Before And After

Sana Kohli

You see, the seat in the front center of the classroom was empty. Kritvik was really absent. Students in the whole class sat silently, their heads tilted downward toward their desks at their books and notebooks as they scribbled on them. There was a teacher at the front of the class, wearing a brown pair of pants and a dark red checked shirt beneath his bald head. His face was on the blackboard as he was writing some mathematical sums. The noise of the chalk hitting the blackboard and being scratched on it echoed around the whole classroom, you see.

“He is really absent, like he said,” I thought as I sat in the middle of the class. “Whatever…” I turned my head downward toward my notebook and started to write on it again.

“So, kids, you need to use the identity of sine squared theta plus cosine squared theta. So, that makes the answer one,” He announced as he wrote the sum. He then turned back toward us, his meek face looking at us before turning to the thick book in his left hand. “I hope question twenty-seven is clear to you all.”

“Yes, sir,” Some answered.

“I don’t hear enough noise.”

“Yes, sir!” The whole class shouted at once.

He nodded, his eyes still on the questions in the book. “Okay. Then come to question thirty-three. It looks the same as the one we just did, but it’s done a little differently.”

Well, I was bored as my narrowed uninterested eyes looked down at my notebook. I moved my left hand up and placed it on my left cheek, giving my head support to balance, you see. Like, the class was just filled with the noise of chalk running through the blackboard… again.

It remained so until math sir suddenly started to explain the question when he was midway through writing it on the blackboard. “So, the question asks you to prove that…”

His voice was blurring down as I looked at my notebook, taking my pen off the page after writing the answer to the last one. My eyes closed and my mouth opened wide as I yawned. I moved my right hand up to cover my mouth, and then as it closed, I turned my head downward again. “I gotta call Kritvik today,” I thought.

“Anyway, how am I supposed to escape this boredom today?”

The smaller hand of the clock was on nine, while the larger one was on two. Like, it was nine-ten in the morning, you see.

My eyes were fixed on the clock in front of the white wall on top of the blackboard. “Just some more minutes… Cool.”

I turned my eyes to my left toward the window a couple rows away, looking at the gray clouds hovering above the sky, covering it completely. Like, it seemed like it could anytime soon, you see, but it just didn’t. Everything was dry. The buildings beneath the sky stood silently, one beside the other, as they looked at me.

Well, I then turned my eyes to the front again. “So, this would turn into tangent theta,” Sir narrated. “By then using the identity of secant squared theta minus tangent squared theta equals one, we will…”

“Well, this class is going to drive me nuts.”

“Both Kavya and Kritvik were absent, and, you see, I was left alone. That emo said on call yesterday that he might come today, but I told him not to, and, well, he didn’t. And now I’m bored. That’s sad.”

Ding, dong! Ding, dong! The bell finally rang, and a shock of energy suddenly bolted through the students across the room and there was a wide array of movement at once, like stretching arms, closing down the books, and other stuff.

Sir suddenly turned back as he heard us and ordered, “Don’t try to get up until this question is done.” It was a threat. Well, his eyes were not really angry, you see, but they seemed like he’d kill anyone who dared oppose his words.

The energy vanished, and, well, everyone turned to their books again, solving the equation.

Sir then turned to the blackboard again, solving the question.

“And then take this term and…”

I had my head tilted down on my notebook.

“Why don’t you spend some time with your family?” I remembered a feminine voice. “Your nose is always on the stock market and other things.”

“Yeah, I gotta keep this family running, after all,” A hoarse masculine voice answered her.

“Love and attention too are important to run a family—not just money.”

“That’s what you feel.”

“At least you can talk to us when you’re home.”

My father was lying on the sofa in his white vest and black pair of sweatpants, and my mom was sitting on another sofa seat adjacent to him. The lights in the drawing room were really dim. They were warm white light, good for the modern television set facing the sofa with a large screen and speakers.

I was in the other room, my eyes on the open book in front of me. That room was well-lit. I was in my usual yellow shorts and a bright red tee.

“What do you mean?” My father slowly asked my mother as he gave him the same angry look with his narrowed eyes.

“What do you mean, huh?!” His faint shouts seeped into my room.

“Just what you heard!” My mom replied back.

“Things have been getting really worse between my mother and my father. They were always on each other, backbiting each other when they were alone with me. Both of them really hated each other. And, even though they were really cool with me, they were not really a loving couple, you see.”

“Just say it again, then!”

“I ain’t your slave that I’d do anything you say!”

“Fine, then!” My father shouted in the other room. “All I want for a holiday is a peaceful home where I’m not screaming every day!”

“And I want a husband who could give time to his family!”

“What? So I don’t give time to my family?”

“When do you?”

I turned my head to my right, looking at the door from where the shouts were coming from. “That’s so cool. I can’t even study here.”

I then turned to my book and closed it. I dragged it sideward and then dragged my black laptop frontward. I tilted open its screen and clicked on the turn-on button.

The indistinct shots of my parents filled the room as I turned to my right, opened the drawer, took out a pair of shining black headphones with a wire, and then fixed it on both of my ears as I connected the wire to the laptop.

The laptop suddenly showed the Macrosoft logo on the screen, and then the lock screen appeared, which was blue in color, and asked for a password. I typed my password, and then the box where I filled it in turned into three dots.

I glared at the screen as it loaded.

***

Well, I blinked and appeared back to my classroom. Everyone was standing up, having their heads here and there as they chatted. The sir went away, and the class was now only filled with the chatter of these people, you see.

I turned my head downward at my table, looking at the open math book and notebook. I closed them as I turned to my bag standing on the ground on my left, opened its zip, and kept the notebooks in. I then straightened my back, my eyes on the blackboard.

“My mind was completely blank, you see. Like, I didn’t know what to think or say. So, well, I just sat there silently, in the middle of all those chatters. And, it reminded me of… the days before COVID.”

Well, my life used to be the same as it was that day, you see. A couple years ago too, I was sitting in the middle of the class, my eyes darkened by their edges. And, well, my height was a little shorter than it is now. Everyone around me talked and laughed. Their eyes were black with some sort of shadow covering half of their faces, like today.

“I used to be a loner, you see. I… was always alone.”

One day, I was sitting in front of my laptop, my headphones on my ears. The room was brightly lit white and there was no noise of any sort. I was playing some sort of game with the keyboard, when, like, my phone vibrated. My phone’s screen lit up as some message popped up on the screen. I turned my head to my phone and looked at it.

‘Isha just posted on her story!’

Curiously, I clicked on the message, entered my password, and a black screen suddenly appeared. I corrected my back as I waited for it to load up. Suddenly, a picture of her smiling in the middle of three to four schoolgirls—all in jeans and frocks and tees and shirts—smiling and posing peace signs for the pic appeared on the screen, with the words on top ‘The girls just vibin’!’

My eyes were narrowed and my neutral face expressions turned to some irritated and painted gaze. “Whatever. They have completely forgotten me, I guess,” I thought as I turned to my laptop screen again.

I continued to click on the keys again as I moved the fantastical character in all-blue clothes on the screen. “Well, the schools are going to open soon too,” I thought.

“Everyone… just forgot me in just a year. I was still in their class, still in their contact, and they sometimes called me to ask for homework too. But, you see, they didn’t consider me a part of them. They… left me alone. I felt painful thinking about it, but, well, to begin with, I never really felt like a part of them. I was always alone. Like, always, you see.”

“Whatever…”

“And when the schools opened again… after quite a long break, you see…”

I had my head tilted to my left as I painfully and gullibly looked at the group of girls chatting about some gossip really seriously. I sat in the middle of the classroom. I turned my head to the front, looking at the empty blackboard.

“Well, that’s just what it is. One day, they completely stopped talking to me. And, changes like these do happen in friendships. You make some new friends and lose some, you see. But… it was not me who didn’t want to be among them, and… that was what hurt the most. Like, they just… forgot about me, and I… was just too introverted to talk to them again. You see, maybe it was because of me, but they never really came into contact with me, so could I even maintain a friendship with them during those lockdown days? So, well, I don’t really feel like it was me, or them. It just… happened. We were friends. Time passed. And, one day, we… weren’t.”