WHEN THOUGHTS FORM WORDS

STRANGER

How do people grow from strangers to acquaintances to lovers or to your brother? Can it happen over the span of a week and a day? Eight days was all it took for me to find a brother, but "was he ever one?" is a question I still can't answer. It was the summer of 2016, during my holidays that I decided to join a camp. It was a training program and the reason why I decided to go is now unsure. It might have been my curiosity, It might have been to clear my mind after the dreaded exams or in hope of finding answers to some of the mental struggles of a 17 year old. Unsure about what they are going to train us on, my friend and I went to the camp. Ofcourse our parents took us there. And that's where I met him; Brother?

He wasn't a standing figure so I never took notice on him for the first few days. But when we were all introduced to each other, I learned his name and job. He was older than most of us and maybe that's why I wasn't interested in his talk but I was still curious as to why he was there. The camp was set for all ages from teenagers to adults with various trainers and supervisors. Maybe because the training was really hard and taking a toll on our mind and body, within the first few days we developed a friendship like never before. Even when we didn't know who the other person was, we greeted them happily. We shared our food equally, helped each other, waited for the other person to catch up to us while running, and got scolded together for one person's mistake. And I started to talk to the stranger who was chosen to be my teammate and within the next few days, I saved my seat near him, learned about his job at the military which he quit and about cold nights he had to stay awake. He was kind to me. He walked at my pace sharing the one umbrella we had. Outside our camping ground, when we were instructed to finish the set task, I felt safe with him. We listened to all the stories he told us and I wished to hear more. But I wasn't that talkative then, so all I did was ask questions and listen and a bond was created in my mind. As a child who always dreamed of a big brother, I found a brother in him. I wasn't the only one who saw this, my friends did too. During our breaks when it was only us, they didn't fail to mention about it. We made memories like that. Even though it were all too subtle I was sure he cared about me. At the end of the eighth day, I was too sad to leave my brother behind. I saved his number on my parents mobile and with very sweet memories I left the camp. I never called him and I never kept the promise to meet him again next year. When my friends and I talked about the summer camp, he became a part of it too. Three years after that, I got a call from one of the girls I became friends with at the camp. She asked me to look at the newspaper from a few days before. I found it in the stack of papers kept under the stairs. And I saw his picture there with the same name but under a heading that went something like... "criminal caught while attempting yet another theft".

The picture and name were unavoidable proof that he was the same person I called brother, whom I ignorantly trusted. In fact he was never my brother or someone I thought he was. All the while reading that piece of news, the only thing I prayed was, let it be that he never actually hurt anybody. I don't know why I pleaded that to god, I was never a believer of him. My friend thought I took the news strangely. I didn't react in any way other than the "I see" I muttered. Three days after that it finally struck me. I stayed in bed the next few days and never spoke of it again. I never told my parents about this. We never discussed about the camp too. Occasionally, I get a horrific chill down my spine on some rainy days and I never came to trust a stranger again.