[Disclaimer: The figures of power and the corridors of influence depicted in this narrative are born entirely of the imagination. While the shadows of the human psyche are real, the characters who inhabit them and the state they command are purely fictional.]
Even after returning to Dhaka from Sylhet via Mymensingh on the night of February 27th, Sneha couldn't bring herself to stay at her Aftabnagar flat. She went there first, but the same old sights and smells instantly made her restless all over again. To get through the night, she was forced to head over to her Amma’s place in Niketon. Her completely exhausted, wrecked body just wanted somewhere to sleep in peace for a while- somewhere Abir’s memories would feel comforting instead of lonely.
That night, after she gets to Niketan, Abir video-calls her. During the nearly one-and-a-half-hour call, he keeps saying every now and then: You're misunderstanding me, Sneha. I'm sorry. I was so drunk. I have no idea what I said on the flight that hurt you this badly. Can you remind me? What did I say? Seriously, I don't remember. After he begged her multiple times, Sneha only brought up the part where he said: We will never meet again. She intentionally skipped the part where he had said I love you right before that. She had never brought up the highly sensitive things Abir blurted out while wasted, just to avoid embarrassing him when he was sober. But the mixed behavior of drunk Abir and sober Abir kept adding more and more restlessness to her life.
The same Sneha who had once held Abir’s hand and simply asked for permission to express her love slowly started becoming demanding because of all this mixed behavior. She got hurt. She started acting possessive. And in response, Abir would either stay indifferent or try to keep things calm with some manageable, careful behavior. At one point during that night’s conversation, Sneha gets extremely frustrated. Sometimes Abir showed an almost overwhelming amount of concern for her. At other times, she had to keep swallowing his complete indifference toward so many things. After putting up with those two versions of him for so long, something inside her finally started becoming impossible to digest. She started reacting. She got angry. She became stubborn. She shouted. And at times, even she felt like a stranger to herself.
Trapped inside a black hole, Sneha’s mental state turns into such a miserable mess of restlessness that she stops blaming anyone for it. Night after night, she sits on her janamaz and cries, asking Allah to show her a way out, begging Him to turn her mind toward something else. But the more she prays, the stronger her feelings for Abir become. At some point, she gives in. Surrenders to it. But even that doesn’t really help. She often feels like someone has tied her with a thin thread and left her hanging right in the middle of a black hole. Not letting her rise. Not letting her fall all the way down either. Not letting her fall is mercy. Not letting her rise is probably unwillingness. Maybe even a little helplessness. The person holding the spool of that thread spends the entire time caught in his own confusion.
What he does, why he does it, when he says what, why he comes, why he wants to leave- he takes two years to figure out any of it, or maybe, who knows, he never really figures it out at all. Whether he does or not, at some point, thinking about reality and everything around them, he decides to cut the thread. By then, though, Sneha has almost completely lost the mental strength to climb back up from that deep emptiness.
After hours of arguments, accusations, complaints, and crying that night, Abir tells Sneha: I think we need a break. Sneha couldn't process it at first. Then she pulls herself together- How long? Abir stays silent for a while before saying: Two years. Sneha just laughed out loud at that response. When she asked what was supposed to happen after two years, Abir had no answer. He was just silent. Sneha said: Fine, take your two years. I won't contact you once during this time. But what happens next? Abir mumbled: I don't know. Sneha laughed out loud again. She knew damn well that nothing was going to happen in two years.
Abir just wanted out of this relationship; he lacked the guts to say it straight, so he was hiding behind a two-year break. For the next two years, he’d be tied down with massive state responsibilities in Rajshahi, and his family was moving there in a few months anyway. He wouldn't have the chance or the need to visit Dhaka anymore. He wanted to close Sneha’s chapter for good, but he couldn't find the balls to look her in the eye and say it.
Abir probably thought that if they took a break, Sneha would eventually forget him and move on or find someone else because she wouldn't tolerate this heartbreak forever. Watching the smoke trail from one end of the foil paper to the other, she felt a violent urge to laugh remembering his words from that night. Right after, a wave of pure rage and humiliation hit her, and she wanted to scream a couple of heavy curses at him. Pausing amidst the swirling smoke and fire, she wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead with her right hand and screamed into the empty room: I regret that I love an idiot like you! I regret! But I won't forget anything, not after two years, not until my death! Neither will you forget me. Perhaps, this is the punishment we are destined to carry for each other. I fucking love you! Yes, I still do, and I regret it because you don't deserve it! But she didn't have the chance to make Abir hear any of this anymore. Then again, she didn't see the point in it either.
Akram Bhai suddenly popped into her head. Her former boss and mentor in professional life. He used to tell her all the time: You always underestimate your worth. Value it. You have no idea what a gem you really are. You're just wasting your intelligence and energy on something worthless. She had always let those words go in one ear and out the other. But now, she occasionally feels it, maybe Abir is outstanding at his job; that’s a completely different issue. But as a human being, he is too illiterate to understand simple human feelings. And that matters way more than how successful he is in his career.
Abir’s stupidity has done enough damage that several people’s lives may never return to normal for a long time. Maybe not ever, not until they die. And he isn’t even capable of understanding that. He wasn’t that night either. Sneha still remembers that conversation clearly. Closing her eyes, she thinks—two years? Even twenty years wouldn’t be enough. Some relationships, some memories, people carry them until death. They don’t forget. They simply can’t. An emotionally illiterate person can’t understand that. And Abir isn’t just emotionally illiterate. He’s also an extremely weak-minded person. How can someone so respected in such a demanding profession be so weak when it comes to the most basic things?
He was never able to say anything clearly. Not once. Either because he was afraid, or because he feared creating conflict and he was always thinking about how Sneha would react. So when the right time came, he never gave her the information she needed, or he stayed silent about things that absolutely needed to be said. What kind of damage he caused to himself, to Sneha, even to his own family, he probably still hasn’t understood.
Sneha closes her eyes. All these thoughts fill her with a deep sadness. Picking apart Abir’s character like this makes her feel awful. She has to put herself through so many processes, day after day, just to stop thinking about all of it. Sometimes these thoughts hurt like they’re breaking her ribs from the inside. Her whole mind and body curl up in pain. Abir must have to face situations like this sometimes too, right?
The thought pisses her off all over again. How fucking stupid does someone have to be to put this many people through something like this and make them suffer? After everything, having any feelings left for him shouldn’t even make sense. Because anger, stubbornness, resentment aren’t those all proof that the love is still somewhere inside? If it were really gone, these thoughts wouldn’t still bother her this much. They wouldn’t keep cutting her off from the rest of the world.
She lets out a long sigh and thinks, if this story were ever written, Sneha would be the antagonist, or maybe something worse. She’d show up as some kind of devil, destroy everything, and disappear at the end of the story. But are things really that black and white? No! Everyone has to live their life somewhere along a grey line. Everything is grey here; even you, my desire to- she suddenly screams it into the empty flat.
The conversation from the night of February 27 starts getting unbearably irritating on this grand day of celebrating her solitude. She doesn’t like being judgmental about Abir. But when Abir, in trying to defend himself- Ughhhhh! She grabs her head and picks up her phone. Just remembering those ugly, horrible feelings from the night before their goodbye still puts an unbearable pressure inside her chest. Still! She screams it again. Before her feelings go completely numb, she reminds herself once more, there is probably still a lot more punishment left for her to endure.
The entire room was completely choked with smoke. It felt like sitting at the absolute peak of hell, staring out at a foggy morning. Her head spun slightly. Ignoring the dizziness, Sneha opened Spotify and typed in the search bar: Salma Agha. Perfect. The very first track was the exact one she was hunting for. Wrapped in that dark, smoky, hellish vibe, she started singing along with Salma:
Shayad un ka aakhiri ho ye sitam
(Perhaps this is his final cruelty)
Har sitam ye soch kar hum seh gaye…
(I endured every torment thinking just that...)
Hum wafa kar ke bhi tanha reh gaye
(Even after being faithful, I am left entirely alone)
Dil ke arman aansuon mein beh gaye…
(All my heart's desires have washed away in tears...)
Lately, she couldn't even cry anymore. Trying to match the vocals, a sudden wave of tears hit her. Not because her own desires had washed away in her tears like the song said, but because of one cold realization—she could never look into Abir’s eyes again and tell him, Hum wafa kar ke bhi tanha reh gaye. After all, she couldn't even stay faithful in the end. Trying to explain the ifs and buts behind it would just sound like a sick joke to him now. He would probably never know the true reasons or the circumstances that turned her into the monster of his story, doomed to be hated for the rest of her life. The tears wanted to fall, but they stayed trapped somewhere deep inside. Heating the tip of the needle with the flame once more, she kept singing:
Khud ko bhi humne mita dala magar
(I even erased my own existence, and yet)
Fasle jo darmiyan the reh gaye…
(The distances that stood between us remained...)