Shape of the Sun

Adrift

An hour ago

Rajkumar woke up in the dead of the night. He could hear his own breathing, loud enough to deafen his ears. Or maybe it was the thumping of his heart that he could feel pulsating from his throat.

He had been awake for ten minutes and paralyzed on the bed, the darkness affixing him to the bed. It pressed upon him and made his vision flash black and white, reminiscent of what it did that terrible night.

He was afraid. He didn't know what to do.

Thump. Thump.

Those were Eloise's footsteps. No, it was his heart galloping like a deer caught in headlights. It wasn't. It was. It wasn't.

Rajkumar scrambled for the bedside lamp and pressed down so hard, the sound went thud against the walls of his heart. But he didn't care. He didn't have the capacity to, tender mind on autopilot, racing away from the demons that found their way in and built their nest.

The light gently flooding the room put them to rest. But it was only for a while. He could hide from those demons, ghosts of the days past, but not from himself.

The standing mirror on his far left was telling.

Rajkumar couldn't recognize the boy that he saw there. So similar, yet not. He had lost so much weight in just a few days. The boy in the mirror was disheveled, eyes reddish from crying, a litany of tears and mucus running his face that he hadn't even realized was there before, hollow like there was no life in there, and bones jutting out every part of his body, their sharp angles pronounced.

Perhaps they'd cut him from within. They would cut him like he wasn't already cut. Or perhaps, he wasn't cut. Not just yet. He was only crushed, shattered, trampled upon, that type of thing.

Rajkumar tried to smile. He pressed fingers to the corner of his lips and forced them to a curve all the way up. He tried to smile, a proxy for happiness.

But as it turned out, he couldn't even do just that. His smile came out uglier than crying, a proxy for the bottomless sadness inside of him. His eyes followed suit and released their torrent, so that he choked on his sobs, all the while careful not to be too loud. He silently cried in that corner of his bed, hands pressed to mouth.

The darkness scared him. But the light scared him even more.

He was lost, hopelessly lost at sea, drifting without an anchor, waves tossing in a battle for his soul. Rajkumar thought he was losing.

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But even though he was losing, he didn't want to be lost. Rajkumar was most scared of being alone where no one could find him.

He wanted to be held close when he was drifting as Amma did in the morning. The warmth of her body had given him peace, enough to meet the elusive sleep. He wanted some of that warmth and now more than ever, after seeing that face he so desperately hated.

Rajkumar gathered himself together and gingerly came down from the bed, delicate feet touching the cold, tiled floor, a hand anchoring sleeves to wipe the mess on his face while the other clutched a pillow behind.

He couldn't be by himself for himself.

Soon enough, he was walking across the dark, silent hallway, and at that moment, Rajkumar realized how small he was, how tiny his frame held up against that of the space around it. Rajkumar wondered if his problem was as small too, a tiny speck of dust amongst many. Perhaps, he was a small fry in a big pond. Perhaps, he should man up and stop making a fuss.

But the memory of that painful night drove him right back into the arms of apparent hypocrisy. He couldn't be by himself for himself.

The path to his parents' room meant passing through Priyyanka's. She had come from their aunt's yesterday, he knew, but hadn't come to see him then or even before leaving for school this morning. Rajkumar's hand applied more strength to the pillow, a bid to distract from the billowing wind in his temple, their sails clouding his vision as he pressed his ear to the paneled door.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

The sails went past, leaving him behind.

Rajkumar wanted to ask Priyanka if she left him behind too. Or was it that she already knew? Did she see it like he did, the filth he now was? Could she smell it from afar, the stench making her nauseous, like it did to him? He felt sick of himself but couldn't even throw up.

Perhaps, his sister had beat him to it - and he didn't blame her. Rajkumar's heart only ached, reflecting in the tears welling up in his eyes, cursing Eloise for making him a pariah to the ones that had loved him so much.

Rajkumar didn't dare step in and ask Priyanka. He knew that she was suffering as much as he was. He could only pray in his heart that she'd not forget him so soon.

"Elder sister...." His whisper scattered in the wind passing through the hallway.

Priyanka wasn't here to turn around and yell at him to stop chasing, then again to pace her. She wouldn't grumble about how ridiculously tall he was. Couldn't, more like.

There was no more sneaking chocolates into his room when he was ill and pretending that she didn't care.

He had forgotten. He should keep doing so.

The ten-year-old backed up from the door, silently sobbing, his fingers pressed to his eyes, tears spilling onto his blue shirt and the dark tiled floor, hoping that his message reached his elder sister, full of sorrow for this short-lived bond. He was grateful beyond words. Filth was deserving. Filth could only go where it had no choice but to be accepted, albeit grudgingly. Filth was ever-grateful.

Filth was forever moving forward, even if alone, even if against its will.

Soon enough though, Rajkumar would learn a spin to that thought.

Filth moved forward, unhinged and off the rails so that when it needed to stop, it couldn't and fell deeper into the shit, the murky cesspool that it had only been at the fringes of, to be or not to be.

It crashed and burned harder. It did so alone.