Illusion (Part I)

Kritvik Bhatt

The birds were chirping, for some reason. The pink curtains in front of the windows beside the door were shining brightly as the warm lustrous sunlight pierced through it. The streaks of sunlight lit about half of the bed where I lay, with my brown blanket on top of the right side of my twisted body.

The left half of my face was sunken inside my white pillow, whereas the lower half beneath the nose was covered by the blanket. My eyes, for some reason, suddenly tightened. Then, they opened a little.

My blurry vision looked toward the shining curtain on the other side of the glossy wooden bedside table. I then blinked once.

I moved my right hand to the bed and pushed my body up. I twisted my body frontward as I moved myself up and sat up on the bed, with the blanket spread all around the bed like noodles, covering parts of my legs and flowing here and there without reason.

I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes, and then breathed out. “Man, the next fifteen days, I’m gonna meet Sana only on six days… for only about ten-twenty minutes each day. Damn, man!”

“She was literally the first thing I thought every morning, man.”

***

I was standing beneath the shower—naked, obviously—with my head turned up toward the water flowing through my body. I was scrubbing my face with my hands. I then pressed my hands on my forehead and ran them through my wet shining hair.

In front of my legs was a plastic gray-colored bucket with a mug inside it. On my right was the toilet, and after it was the sink to wash hands and stuff. The door was to the right, and behind my head was a blurry window from where sunlight seeped in, obviously.

I turned my head down and pressed the shower mixer. The water stopped. My legs then turned to the right toward the door and I started to walk toward it. I stood in front of the door, turned to the mirror on top of the basin, and looked at my figure up until my waist as I moved my left hand up and took the white towel hanging on the door.

My body was meek, obviously. My arms were skinny, my shoulders were a little broadened but skinny as they revealed my collarbones. My ribs too were completely visible—though not too much. My belly was in. And on top of it were my thin neck, and then my face.

“Man, I… I’m not even attractive. Why will Sana ever like someone like me?” I thought as I moved the towel in front of my belly. I then turned my head downward, held the towel with both my hands, and then started to rub my face with it. “Damn! It doesn’t really matter, man. I am what I am, man. She’ll like my personality, not my body. She’s not a gold-digger or something like that, obviously. She won’t fall for money or body.”

“Well, you know me really well, K,” I heard her voice, for some reason.

I frowned as I moved the towel out of my face and turned rightward toward the shower. Her delicate figure in our usual all-white school uniform with a navy blue blazer stood there, smiling at me. Then, after a second, I blinked, and she disappeared.

I continued to glare aimlessly where she stood for a couple of seconds, shocked. I then smiled. “Obviously, man. You’re all I spend time with all day, after all.”

“And… that was the first time.”

***

I was sitting in the center of the gray sofa, with my plate of brown grilled toasts on my legs. I was glaring at the TV, where a guy was standing in the front, saying something constantly, along with a map behind him with shades of brown and blue and stuff like that.

“So, what Genghis Khan did in revenge was to pierce his army. Yeah, he… declared a war.”

The guy was then shifted to the left edge of the screen and the map was now the focus of the video.

I was hearing his indistinct English chatter constantly as I chewed. I then gulped in and took another bite of the toast in my right hand. It crunched a little and some of the tiny crumbs of grilled bread fell off on my t-shirt and sweatpants. As I chewed, I turned my eyes down, kept the toast on the plate, and then patted my chest and belly and stuff to clean it.

“Ahahahahaha!”

I turned my head rightward. And, on my right, was the figure of Sana—in the school uniform, for some reason—sitting a few inches beside me as she covered her lips with her right hand and laughed.

“Huh?”

“Well, you eat like a glutton, K! Ahahahaha!” She told me in between her laughs.

I narrowed my eyes. “Toasts are supposed to be messy like this, man. Stop laughing.”

She then moved her hand down, and with a smile, looked at me. “Like, don’t grill them too much, you see. It won’t be as messy as yours is.”

I smiled as I wiped my lips. “I like mine crunchy, for some reason.”

“I like mine neat,” She smiled. She then turned her head frontward as she moved her legs up the sofa and crossed them. “Anyway, what are you watching?”

“It’s a MeTube video on the Mongol invasion of Kh… Kha… Khwara…zmian empire.”

With a smile, she commented, “You can’t even pronounce the name of the empire. Like, why are you watching stuff like that then?”

“It’s interesting, man.” I turned my head frontward and took a bite in. I chewed for a couple of seconds and then I gulped the food in. “History’s interesting when you don’t really need to learn it and give exams, for some reason.”

With the English chatter still going on in the background, she turned to me and asked, “Well, turn on some anime.”

“I don’t really like to watch anime while eating food,” I smiled again as I turned to her.

“Why?” She doubtfully frowned.

“I miss some subtitles when I turn my head to my food to take a bite in.” I then turned to the TV. “So I prefer to watch them when I’m not really eating anything or doing stuff like that, obviously.”

“Sounds like a skill issue to me, you see. Because I never miss them—even while eating.”

“Great,” I said with a smile as I opened my lips to take another bite of my toast.

“Whatever.” She then turned to the TV too.

The white old man, who was in the center of the screen again, said, “And the three largest cities of the time—Herat, Nishapur, and Merv—were gone… just like that. After this, Genghis Khan…”

“Anyway, when are you gonna study for the math exam on Monday?”

“After I’m done with my food and this video,” I said as I chewed.

“Well, alright.”

I then turned my head rightward, and noticed that she was not there anymore, for some reason. I smiled as I thought, “Yeah, that’s just how she must have acted, man.”

***

The sun now was on top of everybody’s head. It shone brightly at the center of the blue sky. Beneath the sky stood the usual white and brown painted apartment buildings about three-four stories high, obviously.

The shorter needle of the white clock—which stood on top of the TV set—was at two, and the longer one at twelve.

I was sitting in front of my wooden table inside my room, obviously, with the room to the drawing room on my right and to the balcony on my back left. I was vigorously scribbling mathematical sums on the notebook opened in front of me. There were a couple of thick books lying open on top of the notebook, for some reason.

I then left the pen off my fingers and bent my back backward on the backrest. With my right hand, I took up one of the books, pulled it toward me on my legs, and flipped some of its pages. I then started to read something. “Correct,” I said as I kept the book on the table again. “Damn, man. Doing the same chapters again and again is so boring, after all!”

“Well, that’s just our education system—doing the same chapters again and again. I’m bored by this rote learning too, you see.”

I turned my head rightward, and her same figure was standing in front of the closed door, with her hands behind her back for some reason as she smiled.

I smiled. “Damn, man. Why am I even imagining you?!”

“Like, you know the answer yourself, K.”

“Maybe, but…” My cheeks turned pinkish as I turned my eyes away from her.

“Anyway, what’re you studying?” She said as she started to walk toward me. She stood beside me and peeped into my notebook.

“Math, obviously,” I replied as I turned to my notebook again.

“Well, you study a lot, K,” She commented as she turned to me. “Like, it won’t really help you in the future, then why?”

“Yeah, I know it won’t really be helpful some months after. But still, man, I gotta work hard and get good marks so I can get admission in a good school after the boards, after all.”

“Yeah, it’s our last year here, at last.”

“It’s really our last year here, huh?” I said, glaring aimlessly toward my notebook.

“Anyway, start having some fun in your life, K. You see, a lot of studying makes people dumb too.” Sana then turned her head to the open door toward the balcony on my left and started to walk toward it, for some reason.

“Huh? No, man. I do have fun, but when you gotta study, you gotta study, after all.” I turned my head backward and looked at her figure walking out toward the balcony, which threw in sunlight and lit the room up, obviously. I frowned. “No, she won’t really behave like this, obviously,” I thought. “Maybe I should imagine this scene once again.” My smile then faded and my eyes narrowed. “No! I gotta study first!” I then turned my head to my books again and started to flip the pages of one of the books.

“But, for some reason, there was nothing stopping this, man. I was literally… addicted to her, maybe. I… wanted to be by her side, obviously. But slowly, I was… turning mad, maybe. It was not like I was hallucinating her, but rather, I was intentionally imagining her all around me, for some reason.”

“Come here, K.”

“No, man. Let me study math now,” I said.

“At least just turn your head here, K~!” She said in a really sweet, and… and maybe lewd… voice.

My back straightened. My eyes were widened. I then shut them close tightly. “Damn, man! No! Don’t imagine stuff like that!”

“Kritiii~!”

I suddenly turned my head backward, my eyes widened, and I looked at her thin white arm coming out from the balcony… w-with a pink panty.

“Just like I said, man. Just like I said. I was turning insane. Maybe it was just my teenage hormones, after all, but whatever it was, man… I was turning fucking mad.”