The Other Side

He was the funniest boy I had ever met.

Moving into a new neighborhood was rough and I had heard that moving to a new school was much worse. I walked towards the large, looming building of my new school. As I reached the top step I saw a spiky haired boy, leaning against the railing, looking at me with an amused expression on his face. He started walking towards me and held his hand out to greet me, “Hi! I am Niall, your guide for today.”

“I am Sam!” I replied.

We walked through the halls towards the principal’s office. We didn't talk much along the way. He slapped hands with every second person on the way. He was a popular kid, I realized. Later that day I sat at lunch with his group. They were not as bad as it goes for popular kids. He clearly was the joker of the lot. Even though most of his jokes were pretty lame, you had to laugh just because of the way he told them.

Years passed and we became the best of friends. The moral science lectures, the chemistry classes, the morning assemblies, were unbelievably fun instead of a torture. His jokes were endless and his laughter infectious. His favorite joke happened to be the oldest one in the book, the one in which you ask ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ and the answer is ‘To get to the other side.’ It is not as much as a joke than a philosophical puzzle, he explained. We were in our senior year now and I was worried about him. Worried because since the last month he had been missing a lot of his classes, he hardly came to school or received my or anybody else’s phone calls. It had all begun with when he had complained of a little pain in the back of his head. His parents had taken him to the doctor. He had said that the doc had run a few tests and he had been told to rest at home.

I stared at the phone as it again went to voice-mail and I heard Niall’s familiar voice. The days at school were a drudge nowadays. I missed his knock-knock jokes and his continuous banter. A few days later on a weekend in the middle of the afternoon I got a call from Niall.

“Hello,” I said

A soft, tired voice replied from the other end, “I am going to die, Sam”

I don’t remember what I replied or what he said after that, I just recall stumbling into my car and driving to the hospital, everything a blur. “This cannot be happening,” I thought to myself. I wanted to scream but I just swallowed my silent tears.

He was lying thin and weak in the sterile hospital bed, the color had drained from his once rosy cheeks. The cancer had eaten him away. I stood by the bedside looking at this strange person lying on the bed with a hundred tubes passing in and out of him. When he opened his eyes and saw me his mouth stretched into a wide smile.

“I am going to the other side, Sam,” he whispered softly. I smiled a sad smile.

Niall died the next day surrounded by his family and the many friends he had accumulated in his life time. His face carried that amused expression as he slipped softly into the other side seemingly relieved of his pain.

I sat in my room unable to digest what had just happened. I recalled his favorite joke and how he had explained it to me. He had said that it intrigued him that what lay at the other side but what mattered most was the journey to the other side. I remembered how he had once told me that he wanted to join the army so that when he died honorably he would get the twenty one guns salute. I remembered how he had told me that the sense of humor was our sixth sense, it was what bound people and connected even strangers, it was what distinguished us from the other living creatures, he had explained. There were so many things about him, so many memories.

I didn't know if Niall had found the other side or not but I did know that that his journey to the other side had been a beautiful one. Maybe his death wasn't so heroic and he didn't get the twenty one gun salute but he got something more than that, he died with a smile on his face and surrounded by his friends and family. Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that all that I had left of him were memories and they would also fade away with time.

As I walked up the school steps I looked back to the first day we had met and I remembered his round face with a smile plastered on it which stretched from ear to ear. It felt like he had just gone on a long vacation and that he would come back with funniest of stories to tell. I pictured him in my head laughing and I wished that the other side was as beautiful as he had imagined.

Reviews

[CA Anurag Sharma]

This is so touchy....
"I pictured him in my head laughing and I wished that the other side was as beautiful as he had imagined"

Ending emotional pieces is always difficult but this end is so effective.... thanks for sharing this piece

[Eleven]

Thankyou :)

[Marie]

THis is a beautiful, touching story. I like the idea that a sense of humor is really our sixth sense. Maybe it is.

[Eleven]

Thanks!
i read some of your works and i love your imagination!:)