A Moment in Time

The Curzon Hall of the University of Dhaka is a singular place that instilled a sense of curiosity deep within Reema ever since she heard of its majestic beauty of red brick walls, cusped arches at its several entrances, which replicate regularly across its perimeter facing the north, and sky-reaching domes, painting a faultless emulsion of European and Mughal architecture. 

 

Nestled in the significant locale of Shahbag, she beseeched her cousins to accompany her there, which fell on deaf ears for several months. The extent of busyness ravaged each of her beloveds differently, which snuffed the vigor she nurtured. Having lived in the capital in the entirety of her life, her parent’s blaring skepticism of her navigating through the brisk hubbub has limited her from visiting historical locales inked across, even at the expense of adults coming to her aid. Now a formidable and ready twenty-four-year-old, the happy adventure has come to fruition, as her near-aged cousins Laika and Prerona can leisurely entertain her idea. Her negotiation with her mother was fervent, and eventually the latter yielded to her wish. 

 

One seemingly fine Monday morning and a dreadful doctor’s visit later, Reema drops her sister at school before she travels for her cousin’s home, concurrently her mother’s ancestral home, a one-man-built four-story edifice whose facade is few of the familiarities she can be rest assured with. Her mother has had a mixed blessing of having nine siblings, hence the multiple windows shedding light into nine different families at a time past midday (with half of Reema’s cousins at work and half at school except those two). 

 

Reema would cherish the liberty of settling in one place for more than four years, but her father’s job presents the prospect like a fever dream. 

 

Another one and a half hour later, with Laika and Prerona making their best appearance with perfectly draped georgette and half silk sarees and rouge adorning their visuals, they avail themselves tickets to the metro and reach their destination. 

 

Curzon Hall itself is a picturesque sight; it encompasses much more than the two-dimensional pictures her search engine can display. The place solely dedicated to three major branches of science is very prevalent: the graciousness is coupled with lush greenery. 

 

The three of them are mirthful, and time glides by as the gilded beams are folded to rest by the blue evening. 

 

Prerona volunteers to fall in line for the return tickets as Reema and Laika bask in a corner beneath the wings of a ceiling fan, allowing to sooth the expended energy, warming them more than needed. 

 

Reema indulges in idle conversation with an enervated Laika before she hears a greeting—a rather distinct voice Reema was no stranger to for a pronounced amount of time. Her gaze leaves Laika before she is stupefied. 

 

Even seven years later, she is cognizant of the kind black eyes and curled ringlets that she braided when consented, the whites of their teeth peeking with a greater joy, more profound, more mature than their days of juvenility. 

 

Reema’s mouth falls open before she tries to gauge if it’s a sort of machination she has never read of, a mirage that would grow indistinct, nonexistent if she looked with much closeness. 

 

All these years, she has been attempting to barrel through the afflictions her school life offered, which included the individual in front of her. Although they didn’t partake in the passive role either, the association is what pains her the most. 

 

The entity in question initiates an embrace, which permits Reema to understand the gravity of the incident. 

 

The person is very much real, and they have initiated a platonic intimacy Reema usually shy away from. This time, it’s not in her best interest to do so.

 

So, she reciprocates. 

 

What feels like moments to Reema is pared short by the person, the smile overriding her entire visual. 

 

Reema names her Rani, and the deep brown-skinned woman seems to be appeased at the amiable undertone of being addressed. She fails to conjure what to ask her long-lost friend, and Rani senses such before she initiates the conversation. 

 

Reema gets asked several questions about her family, to which she replies with utmost frankness she can muster. Her younger sister, being plagued with a rather everlasting neurobiological disorder named autism, has been at wit’s end. Her temperament and appetite have met an all-time high, and carnage would be a delicate word to accentuate her demeanor. Rani’s face exhibits a flurry of emotions as Reema explains her mother’s declining health and the disconcerting age of the mid-fifties with the brunt of aiding the family being the true catalysts.

Her study has been facing a stalemate, given the recent July Student Revolution against the unjust quota system in government jobs. Her classes resume tomorrow, and she ached for pleasure in its ending hours.

 

Rani mostly speaks of her academics; she intends to proceed to the foreign for her higher studies and hopes to have an offer letter with a waiver, having published a paper to bolster her credentials. Reema also expresses the same ambition and is very diligent for it to be actual. Rani, in reply to having asked of her family, promises that they have been well. 

 

The reminisce is what sends them to a different sentimentality. Reema is rather teased by Rani about her traits of headlong and dull wit back then, to which she acknowledges she was, in fact, a holder of such oddities. Reema asks Rani about her disinclination towards her as they finished school and how it was something that saddened her. Rani explains how Reema’s slip-tongue made her a bit untrustworthy but had no ill intention of hurting her. 

Rani had to voice her skepticism about why Reema had been distant, seemingly cutting any presence from school in her life. Reema contemplates if she should divulge, but then treads against her mind’s voice, telling her not to. She details the entire ordeal and expresses her contempt at how ignorance seemed to be her friend more than their clique was. 

 

Amidst it all, both find a common ground of being an essential part of each other’s lives, and they have been receptive to each other, regardless of off-putting matters that repelled their clique apart. 

 

The piercing sound of the bullet train permeates the expanse, and Reema discovers herself nearby the train. The perception of time got overlooked by both, and her cousins ensconced themselves on a bench nearby, delving into their own animated conversation. 

 

Reema and Rani shake hands before both get on their respective cabins assorted for the stops. 

 

The pledge of a next meeting flees their minds, but they both tread with a realization that animosity would be the last of their impressions of each other and would remain untainted by the shared past.