school's out!

Upcoming events: Farewell - 30 January 2024



i dont remember much. i open my eyes and its the first day of fourth grade. i tripped and this girl helped me up. Mahi, her name was. I don’t remember if she had a double A or a single A. I havent met many Mahis since her. I blink once and the date for my school farewell is flashing on the screen. My phone. I never even thought id have one of my own. My graduation. I never thought it wouldn’t be with the friends i made in 2014. I never thought it wouldn’t be in the same school i studied in for 10 years. I never thought about graduation. I never thought id actually grow up.

Maybe the little girl in 2014 with hair so short it reached her neck, side parted to perfection with a clip, a disney princess pencil case that had every single stationary a 10 year old could ever want, would cry and cry and cry until she physically couldn’t if i told her I don’t talk to Tanya or Ahana or Drishti, and that Mahi (Maahi?) and i grew apart even before I left the school, and that yes, I left the school, I left the teachers , I left my friends, I left my past, but somehow along the way, i pocketed the memories. Theyre still very fragile.

Im holding them like sand in my palms and every single tear i shed is ultimately turning the sand into mud, one molecule at a time. I hate getting my hands dirty.

Maybe she would hit me. Yell at me. Scream at me for letting myself forget so much. And id let her. Id tell her I like the new school. And the friends i made here are nice, if not , nicer. Its the best school if you want to succeed academically. And she’d ask me if im happy, like i was in my old school and maybe, just maybe, I’d nod. To keep her hopes up.

She wouldn’t like me though. Not if i told her id been failing my exams, and lying about it to my parents. She wouldn’t understand, i don’t either. Id tell her that she will once she’s older. How much older? She’d scream. And id stay silent.

How much older? How much older would i be to understand why i did this? How much older would i be when the sand in my hand was long replaced by mud? How much older would i be when i forget Mahi’s name instead of her spelling? How much older would i be when id stop hurting?

My farewell freakes me out. The end is near and im not bothered much about it. I should be. Ive been emotional since the start. Ive been doomed since the start.

Im sorry. Id tell her

What are you sorry for? Shed ask

And id say that Im sorry l we cant go back, and for all the things we can’t remeber , but im glad we did it. The love will always be there.

In another universe, the window is open, im sitting in the spinny chair with my brother who’s still shorter than me, we’re both small enough to fit in one chair and naïve enough to laugh at Ssundee when he tells us not to forget him when we grow up. We continue watching minecraft together. We split the screen in half. He plays games on Kizi.com with the keyboard and i play Baby Hazel with the mouse.

| My friends and I at my birthday party in 2015

In another universe, i am 10. I still write letters to god and hide them in our mandir. In another universe, i am 10 years old. Nothing bad has happened to me.