An Endless Day

Chapter - 3

We got up before someone caught us and ran, none of us knowing where. Just imagining the fact that we could be caught jumping off of a deserted cliff and some nice old man can ruin it all because he cared for us, managed to upset me. We can't afford that. And so we kept running. The place was as new for him as it was for me, I realized. It has been less than a few hours since I met him and I trusted him with my life. I would be freaking scared otherwise, but today I didn't have time. We ran and ran and ran until we saw people moving around on a road. We came out onto it from behind a shack.

We reached a road storming with people all around. It was the month of October. Manali's cold was too much for a Mumbaikar like me. Our clothes were dripping wet and I know the people around who stared at us were not my imagination. We pretended to not care, and definitely did not waste our time worrying about that. We have funny opinions about life, don't we? Till now, my life had been the epitome of simple and settled. I did what everyone I thought I'd do. I would sit on my desk and look at pictures of beautiful places for hours after a tiresome day I spent at either studying or working. I would think of the day when I'll finally reach there and when I would be small enough, negligible even, between the wonders of the world. Where I could lose myself. And now I had this person standing next to me who was absolutely crazy and made me want to be one too. I wanted to make up for all the lost years. With him by my side, I knew I would.

I always knew I'm gonna love adventures, whenever I was lucky enough to be a part of it. At the same time, taking risks scared me. I didn't want to do something on my own record and then blame myself forever. It's easy to do what others say, you have someone to blame, someone to shout when things don't go as planned. When you take a decision yourself, failing scares more, because you know you have chosen a path where you travel alone. I looked at him, considering the possibilities where this could go unmanageable. There were tons. I looked at the heaven I was in, I knew nothing could go wrong.

"You hungry?"

Obviously I was, the most exercise I have done in the last few years was getting up to get food from the refrigerator. I nodded, my face turned sheepish.

"We have time?" I asked, not wanting to be a spoilsport.
"We have all the time in the world" he said with a wink, quoting from some movie. I made a face at the cliche line and he rolled his eyes. Nevertheless, we kept moving, searching.

We went to one of the shacks at the roadside. He looked at me and made his way towards it. I held his hand, my gaze questioning. He smiled, reassuring me and went inside. I waited for almost half an hour. And obviously my over thinking brain didn't leave me alone. I thought about him, how he had that long hair hairstyle guys used to have before. Then they started ruining themselves with hair that could be mistaken for spikes of animals. I thought about his brown eyes that held much more than they let out. Just by looking at them, I could tell he was a person of great dreams, some possible, some impossible, but all gathered in there and were ready for everything the world had to offer. What did I know about him other than this? Absolutely nothing. Was I willing to risk knowing more? Right now, definitely not.

At the same time, I looked around, absorbing the nature, the culture of the place. How could God have let us have the masterpiece named Earth. He knew we were going to be reckless and ruin it, and he still let us have it. The snow covered mountains overlooking us from the heights only the stars could think of as short. The green trees with the pointed tops, the drops of purest water dripping off the leaves regularly. And the bluest sky, giving shelter to thousands of clouds. It's surprising, how I never noticed the beauty of frost on a leaf before, how the sky always seemed too small, how I couldn't breathe the same before, how I had never just stood on a road and let my mind wander in the smallest of places. Maybe that's the thirst of travel, I would have never focused so much at the surroundings of my house, over the years I had let the magic of my place fade. Here, I wanted to look as much as I can, so I remember every smallest detail of every scene here. I could have drawn the cliff I jumped off with utmost accuracy, and I would've failed at drawing my neighborhood.

I had a lot more to think, I always do, but I was successfully interrupted as he came out with two plates of Chinese food and two glasses of tea.

"You spent the money on the food?" I tried to pretend that I was angry, I was anything but it. My hunger got the best of me and I snatched one of the plates from him and started eating, still glaring at him.

"You give very less credit to my intelligence." I raised one of my eyebrows, wondering if I want that explanation or not.

He smirked and had just started speaking but was cut off by a woman from inside the shack.
"You all right there, honey?"

"Yes aunt, thank you!" He shouted back.
I should have been shocked at the relation they had inculcated, but I felt I knew him well enough to know he played a game.

"What did you do to her?" I asked, my words fumbled because of all the food.

He started to speak again, but instead smirked. "Doesn't matter, does it?"
He said and started eating again.

True, doesn't matter.