Describe your life in an alternate universe.
Her lunch table was filled with raucous laughter. Her friends,who had joined her in the jubilation, was as equally surprised as her mentor who was observing them from the school entrance.
She couldn’t have missed this, wouldn’t miss this. The last day of school where memories were made, relived, and captured for an eternity.
She smiled at her mentor reassuringly. There was so much to be done. Gifts to be handed out, speeches to be made, teary farewells to be said. He was nowhere to be found. She had a weird feeling in her stomach. Did she remember it wrong. If so, her one wish would have been insufficiently granted.
Just then she felt a pair of soft, warm hands cover her eyes. She knew who it was. She turned and immediately fell in his firm embrace.
“I thought you had the flu,” he whispered in her ears. His breath warm against the cold breeze.
“I am fine, had to be fine,” she whispered back softly. She wanted time to stop moving, she could hear its constant whirr in her head.
She gave him the letter and the chocolates and made him promise he would only open it once he was home.
She said her goodbyes to the debate club mates and promised to stay in touch. She meant to stay in touch because theirs was the most politically aware group in the whole of her town, a reason behind their undisputed victories in all the debate competitions.
Her mentor was next who she presented with her homemade chocolates, framed photographs and a poem she had written. The poem carried her love and admiration for her, and the promise of doing her proud on every occassion.
Next were here teachers who got handmade cards and photographs.
The most difficult goodbye was parked for the last, her best friend from the first grade. They’d walked those corridors in pigtails and matching school bags, always confused for being twins. They were each other’s confidante & secret question keys- much to their boyfriends’ dismay. The pair cried so hard their eyes got swollen by the end of it, their cheeks flushed and even though they would would continue to meet for the better part of their lifetimes, she would have wanted to be around for this.
The whirr had grown stronger and slower as the Sun got weaker. Her head was practically throbbing now, the weeping has made it worse.
She stepped back into the toilet cubicle and pressed flush. The day swirled with the water and she was back to the present fifteen years later as she lay on the hospital bed waiting for the plug to be pulled.
The angel had touched her forehead and she saw her do it from the foot of her bed. The angel’s appearance and her wish being granted had sealed her fate. You see in her universe, you could go back to a day in your past you wanted to relive the way you pleased when it was your time to go.
Fingers in symphony 