"I'll be back soon Diya, I wish you could come." Shivani hugged her best friend feeling the warmth of familiar loving touch, fairly excited for the trip. Her medium length red hair appearing almost brown in the early morning light, Shivani had a honey shade appearance paired with casual pyjamas and square neckline top that said, 'HOUSE OF FIRE'.
"I know and I would if my family hadn't planned this picnic right on our trip day." Diya said, walking with her to the bus waiting in front of the village school. Diya was her best friend from early childhood years, they lived crushing close and were always by each other whether in the time of needs or anyways.
Shivani has be teaching in village school for over 5 years now. She still remembers the first day at school as a teacher, just a 21 year old girl graduated from the nearest city. Despite going to college in city she never stayed a night there. First is, everything's so expensive there and hotels have such a demonic vibes.
There are separate phases of life, unknowingly one turn to another without ringing the bell of warning. These phases have nothing to do with individual wishes and everything to do with fear and curbed desires, burning to break free.
Some love dark halls, some do the crowded alley but ones lurking in the shadowy streets are the ones to be feared most for they have best of the plans and most of the deets.
Shivani who had no one but her grandmother, lived for exploration and knowledge. Read it, live it or live it, write it. Either ways, adds a bag of memories to the bundle of life.
Now today, here she was on a school trip to Pune with 40 student from class 4th and three other teachers Zoya, Trishna and Mikesh. Could this be the start of new life, new birth amidst the simplicity of scenarios or just another outing with the people she loved?
"This is great. Thank you Shivani, this trip was made possible because of you." Mikesh said as Shivani climbed onto the bus.
"We all did it together, convincing the parent for contributions and convincing principal and then giving away half of our salaries for this month. Don't give me credit for all that." Shivani flipped off the credit.
"I'm so excited. Oh my God we're going to Pune. Giant buildings, awesome food, adventure park. I can't wait." Trishna bounced up and down on her seat, elated but stopped looking at kids around who's seen their teacher behaving like a maniac for the first time.
"I can't wait to go on the rides of adventure park. I'm going to get them all." Zoya said clasping her hands together.
After a few excited remarks, as they all entered the beauty of countryside with green mountains, small farms and pleasant breeze creasing their face, everyone went quiet and just stared out the window.
This is what you might believe, the objective of what happens never go unfulfilled. Diya jerked at the familiar hushy words, leaving her shocked and confused. This was an unwanted gift not many people knew about, these strange voices were now part of her. Diya ignored it and smiled at her parents who were ready to take off on this separate family picnic.
There, the road journey to Pune from their village is almost 5 hours so Shivani decided to cheer up kids with a new game.
"Students, listen up." Shivani called for the student's attention standing in the front of the bus and everyone peeked at her eagerly.
"So we are going play a very easy game. I have these slips of simple tasks and one by one we will all take chances to pick up a slip. And then the person with the particular slip has to perform the given task. Are you ready?" All the students yelled in excitement at their teacher's idea of entertainment.
An intense piercing pain right across Shivani's forehead made her flinch for a second, ignoring the headaches she continued.
"Okay let's start with madam Zoya." Zoya and Shivani were the only ones to entertain the kids with games. Trishna was busy daydreaming about Pune and Mikesh was sleeping without a care in the world.
Zoya picked up a slip from the box in Shivani's hand and unfolded it to read out loud.
"So this says, balance a water bottle on your head for 30 seconds. Hmmm good one." Zoya took out a plastic bottle from her hand bag and placed it on her head slowly giving a thumbs up to Shivani to start the timer.
There was no sound except for the bus engine, lucky for Zoya the road was smooth in that area.
All the kids were looking at her in excitement and shock.
"Just 10 more seconds. And 9.8.7.6..." all the students started countdown with Shivani when suddenly bus changed the lane abruptly startling everyone and knocking bottle off Zoya's head.
There was a faint sound of scratching and the bus immediately stopped. They all looked back through their windows and the careless car driver has pulled up too.
"Dandi what happened?" Zoya asked panicked.
"The crazy man was going the wrong side mam. Don't worry, I'll handle." Saying this, Dandi got off the bus while a well suited young man in his late 20's or early 30's came out of the passenger side of the car.
"Watch out man." Said the man in the suit with coal black comb over hairs.
"You were going the wrong side." The Dandi replied firmly.
All the four teachers and the students were now looking intently out the window at the two having quiet non aggressive chat when suddenly the driver side of car popped open and another man, a little older than the previous one came out. He was wearing casual shirt and ripped jeans.
The aggression in his demeanour was evident from a distance and he looked as if about to murder someone. He stormed towards the two men and and grabbed bus driver from the collar.
All the teachers in the bus backed the students away from the window and went down the bus.
"Hey what's happening? Leave him." Shivani said as the four of them made their way to the arguing men.
"You must know better than to come in my way. Now who will pay for the damage huh?" The older man said and slapped Dandi hard across his face and everyone stared, shocked.
Shivani, without waiting a second more stood between the bus driver and jeans guy.
"Stop it okay. How dare you hit him? You were the one going the wrong side." Shivani spoke in firm and intimidating voice.
"Hey don't get in between," the suit guy interrupted.
"Why not? You can drive so rash and we can't even speak. There are people other than just you." Shivani said realising that her other friends were beside her already.
"I'll call the police." Trishna said and dialled the number.
"Wait let's not get police into this," the suited man said and took jeans guy to side and murmured something.
After giving them all a hard long glare, he opened the rear passenger seat door and went in.
The suited guy then approached them.
"Go now, it's over." He said looking at no one in particular.
"No it's not. You were wrong and you hit our driver here. Now either your friend pay for the damage he did to the bus or we call, file complaint for damage and abuse and don't worry we have you vehicle number." Shivani said not breaking eye contact for a second.
The suited man sighed heavily and said " okay and its only because I don't want to drag this, how much will it cost?"
"No no need for money, just don't think just because you are rich, other are not worth respect." Dandi said heart broken from the insult more than the slap and turned away.
"See? The difference between you and us. Your friend didn't even apologise must be so hard for you people to accept your mistakes." Saying these final words to the suited man, Shivani turned and walked away followed by others.
The rest of the journey was nice for everyone except a few chatters from students. After coming back inside the bus, Mikesh started telling students one of his funny stories to distract them from the incident and it pretty much worked.
Shivani was confident about this trip, she knew this was going to be a success and bring another level of brightness in all of their lives.
But what she didn't knew was, what really awaits in presence and absence of light, something that doesn't identifies with any identity, instead, manifest the souls to Unlace the Darkness.