Light and Dark, Dark and Light

Kritvik Bhatt

The sun had set hours ago. The sky was dark, with some stars now twinkling in the sky. There was still no moon, for some reason. Maybe there was not gonna be one that night.

The lights of the coffee shops, restaurants, and other shops illuminated the pavement filled with people walking front and back. In the middle of that crowd filling the atmosphere with their indistinct chatter, their footsteps, and their starry vibes, Sana and I walked. Sana was smiling beneath her mask, and so was I. The two of us had our heads tilted to each other as we talked, laughed a little in between, and then continued to talk more. We were having some good happy times together, no doubt.

“So, what happened then?” I asked curiously.

“Like, we both then fell into that magical pit, and—”

“No, you’re not supposed to do that!” I said with a face of disgust, which still had a little smile in it.

“Yeah yeah, that’s what I told him, but he…”

The cars were running on the road on our left. Voices of both of us were lost in that sea of noises as we walked beside each other in that hue of golden shades of lights and the dark shades of the night.

We continued to walk and walk and walk for a couple of seconds, lost in each other’s smiles. It was great. It was magical. Just as I was hearing her narrating something, my face on my right at her, I suddenly turned my head to the front. “Oh, I guess I gotta go now.”

“Yeah yeah, it’s your street on the right.”

I turned to the right. “Yeah.” I then looked at her and smiled. “Bye.”

She waved her right hand beside her face, and with a smile beneath her mask, she replied, “Bye bye!”

I turned to my right, walked from her front as I waved at her in the same manner, and started to slowly cross the road. I walked to the other side of the T-intersection slowly.

Tap Tap. Tap. Tap.

And then, I stopped just before entering my street and turned back at her. She looked at me and waved at me again. I too waved at her again with a smile as I walked away. I turned my head to the front, my lips smiling widely. For some reason, it felt awkward. I turned my head back, looked at a blue car running from right to left, and as it went by, she was walking away straight from my left to right.

“Maybe she lives close by,” I thought as I turned my head to the front again.

***

Sana Kohli

Yeah, you see, it felt awkward walking away. At the T-intersection, I again turned to my right as I was walking straight, and looked at the back of Kritvik in his usual black t-shirt walking away inside the silent and dark street, alone. He moved his hands inside his pocket, and his body language suddenly changed from a happy man to, like, an introverted bullied one. I glared at him with seriousness in my eyes. Then, I turned my head to the front as I continued to walk in the middle of the crowd.

***

The bed was lying in the middle of the room lit with dazzling LEDs. Its wood was laminated and was glossy, and thus, it was shining a little. A pair of denim jeans was thrown on top of the bed on top of the already kept white shirt. I moved the orange round-neck t-shirt down my chest to my belly, up until my white loose shorts. The t-shirt too was loose on my slender figure. Wearing my night clothes, I turned back at the door, walked toward it, held the doorknob, twisted it, and then pulled it.

“And does that mean that I am the lazy one?!” A feminine voice of a woman of about forty shouted angrily.

“Yeah, and that’s why all of it is happening right now!” A masculine voice, about the same age, shouted back at the woman.

“What?! How are you even connecting the two pieces?!”

“Just like you do when you ask me to come home on time, missing my office parties!”

“They are of no use!”

“I gotta network with all sorts of people so that I can get promoted! It’s useful!”

“All you do is drink all night with your friends, and then you blame it all on networking!” The voice of the female was cracking down, like she was about to cry anytime soon.

However, the man’s voice didn’t go down. “Just don’t assume things when you don’t know anything!”

“Okay! I know you don’t love this family! All you care about is your damned work!”

“Shut up!”

The voices of the heated argument were fading as I stood on the doorknob, my hair covering my darkened eyes as I had my head tilted down.

“It’s… awful.”

***

Kritvik Bhatt

My eyes were wide awake as I lay alone on the bed of my room. My hands were beneath my head, my lips smiling, and my mind was lost in thoughts. I thought about the smiling face of Sana, half covered with her black mask. I thought about her serious face when she was telling me about Kavya. I remembered her laughing face when she walked beside me as we were going to the fight. I remembered her laughing face when her back was tilted down, her head tilted to her back at me, as we laughed.

I remembered her voice which said, “It’s been days since I’ve had this much fun.”

“I’m damn sure about this… that it’s the same feeling… that I used to have.”

I remembered the face of Jiya filled with pimples as she smiled and ran toward me, her arms flung open.

“Jiya… Madhav… AK… Aishwarya… I’m having fun here, guys. I’m having fun, man!”

I remembered the photograph with me at the center in front of the park, surrounded by Jiya, donning black sweatpants and red t-shirt—just like me—a fatter and chubbier girl Aishwarya in orange t-shirt and black shorts, a guy with a photogenic face AK, who wore denim capris and a loose red t-shirt, and the one having a slender figure but fat belly, with glasses on his face, named Madhav, who wore a green t-shirt with a black capris. All of them had their names on top of their figures in my image. The sky was dark, the grass beneath our feet touching our ankles, and the park was not really well-maintained. They were all looking at the camera in the front, all smiling genuinely but awkwardly. Jiya had a little smile, Aishwarya posed a V-sign with her right hand beside her face with a wide grin, Madhav was awkwardly looking at the camera, and AK just had a slight photogenic smile, no doubt something you would expect from a white cute face such as his.

“Yeah, got it!” My father said with a smile as he moved the camera down from his face. He then stood up from his crouched position. We all ran toward him and surrounded him as he opened the photo in his gallery and showed us, looking at it himself.

“It’s great!” I commented with a huge grin on my face.

“Yeah, I look so cool in it!” AK commented.

And that’s how the photo, which had no names on it, got the names when it was posted on social media.

“That photo… I’ll never forget it. That was a last day I was genuinely happy, since all of it was still here with me, and genuinely sad, since all of it was about to leave me, and my life was gonna change drastically. That was the last day I spent with my friends.”

Then I remembered Sana’s smiling face again.

“Not last… maybe.”

“I was happy at the thought that I was trying to move on from those guys. They were my best friends, and however good or bad they were, they were the first people in my life who accepted me as their own and made me feel a part of their company. No doubt they’re special. And… they always will be.”

***

Sana Kohli

Click.

The lights of the room turned off. I was lying in the middle of the figure of my mom and my dad. My mom was on my right, and her body was turned to her right, and my dad was on my left, and his body was turned to the left. The atmosphere was tense, and no one was talking to each other. My head was fixed on the ceiling which was lighted by the faint moonlight coming in from the windows beneath the curtains on the left of the room. Even though it was lit a little, it was still in the shades of black. My hands were on my belly. I then closed my eyes, opened my mouth, took a deep breath in, and then exhaled out. “Huff! Whatever…”

“Just another night at the Kohli residence.”

***

Kritvik Bhatt

My eyes were closed, my arms and legs all lying around the bed, my brown blanket covering half of my left leg straight down and my left arm. I was sleeping soundly.

“For some reason, that was the best day I’ve ever had, followed by the best night. I didn’t overthink, and I was positive. I was happy. That’s how much she changed me by spending a little amount of her time with me. That… Maybe, that’s all I needed. A little bit of time from someone I can genuinely be myself with.”

The little twinkling dots known as stars were embedded all over the dark night sky. Soft chilly breezes were running every now and then.

“It was the same type of night which I used to spend with my friends. And, this was the same type of day which I used to spend with my friends. And that’s what made this day so damn special, and that’s what made this day… so damn nostalgic.”

***

Sana Kohli

“Even Kritvik must be looking at me as a cheerful happy girl with everything perfect in life,” I thought as I lay on my bed, my eyes wide awake. “He’s a good guy. Really.”

I remembered his crapped smiling lips and his warm eyes as he looked at me.

“That’s sad.”