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1. Mr. Basu
“Weirdo!”, Sumail said and half the class cackled in laughter.
“Please get back to your books.”, Mr. Basu said in a low voice.
“No.”, Sumail said and this time, the whole class laughed. Sumail felt proud and smiled with all glory.
Mr. Basu could not even make eye contact with the bully. Sumail kept sitting there, grinning in confidence, basking in the glory of making a fool out of his history teacher – a frail man of 50.
Every child in the school had heard rumors about Mr. Basu – lonely, unmarried, never makes eye contact…probably not a man.
“Rumor has it you don’t have balls, sir!”. The class roared.
But they abruptly went silent as the principal walked by their class. Mr. Basu resumed while Sumail sat there, looking smug.
Sumail said goodbye to his spoilt group of friends as he took the road to walk to his home. The birds had stopped chirping, night was almost on him. He kicked stones at the cars parked and also the bikes. He teased leashed dogs inside bungalows.
He still had that smug smile pasted on his face. His shirt was out of the shorts and his shoes were dirty.
His smile was instantly wiped away to nothingness as he looked at the street in front of him.
Mr. Basu stood there, a couple of meters away from him, at the side of the road, calmly looking at Sumail. He did not look very frail anymore in his khaki kurta.
Sumail had no guts anymore. There was no audience. No one to laugh. And he felt scared. Something about facing Mr. Basu alone.
He tried hard to not look into his eyes. Mr. Basu just stood there, his eyes eagerly following Sumail, even when Sumail walked past him.
Sumail started walking faster as he passed Mr. Basu.
“All the best for tomorrow’s exam Sumail!”, Mr. Basu screamed from behind him. The voice did not sound like Mr. Basu at all.
Sumail bolted.
History and Civics exam.
Sumail sat smugly.
The bell rang.
Teacher shouted, “You can start!”
Sumail started writing.
One sheet after another.
Lengthy answers.
Civics was a bitch.
History was a bitch.
His fingers ached.
He turned his last page.
Wrote.
He looked at the time – 1 pm.
Almost over.
He looked down.
Page one.
The bell rang.
Teacher shouted, “You can start!”
Sumail looked at the time.
10 o’ clock.
He checked his answer sheet.
Blank.
The small hospital did not have a psychology ward, but when the latest patient was brought in, it looked like that they might need it. The patient was tied down and even then it took 4 nurses to hold him down. The patient was screaming, with a mad look on his face. His eyes bulged and his hair was in a disarray. His voice was cracked.
“I wrote it 17 lakh times! I wrote it! I counted! I know! I know! The exam just restarted! Again and again! You have to believe me!”
“Yes, we do beta, yes we do.”, Mr. Basu calmly said as he put his hand on Sumail’s forehead.
But Sumail did not recognize him anymore.
2. Triple Seat
If you have ever driven a motorbike you know how the balance and the weight of the bike changes when you have a pillion. The balance of the bike goes a bit off, and if the woman is sitting in the Indian way, the bike leans to the side.
Her apartment was on the top floor. The building was 2 stories tall. Her window overlooked the gate of her building. She would tell him to wait whenever he came to pick her up. She looked out of the window and he was there, looking up at her. He looked nervous, and she wondered why. They had been dating for the past 3 months now. Why is he still nervous now?
He hated looking up at the window, although he loved looking at her. He would usually give her a missed call to let her know he had come. She would come to the window and gesture – “Just two minutes!”. Then she would move away from the rectangle in the wall.
Every time she moved away, a shadow moved past the window too.
At first, he used to think that it was a trick of the light. Then, yesterday, after she moved away, the shadow had come back to the window and stayed there.
It was solid, but light. And it had nothingness, a vacuum.
And it was as if the shadow could stare.
She came down the stairs with a jump in her step, a frolick. She kissed him on the cheek. He still seemed nervous. He looked past her and behind her as he held her hand and walked to the motorbike. There was no shadow, but it was night outside.
He sat first and started up the bike. She got on the pillion and he felt the weight change on the bike. He revved up the motor and put it in gear. And just when he was going to drive away, he felt another weight on the bike. He looked into the rearview mirror.
She looked beautiful and beamed at him into the mirror.
But just behind her, the night looked a bit darker. A bit denser. A bit menacing.
He was driving triple seat.
3. The storyteller
There was this place Sheena went to in her locality, after spending sleepless nights walking around. There was a house just beyond the railroad crossing that was abandoned and quiet.
There was no neighborhood and hence no people around. And that is why she loved the place, away from people.
She found the house one day when she was walking past it, wandering in the night, sleepless. The house called to her. And she went inside. Inside the house was a storyteller. The storyteller used to tell Sheena stories f the old, real and fantasies. The storyteller also told her the future sometimes, when it was in the mood.
The only catch – the storyteller was invisible. And that is why Sheena never mentioned the house or the storyteller to anyone. Who would believe her? An invisible storyteller. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?
One night Sheena walked past the railroad crossing to the house of the storyteller. She walked right in. There were no doors or windows. The house was made of stone and not bricks. And moss grew on the floor, ceilings and on every surface inside. The furniture was intact, albeit rotten.
The storyteller usually narrated the stories in the kitchen. It would announce its arrival by dropping the rusting water jug to the floor. Sheena sat on the rickety chair in the kitchen and put the jug back on the dining table.
The jug fell on the floor and Sheena took a deep breath.
“Tell me a real story today.”
“What do you want to hear?”. the voice sounded disjointed as if it was being spoken through a hundred moving veils.
“The story of how my parents died.”
“In a car accident.”
“I know that. But tell me how it happened.”
“I should not.”
“You should. Tell me.”
“You already know it.”
“What do I know?”
“Everything.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You killed them.”
“What?”
“You killed them 3 years ago.”
“But they died in a car crash.”
“You were in it too. You crashed the car.”
“But I am alive.”
“There is no storyteller, Sheena.”
Sheena whipped around hysterically.
“It is not true! YOU LIAR! TELL ME THE TRUTH!”
“TELL ME THE TRUTH!”, Sheena screamed.
“You killed them.”
Sheena heard the specter voice coming out of her own lips.
4. SIMS – The Game.
“Just give me my Call Of Duty DVD back, man!”. David sounded furious.
“Look, I do not know where it went!” Pranav was rummaging through his untidy stash of video game DVDs. He couldn’t find what David wanted.
“Why the fuck did you lose my DVD, man? I loved that game!”
“I am sorry Dave, brother!”, Pranav pleaded.
“That cost me a bomb! This is why I don’t lend stuff to you!”. David was exasperated now.
He just wanted to go.
“OK!OK! Listen! A guy at the underground market let me have a game that is not out yet. Plus, it’s a mod! You can have that!” Pranav pleaded.
“Which one?”
Pranav fished out an unnamed and unmarked DVD cover and gave it to David. It had just a small label on the top.
“SIMS?! Do I look like I have a pussy on me, Pranav?”
“Hey! It is unreleased. Plus with a kickass dev mod!”
“Have you fucking played it? Of course, you didn’t! That’s the last time I have lent you a game asshole!”
David banged the door shut behind him. He walked out with the unreleased SIMS game.
Gamers need their fix. A new game is like another hit. David was bored. He fiddled with his keyboard. He could play Dota. Nah, fuck it. He’d had 6 years of playing that. He needed a new game. David was now drumming the table on which his computer sat. The table was spotlessly clean, except for the unmarked DVD cover that had the “unreleased” SIMS game.
“Pfft!” David didn’t believe Pranav. Pranav was just trying to calm him down. There was no unreleased SIMS in there.
“Oh, what the hell!” David opened the DVD case and put the DVD into his PC.
The Autorun file took over and displayed the familiar green diamond icon in the new window asking David if he wanted to use the express install or the custom install.
“Damn, so this IS a SIMS game!”
He installed it and waited impatiently for the game to load.
SIMS was fun, even though David thought it was a “pussy” game. He had played its first version way back, even before he had started with Counter Strike. It looked like SIMS 4 had better graphics. The houses looked real, and so did the people.
The game prompted him to enter his name.
He did.
Then it prompted him to enter his location.
David frowned. Why would SIMS ask him for his location? He checked his modem. It was turned off, just like every time he used an illegal mod.
He entered his location.
And up popped a vibrant and detailed 3D map of his locality, replete with people moving around. The locality looked exactly like his.
This was a joke, right?
He zoomed into his own building, and the walls became translucent.
He looked at his own 3D self-sitting on a computer.
This was a fucking joke.
David moved to the apartment next to him inside the game. Mrs. Khanna was a hottie and Mr. Khanna was a douchebag. He clicked on the moving figure of Mrs. Khanna. He made her go to Mr. Khanna. Then an option wheel popped up –
1. Talk.
2. Fight.
3. Have sex.
4. Shout.
He clicked on Shout. The graphics showed Mrs. Khanna shouting at Mr. Khanna.
The fucked up part was, he could hear her shout through the walls. She was shouting in real life.
David’s heart was racing now.
He made both the sims walk up to the balcony, and then clicked on the 3rd option. The Khanna balcony was right beside his. He slowly got up to go to his balcony. He didn’t need to even go outside. He could hear them having sex even before he slid the glass door open.
Oh god, what was this?
His next thought was his homeowner, who lived two floors above him. He was nosy, and pesky and meddled in David’s affairs, making fun of his religion and all.
Revenge.
He found him out in his flat in the game. Batard was sleeping peacefully. He woke him up in the game and made him walk to the terrace. He made the SIM stand right at the edge of the terrace. Then he clicked on the option – JUMP.
He heard the splat of the body hitting concrete from the place he was sitting. He ran to the balcony and looked at the unmoving body at the bottom – his landowner, no more.
He then looked to his side. The Khannas were still at it.
David turned around to look at his computer, his eyes maniacal.
Did he just turn GOD?
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