Nomads

Chapter 2, Pt 4- Eruption

His phone buzzed, followed by a ringtone with Slipknot music screaming, “Fuck it all! Fuck this world! Fuck everything that you stand for!”

Everyone looked at him, wide eyed, shocked at the loud ringtone. It had been a month since he had that ringtone and they still hadn’t got the habit of it. He laughed at their reaction, and held his phone to see that “Subash” flashed on his screen.

He received the call, “Yes bro, what happened?” he said.

“You coming to the coaching today?” Subash asked.

“Yeah man, what happened, something’s up?” Nasr asked concerned. Subash rarely called him. It was most of the times, Nasr, who would call him up to make plans, so he figured Subash’s mood was either off, or maybe he had some plan.

“Nah man”, Subash said, “I was just asking if you’d be coming. I needed to talk.”

“Yeah man, I’ll come. See you at four then.”

“I’ll be a bit late.”

“By how much?”

“15-20 minutes.”

“Fine.”

“Do we have any subject at 4?”

“Nah, I think at 5.”

“Okay.” Subash said and cut the call. Nasr heard the beep of the cut and looked at the phone and nodded his head as he smiled. Subash always did that; so did Nasr, with others.

They hung out in the lawn for another hour and a half. When it was past 1:30 in the afternoon, they decided that it was time for all of them to go back.

Nasr went along with Shiv as they parted ways at Chandi Chhak, where shiv had to go towards Shelter Chhak in order to reach CDA.

He went upstairs to his room as soon as he reached his house.  He closed all the windows, dropped the curtains, and turned the air conditioner on. He changed into just shorts and went to wash his face. He came back to his room and laid on the bed as he plugged his phone into the charger. He checked his messages, and replied to them. Among the people who had texted him, was Paramita, who had replied to his last night’s text.

‘I can’t focus on my board exam preparations.’ She had replied to his message that said, ‘your mood seems off.’

‘It’s okay. Chill out. Just try to pass, then prepare for your entrances of fashion design institutes.’ He replied. The texted showed double ticks. And then, the ticks instantly turned blue as the top screen with the contact’s name showed “online”.

‘I don’t think I can pass in any of those.’ She texted back.

‘You’ll do something, calm down.’ He replied as the “online” showing on the screen suddenly disappeared. The text showed double tick. He left another text, ‘you can call me if you need to talk about it.’, just to check if she had kept the data or Wi-Fi on or had turned them off too. The text still showed a double tick. He closed the app and opened YouTube to stream random videos.

He realized that he had fallen in love with Paramita in the later half of 2017. It had been more than a year since he had been in love with her, even though he had faced rejection from her back in 2017 itself. Although he thought that he had moved on from her, he still felt about her. Although it did not affect him much anymore if she replied quickly or not, but in the end, he did wish that someone would love him.

Although it was two hours in the afternoon, and there was only a wait of two hours more before he’d meet Subash, he still found it incredibly difficult to stay in his house. Staying inside, doing nothing, was an absolute toxic thing for him. He’d skip from doing one thing to another so quickly that he would have no other options left, except for going out. Travelling was the only thing that cold keep him busy, keep his mind from getting thousands of thoughts, travelling was the only thing that could make him stay happy for longer. Seeing new places, exploring abandoned buildings, or small forests gave him the small colors he needed to add to his monochrome life. But if he even sat down at the same place for longer than a few minutes, boredom would grow on him, which would suddenly take the form of anxiety and depression.

He somehow managed to spend the rest two hours by writing a poem, then devising plans of him running away. He had the certain feeling that all of his present issues would be gone once he made a break for it. Although there would be no certainty of how he would survive or even make up to his destination, which was a thousand kilometers away, he would still have that satisfaction of leaving everything about his old life. He knew deep down that he would find that peace in his struggle to build his own new life. He qould leave his house, family, friends, and love behind. But that was what the whole thing was about, to leave everything behind for a change. To betray everything unlike how it used to be, he always felt betrayal in people, in destiny, all the efforts he put would be lost, losing efforts many times was fine for him. But losing his efforts all the time was too much for him to take, he was at the breaking point. But he would betray them for a change. He would evolve.

He called up Subash when he noticed that it was 3:45 pm. Subash confirmed that he would be coming late. He got dressed, went to his parents’ room to check what they were doing, he saw his mother sleeping and his father wasn’t on the bed. He figured that he had woken up from his afternoon nap and must have gone downstairs for a smoke. He lightly shook his mother up and ask her for some money for evening snacks. She got up from her sleep, a bit frustrated and gave him a hundred rupee note after mumbling irritated curses under her breath because he had broken her afternoon nap.

He ignored it and made his way to the science coaching.