aysabaw.com

One day, Hassaana shared a post on his insta story. There was an image of a dinosaur and it said ‘I’m S.A.D. – Secretly A Dinosaur.’

When I met him in the canteen the next day, I said, ‘So you are secretly a dinosaur.’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Me too. I am secretly a dinosaur! What kind of dinosaur are you?’

He laughed and asked, ‘what dinosaur is that, the huge one with short anee, hands?’

‘T-rex?’

‘Yeah. That’s it! T-rex,’ he said as he wiped the counter. ‘And what kind of dinosaur are you?’

‘I’m a Pterodactyl, the one with wings.’

‘So you have wings,’ he said as he sprayed disinfectant on the counter.

From then on, the word secretly became something like a secret code that only the two of us use. And all our sentences started with secretly.

‘Secretly, I am hungry,’ I said as I entered the canteen.

‘Secretly, I am angry,’ he said when he had an argument with an annoying boisterous bald head.

‘Secretly, you look tired,’ I told him when he was carrying some dozen plates at the peak of lunchtime.

This morning, as I took butter for my toasts, he came refilling the jams.

I greeted him ‘Good morning.’ I somehow forgot to use our secret code.

‘Secretly, I am depressed today,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘My friend committed suicide.’

‘Whaaaaat?’ my what really sounded like a what with so many letter As.

‘He took, anee, a lot of pills.’

I didn’t know what to say in this kind of situation but I was able to utter an ‘I hope he will be ok.’

He continued with his work, refiling the breakfast items.

Secretly, I wish his friend would be ok.

***

Featured image by Tina Mosquito