Kaya

Chapter 4- realistic hallucinations

The half-naked bark of the tree was suddenly inches away from his face, then it was back to being almost a meter away, then back, then forth, his mind tripping on the slightly cold, dry gushes of winds.

Then, he could taste mud, a little blood too. It felt as though something had pierced him on the bridge of his nose, and boy was he right.

A nascent teenage boy residing in a very literal desert of a town, Pradhyum felt tears running down his cheeks.

His mother had called him back fifteen minutes ago, just like all the other kids' mommies had; but he was a little older, more rebellious and after all, officially a teenager. He'd turned thirteen last night, and all he wanted was to feel like it this twilight.

But the swing had something entirely different for him in store; he should have returned home when it was time after all.

This sudden gush of memory had hit our twenty-three years old protagonist almost as suddenly as the stone that had slightly misshaped and scarred his nose hit him for his new shorts had not really been helpful in keeping his ass glued to the seat; just as he sipped his third beer of the night after nursing it.

He was sitting at one of his least favourite bars, because it was the end of the month and he had way too many calculations left at his regular ones.

His eyes couldn't quite adjust to the erratic lights; he was more used to the dim ones; and his alcohol wasn't really replacing his thoughts with delusion as he'd hoped, because there were way too many alcoholics dancing to horrible music.

Sighing, he started playing with his lighter. He was out of cigarettes but it was okay, tonight he felt like his lips needed liquor instead of ashes.

He was always the kind who wanted to be surprised the next morning; and partially he drank heavily at bars to wake up at unknown places in unknown beds beside absolute strangers.

But that night he feared something larger, something that wrecked him a little inside as he incessantly drank his whiskey down: he feared waking up at known places, in known beds but still feeling unknown as hell.

He drowned himself in even more intoxication, just to eradicate that fear this time.

"Can't you cut it down, just a little?" Tanya, his first girlfriend in college, had asked him that. It was a week after the suicidal incident, he had been discharged from the hospital three days ago but he had extended his privileged days off in college. Anything to get away from that loathsome place he'd been forced into.

"I am sober right now."

"Tell me you haven't been trying to overdose on sleeping pills."

"Well."

"Pradhyum."

It wasn't really so bad then, pretty occasional actually, at least as compared to now; he thought and smirked to himself.

Tonight was definitely going to be a bad trip.

He had met her in the library, as she had been fishing out some marketing-related books; he had looked up from his Bukowski literature to make sure no one was watching as he planned to unscrew his flask; which hid in the folds of his coat's hidden pockets.

He hated fashion and preferred the same black sweater all winter in contrast to that coat his mother had insistingly packed for him; but it came handy for times like these.

She had looked up, straight in his angle, exactly when he was french kissing the flask.

She had glared at first, but as he'd fumbled with it and struggled to keep it back inside, her expression had softened.

Even though he was stoned as well as drunk at this moment and listening to grotesque music; he could still recall perfectly how she had looked at that exact moment.

Her hair was tied up in a messy little bun; wavy strands caressed the side of her face. She had hazel eyes which were as calm as a baby that had just been put to sleep; her lips were pursed in a fashion that seemed to suggest she was extremely composed. She was wearing a sky blue shirt and jeans; and she was walking towards him.

His heart had been sitting in his mouth and had slipped back down with a thud as soon as she had turned right; towards another shelf, instead of walking over to him.

It's strange how all of us loathe the human race on drunk nights and sober afternoons alike, but have no complaints when one of them end up making our pulse race.

When Pradhyum couldn't take anymore of the ear-throbbing EDM and random strangers shouting in his ear or near him about shit he didn't want to hear about; he had left the bar way before its closing time.

That's the thing about places that leave you so alienated you can't even feel like yourself in your skin and sweat; they make you want to rip the place or yourself apart.

He walked all alone, keeping his steps as steady as he could; brushing some shoulders and stepping some feet and hearing a lot of swearing all along his way.

It made him nostalgic; all the pushing around, all the blame and all the impact his bony shoulder were taking every split minute; it was almost like going through his twenty years; whatever he remembered of it; all over again.

He was nearing his and Kabir's flat in the north campus; after having crossed a few roads and having stood on the metro; more numb than drunk and more high than sober; almost as if he was in the video of "The Scientist" by Coldplay; going back to the start, no matter how hard he was trying to keep his head empty.

Instead of turning left towards his place; he had turned right to visit the temple he had trouble falling asleep because of at five thirty each morning; too many voices and fewer bells used to synchronise loosely together to sing a hymn for the almighty.

He had never been a believer, but he felt like going to a stranger's abode tonight; and what's more undetermined than a temple for an atheist?

The walk was heavy, as his mind clouded itself with cosy and dangerous blankets of past and the present; triumphantly ignoring the consequences and future as it often did. he found himself more drawn towards loneliness than ever before.

"Human civilisation disgusts me." He had typed into a chat box that night, someone he was having a random conversation with.

Online chatting had never been his thing; he hated technology for the very simple fact: it claimed to connect people; but lacked the physical touch, the honesty, the uninterrupted conversations that everyone deserves.

The little pebbles on the way were the victims of his frustration that night; he was crumbling in a pressure he had never felt before.

The night that had always comforted him, seemed to hover tonight and mock him; jeer at him for what he had become.

Dressed in a year old shirt and two-days old sweat, he was definitely not at his best; if not the worst, that was to still make its way into his life.

The gates for the temple were closed shut; but there was a little pavement just beside the entrance, moon kissed and as grey as Pradhyum himself.

He was an almost-shattered glass, that gleamed from the distance when the sun bestowed its blessings; but the fragility and weakness scared anyone who tried to approach him away, even himself.

As he stole himself away from the disastrous ideas of suicide and oblivion, he found himself seeping into what his subconscious echoed at the weaker of hours: Kaya.

The woman who possessed whatever was left of him to scoop away, the lady who could give him his life back or drive him to insanity.

The sweet lullaby of drunkenness and a moderately cold night helped him close his eyes, and made it painful for him to open them back again, no matter how real her smile became.

The images of that painstakingly naked night, that morning when he was more hungover on fists and blood than her scent, that evening he had spent sleeping on his very own doorstep....

all his ghosts came crawling back to him, making him aware of the hollow he contained in the centre of his Universe; how the star he was supposed to revolve around was nothing but a blackhole and maybe, just maybe, he was supposed to let go and become a shooting star, submitting to the entity of the truth of it all.