The suitcase lay open like a polite mouth. Shirts learned the old fold; socks negotiated for corners. His mother stood guard with the authority of all previous departures. “Take shawl,” she said, because mothers speak in weather even when the forecast disagrees. His father checked the torch and declared it trustworthy only under supervision.
“Six a.m. is not morning,” his father announced. “It is conspiracy.”
“Still, bus believes,” his mother said, pushing in a small packet of biscuits that had never failed any journey.
He messaged her: Packing rehearsal successful. Can meet? The gray tick became two. Veranda in twenty. I have project deliverable. He read the last words twice, smiling.
He zipped the suitcase three-quarters, the way you close a sentence that still wants one more word. The house watched him with its familiar sounds—the fan’s little click, the fridge’s patient hum, the gate that preferred to be persuaded.
At her house, the neem made shade of the reliable kind. She came to the veranda with a small steel tiffin and a square of cloth tied over its lid like a decision. Off-white kurta, hair tied any-how, tote with a day’s worth of small histories.
“This is lemon rice,” she said, tapping the lid. “And pickle from that arrogant mango tree. For bus. For stomach. For mood.”
“Project accepted,” he said. “Deliverables look high-quality.”
They sat with the tiffin between them. In the lane a bicycle practiced the future; somewhere a pressure cooker told time in its own whistle language. He set the ticket on the table as if the day should read it.
“Sleep will not come,” he confessed.
“Pack it also,” she said. “Sometimes sleep obeys luggage.”
They walked the short loop past the tailor, past the wall where cricket balls once accumulated like guilt. The afternoon had put a soft hand on the town’s head. At the bridge, the railing had warmed itself for goodbyes and for regular Tuesdays. He rested the suitcase there for a moment; it stood like a child being told to behave.
“Rule revision,” she said, looking at the river. “Tomorrow we will be documentary, yes. But we will allow one line of poetry, very small.”
“Approved,” he said. “Poetry will not be allowed to make speech.”
She took out a handkerchief—plain white, one corner stitched with a tiny green leaf. “For your pocket. Not for tears. For tickets and platform dust.”
He turned the cloth once, as if it might speak its syllabus. “Front pocket,” he promised. “Where hands remember.”
They stood with their shadows joining and separating depending on which cloud had the right opinion. Neither of them tried to say complicated things. The river kept going like a person who has understood most of it and forgiven the rest.
“I will message coriander rate on Friday,” she said.
“I will message elevator mood on Monday,” he said. “If elevator is sulking, I will send photo as proof.”
“Send only audio,” she advised. “Elevators sound truer than they look.”
Evening began making tea somewhere. They walked back by the long lane that liked to be thanked. His father waited at the gate with a list he pretended was for luggage and was actually for blessings. His mother counted minutes as if they were seeds before monsoon.
“Eat early,” his mother said to her. “You wake for us also, tomorrow. We will make noise.”
“I am used to market,” she said, smiling. “Noise is relative.”
On the veranda he opened the tiffin and let the lemon and mustard seeds explain their argument to the air. He took a small spoon now—not to cheat the journey, to test its grammar. She watched him taste and nodded like a teacher who approves a sentence without changing it.
“For the morning,” she said, “I will walk you till the bus stand corner. Not inside. Corner is correct.”
“Corner is correct,” he agreed. The correctness was a relief.
They did not sit. They leaned against the familiar hour. Words came efficient: charge phone, keep ID, don’t forget keys. He kept one last keychain—a mango twin of the earlier mango—in his palm, and then let it join the others like cousins at a festival.
When the first star went on duty, they turned towards their respective responsibilities. “Tomorrow,” she said.
“Tomorrow,” he answered. “If life allows.”
He watched her go, not as a ceremony, not as a test; simply as the final line of the day. Back in his room he zipped the suitcase fully and placed the handkerchief in the front pocket as promised. The tiffin sat on the table like a sensible moon. He lay down and told sleep it had a ticket. Sleep, in a generous mood, agreed.
