TWO BRIDGE

In a small village tucked into the green folds

of rural Nepal, two sisters cried.

The sky above them was heavy, and the ground beneath them broken — just like their hearts.

The night before, a brutal landslide had swept away everything they knew: their home, their parents, and every last thread of security. Kamala, the elder sister at only eighteen, stood still, her arms wrapped protectively around Komal, who was just a year younger.

Kamala had never set foot in a classroom. Her childhood had been spent hauling water, tending goats, and carrying burdens much heavier than her small frame should have known. But even in her grief, she knew one thing for certain: Komal would have a different life.

With nothing but a small bundle of clothes and the few rupees villagers had pressed into their palms, Kamala made a decision. They would leave the village. They would leave behind the mountains that crumbled, the memories that hurt, and the nights that howled with loss.

One misty morning, they boarded a battered bus to Kathmandu — the city of dreams.

⸻

Life in Kathmandu was nothing like they had imagined. It was harsher, colder, and less forgiving.

Kamala, uneducated and innocent, took whatever work she could find: washing dishes in teahouses, hauling bricks at construction sites, scrubbing floors. She worked from dawn till midnight, barely eating once a day, just so she could pay Komal’s college fees.

Every night, she would brush Komal’s hair and whisper, “Just study, Komal. Make a new life for us. That’s all I want.”

Komal worked hard too — studying under flickering bulbs, dreaming of the day she could study in America, build a home for her sister, give her back everything she had lost.

Kamala carried those dreams like sacred prayers. She was young, beautiful, and heartbreakingly naive. In the bustling city where ambition and desperation collided, it didn’t take long for someone to notice her.

One evening, a woman approached her with a smile too wide, promises too sweet: work that would pay ten times more than anything Kamala had ever known.

Enough to send Komal abroad, she thought. Enough to change everything.

But it wasn’t the kind of work she had imagined.

In a small, dim room, as a stranger’s hand touched her trembling body for the first time, Kamala felt something inside her shatter. She didn’t cry aloud — not for herself, not for her stolen innocence. Instead, she buried the pain deep within her, somewhere no one could reach. From that night on, she was no longer just Kamala. She became a ghost living inside her own body — a body she traded for her sister’s dreams.

⸻

The months blurred together.

Kamala earned more than she ever thought possible. Every rupee, every tear, every silent night was tucked away for Komal’s future. She never let Komal suspect. She cooked for her, bought her books, smiled through her exhaustion.

Until one evening.

Kamala sat in their tiny rented room, excitement lighting her tired face. Tonight, she would tell Komal the surprise: the money was enough. She would send Komal to the USA. Komal’s dream — their shared dream — was about to come true.

The clock ticked.

Komal was late.

A sharp ring broke the silence. The telephone. Kamala’s hands trembled as she picked it up.

“Is this Kamala?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“You need to come to the police station. It’s about your sister.”

Kamala’s world tilted. She barely remembered running to the station, pleading at the counters, searching faces for answers. When she found Komal, her heart cracked into pieces too sharp to ever heal.

Komal had been arrested. Along with other girls. For prostitution.

⸻

The walk home was a silence deeper than death.

On the bumpy ride back on a battered Nepal Yatayat bus, the two sisters sat side by side — close enough to touch, yet worlds apart.

Kamala stared out the window. Komal stared at her hands.

The air between them was thick with a thousand questions, a thousand screams that neither could voice.

How could Kamala tell Komal that she had sold her own soul to build a future for her?

How could Komal tell Kamala that she, too, had been selling pieces of herself — not for dreams of America, but to buy a home, a life, a moment of comfort for the sister who had given up everything?

Neither could speak.

Neither could look at the other.

Two souls. Two bridges.

Both walking the same path, trying to save each other.

Never realizing they were both drowning all along.

Author note

This story is a work of fiction, but it echoes the very real struggles faced by countless young women in Nepal and beyond.

Sometimes, love makes us brave. Sometimes, it makes us blind.

“Two Bridges” is dedicated to all the silent warriors who carry the weight of dreams — and to the hopes we lose, and find, along the way.