"Goodbye Maya. Till next time."
Maya Ganguly has always felt a sense of loneliness in her heart since the time her elder brother had run away from home. Fourteen years ago. But things were finally looking up when she was able to convince her parents...
It was two in the morning. An eerie silence subsided over the entire house. Nobody was awake. Except one.
Maya sat in her dark room. Alone. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
Today was never meant to be like this.
She could still picture Arjun gently stroking her head. Just a few moments ago, he had climbed down the window with the help of a rope attached to the almirah.
She had been helpless to stop him. In fact, there was nothing she could have done to stop him.
The unopened cup of ice-cream still lay beside her on the bed. Her eight year old elder brother had given it to her so that she would not cry.
It was useless.
Maya had given Arjun her favourite teddy bear so that it could keep him safe. But her infant heart still longed to see her brother's face. After all, in the three years of her existence, her brother was the first and only companion she had.
Why did it have to turn out like this?
"Don't be sad, bon," her brother had said, "I will come back one day. Think on the bright side. You will now get all the love from Mom and Dad."
This wasn't it. The one person in the world whom she cared more than her parents was him.
"I have to answer my calling, bon. The outside world is beckoning me, just like the adventure stories Grandpa tells us. I simply have to go."
Then he should have taken her with him.
"I promise I will return within a year. And I will return back the teddy that you have given me, good as new. Just hold on until then."
She didn't want him to return. She wanted him to stay.
"My little sister, I will miss you."
Maya couldn't distinguish the expression on Arjun's face in the dark. Was he smiling or crying?
And before she knew it, her brother was gone.
All the memories she had shared with her brother came flooding to her mind now as she sat in the dark - watching Teletubbies together, taking turns to ride the swing, playing board games, laughing at the newspaper delivery man who was scared of their neighbours' dog. She didn't want to think about them. But they still floated before her eyes nevertheless.
She could hold it no longer. She wailed loudly as she felt something important to her vanish into the thin air.
The shuffle of lazy footsteps reverberated throughout the house. The door of her room creaked open.
"Why are you crying so late at night?," her mother asked, rubbing her sleepy eyes.
Maya didn't want to accept the fact. She hoped desperately that it was all just a bad dream. But it wasn't.
"Dada has run away."
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