Manav

Chapter 13 - The Emoji Guy

"Okay so that emoji guy. Let us think about him for a while. That would spice up this living room a little. What's the time Manav?" Rishi said. "Nevermind. This is something new. From now on. I can feel it. Have you ever smoked a cigarette?"

"What? Why?" I said.

"'Cause you should smoke one when it's the end of something and the beginning of other." He said.

"Come on. What's going on with you?" I said.

"This is a drag. We are dragging everything now. It's been a long time Manav!"

"It's just been two weeks." I said.

"Just two weeks? Don't you find two weeks to be a very very long time?"

"No, not at all."

"Don't be kidding me. How can she not come online for two weeks? Something's fishy." He said.

"Maybe she is out of town?"

"Wow! What a most probabilistic coincidence it is!" he said.

"Calm down Rishi."

"Tell that to yourself." He said.

It was past 8pm in the night. Dinner wasn't at home so I had ordered pizza. Every F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fan loved it I guess. It had been two weeks now that Priyanka didn't reply to my message. That day when I saw that she had accepted my friend request, I had sent her a 'Hey'. Whereas Rishi was drilled into thinking about why did she accept it? I wasn't in that place though. For me I felt her. I thought, it was the ending of an era of unfriendshipness. But even Rishi was right. Where could she go? I mean, she not at all came online for freaking two weeks and daily at around this time I used to check in for a new message. So, in that disappointed effort of checking the feed daily, I used to go on to her profile. I only used to go on to it but never used to see her photos or any of her posts. I just thought I shouldn't. But this time, I decided to go through her feed. And as I scrolled further and further, I came across that picture. The picture of her boyfriend. That emoji pic. I knew somehow everything in my life was related to him because it all started from there. She had posted only this picture with him that to six months before we had our fight. I stopped there. Felt like going deeper into that pic.

"Okay, I can't hold it inside anymore." Rishi said. He leaned towards the laptop and stared at that guy strongly. His mind started working now.

"So, his face is covered almost like 90%, but that 10% is also enough. His hair is visible behind his ears. He has tilted his face a little. He has a long face. The dressing sense..."

"...is familiar." I continued. "The background seems like a park indicating they went to some park. So it means they had free time then. Priyanka's height crosses his shoulder a bit, but wait she is standing behind him so she comes roughly to his height. Moreover, they've clicked this photo in the daytime. In the background a little bit of crowd can be seen, so it somewhat indicates that they went there on some weekend maybe."

"You have the details of the post right? When did she post it?" Rishi asked.

"Well, she posted it on 8th of September." I said.

"Hmm...that means, they clicked this more or less before 8th of September." He said.

"Lets keep the range of about ten days." I said.

"Going forward, his left hand extends towards the phone and most of the phones click a selfie like a mirror. That means the actual image is basically the reverse of the image clicked. That means, the phone was in his right hand, that suggests that he is a right handed person." He said.

"That dress of Priyanka, its, its that dress...her favourite one." I said. "Which indicates that she was happy to be with him."

"Obviously, can't you judge that looking at her smile?" Rishi said.

I became silent. For a while I let Rishi look at the picture deeply and I sided. And that's when a feeling clicked in. I pushed him a little and made way for me to look at the screen.

"What? What is it?" he asked.

"I'm getting a feeling that I know this guy. He seems very familiar."

"How is that possible?"

"What? Now are you telling me to think over my intuitions and get an answer to this?" I said and slide chair and distanced myself from the laptop. That intuition became stronger.

"Come on now. Dig in more. We have to find this guy. Somehow all the answers lie with him."

I didn't react to him. I was all blank. As that feeling of familiarity became stronger, I dropped more and more into a big 'no' for knowing that guy. I just didn't want to know him anymore. But Rishi was forcing me to.

"What is it? Don't you have guts to tell yourself to get up and find out who the fuck is this guy?!" he said.

"No!" I shouted. With deep breaths I said, "I can't. I don't want to." Rishi's look at me asked me 'why?'. "Yes, I am a bit terrified by this thing now." he raised his eyebrows. "Okay, not a bit terrified, but a lot."

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked.

I stared in empty space for a while as I focused on what I was about to say. After few seconds of that decisiveness, I said,

"Exit." And I got up from the chair and headed to the laptop, clicked some options and a shut the monitor down with a silent walk which was rather empty than silent.

I walked along the passage of my house and back there was Rishi who flipped open the monitor to see what did I do.

The view seemed okay, yet peaceful on that small window of my room. I stood there with no thought in mind. In the front, there was a building whose floors were in level with ours. So the windows were parallel to each other. I lived on the fourth floor and in that building, on the second floor, I saw a girl going hither thither. I nodded in thought that how come for one person life can be a busy world and for another a series of suspenseful moments. I didn't know who was she. But I had seen her around recently a couple of times.

The first ever close contact with her, was at a shop while I was buying some protein chocolates at the counter and she came to the counter with some biscuits. I didn't focus on those biscuits though, but I was drawn to her. She looked pretty that day. It took me a while to realize that she lived in the neighbourhood.

I felt very peaceful at my small window. I stood there for a while and Rishi had a look at what did I do on my laptop. His face dropped and he was forced to be in silence. No words at all came out of his mouth. The only thing which I had done was, that I deactivated my Facebook account.