Manav

Chapter 14 - Gathering Information

"You always do this to me!" she said as she threw a pillow at him. He just ignored her and kept on collecting some stuff which littered around. "What do you think of yourself? Are you the only person who is so great with all your silly ideas and all!?" Lights were off and she continued following him wherever he roamed in her house. After sometime, he lost himself, out of control, burst open, "Stop it Priyanka!" loud voice of his made the walls deaf in there. And slowly when both of them had nothing to say, one tear drop from Priyanka's right eye sniffed out slowly and talked a lot then.

I was with Shefali. We were roaming around at Bandra fort. She told me about Priyanka's break up. How it happened and everything, except the guy's identity. She too didn't know who was he. By someone mutual she got to know about Priyanka's break up.

We were walking by the garden.

"It's been four months Manav. When are you gonna stop being so weird?"

"What weird?"

"You went off Facebook just because you thought that the guy who Priyanka dated seemed familiar? And you even cut out yourself from other contacts too! Didn't meet anybody, and only after four months you call me here, why?"

"How does it feel when a ton of memoriesdepend on the identity of a person who you might know? If it is that knownperson, your memories are shredded and blown into this wind around us." I saidas I pinched the air. "And if it's not, you again go into the search of that person. Dependency remains."

"Jeez...how can you think so much?"

"Atleast, you don't ask me that."

"Okay...so tell me, why did you call me here?"

I left by keeping her unanswered. Now this move. This would make her think about this ignorance from me. She'll get curious to know what has happened to me? How did I change in those four months. A perfect illusion. She followed me. Called out my name a couple of times. I didn't deliver any attention. I came out of the park, removed a cigarette out of my pocket and started searching for a lighter. She came.

"What the fuck was that?" she said with her arms stretched fully.

"Give me the lighter."

"What?"

"Its in your back pocket. Come on, give me. I need it."

"What?...How did...how did you?" she said and gave me the lighter.

I took it and lit up the cigarette. One strong puff in, it was a remedy for a lot of things. She kept on looking at the cigarette. I offered her. She denied.

On taking in one more puff of that airy snack, I asked her,

"I know you do." I offered her again. This time she took it. So let me tell you what was going on here.

Shefali recently went through a break up. Shewas dating a guy since a long time and he turned out to be a freak. Youremember why she always sat quiet in her own world? This was the reason to it. She understood the world a bit more than others, because, thanks to her ex-boyfriend who made her learn those things. Anyways, matters were closed between him and her but obviously, we are humans, we tend not to forget that person who we loved. So after that whole break up thing, she got inclined to booze and stuff. Anyways, how did I come to know about all this? She never told me. But still I knew. I do one kinda magic trick. Even I don't know the true secrets to it, but I know how its done. And yes, it works.

"How did you come to know the lighter was in my back pocket?"

"I know some stuff Shef, about you." She didn't utter a word. For she had never seen me like this before. Even I didn't see myself like this. But I was loving this upgrade of mine.