one last gasp against a long hot heavy summer

On one night of end summer, we three sitting on a motorbike were travelling through the roads of Banepa. I felt the wild breeze of air through my ears, flipping my hair back and forth. Middle there was Kusum and the rider was Shashank. I was adjusting myself at the end and all three were much scared whenever bumps arrived. This was not normal things for us to do. We haven't planned this day any before. Shashank and me were classmate before the pandemic. But since the style of teaching has changed after pandemic, only 30 students are allowed in the classroom. He was a student of Electrical and Electronics Communication engineering student and I was student of Electrical and Electronics Power engineering. Kusum was our senior but a good friend of ours. We had a lots of memories we made in the last rainy, cold day  winters deciding what to wear in the most cold days and end up with printed trousers, boots, down jackets and scarf over our head through our ears, walking like zombie through the passages with umbrella in our hands, not giving damn at first how people will look at us but laugh like mad at each other, expressing how funny we looked. This afternoon while I was drinking water from my bottle at the corridor of our classroom's balcony Shashank came and pulled my hair from backside. We tried to share up to where we have been before pandemic. And in middle we thought of Kusum wondering and guessing her hair would have grown well in this long vacation. We went towards her class and tried to check her but there was teacher inside the class, we saw her in third bench and teased her. We found her hair was same as before the pandemic. And we entered to our class. After the class ended, we headed towards our hostel unlike before. I went to bathroom to keep myself cool washing face. At meanwhile, I saw Kusum in the basin next of one I was using. She had face wash in her face and struggling to find the tap, some foam in her face were irritating her eyes. I opened the tap of the basin she was using. She cleared her face and we just chattered for minutes standing in shorts and half sleeved tops. Sometime we just lamented how life was before pandemic, what hell it had turned and how strong it made us battling them and wished we could spend time like before roaming here and there, sitting in the café chasing stray dogs that were staring at our brownies which we hated the most and sometime managing to feed the dogs taking extra brownies. Between the conversation Kusum asked me about what I was planning for the evening today and I said I was just planning to lie and read novels and asked what she was doing. She just replied "Why we not plan anything and just call Shashank and go somewhere, somewhere we could just seat and share what are we up to?". Within no seconds of thinking, I thought I too had wished this day during pandemic, so why not now. I agreed and told her to be ready within few moments. She went to her room and I too went and put on my favorite track, loose T-shirt, windcheater and sneakers. I went to her room and waited for her to be ready. We went to front yard of our hostel. It was already 7 and most of them were returning having their dinner but we managed to escaped writing outings and run. We ran in the stairs and just remembered, we hadn't call Shashank yet. We called him and said we are having dinner together today and come fast as possible. We went towards the gate of our uni. We were watching whether someone was watching us or not. We saw our care taker was passing side by us. We managed her not to stare her and walk along. She didn't even recognize us since we were wearing mask and moving as if we didn't know her. In the gate, we saw Shashank was already there. He just said "you are never in time, you people always make me waiting". And he was amazed why we planned everything for after 7 and also was complaining he was planning to play FIFA and POKÉMON GO for whole nights. We just didn't care of his words and sat on his bike and still he was wondering where were we going. And was driving and we said him we are going somewhere we also don't know, it's never gonna happen again so move now, today is the time we were watching for. Two of us were adjusting to put us on the bike and Shashank was managing to put his legs on right way in the bike.  He was unknown of everything and we just said him let's go to Banepa. He was driving and we just memorized one good incident we had while travelling in public bus. Once we were travelling to Kathmandu for just roaming and we all sat at the last seat of the bus. Shashank was trying his hard to adjust his long feet but he ended up with hurting in his knees and sat at the open side of the last seat where he could face all the side of bus. After this incident, we three never had a chance to travel together in public bus and Shashank never decided to travel in public bus again. We saw roads were different than before. People walking on the roads were not the same. The way they walked in the roads, the way they greet people was different. Since it was evening, there was no crowd in the market as before. People were lying up in certain distances to buy goods. We had hunger since early evening, we went to nearby restaurant. We saw this place were not also the same. The chair's handles were also covered with plastics and each table were divided into four with the help of card boards. We sat outside and ordered the food. We ere planning what to do next. We ended up with nothing. After few moments our food arrived, we went inside. We could see waiters were wearing gloves in their hands and their face were covered with mask. They served us our food. We took sanitizers from our bag and applied it and watched each other stretching our head above the card boards. We ate as fast as we can. We finished eating and waiter arrived with a different bills and menu. We kept the money and took the change. We got outside and watched each other started lamenting on own how we used to eat food sharing and snatching some more food from friend's plate while they were having their last bite. We got into the bike and went along, we never decided where to go. We went along the road of 28 kilo. There were police standing at the middle of the road for checking the weightage of the transport. We were three and it was not allowed to move three in two-wheeler and it was already 8:30. We reached near to the station where police were standing checking. We were in dilemma what to do cause there was not other way to escape. We all were just thinking. At meanwhile, Police asked Shashank where were we going and why were we three in the vehicle. Kusum just was acting like she had pain in her stomach and I just tried to make it an issue and lied telling the police that we were going to Dhulikhel Hospital cause she had severe pain in her stomach and we couldn't find any taxis since all were limited for night travel and even called ambulance and they said they were busy taking another severe person and it would be late. Two of them were just staring at me thinking what was I even talking about. The Police man said "okay no problem! do you have your driving license?"  Shashank showed his driving license for the first time I guess, the one he had made for first time just a while before the pandemic started. We moved from the place. We didn't have other way to go to our uni so we headed towards Dhulikhel and started laughing. Now, we didn't know where to go in this late night. We just didn't have any idea. Kusum suggested to go to suicide point and love point in Dhulikhel. We just had a beautiful memory in my 18th birthday. In my 18th birthday we went there in the evening, Shashank missed it. It was already dark. We just snapped some random pictures. We played swing because it hadn't been more day ending of our great festival Tihar. Shashank headed the bike towards the point. We were tired. We just lied our heads down closer to one another heading upward. We were doing our favorite things to do, watching stars since the sky was clear and we had got this chance after a long time and moreover we had fought this pandemic and been here. I felt so much happy and felt own self much lucky for this day to come. We started closing our eyes in peace in the sweet wind under the sky, stars gazing us.

My eyes got open with the full peace in my head. And I found myself in my bed in the room, I have been sitting since months.