mind and clearly could see her reddish face covered with few hairs. ‘Evergreen, you are, too evergreen, Feeling jealous to see you.’ ‘No. no I am an old horse, isn’t it?’

‘Anyway, love is infinite, but the heart’s not like a box that gets filled up. It expands in size the more you love.’ Then, I cited few lines from Keats,

        Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
             Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

She was melting to be touched but needs a bridge. Then started telling, ‘You will never be age for me. Nor fade, nor die, nor even ice.’ After few while, ‘Dear, We’re different people from different worlds. So.. we have no choice left actually.’

‘But you know all the rivers run to the sea.”

‘Defiantly, but we are not independent as the rivers. We’re shackled by our relationships, by the society, by our religion or ideology, in fact by everything. I wish I could be boundless, free as the rivers, which could meet the sea someday!

‘Dear. O, Dear… Don’t be upset for anything. Life is too short to be upset or worried. Our “friendship” is all we can expect from this relationship. We cannot avoid the moral conscience. We are comparatively “good people”. So, our moral conscience is more powerful than our emotion and it should be.’

‘I understand…’

‘Let’s see.. Now I need to go. I need to prepare myself for … See you … dear.’

‘Sure, why not? I am really mad, why should I… I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t say like this. It’s just I am not always … at home. I’m a thirsty crow. . Its the matter of comfort, dear. Nothing else. But remember, love means having to say you’re sorry.’

‘I didn’t say sorry for love but…’

‘No, no, for nothing you should be sorry. Everything is alright. It’s better to share what you feel because it’s the beauty of the relationship, but we’ll never do anything which may affect the grace of the relationship. O! Don’t worry. We’ll meet very soon.’

‘No, No. I won’t do anything that can harm our relationship but through words we can go somewhere else where Romeo-Juliet have not reached, even Shahjahan.’

Suddenly, we became disconnected and I couldn’t trace her for an hour. By this time, I became impatient.

‘Oh! Dear, will you be free at noon? If so, I’ll call you on video’, she texted me.

‘How could she read my heart?’ I was thinking and until noon I couldn’t pay attention to my work. Waiting, waiting, and listening to different love songs to make me ease. I asked myself, ‘Is it possible to be cool now?’

A few minutes while, she called and interestingly we couldn’t keep our eyes on each other. We sighed sometime and exchanged some futile words as if we felt in love first time.

Finally, she said, ‘nothing but endless journey. Bye, bye.’

###

The write is an assistant professor of English at Northern University Bangladesh.