GOOD NIGHT

“Another shock from a girl may proved to be cyanide to him.” I muttered.

I pushed the doors and shut them. Nobody was in the bedroom. I was alone. I sat at the corner of my bed and opened the windows. It was the night dark sky with its glowing stars. The moon had already covered half the distance of the sky. The moonlight had flooded my floor, to which I could not cop up. I wanted darkness, I wanted silence.

The bastiwallas were all silent tonight, unlike that of the previous, when they shouted and danced throughout the night at a marriage ceremony between two of their residents. I could smell the sweet fragrance of the chhatim flowers coming from the neighbourhood. A sweet smell. I breathed full, again and again.

A white owl crying sharply passed the window. A subtle and secret relationship exists between man and his environment beyond the borders of common perception. And it explores in night, when environment reveals its mysteries one by one. But people, unknowingly get drowned to their dreams then.

Has anyone watched the full night as they do the day? So often I wonder, night is like a death of the world which is broken by morn. Morning - is the beginning of a fresh day to everyone, except him, who has passed the night sleepless.

Before shutting the windows I took the smell of the chhatim flowers for the last time. Now it is a lonely, closed room with its only sound of ticking the clock. I switched on the table lamp and everything could be seen by that in the room. The half-open books and copies on my bed, the newspaper, the pillow, the half-ate biscuit packet and lastly, my diary. I took my windcheater and comforter, and let them hang from the hooks. I took my diary, kept it on the table and sat on the chair.

“Another shock from a girl...” I muttered again. The only line I have written on the paper. I was about to write a love story but my pen can’t write a single line beyond it. Perhaps I would be the first ever to write a story by a single line.

My story was about a boy who has fallen in love many a times, but every time he has got refused or detached from the girl. His mind gets affected every time and the thoughts of happy past weaken his mind. And then how his friend who happens to be a girl, brings him back to his normal life and they fall in love with each other, but fail to say it.

Right here my thoughts are not proceeding. Both the two think, the other one treats him/her only as a friend and a big doubt stands between them, whether they share love, or just friendship.

Actually this story is the reflection of my own opinion that a boy and a girl can never be just friends. One of their minds always thinks that the other one is surely in love with him/her. This strong faith resists the building of a relationship between a boy and a girl and that is the so-called ‘friendship’.

The doors opened, silently and suddenly, and my mother entered into the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a sleepy and astonishing voice.

I was about to answer something but as soon as I saw that her eyes have fallen into my diary, I changed my mind and went straight ahead, “Writing some answers on physics. Why?”

She turned back, and I left the deep breath. I knew about her poor eyesight without glasses, and got the best opportunity to lie.

“Who is Pallabi?”

“Who is Pallabi?” I questioned back.

The next moment was silent all along. But I was pretty quick in correcting myself and told, “One of my friends, why?”

“Why do you write her name so many times in your rough copies?” she threw the question leaving the room.

I closed my eyes and put my head on the hands. The night guards on the road whistled and I looked at the clock, 2.10. One can almost say good morning to me. I will not mind for saying that.

I have to think about the plot again. Girls will always treat boys as their friends only unless money matters come into the middle. Boys will continue to pass sleepless nights in the thoughts of their ‘friends’. Girls will continue to choose a safe bank balance than a lover. Girls will only know the presence of night when they wish each other ‘good night’. But boys will have to pass the nights, with each and every moment lonely, with a huge cloud of uncertainty about their future, their lives, the burden of responsibilities.

I switched off  the light and went to the bed. The light of the lamppost standing outside on the road came through the glasses of the windows. I kept my eyes shut, to dream them over a new world.

My strong opinion is that, if you have some work to finish, do it by night. I don’t know exactly why I suggest so. Perhaps night brings a power within me.

‘Friends’ of mine, have a good night.

- This was my first story written in December '06, when I was eighteen.