EP09: Wired Earphones

In a world obsessed with cutting wires, Meera chose to stay tangled.

It wasn’t rebellion. She wasn’t trying to be different. She simply believed that some things were meant to take efforts like untying knots, like keeping relationships alive, like LOVE. 

Her wired earphones were more than plastic and copper; they were a philosophy she wore in her pocket.

Chapter 1

The library that day was quieter than usual, the silence that amplifies the smallest sounds. Pages turning, pens tapping, chairs dragging.

Meera sat in her usual corner seat, hunched over a notebook. Her bag was kept on the table in which her earphones looked like a stubborn plant, vines wrapped around themselves. She sighed, running her fingers through the mess.

Across the table sat a boy she hadn’t really noticed before. Aarav. He was a boy you would pass by a hundred times without remembering, always tucked behind a book, his presence blending with the smell of paper and ink. But today, he noticed her.

“Those things have a mind of their own,” he said, voice soft, almost fading in the air.

Meera looked up, a little startled. His eyes held a smile even before his lips did.
“They do,” she replied. “I think they’re secretly alive. Plotting against me.”

He leaned in slightly. “Want some help?”

She hesitated. Then slid the mess across. Their fingers brushed, barely, accidentally, but enough to leave warmth on her skin long after he touched it.

Together, they began untying the stubborn knots. The wire resisted, twisted back, looped again. They laughed at the absurdity of it, and every time their hands overlapped, it felt less like an accident and more like a beginning.

When the wires were finally free, Meera smiled, almost reluctant to let the moment end. She plugged them in, extended one earbud to him.
“You’ve earned it.”

He took it, and for the next few minutes, there were no names, no sound, only music flowing through two halves of the same wire.

Silence and sound. Shared, not spoken.

Chapter 2

They didn’t become friends overnight. Meera was cautious, Aarav was quiet. But something invisible stitched them together after that day.

It began with little things: sitting together after class, walking side by side under the gulmohar trees, one wire stretching between them. The white cable bounced with every step, like a visible heartbeat connecting two people who might have otherwise walked apart.

When one leaned too far, the music would tug, pulling them back to each other.
And strangely, they liked it.

They discovered each other through songs. 

He loved old ghazals.

She loved indie bands no one else had heard of. 

Sometimes their playlists clashed, sometimes they synced so perfectly it felt like fate had been queuing their tracks.

One afternoon, sitting on the college steps as the world hurried past, Aarav asked, “Why not just buy wireless? It’d be easier.”

Meera looked at him, her gaze steady, almost daring.
“Easier isn’t always better. Wired means you can’t drift away. 

You have to sit close. 

You have to be here.”

Her words spread in the air. Aarav didn’t argue. He only smiled and leaned a little closer, letting the wire stretch tight between them.

And so their bond grew in the quietest ways: rainy evenings under a shared umbrella with the cable tucked safely between them, movie nights in the hostel common room with one earbud each, study sessions where the wire looped around books and pens like a thread stitching their lives together.

It wasn’t love, not yet. But it was something. Something alive!!

Chapter 3

Final week of college. 

The campus was alive with laughter, promises, tears. Meera, though, carried a quiet ache. Endings always felt heavier than beginnings.

On their last evening together, they climbed to the rooftop. 

The city stretched beneath them.

The lights blinking like restless stars. 

The air smelled of farewells.

Meera pulled out her old earphones; the wires tangled. She plugged them in, offered him one side, and pressed play.

The song was gentle, romantic, and every note filled with things she hadn’t said. Aarav closed his eyes. For a moment, the whole world seemed suspended by that single fragile wire between them.

When the song ended, he opened his eyes slowly. “That was beautiful.”

“It says everything I can’t,” she whispered.

He glanced at the wire, then at her. “Meera… I don’t know what this is. Us. But I know I don’t want it to end.”

Her chest tightened, tears blurring her vision. She forced a smile.
“Then don’t go wireless.”

For a moment, the words just hung between them, fragile like the wire that connected them. Aarav looked at her.
Like really looked at her ; as if trying to memorize every detail before time could take it away. 

The faint crease near her eyebrow when she tried not to cry. The trembling curve of her lips. The way the fading sun painted her skin in shades of gold.

The world around them blurred, the shouts of people downstairs, the rustle of trees, the honk of a scooter on the road far away. 

Everything went quiet, until there was only the wire, the music still lingering in its echo, and the unbearable closeness of what hadn’t yet been said.

Aarav’s hand moved first, hesitant but sure once it found hers. Fingers interlaced, palm to palm. Meera’s breath fastened.

He leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to pull away, but she didn’t. 

Her lashes fluttered, her eyes searched his, and for a heartbeat they just hovered there, on the edge of something irreversible.

Then, softly, their lips met.

It wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t hurried. It was the kind of kiss that carried weight, the kind that spoke in place of words. 

A kiss that said: I’ve been waiting, I’m terrified, I don’t want this to end.

The wire stretched between them, pressed against their arms, almost as if it, too, wanted to witness the moment it had quietly been building toward all along.

When they finally pulled apart, Meera laughed through her tears, a sound both broken and whole. Aarav rested his forehead against hers, breathing her in.

“I’ll never go wireless,” he whispered.

And for the first time in days, she believed in forever.

Years later, Meera’s life had changed. A new city. A job with deadlines instead of lectures. But one thing hadn’t changed ~ her wired earphones.

Colleagues teased her. Friends rolled their eyes. 

“Upgrade already! You look ancient with those.”

Meera would only smile and reply, “Wires keep people close.”

And when Aarav visited, they’d walk through the crowded streets, sharing one earbud each. The wire swung between them, ordinary to the world, sacred to them.

Every time someone passed with wireless buds snug in their ears, Meera would squeeze his hand and whisper, “They’ll never know.”

Because they wouldn’t.
They’d never know what it meant to be tied to someone by something as fragile, as stubborn, and as real as a wire.

Sharing wired earphones is a lost art.

Epilogue 💜

Irony: This blog is not about wired earphones !!

Because in the end, it was never only about love or music.

Wires have always symbolized something bigger; the patience to untangle what’s messy, the effort it takes to stay close, the quiet reminder that connection requires presence. 

Whether it’s with a friend, a sibling, or someone we’ve loved deeply, the bonds that matter most are rarely effortless. They demand time, they demand closeness, and sometimes, they even demand us to sit still and listen. 

Maybe that’s why wired earphones feel so different, they don’t just play songs, they stitch people together. And in a world rushing toward convenience, perhaps the truest connections will always be the ones that keep us a little tangled.