Overthink

Kritvik Bhatt

“What stream should I choose, huh?” I thought. “I can take arts, no doubt, because history is interesting. But… science is interesting too. No doubt, I’m taking math, but…”

My eyes were wide awake as my head lay on the pillow. The room was dark, and the only source of light was the moonlight that seeped in from the window on my left. Beneath my face, the rest of my body was inside the brown blanket, obviously.

The ceiling, where my eyes stared at for some reason, had streaks of moonlight all around the stagnant fan.

“Math is useless in arts. So, I can choose between commerce and non-med. But, I’d not be able to take history, obviously. Maybe I can take history as a fifth or sixth subject, but no doubt, history won’t help, obviously. It’d just be a burden. Maybe I can…”

“They stressed me out over this stuff, man. They said that I should decide what I should study later on the basis of what I find interesting, but, for some reason, I feel that studying in general is interesting, or maybe that studying in general is not interesting. I was indifferent over all the subjects, for some reason, and that made it difficult to make a choice. But, suddenly, a thought hit my mind.”

“Yeah, JenCon or Aaryan?” My eyes widened a little for a second.

“Man, I should definitely go with JenCon, because it’d be a first, obviously, and I’d be able to attend Aaryan’s birthday next year, no doubt. No, Aaryan’s birthday is more important, man. He’s a friend, and Sana… Sana’s a friend too, man. After all, she was the first one I befriended here. And Aaryan has a lot of other friends with whom he can celebrate. Sana won’t be able to attend JenCon if I’m not with her, obviously, since there’s no one other than the two of us.”

I took a deep breath, tossed my body to my left, and closed my eyes.

“Yeah, man. I should go with Sana, obviously. Aaryan can enjoy with Rohit, Sooraj, and Aakash. They won’t miss me, and I won’t make an impact, no doubt. But Sana… It’s only the two of us, after all.”

I opened my eyes again. They were a little narrower because they were sleepy, obviously. “Yeah, so JenCon it is.”

I then frowned. “But… what… what will I tell Aaryan then? When he’d ask me that… that why I won’t come to his party, what will I tell him, man?” The frown went away from my eyes. “Damn, man. Why am I stuck in this situation?!”

I turned my body to the top again, my eyes staring at the ceiling aimlessly. “Maybe I should tell him the truth? No, he’d feel hurt, obviously. I should make an excuse or some stuff, maybe.”

“No, man. I can’t… just lie to him… Obviously. If he finds out, then… he’d be hurt, man.”

I moved my right hand out of the blanket and massaged my forehead with my fingers, for some reason. “I’m getting too stressed about this stuff, man. Damn, man. Damn.”

I turned my eyeballs to my right. “But, man, I gotta think of something. Maybe I should just ask him to shift the date of his party or some stuff. After all, JenCon is just a one-day event, and its date is not in my hands.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “What am I even thinking, man? This damned idea… Birthday comes once a year, man. How can I… even ask him to throw the party on any random day which is not his birthday?”

I opened my eyes again, and turned my head leftward. “Man, this is so… so messed up. Maybe I can just… make an excuse, or some stuff. After all, even if he finds out the truth, I’d… I’d be able to explain this stuff. He’d understand that.”

I gulped in.

“Even if he doesn’t find the truth, I’d tell him myself, man. Maybe that way, he won’t feel so hurt.”

I moved my right hand up my hair, and then I placed my elbow up on my forehead. “Man, I… I’d tell him that I’m going out of town for a few days. Or… Or I’d tell him that someone had died that day, so… I gotta be there. Or some stuff like that. I also gotta make sure that it’s not a dumb excuse such as a marriage or some other stuff like that. They’d be easily tackled, like marriages are at night, they don’t run all day, or stuff like that.”

I moved my other hand in front of my eyes and covered them.

“Damn, man! Damn! I wanna sleep now!”

I took a deep breath in from my mouth, and then exhaled it out. My mouth then again opened in a yawn for a couple of seconds. When it closed again, I turned my body to my left, my eyes closed.

“I tried to not think about this stuff and sleep, but obviously, I didn’t sleep well. All throughout the night, I continued to toss here and there, for some reason, and kept on thinking about this situation, trying to come up with some ideas. It was as if my body was tired and wanted to sleep, but my mind, for some reason, just won’t let it. My mind was wide awake, even though I felt so tired after the day. After all, choosing one between two of your friends… Why? Why am I in this messed up situation, man? And why am I supposed to choose one of them? Isn’t… there some way that I could choose both… without hurting the feelings of anyone? Obviously not, man. Obviously not.”

***

The sun was setting. The sky was turning darker, even though it was still pretty much blue. The clouds still covered the skies, for some reason.

The leaves and branches of the bushes on the edge of the park were wet, and so was the ground. Wet mud covered the soles of our shoes as we all stood on the badminton court of concrete, the only landmass of concrete in the middle of all that mud and stuff. Rohit was in front of me on the other side of the court, and on my left was Aaryan. Aakash was on Rohit’s side. Like always, we were just hitting the shuttlecock to the other side softly, for some reason.

“The next day, I was still thinking if I should ask him to shift the party to some other day or just lie about why I won’t be able to attend his party.”

I swung my badminton racket at the shuttlecock and hit it forward. “Time is running out too, man. It’s just about a couple of days until that day,” I thought. “I gotta decide right now and tell him, or else…”

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! My heart was punching on my chest. For some reason, I was stressed out and kinda panicking about this situation, maybe.

I gulped in.

“Yeah. To be honest, Akshay was one huge motherfucker,” Rohit said, his face serious, obviously.

Aakash, for some reason, was smiling as he was hearing. “For real, mate. I can hear you and just sense that. I mean, the hell was that guy even thinking when he did that!”

“Yeah. That motherfucker just wanted to become the leader. He ain’t got no brains for that shit, and he got no reason to kick Vikram out anyway.”

“Yeah, mate. Maybe going against Vikram like this is dumb in itself.”

“Yeah,” Rohit replied.

“Akshay is a complete asshole. To oust Vikram, he should have fucking fought with him.”

“That’d have been a total fucking loss for that motherfucker, right?” Rohit commented, hitting the shuttlecock.

I then hit the shuttlecock back, still thinking about that as I silently stood on one side of the badminton court. But I, for some reason, concentrated on the shuttlecock and hit it constantly when it came to me.

Aakash then hit it as Aaryan commented, “Yeah, pal. But he won’t become a fucking loser if he’d challenged him and lost. He just fucking gave up and ran away. If I were at his place, I’d have at least tried to fight him off.”

“Pfft! You dumb or what? You’d have lost,” Aakash said.

“I’d have given up a fight. That’s what I was trying to say, asshole,” Aaryan irritably replied.

“Vikram said that Akshay too is preparing for some shit,” Rohit told him.

Aaryan’s eyes turned from Aakash to Rohit, who was directly in front of him.

Rohit had his eyes on the shuttlecock as he moved some steps back and swung the racket to the front. Aaryan sprinted some steps to the front and hit the shuttlecock with an underarm stroke. “What?”

“Yeah, motherfucker. I guess that was yer last day when he was telling us about that shit,” Rohit told him as the shuttlecock flew toward Aakash and he hit it.

“Asshole, I don’t remember,” Aaryan told him.

“That shit ain’t even important for ya now, to be honest,” Rohit commented as I hit the shuttlecock with a simple overhead stroke.

“Yeah, pal, but I still wanna know, ya see,” Aaryan told him as he looked toward him.

Aakash hit the shuttlecock toward me again as Rohit started to tell him. “Well, motherfucker, don’t ya remember he was saying some shit that Akshay has shaken hands with that motherfucker Amit and his gang?”

“That gang is shit, asshole. I thought that shit would be something more important, but it was fucking useless. That’s why I must have forgotten about it.”

Rohit smiled a little as he turned his head up and looked at the shuttlecock coming at him, ready to take the shot. “Motherfucker…” He then swung his racket hard on that shuttlecock and it hit the ground in a fraction of a second, like a bullet, for some reason.

I turned my head down left, looking at the shuttlecock lying on the ground. I started to walk some steps toward it to take it up. I bent down and took it up.

“To be honest, motherfucker, why are ya so quiet today?” Rohit asked as I straightened my back.

I turned to him, dumbfounded, as I asked, “Huh? Me?”

“Yeah, motherfucker.”

Aaryan frowned a little as he turned to me and said, “Yeah, pal, ya seem unusually quiet, ya see. Ya okay?”

I smiled. “I’m okay, man. Obviously. Damn.” I turned my head to the front and flicked the shuttlecock in the air toward Rohit.

“How am I supposed to even strike this conversation?!” I thought. “How should I tell him that… that I’m busy that day, so… he should change dates or some stuff, maybe?”

I then jumped up a little and waved my racket at the shuttlecock, hitting it to the other side again.

“Well, I gotta tell ya all something,” Aaryan suddenly announced.

“Is it about the party?” Aakash asked him.

“Yeah, asshole,” Aaryan replied with a smile as he waved the racket at the shuttlecock.

“Awesome. Go on, I can’t wait to hear this shit now,” Aakash said as he let the shuttlecock go away and hear the announcement.

I suddenly turned my head to my left at Aaryan. “Yeah, if he strikes the conversation about the party himself, it’d be easier to just tell him after he’s done.”

“Ya see, I’ve finalized the venue and the bookings are done,” Aaryan told everyone.

“FUCK!” I thought in my head.

“For real? Awesome!” Aakash gave out a huge grin.

“Motherfucker, where is it?” Rohit said with a smile.

“Yeah, where’s the party then?” Aakash repeated the question.

“Well, it’s at Burgor’s.”

“That fast food chain?” Rohit asked.

“Yeah,” Aaryan told him with a smile.

“Fuck, man! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” I thought in my head. “The dates won’t change now!” I just continued to glare at him silently, and then gulped in. I then suddenly smiled and said, “D-Damn, man! Great!”

“Ya all gotta come then, alright?” Aaryan asked all of us.

“For real? You gotta ask that? All of us are coming for this shit!”

“Yeah, motherfucker.”

“Yeah, man. Obviously.”

“Life was playing some sort of game with me, man. I was just about to ask him that I’m busy, and that he should change the date or go without me. But… the booking is done, huh? Damn, man. It’s so… so messed up. And it’s getting worse, for some reason.”