About some summer nights and phone calls

This summer is the first one where I slept in an air-conditioned room, as all through school and college either summers were spent in Murree, or in a cooler-walla-room, as air conditioner was pretty hard on my allergies. Last night, somewhere past mid-night, I woke up, thanks to load-shedding, and I just couldn’t go back to sleep. During the sleeplessness I got on with some random past-mid-night-wondering, so I decided to fix myself a glass of milk and went upstairs to my bedroom to have a cigarette and do it in peace. In the middle of the sweating and all, I was thinking ‘how did I manage so many summers in this same room without an air conditioner’. It’s not like this summer is extra hot or anything. It’s pretty much the same…

… And that’s when it dawned on me; this is my first summer in a long, long time where I am not spending my nights on the phone.

Aaah! Summer nights gone by and lost loves; conversations which went on forever. The tales of random, mundane, everyday occurrences, told in a fashion which would make my heart go all fuzzy. The falling asleep in the middle and waking up with the receiver imprint on my left cheek. The nights of hazy excitement, of unmade promises, of undying love, of bright futures and extensive planning, of unbridled hope and joy, of secrets and confessions, of comfort and warmth, of passion and what not. Why did they end? How did I let them go? How did they never call back? When did things go so wrong? Why did they do this? Why did I do that? Why didn’t I try more?

It’s a good thing the light came back. I stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray and got up. Guess tonight I’ll just make do with the air-conditioner.