The sun made crystal shadows on 16th December. Then 6-year-old Kai pulled Natasha out of her house, rubbed his tears on her sweater, and played hopscotch. When the game ended a raven followed them. It was blue, possibly for some kid trying to recolour the sky. That day was, in turn, happy; one that he’ll remember when their friendship was long lost.

The unpainted building on the 4th block of Mistfall stood indifferent. Rather small for a high school but compensated by squeezing each room into a claustrophobic nightmare and making the corridors a one-person way.

Tic… Kai was disturbed when he tried sleeping with his ear on the watch. The clock hands struck 11:59. In other's dance in mayhem, a boy with blue eyes stood two hands distant from him. A painting of a boy he was; talking like in moving pictures with girls who didn’t tie their long hair. He effortlessly took an eye-wander to hit the perfect 20% of it and saw Kai lying at one with the bench and books. A blink synced which got the boy a stutter. He looked away. Still on his desk, Kai burying his head between his arms, unrolled his sleeves after leaving a carefully placed bite mark on the pale skin. His glasses cricked but didn’t break; the lenses were covered in sweat grease.

Kai imagined standing on the 14th floor with two very real strings attached to his chest and back. One went all the way down and the other kept him standing at the edge. It reminded him of a drunk man. Particularly the one he saw two days ago trying to balance himself on an uplifted footpath. Then, his meds drowned the view. Made his eyes less sharp.

Their class was in a corner room where a window showcased the nearby concrete. Blue ravens sat on them. Waited on them. They had been coming for years, but in the last few months, their numbers had multiplied — from two at the orientation of the new batch to twenty-six that day.

The congregation returned with a teacher. Two boys sat with Kai — one with a beard and the other excelling at math.

For the little that it mattered in front of integral formulas and identities, his thoughts jumped old synopses. A date, then a diary entry for a monologue.

“Saturday, 9th April 2022

“It was 10:30, and school ended at noon, 10th standard — the seniors — gathered in the field for house assignments. The house leaders, already selected by the teachers, called us from right to left. I was in the middle right. The leaders discussed them until my turn came and I got skipped. The same happened to a long-haired girl — I admired her – but we stood ten feet apart. By the end, she got to the red house and worked on papers rather than actual sports.

“Same year.

“At my private tuition, a long-haired girl with a radiant smile always greeted me. She was kind, never judging — or so I thought. Two benches sat in front of one another separated by two desks, fixed together with nails. Though I was always slightly late, the teacher was later. She spoke "Kai" with a tone-perfect charm, catching other’s attention. Despite the other empty bench, she put her bag on her lap to make space. I sat there, and she spoke of yesterday. Then the teacher came; he gave us books to copy the notes from. A copy of the book was always less for the over-admission of students so she and I shared one. She complained about my writing being too fast while it was her talking that slowed her down.”

A sound came from the front right. “Fourth bench corner,” the teacher called twice. Kai heard on the second. He stood up and spoke nothing. The teacher trailed off to the education system’s failure to adapt and the government’s lack of job offerings. And became more inclusive of the whole class. Kai remained lost guessing the trajectories of floaters. Others were different. Thoughts destroy the differences between them.

Indifference, a word he first saw in Camus' novel, was his mockingbird's deliberate choice. Gatherings on his mind were held each night. A couple of resolutions were taken for improvement and always ended with an hour of mockery. It was a mass-accepted plan for betterment with just one vote of disagreement. That vote came from a black raven. Kai got no say, which was again agreed upon by the majority.

The good ones and the bad ones both dissolved into the ever-growing shadow. They sank deeper into hmms and hymns. Made fiddles out of them and then got a thousand to form a mess of uncoordinated untrained musicians. They got louder and louder and louder until…

“Am I speaking for nothin’?” The teacher yelled appearing at the bench corner. “N—n—no—no, sir,” Kai replied. Then the teacher spoke on a comedy night. A few short blinks were enough for Kai that day.

On his way home, Kai’s only, and imaginary, friend Anshika was a little upset. She didn’t speak, so he asked her why. He asked her a few times but received no reply. He was lonely when they stopped. Street people disappeared bottom up — half’s heads floating — their blood dripping on the roads — then red turned pink — and the sharp sun vaporized it — spotless enough to question his sanity.

Contrary to what might be expected, a breeze blew. Between blood and sweat a alive, very alive smile was carved on his face by shaky hands. Anshika was speaking again.

Trees swayed away from his house. The inner climate would never be touched or seen from the outside. The house was painted a pure white; not even a single dirt mark could be found. Windows were disguised holes that showed a few selected events—most of them weren’t memories but were fabricated. 

Time shattered in that house. Four-year-old Kai, six-year-old Kai, fifteen-year-old Kai, seventeen-year-old Kai all lived together. Their house poked holes in time — Kai was never seven or eleven. Scenes from The Shining were clear for the four-year-old. The fifteen-year-old was watching it for the first time with the seventeen-year-old. The six-year-old was pulling threads off Natasha’s sweater, maybe then the tears would dry faster.

Who was it? Who was the man behind the shadows? They dissolved long ago in furniture marks. And then there were the nights when it became indistinguishable from ambient dark.

The cracks in the false ceiling allowed little birds to enter at night. They sat where Kai slept. Birds weren’t humans; humans were too innocent to be birds. He needed an exit bag and nitrogen. Kai rolled around in the bed conveniently lying on the ground to save him from falling. In the room where the door couldn’t be locked from the inside.

The Next Day – sweltering sunny weather; occasional shadows over the soil.

Long sleeves were necessary. A bird left a note in Kai’s ears, isn’t the morning cold? Exactly two people – an old man and a middle-aged woman – were on the street. The man – a labourer – wore a vest with old formal trousers, a long white beard, and overgrown eyebrows. The woman – probably an office worker – wore formal. Enough to make her look like a person of authority.

Their light blue eyes were huge – exceptionally huge. One might say inhumane or uncanny. They walked their way but the ways warped to put Kai on them. Sun couldn’t fill all the new space so it made bright and dark patches through which they walked with deformed bodies. Their eyes swelled to explode and splash pus and blood on Kai. He ran. He ran into the concrete maze to make it to the classroom.

The sky was newly embedded in blue feathers. Every damn person stopped to admire the relief from the sun. The birds went through buildings and gathered in the 4th block — around the indifferent building. They sat on the concrete to have a peek inside the classroom.

Kai was nowhere, just the broken world discussions. His bite marks bled, and the blue-eyed boy was absent. They say bluebirds can turn pink but never old ravens. They might say, “Let ’em fly.”

The End

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better luck next year! was a wish;

not even December, a passerby remarked stepping into strangers’ conversation.

it’s empty and no hope till spring, one was kind to explain.

three people on the dim orange road, one departed; the stranger broke silence:

you need help

you don’t want to help

say something real

it’s not what you have

not me, new acquaintance

…

i’m nauseating; i can cry.

i’m burning, the smoke trail’s intriguing

but isn’t evident enough of burning,

imperceptible.

you cold

you shiver on your strolls

by the murky pond

here’s my fire, get warm but got another talk:

dark smoke, I’m afraid

I can chase you if you run

you can but won’t

…

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Sundays might have congregations in the backyard. Old Don and Elliot might go looking at the fences today, where Don fires up the BBQ and Elliot mixes pancakes. All this might happen as the basement ink’s dried pigment meets mucus.

Look where Don’s heading.

The walls flanking the stairway to the underground were bare, but the dust particles on rough bricks shimmered. Near the ink pot, a decomposing paper was seen.

-------------------------

14/03/1983

Dear Elliot,

I know you aren’t well without my blood. But I’m kind of running low. Mom says I’m getting skinny, but I won’t let you starve. Today, I cut Sarah’s leg and collected at least a litre.

Ellie, I didn’t kill your sister. She hanged herself.

I hope to come back before the blood curdles.

Take care,

Don K.

-------------------------

The creases on Don’s face overlapped one another, and his eyebrows melted. The excess skin on his neck weighed upon his jawline. He placed the page on an intriguingly empty shelf amidst the mess. He went back looking for a grill grate.

Don gazed around. Every bit of intention for coming there faded. Burning memories don’t survive time though something that appeared indifferent from a wood plank did. Dust introduced by the unanticipated movements made a light trail to it, bright enough to grab Don’s attention.

Only the first page read, “Settling at Manim shall change everything.”

Don grabbed the ink pot from the front and found a corner where he could sit. He lowered himself down halfway and fell the other half. A splinter lay along the dust tracks, which tasted salty when bitten to make a sharp edge. He spat on the ink to dissolve the pigment and wrote on the pages delicately.

Her blood-dressed pancakes weren’t popular, so she dissolved Sarah’s blood in the batter. They stopped coming after they found out. Sundays got lonely, and she stored the rest in vials.

Don was a little sick that day. Elliot took out an old vial and invited Henry, Sarah’s son, the next Sunday. They were to remember his teenage mother, but sadly, Don didn’t live for it. Two pancakes were made that day—one for Elliot, the other for Henry.

Moon splatters red between clouds, mesmerizing but maybe, maybe not enough to be a corpse in a coffee shop’s corner, holding a cold cup and staring at the window. Sunlight’s bleak and you’re numb in a fever night, but the prerequisite of sleep needs your lacking conscience. Now, they think you’re dead; who knows, looking so intensely might make blood crawl out your eyes. A person on a stroll thinks you’re posing for a picture—moonlight’s on you and the shop’s made teal. Life waits for you. You shall go home, but the alley to your driveway must be dark. Get up! You’ve been here too long. You fear an awakening will shock your body into a coma. Meds are too costly anyway. Then soon enough the employees catch the contagious fear—one of whom proposed to stay there all night. ‘Maybe he’s dead,’ one whispers and the others pretend to think. The moonlight's so red, only a sage could think there. Their eyes too see the window and the moon. After all, time might skip a beat to the morning. They’re stuck in the same moonlight trance—they’re as you as you are the window.

What’s the difference between fiction and story? A story, true or not, is meant to be told. Fiction, though it might have originated from stories, might not be said. Such is a piece like this. Such is a notebook like this where I’ve written FICTION in large capitals on the front page.

But does it truly lack an audience? Such that the bleakness of human beauty won’t alter it. With no greater purpose, it shall be beautiful. It’d have objective oneness and a strange pureness. But no. It’s meant for the man’s monstrous silhouette that has big hands and grey caustics for eyes. His eyes are mine and his brain’s a segment of my own. And his stare—so close that the two pairs of eyes become one—wilts me. When I close my eyelids, my eyes are all his. Then he looks at me—a man with empty eye sockets and a deformed head—sitting with folded arms and legs through a cherry-red tinted mist that unfurled as far as he could see. There was no sun, but the mist—more like fog—had its own light. Uh, I recall the cherry-red glow that made my sweat look like burgundy blood. I was scared, like a stray cat really. So well, he is the audience I’m writing for. He is the one who destroys this obscure beauty. I write for him as I lay down the words.

Reader, you don’t have to guess, I’m lonely. Between walls and windows, I’m trapped in my room that’s squeezed between a hallway and my parent’s bedroom. I keep the doors closed—though they can’t be locked as my room doubles as a passage—but I’ve pulled the curtains before my desk. I look at the cypress’ branches, barely visible through my room light, when I get enough privacy to grind morphine tablets. (You thought I was writing this in daylight, didn’t you?) The dust on my table is morphine. I even tried opium and alcohol, but opium’s too costly and alcohol is hard to hide. Nevertheless, you, reader, love morphine and I love how you give my eyes back. I could, if only for an hour, see dreams. Dreams don’t come during sleep—matter of fact, I don’t recall ever seeing one but have read about them—but more like pictures in active imagination. No, not active imagination either, I don’t choose them, hence I call them dreams. The images, except once which I shall come back to, are of creatures who were once humans. Withered women. And their cries, gosh-awful their cries, that are agonising even to a war-field dog. A mother and a daughter crying at each other’s faces for so long that the black of their iris was corroded by the salt in their tears and were flowing down their cheeks. The black liquid was acidic to mangle their skin and melt their pink lips. The drops fall on their white shirts. They made glass paintings of a cathedral without the faces.

The one instance I promised to come back was fairly recent. One month, seven days ago. Late September when the creatures weren’t descended humans, but a man so obscure that even the most omnipresent voices of my conscience had not seen him. I do not know why he looked to be holding a secret—a secret of a future—underneath his skin and veins. I owned his obscurity and he owned my hope. He wore loose formals—the looseness of which was hiding his starvation. His face was of a skeleton blessed with skin, that made his eyes appear bludged. He had no teeth. And he had no voice. Like a snake on slippery ice, he tried running towards me. His run, or rather walk, was of purpose. He wasn’t lost crystallising hopeless romantics and hoping to lose his faith fast, so the idealised beings turn into demons, make the shadowy inner creatures larger, and give death a purpose to accept a being it had rejected prior. Being lonely to be dismissed by death, that’s what I am, reader. I stood there and slowly a cherry-red tinted mist unfurled and made his picture fainter until the mist was white and I was looking through the window at fog-hidden cypress branches. The earliest morning fog had somehow left a burgundy impression on my eyes.

One month and seven days as I said, and I have increased my morphine dose in hopes of seeing him again. How can I forget him? How could I forget him? A person lost of a future is deemed to chase the faintest light. Even the light of starvation is better than no change. Better than not writing a word for a month. Holding my eyes off my parents who keep moving to shout at the water supplier and then going back to searching analogue cable TV signals. I don’t utter a word, I used to be sober during the day, but on the thirteenth day of his disappearance, my night high was dragged till the burgundy fog. The light entered my room as a pinpoint ray in a smoky oven. I wasn’t there: not on my bed or the floor. But a distant observer looking at a man’s outline in smoke. Its movements were deliberate and controlled. It was gesturing to my room’s dust-laden air in a choir harmony. No particle had a choice but to follow commands. I don’t know how long it went—an hour or a few days—but I was at the end of it on my chair. The fog outside was white as it should be. Even a few of the cypress branches were rattling. But my table was covered in what seemed like morphine dust. And I heard rustles in the other room. They were up… I licked it, I sniffed it. I cleaned it with my lips and lungs. The table shone as if a fresh coat of varnish was applied. It looked like coffee candy. I swear, I smelled caramel. I wanted to bite it, or if not that, at least lick it. So, I got closer. And kept getting closer. The air was again viscous and the Pacific between Russia and Alaska was tormented between us—me and the sugar top. I felt reaching it, then it was the darkest, voidest dream I had.

Days must have passed as strong green leaves had started yellowing. My head on the table—felt itchy and a strange smell tickled my nose, one you could find in a slaughterhouse. I could only open one eye, the other eyelid was shut to my cheeks and pulling it hurt. Faced sideways I could see the foot marks on the white wall up my bed. I observed—researched—the smell. It all had the burgundy film up top. Was that an imaginary artefact?

Sometime later, mother was holding my shoulders shaking them gently and calling my name. I lifted my body with great force that had the momentum of an easygoing lever. The right of my face was sizzling. The table was covered in a shiny, candy-like, coat of blood. My right eye was forced open when I realized I must be blind on the eye as there wasn’t any light but a sensation of liquid in it. I touched my face. It was like touching foot marks on dry concrete. My gaze at the table was the refraction of my mother’s who looked through me. Then that woman cried on the floor. The table shone perfect.

I failed at everything she, and he, and they had deemed me to be, reader. Or deem ‘it’ to be—that’s how I should be called from now on. I long for humans. And they know, and you know, they never come. You know so well. Now, with my face, everyone remaining would know too. Except for the man whose starvation materialised mother’s only child’s failure. And for a fact, today after writing this I’ll go for a stroll uninfluenced to finally meet him below yellow stars to chatter about something—something losing which makes one—no, me—my self no one, or reader, selfless.

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