10 years from now

Ok, yet another project started then ultimately abandoned. I realise it's quite hard for me to sustain interest in writing nowadays. Nevertheless, this piece, produced in around 2 hours i think, well the guys would get the in-jokes, the rest of the world would probably wonder what the hell I'm writng about.

The letter came two days later, like they said it would. Mix up at the post office was the cause, same reason every year why he always receive Christmas cards from them on the 26th. It was white, plain, edges were yellowed, probably picked up in bulk during a closing down sale of some stationary shop. Scrawled on the letter using a cheap ball point pen which has seen many a major exam, the ink not running smoothly on the surface, instead hard pressure marks marred the surface, were his name, his present address that hasn’t changed for 10 years, and the notable addition of the title “mister” in front of his name. The letter held a triple folded letter, which presented quite officially, what with the school’s address and emblem on the right, and the group’s emblem on the left. He smiled wryly to myself, they must be still using the same format since our time. I guess it’s good to know that some things don’t change with time, even if it is just something as insignificant as a letter’s format.
The content of the letter was as simple as its appearance, besides he knew what it was about way before hand anyway. They always kept him informed about such gatherings, and something as important as their 10th anniversary would have been announced way before hand to accommodate their busy schedules. The letter served merely as a formality, a way to subtly remind the absent-minded. They needn’t have worried though, the date was long marked out on his calendar and he wasn’t intending to miss the gathering for the world.
He placed the letter down, pressed the button for the intercom and asked his secretary to RSVP for me immediately. Flipping the letter open once again, the white sheet of paper was glimmering in the strong mid day sun that flooded his office, but the black and white emblem seemed to dance with energy in the brilliant light; it seemed to be delighted to find that this sheep has decided to return to its fold.
The emblem seemed to beckon to him, like it wanted him to remember the times of yesteryear, the times of reckless youth and strong brotherhood, of grazed knees and broken hearts, of hikes in the pouring rain or push ups at 6 am in the morning. The impulse to revisit those times again was strangely strong, like a distant echo was resounding in his head, leading him on.
He subconsciously reached for the phone, but withdrew his hand halfway. Somehow he felt this was a journey down memory lane he had to go down himself.

The location hasn’t changed, but the interior was drastically different. He had been here a few times before for previous gatherings, and always looked on with a profound sense of loss whenever another part of his time here was destroyed and replaced with newer, alien buildings. Another sign of the waves of change, old fogies like himself who hold on to the past too much shouldn’t be allowed to witness such callous disregard to a person’s memories.
He found the old gathering place, but it was now nothing but a musty storeroom, with a menacing “Do not enter” sign pasted on the door. The coat of uneven green that was applied during his time was peeling, its old lustre had faded, the emblem which used to be placed proudly on the door was absent. The lock which required a bit of finger gymnastics to open, the chin up bar wrapped in tape which he hardly used as he in his delusion deemed himself too tall to use it, were gone as well.
A yell shook him out of his thoughts. A stern looking portly security guard came racing towards him on a bicycle, stopping inches away from a head-on collision, and proceeded to aggressively accuse him of trying to enter the storeroom and stealing all the precious things the group’s storeroom has to offer. And as a final volley, he gleefully said he intended to report this incident to the headmaster and he’ll, quote unquote, “be in big trouble”.
Chuckling to himself, he concocted some story about being a special consultant hired by the group to give them a talk and got lost finding their adobe. Having smooth talked his way out of trouble, he set a course for the group’s new den, after receiving directions from the notably disappointed security guard, who grunted loudly and rode off on his bicycle, muttering incomprehensible but aggressive sounding words, no doubt setting off in hope of finding prey that would be more easily intimidated.
He smiled to himself again. Looks like another thing that hasn’t changed was the school’s penchant for hiring overweight grumpy security guards who patrolled the school on bicycles threatening everyone with a personal audience with the headmaster.
He found the place. It was spacious; the smell of new paint was still strong. As it was a late weekday afternoon, there were just a small gathering of students there, the younger ones in white shorts playing carrom; the older ones listening to the music blasting from the hi-fi while doing homework. They were hesitant about letting him enter at first, as the rule about not letting non-members in still stood, but he quickly identified himself and said he was here just to look for something.
He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to look for, nor whether whatever he was looking for could be found here anymore. He was looking for memories, how does one go about looking for something so nebulous? For the first time since the impulse to be here seemed to be waste of time, looking for something long gone.
Sure enough, he found nothing. Everything he turned up was far too new, too modern for him. The photos had unknown faces, the people participated in new activities, even the names of the patrols we used to be in have been altered. Maybe it was a meant to be a fruitless trip after all.
But somehow he sensed that he was looking in the wrong places. The white washed walls of this new and spacious den carried the vibes of the new generation but none of the echoes of the past. To find what he wanted he had to return to where it was the last time.
He got the quartermaster to open the old den, and entered it with a flashlight. The layout was strangely the same, the sofas however were more torn, the message board bare, where once there was a rickety table is now a pile of codemned stores like broken tent pegs, torn A-frames and rusted mess tins.
He stood on a chair and opened the upper cupboards, where they used to be held. Strangely enough, those tomes of yesteryear, some yellowed, some faded, some bitten away by insects but still mostly intact, lay there, a thick film of dust covering each and every one of them. He took one of them, dusted it down, tested the sofa to see whether it could still take his weight, before sinking into it, allowing the memories to come back to him.