RÊVERIA

*** wolf ***

     "Everything happens as per God's wishes. Don't stress too much on all this."

      I silently nod my head towards your statement and I continue leaning into your shoulder.

      I just want to savour this lovely moment we are sharing together, on this tall building under the soft evening sky of Kolkata, like a stereotypical pair of lovers from some cliché romance movie you and I would have probably watched out of boredom at night, when we were alive, just so we could laugh together and make fun out of the utter ridiculousness we were looking at back in the day.

      Oh, those were indeed the good times!

Eventually, I start to speak once again, "So, I suppose I should go on with my story then, right?"

      "Well, you can still start off with my emigration story, though."

      "No, never mind, I'll tell you this one too. I won't mind it."

       You stroke my hair gently as I slowly raise my head from your shoulder. I sit up properly again close to you and I decide on continuing with telling you the stories of our own individual early childhoods...

       Starting with mine...

******************

About a year after I was born, my parents had another child named Sebastian. By that time, they were somewhat able to afford for proper hospital treatment, unlike during the time of my delivery, so everything went a lot more calmly for Sebastian's birth. He did not have any issues with heartbeat detection or crying or anything else by that time and, in fact, he turned out to be much more active at birth than I ever had been beforehand. His delivery was quite more like yours, I would say.

     He also grew up to be very naughty and mischievous while I remained more on the quieter side due to me being a bit more sickly in nature compared to him (and with that, I eventually got diagnosed with asthma and anxiety a little later after he died).

      I am still bloody sure that my parents did love the both of us in equal terms, yet I'm also aware that there had been a few times where I felt it was more obvious that they seemed to be more caring and protective towards me over Sebastian. There had been times throughout my life, much later on, where I secretly tended to wonder if that was what had been the cause of that poor boy's utter untimely passing.

     But I never actually blamed my parents for anything that happened to him, really.

     It wasn't like they meant anything on purpose.

     It could have been an accident.

     Perhaps even I could have done something to save him before waiting for my parents.

     Maybe it was my fault after all.

     But, either way, as I grew up, I eventually came to arrive at the final acceptance that his death was indeed according to God's plan, as with everything else in the world.

     It was a bitter truth to take, though.

Now, here are some basic details about my parents:

      My father's name was Lopez and he was a light skinned black man having a bit of Argentinian and Arab roots, as I had already told you earlier. He used to be a construction worker for some time until a major accident, which happened much later on to him, that made me and my mum force him to resign from that job and immerse into the artful joys of tailoring.