The Light We Never Switched Off

At a crowded railway station in Dhaka, the tannoy announced the 6:15 train, and there she was—the girl who once saved my seat in every class. If only I had spoken then, I might not have spent five years rehearsing this moment. She looked up, half-smiled, and said my name as if it were an old song. "Funny," she said, "the same platform, the same tea stall, the same rain." Hardly had I opened my mouth when the train doors hissed open. We boarded, sat apart, and watched the city slide by. No sooner had the silence grown heavy than she leaned over and asked, "Why did you never reply to my letter?" My heart dropped. "What letter?" Not only had I waited for one, but I had also written three. She stared at me. We had both been waiting, both too proud, both wrong. It is time we stopped blaming the past and started asking better questions. So I did. I asked if she still drank tea with too much sugar. She laughed, and something in me thawed. We talked about our jobs, our mothers' cooking, the Bangla New Year when she wears a white saree for Pahela Baishakh. "We've changed," she said. "Have we?" I replied, watching the rain braid the window. She was quiet. Then she reached over and switched on the reading light above my seat. "You always forget," she said. "Even then, you forgot." I took the light as it was—small, ordinary, honest.