A Mountain's Call

 

src: nicepng

On a freezing night, 6000 ft above the sea, our flashlights moved haphazardly from the tent. My numb fingers fumbled for the sleeping bag, craving its promised warmth. My tent-mate’s uneven breathing alternated with my own. For a moment her headlamp flashed on my face. I winced.

“Why are we doing this again?” she asks.

To Love

src: favpng.com

"So?" 

I ask him, feigning impatience. Inside me is a racing heart ready to burst at any moment. I wonder if it's my excitement or just the fear of getting caught by the PT teacher.

"You know what I'm going to say." he says. I almost roll my eyes. 

"Are you going to say something or not?" 

He shuffles his feet awkwardly, unsure what to do in this situation. We're at the corner of the playground, trying to be discreet in the middle of noise and hustle. 

"Okay." he says, breaking into a grin. "I love you."

The Time of Confrontation

src: freeimagesandillustrations

It had been too long since the indoors took over. There was no point in waiting anymore, it being well established that the normal we had known wouldn't be restored for quite some time. And so, coupled with the inefficient handling of semester finals and hurried online evaluations came the inadequate goodbyes of my final year. 

Living in Limbo

Source: hiclipart

Do you ever feel stuck in time? On a routine that goes on in a loop with no change whatsoever? You have these things you want to do but you put them off for later. You don't really do anything to get there at present. Or maybe you do and the routine is a part of it. Either way, you're waiting. Waiting to get there. Somewhere. 

Abstraction

src: dreamstine

It's a brand new day with no agenda. Chores, reading, chores, a movie, and more chores. Not that there are that many of them, but they tend to be the highlight of an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. I browse the internet and find this rotating cube at the bottom of news websites. Flashing numbers. Numbers that represent confirmed cases and deaths. But mere numbers all the same. 10 million. 15 million...a sigh of despair. Almost forced at this point. 

From a Virtual Recluse

src: vecteezy

Dear Social Media,

I got to know about you at a pretty young age. I'd sit next to my sister and read her chats in Yahoo Messenger. It was entertaining even though I didn't always understand her conversations. I was ten when she made an account for me on Orkut. I don't remember if I was particularly excited about it; none of my friends really knew about Orkut then. But I would still log into my account and embellish my profile occasionally. 

The Day of the Lasts

It was the day of many lasts. I wanted it to be special, something for all of us to look back and smile about. I wanted us to give each other the tightest of hugs and take the best of photos. So when I went up to that podium to give my farewell speech, I was all set for the audience to start tearing up. I stood there before my batchmates in that moment, waiting for the commotion to die down. Waiting and waiting some more. Until it was awkward to wait any longer and I started speaking amidst the noise anyway.