Never again

Do you sometimes meet someone on an aeroplane, on vacation, in a hotel? Knowing you are never going to meet them again but at that moment it felt like you had known them for ages. That you’d made a new friend and it was all fun. What made it fun was that there was no pressure of meeting them again, but there was also the pressure of never meeting them again. A dilemma in itself. Those are always the best people. Maybe because we only got to see them at their best, but to us, it was the only way they were.

Jason met someone like that one time. He thought to himself it was a good idea to solo travel in college. A camping trip. His parents did not like that idea at all, his friends thought he was going to get lost. He didn’t care he wanted to give have some fun alone. So, he got on the train to go upstate. His camping bag, and his map alongside him. He had his headphones on and had some RnB on. He was in his zone. He had his vibe cleared. Then someone walked in to sit in front of him. Who was it? He didn’t even realise them until he looked up from his map and saw them right in front of him. He felt a shock go down his spine.

It was as if someone had done a magic trick on him. His eyes opened. It was kara, she looked around the same age as him, by the looks of the gear she had it looked like she too was going camping. Jason saw an opportunity, and he took it. “Hey, you going to the forest upstate too?” “oh, yea.” She said in a slight tone of excitement. Jason knew that something was off about her, he didn’t know what, so he just let it be. The train ride went on and conversation spun miles.

She told him she wanted to be an engineer; Jason was fascinated since he never could do anything stem related. She talked endlessly. Her home town, her parents, her family, her friends, how she loved camping. It wasn’t boring though; Jason could listen to her talk all day. She talked to him as if he was someone she knew for a long time before. Jason loved that; he didn’t feel disconnected from someone for the first time.

Their vibes just matched. Their eyes never drifted from each other’s pupils for a second in the entire train ride. They ordered the same meal from the train kitchen, they ordered the same drink, they sat in the same position. Sometimes Jason felt he was miming her. But it was so natural, how was this even possible. Jason was puzzled but he let it be, he continued to just go with the flow. She talked, he talked. Slowly the long train journey came to an end. They walked out of the station and took a cab together to the beginning of the trail.

Jason lost control of himself; he was just following her each step. They began the hike that night itself. It got late, the sun went down and before they knew it was just, Jason, kara and the stars. They were tired from all the travelling, so they decided to take a nap right under the stars. They set up camp and rolled into their sleeping bags. At night Jason felt as if Kara got up and left, but he didn’t pay much attention and went back to sleep.

When he woke up in the morning she was gone, just as he expected. He looked for her, around the campsite but she was nowhere near. He saw a trail of footsteps going uphill. He thought they were hers and followed them. He was dizzy, but he didn’t know why. With each step, his knees went lower. Then he finally reached the top of the hill where there was a well. He looked down into the well and inside the well, instead of his reflection in the water, he saw kara. Yet again mirroring him.

He reached for her but fell in the water. A few weeks later, another group of campers found his body in the water. He had drowned in the thought of a friend, that he thought he’d never meet again.