I crossed ways with her at the train station in Makwanpur in 2027. After much pleading, she would tell me about the year 2021. It had been one hell of a year. Thousands of people dying, thousands on bed, thousands battling for another breath of air, thousands pinning their hopes on their lungs, thousands longing to be at home.
Lily, my friend from school, had always been a subject of interest to me. Lily loved her name. I loved her name, too. And though I was fond of joking around, she took pride in how her parents named her. She was supposed to bloom like the flower her parents had named her after. She was distant to be everybody’s, yet close enough to always remain in our memories.
Though listening, or even describing, about her sounds rather exaggerated, I must say I am not lying. Her presence was one that once couldn’t deny, every teacher noticed her in the class, every senior who ever came for a notice to pass on, remarked her presence. Every friend that ever needed any help considered her suggestion.
Unlike her, I was a conflicted teenager. I had my little group of friends but I couldn’t get along very well for long. I liked turning people away, turning events away, and studies away. I was ready to accept people for the absence they would soon present in my life today or a day later. I was ready for a distance that could arise with a just a difference in opinion or a little misunderstanding. I was ready to accept that things were ready to come down someday.
One spring, something was a little off about Lily. Despite her despair, I only noticed when she started missing the classes. A month had passed by and yet there was no sign of her returning back. It was only when April ended, I finally met her on a mandatory Sunday assembly. She was smiling, just the same.
The following years, Lily skipped tournaments. It was the thing on everybody’s lips. She was interrogated and persuaded a couple of times but nothing seemed to change her decision. High school ended with a blink of our eyes. I got myself a programming degree and moved on and so did Lily.
Now, even after all these years, I had not known what had really happened in the April of 2021. What took that little sweet girl to transform, disappear and then appear once again? This train ride was one planned from above, I told myself. I must know, I had been curious all these years.
When I ask, Lily speaks like it had been nothing. She tells me her story, even the incidents after our high school. Now I know, she had lost her father that spring. Yet she stood so brave, so strong. My admiration for her grew deeper and there was so much more to know. Personally, I was curious how she managed to keep herself together.
It was a long train ride. However, not long enough to fit our stories in those tiny sections. We talked about our families and our fathers, how they left us with lessons of what to do and what not. She let me know about how she admired her father and how happy she was to be able to spend the days she got to. On the other hand, I told her about the love-hate relationship with my father, for the things he did and the things he could not.
Lily said she must mention a thing about her father and told me about the heroic act he had performed in his last days. The kind of person Lily was wasn’t a surprise to me now. She had a great father. Being a good parent is often a good way to teach your children how to become a good human being. Her incident made me re-evaluate my life and my parents. Though I had a tragic childhood, I still had time to make remarkable changes in my life. Though my parents weren’t perfect, I could try to become the good child and let them have a little taste of accomplishment in their lives. Though they have had a hard time together, a hard past and a hard upbringing, I could give them pleasant third of their life.
After I got off the train, we walked down into a flower-shop, I bought a bouquet while she stood at my side, smiling. I picked a rose and handed her. We waved each other good-bye. For how long, neither of us knew. Forever, maybe. The last time I saw her, I saw Lily with a rose.
At home, in our ancestral vase, its edges broken and worn out, my father places the flowers with care.
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