Seven

Through the windows of the train I am travelling in, I catch glimpses of the rural life in Amizia. Arrays of wheat fields stretch to the sky, slowly giving way to trees that turn into hills on both sides of the railway track. It brings back memories of my childhood in a small village. I grew up next to a farm, raised by herders. I moved to the city at twenty, like many of my friends did. We are all scattered in different places now, contacts lost to time. But I do remember them. Their names, their faces, our time together, I recall everything. The memory reel starts running backwards in my mind. It brings back many memories, the happy ones and the ones forgotten, given up with departed innocence. 

How many stories do we really know? How many of them are gone with childhood?

The reel stops at one memory when I was seven. 

I was in the ground behind my family farm, waiting for my friend, Anne, to come to play. We played together everyday before sunset. Her family lived next to mine. She was late that day, or maybe I was there early. I remember sitting on the swing by myself, unhappy about something that I can not recall now. There, I saw a girl standing by the edge of the ground. She was watching me, or I thought she was watching me. She was alone, no one with her. I decided to go and talk to her. 

“Hi” I said to her, “Have you come to play here?”

She didn’t answer for some time. When she did, she said, 

“No.” 

Her voice was like a soft siren. It rings in the rear of my mind. I can hear it even now. 

“What is your name?” I asked her. 

She said nothing. So I continued,

“I’m Sel.”

“Hi, Sel” she said. 

“Do you want to play?”, asked I with the simple smartness of a seven year old. 

“I can play with you if you want” she said. 

“Yes. I want to play with you” I told her, happily. 

I came back to the swing I was sitting and asked her to push me. I swinged as high as I could and we laughed together. Then it was her turn to swing. She went much higher than me but stopped quickly. 

“What were you doing here, Sel?”, she asked me.

“I was waiting for Anne. She’s late today” 

“Who is Anne?”

“She’s my best friend. Oh! You will meet her when she comes and we can play together”

“Do you like her?”

“Very much” I said, throwing my hands up. “I think I’ll go and call her. Can you wait here? It won’t be long.”

“Where does she live?”

“Next to my house”

“Where do you live?”

“There” I pointed to my house across the ground. She looked at it for sometime. 

“It’s a nice house”

“Thank you” I said, remembering my mother’s le

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sson. I was a courteous child, obeying instructions of good manners. 

“Where do you live?” I asked her.

“There” she pointed towards the trees. I thought her house was across the forest cover. I had never been there, so the thought of living there was exciting. 

Suddenly, I asked her,

“Will you come to play tomorrow? I like you. I will play with you everyday, just like I play with Anne”

“I don’t know if I will be able to come again”

“Why?” I said. 

“It’s hard to come.” 

I could not comprehend why it should be hard. But she sounded upset so I did not say anything. I really wanted to play with her. She seemed very nice.

 “But then we won’t be able to play together” I sighed at last. It was a depressing thought at age seven. 

 “Maybe you should go and call her” she said. I got up and with vigour, dashed to Anne’s house. When I stopped at her door, I found it locked. The house was deserted. No one was around. 

I went into my house and finding my mum, asked her urgently,

“Where has Anne gone?”

“She suddenly fell ill, honey. She’s taken to the town hospital”

I remember very clearly that I broke out crying on the floor. I was not worried. You don’t worry when you are seven. I was scared. I had no idea what “taken ill” meant. I had no actual idea of what hospitals did. I was simply scared that something wrong had happened. I remember crying and praying till late night. I had exhausted myself when I finally fell asleep, clutching my mother. She did not return the next day, nor the one that followed. 

Anne returned after a whole of five days. She was as thin as a straw when I saw her. I almost started crying but then she smiled and asked me to come to her house. I entered it with her, hand in hand. That is when I remembered about the girl. The girl I met on the ground. I had told her to be back with Anne but I never returned. I kept her waiting and left her all alone.

I never saw her again. I waited many days at the ground in hopes of seeing her but she never came. I do not know her name, nor do I recall her face. I would not be able to recognise her if she stood in front of me. I sometimes wonder if she remembers meeting me. It is more than probable that she does not. Maybe for her, it was one of those childhood incidents forgotten, given up with departed innocence. But for some reason, I can not forget it. My reel is stuck there. The same scene replays itself over and over again. The memory of her is embedded in my mind, imprinted on my life. Every open field that I look upon now brings back that memory. I see her in each one of these fields, standing all alone and hear echos of her siren-voice calling me.