[Highest Rank - 34]
An insomniac writer, looking for a new story, crosses paths with a mysterious girl who engages him in an infamous serial murder case, and brings him to a point where he begins to question his own Sanity.
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24 Dhiwan Road Chapter 1
A Girl in the Cafe
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I was just 23 then, bemused by the sandstorms of the life, unaware of the cryptic secrets hiding beneath the human skins, manipulated by the masquerading shadows of the society. Just twenty-three.
It was in November when I first saw her, I don't remember the date though, but it was an unusual day. There was something in the air which I didn't like, something that had hints of bad omens. I am not a superstitious person but that day I could feel the touch of ghosts, hear the whispers of souls, smell the fetor of invisible corpses hanging in midair all around me. My heart was drowning in grief my fate laid out.
Sometimes it's just our skins that grow old but not us, the real us, or the real me, as when I stare at my own skin, my hands or my fingertips or the corners of my face in a mirror, I don't really see myself, my true self but a mortal body, a bag of flesh and bones, which has my name and a face, a human figure adjusting in the society, filling the gap, actually, of the person named Ayush Prajapat. I can't find myself in that reflection but when I close my eyes when it's just my heartbeats echoing deep, I feel myself. The real me.
I came to Delhi last year and got a decent job, thanks to my college's placement cell, and I didn't really face any problem in adjusting to the new city. From where I come, rains were a daily affair, but in here, it's occasional. The rains are different here or maybe it's the people which make it different. The city is crowded like hell, one could forget himself amidst the swarm of people flooding metros and markets.
I was never fond of reading news, but in here, I developed this taste of catching news and why not, it's the capital city. The politics is in the air. Reading news made me aware of so many things, crime and theft, murders and rapes which were happening all around me. It made me sad or maybe I was slowly forgetting how to feel anything. I don't recall when was the last time I smiled.
The monsoon came and went, it washed the city and the gray gleaming roads. The roads here were exceptionally clean and trees just looked greener than before. A small array of clouds in the shapes of balloons passed above our heads, and it makes me sad that I could no longer touch them. I remember this sweet stupid fantasy, when I was young, three or four maybe, I dreamt of touching the clouds, hold them all at once in my arms. I sometimes forget that I am twenty-three, and these fantasies shouldn't be on my mind but then again, it just feels alright.
Memories are dangerous. They are your enemies because they behave like one. I often find myself stuck in the traffic of past memories, and my present begins to melt like soft ice cream under sunlight, and a solid door separates me from reality. I know and I can feel the presence of the monster, my past, and I try my best to break the metal door but its claws weaken me, hurts me like a thorn hurts a petal. I feel like a small girl stuck in traffic who lost her father in the crowd. She can see her lost balloon in the air, but she can't do anything about it. She watches it disappear.
