The Twenty-Fifth of Falgun

It was the twenty-fifth of Phagun.

Rain, out of nowhere! A steady downpour since the dead of night. Tip-tap-tip-tip-tip... an endless procession of sound. It felt as though someone inside her head was playing piano without pause, that melody refusing to stop! Even the smallest droplets had found their way through the gaps in the closed window, such exuberance in them! As if they'd set up a harvest festival across her entire body!

---These blissful thoughts in her half-broken sleep seemed to pour water on the roots of Ayushi's mischievous mind! Her eyes were still closed, but her ears alert. Her brain mostly functional, though lazy. Altogether, it was a peculiar sensation! Keeping her eyes shut, she suddenly sat up cross-legged on the bed, then reached over to pull out a notebook and pencil from the desk beside her. Now she would draw what feelings looked like!! Surely feelings would be beautiful to behold, when just feeling them brought such contentment!!

But wait, would feelings look like her?! The very thought sent Ayushi floating on a wave of shy happiness. Even today, she felt too embarrassed to think of herself as that beautiful!

What would feelings' eyes be like!? Round, or elongated, would they have thick dark lashes too!? Would they be blue? Or brown? Or coal-black like her own!? Would they look deeply enchanting? Or serious and dignified, quite stern?! Could she read the language of those eyes properly? Or would they just demand explanations like her!?

Ayushi couldn't think any further! What a predicament! What might they look like—just thinking about it was causing a proper traffic jam in her mind!! Such an expression they were showing, as if that queen was even more beautiful than her!!

A knock at the door... "Ayushi, you're up, aren't you, dear? You'll have to go out again later." Then silence again. Mother had probably left. Hearing those words brought her back to her senses, and she quickly glanced around—no one had heard, had they! She'd been muttering to herself like a madwoman all this time!! What madness, what madness!! Had she really been trying to sculpt an idol of feelings this morning!?

Suddenly she remembered Borsho. She hadn't even sent him a "good morning" today!!

Hey devil! Are you awake?

...Ayushi didn't send the message even as she was about to. Her hands grew rigid, someone seemed to be wielding hammers and shovels most horribly inside her chest, and from both eyes streams of tears began rolling down as silent witnesses! She felt as though there was no sky above her head, the ground beneath her feet had finally disappeared too, and she was floating in emptiness like a feather!! Around her, the soft glow of morning light, but to Ayushi it seemed like some ghastly demonic darkness!!

Alas, Borsho's phone had been lying beside her pillow for nearly a year now!! Who would see it, where would this message go?! Her person, who had become a resident of death's realm long ago with a fistful of dreams and a heartful of tears!! One accident, the curtain fall of one chapter!!

The pages of a new diary were flipping in the wind, one by one, quickly! Yet Ayushi seemed still stuck in that old diary!

Today was the twenty-fifth of Phagun, Borsho's birthday. Such "compulsion" to secretly celebrate a dead person's birthday with doors and windows closed—could there be any greater sorrow in this world?

'How many candles will I need to buy this time?' Ayushi kept thinking, staring blankly at Borsho's phone...