Chapter 7

Shadows

Darkness. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear this word? A pitch-black color? Absence of light? Maybe for you darkness is that, but not for everybody. Maybe not for me. Darkness is what I was suffering for the last few days, maybe months. Darkness was the pitch-black feeling that was inside my mind. Darkness was the absence of the light called hope from my life.

I stopped talking to any of my friends or family members and even Devika. For the first few days I was crying and blaming myself for the problems that were occurring inside my family but then I felt like I wasn’t feeling anymore. Devika messaged me for the first few days, asking where I have been, why wasn’t I coming to classes, why wasn’t I talking to her. I wish I could tell her, I wish she could understand.

So on the evening of Thursday, I decided that this was getting too much. Maybe I was out of my mind, but then again, was my mind working anymore? I messaged Devika; I apologized for my absence saying I was sick. She seemed worried. And I apologized some more because maybe the things I was going to do could hurt her feelings. So I stayed up late that night, talking to Devika. For some time, my worries, my darkness seemed to fade away and I felt that I was okay, everything else was okay.

But not every time the light shining is bright enough to throw away the darkness, sometimes the darkness make its way back somehow. My maternal uncle called and started saying all those things, again. He called me and my mother and also my father with names that is too gross to share, he cursed us, all for a piece of land that my family doesn’t even want but unfortunately my grandpa made the will as if we don’t take the land, it will go to charity. And my uncle wants it all. (Now you can ask me 2 questions - 1/ why didn’t I cut the call? Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t just cut the call and be all right because he was once a caring and loving uncle, he was one of my closest relatives and even he was a friend, so I couldn’t just ignore him, even though he was the main source of the darkness. The 2^nd question will be – why did I cared too much? Same reasons, to be honest I don’t want him to be like that for whatever reasons, I thought his fire would burn out someday and our relation will be all right again, maybe hopes that will eventually go into vain but still I was rooting for it). I took on all his blows, hoping he would stop but the knockout blow came when my cousin, the closest person to me took over the phone and cursed me in all her glory, she vented out everything and disconnected the call. I was there laying on my bed, at the stroke of midnight with nothing but darkness inside of me. I look over at my phone, 3 unread messages from Devika, my final hope but at that moment the darkness overpowered the light.

I was awake the whole night, got up when it was time and get dressed for school. At school, Devika asked me if everything was allright? How could she sense that everything wasn’t allright? But I preferred to not tell her anything and just smiled a bit. She wanted to continue the topic but fortunately the teacher entered and I breathed a sigh of relief.

How can I lie to her? She will see through my lies. What if she asks me again?

She didn’t asked about it anymore but I could sense she knew something was wrong, she kept on staring me from time to time and whenever I caught her, she just smiled. Her smile that could brighten up anything but I was afraid that my darkness was more powerful.

 After school, the unexpected happened which I was fearing the most. Devika wanted to accompany me on my way home. I thought of refusing her giving her some excuses but my heart didn’t wanted to miss the opportunity of walking home with her, for the first time and who knows maybe for the last too?

Present 6

Decoy World.

I look at the torn diary pages. I hardly write in my diary and I only write if things became too happy to not share and write my heart out or if things become too gloomy so that I write my sadness to bleed on the paper. This time its for the latter one.

I failed to crack the entrance exam and my parents, like most parents came in terms to punish me. They  took my most loved things away which includes my novels, grounded me and also hit me with the most destructive weapon in their arsenal- the silent treatment. I never faced all those things in my entire life. If freedom was a thing, then I thought my mom and dad has bought all of it and gifted it to me but now I have broken their dreams and everybit of feelings seems to be getting faded away.

I lit up another cigarette. I want to GO TO HELL. I want to visit hell and look terrified all the while satan looking into my eyes and feasting upon my soul. I want to visit the atrocious chambers of hell. I have never harmed anything or anyone except myself but why does it sting so much to look into their eyes again? And I want to go to hell for that. I have hurt myself and I don’t want salvation. I have hurt their hearts and I don’t seek redemption, not anymore.

I chose apathy and I have made my heart suffer and this whole concept of self-love is a book I have never opened. It is still sitting in my desk but I failed to read. I shout self empathy but I am a hypocrite. It took me breaking my heart and soul to realize that I am a lot softer and empathetic to other people and other people’s problems and brutally  apathetic to what I suffer, to my burning heart.

I have shattered myself in ways that I didn’t knew existed. I have broken my heart in every unknown corners I visited and I want to come back home. In this moment I want her more than anything. I know she is my home and I want to return in my comfy space. I have always bribed a part of my heart for every journey I started and now my heart and soul are in a debacle. My redemption would be my suffering and deep down I need her to come visit me like an angel and throw this weight off of my heart. My parents are my most beloved ones and when they turn against me I realized she is my savior. She can save me, she will save me.

I look one look at the page again. I know this words have faded away from my heart cause I need her. I read it again.

“I will move on and I will accept the pain of missing you. I will wake up every single day full sound and aware of what I am missing but I will accept the fact that this is my life now and this is how things are going to be and you aren’t coming back. I will speak your name, my heart will speak of our memories but you won’t be here to listen to it. But life will go on, I will hear our favourite songs and smile, I will sleep alone on the sheets where we slept together and I will always cherish how you smelt. I will look back at us and my hands won’t tremble. I will accept the fact that we won’t share a future together and you will live the life we dreamt of, the life you are proud of, become the person you dreamt of becoming and you live and love wholly and with every inch of your half broken heart and all that will happen without you by my side. I will accept the thing that every beautiful thing has an end and there is nothing I can say or do to fix that. Sometimes leaving is an act of love too. That sometimes you have to walk away from something soft and hauntingly real and that sometimes hearts don’t align. But we were incredible and I realized how incredible it was that for a moment in time, in a world of billions, two strangers were in the right place, at the right time, and something as deadly and sweet as LOVE transpired between them. At one point of time we were the lucky ones. At one point of time, we beat the odds”

This page, this whole thing has no meaning left. I can never finish loving her and I needed her back. I lit up the page with the embers of the cigarette butt. I was watching it burn halfway through, when my phone vibrated. It was a call, from her. I knew she would call. This was our time, the night when nothing else prevails except my love for her and her love for me, the time where we sang and danced and did all those things we wanted to do, being so far way from each other but our souls, our souls were together everytime.

I picked it up. We talked; though to be honest I talked and she picked up my worlds like some pearls and beaded into a magical string. I bled my words over the phone, I cried, I howled and I smiled and laughed too.

Hope, hope is a really dangerous thing. It has the power to kill and also the power to save. She was my hope, she could kill me and also she is the only one that can save me. As one of my favorite writers, a.k.a Dracula has written , “If hope were a human, she would be an old woman with gray hair and peachy skin, with eternal silver smile upon her face”. It is only upto that person to smile the silver smile either of warmth and savior nature or a deadly grin.

I took out my diary, put her phone on speaker, she was singing one of my favorite song. I wrote –

Maybe we can never be complete, maybe we will always be a little messed up. Maybe we can never be beautiful as the drawings of Picasso but we will be there, we will prevail, we will be beautiful like the centre of the hurricane. As Dracula once said, “Tomorrow has to live in the shadow of Yesterday”. We will prevail. We have to.

Chapter 6

Black holes.

Black holes. What does it feel like to be inside a black hole? According to science the force of a black hole that it exerts on matter is so powerful that it condenses any object in the vortex to a single point in the universe called singularity. Too much of science I guess. In simple terms the pressure on you becomes too much that you eventually DIE.

Now what if there is a black hole existing in your brain and it is sucking the emotions and feelings out of you and you be dead inside. All the science kids will laugh, “Oh! Such a stupid thing”. But come on let’s face it most of us has been through a phase of life (or maybe more than once) where everything inside you seems dead and you just barely survive, not live, you just try and try to survive and let that phase end cause you are too tired emotionally and mentally to fight anymore. People may term it as depression too. And it’s the worst of feeling. This black hole and suck every bit of emotions in you and make you dead.

Oh and let me tell you I have been through that phase.

The following day after talking to Devika, everything seemed good in my life. The girl who has blown me off of my feet and threw me into the land of happiness was talking to me, we exchanged smiles in the classroom and my God you won’t believe we talked in person too; not the blank throwing of comments in thin air but actual face to face talking. Rhea guessed that I was into her so she helped me talk to her too.

But I guess Happiness has a shelf life too. Reaching home I found my mom crying and the reason was the family problems we were facing from a distant uncle of ours. Mostly because of family lands and blaming of things. I was called names, even there were many rumors spreading around of my family and mostly of me. And now other people were calling me and mom to disgrace us. I handle the calls but mom gets emotional over them which makes me sad in return. By evening some people even called me to let me know that I destroyed my cousin’s life. Her name was Shurovi and she was the one true person in the entire world that I could share anything and everything, and by everything I literally meant everything. We were very close but that whole family drama affected our bond too and now that bastard of an uncle is spreading amongst our extended family that I used to force her to date someone and have alcohol and what not. I don’t think it will be too late to say that I molested or did bad things upon her.

She was really close to me and she was silent through all this. When my mom went to some other aunty’s place I broke down alone in the room. I cried my heart out, I howled, I even called shurovi and texted her but she didn’t replied. I was devastated and you might be thinking its not a big issue but guess what I suffer from AAD. So even small things becomes a big issue for me. the tears did stopped but that mental balckhole started in place of that. I was becoming anxious; I suffered from breathing, and the slow sucking into a dip churning vortex started. I did talked to Devika a liitle and some other friends but I wasn’t feeling good. I was going into that blackhole, I was slowly reaching my boundaries. Those voices etched themselves into my heart and it started burning. Slowly I was on my boundary line. I knew what to do, let go and fall into that deep black hole to the point of no return; till I am nothing but fragments.

“I like talking to you” Devika messaged.

I picked it up. A lone tear grew in my eye and made its way through my cheek and into my jaw where it finally fell on the mobile screen. I saw hope in that message; a hope that she could save me, pull me out of this vortex.

“I love talking to you” I replied.

Present 5

Pain? Numb?

I look at the items scattered in the table. A pack of cigarettes, thanks to one of my friends, a nail cutter, a knife and a slightly designed knife and my phone. Her chat was open. “I don’t want you” “As soon as you get it into your head it will be better for you”.

I closed my eyes. A sudden feeling got into me like someone is tying my gut and twisting it. I am familiar with this feeling- its like my mental cue that the good me is shutting down and the more terrifying me is waking up. Its like an alarm bell of my mind to beware. I clearly know what follows now.

“I don’t want you”

“You killed my love for you”

“As soon as you get it in your head it will be better”

I know the inevitable is coming but I partially want it to come too. I want to know the pain, not the emotional mental slow churning and twisting of my mind and all my body parts but the physically one to compensate it.

She isn’t mine anymore.

Maybe she moved on.

Just a misunderstanding it is.

I took the knife. I chose this very one because it isn’t sharp and won’t give a clean cut, instead it is a blunt one so that I can feel what I am doing. I pushed the blade and slashed across my forearm. I felt nothing. A scarlet liquid made its way from the inside and drip into the table crossing the breadth of my arm.

WHY?

Why now?

We survived everything.

I continued slashing until I can see no flesh but a red hue of blood all across my arm. I cried out loud- DEVIKA. The cuts couldn’t compensate of what I feel inside. I took out a cigarette from the pack, the blood staining its tip. I lit it and took a long drag. I coughed and took another drag. My head felt dizzy.

I pushed the cigarette butt into my chest, the ember making its way into my flesh. I felt nothing. I wish I could just make my way into her mind and rewire that it is all just a misunderstanding, that I am not as faulty as it seems, not as faulty to leave me to suffer like this.

I don’t remember much of that except the fact that when I woke up there was blood everywhere in my room. My chest region was looking horrible, my arms were bloody and the cigarette pack was empty.

I changed my sheets and tried to be okay.

 I tried to distract myself from the mess; I tried to read novels but as soon as I finished reading a line and moved to the second the words were disappearing from the first, I tried playing video games but it was not very helpful cause soon enough I was in a puddle of tears. The cutting and burning continued whenever I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t eat and unfortunately enough my parents realized something was wrong and I was not okay. They asked me about it and I have to look them in the eyes and lie because no matter how much it hurted me but I can’t let them know what I have done with myself.

And all in these between she blocked and unblocked myself from social medias and I continued to beg here to take me back. (You must be thinking that what an immature and selfish person I am but let me tell you I love her man with all my heart and soul and I will fucking kill myself but I won’t give up) and she refused me with words that could kill anybody; but I survived. She pushed me, I fell down but I gathered up my courage and I was on my feet and trying to make my way into her heart again.

The following day was worse, I woke up and I was crying like a baby, which seemed more like a psychopath. I continued to beg her and she refused and I cut myself and I cried and the cycle kept on going.  I deleted all other social medias and just kept my Instagram. By late afternoon, I had too much to take. The tears refused to come out, my body refused to take anymore and so I refused to live anymore.  I told her, she replied that she is scared of me and blocked me and that set me back to the normal sunny.

She is scared of me. Out of all the feelings she has for me, I can’t let her be scared of me.

I was knocked to my senses. I installed my whatsapp as soon as the internet connection favored. I was unblocked and messaged her  “Sorry, I was out of my mind. I will live for you” . The screen showed which then turned to typing…

“I missed you” her message came.

I was again in a puddle of tears; just this time it wasn’t killing me from inside, this time hope prevailed and this time we are perfect.

Chapter 5

I stare at the blank walls. Another day, another shit day to survive. I breathed in the cold morning air. I took up the mobile and unlocked it and a clutter of notifications was there to greet me. Mostly good morning texts from family whatsapp groups and some facebook notifications too. I logged onto my facebook and went to the notification section, then the messages section and finally the friend request section cause I saw a lonely friend request waiting. The screen showed a profile of a girl.
Devika
Devika
I held my breath cause this moment was too good to believe. An army of questions began ricocheting in all the spaces of my head. My heart beat wasn't going the way its supposed to be.
Is it her?
If it is her, why did she sent me a friend request?
What do I do now?
I got myself together and tried to breathe. I couldn't. I clicked on the profile. Devika  Sharma. Yes, it is her. I clicked on the profile picture.
And there she was; wearing a traditional lime yellow salwar-kameez, sitting on a chair with the light illuminating brightly the left half of her face and partially the right one; she tilted her head to the right just a little bit and pushed her neck a little bit back; her lips curved just perfectly little to the right side, she had some freckles ( just like she did now in real). And just like that the cold air of the morning was blown away by a rush of warm fuzzy feeling. I smiled automatically. The air around me turned electrifying, like sparks was flying all around.
I gathered up all my energy and accepted the request. I breathed finally.
What now?
What should I do now?
I opened her chat and send her a message "Hi, Good morning"
I waited for some time, maybe an hour but she didn't responded. I wanted to wait for the entire day but I had classes so I finally got ready and went to school.


I saw her first, sitting with Rhea, as soon as I entered the class. She looked just beautiful. I gathered up all my courage and walked right to where they were sitting.
"Who is Devika among you guys?" I threw the question into thin air
Her eyes showed fear and she was taken aback. Shit! I scared her.
"I am. Why?" she said composing herself.
"You sent me a friend request, I accepted and sent you a message. Why  haven't you replied?"
"I didn't came online today" She was still a bit intimidated.
"Okay no problem" I smiled at her
She smiled back. Okay! Now lets die in peace

The rest of the class went away just like the other days- mostly staring at her and stealing eye contacts. She smiled two more times and I died a bit two times more but this death was sweet and fuzzy and sunshine, one which could be died a million times and you will still feel alive and breathing and happy and everything good.

I went home and after taking my meals I found my phone blinking. Maybe it was her. I unlocked and  found my prediction to be true. She replied. "Hello, Good afternoon"
"So finally you got time"
"Sorry, it took some time. But as they say, Good things demand patience"
"True that"

By the evening, we talked so much that we were almost bestfriends. I knew her address, her friend's name, her favorite singer to her favorite nail color, who she likes, who she likes a little, who she hates, who she hates a bit more, what she does when she is happy or sad, her playlist. The Devika Express was unstoppable.
"I guess good things sometimes comes fast too" I messaged.
"How so?" she asked
"Look at us girl, we already know so much of each other"
"Don't make me blush"
I smiled. Maybe she smiled too there.
"You there?" she messaged
I focussed on her, again. Maybe this is what falling in love feels like. No matter how shitty your life is and how much pain you know you are going to endure you still feel alive and breathing. I was alive, I was breathing.

Present 4

THE GREAT BLANK

I stare at the ceiling. I don't know for how have I been watching the ceiling. The Grant Blank it is where you feel nothing and everything simultaneously and you just keep hoping that it doesn't consume you in its dark deep void of emptiness.
She is suffering
She is suffering so much
How to end this.
There were so moments in life that I wanted to build a time machine and go back in time and change it (for example when my uncle died, when my closest persons left, when she left earlier) but this time it was like I was cribbing for it.
I sit up on the bed, drank some more water. I closed my eyes and the relapses from the nightmare come back.

She was dressed in a red dress. She kissed me. Her lips melted in mine. Suddenly she grabbed my throat and started choking me. My breath began to lessen up. She said " You said nah you can do anything for me? I want this. I want you to suffer like this baby." She kissed my cheeks and tightened her grip around my throat. I started to feel my life going out of me. As my life was finally getting away, I could hear her whisper "I love you". And then black.

I wake up in a cold sweat and then I try to understand the dream. My guilt crawling into my bed and getting into that naive vessel- my brain. I can see how much she is suffering , what I did to her. I destroyed and this guilt are never going to let me live. Maybe her heart will be mended, maybe I will  mend it for her. But what about me?

Yeah probably you might be thinking- oh what a selfish. Think. U haven't even started hating me.

Her priorities have changed and everything I say I have to be extra careful because one thing will lead to another and she will start bashing me. Kicking my guts with her cold and without mercy words. Thrashing my face with her behavior. But I will endure, I have to endure. I tasted love, forbidden love and now its time to taste blood, the real thing.

Love without pain ain't love at all. maybe the saying is true after all.

Coming back to my blank. This blankness is a spiral ladder down to depression. I start to cry and express my feelings , shouting them into thin air and my guilt echoes the same back to me and I get the reason for her coldness, for her behavior. Its me after all. So I start mourning, praying to God to let her be happy, let her back to me. I try to close my eyes. Relapse and its the same thing down again.

I love you re
You don't even deserve me.
Thats the transition of her mood from time to time. From giving up everything to forging the wall back up around her heart is what she is suffering. She is trying but I she is not been able to cope up with me. She loves me, she hates me. Like The Great Blank. You feel everything and nothing at all. Its The Great Blank afterall.

Chapter 4

What's in a name?

Some more days passed by and there was no way I could gather her name. There were many reasons behind it. Most of which included my fear of embarrassing myself.
What if she gets angry?
What if she slaps me hard across my face?
What if she started to like me but I creeped her out?
Questions began to haunt me but the heart wanted her name. But at the same time I didn't stopped my somewhat bad boy nature around her. I began to pass comments into thin air which was actually directed to her. Sometimes she ignores, sometimes she stares directly at my eyes with a emotion I couldn't recognize.
Her eyes meets mine, sometimes. And my world starts spinning, my ears starts burning and I just lose focus around everything. Like the multimillion mexapixel camera of my eyes focus on her eyes and everything else gets blurred.
One time she even replied back in thin air and I swear to God I was caught off guard and couldn't came up with a witty reply

High School was okay, thanks to her presence. But home wasn't. I will save you the details of my reasons of my depression which includes family quarells, school friends problems, deaths of some of my loved ones and isolation from my other loved ones. But no empathizing. But it was really getting into my head despite her presence in my heart. But WHAT THE FUCK WAS HER NAME?. And so I did something that night that I haven't done in a a very long time. I prayed to God for her. Atleast to know her a little more.

Love makes you do those things that you couldn't even imagined in your wildest dreams.

Maybe God finally decided to help me a little. A lot maybe. Because the next day at school I saw her sitting with a friend from my previous school. Her name was Rhea. She was also kindof my bestfriend. I prayed a silent prayer in my mind when I saw them together because I could easily find out more about her from Rhea. I passed a comment that day too and she passed one in return. I blushed again that day.

Classes might be boring for others but I enjoyed them. Partially because I made some cool guy friends and mostly because I could stare at her for a long time which made me feel special.(I don't know why?). After classes, I went to Rhea's place just to gather information about her.
After some casual chats with her I came straight to the point. I asked about her name.
"Devika" she replied.

Devika.DEVIKA. The name started to echo in the walls of my ears and went inside bouncing back annd forth from the walls of my veins, mixing into my blood and hitting directly at my heart which in turn pumped out gushes of happiness into my whole body.
Devika is hereby my favorite name in the world.
I finally know her name.
Devika

I went away home. Danced on top of the bed (which I only do when I am the happiest) and life went on as always but I was really happy. Devika. Devika. Devika. I just kept repeating the name on my head over and over again just so that I don't forget which I was sure I could never forget. I slept early that day dozing off to sleep by repeating her name only.

My phone blinked as a notification invaded it. Unknowingly as I was asleep that the notification is going to shake my world and take it into a roller coaster ride into a spiral track that had no end.