An Endless Day

Chapter- 11

We were sitting by the fire, with a bunch of diaries in between us. 

"So, these are all yours? Did you write all about your fifty last lives too?"

Laughing, I pointed to one of them,"You see that one? The one with the skyline? That one is for my favorite quotes, from all the books I read. The one next to it and the blue one have some of my poems. The others are for some specific stuff too."

"Can I see one of them?" 

"Choose one, I'll tell if you can." I said smiling. What I didn't tell him was, another one of it was a complaint diary, one  I made for all the complaints I had. It had paragraphs from when I was angry at the Govt, friends, rapists, or some even for myself. 

"I wanna see the quotes one." 

I picked it up and threw it to him gently. As expected, he caught with utmost ease and started reading. 

I knew all of these quotes by heart. I had read the diary at least a thousand times, just to know that right words when put together can give rise to something so beautiful. 

"Tell me, how did you realize while reading that these were the ones that belong to the diary you'll take while running away and forgetting  your phone?"

  "What? I never told you any of this. Stop making up things.", embarrassed and impressed at the same time. 

"Okay, I need to make a call, can I borrow your phone?" He asked and laughed. What could I've done then but laugh myself. 

"How did you figure out the phone part?" I asked, sincerely curious.

"I haven't seen one with you, have I?". It was a pretty dumb question.

We had been sitting there for about an hour now. It's spectacular how you start to worry less about time when you don't have a watch. We were still sitting by the fire we had started earlier. 

"If you read a line or two from that book, such that you never ever want to forget that you read something so brilliant, tell me." I said. 

"All of those line are amazing, but I've never been a good reader. I don't know if I'm gonna find one."

"Let's do one thing. Read out half of the quote and I'll complete it. Search for your favorite one."

"You know all of these!" 

"Shall we start?", everybody likes to flaunt what they know! This was my expertise.

He rummaged through the diary, probably finding out the toughest one. I could see he didn't believe me. But when he said the quote, I knew he didn't have the thought to make me lose.

" As he read I fell in love...."

".. the way you fall asleep. Slowly and then all at once."

"I know this, saw the movie, remembered it." He was getting involved, I saw. He didn't look like a boy who has been forced to read, he looked like a little kid who gets to read the big stuff for the first time. 

"Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'.."

"I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere and I hope it's beautiful."

"Where's this from?" His eyes puppy-like, genuinely curious. I smiled. Discussing quotes and books made me happy. 

"Looking for Alaska, John Green."

"There's a lot from John Green here, you like him a lot?"

"I do. He's remarkable."

"What is the point of being alive..."

"If you don't at least try to do something remarkable. Again John Green, from An abundance of Katherines."

"You thought this while running away, didn't you?" He said, his eyes still trained on the pages, voice distant. 

"What! no. I didn't think anything before running away."

He stopped reading and looked up. "Then why would you agree to be with a stranger for 24 hours before going back?"

I didn't know. I reached Chandigarh sometime that day and without thinking I took a bus to Manali. I had no idea where I'd go or what I'd do. I was having a bad day and when the thought slipped I couldn't resist. I reached Manali after the 35 hour journey only to break down at the bus stop. I had hardly found myself a seat between strangers and that's when it hit. I had run away. I had run away from the parents who loved me and place I was familiar with to a land distant and risky. I hated myself for making them go through this. I had minimal money left and I was scared and exhausted and depressed. And then, out of nowhere he came. He took my bag from me and asked me to go with him. In normal circumstances when you see a stranger asking you to go somewhere, you either shout and fight or run away. I didn't do either. I got up and started walking until we reached that cliff. He bought me a few snacks ( I regret not paying for it either. Also, don't take stuff from strangers). No questions asked, he helped me and we made a deal. I spend the next 24 hours with him and I go back. I never realized it had nothing for him there. The deal was for me,revolved around me and ended at me.