this one is mostly a day dream which I had, used characters from my own life to populate this fiction.
*this is a purely fictitious work. DO NOT BLAME ME*
The sister called the five friends, telling them that he might only have a week left to live. Ankit was detected with cancer in the mid of December. He had flown back for treatment and it was the beginning of january. three kemo-therapies and countless medicines later he was only left with one week. The sister which was more like a mother, wanted him to see his college best-ties one last time. she wanted him to have one last dinner with them and a last tequila shot, without caring about tomorrow.
The sister called the eldest, ankur and asked him to come over to India, she even agreed to pay the tickets for all of them. She even invited his last crush Jasmine and her friend over. Meanwhile to motivate them she took a picture of him and there other brother, jeff, the dog. She captioned it 'one makes me love life everyday and the other shows me how to fight it everyday'.
The seven rahul, ankur, ayush, manmeet, nihar, jasmine and shareefa arrived at the airport 2 days later. She picked them up from the airport and took them home. It was late night and the father was taking the dogs to visit ankit late in the night. This was the only time when ankit smiled without thinking about what was coming for him. Jeff and chester(the neighbors saint bernard) welcomed the guests and as usual jeff sniffed all of them. They went inside the house and settled down, they were to visit him tomm.
The next morning, the sister kept the cake which she was making him cut every morning and asked all the friends to buckle up. The nurse was rejuvenated to see all the friends and recognized all of them without them introducing themselves. Ankit talked to everyone about everything, he was an open kid who wanted to live the last moments to the fullest. Nurses adored him. They entered the room and as usual the boy was sleeping without his shirt on. They waited for him to open his eyes and as soon as he did, the words were 'wow'. They had the best laugh for the next few hours, they talked about everything. Caught up with how the pot heads were doing. Discussed about university, life in general and how everyone was looking forward to convocation.
They took off for dinner soon, only with a warning from the nurse to return within half an hour and to not drink any alcohol, her job was on the line. Ankit agreed. But in the brisk moment he had his own moment with jasmine, where he told her how much he liked her. He knew it wasn't going to go anywhere but he wanted to spit that out of his system before it was too late. The dinner was a classy college get together, no one could stop talking and then there were the tequila golgappas. Ankit took one, I mean he wasnt going to have a last get together without tequila in his system.
They went back to see the jeff and chester waiting for them in the hospital garden, it was already late. both parents were there too, and the mom invited the girls to come over and pray with her in the mosque(jama masjid) tomm. The mom was a muslim and so were the girls.
The next morning the girls and the mom got up early to go for the prayers. The prayer at 6 was one of the most enlightening experience for one of them. She kept it as one her memories to tell her grand children. The mother also took them to the hanuman mandir, the prayer had to come from both her and her husband, so she prayed on his behalf in the temple. And then she distributed food to the needy, the girls helped her out and loved it all. She got some of those kachaudi's with poori's for there breakfast.
The alarm clock, jeff, went up to wake all of them up. Which was followed by a heavy breakfast. And then one final visit to the hospital. The sister was driving them again. The boy was expecting all of them this time. He hugged all of them and told them to have a tequila shot in the convocation ceremony from his side. He took a moment with jasmine and kissed her one last good bye. The moment was emotional, only a teardrop to explain it perfectly.
Two weeks later the sister called ankur, only to tell him that he had left them 2 hours ago. They all came over to the desi house. Shareefa gave the news to Jasmine, she was in the library. She couldnt stop crying until she had hugged all the five friends. The friends wanted to go to india one more time, but they knew that the body would be cremated even before they reach.
The sister sent out one final gift to all the friends and posted two famous pictures.
One where jeff was right next to the bed, with a photo above the bed of him and ankit sleeping together, when they were really small. The photo had jeff sitting beside the bed not on it and it was captioned, 'he misses you the most, doesn't sleep on it anymore without you.'
the second photo, was in an album which she had titled, 'his last moments', the last photo of the album was from the cremation ground in haridwar, right next to the river. It was a picture of the burning fire and it was captioned, 'he always wanted to lay next to the water'.
The gifts were a silver mouth organ for each one of his friends, every one of it had a message from him, and his name written in very small letters on the top.
For ankur, in the front it said, to uncle, at the back, aap hamesha aashirwaad de deite rahiyega, always give your blessings to everyone.
nihar, front- niharika, back, u were the best brother.
rahul, front-chutku, back, phd.masters. rahul udasi, may u write a paper which changes the world.
manmeet- front- maggu back- the creative head
ayush front- gupta rani back- take care of everyone
shareefa front-shareefa back- hope love finds you
jasmine front- jaz back-listen to the music around you, I will always be there.
