Firework by Mehrul Bari S. Chowdhury (24, Bangladesh)

I was on the rooftop when this happened. It was New Year’s Eve – this last one. Up there, looking up, the sky was poorly lit. The stars hid for the most part, faintly winking, coming back every now and again only to dissolve again, and everything, for a moment, wasn’t so bad. I don’t know why I was up there. I only ever go up when the net is gone, and it must have been so on that black, little night. It was quiet, simple, but it wasn’t quiet for long. I heard a whisper, another whisper, more whispers until I could hear music – music faint and at the back. It was the whispers that sounded and what made me, as I did without my realizing so, walk to the edge of my roof, where, looking down, I could see a group, lined up in a circle, half of them smiling and half of them nervous. I rested my elbows on the railing and leaned as far as I could. I watched and listened.

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On their roof, the men and women – not much older than me – stood and only one spoke at a time. There was a woman – she didn’t look like the others, or anything like me – who pointed at one of the circle, and told him to speak. That person, he came timidly forward to the center and he spoke his story. He said, “Since I was small, so very small, my parents told me, “You must love us, and you must love us equally,” and I did. I loved them equally. I could never answer my relatives and my friends’ relatives when they said, “Be honest, babu, which of your parents is actually your favorite?” Neither did I love less or more than the other. This was all my life. All my life until 3 years ago when they went their own ways. My life had changed, so great a change, yet I hadn’t changed on one matter. When they couldn’t decide which one of them got to keep me, they left me with the choice, and I, I could never choose before, and I couldn’t choose now. I ran. I did. I ran from Banani until I reached my grandmother’s house in Uttara, and my legs could then run no more. I have been living with her the last 2 years in that building over there, and I was on my roof when I saw this gathering and I had to come down and see it.”

​As he was done, the woman nodded her head and said, “You are not your story,” and she called for the one beside him, who then came forward and took his place. This young woman was nervous, quite nervous, as the man was before her, though he wasn’t anymore as he took his place in the crowd. This woman stood and said:

“I know I am young but I have been a wife for 5 years. 6, perhaps. Right after graduation we got married, not in secret either; everyone embraced us, and we were so happy for so long. But then we weren’t. There was nothing in particular, but there was this gnawing thing – perhaps some of you here know – and this gnawing thing made me fear for the worst, suspect the worst. One day I came home from work – my office always ended well before his – and as I was putting my clothes away; I was tidying his, too; he never took care of his possessions and I had to always look after him. When I was folding, something came over me, that feeling indeed, and it was so much that I was more the feeling, and less myself. I went through the pockets, and I don’t have to say what I found there, but it was the kind of thing I wouldn’t wish anyone to find in their husband’s pockets. I dropped everything from my hands, I was so mad. I couldn’t think, I didn’t think anything other than one thought, and it was the kind of thought I wish upon no man or woman. I wished that when he was on his way back from work, he would crash his car and fall into a river and no one would ever see him again. I then slept, forcing myself to dreams, and the dreams were horrid. I was awoken by a call, the authorities, they told me my husband’s car was found in a wreck but they couldn’t find his body. They were perplexed, they had no leads, but I knew what had happened, I knew just what it was, and I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t escape it anywhere. All the friends, all the relatives, their mourning and well-wishes only made it worse. Our neighbors liked us too and they all mourned and wished well so much, I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t escape what I had done, and I don’t even know if I found the time to shed any tears myself. So, I left. I moved here, into this building, and tonight I heard sounds and I came up here and I am here now.”

The woman who looked like no one nodded her head and said, “You are not your story,” and ushered in the next. The young woman went back into the crowd, smiling on her way, and the next came and took her place. This continued until one was left. Before this one started, the woman instructed to ready the fireworks and the food, for after this they celebrate the year. As the next person began, I walked away and left my roof. I didn’t listen. I left the calm coverlet of night and sped my way down the floors and left my building. I didn’t stop walking and I soon found myself across the street and walking up the stairs of a building I had never seen the inside of, and not before long I was on its rooftop. They turned to look at me. Some had fireworks in their hands. The woman told me to come closer, and I came closer. She asked me what my story is and who I am, and I told them.



Glossary:
* Banani – an affluent neighborhood in Dhaka, Bangladesh
* Uttara – a more varied town in Dhaka, 14 kms from Banani.

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