Space Song

Standing outside the liquor shop, as he waited for his friends to come back out with the right fodder for the party, Suraj looked through playlists on his phone, searching for the right song.

He played a couple of them to check if his mood agreed, but none of them struck the right chord. It was probably the thing he had smoked earlier that was disagreeing with his own taste in music.

Then he found THE song. He hadn’t heard it before but as soon as it hit play, Suraj could feel his head swinging slowly to the music. He closed his eyes and let the wind rush by before staring up at the sky.

It was a starry night.

Suraj started counting the twinkling white dots – one, two, three, four. One, two, three. One.

The music was reminding him of something. Suraj tried to concentrate on that feeling.

He waved his arms in the air while the song nurtured the moment he had first realized he was in love.

“Dude, are you still tripping?”

Suraj was brought back to the ground by a sharp pull at his earphones as his friends came out of the shop with heavier-than-usual backpacks.

He laughed wholeheartedly.

“You guys all set?”

“Yeah! Let’s get going before they start calling us.”

All of them agreed.

It was going to one of their last party as undergraduates. Almost all of them had a job to look forward to in a couple of months. In the past four years they have all come a long way from naïve high-school graduates to people of the world, and yet the world seemed as exciting to them as it had felt that first time they had walked in through their college gates.

Some of them had found their lost enthusiasm for art, some had found friendships that would last for a lifetime, some of them found love and other enlightenment.

As Suraj navigated through the room full of friends with a plastic cup in hand, someone called out his name.

“Suraj! Come here, and bring me a cup of whatever you’re drinking.”

Brinda was sitting on the ground, her back rested on the wall. She was talking to another friend of theirs while swiping on her phone.

He excused himself from a group of extremely excited dancers and walked up to the two of them.

Brinda was one of those lifelong friends Suraj had discovered in the four years of college. They had forged their friendship over a game of cards, which according to Brinda meant couldn’t possibly grow apart, ever.

She would crack the silliest of jokes at the most inappropriate moments, she would snort while choking on those all by herself even if nobody joined her in on them, and she would always drag Suraj into every bit of consequence her funny bone would cause.

All the little moments of cheeky banter between them had slowly given way to conversations that would last for hours.

By the beginning of the second year, they had already imposed the ‘best-friend’ tag on each other.

“What’s up Bri?” He stood oddly in front of Brinda and Rohan.

She raised her finger to signal him a moment of silence without looking up from her screen.

Suraj rolled his eyes and started a conversation with Rohan.

After another minute, Brinda set her phone aside and tried butting into the chat.

When both the boys pretended to ignore her, she tugged at Suraj’s shirt.

“Where’s my drink?” Brinda demanded.

“Didn’t get any for you.”

Brinda grinned. “Are you hurt, you little silly boy?” She knew she could get away with mocking him.

To anyone else in the world, it might sound rude, but for the two of them, this mockery was their staple language of communication.

“Give me whatever you’re drinking!”

“My cup is empty Bri.”

She threw her hands up in the air to vent her frustration.

“Okay, it is too loud in here. And strangely, dark. Suraj, grab a couple of beer for us and let’s all go to the terrace. Come on, Rohan!”

Rohan barely made an effort to move. “I’m too tired to get up.”

“You’re too drunk, you mean?!” Suraj nodded at her question and walked towards the table that had the bottles of beer lined up one after the other.

When Suraj turned around, Brinda had already left for the terrace. Something struck his mind and he smiled coyly before following her steps.

Brinda was walking along the railings of the terrace with music in her ears. As Suraj entered through the door, clutching the bottles close to his chest, Brinda removed one of the ear plugs and said something ardently.

“What is it?” He moved towards her and handed her a bottle.

“It’s something I found online today.”

"Wait, hold this!"

After a moment of failed struggle with the bottles, Suraj produced a bottle opener from his pocket.

He started laughing before she could roll her eyes again. She joined in.

“I’ve got news for you!” Brinda clinked her bottle with his.

“Rohan is going out on a date next week.”

He looked surprised. “He didn’t even tell me about this!”

“It’s not his fault. He kind of slipped today because he can’t stop at just beer.”

Brinda laughed at it all by herself as Suraj walked backwards towards the wall.

Sitting down, he chuckled.

"Even Rohan grew up!

I’m seriously going to miss college Bri.”

“Me too! I’m going to miss all these cheap liquor, random parties.”

“Oh! I can’t imagine a life without these drunken idiots downstairs. I can’t see a life without you in it.”

Suraj sighed.

“I can’t even think about it; chokes me up.

But tonight is not about that. It’s a party and we’ll enjoy ourselves. Cool?”

She tried to sound chirpy.

When she didn’t hear him back, Brinda turned to find him staring at her fondly.

She started walking along the railings again. His eyes followed her.

Suraj gulped down the rest of his beer.

“You are going to Bangalore. I’ll be at Pune next month.

Brinda?”

She hesitated looking back at his stare. Completing a lap along the length of the terrace, she turned and started walking towards the other end.

“We’ll keep texting and calling each other. Nothing will really change!” She didn’t lose her focus from the floor.

“Are you convinced about it?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

Brinda looked back at him, irritation in her voice.

Suraj put his bottle sideways on the floor and gave it a spin. He decided something in his mind and rolled the bottle away from himself.

“Bri, listen, I think you know how much you mean to me. You are the smartest person in I know!

There are things that we have both experienced and there’s so much more out there for us to find out on our own. But I don’t think my life will be as colourful as it is now, without you.”

He stumbled with the next few words to catch a breath.

Brinda hadn’t looked away the whole time. She had a knowing look on her face.

“Don’t!”

Suraj waited for her to say something more.

“We’ll always be there for each other Suraj. Four years don’t wash away because we are in different cities.

You are my best friend!”

He played the question in his mind a few times over.

He didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t have to.

She quietly nodded her head.

With a resigned look on his face, he looked at the bottle far away.

The thickness of their silence was weighing heavy in the air.

Brinda stopped to look away too.

Then she heard him chuckle.

“At least I didn’t say anything. Tomorrow I can convince myself that I was too drunk!”

His joke didn’t land as well as he would have thought. It was apparent in the hurt in her eyes.

He immediately regretted it.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!

You should know that I would have meant everything I would have said, if I had said them.

Every single word!”

A smile shadowed her face.

“I will miss you though.”

He continued with a sigh.

“Here I am sitting like a broken record; a blabbering buffoon!”

Brinda laughed out loud.

“I quite agree. You are sitting there like a blabbering buffoon!”

Their laugh resonated through the terrace and the heaviness vanished away.

She walked up to him and kicked him slightly. “Move!”

Sitting down beside him, she pulled out her earphones and held one to his ear.

“This is what I was talking about. It’s Space Song. Just listen! You’ll love this song.”

Before Suraj could settle in with the earphone, she had already started playing the song.

The song sounded heavenly!

She put her head on his shoulders and tapped her fingers to the beat of the music.

The more he heard the music, the more he could swear he had heard it before.

Then it struck him!

A smile escaped his lips and he looked up into the sky. This time he didn’t count the stars, just stared at them, happily.