OCD.

trigger warning: mention of blood, murder and illness

The wind blew with a mild odour of the sewage that Ishaan sees from his window every morning he wakes up with half a mind to go to college. He stood at the window looking at the sound of the little waves formed from the water that came out of a huge pipe, relentlessly. 

A city that gives people hope, gets dumped with waste that would never diminish to nothing. At Least not in this eternity.

"I miss you!" he says and turns back at the mirror buttoning his shirt and looks at the nicely tucked in bedsheet with a crease that makes him feel uneasy. He takes off the bedsheet and folds it, leaving the bed bare. "Hmm, better unadorned than flawed.", he chuckles.

Walking out of his room to settle into an uneasy silence which he had gotten used to, he picks up a photo frame. Since the day he came back from college to a home that he did not leave from, he had never had a day in peace, or contentment. Or that's how he pretended to be. 

Accidents are pretty common in a city like Mumbai. It is hard to mark a mass that is not running from one point to another to build a home, survive and live. In such a fast paced environment, is it quite natural and humane for someone to trip, lose control, sabotage, kill? Well, that's debatable.

Such is the nature of accidents, you never wish to hit someone knowingly, but the human tendency to sabotage and run when the damage is done. That is a sin. 

"Sinner, such a sinner you are!", Ishaan whispers to the reflection of himself in the photo frame, as a teardrop slides down his face to fall on a smiling face of his mom, dad still looking at him with a frown. He keeps the photo frame on the table, carefully in a mark made with chalk. 

Everything in his house had a place, marked with chalk. Some circles and some rectangles to define where what has to be. He took a good look around the room and grabbed his key from a shelf. Rather a shelf labelled - books and keys. 

He walked out of his house, and took a look back at the door - "doorbell - ring only once, will open if necessary" the label at the door said. 

He walked near the sewage not taking his eyes off of it, thinking about the day he came back home to nothing - he was happy, as happy as any teen wishes to be. Or maybe more than that. Yet, a miscreant glanced at his eyes for the mistakes he made. So he corrects them, even before making them, labelling things at his house is yet another way of not making any mistakes. Or atleast, that is what he thought, until that day. 

He came back from college to see a trash bag outside his door.. He walked in to see a much cleaner apartment, with his worst fear. He looked at the shelf and the label…

"MOMM", he yelled. "Where is the label on the shelf.", he sprints to his room to see all the labels gone. He runs towards the kitchen to find his mom. "MOM, WHY WOULD YOU-"

He falls on his knees looking at his mom bleeding, on the floor and his dad holding a knife- 

"Beta… it's not what you think.. I just… I couldn't", his dad cried for help.

Ishaan could not respond. His dad walked towards him, wiping the blood off his knife on his shirt. "Ishaan, we need to talk"

Ishaan could not move, he felt numb. Yet in a shock he grabbed a pan and hit below the skull of his dad. And threw the pan away, in a nanosecond. 

"Dad, I am sorry… I did not know what… I am so sorry, but the labels, why would you touch the labels….", Ishaan cried. 

In pain, with a lot of blood his dad tried to get up and failed both the times he tried. "You are not a psychopath, like the world tells you. Why do you act like one. Why did she have to ask me to take you to a doctor. You do not have a disorder, you are my son, you are perfect as perfect as I am…", he chokes up in his words. 

Ishaan finds himself quite chaotic as he could not understand where he was getting to. He sees the pool of blood on the floor and panics. "This floor… it should be white… why..", he stops mid way and walks out. Turning back to his dad he mumbles, "Don't move", he shivers. 

He walks back with a bucket of soapy water and starts cleaning the floor. From the sides of where his mom lie unconscious. 

"She says you are a mess, a mental kid with issues. How can someone from the family that only raises leaders be a mess", his dad starts talking, with blood oozing out of his mouth. "She made me a murderer, I am not gonna let you fall for this, you are my son, you are a perfect hum-"

"Shut up", he grabs the knife and stabs his dad, continuously. "I don't wanna be your son. I do not want to be a perfect. I just wanna live, I just wanna-" He climbs up and looks at his mom. "I am not a mess." 

He grabs the bucket and starts cleaning up again. Faster every time he rubs the floor. Endlessly.  

                                  ****************
Later that night.

He scribbles in a messed up diary and looks at a perfectly labelled room. "Such is the comfort of life, why would you want to mess this up. Why would you not let me be myself.", he says and gets up to look through his window.

"Better unadorned than flawed", he says looking at the pipe that drains all the waste from the city, and his house in particular. He smiles as he sees the water turn red. 

"Atlast, it is clean", he turns off the light.

Black Out.
OCD 

A short story by Sanju Shibu