The Trail to Spring

Chapter 1

It was on a normal Thursday morning when I woke up and my blurry vision landed on the white school uniform hung on the wall. My final twelfth grade exams had ended the previous week and it always feels weird when I remember that I wouldn't be wearing that dress ever again. With each passing day, it had slowly become a bitter reminder to me of the transient nature of the present tense. A time past, never to be experienced again.

I slowly sat up on the bed today and picked up my smartphone from the bedside drawer while trying to stifle a yawn. I have recently started the habit of noting down all of my thoughts like this in my phone as I read in an online article once that writing even a small paragraph per day could help you improve your writing sense.

The matter of the fact is I want to be an author in the future and my ultimate aim is to write something on the lines of The Last Mountain Standing. It is a novella about the life of a blind boy in the hills and how he first lost his mother and then his house and had to go through many other great ordeals before he finally found his calling as a writer.

My Grandpa simply adores this book. I have discussed the themes in the story countless times with him and we always quote parts from it whenever we think it to be appropriate.

"A book is something that can unlock the deepest desires and feelings in your heart, my pie, and can make you experience the world in a light you never thought was possible," he would tell me with sparkling eyes.

I still remember how Grandpa used to narrate various tales when I visited his place as a child. He is an expert storyteller. He knows most of the Aesop's Fables, the Vikram-Betal stories and lots more and he often mixed those up with his own childhood incidents. I would come and sit beside the window in his bedroom and he would come and sit beside me, wrapping his caring arms around my body before reciting to me all those stories that I adored to hear from his mouth.

So now to repay him, I intend to gift him with a work that could be equally cherished by him.

If someone had happened to walk into my room at that very moment as I sat cross-legged on the bed and thought about these humble aspirations of mine, my half closed eyes and the unkempt strands of my messy bed hair would undoubtedly have made me look a bit like a mad priestess summoning a demon from the underworld. But my short meditation was soon interrupted when my smartphone began to buzz and blare out the lyrics of On My Way by Alan Walker. Atifa Hussain was calling me.

Atifa was one of the more popular girls in my class whom I believed to be my best friend and who, in turn, thought of me as one of her best friends. She is one of those people with whom everyone wants to be friends with because of her cheerful demeanour and outspoken nature. I had known her since the seventh grade, when her family had shifted to our neighbourhood. I never really had many friends but it didn't take long for us to become close once we realised that we lived in the same neighbourhood, went to the same school and had a mutual love for the Adventures of Tintin.

After our final school exams, a group of friends from our class had planned to go to Puri together before we parted ways in college. I had badly wanted to go on this trip because my parents never allowed me to travel outside the city without them. But this time they had finally caved in after much pleading from my part and I had been eagerly waiting for this trip since then. I had a hunch that Atifa was calling me to discuss about that.

"Maya, have you finished packing yet?," she asked, confirming my thoughts. The joy for the incoming trip was apparent in her voice.

I answered in the affirmative.

"Good," she said, "Everything is perfect and I would have hated it if you had arrived tomorrow at the station late as always."

"What do you mean by 'always'?," I asked, failing to hide the hint of contempt in my voice.

"You know perfectly well what I mean, Maya. Remember that Kochi trip when you made your family miss the flight by oversleeping?"

"That was one time," I pointed out, "And this is too good an opportunity to let go off for such a dumb reason. I had to clean almost the entire house on my own just so I could convince Mom and Dad to let me go with you all."

"Well, in any case, it is high time for their little 'strawberry pie' to start spreading her wings on her own, isn't it?," she mocked. I could picture her wide grin from the other side.

"Firstly, my parents don't call me that anymore," I replied haughtily, turning a faint shade of red, "And secondly, my eighteenth birthday is just a month away and I decided to use that wish for something worthwhile for a change. I didn't want to hurt them by asking something unreasonable or throwing fits. Not after what they have been through all these years."

I heard Atifa's voice quivering with suppressed laughter.

"I am sometimes jealous of the innate innocence of your pure soul, Maya."

"Did you just call me now to profess your jealousy towards my soul or did you have anything else to talk about?," I asked as I got up from bed and walked up to the washroom to brush my teeth. After that, it would take me at least another ten minutes to soak my jumbled mess of hair in water, brush it down and tie it in a braid. Maybe keeping long hair wasn't worth it after all.

"Yes, of course I do have a reason for calling you," she continued, "Rahul just texted saying he has reserved a table for two in one of Puri's best dining places and he has asked me to accompany him. Isn't he so romantic?," Atifa exclaimed. I could literally hear her jumping up and down on the floor in excitement.

"Yea, wery romantic," I managed to say as I brushed my teeth.

"He was just telling me how incredibly lucky he was to be able to book those seats as almost all of them were already reserved. No wonder about that since it is peak tourist season now. Maybe it's a sign of our true love that he managed to bag a table for us," Atifa monologued away.

Rahul was Atifa's most recent boyfriend, a rich boy with a richer taste and an extravagant way of living. They had known each other for like three months before they started texting 'ILY' messages and promising to stand beside each other until death did them part. At first, when they started their relationship, I was totally willing to lend her a ear to show my support but it quickly became gross after a while to continuously hear about them from a third person point of view. Especially about the bits when Atifa recounted their longest records of kissing each other.

I could guess that the ensuing conversation today would most probably be a very detailed and humbling recount of Atifa's love life, and in which I wasn't interested at all at the present moment.

"...and so he ultimately told them to get it at double the.... Wait a moment," Atifa paused her story as the sudden realisation dawned upon her, "Don't tell me you are brushing your teeth now, Maya. It's past ten-thirty!"

"Wha, no way!  Whad makes you think 'at ?" I hurriedly tried to rinse my mouth clean.

"I can clearly hear you washing your mouth," she said, "Well, whatever. Just please make sure that everything is spick and span for tomorrow."

"Yes, aye, aye, ma'am," I saluted.

I could hear her sigh from the other end.

"I honestly don't know what you are going to do without me."

Author's Note: I hope you liked today's chapter. Cheers!