Sneha picked up the glass from the floor and poured herself another drink. Then she went and sat on the bed, like Abir was still there. Like he hadn’t left. And suddenly, she remembered that morning- a little tipsy, just before falling asleep, Abir had been lying right there and said- Get a good job. I want to see you at the top. Do you understand what I’m saying? And it’s for both of us…not just you. You get it?
Sneha hadn't, really. Honestly, she doesn’t understand a lot of the things he says. A few times, she tried bringing those up later when he was sober, but it only made him uncomfortable. So now, she doesn’t really do that anymore. Drunk Abir says a lot of things. Most of which she just…lets pass. Because of the drunk Abir and sober Abir, they’re not the same person. And strangely enough, in the last one and a half years, she has barely spent time with the sober version of him.
Rakin called this a huge red flag. He was fiercely protective of Sneha and from the beginning, he hadn’t liked Abir. Though he never said so directly, he dropped hints through jokes and teasing. It’s obvious, he’s never been able to accept this relationship normally. He just…tolerates it. For the sake of a 20-year friendship.
Sneha had wanted them to meet. Rakin had no objection; all the problems were Abir’s. If Abir’s life had been like that of any ordinary civilian, maybe it wouldn’t have been so complicated. Or maybe it still would. Sneha tried to understand Abir; sometimes she felt she understood quite a lot, and other times she thought everything she understood was wrong. Like that afternoon, when Abir woke up, got another peg into him, and said- will you marry me? When she turned and asked- what??? What did you say? He replied- no...nothing!
Sneha suspected he said these things to test her or simply didn't know what he was saying when he said them. Two weeks before that, when she went to Rajshahi to see him, they were standing by the Padma River. He was completely drunk and suddenly said- Let’s go to Teknaf. Sneha asked- Teknaf? Why? Abir replied- From there we’ll cross the border into Myanmar.
Sneha laughed and played along- Okay…and then? He looked serious this time- No, I’m not joking. If I tell them who I am, they’ll treat me like a VIP. She kept teasing- Then? She kept teasing- Then? And he said- Then what…I’ll tell them, I want to spend the rest of my life with this lady. Let’s just run away. Sneha again laughed harder- Enough! You've lost your mind! Then silence fell. To lighten the mood, she added- If you’re going to dream, at least dream of a better country! Why Myanmar, man? Poor!
She laughed, but inside, her chest twisted painfully. She knew it was drunk Abir talking. Once the alcohol wore off, none of it would remain. And if it did come back to him, he'd text her repeatedly, writing sorry…sorry, caught in a loop of anxiety and guilt. Sneha knows this pattern now. So, most of the time, she tries to ignore what he says when he’s drunk.
But she’s still human- lonely and deeply in love. At 38, she feels like she’s finally understanding something she had only read about before. She had discovered what Sufism describes as the seven stages of love for the Divine. Now it feels like…those stages weren’t only for God; they could be felt for anything loved with intensity. For the first time in her life, she was experiencing them. Sometimes she teased Abir in texts- I’m in the sixth stage, ‘Junoon!’ After that came ‘Maut’ or ‘Fana’. In Sufism, ‘Maut’ meant the death of ego, losing yourself in divine love. But Sneha joked, hinting at literal death. Abir’s replies were always the same- You’re talking nonsense again!
It was 10:30 at night. Abir wouldn’t leave her head. His smell, his voice, those last words before the flight- none of it left Sneha’s mind. Everything kept circling inside her head, making her restlessness grow. It started to feel like the walls around her were slowly closing in. The fan had stopped, yet it seemed to signal something. Impossible. If I spend the night here, I’ll die on my birthday itself, she thought, pressing her hands to her head. It was one of her strange little fantasies. Ever since she found out that the Prophet’s birth and death were on the same day, that idea had stuck in her mind. But on that moment…it didn’t feel poetic.
She poured a bit of whisky into a small water bottle, mixed it, took a sip and packed it into her backpack along with her charger. Grabbed a t-shirt and jeans within reach. Turned her phone on to call an Uber, she didn’t even know where she was going. Only one thing was clear, she couldn’t stay here tonight. And the moment her phone came on, Telegram started firing- the harp preview notification sound, again and again, without stopping. Abir's texts. Like cannon fire- Dhai Dhai Dhai Dhai…39 messages! OMG! She said out loud. But she decided to ignore them.
This pattern, Abir getting drunk, saying whatever then the sober anxiety afterward, she had been absorbing it for too long, like it was normal. This is not good at all, she thought. What does she even actually want from him? Just a few moments, whenever he had time. That was enough for her to live the rest of her life. She had told him this clearly. Rakin called it madness. Sneha ignored him, as she ignored most of his comments about Abir.
Sneha set her Uber destination to Fakirapool bus stand. She didn’t know where she would go from there. She only knew she wanted to leave everything behind. The city without Abir suffocated her. But going to the city where he was, that wasn’t possible either. And deep down, she could feel it, maybe this time, they really wouldn’t see each other for a long time. Or worse.
Earlier that month, she had gone to Rajshahi to see him. From December 15 to February 6- 53 days! That’s how long they hadn’t seen each other. About a week before that, there had been a small fallout. They stopped talking. For 7 days. Long distance does that. It’s normal. But not seeing each other for so long…not knowing when they’d meet again…it started getting to her. She had never asked him to meet before. Not once. But at that time, the distance got to her. Her mood started turning sharp. She began getting irritated, picking fights over small things.
Abir’s patience was short in most things. Sneha knew this. But strangely, with her, his patience sometimes deserved praise. Yet everyone has limits. That time, after a few exchanges, Abir wrote- I can’t take this anymore. He’d say it many more times later. But this was the first. She remembered the date clearly: 30th January 2025. Then seven days of nothing. No texts from her, none from him. But every hour, without fail, he was watching her Telegram stories. It made her furious sometimes.
A few times sneha picked up her phone, started typing- if you're not talking to me, why are you watching my stories every hour? But she'd stop herself. Her pride swallowed the anger whole. Text him first, after that text of him- I can't take this anymore? Impossible! She had never texted him first anyway. From the very beginning. Who knew, one day, just to stay alive, she would end up begging him to talk to her…over and over…in every way she could.
In the Bashundhara flat, frustrated at failing to light the needle with the lighter, Sneha shouted at herself: “U-S-E-L-E-S-S!” The memory of begging of lowering herself like that, left a bitter taste in her mouth. Bitter even beyond bitter gourd. She paused. Scratched her head. Why am I even using bitter gourd as a metaphor? Bitter gourd is my favorite! She scratched again, thinking, yes, she really did feel useless at that moment.
Five more hits waiting, but this tiny, stupid problem, the needle and the flame refusing to work together was somehow turning everything else bitter too. Like chirata juice. Yes, chirata juice is the right metaphor- she said aloud. I hate chirata juice. What's chirata in English anyway? She thought about it for a moment. Whatever!
A childhood memory flashed- Amma had once forced chirata juice into her mouth, disguised as apple juice. She hadn't managed to get it down though. Sneha had gone yaaaaak thhuuuuu and expelled the whole thing, saliva and all. For years afterward, she even feared real apple juice. As a child, Sneha had many fears. Later, standing on her own feet, she built a hard shell around herself. But now, at 40, she felt that shell crumbling like old plaster falling off a wall that hadn’t been cared for in years.
Sneha's mind drifted back to February 6 of the previous year. Around 10 p.m., out of nowhere, Abir had texted her on Telegram- Wanna talk? Just an hour earlier, he had seen her story- a glass of whiskey with Bukowski’s famous quote “I wanted the whole world or nothing.” Seeing “Wanna talk” made Sneha’s heart pound so hard she thought it was louder than the booming music of Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello’s Señorita at Kingfisher. She imagined everyone around could hear her heartbeat. Embarrassed by her own thought, she calmed herself and replied- How are you?
Since January 30, she had been desperate to know that one thing, but her ego wouldn’t let her ask. “Suffer alone, why let him see it?”- she told herself every day. Still, she posted stories on Telegram often and Abir always viewed them all. At first, she was angry, thinking she’d scold him for watching her stories without speaking. But after a couple of days, her anger melted. She began to feel comforted- at least we’re connected somehow. If he’s watching, it means he’s still there. Let it be. Let it stay this way. However, he wants to stay, let him just stay!
Still, the thought kept coming back sometimes- Does he ever think of me? Does he ever miss me? She pushed it away. Hearing things like that from sober Abir felt as impossible as pulling prey out of a tiger’s mouth. So, she tried not to go there. But outside of work, her entire life had slowly become centered around him over the last year and a half. And the only way she could explain that feeling…with the lines of Jibanananda’s poem Bodh-
Pathe chole pare- parapare
Upekkha korite chai tare;
Morar khulir moto dhore
Achhar marite chai, jibonto mathar moto ghore
Tobu se mathar charipashe,
Tobu se chokher charipashe,
Tobu se buker charipashe;
Ami choli, sathe-sathe seo chole ashe.
Ami thami-
Seo theme jay...
(“It moves along the path from one shore to the other.
I want to ignore it.
Grasping it like a dead man's skull,
I want to smash it to the ground, yet it revolves like a living head
around my own head,
around my eyes,
around my heart.
As I walk, it follows beside me.
I stop-
It stops too...”)
Abir texted again- you wanna talk? Sneha wrote back- I'm at Kingfisher, will go home soon. Can I knock you later? Abir replied- go home, it's late. On her way back, a Spotify link came through from him. Chhaya by Blue Touch Band. Usually when Abir sent a song, she'd listen and give him feedback. But that night, she barely got through the first two lines. Instead of freshening up after reaching home, she went straight to bed and lay down.
She was pretty drunk. Though she had said to knock Abir once home, but she didn’t know what to say. Since he had sent her a song, she decided she’d send one back. After thinking for a while, she sent him “1996” by Indalo. Then softly, almost unconsciously, she started humming too with the song- “Tumi bhalobeso, amar bhalobasha, jokhon kokhono ami thakbo na…”
Soon Abir responded- nice song. Home? Sneha wrote- Hmm. Then suddenly, Abir texted again- Can I video call you, madam? That caught her off guard. Such a request was completely unexpected from him. She typed back- Sure. But I’m getting old and ugly these days. Abir’s reply came quickly Come on!