DISCLAIMER: Loads of crude language here onwards, so beware.
____________________________________

Time passed by, as it is wont to.
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'Are you fucking serious?' Avish asked, rhetorically.

'I am as serious as I am in bed,' said Roy. 'Now move if you wanna know yours before everyone else does.'

They bustled across the hall and made it to the declaration board, hearts pounding to fight through their chests. It was already crowded there, and it took the two of them a while to get through rest of the anxious throng and see the damn list. Roy saw his name immediately, at eye-level. Avish, who was a bit shorter, had to look up.

'What!' he exclaimed.

'What happened, man?' Roy asked, concerned, as they made their way back.

'The hell! What rank did you get?'

'Uhm . . . thirty-nine, why?'

Avish legitimately shouted an abuse in his face.

'What - what happened, man, you're scaring me.'

'I came freaking second!'

Roy's jaw dropped. 'What?'

'I'm the second topper!' and Avish began to jump about the place, laughing and yelling the same thing at everybody he could find to yell at.

'Who's first?' Roy asked.

'Deep, duh.'

'The son of a bitch,' Roy swore under his breath.

All of their party had changed these last two years. The most significant change displayed by Avish, who was now fifteen, taller - though still relatively a bit short for his age - smarter and, well, as every other fifteen-year-old, filthier. The least significant change was associated with Deep: he still sport those stupid, thick-ass specs, still blinked like the damn geek he was, still came first every single term. Only arena he'd grown in, was height. That was literally all.

And Radha. She was still a heartthrob. She had grown into the ravishing young woman she had always promised to become. Avish low-key had a huge crush on her. He'd never really thought of their friendship that way, but she was, plainly put, irresistible.

They'd all planned to go chill out after the mid-term results came out. Divyam regretted not being able to come; he might be a chess progeny, but his intelligence went to tutor grass when it came to studies and after such poor results, his parents won't give him the permit. Raghu and one other member of the Boogies - currently on a hiatus, seemingly permanent - had famously flunked the exam.

As for Avish, he was feeling on top of the world. He stormed into his house humming a tune he didn't quite remember he knew from where

(remember)

-and he didn't care. It was a cool tune, was what mattered.

But he stopped right as he entered the threshold.

Outside the dim porch, his mother sat on a sad piece of furniture, head held in her bony hands and her back bent crooked. As she heard the approaching footsteps, she looked up and Avish saw her forlorn face. For a moment she was an appalling zombie and it was almost like a horrible dream-

(not a dream)

-and he feared she might just attack him, the way it goes in such horrible dreams.

(NOT a dream)

But as her dark, earnest eyes fell upon her son, Shweta transformed back from a zombie to herself. Her features burned with life. But then again, as Avish dashed forward toward her and noticed the large, hurtful botch on her face, swollen near the bottom chin - and she in turn noticed Avish noticing, her face lost its radiance again.

SSDD.

The thought randomly popped up inside his brain, like the pop when your cochlea malfunctions.

Same Shit, Different Day, honey.

'Where is he?' Avish asked with resolve.

'Deary, just calm down -'

'Mom, I asked you a question,' he said steely. 'Where's Dad?'

Hesitation gripped his mother. She meekly flinched. 'No. No, honey, you are not going to do anything stupid.'

'He's gotta listen, Mom, he can't treat you like a bloody punching bag-'

'No, honey, just listen-'

'No, Mom. You listen. You don't deserve this. He got drunk again, didn't he?'

The bluntness of it must have caught her off-guard, and Shweta flinched more visibly this time. Sometimes, it scared her how fast Avish had grown. Just yesterday, he'd been this little kid, terrified to death of non-existent bed bugs and today he was willing to face his father and take all these big leaps and god, was it hard for a mother to subsist. Children might grow up, but they don't begin to understand easily.

Shweta clung to her silence.

'Mom?' he said, flurried. 'I'm sorry if I -'

'No, no. It's just that . . you must know that Daddy loves you. To no end. He can't just . . . get rid of the Bad Habit. You know?'

It was Avish's turn to keep quiet. He couldn't accord to things he very well knew were unjustified.

After a while, she was the one to break the silence. 'I know what you're thinking, deary. But sometimes there's more than just one thing you have to look out for.'

'Sometimes, Mom, there is only one thing you have to look out for.'

How had she been living like this for so many years, since her marriage? What had held her, for so long, from breaking? Society? After his birth, Avish himself? How had he been so oblivious to her troubles as a kid?

But he knew the answer to that. He'd had a lot going himself as a kid.

Her lower lip was quivering violently by now; she was afraid, maybe not as afraid as she had been when that monster of a truck had near-about killed her

(remember)

-but afraid all the same. Afraid enough that Avish thought she might cry. But she was resilient if she was anything. In a hushed tone she said, 'You shouldn't talk of your father that way, Avish. It's not good. Promise me you won't ever talk about him like that ever again. Ever.'

She had referred to him as "Avish", which was just wrong. It was always ''honey'' or ''dear'' or something but never his name. His mother was not well. The cause was his father.

'I promise,' he lied, but only for his mother.

'You don't mean it, do you?'

Of course she knew. Of course.

__________________________________

Next day, he went to this really popular Chinese restaurant (highly recommended by Divyam, who unfortunately wasn't there). The conversation with his mother had really banged some door inside of Avish; in a way, it had been his first real, mature conversation with her.

He deliberately sat next to Radha; this term, he was going to let her know how he felt about her. He guessed it had been long overdue anyway. So every baby step counted.

The place, meanwhile, was scampering with personalities of all sorts, creating a lively tumult and making Avish think that he was a freshly hatched bird in a nest. His eyes scanned the eatery and he thought he saw someone who caused a clot in his neck.

(I have been watching over you)

All the while onwards, he gave it his best to not look in the direction of that wooden counter.

(protecting you)

'At least you got better than Divyam,' Radha said, trying to cheer Roy up, who was seated across them at the table with a grim tenor.

'Yeah, well, he's a fucking champion, what's he gotta worry about.'

'Don't be such a sore whine, come on.'

'Easy for you to say,' Roy snorted. 'You came ninth, Radha. Fucking ninth! You don't know how much I studied this time round . . .'

Radha nudged Avish, shaking him out of, what appeared to be, deep thought. His face was ashen, as opposed to enthusiastic. What had happened to him all of a sudden?

'Huh?'

'Avish, tell this miserable asshole to cheer up.'

'Yeah, listen to her, dude.' Avish drank a whole glass of water in one gulp. He was evidently sweating in copious amounts.

'You said you didn't study! How the hell did you come second?'

'I - I dunno, dude,' Avish replied off-handedly, still sweating at an alarming rate. 'You just . . . I guess you take too much stress. That's why you mess up.'

Roy's face drooped. Radha elbowed Avish hard and said, very much sarcastically, in a lowered tone: 'Yeah, that's uplifting.'

'I can hear you two lovebirds,' Roy cawed. Avish's heart skipped a beat.

'Excuse me, what?' Radha said. 'You need to stop with that shit. You've been doing that, since, like what, sixth grade?'

''Cos it's true,' Roy sang. 'Isn't it, Deep?'

Deep was busy gobbling up noodles.

('God, I wish that cunt Divyam was here,' commented Roy. 'At least I wouldn't feel so insecure surrounded by you A-listers.')

Avish went into another realm again. He didn't eat much. His eyes kept darting this way and that, jaw clenched, skin pallid, muscles subtly twitching.

Like he'd seen a ghost.

Radha noticed this, but she kept quiet; Avish was a different kind of introvert, she'd deduced long ago.

After their meal, Deep barfed more than was accounted for. 'And that, ladies and gentlemen,' Roy teased, 'is how you digest being a topper.' Radha guffawed; Avish seemed a bit off.

As they were leaving, Radha spotted a bizarrely dressed man - all in black, from head to foot, no iota of skin visible, even hands covered in black gloves - seated by a wooden counter. A high collar cloaking his face. Only what appeared to be a single coin-like eye, shining from underneath that mysterious darkness. The man raised a soup bowl and gestured approvingly to . . . was it Avish?

Once outside, and once Roy and Deep had left, Radha mustered enough in herself to ask Avish. 'Did you know that man?'

His brows furrowed at her. 'What man?'

'The man back there, at the restaurant. That strange fella in black?'

Avish's face went from confounded to shocked to downright terrified in the quarter of a blink. 'You . . . could see him?'

'Yeah.' She frowned.

'I mean, yes, of course. How silly of me. I just . . . I need to leave.' He added an impromptu line: 'Mom called. I'm sorry.'

'Sure,' Radha said, but Avish was already gone.

_____________________________________
Fuck.

Why?

After all those years Avish had worked so hard to forget the man in black, why would he choose to show up today, of all days? Why would he show up at all?

When his eyes had first fell upon him savoring that delicious-looking soup, waving deviously in his direction, Avish had assumed it was a random nobody acknowledging another random nobody. But others - waiters, customers, everyone - were ignoring the man, and somehow Avish knew he knew this guy from somewhere. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he just felt a click in the latch of his memory lane.

Why could no one else see him?
But Radha said she could. Was she going mad, too? A collective, contagious madness they shared?

You told her, Avish. Back then.

I told her what?

You told her all about it.

All about what, dammit?!

He was just being paranoid. The man was probably a drunkard waving at every other person in there, and everyone was avoiding him because his habit was regular and crazy and no one cared. Radha did, because she'd come there the first time as well.

(remember remember remember)

That was it. That was all.

I'm just being a pussy for no reason.

As per fuckin' usual, he told himself.

____________________________________
'Out for a late-night rendezvous, are we, eh, kiddo?'

'I'm not a kiddo,' Avish grumbled. He considered admonishing and carpeting his father there and then for having abused his mother not once, not twice, not even a countable number of times. He knew it wasn't exactly civil to have such dark opinions of anyone, let alone your own father, but God knew he couldn't help it.

'Ooh, ooh, oh,' Dhruv cooed. 'That cheek goan do you no good, boy.'

'Don't do that voice,' Avish said. 'You sound an awful lot like an ape.'

His father got up from the dine in a jolt and strode in a frantic fit over to his son, who was now almost as tall as him. Both father and son stood face to face, the son composed and angry, the father drunk and angrier. If Dhruv had any opened his lids a bit more, his eyeballs might as well have fallen out.

In the background, a soccer match was in its tidings on the TV.

'You wanna watch that cheeky tone, smart-ass,' Dhruv warned. 'You ain't no kid no more.'

'That's right. I'm not.'

'I told you to watch - that - tone.'

'And what if I don't?'

'You cocky son of a-'

'Your son,' Avish cut in. 'I'm your cocky son.'

As soon as the words escaped his throat, he wished he hadn't said them. Grown as he was, he was still a relatively thin, not particularly ripped kid of fifteen. And his father was a brute. Avish could see himself lying on the floor while his father kicked him to his afterlife. He could feel the temperature rising.

Thankfully, Shweta convened. Out of nowhere she came, an apron tied around her neck, and practically pushed her son away from her husband. 'Hey, hey, honey, go to your room.'

Dhruv smirked. Avish didn't move a muscle.

'Honey, honey,' Shweta said, panic apparent in her silky voice, 'please go to your room. Please.'

'Listen to her, kiddo,' said Dhruv, beaming still. His beam added an "I'mma kick your ass" to the sentence.

Avish moved. But only towards his father. His mother blocked him, desperately flailing her arms. Fearful tears instantly swam in her eyes. 'Please, honey. I request. Please, please go to you room.'

Avish conceded, unable to bear his mother this way, wheeling about furiously. 'That's right, kiddo,' Dhruv called from behind. 'Go to your damn room and sleep with the goddayum lights on.'

That made Avish stop for a second, fist gritted, teeth gnawing. As he walked away, he could hear his father cackling drunkenly behind him.

The soccer match on the telly continued.

_____________________________________
Who was that man?

Despite his heat with father, Avish was still somehow more hung up on that guy from the restaurant. He closed his eyes, imagined a curly white smoke rising up to his chest as he inhaled and turning into pure stark energy as he exhaled. He didn't know where he'd learnt this calming trick, where he'd learnt to attain the void. Meditation never worked for him; never had, never would. But this voiding he'd learnt from

(rule the void)

-from whomsoever was nonetheless an effective trick, and it never ceased to succeed in calming him no matter the situation.

As his eyes opened, he saw the cupboard in front of him. And again, like at the restaurant earlier that day, something just clicked.

Open it.

He got up and walked over to the cupboard. Looked inside. There was a faded demarcation on the wood farther back by a log-level. He reached out to touch it, but applied too much pressure maybe, that the plank gave away. It fell with a thaa-pluck! sound into a hollow beneath that Avish didn't think he remembered being there.

But . . . the hat.

His twelfth year birthday present. From . . . from whoever, but it had been a hat, he was sure of it. A black, elegant hat he'd hid in here for some reason. He'd worn it and fooled around.

He shivered, maybe due to nostalgia, maybe due to something else.

Avish peeked. But no. Of course there wasn't a bloody hat in there.

He'd accidentally broken a plank, was all. He was an idiot.

No hat.

There had never been a hat, come to think of it. It had all been his kiddish imagination. Damn, what kind of a kid had he been?

About to shut the cupboard door, he noticed something.

Shit.

He got a torch and confirmed, just to be sure. And there it was, true as rain. Not a hat, no. But it had been years since he'd visited this secret hiding place, if ever, and dirt had accumulated in there. Granules floated under the intense light, and he blinked his eyes a million times in disbelief.

There was a ring-like region down there which didn't have any dirt, like an object had been kept there, only just recently removed.

Astutely in the shape of a hat.

Avish rubbed his head, which was throbbing, like a proper stampede was parading in there. This couldn't be real. He was so overrun with nostalgia and the argument with Dad had made him go crazy furthermore. He was obviously seeing things. No way a ghost came and removed a childhood souvenir of his madness moments before he remembered about it. Hell, he didn't even recall there was a damn hollow-hide in his own damn cupboard, which he'd been using since forever.

Shit. You're delusional as hell.

He crept his hand in there, touched the dirt. Sure enough, the patterns were disrupted and the region where his fingers ran came clean, devoid of dirt like the hat-ring area.

I'm not delusional. Shit is crazy today.

Like tides hit the shore, a sudden memory washed over him. It was so abrupt, so weird, that he felt like re-enacting it. Which he did. He sat on his, voided his brain with that good ole' trick

(curly white smoke)

-and tried moving a chair in front of him with his mind. For a nanosecond he thought it might actually work, thought the chair in fact moved an inch

(it did it did move)

-but then instantly broke into laughter as he realized the ridiculousness of what he was doing. God, kids. Only kids can understand kids. Avish couldn't believe he even considered doing it like used to.

(essence of the universe)

(essence of what now)

His face crinkled. He'd heard that before.

Avish slept, deciding this was enough nostalgia for one day, and he dreamt at first of Radha and her enchanting smile, then of his father beating his mother, then of grandma's peculiar-accented house-maiden - what as her name again? Awry? Antra? - then of his grandma dying in that antique couch in her house.

He awoke to a loud thud coming from somewhere in the living room.

Wincing, he glanced groggily at the clock. The Mickey-Mouse one had long been replaced by an elegant, digital one.

The digits glowed in the dark, reading 2 a.m.

The hell.

And that was when Avish heard the bellow: 'You bitch!'

Avish is all grown. All different.

Hopefully, you guys are ready for some crazy stuff. Because, yes, it's on.

""may the mass-times-acceleration be with you""