Dark Spots

Kritvik Bhatt

“Social science exam was the second-last exam. After this, there was only one subject left, computer applications—the sixth subject, obviously. No doubt, for the past few exams, I’ve never seen Sana once. Maybe she was happy with Daksh, after all—so much that she completely forgot about me.”

My eyes had dark patches beneath them, for some reason. My thin bag was hung behind my right shoulder and both my hands were inside my pockets as I walked alone through the street of bungalows on both the sides.

The sun was just above the top of everybody’s head. After all, it must have been quarter-to-ten, obviously.

The street was filled with groups of kids in the same uniform of white shirts and pants along with a dark blue blazer as me, all walking toward the school. There was one group of boys some steps ahead of me, and another one some meters away.

The school’s football ground was just on my right, not really visible because of the thick wired walls and cars parked in front of them. But, I could hear the shouts of the players from the other side, obviously. What was visible to me was the top story of the white school building.

“Hey! Pass!”

“Run run run run run!”

Some stampeding footsteps followed the shouts, until they disappeared.

“Damn,” I turned my head leftward. “They run with so much power in their feet, man.” I then turned frontward again as I passed from between the parked cars on my left and running cars on my right.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

I then turned left toward the gate of the school, where several other kids walked in around me. I entered the school with the football ground on my left, the right edge of the school on my right, and a pathway straight to the entrance to the building about a couple dozen steps away.

***

Some minutes later, I turned right from the staircase to the corridor and walked in. There were, obviously, the classrooms on my right and that wall of a line of windows on my left. The corridor was crowded as always, man. There were bunches of boys and girls standing here and there, discussing stuff. Some were just laughing and chatting while some were seriously talking about the exam with their books in their hands.

I just continued to glare forward, obviously, and walked hastily.

The next moment, I turned right and walked inside one of the classrooms. That too, obviously, was filled with indistinct chatters and laughs and stuff. I just walked to the other edge of that door, turned left toward the desks, and walked in. I hastily walked through a group of boys spread in the middle of the two rows, sitting on top of desks and laughing, and stood in front of the last desk, taking my bag off my shoulder. I kept my bag on top of the table and sat on the chair in front of it.

I turned my head rightward, looking at the door at the right front corner of the room. I was sitting as far from it as possible, for some reason. I then pushed my bag a little away from me, crossed my forearms on top of the table, and bent my head down on the table. I closed my eyes, stuffed them inside my right elbow, and just sat there like that silently, for some reason.

“Those exams… were one of the toughest exams of my life, maybe. Obviously, man, it was not that the exams themselves were hard, but… but those days were just so… emotionally draining, for some reason. Aaryan was not contacting me, Sana had left talking to me, I didn’t know Kavya’s whereabouts, and… and I was left with no one. Yet again. And it was not like I had those emotions that I wanted to take out of my heart. It was… just that… I wanted people to talk to me too. Humans are social animals, after all. I wanted to talk to people, laugh, and be myself with them, obviously. But, I didn’t really know how to deal with this loneliness that I had been going through. That’s… what made those exams so damn hard for me, man.”

***

‘You alright, right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine!’

That was our last conversation on the black screen of Campfire, for some reason.

I was sitting at the backmost seat of my row, with my head tilted toward the window on my left. Outside the window, I could see the blue sky and white irregular clouds, along with a dark brown bungalow beneath it, obviously. The answer sheet was on the table in front of me, between my elbows. My forearms stood on my elbows, and my face was balancing on top of my hands which covered both my cheeks and ears. The transparent pouch filled with stationery was on top of the sheet.

As I glared out from the window, I thought, “Damn, man—another day of not speaking a word in this school, huh?”

Triiing! Triiing! Triiing!

The male teacher in a cream shirt and brownish pair of trousers moved his butt up from the teachers’ table and started to collect sheets from the front of my row and the row on my right. Everyone was raising their sheets at him as he zigzagged his way, snatching sheets softly.

He then walked to me as I moved my right hand down at my sheet and raised it toward him. He took it from me and I fixated my right hand to my right cheek, where it was, obviously.

“I just wanna go home and watch some anime now. But, I still got another exam left, after all.” I then smiled. “And after that, just a week more of school, and then, one month preparations for the boards will begin, huh?” My smile faded. “What am I even gonna do in that one month? I gotta decide on a stream for next year, study damn hard to score ninety-plus, and… and even fight this loneliness of mine, obviously. No doubt, it’s gonna be a tough month, after all.”

“You all can leave now, kids!” Sir announced as he was walking from the door on the right to the teachers’ desk on the left.

Obviously, everyone suddenly rose to their feet and moved chairs to walk out. Everyone started to chat and discuss answers with each other as some started to walk out of the door. The corridor too suddenly crowded up with girls and boys discussing stuff with each other. Everyone was walking as slowly as possible, for some reason.

I stood up from my seat, walked out of my desk, and just stood behind a group of boys who were talking and laughing damn hard as they dragged their feet. The area in front of them too was crowded with guys just like them. On the right, there were some girls who were discussing some stuff as they looked at their question papers.

My eyes were narrowed, for some reason, like they were tired. There were those black spots beneath them, which continuously glared toward those guys.

I suddenly stepped to the left and overtook them. I overtook a few others too and walked from between their chats, for some reason. I hastily reached to the blackboard at the front, bent down, took up my bag, opened its zip as I turned rightward toward the door, kept my pouch in, closed it, and hung it on my right shoulder as I was just some steps away from the door. There was a group of girls who covered the whole doorframe, for some reason, as they discussed and walked out.

Slowly, I walked to it and I turned left on the crowded corridor, continuing to walk slowly. The whole corridor, obviously, was filled with indistinct laughs and chatters, along with those continuous footsteps.

There was that same staircase about a two-three dozen steps away from me as I approached it slowly, from the middle of the talking crowd, obviously.

I turned my dark eyes rightward, looking toward the windows. I then turned my eyes frontward again, for some reason, and continued to glare aimlessly toward the front.

As I was walking closer and closer, glaring toward the staircase, I suddenly turned my eyeballs a little frontward and glared at the crowd coming in from the other side of the staircase. And, obviously, there were Sana and Daksh, discussing something as they both looked at the question paper in Daksh’s hand.

I glared at them with those narrowed eyes of mine.

“It’s over, man. She’s never talking to me again, after all,” I thought. I then took in a deep breath from my nose, and blew it out with my lips. “Phew. That’s life, huh?” I then turned my eyes to the staircase again.

“It’d have been a lot better if I’d not seen them, man.”

I just continued to simply walk, for some reason. When the intersection arrived, I simply turned left and continued to walk downward slowly. Sana and Daksh, in the next second, too turned to the staircase and were just some steps behind me, for some reason.

I could hear their faint voices.

Daksh was narrating to Sana as both of them had their eyes on the question paper in his hand. “See, there were four social groups that participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement. I can’t remember them all, but one was the middle class, the other industrialists—”

“The industrialists were the ones who later didn’t rejoin the movement when it restarted in nineteen thirty-two, right?” Sana asked him.

“Yeah,” He turned to her and nodded. “And the third one was the peasantry.”

“Divided into two more sub-groups—the big ones and the small ones.”

“Hahaha. What’s the big ones and small ones?”

Sana smiled, obviously. “Well, I didn’t really remember the correct words.”

“The land-owners and wage-workers,” He said as he turned to the paper again.

“Yeah yeah,” She replied with a smile as she continued to glare at the question paper. “And the next one?”

“See, this one was quite easy. You just…”

I turned rightward on the lower floor, where just a fraction of others turned. It was a four-corridor intersection, with the staircase on one side of the four, obviously.

Sana and Daksh too turned right, about five-seven steps away from my back, as I turned right on the next intersection. I continued to hastily walk with my hands inside the pockets of my pants.

There was this same garden on my right—with a railing in front of it, obviously—and some other rooms on my left. About a dozen steps away was the open stairway to that pathway between the edge of the school and the football ground, which led to the exit gate.

Clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp. I hastily walked.

Sana and Daksh too turned to the corridor and were discussing stuff when I was just a few more steps away from the staircase which threw in sunlight.

I had just stepped on the first step when suddenly, I heard Sana calling me. “Hey, K!”

My feet froze.

THUMP! THUMP!

“D-Damn, man.”