01— After three dreadful months.

01— After three dreadful months.

“Life is never hard under the protective shades of our parents. The struggle starts when we decide to move out from that shade.”

— Saumya Tripathi

 

“If only you were here.” Staring at the clear sky with little stars twinkling almost brightly, I muttered with a sad smile on my face. An intense sorrow came in waves, making me feel nothing but numb. “There is nothing the same with you both leaving us,” the welled-up tears in my eyes felt too heavy to carry. “Life has been so hard without you both.” There was an overwhelming mix of grief, shock, and disbelief.

It happened inexplicably.

One movement we were fervently emitting family: just the four of us: no worries, no stress, no pain, no grief. Nothing. Just pure elation and extreme euphoria skirted around our household. Patently yet another plausible, pronounced Merry family.

 

LIFE: It gives you chances—a lot of chances of that sort—to amend your mistakes. Mistakes that you would have made in the past, whether you did them purposely or unintentionally. But at some point, it did happen. Whatever, they are a part of life; without them, we learn nothing. We can never become wise without it. Mistakes need to be made for people to grow emotionally, maturely, and psychologically. 

 

But would life also give you a chance to bring back a dead mortal human to life? 

 

The result will certainly be a no. No, of course not. It could never, unquestionably, happen in the twenty-first century. Feeling isolated in my grief, I lost myself in the thoughts of my own emotional turmoil. 

 

“Dah- dah!”

 

Coming back to the present day, I smiled sadly, seeing my baby brother surrounded by a small mob of kids playing happily. However, there was this piercing pain in my abdomen at the loss of our parents. If our parents had been here, they would have enjoyed themselves as well. Just like the way we used to have in the past, cheerily. My vision blurred at the thought of them once again. It had been three months since that dreadful car incident, but it simply seemed like a matter of yesterday. 

 

Accidents happen every day in every single minute of every single second, but the irony is that I had never thought that it could be my parents someday, somehow. As humans, we always tend to question the wrong that happens to us all the time. 

 

Suppressing the urge to wail loudly, I swallowed an excessive amount of salivary gland. Not now. Biting my lower lip, I restrained myself from crying.

 

I could not. 

 

And I won't.

 

Life has never been easy since then. 

 

A giggle brought me back from my self-breakdown to see my chubby little brother crawling towards me hurriedly while giggling with his toothless mouth. I crouched down to take him securely in my arms. Placing him on my lap, I secured him in the confines of my arms, cuddling him.

 

"Are you not my fur on the cotton ball?" I drawled, pecking at his reddish nose and smiling down at him. He was the only light left that I held dear. 

 

He pouted at me cutely with his sweet rosebud of a lip. Despite the tears, I laughed gently at his tactics to make me swivel. He was becoming more impish day by day. 

 

Nonetheless, I did love him with all my heart. How could I not love him? He was my immaculate, adorable, impish brother, after all. The one who had given me a reason to live in this isolated cosmos.

 

I could have died a long time ago if he had not been here with me. He was the only sanity left within me after our parents. . . . . .I closed my eyes tightly, keeping my mental emotions at bay in front of all these small kids. I couldn't cry now. My eyelids seemed heavy, but I tried my best to hold back my tears. I must stay strong for him. He had his whole life in front of him, and I was the only one he had as his family. He was my responsibility now. 

 

He tugged at my dupatta with his chubby little fingers, wanting me to play with him. Opening my eyes, I smiled, kissing his almost fluffy red cheeks.

 

"Don't you get tired? How much will you play? You have been playing for one and a half hours!" I chided him in my baby voice, frowning. “It's time we go.”

 

After peering at me with his wide, dark brown eyes for a few minutes, he laughed. He laughed. So, he found my scolding hilarious. But there wasn't any humour in them. I blinked, pouting myself at him. Suppressing my giggle, I continued, this time with finality.

 

"Let's go, baby. We are already running late, and Uncle would be worried sick, and I have to make you your baby food too," I tried again in my baby voice, rubbing his left cheek with the pad of my thumb, lovingly.

 

Shaurya: Yes, the name of my brother was given to me. The mixture of Shaam and Arya—both our parents's names:

 

Dr. Shaam Mishra and

 

Mrs. Shaam Arya Mishra.

 

They had always been here with us. I always knew it. And they always will be. There is no doubt about that within us. 

 

“I know you are here, papa and Mama,” I whispered to myself, staring at the dark sky.

 

They were still alive—alive in our hearts. I nodded at myself, smiling ruefully. Kissing his crown of the head, I placed Shaurya in his stroller, standing straight. I moved out of the park to leave. It took almost five to six minutes to reach our home. I pondered. We didn't live in that crowded place; there were merely a few houses with people and families belonging there. We had been living there since my birth. That house was not only a house; it was our little world, where we beheld our memories of happiness and emotions—a lot of them—together. We did not come from a high-class family, but we always had our articles when we needed them. We were a merry family. I thought grimly. Happy and satisfied with life. 

 

I softly sighed. Undoubtedly, losing our parents was unfair, and perhaps even at the world or fate level, I felt anger, fear, and anxiety all at the same time. 

 

"Hey! Wait, Radhika!" A very familiar male voice from Awdhesh brought me to an abrupt halt.

 

Awdhesh? 

 

My smile faded away from my face after hearing my name called aloud like that.

 

Why was he yelling? Was everything all right?

 

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