Chie (Part-III)

 “How do you know her?” My friend asked me as soon as Chie left. “What was she talking about?”

“I met her yesterday, near the pool.”

“So, she is the reason of all this restlessness?”

“What?”

“Look at yourself. You are a mess. And I haven’t seen you this distracted before. Are you ok? Everyone is worried.”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s just a pre-competition stress that’s taking over. Don’t worry,” I lied.

“We are going up first tomorrow. Tell the coach now if you are having some trouble. He can find a replacem…,” She couldn’t finish her sentence. There was no option for replacement in my case. I was the muscle of the team, the whole team was dependent on me.

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing like that. We will do great tomorrow. Just focus on your preparation. Ok?”

She nodded lightly. I understood that she wasn’t convinced with my assurance. I felt a cold of responsibility in my chest. I remembered the slogan of our team, “Trophy for Aceh” and how I had prepared day and night for this. But everything was now null in my brain. I wondered how the priorities of my life changed all of sudden and realized this sudden change was going to bring an upset of larger scale if I didn’t focus on the right thing as of now. “But what is the right thing?” I asked myself. I remembered my dad, who always used to say that the right thing was always to make others happy. He devoted his life in service of needy people and always taught me to rise above the self-interest and selfishness.

I decided to review all my notes and summary this evening and be ready for the debate tomorrow. The fire that was blazing as I left for Jakarta started warming my cool chest again but it felt heavy. I felt very hungry and nauseated suddenly. I saw the coach and other teammates approaching towards us. I started ingesting big chunk of food from my plate. And we were ready to go inside when the others got to us.

We all got inside the hall and sat on the seats which were now arranged and allocated according to the participating schools. The team participating today were on the front rows and others were seated backside. With the ring of the bell, the announcer came on the stage and announced the name of the schools competing next. Even though my mind was filled with the righteous conviction, my heart was leaping with excitement that my Chie was coming to the stage next. For the next half an hour, Chie and a shrewd looking participant from AIS debated against and for the single sex schools respectively. With appropriate logic, fluency and control of language and well sorted examples the other participant easily dominated over Chie, while Chie was nervously struggling for choosing the proper words for making her point. Chie lost her debate and her run for the competition was over. I was having a mixed feeling as I was watching all that. I was feeling sad for Chie as she was losing and I was alarmed registering the level of competition. It was certainly tougher than I had apprehended lately. As the announcer was announcing the names of participants for the next debate session, I walked out of the hall and went straight to the hostel. I took out all the notes and materials I had prepared for the debate and started flipping pages. In every pages I could see Chie’s nervous face turning red as she was losing the debate. I felt strong pain inside my chest, as if I was eliminated. It was my selfishness, which wanted Chie to win that session and another, so that I could see her proud smile and dazzling eyes joyous in victory. I was sure that I would have to bear the same consequences if I didn’t utilize every second available to me. I felt like suffocating so I changed my clothes and wore comfortable pajamas. I started reading the points and paragraphs from the notebook and soon Chie was far lost into some corner of my memory. I lost the track of time and position and every cell of my brain was filled with logics and examples. I came to reality when my teammates returned to hostel as the competition for the day was over. They were discussing how the AIS’s all participants got to the next round and UNM was out of competition, which was Chie’s school. I instantly remembered my hard earned date with Chie. It was already six. I felt like the whole world was shaking; experienced free fall and rushed towards the exit. I looked for the cab but my bad luck; none were vacant. I ran as fast as I could all the way to Skye to meet the girl of my dreams. As I reached the entrance of the restaurant, I realized that I was sweaty and smelly and I even forgot to change my clothes in the rush. I was about to be in a hard earned date of the lifetime and I was dressed in pajamas and looked like I just got back from a street fight. There was no going back anyway, so I slowly stepped inside the restaurant and started looking around. The restaurant was deserted and most tables were empty. But Chie was nowhere to be found. A thought ran into my mind that maybe she went back as the competition was over for her, but I dismissed the thought that she wouldn’t ditch me that way. I looked all over the restaurant but couldn’t find her. I felt exhausted and feverish, my excitement and longing for that moment was all shattered. I had fancied each moment of that date which would now never be true. The stress and the run had worn me out physically and the feeling of Chie discarding me battered psychologically. I threw up in the decorative bushes and was about to pass out; I found a chair and slowly settled myself in it, as a cool evening breeze hit my face and brought me back to life. Tears flowed from my eyes and I cried relentlessly not because I had missed a date with Chie but I had failed, for the first time in my life. I had disappointed her and myself and the feeling of failure only grew deeper as I sat there sobbing. I don’t remember how long I sat there that way. Luckily there were no guests on that side of the restaurant that day, else they would have kicked me out. After a while as I was preparing myself to get rid of that melancholy; get back in my feet and travel back to hostel someone tapped on my shoulders. I instinctively rubbed the tears off my eyes and lifted my head up to find Chie’s friend standing in front of me with bereaved looks.

“Where is Chie?” I asked her in an impulse.

She hesitated for a while and said, “You don’t know much about Chie. She has spinal cancer. Today she was complaining about back pain since morning and it only became worse as the day went by. We all suggested her to quit the debate and take rest but she denied. It made things worse and she had to be rushed to the hospital.”

The only word I heard after cancer was hospital. I was staring straight at her eyes as she was telling me about Chie. “Which hospital?” I hurried.

“She’s been taken back to Sulawasi, her treatment was going on there. In fact I’m coming here directly from the airport. She asked me to meet you here. She told me that you will be waiting for her.”

My body and brain had taken a lot already and it didn’t even winced with the new information. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing felt of any important. I sat in the chair silently as she looked down at me confused. She called my name few times but I ignored her completely. I dived into the ocean of emptiness for a while. Everything seemed dark and silent. It was like a black hole, except here nothing got in. After a while everything started settling down and I decided to put everything that happened behind and get up and go back to normal. I decided to flip on the pages of the notebooks again and dive into it. I decided to fill my brain with logics and ideas and beat any challenger that will be on my way tomorrow. I decided to look beyond my wants and selfishness.

We won the competition.

(to be continued.....)