The Both Side

The Roommate

The room was growing filthy and we couldn't stand the smell of the discharges that came out of my roommate’s mouth. My roommate, her boyfriend, carelessly devoured the bottle of Royal Stag not even considering that he had to walk her to her room. I didn't drink, except few beers, that night. I knew I would end up being the one who had to drop her off, to walk the woman I love to her room.

It was midnight and Lagankhel’s gallis are not so welcoming during the darkest hours. Not because of the ever hovering pack of Rapists but because of the Dogs which barked and always bit. Dogs scared her to death.

She made herself comfortable on my roommate’s bed when he was lying on the floor unconscious with his head lying in the pool of his vomit in other room. I rolled inside my blanket to face the wall. I wanted to avoid the smell of her perfume. I was in love with a girl whom I could never confess to. It had been as long as 467 days since she had been in relation with my roommate but my heart never stopped inventing new ways to fall for her even though I saw her wrapped under my roommate’s arm as often as every 467 days.

I couldn't sleep that night. Her perfume didn't let me. I desperately wanted to be wrapped under the aura of her fragrance. The blanket was not doing the justice to my body which was getting colder out of the heat her perfume was pulling me into. Even the pillow was betraying me; I could listen to it softly whispering into my ears and warning me to not dream about her.

I pushed myself to the wall to pull myself out of the trance her presence was pulling me into. A cold sensation en-wrapped my fingers. The smell of the perfume suddenly grew stronger. I turned around to feel her sweaty hand struggling with mine. She was trying to fill the spaces between my fingers with hers. She didn't say anything.

My hand melted into beads of sweat when my fingers were busy surrendering themselves to the warmth of her cold finger. I was paralyzed while she silently kept staring at the ceiling.

Hatred

[How much can you hate someone?]

I remember the harrowing day as if it was a day ago, vividly, when I shivered with horror as I was being looked at by the entire class as if I had committed an unspeakable crime and I never deserved to be redeemed. It was in the Sixth Grade when we were called in front of the class to debate on the subject whether pen is mightier than sword. I must say, none of them are, being humiliated in the public leaves the most brutal scar.

I was 12. I didn't know what menstruation was and I was never told. I don't know why it is considered a taboo to this day. I was enduring a pain which was stranger to me. I woke up with an intemperate pain near abdominal area and I must say I didn't have knowledge to comprehend what was to come next.

"Look at her pants." One of the boys at the back of my class yelled at the top of his voice. I looked up to see who yelled about it and discovered a guy who was aggressively making hand gestures at me. An overwhelming fear started to envelop me slowly. I was paralyzed by the wet sensation down my pants. I quickly collected my senses and lowered my head down with fear to look at my pants and it was there, the red stain painting my white pants red. The whole class was laughing and my girlfriends were looking at me with horror. I was given a leave from school but the horror was never going to leave me.

Since that day I had never been able to speak in public. I still remember how disgusted those eyes were as if I did wrong by submitting myself to something nature mercilessly bestows upon me. I had to change the school and I go to see a psychiatrist to this date to deal with my social anxiety. I couldn't think straight without worrying about what people might think of me. He gave me Menophobia. I became a woman who is scared of a humble natural phenomenon, Menstruation.

I hated him. I hated him for embarrassing me in front of the class. I hated him for making me a miserable girl with no courage left to face the world. I hated him.

Before the ‘467’ Days

I write. I don't march against the injustice in the society. I don't donate. I don't wake up early in the morning because I have plan with my friends. I just write. I hide behind the veil of social Network and pour my words which eventually fade in the void of the internet. It is hard to be yourself if you are not good at anything. ‘Be yourself’ rather becomes a chant to excuse myself from the injustice I am doing to my friends, my family and myself. I write. I don't fall in love, I don't know how to. I just write. I don't know how to cry. I don't know how to break my heart so that it becomes a tear. I just write.

Falling in love was a distant dream from where I stood. I never assumed myself capable of embracing such virtue. I was wrong.

My roommate had posted a poem on his facebook account which yelled him a thousand likes and comments of appreciation for him. I was jealous. After all, I was the one who created it. A beautiful girl couldn't restrain herself from submitting herself to the intertwining wordplay in the poem. Her affection for my roommate grew with time as he began to romance with her in the chat window of the hollow society created out of blues. He borrowed my words to connect with her. My words became the bridge my roommate walked through to eventually fall with her. I was glad that my words could connect something as complicated as the science of two different hearts.

The Poet

“I am a man of Billion Cells

With Trillions Of You Inside of Me

You Live Inside Me

And Yet I call you my home”

I fell in love with the poet. I had never read something in the internet that could enwrap me into its warmth. The man behind that poem was equally beautiful. He wanted to become a writer someday he says. I fell in love with him with a selfish hope that I get to become his muse someday. I wanted to be his words. I wanted to live forever, forever without fearing anything.

I could tell him about my anxiety, my nonsensical fears, and all he could see in me was the poetry I was made of. He compared me with a complicated atom which is yet to find its bond. I could relate with that, I was just floating in the atmosphere scared of something that is natural. Not being able to express the world what you are afraid is a severe infection that wounds your confidence but his poems were something I could live and escape in. If I had the skill, I would melt myself to be forever absorbed and enveloped in his words. I fell for him. 

Maybe falling was the beginning. I hoped his hands were as soft as the poems he wrote. I wanted to dream in them.

My Roommate’s Girlfriend

I was told that day to keep the room clean for a guest. My roommate’s girlfriend was finally coming out of the facebook’s inbox. I obliged. I was so happy that my roommate had finally found someone worth surrendering himself to.

I woke up an hour later because of the commotion in the kitchen. I walked to the kitchen not knowing whom I was going to be introduced to. Why didn't I care enough to ask my roommate to tell me about the woman he fell for?

“Astha?” I exclaimed. I was hit by the wet steam of pressure cooker which was preparing pasta for us. She was the cook. Nobody noticed that my heart had melted faster than the pastas inside the pressure cooker.

I was ironically being introduced to the woman whom I had been in love since the day she left school. It had exactly been 10 years that day. I missed her to the extent that I got lost in her memories which I could never come out of. She was the reason I became a writer. She was the reason I wrote that poem which she ended up falling for.

Hunting the smell of her perfume from the back of the class was a challenging task but I would somehow find it and I submitted myself to it slowly and steadily. I was in love with Astha Shrestha. Her glasses carefully taking its stand on her beautiful chubby cheeks used to make me jealous. I imagined myself being reflected in her eyes a thousand times but her glasses used to block the view. I was in love back then and I had never been able to walk out of it. 

The person I became a writer for finally came back to my life as an ‘impossibility’ I could never embrace. The woman I fell for was the woman my roommate loved. I didn't even get the luxury to listen to my heart breaking into pieces. The taste of her pasta melted all the pain away.

Facing My Worst Fear

“Astha?” How he could even dare take my name with such ease, I thought.

The palpitation was making it difficult for me to breath. My vision was compromised, I started to see blur, maybe because I was petrified by looking at the face of the boy who abducted my right to live a normal life. The memory was haunting me again. I was on the stage explaining why sword is mightier than pen when he was busy collecting all the boys’ attention by pointing at the red stains on my pants. I hated him and I did not find any reason to not hate him now. Thanks to the pastas, I could divert my attention away from him.

I was not a Writer anymore; I was in Love.

My roommate was my guardian angel. He was the one who paid the medical bills when I took the resignation from my dad’s office where I had been working for two years. Turning into a bad investment for your parents is a difficult experience to go through. You feel suffocated when people expect you to breathe free. You get all the freedom in the world but you don't know what to make of them. You get stuck, you turn into a shame. It is difficult to not understand where your dream is taking you. You can want anything from the bottom of your heart but the universe never conspires for you. Wanting is probably not enough. It is tough to live a life when universe kicks you out of its plan. I became the page Paolo Coelho forgot to write.

I owed my roommate my sanity. I owed him everything to the extent that the fact that I may not be able to repay him used to haunt me. I shouldn't have owed him. My guilt was waging war against my affections for her.

I was asked to join the couple in a concert that was being held in Dashrath Rangasala. How could I say no to such offer?  I lost her 10 years ago and I was not going to miss any chance to be around her presence any more. I know I cannot afford to fall for her because she is my roommate’s girlfriend now, just because I could not fall for her didn't mean that I could not surrender myself to the misery of being around her. Even the misery she bestowed upon me was sweeter than losing her.

I live in the city where tempos are more ‘safa’ (clean) than the people. We were returning from the concert. I was still immersed in the thrill of watching her dance to ‘Maski Maski’. How could I dare forget that smile in her face?

A guy who had been following the tempo for quite a while finally got a chance to rest itself behind it at the red light. He shamelessly looked at her as if he owned all the women in the town, he took his left hand out of the handle when his right hand was still holding the other, slid it to unzip his pants and took his device out to caress it shamelessly in the public. He was masturbating in the public looking at her. My roommate is a non violent guy and me, I am just a writer, I reasoned.

‘I am a writer. I don't raise my voice against injust……….’ Before I could even make a complete sense out of the sentence I found myself beating the guy to death and dragging him to the footpath to humiliate him for what he just did. His device was still hovering in the air shamelessly and when the crowd found out what he dared, I didn't have to humiliate him anymore. I am a writer, I kept on insisting. I couldn't believe I had such strength in me. Maybe it was because I love her, maybe I didn't like the tears in the eyes of my roommate’s girlfriend, maybe  it was somewhere in between.

“My hero.” She ran towards me to hug me tight. I could still feel the wetness of her cheeks on my shoulder. I tried my best to not fall for her. I couldn't. How could I? I had loved her since the day I learned I could not go to school where she was not and I never knew how to love anybody else except her.

What Did I Do?

How did I manage to submit to such a trivial feeling? I could have said thanks but why did I have to embrace him? After all he was the guy I grew up hating. It was strange that I did not feel scared around him anymore. He was the poison that infected me, and at the same time, a strange cure that had been healing me. How could a presence of a person do that to you?

Why did I feel alone? Why did I feel incomplete when my boyfriend used to wrap me under his arms? Why did I feel like I was losing something?

It was as if I had exchanged my anxiety to allow a new set of questions to infect me. My boyfriend was a writer and I hadn't seen him writing since the day we decided to try loving each other officially. Did I smother the writer in him? Did I change him? Was my hatred for his roommate affecting him?

Then I decided, I wouldn't give up on hating my boyfriend’s roommate. He was the one who infected me. He was the one who was weakening my relationship. He was the one who had broken me. I hated him and I was going to hate him forever till the end of time.

A Walk To Remember

“What the hell? Why didn't you tell me that you were going to be late? I have been waiting outside for almost half an hour for you to come. What the hell?... You even took the backup key.” She was yelling at my roommate on her phone. She hung up and I could notice the anger in the way she swipe the phone to hang the call. The nerves on her forehead were waiting to come out of her skin.

I couldn't strike a conversation. She had been giving me cold looks for past few days. I sat on the stairs helplessly looking at her while she was restlessly hitting her left palm with her phone. I watched expecting that she would look at me. But she didn't. I was worried, she was either going to break her phone or her hand for sure.

“Hey” I said.

“Hey” She paused as if I had paralyzed her and passed me an unoriginal smile. She leaned against the wall to face me and our eyes finally met.

“He just texted me. It is going to take him another half an hour. Why don't we get ourselves something to eat?”

“Uh huh” She was now restlessly pushing the wall out of discomfort. A strange fear started to overwhelm me.

“It is hardly fifteen minutes from here. The gallis of ‘Narayantar’ are very friendly. We will just have to walk past few street lights.”

She didn't say anything. She just looked at me as if she had no clue what I had been saying to her.

“Do you like the plan?”

“Yes.” She finally acknowledged that I was there with her.

One…two…three…I had been counting streetlights as I walked to Jorpati with her. She was silently absorbing the cold air the Gallis of Narayantar had to offer her. I could hear her breathing in and out. It was strange. I must say ‘Strange’ becomes romantic when you are in love. She looked at me to probably say something. I quickly turned my head away to act like I was looking somewhere else. I could notice that she was trying to say something to me but she was somehow resisting.

“You don't remember me, do you?” She asked out of the blue.

“What?” I was surprised by the timing. She should have asked that long ago, I thought.

She didn't say anything after that. She just kept on walking. I stopped and looked at her walking away from me. The street lights were deliberately pouring their light on her. Maybe they had never seen a woman like her. She looked like an angel from where I stood. She then turned back to look at me. I swear I had never seen her more beautiful. It was probably because she tried to look best on her boyfriend’s Birthday.

“I do.” I ran at her and replied to her question.

“What?”

“I do remember you.”

“I wish you didn’t.” She said without even looking at me.

“But why?”

She stopped. I turned back to look at her.

“Do you even know why I left that school?”

“I have had a slight clue.”

“Slight clue.” She repeated and gestured me to move forward.

We reached the restaurant, finally. We didn't talk much after that. We settled on the table. I raised two fingers hinting the owner to bring two plates of Momos to our table. Still, she was looking everywhere but me.

“Here are your momos.” Said the owner.

“Thank you.” I smiled at him.

“Thank you.” She whispered.

The hot momos were difficult to consume. She finally looked at me helplessly. Momos can do that to you. I pulled the plate. Blew it till the vapor disappeared. I don't know why I did it. I passed the plate back to her. It was finally cool.

I looked at her eating because my momos were still too hot to consume. I still remember. She raised her head and maybe she noticed how helpless I was. She pulled my plate this time. Blew it until the vapor disappeared. Pushed it back to me and silently went back to work on her plate. A blissful chilling sensation passed down my spine. She ordered another plate for her.

“I am sorry.” I said.

She raised her head back to look at me. Maybe she was confused about what I was implying. She understood, I prayed.

My Boyfriend’s Birthday

It was strange. It was the first time after 10 years that I felt such comfort around a person. Irony was, he was the one who turned me into a vessel of discomfort. He shouldn't have apologized. ‘Why do I feel like forgiving him?’ I questioned myself. ‘Why is it very hard to hate him?’ The questions were raining and they were hurting me.

We came back to the room and my boyfriend had arrived with things. Things I didn't care about. He had brought beverages. He reasoned that it took him time to find the finest scotch in town. I didn't care. No scotch could wipe that confusion out of me that night, I was assured.

I was not proud of my boyfriend’s drinking manners. I didn't take more than one peg and I saw his roommate only drink beer. He, on the other hand was, I don't know, I wasn't even sure if he remembered me. I tried to walk him to the bed but he refuse. He lied down in the pool of his vomit. I tried and wake him up but I was pushed away.

It was late in the afternoon. It was impossible to get back to my room. I am scared of dogs. ‘Does my boyfriend even know that?’ I was filled with doubt. He didn't, I reasoned, he wouldn't have drowned himself in that bottle of ‘the finest scotch’.

I made myself comfortable on his bed. I lied down but something solid was hurting my back. I sat down to find the source of my pain. There was his phone.

‘I have copied it into your laptop.’

I scrolled up.   

‘Dude. She is going to ask me about my poems. I am screwed.’

My heart was breaking as I went scrolling up on his phone.

‘Thank you, dude. I am going to owe you a huge one. I love her. I have never loved someone so much.’

I don't remember I had any heart left to break after I read the final message. I couldn't scroll any further.

‘Dude, send me some poems. She is asking about me to send her more. Quick. Haha.’

I fell for wrong direction. I thought he would embrace me in his arms and it was his cell phone I was falling for. I was tricked by the internet. How did I ever expect to fall for someone’s shadow behind a curtain? I was blinded in love. Love is not blind. Love blinds you. It was the wrong sun I was flying to.

I got out of the bed; I wanted to go for a long walk. I wanted to have those momos again. That was the only time I was comfortable around a person. I looked at him and he was sleeping in a strange manner. He was facing the wall as if he was going to penetrate it. I could hear him breathing.

The writer behind the poems I fell for was him and he didn't even try to convey that to me. He tricked me. His roommate tricked me. It was strange I couldn't hate him further.

I walked to his bed and lied down. He was so warm. Warmer than my favorite blanket. I started to cry. I don't know why but tears didn't seem to stop rolling down my face. It was becoming more and more difficult for me to breathe. I turned towards him to see if he had noticed that I had joined him.

Strangely, watching him sleep was sending me into a trance. It was his aura. His presence had enveloped me in this strangely comfortable warmth. It was as if I was living inside one of his poems. I moved my hands to hold his hand. He was sleeping without a care. It was a struggle to find the spaces between his fingers but I finally got the grip. He turned around to look at me but I had no courage to say anything to him. I just kept silent and he followed me. We kept staring at the ceiling and submitting to the silence of the night. His hands were getting warmer as my fingers were melting. He suddenly tightened his grip. I was surprised and equally content. I was in war with him. War of the fingers, I must say. It was strangely romantic.

“I forgive you.” I whispered afraid that I would wake my internet boyfriend up.

“Are we going to stay us tomorrow morning?” I knew why he asked that question.

“We can’t. It will be wrong.”

“Can I look into your eyes?” He asked.

“Yes.” I whispered back.

He turned towards me to look at me in the eyes and I swear I could see the poetry his eyes were made with. I fell in love with him. Our fingers were not going to give up. We kept on holding each other’s hand as the night grew colder. He didn't say a thing and I couldn't muster anything to say. All I did was hold his hand and all he did was look at me. I felt his warm breath striking my lips like a lyrical rhythm. His breath was a poem itself. I was in love. I was wrongly in love. My boyfriend was sleeping in another room.

“The Mathematics

I am an equation waiting to be disintegrated

Fragmented

Torn into pieces

So I can fill myself with your presence in every void that remains

I am a solution

to which you are a formula to

I am a chemistry of oblivion

Waiting to be distilled by your alchemy

I am a mere biology with a set of pumping veins

your presence is the soul my skin heeds

I am a woman

But a mere biology

You are the mathematics

That completes me

You solve me

And hereby I shall call you my soul

You solve me

And hereby I shall call you my soul”

By Astha Shrestha

image source: www.pinterest.com