“Hello Reyansh,” Parith said as he slides the door open.  

“Good morning, Parith,” Reyansh responds as Parith searched through the window.  A silence fell over them as neither spoke for a moment.  They both seemed to be sizing up each other’s situation. 

“How’s your family?”  Parith broke the ice.

“My sister is struggling.  We think she is sick with whatever stomach flu is going around our country now.” Reyansh answered.  

Parith would look around to make sure that none of his other co-workers were watching.  He wasn’t sure how either of his companions would react if they knew that he was talking to someone from the other side of the wall.  Luckily, both of his companions were still glued to the television.   He scanned over his shoulder to make sure that no one was looking as he withdrew something from within his jacket.  

He had wrapped the something in plastic.  It filled more than his hand, in length and width, but was only a few centimeters thick.  Parith looked it over, making sure that nothing had damaged it on his travel to work.  Then he turned it on edge, looked over his shoulder again, then slid it through the grating that separated him from Reyansh.  “I’m sorry about your sister, but maybe this will make things better.”

Reyansh looked it over, his eyes larger than normal. “Tell me this is what I think it is,” the man silently cried as he started to unwrap it.  He too glanced over his shoulder to make sure that he wasn’t watched.

“It is, but be careful, it’s delicate,“ Parith whispered as he leaned into the wall.  Reyansh quickly and quietly finished unraveling the plastic.  “Mother baked them last night.  She doesn’t know that I took one.”

Reyansh held the chocolate chip cookie in his hand as if it was the holy grail.  Reyansh couldn’t seem to believe that he was holding something so special.  Parith couldn’t hide the smile that crossed his face.  He also couldn’t believe that the man hadn’t just inhaled the cookie.  He was glad he hadn’t because he probably would have choked on it.  If Reyansh choked on the cookie and died, Parith knew that it would probably start a war.  He chuckled as he thought about how stupid it would be to start a war over a cookie.  

“Happy birthday Rey,” he said.

Reyansh looked at him with a stare that seemed saved for special people in his life and bowed his head.  “Many thanks to you and your family,” Rey said as he took his first careful bite.

“I must go.  Be careful today.” 

Reyansh pivoted in place and started to walk off.  Parith could see him raise the cookie to his mouth again.  

“You as well,” Parith said as he began to slide the door closed. “And don’t eat it all at once.”

With the door close, he began to think about their history.  He didn’t know how he and Rey had become friends.  By all accounts, they shouldn’t be friends at all since they were born on opposite sides of the wall.  But just like all pleasant things they aren’t held back by things as trivial as walls, they had formed a bond of friendship.  

He thought about the first day he had been assigned to the wall.  He had been shown the working quarters, where the weapons were stored, and how far the section of wall they covered.  They had also told them to find things to do to get from going insane.  Their superiors had shown them the blood splatter on the wall and explained what happened.  After his superiors left Parith, Arjun, and Vivaan explored the area.  

The first thing Parith did was find the sliding door.  He wasn’t sure if it could even be opened, so he was surprised when the door slid open with ease.  He stood to the side so that no one could see him, and looked to see where the two other men were.  He couldn’t see either of them, so he gambled and looked through the window.  

The other side of the wall looked just like his side of the wall.  

He had a tiny section by which to judge it, and he wasn’t sure what he had expected when he looked through the window, but he was shocked by how normal it was.  As he started to look around the window, he thought he noticed something move.  With as much speed as he could muster, he slid the door shut and pressed his back to the wall.  

The next day, the sliding door seemed to be calling him.  He waited until Vivaan and Arjun were occupied and he went to the door again to examine.  Again, everything looked just like his side of the wall.  He couldn’t explain why he was so fascinated with it, but he enjoyed looking through the wall.  After a minute or two, he closed the door.  He never saw anyone move like the first time, but he felt like someone was watching him.  It was unnerving.

  He returned to the sliding door every day after that, it was almost like clockwork.  After a week of opening the door at the same time every day, he finally opened the sliding door to something other than open space. The barrel of a gun was just inches from his left eye.  

Parith reacted quickly.  Spinning away from the opening and sliding the door shut.  He waited for the explosion of the bullet from the barrel, but nothing came. 

It took him five minutes to realize that he was still clenching his eyes shut.  He finally willed his eyes to open.  He told himself that he didn’t need to open the door anymore.

The next day, he found himself at the door again. He needed to know if someone on the other side was waiting for him.  He stood to the side of the door and slide it open.  He didn’t hear the cocking of a gun, nor did he see anything.  He finally worked up the courage to look through the door again.

“Hi,” Reyansh said.  Of course, he didn’t know at the time that it was Reyansh, but that was the start of the friendship.

“Hello,” he said and nodded, keeping his eyes on the man from the other side of the fence.  

“Are you planning something?”  The man asked.

Parith shook his head.  “No.  I just wanted to see what the other side was like.”  

“I see,” the man said.  “Well, here it is.  Now what?” 

“I’m not sure,”  Parith said, truthfully unsure of what was next.   “My name is Parith.”

“Greetings Parith, my name is Reyansh.”  He bowed.  For the first time, one of them took their eyes off the other one.  “You should probably go now,” he said, nodding over Parith’s shoulder.

Arjun was starting to come through the front door of their bunker.  Parith nodded and mouthed the words “Thank you,” and slide the door closed, trying not to alert Arjun to what he was doing.    

The next day, he returned to the sliding door.  As he opened it, Reyansh was waiting there.  “Hello Parith,” Reyansh spoke as the door opened.

“Hello Reyansh,” he returned the greeting.  

“Have you come up with a plan?” Reyansh had asked him.  

“No.  I just wanted to see if you were still there.”  He admitted.

“I’m still here,” he smiled.  The two of them began to talk.  It had turned out that it was Rey’s gun that had been pointed at Parith’s eye, although Rey had said that he knew that he couldn’t pull the trigger.  He had just been curious about the man that had been opening the door every day.  It had never happened before and it scared him.  

At first, both men had been on edge, and any reckless move could have started a war.  But they both remained calm.  They spoke more every day and soon a friendship grew.  Each man began to know about the other’s family, likes and dislikes, and dreams.  

Reyansh became better than most of the friends that Parith had on this side of the wall.

  Some of his friends were proud of him for defending the wall, while others thought he was just a cog in the system that would never actually look for peace.  Parith wasn’t sure what he felt about the wall before he started guarding it, but he knew that he had a job, and that was more than many could say.  So he pledged to do his job as well as he could.  He would defend the wall with his life if he had to.  That was the type of man he was.  The type of man that he wanted to be.  

He just couldn’t imagine what he would do if the wall came down and he was supposed to kill those that came from the other side.  Luckily, the wall had remained standing for as long as it.

With the door shut, and Parith focused back on the here and now, he turned towards the guard house.  Arjun had begun to yell now.  

Arjun wasn’t the type to yell at a cricket match.  He was a quiet man.    Arjun hadn’t even really cared about cricket before.  He started to shrug off the feeling of something wrong when he noticed that the hairs on his arms were starting to stand up.  

He stopped moving.   He wasn’t more than two steps away from the wall when he heard the whistling.  He looked over his shoulders but saw nothing.  Once he realized that the whistling was coming from above him, it was too late to really protect himself.