Holding on!

While he was leaving, he stopped at the door, turned around and stepped forward.
We hugged.
I couldn't let go of him for some minutes.
We were talking while in that hug. Talking about how things will change in a matter of some 3-4 years and how we both won't be able to help it. I'll be gone. We could not be meeting. What when we'll need each other at times when we'll be low?
Conversations and messages will reduce. 'Keeping in contact' will fade sooner or later.
Of course, the love will stay. The bond cannot be changed ever. His place in my life cannot be replaced.
He's the best friend I've ever had. That fact is not gonna change.
But, come to think of it practically, everything will change.

I think I thought a million thoughts while being in that five minutes hug. But could share with him only ten of those thoughts.
Yes, the heart was so full that the eyes overflowed.

He sat me down. Tried calming me. I wasn't sad or upset. I had just got emotional.
He told me he had the best thing to cheer me up. And with that he pulled out a paper from his wallet.
A page that comes straight from his diary that we all had filled in when we were in class 9th...
He, since then, has kept that folded page as a souvenir in his wallet. 
That page dates back to 2007. And it still preserves my handwriting in black ink.
There! That guy had the best prick to burst the bubble of my emotions.
I held it for ten seconds. Just scanned it. Didn't have the courage to read it.
Still, the mere feel of that old paper and of that old cherished friendship made me break down..

And he? He was laughing hard looking at me crying like a baby..
I hit him several times and started laughing along.
I was stupidly switching between breaking into tears and breaking into laughter every ten seconds.
I was cursing him for showing me that page, loving him for staying, hitting him for laughing at me and just hugging him for no reason ..

You know,
there are moments in your life when you want the time to pause..
And there are moments when you want to capture a moment and lock it in an air tight jar so that you don't lose them ever..

I still don't know which one I would have opted for this particular moment I shared with him.

Some things are so beautiful that you are just left speechless.

(This story was shortlisted under the category of Flash Fiction for the online writing contest 'Wordweavers' held every year by the University of Mumbai's Department of English Alumni.)