It was just after the ascent of the chilly evening, against a flowered sky.
I was walking against the red walls and the polluted river, where small cranes and storks stood in the muck and flowers bloomed in the trashy banks. A book in hand (Murakami’s dreamy world of libraries and crows and magic) and my sister’s growing palm against mine. She talked my ear off as I kept an eye on the shifting moon, the purple skies- as I slowly learnt to appreciate nature so that I could capture it, could write it in its truest forms. As her voice entered my ears and I nodded to her with a laugh, I heard another. The laughter of a boy, low like the school bells, coming from the open door of a car. I pause. My sister looks at me in confusion, wondering how my fast steps faded in an instant. I watch a denim leg peak out, the ending of a pink shirt. I want to peer into the car, watch his face. Find out if it was him, the him from my own dusty memories. But I sigh, and I pull my sister behind me. We’re walking, but it seemed as if I was walking towards another memory.
And I lose myself in the citylights. Again.
I’m six with the curliest hair in the world, a yellow tie I always despised to wear. Perhaps because I was forever in competition with the boy. He was a bit on the healthier side, which made him so likeable. But I found myself competing and challenging him every time. Our mothers were friends (are they still? I question my memory, but then I remember they’re only familiar on an app my mother never uses), and so I saw him every day. He would laugh at my antics and the way I ferociously outdid him the times we did English. He was good at spelling, me at grammar. I won silver in the Olympiads, he gold. It’s now that I realize how I tried because he would be the apple of my parents’ praise. And how I hated to be compared.
I think he and I became friends in fourth grade: being in the same class and seated next to each other like magnets. He would pick on the dosas I would get for lunch and I would fuss over them every time. His pen would streak my hand and I would squeal at him, running mine over his skin-colour shirt. In computer, he would whisper a question and I would type the answer out. I fetched his football, he watched me swim lengths at the neighbouring pool. He was the prefect and ensured I tied my ribbons every day. And then he would pull at my plaits in jest whilst I screamed in anger. And perhaps fun, I smile to myself as I pick a book.
I remember the look he gave me when the teacher laid out four gold medals on the first bench. But I see only a silhouette now, memory fading like ink on a long-written book. Then it clears up and I see wonderment in those brown eyes. I see the curiousity and the pride he had in me. We were in different classes in fifth grade, and he made his way to call me into his class with a smile. He looked proud of me, and I returned his smile. He even placed those medals on my neck, and I felt the heat of his pride flowing down my dress.
We’re at the same library as when he received his spelling trophy. I won just a participation certificate, but I remember clapping so hard for him. His flushed cheeks, his smile. The way his face turned very jovial as he held the cool gold in his trembling palms. I wonder if he’d noticed the pride in me behind the twisted curls and the smile and the claps. I do wonder whether we’d been friends.
I thought I was memorable enough for people to remember. I looked in the mirror and thought friends and classmates of the old school I left would see me on the streets and call out. They’d embrace me, they’d ask me about days, they’d tell me to meet them and play. But it seems (it feels like the passage of life) that no one did. Everyone forgot I existed, even as I held on to those memories of a childhood. Like I’d never been part of them at first, they conveniently let go of every speck of my being, forgetting I had touched parts of those walls, those stairs, that auditorium. I was hoping on a cliff, I think. But even as I stand on the fringe of it, there’s the ocean underneath. It’ll cushion my fall, I’m sure. I’m sure.
So the next time, I’ll pull the car door open. I’ll be the one to open. I’ll be there to open my memories for you.
Until next time, dear reader. Have a great day.