Cloudy Days

Kritvik Bhatt

“That night, I was up… wondering again…”

“Does she… love me?”

“Do I… love her?”

I was lying on my bed. The room was completely pitch black, except for some of the moonlight which entered in through the curtains on the left of my bed. My eyes were wide awake, my body was lying straight, and my eyes were fixed on the fan, which was rotating slowly, with a beam of silver light passing from its blades. My body beneath my neck was covered with the brown blanket, which was hotchpotch all over.

I then closed my eyes. “Damn… It’s so embarrassing, man.”

“No, it had ceased to be embarrassing for me. For some reason, I used to think that it was kinda embarrassing to use the word ‘love’, but after Jiya’s confession, it made me think that… that maybe, it’s not such a taboo.”

“Jiya…”

I remembered her white face filled with red pimples, which, for some reason, never looked awkward or ugly on her. They were shining. They were beautiful. Her shining hairs were long and straight as they fell from all over her shoulders to her back. Even though they all were not straight and were always messy—running up and down everywhere—they were still great.

“And… I rejected her…”

I gulped.

“Why did I reject her? I missed her damn hard. This… could have been our chance to… remain in contact with each other, after all. And, that’s what I wanted… for so long, man. For so long. Then… why did I…?”

I remembered Sana, her gold stud earring, and her smiling face that night when I looked at her smile for the first time.

“I gave up… on someone I knew… for some girl… who maybe… maybe… maybe…” I sniffed in. “For a girl who, maybe… doesn’t even like me.”

I moved my blanket up my face and tossed my body leftward. I stayed silent there for a couple of seconds, thinking and just breathing air in and out as my chest moved up and down.

Then, I moved the blanket a little downward, so that my eyes could see out. They were narrowed, and filled with water that could flow out anytime. No doubt, I was not in the best mental state, man.

“Why is my life so… fucked up?” I thought. “I don’t even know what I want… I don’t even know who I love and who not… I don’t even know whom I want to be with. And… I fucked up, maybe.”

“I knew that after such a confession, it was impossible for us to talk like we used to. Whenever I’d talk to her, I’d get the feeling that she’s feeling embarrassed because of her confession, and I too would feel kinda uncomfortable knowing that and maybe try not to get too close to her. No doubt, I should have, maybe, thought about it for some time and then gave her an answer. After all, I could have sorted things out. Now, I’m stuck here, knowing that I… I would not be able to contact those guys ever again, and… things would never be as they once used to be.”

I took in a deep breath, and then exhaled it out with my mouth. “Phew…”

And then I closed my eyes. I moved my right hand up and covered my head and eyes. And then I went to sleep.

***

The gray clouds covered the skies that day. Everything was just gray that day, for some reason.

The football ground and cricket pitches in front of the dark white school building were filled with students in their green and white uniforms running all over and playing. It was a normal day, after all—just a little gray, obviously.

My classroom was filled with students roaming here and there with their colorful lunchboxes in their hands. The classroom was filled with footsteps and talking and chatting of all those guys who were spread here and there. A bunch of guys at the back left were laughing loudly with food in their mouths, some guys and girls at the left front side of mine were discussing something, and for some reason, they sounded serious. Most of them had glasses on.

“Where did Sana even go?” I thought as I sat at the center front seat of the classroom, right in front of the blackboard—my usual seat—as I chewed on my food.

The tube-light on top of me blinked for a second. The tube-lights of the classroom were on, which made the gray day seem even gloomier.

“After all, she doesn’t even care for me,” I thought. “It’s only me who…” I turned downward on my lunchbox, taking in another bite in my hand and moving it toward my mouth. My right hand, for some reason, stopped midway. I kept glaring at the bite. I then turned my narrowed dark eyes to the front. I put the bite in my mouth. I started to chew it, my eyes still glaring at the front. “Cloudy days like today are… so gloomy,” I thought.

I remembered the clouds above my head and the empty park, where only Jiya and I used to walk in our sweatpants, just talking and laughing and… having fun, man.

“Damn… Right. It was days like this when I started getting closer to her,” I remembered.

I remembered playing badminton with her at the badminton court which was at the corner of the park. I remembered walking around the park freely beside her. I remembered running after her as we laughed. And… I remembered… her crying on my shoulders, with my right hand around her neck. All beneath the gray clouds of the day, obviously.

“I had experienced so much in life already. The feeling of losing loved ones, the feeling of conflict. All that stuff which I don’t feel people in their twenties are just getting to know about… I had already experienced that. And maybe, it’s just me being naïve that I think I had experienced a lot. Because obviously, there’s still a lot left for me to experience, no doubt. But still… I felt like I’d experienced just too much, for some reason. And I didn’t deserve to.”

My lunch was finished. I looked at it with my depressed eyes for some seconds silently as I sat in the middle of all those noises of people shouting and laughing and talking. I then took the lid of the lunchbox from beneath it and then shut the box. I turned to my bag on the ground on my left, bent down a little, opened its zip, and then took the lunchbox and stuffed it in. I then closed the zip and straightened my back. I glared at the blackboard again.

“I gotta do something else, man. Or else, my mind will keep on making me more and more depressed, after all.” I took in a deep breath from my nose, and then exhaled it out as I moved my butt up and sat up. I turned to the door to the corridor on my right and started to walk toward it. I moved my hands inside my pockets as I stepped outside the classroom and turned left on the corridor.

The corridor too was filled with the noises of chatting and stuff as students stood on the edges with their lunchboxes in their hands.

“Why do some days go like that?” I asked myself in my back as I walked through the noise. “Why is it that I feel depressed some days and happy some days?”

I continued to walk through that crowd. Some steps away, there came a stairway. I walked to it slowly and silently, passing through all those smiling faces, and then turned left to climb up the stairs, passing through a bunch of girls who were sitting on the stairs at the right corner, laughing and eating their lunch.

The stairway was plain white and had a U-turn some steps on the top. I turned as I went up and, on the other side, I looked at the open door. It gave out the slight sight of the clouds.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Everything went silent as I approached the door. It was only the sound of my footsteps which, for some reason, echoed in my ears.

I kept my right foot on the last stair, and then moved my left shoe outside the door. The tiles on the ground were white. All around, there was dust and stuff all around the dark black metal railing and the white tiles—along with the cloudy sky on top of my head, obviously. The roof, for some reason, was not properly maintained, no doubt. But, it was empty. There was nothing else than the cuboid of the stairway.

I turned my head right, and then left, as I moved my other foot in and stood on the roof, silently. My depressed dark eyes were a little wide in curiosity.

I turned to my right side again, and looked at the railing. I walked toward it slowly.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

I looked down the roof. It was just a couple stories high, obviously. On the ground, I could see some kids playing football all around the field, and two or three cricket pitches at the left edge with nets around them. Some kids were playing on those nets too. On the left side of the pitches was a narrow pathway with bushes and then the wall. On the other side of the wall was a bungalow. In the front of the pathway was the gate of the school.

I moved my arms on the railing and crossed them. I bent my back a little frontward. My eyes were toward the ground. “This place… just got a different vibe, man.”

“And… it’s so damn peaceful here.”

I closed my eyes. The soft white face of Jiya, her pimples, appeared before my eyes.

“Jiya, I’m… so damn sorry… for what I did to you… for what I did to us. At that moment, I was overwhelmed, maybe. I… should not have taken the decision I took. And, I should not have done what I did. I should not have said what I said. And, I should not have fucked up the way that I fucked up.” I opened my eyes again, looking downward. “I… am just… too damn scared to call you, to talk to you, to say sorry, to make amends. I want to meet you in person, but I know that’s impossible now. That’d always be impossible now. I’ll remain where I am, and you’ll remain where you are.”

I turned my head leftward, my eyes narrowed and guilty. “Only if I could go back in time and live all those days that I lived. I… don’t want to be here. I never did. I didn’t want things to turn out this way. I swear, man.”

I sighed. “Phew… What the fuck am I even thinking about…? And why now… after so many days?” I gulped in as I turned my body back. “Some days are just like that, maybe.” I then moved my hands in my pocket as I started to walk away. “Some days… people just feel depressed, for some reason. And that’s it. There’s no explanation, no doubt.”

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

I turned left toward the door, glared at it for a second, and then started to walk back toward it for some reason. I walked down the stairs, my hands in my pockets, my lips straight, my eyes narrowed and darkened. There was still that crowd in front of me which ate and laughed and choked and chattered. I went past the same bunch of girls who sat on the left edge of the stairs, turned left, and started to walk in the middle of them.

“I still dunno what happened to me, man. I just… didn’t feel right. Something was cooking up, maybe, and I thought I gotta check it. Or, maybe, my mind was just playing some games, after all. But, whatever it was, I never felt so low in my life, and I never regretted any decision more than that. I got a strange feeling. A feeling that said… that maybe… things are gonna take a turn… for the worse. Maybe something was gonna happen… Or maybe, it was just my mind playing games with me after all, man.”