Red And Wet

Aaryan Khanna

“There’s more to this story, right?”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The white needles stepped on the black dial, with numbers in red bold font on all the sides of the circle.

I had my head tilted down. I smiled at that asshole’s comment. I then turned my head up to my left. “Yeah, pal.”

Sooraj smiled too. “Knew it, man.”

I turned my head downward again. I had my back tilted frontward, with my elbows on my thighs. “Ya see, that’s not some shit that I could have—or rather, should have—told to everyone.”

Kritvik, who was sitting on my right, had his eyes at me as he sat with his back leaning on the backrest, his hands sandwiched between his thighs.

“Legit shouldn’t have,” Sooraj replied, looking at me. “So, what’s it, dickhead?”

I moved my hands up and covered my face stressfully. “Asshole, don’t ask me that. It has ruined my fucking life!”

“C’mon, man. Sharing it will legit help.”

“Perhaps.”

“So, tell me.”

I moved my hands down and glared down aimlessly, my eyes lost in some thoughts, as I said, “Pal, the principal met my parents today.”

“Damn…” Kritvik murmured, but not too loud for us to hear.

“Fuck, I can kinda imagine what must have happened after that,” Sooraj said.

“Nah, ya fucking can’t.”

***

It was a bright day, ya see. The sun was shining above the three or four story bungalows. The sky was shitting bright blue, and it gave out the vibes of a fucking summer day, even though it wasn’t. There was a pinch of coldness in the atmosphere, marked by those shitty cold breezes.

The black wheels of the car were rotating continuously and the shining gray lines of the rim dissolved into one as the car sped through the road. The car was gray and box-like, but it seemed more like a cuboidal one rather than a cubical one. Its tires seem relatively smaller as compared to the extra-spacious body of the whole car.

Inside the black interior and black leather seats, a man and a woman sat. They had some strands of white hair. The man had his eyes to the front on the road, whereas the woman had her eyes to her left, looking outside the window adjacent to her seat.

In the back seat, at the center, was me. My face was turned to my left as I looked at the shitty bungalows passing by.

One after another, large bungalows passed beside our car. One was completely brown and gave a eighteenth century London-like effect, one was bright white with orange outlines on the balcony and shit, and more other well-made ones passed by.

The car then soon slowed down and came to a halt in front of the building of a school, with a little garden at the front. The doors opened as me and my mother stepped out. We both started to walk toward the gate as the car drove some meters away, where my father parked the car in between other cars parked in front of the school’s building.

We both approached the guard on the other side of the gate. He pulled it open, and my mother walked in, donning her yellow kurta-pajama. I walked in behind her, wearing a black jacket and black denim pants over white t-shirt. My father jumped a few steps as he caught up to us, walking behind me. He donned a fucking woolen sweater upon his navy blue trousers and white shirt. His stomach was bulging out as he walked behind the two of us.

We walked past the garden on our right and the wall to the left silently. Only the clomping footsteps of the formal shoes of my father echoed in the air.

We then turned to our right, walking in between the garden and the building of the school.

I turned my head to my right as I looked at the little garden filled with flowers and buses on all the sides with plain cut grass in the middle, and a man in all-black walking in the middle with a green electric mower.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

I then turned my head to the front and noticed a shitty young man in his twenties in white printed shirt and black pants walking from the other side. Then, we turned to our left and walked inside the building.

We walked in the wide reception area with seating of metallic desks fucking joined with each other on our left and open space to walk in on the right. In the front was a desk with two females sitting with laptops.

We all walked to the reception and stood in front of her, my father on my right and mother on my left. My father asked, “Uh, excuse me.”

“Yes, sir?” One of the young women asked.

“We have to meet the principal right now.”

“Yes, sure. He’s free right now, waiting for you three.”

“Thank you,” My father replied as all of us turned to our right and started to walk into the fucking corridor at the center of the right wall. It was painted white, had a glass door opening to both the sides at the center, with some men in black walking here and there with files.

We all stepped in at once, walked a few steps with our eyes searching for the correct door, and then at one door on the left, there was that shit—‘Principal’s Office’.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. We all walked to it, turned to our left, and my mother pushed the door and we all walked inside behind her back.

The office was painted shitty white, with a shining brown laminated desk at the left. The floor too was fucking wooden, ya see.

My father’s footsteps echoed as we all walked to the principal. My father joined his hands as he walked to him. “Namaste.”

“Namaste, sir,” The principal replied. His hair was partly white, and some part of his forehead seemed bald. His mustache too was partly white. He sat on the other side of the table, on a shitty black big leather chair.

My father, mother, and I sat on the chairs in front of his desk, with me at the left corner and my father in the middle.

On his table were some files on his right and left, a stand for pens and other shit, and on the middle was the metallic plate with the words in thick black ‘Mahesh Kumar’, with ‘Principal’ beneath it in a thinner font.

He was smiling as he glared at my father, who smiled back. He then turned to me. “So, I guess you must have known by now why I’ve called you here, right?”

“Y-Yes, sir,” My father hesitantly replied.

Sir nodded. He then turned to my father again. “Sir, children… at this age… They’re exploring this world, you know. Each day, they see new things. Some are good for them, and, well, some are not.”

“Yes,” My father replied.

“You son is in the same age. He has not really seen this world, but he is still discovering it. This is the age where he’s started seeing the outside world, and… he’s not mature to make the right decisions. And, that’s why he got involved in this thing. It’s his fault—yes, but not entirely his fault.”

“Yes, sir,” My father and mother nodded.

“So, that’s just the age of Aaryan. He… His friends were into it, he tried it once, and, well, he got addicted.”

He then turned to me. “And, that’s not his fault, specifically. Any child would have fallen for this trap. But, well, what scares me is the fact that… he was selling vape pens.”

I turned my head downward in guilt.

“Tell me, Aaryan, where did you get so many vapes?”

“I…”

Vikram was looking directly at me angrily when his image hit my mind. He was in his usual dominant position, with other gang members around him, all frowning at me. Some had their arms crossed in front of their chests, some were cracking their knuckles.

“Huffff,” The principal sighed out. “And, well, let me tell you, Aaryan, that we might need to involve the police in this case…”

My eyes opened wide.

“Since it is illegal to sell such stuff to kids in bulk.”

“He was just fucking around with me, perhaps, but… I got fucking scared.”

I opened my mouth, was about to say something, and then closed it. “I… I can’t put the whole fucking gang into this mess,” I thought. I then turned my eyes up, then turned them down again. “I-I used to steal some money from my house, and-and then use it to buy the primary ones. T-Then afterward, w-when I had enough profits, I started to use my profits to buy more vape pens and then sell them in school. I knew that there were others who vape too, so…”

“Okay, Aaryan. Can you name other kids in our school who vape?”

“I-I…”

***

I turned my head to my left at Sooraj. “What do ya think I should have done, pal? Tell them about all of my customers? Ya see, the business might never recover from this blow. Or, should I have just said that I don’t know their names or classes?”

Sooraj had his head skyward as he heard my question. His both arms were on the backrest. “Ya should have not said that ya don’t know their names, or else you are a legit goner.”

I then turned to my right and looked at Kritvik. “What’s your answer, asshole?”

Kritvik gulped in. “Actually, uhm…”

“Ya fucking leave it, asshole.” I then turned to my left. “I did exactly that.”

He turned rightward and looked me into my eyes.

I smiled as I looked at him and turned my head down. “Just kidding. I fucking named all of them.”

Sooraj nodded and turned his head to the front. “Legit knew it.”

“Don’t tell Vikram about it.”

“Yeah, man.”

***

The principal sir nodded as he wrote something with his metallic fountain pen. He then turned to me and said, “I’ll be talking to them soon.”

He then turned to my mother. “And I’d like to ask you, miss, if you… knew about your son’s addiction?”

My mother shook her head.

“And, did you know about his decreasing grades?”

She nodded.

“Then, when you got to know about his decreasing grades, what did you do?”

She turned her head down, and a tear dropped from her left eyes. She gulped in.

“Miss, don’t…”

She snorted in as another drop fell down her eyes.

“I… I felt like something had fucking pierced through my heart. I… I could not believe that my own mother… was dripping tears… in front of me.”

“Y-You see, miss, that generally children get addicted to all of these things to relieve stress of their studies and their personal life, so I was just enquiring about that. You need not—”

“I-I don’t believe that… my son has been in this for a couple of years, and… he didn’t even tell me once that he’s suffering through something, or that… he’s addicted to vaping,” My mom said as she cried. She then turned her red and wet eyes to me. “Is this the value of me in your life? Are we nothing but just machines to cook food for you?”

I gulped in as I looked into her eyes. I turned my head down.

My father turned to my mother and said, “Please calm down.”

She turned to the front and covered her face with both her hands. She snorted in again.

“A man can… bear anything. That’s what I believe. A man can bear any shit he faces… for himself, for his girl, for his family. But… to see a woman he loves the most… cry like that… is something that… literally drips out the tears of blood. It was happening to me for the first time, and I fucking couldn’t bear that shit. I…”

A drop of tear fell down my right cheek.

“I gave up. I fucking gave up standing strong this time. I fucking couldn’t hold it in anymore. The lump was rising in my throat, and it was on my fucking tongue. I… I wanted to fucking kill myself for putting her in a spot such as this. I wanted to scratch my eyes and skin out, and… to burn myself to death. So, I… I gave up.”

***

“And… this shit still wasn’t over yet, ya see.”