Trance

Chapter Nine: Bars and Phone Calls

Again, my mind moves to Matsya and the look she gave me. Is she afraid I'll tell the truth? Today seems hard enough from my attempts to get over my fear and awkwardly talking to Matsya. By the end of the day, I manage to pretend she's a new a person and not some criminal I met earlier.

To top it off, Diego constantly picked up on my odd behaviour and will probably asked me what happened - if he doesn't guess by himself. Not that he'll ever pick up on the truth. Chances are that he'll be able to guess that we know each other slightly and never pick up on it further than that.

The heat from the bar doesn't come with me to the outdoors and neither does it follow to my car. I step over puddles left by the rain and I suddenly realise something. Did Matsya see me with Amrita? Who was in her police uniform as we both had serious expressions on - a pretty grim look that could lead up to the thoughts of an accusation on someone of the likes of Matsya.

What lengths would Matsya go to protect her secret? Would she be willing to kill me? I brush the idea off and tell myself I'm being paranoid. Again, her gun rises in my head and reminds me of how possible death could be. Does Matsya even know where I live? Wait, I live in apartments so if someone attempts to break down the door, my neighbours would alert me.

There's no way she'll do anything - She probably didn't even see anything either. The reassuring thoughts in my mind do nothing to calm the sea of panick alerting all my senses. The way I open my car is short and choppy as if I was running a race.

Soon, when my body is secured by my seatbelt and my eyes are skimming over the scenary in front of me, I get a vibration on my thigh. I quickly take out my phone from my pants, answering the call without checking the number - maybe out of comfort of hearing someone's voice I know.

"You've got fifteen seconds to tell the truth," Matsya demands, her voice iced to perfection. There's no hint of emotion in it, freezing my body stiff of any sense of calmness. She saw. Her words fly through the car as the phone is on speaker right now.

The words repeat in my head over and over as I note she has my number. I look at my Samsung phone is confusion, wondering how would she have gotten it - I have a pin and everything to prevent any sort of hackers getting into it.

"What do you mean?" I say, stumbling over my words. Each word came out so fast, that it could have been a word altogether. Through the phone, I hear a soft sigh of annoyance. "I didn't tell Amrita anything!"

After I say the words, I nearly slap myself. Why did I have to tell Amrita's name? If I go down, she'll most likely take Amrita with me. "I swear I didn't - She doesn't even know your name!" My constant blabbering makes up for the silence on the other side of the call and I wonder how many more minutes do I have. Maybe I should run for it.

"How did you get my number anyways?" I ask, breaking the few seconds of silence that passes.

"You left your phone on the table while you went to Diego," she answers as if hacking into someone's phone is a daily act. The phone abruptly closes, in the middle of my unanswered questions swirling to my lips.

With a groan, I lean backwards on my chair. It's only a month until she's gone. I can survive until then, my curiosity of her can burn out by now. Who was with her anyways? Another gang member - or someone who has an expiry date coming up soon?

Everything will be fine. I'll go home and live another day. I've never found myself counting my days before but this act is becoming more and more familiar as more questions are blurted out to Matsya. My guilt for the words I spat out today vanish, replaced by geniune fear again - it seems like a cycle now. Fear, anger and guilt.

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How was the chapter? Any feedback or comments? It was kind of boring to skim so I hoped it was interesting for you guys - and if it wasn't, the next chapters would hopefully be better.

I finally watched Udta Punjab and it was so good! The acting was flawless - and it was the first movie of Alia's that I enjoyed a lot! The plot was well worked out, the songs fitted perfectly in the movie and each charater outdone themselves. TBH I thought that the amount of galiyan in the movie was average for the topic it was on and that the censor board was being dramatic. Plus, the movie was beyond perfect and one of the few movies this year that was entertaining.

I've heard that Udta Punjab has an eighteen plus restriction in some countries? It's rated 16 at my local cinema which is kind of strange.

Also I hated Housefull 3. It was a huge disappointment compared to ANY comedy movie. The plot ran on abelist jokes and the movie makers probably had zero disabled people on the team who said 'yo this ain't offensive at all.' What's the point of making a comedy movie when the only jokes you have mock some people's existance?????

Okay bye

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- Maya.