Arvika: The Collected Cosmos

A shooting star

It was 8 in the morning and Akshara was not in a good mood. It had been a week since her 12th council exams and all she had done was study for the entrance exam her parents were forcing her to appear in.

She had imagined a stressfree break after more than 12 years of intense studying even for subjects she was terrible at. She was aware that she would need to start looking for colleges but she had hoped for a little break, that and at least a career of her own choice.

Both things had proved to be impossible to attain after an argument with her parents, she had tried to tell them that she wanted to pursue her passion which was Astronomy. Well, she would've settled for psychology but astronomy was her priority.

But of course her parents hadn't agreed, she had thought they would agree for Astronomy as it was not something -in their words- as dumb as the arts stream. But they had clearly stated that she was to become a doctor -neurosurgeon preferred- and that she should stop being lazy by asking for a break and prepare for the entrance exam.

They had confiscated her phone, laptop and even her smartwatch claiming " these electronics are doing nothing but wrecking your brain and causing distraction, you don't need them. " All of this had hurt her so much she couldn't even eat or sleep for 2 days.

She had always controlled her emotions well more like sidelined them because obviously you don't cry in the Jha household because crying was for weak and anger? What kind of a decent and polite girl gets angry and shouts at people? But this argument had made her silently weep for hours in her bathroom.

She had no escape, she was too much of an over achiever for her cousins and her parents made sure she didn't have friends because " they will only distract you from your studies " and " they are not good enough to be your friends, you should only form relationships with people who are better than you so that you can learn something from them. "

The only escape she had from the madhouse were her books ( which she only got because she argued they would help her gain writing and communication skills ) the gym, her guitar and Marvel. All of which she lost the moment she said she wanted something other than what her parents wanted.

Today, she decided she was going to do something she would definitely feel guilty about later, she was going to ask her mother to return her phone and if she refused Akshara would do one of the worst things she could do, she would commit a crime she was going to steal the phone. Akshara could do it, after all these years of hard work she deserved at least this. She was going to do it, she was sure she would.

She couldn't do it.

She had talked to her mother and the reply had been " first of all I paid for the phone so don't go around claiming you own it and secondly you want to mess around with a mobile phone when the exam is literally next week? All you've done ever since we gave you that goddamn phone is waste your time no wonder you didn't score enough in your Council exams " " I got 99.8% " she had timidly whispered, " and you think that's good enough? Mr. Sharma's son scored 99.98% Hell there are students who scored 100% and you're satisfied with 99.8? " her mother yelled.

She had wanted to point out how they most probably liked the subjects they appeared for while she didn't really like Biology but she didn't.

Currently she was in her room waiting for her parents to leave for work so that she could at least try and search for her mobile phone. But she was having doubts, her parents had always told her how horrible stealing was and how people who stole even as little as a rupee were some of the worst people to exist. She physically couldn't get up from her study chair.

10 minutes later her parents left and she literally forced her body to get up and do the shameful act. She entered their room which was surprisingly not locked most probably because they had been very late for work. She looked in a few drawers with trembling hands and finally found her phone.

She ran to her room and spent the next half an hour just staring at the device and trying to get herself to at least touch it. After she got enough audacity to start looking through it she was met with a wave of disappointment at seeing that she hadn't received a single text or call from anyone, then again she didn't have any friends but still it stung like a wasp that she literally had nobody who would care if she disappeared. Well technically she was well aware that she had no friends and the only people who would miss her if she died would be her parents. Maybe. But that did not stop her from grieving the friends she never had. Anyway she had to accept it because she knew she deserved to be alone. At around 10 after having a late breakfast she installed Disney+ Hotstar ( she wasn't allowed to have any form of social media, music or apps meant for entertainment because they were distracting. )

She started binge watching MCU until she heard the ring of the landline phone. It was her father, he said they wouldn't return till the next day so he asked her to make sure she ate all her meals and studied. She then proceeded to disappoint her parents more by replacing the studying part with MCU.

At night around 10 she went upstairs to the terrace, she loved stargazing. She smiled softly looking at space and started humming a soft song. It was so peaceful that it made her forget the crime she had commited earlier.

After sometime she saw a shooting star well technically it wasn't a shooting star but who cares? She closed her eyes the only thing she could wish for was waking up at a place where she could live her dreams, where she had control over her life, a place that was magical yet something she was familiar with, something like the MCU maybe?