My eyes seem to have a mind of their own today. As I rub my squinted eyes, they seem to differ that the day should start so soon. I grab my phone across the pillow and see about 43 texts from my classmates.

“The road in front of my house has flooded up”, “there are no vehicles, no transport.” Confused, I stare at the screen wondering why one would bother writing that in a group chat of 38 people. Sure, it was sad, but why would they think they were important enough for people to care about that.

I continue staring, but now at the ceiling when the realisation hit me that the texts are in fact valid, and should have been from my side too. The cauldron I had created was not perpetual, and a world lay outside my cold dark room. In that world, I had an exam in about 2 hours. It isn’t every day that one hopes they lived a few tens of miles away from their university, nor that their own neighbourhood was flooded, but today certainly was one.

What a privilege it is to have such classmates, I tell myself. Scrolling down the drafts of emails they had written since sunrise, I could only offer moral support. Living just a mile away meant it really did not matter what the weather was like, I was still supposed to be present.

I stare through the window as I shove food into my mouth. Right across the room is a TV. It happens to be one of those days when everything irks you. As the animated Spider-Man film plays on the screen, I find it annoying that there are parallel universes, and that there are different Spider-Men living the same lives across timelines. I’m sure there’s a me in another dimension sitting in a blanket and drinking tea right now, and I am beyond envious.

One silver lining is that it is a good hair day. As I see myself in the reflection on the elevator, my back brushed hair looks well settled. I cannot resist shouting, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”, like a budget Michael Corleone who lost his diet chart. On my way out, I notice the guard singing to himself. He greets me with a smile, unusual for his standards. Coming out of his cubicle, I sense that some form of gossip is on my way.

“5B Madam has a plaster around her foot”, his smile almost sucking all the tragedy out of the news. Last week, she had made Atik carry all the tomato plants from her floor to the roof, a good three stories above. Stories of Ms. 5B’s stinginess were known throughout the building. Today, she had rushed to the roof seeing the rain, thinking too much water can kill tomato plants, and slipped on moss. The story climaxed and Atik’s smirk only got wider. He considered the fall to be her karma for not paying him what he called ‘nasta’r taka’.

Without much of a reaction, I walked out of the gate when Atik called me from behind and told me not to use the rickshaw today. The perceived justice has turned him into a sweetheart, and he warns me about the long string of traffic on the main road. He offers me an umbrella, a BMW one that covers three people. I refuse and bring out my 300-taka purple umbrella that I had inherited from my sister and march out for war. Atik cannot let go of his smile even then.

The canal near my house smells a little less today. There are puddles around the edges of the roads, but it is barely like anything I had imagined. The traffic is there, and I thank Atik for his insight. As I breeze past the cars, the area breathes differently today. The smog has turned into a sweet scent of flowers, it’s a lovely walk.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blows hard. I feel a strand of hair on my forehead. I take one hand off the umbrella, and a second gust hits. In the middle of war, my weapon has imploded. The canopy has turned outwards, and one of the ribs is broken. I pull it back in place, but it seems deformed for good. I see Atik’s smile in a flashback. The rain has washed away the smog, the smell, and my hopes of reaching campus dry. I run the rest of my way, until I hear an ominously deep splattering of water. The entire road was full of water. I imagine speedboats but I see motorcycles.

As I get off the footpath and put my feet on the road, I catch nothing. There’s suddenly no ground under the water. I grab onto a lamppost, and the first sensation of the cold water hits my body. As I push through the water, the levels keep rising, reaching a bit above my knees. The drains have a strong stream of water flowing in and out of them, and the occasional slips on the mud do not help me either. I see my campus in sight.

The water has somewhat calmed down as I approach the campus. I hop onto the pavement again. My entrance is blocked by a couple. They seem lost in the moment under their BMW umbrella. I try passing by but fail. My despair kept getting worse by the minute as the rain drenched me. But Atik said a BMW covers three people.

I tiptoe my way behind them and sneak just behind the man. The lady sings and the man nods, and I hope that they don’t notice me. She seems quite fond of reels, as I hear her sing the quintessential rain song. “Brishti toh themeche onek aage, bhijechi ami eka”. I too would like my sufferings to be under the privileges of a BMW umbrella, but I blame my greed for inheritance for it.

Finally, I’m inside. I stand in the elevator queue. Behind me is the course’s teaching assistant. He’s wearing a black suit and sunglasses in this rain. He towers over me, looking more like secret service than assistant service. I greet him and ask him about the exam. As the door opens, we rush into the lift and the conversation is cut midway. He stops on the floor below mine and tells me to wait in class.

There are four people in class, which is roughly 10%. I sit near the window and wait. I look around and these people seem quite relaxed. Perhaps they are here since yesterday, I tell myself. The door bangs open, and the assistant enters. He announces that the exam will take place if there is an attendance of 15%. He sees 4 people and walks away.

I take my phone out and scroll on Instagram. I come across three edits about Dhaka, and two about how pretty the campus looks during monsoon. Everything again has started annoying me. I keep the phone away till it buzzes again, and the notification reads “EXAM HAS BEEN CANCELLED.”