Chapter 49 / 51 · 2 min

Beginning Middle and End

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝟓

The boy used to sneak his father’s Nokia 3310 and play with it. Snake was his favorite game. Pressing the buttons, he entered the wrong PIN three times and the wrong PUK ten times, and killed the SIM card. Then, terrified, he bolted out of the house and ran.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒𝟎𝟖

After his first raise, the boy bought a MacBook and an iPhone. Joy spilled across his face. A girl named Nira saw that joy and was moved by it. She threw her arms around him and said, “Well done!” Holding her with the deepest tenderness, the boy thought: I have to marry this girl.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟏

A tree had sprouted from a mango pit he’d thrown away, and the boy could not contain his joy. He ran around telling everyone the news.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒𝟓

Class One, Section B. The girl next door, Nira, was impossibly beautiful, and her handwriting was the best in the class. The boy walked to school with his friend Shihab and with Nira. One day a six-ton truck came barreling down the road. The boy darted to the right, and the girl went left with Shihab to get out of the truck’s way. The boy’s heart broke. Why did she go toward Shihab? Why couldn’t she have come toward me?

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟑

Home from college, the boy stood in front of the mirror. He was growing up. The veins in his hands began to look like the branches of a tree, a tree born of the love between his father and his mother.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒𝟓𝟎

The ancient delight of love ran through two bodies. Their eyes welled up. “I love you so, so, so much, Nira!”

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒𝟔

Heading out to play one afternoon after school, the boy blurted out to Nira, “Hey, I love you.” Nira didn’t answer. Many, many years later, when the boy would ask her to marry him, she wouldn’t answer then either.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓𝟎𝟏

A global pandemic was underway. The lockdown had lasted six months. Though the court had granted him one week a month with his little girl, the boy hadn’t been able to hold his own child in the last six months. There were video chats, but he still couldn’t stand the sight of that man beside Nira.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔𝟓𝟎

A long time ago, a boy lived here, but he doesn’t anymore. The world has forgotten him. Only the mango tree in front of the house still remembers him. Every winter it sheds tears, and the tears look like dry leaves.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏

A long time ago, a boy loved a girl, and from that love a tree was born, a tree named Agnil.

(based on the poem “beginning middle and end” by Phil Kaye)