Deepak has dreamed about water all of his life; been fascinated by it in his everyday life but almost always roughly scared too. He can run his hands through water in the kitchen, bathroom and even in small ponds and never will he feel fear but when his has the dreams, the ones of falling water; now that is a very different thing.
The dreams had started as a trickle from a tap; small, rhythmic, unoffensive. Then it progressed to water falling from the ceilings; flooded rooms. Over flowing basins, torrential rain, waterfalls and then, the world seeming to tip upside down on it axes and the Earth's water would pour from it like the world had been cut from end to end and was bleeding its life out into space. That is now currently Deepak's worse nightmare; not because he's afraid of drowning or because he does actually drown in his dreams, that is precisely it... he never die's. Deepak never drowns, or has trouble breathing, in fact, the water never touches him, as if it's afraid to come closer, is physically repelled from him or Deepak is simply, out of bounds. That is what bothers him, bothers him in a primitive way that screams at him every time he wakes up. Deepak is never the one who shouts out. His mind does it for him.
"Hey Deepak. How's the College project coming along?"
Deepak looks up from his crowded, modest desk and winks at Madhu as she passes.
"Oh you know, almost done!"
Madhu chuckles and slaps Deepak on the shoulder as she passes. He has an instant to feel the urge to pinch her bum, but then thankfully, he settles with a shake of his head and continues on with his work. All too soon his mind wonders to his dream last night and he finds himself sat pensively drumming his fingers on a tower of papers on his desk.
Last night the flavor of the dream had been the second worst kind; what starts out as a beautiful, majestic waterfall set deep within the wilderness, soon turns blood red and thick, truly as if the mountainside was bleeding. Nothing ever emerges from this waterfall or the pool of water around him but it also, like always, never touches him either. He stood in this dream, amongst the water, willing it to soak his skin, into his shoes and cool his skin. For it to collect and beads in his hair, lightly sting his eyes, spatter against his face and for him to drink, what he was sure was the purest water he would ever taste. But of course, this never happened and whenever he would get angry in his dream; frustrated and sad, the water would morph into what can only be described as blood, as if the waterfall itself was bleeding. Something would always happened just before this point in his dreams, something just on the edge of his vision, something he couldn't ever really see or touch. Oh, but it was there, always there like a dark stain on beauty. This part always scared him; as if there was an impostor in his dreams, stood just within the shadows but an impostor who had more control over his own imagination than he did. This feeling lingered with Deepak for hours after he woke and poked at him whenever he had a quiet moment to himself, like today; with a quiet office and despite all of his work, that feeling was still there, scratching at his soul.
Soon after lunch Deepak simply returned to his desk with the great intention of finishing his write up of the Project. His friends had recently added Deepak, not the other way around, contrary to common belief, and had set Deepak on a great feeling to somehow write something fantastical in order to up his grades. But as Deepak already knew, only the great Lord himself would be able to achieve such a difficult thing. Deepak would try anyway; it's his job but when he actually sat looking at the work in front of him, it was moments like this where he really did wonder what on Earth possessed him to accept the assignment in the first place; after all, he had had a choice... hadn't he? In moments like this he wondered if he was on a slippery slope, plunging into career self-destruct mode or whether, simply, he was losing his touch, which was a concept nearly as mysterious as his wonderfully frightening dreams.
