Empty pages Episode 3
#13 :Survivor
Silence.Gunshots.
Silence.
He could hear everything, but dare not open his eyes. He could hear his heart thumping in his chest. He could feel the sweat trickling off parts of his body he didn't even know could sweat. He wouldn't even consider the option of moving or showing any signs of life. He was trying to seem still and dead but his bladder strongly disagreed.
More gunshots.
He heard footsteps approach him.
This was it. This was it.
Would dying hurt a lot?Before he could process his thoughts, the footsteps faded away.
He lay there still. Agonising over what could be his last moments.
Till he felt something rubbery touch his neck. He heard people. There was chaos.There was a battalion of people around him.
He opened his eyes to see the bloodshed around him. The lifeless forms of the people who had been laughing and talking just few hours back. On the other side were the people trying to salvage those who survived.
He was a survivor. He had made it.
#14: Hot
She watched him interact with a girl he had a crush on. She had spent hours telling him what to say, how to say it and what not to do.And yet there he was mumbling and fumbling, terrified of rejection.
He returned downcast.
"The way you flirt is shameful."
"But but she is so beautiful, so hot, I couldn't even think!"
"Hot! That is all you men think about."
It was the beginning of a long argument.
#15: cupboard
She was hiding in the old cupboard in the servant quarters. Surely her mom wouldn't find her. Today she would not be caned. It smelt musty and was damp.She found some clothes on the bottom rack and just dozed off. When she woke up, there were huge dogs and policemen staring at her. She turned around to see her parents. She was going to be in deep trouble.
Instead of the anger she expected to see, her usually strict mother was sobbing and held her tightly. Her dad was pacing around nervously. They were just relieved to know their little girl was okay.
Of course, she would have to hear this story being narrated to all her relatives for the rest of her life.
#16: Emoji
Their conversations were just a volley of emojis.It couldn't be said for sure if either knew what the other was trying to say.
She couldn't understand how👍 was an answer after she had typed 20 lines.
He didn't know what the right words were. He couldn't find them and string them together. It wasn't that he didn't feel anything- it was just that he couldn't say anything.
She wondered what his 👍 meant. He wondered what her 😍♥ meant.
Till she hit a breaking point. She couldn't take it anymore. He was always busy, watching some sport or the other, carefully avoiding any serious conversation.
She typed,"Perhaps you'll take me out one day - or do I have to make an appointment?" and hit send.
#17: Customs
She waited for her aunt to leave the room. The suspense was killing her. As her aunt walked to the kitchen to talk to her mom, she slowly inched towards the bag. Her aunt's handbag. The treasure chest. Every single time she had secretly dived in she had found something new. It was always fun to find new things. She also had secretly used her aunt's lipstick once, nobody seemed to have noticed. That was just going to be her secret. She started digging, pouch by pouch. Unzip, dig, examine, keep it back in its original position, zip. She followed this ritual meticulously. In the adjacent room, her aunt was laughing and telling her mom that the customs officer was checking her handbag. Years later, her aunt would ask her- "Now you have your own handbags so no customs clearance for mine?", and they'd laugh about it.#18: Water, water down my sink
He woke up on a Sunday morning,started his day by reading his timeline.Something about being a 90s kid.
It was funny now. There used to be just one channel. Doordarshan.
Sunday mornings meant that music programme, he couldn't remember the name.
They'd wait all week for it.
And he went over his childhood again as he started getting out of bed.
The ads. Washing powder nirma. Vicco vajradanti.
Damn. Those jingles were catchy, he couldn't help but hum now.
He was brushing when he remembered an infomercial. He didn't understand why he still remembered it in so much detail.
It was an animated commercial - where a fish and a boy are friends. The fish is in the pond. The boy is brushing with the tap open, wasting all that water. The fish almost dies because the boy has the tap open. Then he sees his friend struggle and closes the tap.
The ad seemed funny to him now.
He looked down to see the tap running and felt a twinge of guilt.
There were people who didn't have water to drink or wash with.
He had probably wasted a litre brushing his teeth.
That twinge was going to be a daily twinge looked like.
#19: Rainbow
(Note ; Experimental content. This was a conversation that has been morphed into a narrative and here on request. I have no idea what I am doing.)Her mind was bursting with questions. She didn't understand everything in the book. She didn't know which question to ask first. She tried holding it all in, mom was busy and didn't like being disturbed. But she had to ask, she had to know. So she found her mother and started firing away, she demanded she be told now.
Her mom wasn't too happy about being disturbed but reached for her chocolate stash and gave her one after breaking it into half. That was odd. Mom never gave her chocolate unless she did something good. Maybe asking questions was a good thing.
Her mom watched her eat it and asked her to tell her what the layers were- there was chocolate which she liked, that sticky stuff mom called nougat, caramel - she liked caramel she decided, and nuts- she wasn't sure if she liked nuts in her chocolate. When she was done though, she decided she liked it, Even if she didn't like nuts too much.
"Can we make a rainbow at home? We can use the bright bulb in the hall. Can we?"
Her mom laughed.
She said,"The raindrops cut the light and split them into colours, just the way I cut the chocolate and showed you the layers."
She thought for a minute.
"We can could pour water over the bulb."
Now her mother became very serious and strictly forbid her from ever trying to do that. But she wanted to know. Maybe she'd do it when mommy went to office.
She asked her mom, "Why did God make rainbows?"
Her mom was lost in thought for few minutes and then slowly replied.
"It's so that we learn from rainbows. People are like rainbows, different shades, different colours.
Just like light needs all its colours, the world needs all kinds of people.
Some people are red, some are blue.
As you grow up, you will meet all kinds of people.
Tall people. Short people. Fat people. Thin people
People who could be straight, gay or lesbian.
People who would be brown,white or black. Good people,bad people. Evil people,kind people. People who will make you laugh and those who'd make you cry.
Which is why the world needs all kinds of people because without them we would be colours but we can never be light."
She didn't understand most of this when her mom taught her this.
It would be years later, when she met people who couldn't tolerate anything that was unfamiliar to them,these words would haunt her.
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