Drawers Part - II
Fiction
Part 1 2 of 3
The deep afterglow was leaving the sky when Ekon heard the doorknob turn. His nerves creaked in his lower body then a shiver ran up his spine and shook his face ever so slightly. In the blueish-grey light, Ekon recognised Natasha from her hair curls that swayed as she delicately entered the room.
‘How did you come here?’ asked Ekon—shocked and nervous.
‘Shh… the warden was called by the police.’ Natasha came in, she looked moved, perhaps melancholic. Nevertheless, Ekon admired a charm.
Taking a break from reading, the crimson hue on his eyes with a deep green daze suddenly made him rub them enough to make them red.
‘There are pages here,’ Natasha said getting to the drawer.
‘I know,’ Ekon replied in a sigh-ish voice.
When Natasha turned on her phone torch it got easier to see. The notes were written with coloured pens.
Note 5 (Distinct Script)
Rit’s mundaneness and saint-like eyes suggested him to be a simple man, though in no way a normal one. None remembered his arrival at Mistfall as it happens with their kind. He overthinks. “Another kid trying to sneak into adults’ conversations”—they shall not be taken seriously.
Note 6
Iman —
28
Male
Homeless
47th block corner, 7th street; mostly next to a butcher’s shop.
His eyes had a glimmer, they shimmered white in yellow sunlight with pupils that were blue and brown from the inside out. He sat like a dog and made the impression of craving raw meat.
Ten years ago, I was on a family vacation—perhaps my only family vacation—when Iman stood before New Youth’s office. He handed a pamphlet to my father. Some intangible force connected them, but I was too young to speculate the exacts.
When we were out of there, my father had left Rs. 5000 as a donation, given his phone number, our address, and a promise to send some papers from Manim. I might as well mention that my mother was absent from this business as she refused to come with us after a small quarrel. When she got to know about the donation from me, she beat my father. Many years later she told me this was the reason behind my father’s public execution.
Note 7 (Distinct Script)
Rit hung out at the plot on the library’s back away from most people. Anyone barely knew about it until Anand saw him there. Anand followed him through the narrow corridors between buildings to that unseen part of the campus. He stopped a few yards from him. Rit was drawing on the back walls with a pink marker. The walls were covered in pink doodles and cursive writings. Some words were written small and you needed to get up close, but Anand could still make out some.
“Dina” “Iman” “Raj” — these names stood out, stretched throughout the wall below these were intricately drawn portraits. The portraits were drawn from an unusual angle — from the top where the faces were slightly visible to the side of the heads from which a circular part was shaved off and had a small spot of ink, perhaps a hole.
Rit noticed a soul and found Anand. Anand instinctively tried to run but decided against it.
“What are you doin’?” Anand asked.
“Huh,” Rit replied absentmindedly.
Rit had taken a razor from his bag and went after Anand. Rit caught him and managed to cut off a piece of Anand’s flesh.
Note 8 (Distinct Script)
Rit almost always wore white — white pants and a loosely fitted long-sleeved shirt. Except at Anand’s funeral when he wore a black outfit. Anand was in 3rd year, CS when he committed suicide. Rit had nothing to do with him before his death, but out of nowhere, he blamed the department’s head.
He stomped, shaking the earth, but his face was of a saint. As expressionless as reality could allow him to qualify as human.
Note 9
Raj —
57
Male
RCC building
96, 8th block, 3rd street.
He was one of my first contacts after I returned to Mistfall. He had a clothing shop — a nice one.
“The life of a generational businessman is so sad, so sad.” I caught Raj talking in the backrooms while I spoke to his son.
“Hey, young man,” he called on my third visit. I was trying to confirm the target when I heard him call again, “Hey, young man.”
“Man… young man. I smell a dead soul inside you. But, you’re a young man anyway. Come with me.” The first few sentences made little sense in the crowded shop’s noisy haste noise, but the last sentence pushed me towards him like an arrow piercing through ice.
We went to his office. An inkwell and a quill lay on the table with no paper. He gestured for me to sit and went to the other side to pick up the inkwell from the centre of the empty table.
Raj spoke, “My family is wrapped in invisible strings. Our tradition is of legacy: you don’t make a business; you inherit one in our class. My dad made me the owner at 25 then lived in solitude until death. Now, my son’s 26; now my son inherits my shop.”
“Hmm,” I said; that word had the power to make them spit out.
He took the wet quill then came to me, circled and observed me. A quiet minute later, Raj placed his hand on my shoulder. “This is my last month here, then I’ll be there in my room enclosed in a deep, ever-darkening solitude until I visit death. A TV would be my companion and the curves of the bedsheet would be my Mount Everest adventure.” Raj said and drew a cross on my neck.
I held the quill with a hand and said looking into his eyes, “What’s the deal?”
“You’re a young man. You have the undiseased blood I need.” He stabbed that feather into my neck. It was half an inch deep before I managed to stop his hand.
‘I need to go,’ Natasha told Ekon. ‘It’s night. If the warden’s back… I can’t go through his stupid accusations today. I’ll come back tomorrow.’
Ekon looked out the window, saw a deep void like the window was covered with tar, and nodded. Ekon’s eyes struggled when the phone light was gone. He quickly pulled out his own phone, turned on the torch, and continued reading.
Note 10 (Distinct Script)
Though the dead can’t be shown, they can be told, admired, and remembered for the unknown absurd to resonate in its fabric forever.
I’ll be dancing with the moon
And life be sleeping till dawn
I’ll be sleeping with the sun
And life be dancing till dusk
Those were the lines I got a quick read of when Anand fell before me from his bike with that pink notebook. I’m still unsure how he managed to fall but it was, nevertheless, the beginning of a friendship. He was amiable and intelligent, but had a thing where he kept repeating “Not this and you.” He had a weird, almost poetic, obsession with the moon which kept popping up in conversations. Like the obsession of a religious philosopher with God, he didn’t admire it but couldn’t stop talking about it. It felt he was obliged to talk about it and wasn’t doing it out of free will.
Ekon realized it’d be time for the mess soon. A swing of light revealed the tabletop to be a mess with papers. He clumsily wiped them off to the drawer with no try to maintain any decency for later…
To be continued.
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