What If Our Life Threads Bind?

Chapter 16.

I think he must have fallen asleep, I did too eventually, after playing a long game of '50-questions' with a virtual version of Austin I had created in my mind. Unlike the real one, he was always with me.

I had a lot of virtual people created up in my mind but he was my current favorite person I animatedly talked to whenever I was alone. There were a few advantages of having a virtual friend; first being that, they'll always listen to you no matter how stupid you sound. Secondly, they'll always say things you would want to hear them say. The third and the last reason is that, they live up to your expectations unlike the real versions of them.

Children of age three to seven usually have these virtual friends but then the moment they reach adolescence, they outgrow them. I guess I never did.

A virtual creation may have a few advantages but it has one major disadvantage and that is, giving a reason to people to call you mad, which fortunately I almost never faced except a few times when Lila and Chloe caught me talking to the wall when I was stressed about not being able to make friends at the age of fifteen.

The virtual versions would get stuck in my head like characters of a good book and I would play them out in whatever way I liked. I would create situations on my own and thought how would the real versions would react to it if we ever actually come across a similar situation in real life. It would usually turn out as watching a short film or drama in my head, whose script I already knew about. Humans called it daydreaming.

This time the person on my head was a virtual version of Austin; imperfectly perfect, handsome, caring and a little possessive about me as a friend. The scene is something similar to what I had imagined with Pete in my mind a few years back, when he had become my new best friend. But in Pete's situation, I would always imagine us sitting in my living room, just talking about random stuff. With Austin, I was on foot on an endless journey of a road that looked similar to the mini-ramp of our college, only a much extended and almost unending mini-ramp with next to no people staring while we walk hand in hand, talking.

The things we talked about were mostly the things I wanted to ask or tell him or things that I wanted him to ask or tell me. Then we'd just laugh at each other like any other couple of best friends laughing and joking around.

Austin: You are so beautiful.

Martha: I wish we could be friends forever.

Austin: We are friends and we will always be. Best friends. Forever and ever.

Austin: Tell me your secrets.

Martha: Sometimes I want to run away from home. I feel trapped but I can't tell this to anyone.

Austin: Come with me. Will you? You won't feel trapped with me. Come.

Martha: I am-

"Coming."

"Excuse me?" Spencer took a earphone out of her ear and I realized we were actually sitting on one side of mini-ramp. I took out my earphones too and pretended that I was humming the lyrics of one of the songs in my i-pod.

"Oh, I thought you were saying something..." She said and I shook my head 'no.'

A minute after came the same guy whom I had offended back when I shook my head no instead of saying that it wasn't me who said 'no' to his debating event or whatever that was. "Hi, I am Issac and I have come here to collect your identity cards."

"And, why are you collecting these, if I may ask?" asked Margo who sat on my right while Spencer and I stared blankly at him.

"Its for the elections. Don't worry, we would return them back." He smiled. "Samuel was coming for the collection too but he got held up in some work." He explained and I didn't understand a thing he meant about the collection of identity cards. Spencer gave him her card instantly at the mention of 'Samuel'

"Yours?" He looked at me and Margo, while we shared a look.

"Actually, I-" I was going to lie or something when he got a call and left.

"Why would you give him that? ID cards can't be reproduced." I said as a matter of fact.

"I trust Samuel and its not like he's trading it for something else." She said and got up. I never say it aloud but this 'Samuel is better than Robbie' propaganda is really getting on my nerves now. I try not to look pissed when I put the earbud back in my ear and hit play.

Seconds later, I see Austin and Robbie jogging towards us. I take my earphones back out and smile at them as they wave a 'hello' at Margo and I. "Did anyone come here collecting ID cards?" Robbie said with a wavering from running tone.

"Do you do prophecy?" I asked and he frowned. "Someone just asked."

"Did you give them?" Austin looked directly at me and I said no. He gave me a look of relief.

"What is it?" I asked them.

"Mark my words, never give your ID cards to anyone." Robbie said. "Not him." He pointed at Austin. "Not me. To nobody, you understand that. If you lose your identity card, you won't get another and you won't be allowed to enter. Although there is a policy that they get you another fake one, but it has a warranty period of one month."

"But why were they asking for them? They said they need it for elections." Margo interjects.

"Yes but they're often misused. They misuse it to cast votes for their favorable party and they win. Its true that ID cards are required for the nomination process but it doesn't really require the real one. A copy of the card can suffice." Austin answered.

"And what's this nomination process?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Basically, there's a trial that happens before the actual elections based on the support he or she has of the people along with his capabilities as a leader of the student union. For the aforementioned support of the people, that is the students, the latter has to give the copy of their identity cards to their preferred candidate so that he gets selected for the main round of election."

An 'O' shape formed on my lips and I nodded. "When is this nomination thing happening?" Margo asked.

"Tomorrow. Today is the last day to submit your ID cards."

"And where are we to submit them?"

"Administration Office." Robbie smiled.

...

I was done with singing the song of death and cutting the life threads of five people this evening, tears caking the skin on my cheek I went over my notes for a while when I got a notification from the website of our college.

"The nominated candidates list is here." I whispered to myself. Thank God, half the stress would be over now, I thought as I remembered how Issac and Samuel kept coming at us for identity cards.

"I am sorry. I forgot mine at home." I had said.

"And someone stole mine." Margo had replied.

The guys wouldn't believe but we didn't give in either. At the end of our lectures, the two of us sneaked into the administration office and gave our ID cards under the name of Robbie Reynolds and ran out before Issac or Samuel could see us.

I sighed and clicked on the list.

I scanned the list and saw Samuel's name and a bunch of other names, and then the list ended. I looked out for Robbie's name. It wasn't there. Nor was Adam William's name, the guy who asked me about the book of poems. Even he seems nice. He is sweet and as approachable as Robbie. I checked the list again. Then again and again and the names were nowhere to be found.

Robbie and Adam didn't make it to the list.