When Dreams Consume Reality

05. Apple of the Dead Tree

The sight of my messy bed brought out happy tears that trickled down my cheeks.

You could say that my birthday celebration turned out to be a little 'hectic'.

I did end up cutting the disgusting excuse of a cake, while standing a mile away from it and extending my hands like the present day Elasti-girl that I was. All the while I kept wishing for a hideous baboon to puke over my friends and I made sure that they clearly heard my one true wish! In return I got a makeover, white icing for foundation cream and chocolate flakes for eye-shadow.

It definitely hadn't ended there. Madhu dragged me to the cliff, a little bit far from our house. For a while I thought that maybe she was planning to give me a push as my birthday present. Okay, maybe I wasn't actually thinking that but you never know.

Anyway, it turned out that they had brought goodies and we had a full-on party there, polluting our digestive system with greasy pizza slices, loads of chips, dozens of muffins and god knows how many fizzy cold drinks.

At around 3:00 am we, or rather, I got some sense knocked back in my head and decided that it was about time we got our asses back to our respective houses before someone wakes up and goes ballistic seeing the empty beds of their son or daughter or niece.

After cleaning up (because you definitely don't wanna come back to a littered hangout) we trudged along the narrow path.

While passing the long line of trees I remembered the events that had happened a few hours back. I realised how much of a forgetful person I was, the second time that night, mind you.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they diagnosed me with short time memory loss.

After asking my friends to wait there, I went back behind the bushes only to find nothing, or maybe something.

There was an extremely tiny patch of faded red fabric sticking from one of the many thorny branches of a bush. The sides were frayed, as if it had been torn from a piece of clothing.

I briefly wondered if there really could have been someone hiding there at that time. And the fact that now that 'someone' was nowhere in sight troubled me more.

Pushing the disturbing thoughts to the back of my mind I pasted on a smile and informed my friends that I had dropped my phone there, which was a total lie, might I add.

I don't know why I did that. I had never hidden anything from my friends. We were like a family. I guess I didn't want them to be worried or worse, think that I was much more insane than they had assumed.

I hugged each of my friends before walking back to my house, all the while feeling a teensy bit guilty for lying and not sharing this not-so-big discovery.

This time I dashed up the creaky stairs not caring if I created a ruckus because I definitely didn't have the energy to pull myself up over the stupid railings and nor did I want my derrière to go through another episode of extreme torture.

Alas! One can't keep getting lucky on the same night over the same situation.

Just when I was about to slip into my room, aunt barged out of hers with a cane in her hand ready to thrash whatever thief had gotten inside.

A cane in her hand! Can you believe it?

Guess weirdness runs in the family.

I stood frozen near the door like a statue, hoping against hope that she wouldn't notice me as it was quite dark. But like always, my hopes were crushed into infinite pieces when she shone her flashlight directly on my face.