Living in a Mirage

Chapter Three

"Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing 

and right-doing, there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about."

- Rumi -

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Dedicated to Cabir Dhawan; The amazing friend, the best wingman, the funny human being, and someone who deserves his: 'I want to cut a few albums, go on some world tours, settle in a country where gay marriages are allowed. I want to love, and get married...'

I hope that through my writing I will be able to give this flawed yet loveable character all he deserved, everything he wanted but couldn't get... 

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Standing in the garden outside Murthy's home, with his crossed before his chest, Cabir Dhawan was lost somewhere in his thoughts, oblivious to what was happening around him.

While his eyes were set on the road in front of him, his mind was miles away, on some different path entirely. Unconsciously, he was letting his memories of that night take over his senses.

There was no denying it; that night and the following events related to it had changed each one of them, in different ways, but it had...

With a sigh, Cabir closed his eyes, shutting out all his senses and as he did that, the noises in the background changed into his own voice. The darkness behind his eyelids swirled to form colors, shapes, and figures, re-enacting the events of that night...

The night when he saw his best friend, walking out of their life...

"Hey, lover boy, thinking about Nandini, aren't you?"Cabir asked Manik, sitting next to him on the stairs, outside Aryaman's apartment.

He lightly nudged Manik's shoulder with his own when he got no reaction at his arrival.

"Cabir!"Manik cried out with a sigh, turning to him with the look in his eyes that he always had whenever Cabir tried to tease him. Somehow, his tone was missing the warning Cabir used to get whenever he took Nandini's name to get a reaction out of Manik. This time, it was different. His name was called out as if something was wrong, and he was supposed to understand that yet not ask him anything.

As Cabir looked at Manik, his heart only hoped for a time when he will get to see Manik happy, acting his own age and not as a protector of a bunch of ungrateful kids. But Cabir knew, with Fab 5 breaking apart and his friends blaming Manik for it, he was not going to see that day anytime soon...

"What? No? Impossible. I would never believe that. You are always thinking about her. Dude, I doubt that you can be without her or thinking about her for even a second."Cabir said, with a teasing grin on his face, ignoring and covering everything behind his joyful nature.

That was him; the one who tries to hide and ignore the seriousness of the situation, lighting up the mood with his cheerfulness. But that didn't mean he couldn't sense the graveness of the situation. He didn't acknowledge it because that was what he thought he had to do, that was what Manik had called him for, right? He asked himself.