Look Cool

Kritvik Bhatt

“So, most of you here might be thinking that this seminar just here was useless, right, kids?” The teacher in navy blue saree and glasses was on the podium, looking at us. She looked more of an intellectual than a teacher, for some reason. “Raise your hands if you think that it was literally useless for you, and that you could have just prepared for your English exams rather than wasting time here.”

A little amount of whispers suddenly erupted in the auditorium. Suddenly, one person at the third or fourth row raised his hand up, and some guys started laughing around him. I then turned to my right, and noticed another guy with his hand raised up.

Then another. Then another. Slowly, students were raising hands one by one, mustering up courage, obviously. Some were not really confident because some arms were bent a little and shyly gliding up. Some were confident. Some were just a little bent, showing their uninterested attitude toward this seminar itself.

I turned my head right and left, and then at the front. The whole seminar was then filled with raised hands, with about half of the kids with their hands up, for some reason.

The teacher smiled. “Yeah, kids, I understand.” She turned her head downward to the podium, and then raised her head again at us. “Kids, the reason why we’re telling you about its dangers is because… we want to scare you. And, this is something which you all should be scared of. It can damage your lungs, at last. And, you don’t want something from which you breathe to get damaged even a little. Ask those with asthma.”

She then turned to the front, and it seemed like she was directly looking into my eyes. “The kids who vape are all around you. It can be your friends, your classmates, anyone. So, if anyone even tries to brainwash you into thinking how good it is, you know how to react. Because you’d need this in life, maybe not now, but later on. Sometime in the future, you will definitely require this information.” She turned her eyes a little down, maybe focusing aimlessly. “So, don’t try to vape just to look cool or just because your friends say it’s cool, it’s tasty, or it’s alright. Because it’s neither cool, nor tasty, and definitely not alright.” She smiled. “Got it?”

Suddenly, a loud round of applause erupted in the whole room. The lights were lit up, suddenly, and the whole room had now started to shine. Some even stood up as they smiled. I turned my head right and left, smiling at that dramatic end to the lecture.

“That… What she said in the last kinda stuck me in the head, for some reason. It felt like she was telling me when she said that kids who vape are all around. Maybe because that was kinda true, man. I was with Aaryan and other people like him who do all this vape and stuff.”

***

It was a dark night. I was in the middle of the street, walking home, maybe. I walked through the streetlights slowly. My eyes were narrowed, my legs and hands all loosely moving, like I was drunk. And, I had a black vape in my mouth, for some reason. I soon took it out from my mouth with my middle finger and forefinger, and then blew out a puff of smoke. I then walked through it as I moved it in my mouth again, between my lips.

Suddenly, I looked at the figure of Sana standing beneath the darkness, about a dozen steps away. My eyes opened wide as my shoes stopped.

“I-I-I can explain, Sana!”

In her eyes was the broken trust and disgust. She shook her head once, turned back, and then said, “I never thought I was friends with someone who vapes.” She then started to run away.

“Wait, Sana!” I raised my right hand at her.

***

Bang! Bang!

My eyes opened. I then straightened my back and sat straight on my desk, my eyes sleepy and my hair messy.

I glared aimlessly at the manly hand on top of my table, some inches away from where I was sleeping, for some reason.

I was sitting on my classroom desk made of hard dark brown wood. The teacher in front of me took the bundle of sheets kept beneath my head when I was sleeping and then moved on to the next kid behind me. I turned my head to the right, and then to the back. I looked at the back of the teacher in white shirt and black trousers collecting the answer sheets. I then looked at the guy who sat just behind me. He had his face turned to his left. Then I turned to the front too. I moved my right hand up and pressed the edges of my nose and eyes.

The teacher walked past me from the right at full pace. I turned to the front and looked at him taking a U-turn to the right to the next alley of rows. He then vigorously started to collect each sheet. The papers creaked as he snatched them from the students’ desks and hands.

I then turned my head to the front, listening to the creaks as I thought, “Peer pressure, huh?”

The teacher took the answer sheet from the last bench and then turned to the front. He walked furiously as he shouted, “You all may leave!”

Everyone then stood up at once and the chatter erupted as the teacher walked through the front of us to the teacher’s desk on the left corner. I looked at him keeping the sheets on his table, folding them, and then putting a rubber band on them. He then started to write something on the last paper with his red pen. I then turned to the front at the guy who was blocking half of my view of the front. I too then stood up, turned to the door on the right, took up my pouch which was on my desk, bent down and took up my water bottle, and then started to walk to the door. I walked through the students who were walking out while talking loudly, discussing the questions.

“And what did you write in question sixteen?” One guy asked.

“Ah, that was simple,” The girl on his right replied. “It was about the character sketch of the main character, right?”

“Yeah.”

“It was discussed a dozen times in class,” The guy smiled.

“What? When?”

“Revision classes which happened once the syllabus was over.”

“Ah, shit!”

“Ahahahaha.”

As I heard that conversation between the two in front of me, we all turned to the right and exited out of the classroom. In the corridor painted green with a row of windows in the middle, I turned to my right, walked a few steps with bags on the right—just beside the classroom door—and then bent down to take my little bag. I opened its zip as I held it hanging, stuffed my water bottle and pouch in front of the books it contained, turned back, and started to walk out with the rest of the crowd.

The corridor was filled with footsteps and chatter all around, with all of the students so densely packed that everyone was scratching each other’s shoulders. As I was walking through the corridor, I noticed the stairway on the left. My eyes were wide open now as I thought, “Where’s Sana?” I turned my head left and right, and then at the back. I raised myself up on my toes for a second, turned to the front, and then raised myself up on my toes again.

“For some reason, I badly wanted to meet her.”

I then continued to walk silently, my eyes searching everywhere for her. The stairway then arrived, and I turned to the left and started to descend down the stairs.

“But that day, luck decided not to be by my side, for some reason.”

***

“Kids vape to look cool, huh?”

My head was tilted down as I was sitting on the desk at the corner of my room. The bed was behind my back, a little rightward, and the door to the room was on my right. My head was tilted down as I was spinning my pen slowly between my fingers. My eyes were staring aimlessly at the notebook, lost in their own thoughts. For some reason, that sentence had struck my head.

“Does that mean that… Aaryan, Rohit, and others vape only to look cool?”

I remembered the figure of Rohit as he stood in front of the mirror in his room shining brightly with LED bulbs, staring into the darkness, with his hands inside his pockets.

“He does look cool. But, he seems disturbed by something, no doubt,” I thought, my face straight.

“Man, I gotta focus on my math exam right now!”

***

Aaryan Khanna

It was nighttime. The sun had set long ago, and the roundish moon shone brightly in the sky, ya see.

That ground was empty, and it consisted of nothing but some benches on the edges. There was no grass, nor it seemed like a fucking park, and it seemed like it used to be a park, perhaps, until some asshole did some shit and turned it that way.

On the bench sat two guys. First one was Akshay, the black guy with a tight narrow pair of black jeans and white shirt, and Amit, with a loose pair of pants and plain red shirt.

Both Amit and Akshay had eerie smiles on their faces, their eyes hidden in the darkness.

“Ya caught one of the big fishes this time, huh?” Akshay said.

“Eh? It was so easy to catch one of the big fishes?” Amit asked.

“Yer efforts ain’t going in vain, fucker.”

***

My father, my mother, and I were sitting on the sofa. We all had our eyes on the television, which showed some Indian daily soap or some shit. Our plates were in our hands as we took one bite after another. As I chewed, my head was tilted down on the plate.

“I… I just can’t believe it,” My mom said, her eyes wide open. She was on the leftmost side of the sofa.

“Stop it now! We’ve already talked about it!” My father shouted, his eyes glued to the television. He then gulped in and turned to her. “Now we’ll just talk to the principal now and ask him what we can do with a child like him! Until then, don’t talk about it!” He shouted.

My mom turned at him. “But can you believe this?! Our child…”

My father turned to the front, his eyes frowning with rage.

I kept my head tilted down.

“Our child has become an addict! Can you believe it?! That’s how we raised him!”

I kept my head down as I chewed my food.

My mom then turned to me. “Can you believe it?! It’s a shame on us! He’s drowned the name of our family!”

“Don’t speak about it now!”

“Why shouldn’t I?!”

“My life… was slowly turning into a living hell. The shit that I was caught in… That shit just kept on getting worse and worse and worse. I just hope that I could go back in time and… and beat the shit up of that asshole.”

***

“And ya know the best part, eh? Aaryan might just never even get to know about us!”

“Yeah, fucker!” Akshay replied.

***

“Tomorrow is gonna be another harsh day…”

“Fuck this all!”