PRISTINE SCARS

CAMOUFLAGE

I shouldn't have gone,

Why did I ?

Why am I crying?

Agni knew. Yet he kept asking himself. He knew the moment he witnessed that scene that why the tears fell. He knew it even before.

He had noticed one thing before he went on stage, she was seated in that seat he had pleaded with the organizer to secure.

Then he went on stage, and was someone else for some time. This was his solace, his last quantum of sanity which he worked so hard to protect.

He noticed two things when they bowed after the play. Everyone was standing, clapping enthusiastically with beaming faces and tearing eyes, and the seat was empty.

The seat was empty.

As soon as that registered in his brain, it went to a paranoic overdrive. Thoughts of what could've happened flashed past his mental landscape , ranging from a phone call, to a medical emergency. He knew he was being pathetic, desperate, but those feelings were directly proportional to how much he liked her. The kind of like that almost bordered on love. He had been planning to tell her today, trophy in hand.
And he was sure that the answer would be a good one, because of stolen looks at the corridor, an almost kiss, and change in her expressions whenever he came in. It was nothing overt, nothing open, but it was there nonetheless. It was subtle, but it was there, at least that's what he had been Telling himself till now.

Till he saw her kissing Manik

Till he saw Aarthi kissing him.

Till he saw her laughing through the kiss.

Till he saw him running his hands through her in the same place where they had always hid out,
where he had always admired the play of the light from the bulbs around the mirror on her hair,
where he had slept on her laps,
where they had both cried,
where they both had been comforted by each other amongst the props and all the lighting and makeup equipment.

Backstage is where the real action happens

The Savage inside him made a wry remark,
The words flowing in his mind without the ever present inhibition of his conscious act. But he could taste the bitterness in those words. He knew that he had liked her truly. That may have been the reason he slipped quietly away from the door, without disturbing them, but maybe it was because of another reason, maybe it was because he could not hold it back anymore and didn't want to hurt them.

All Agni knew was that he ran. He ran as fast as his legs could, and screamed as loud as he could. Nature didn't relent either, he felt pervaded by the coolness the raindrops brought, trying so hard to bring an end to his turmoil. Butt this was a rampage, and it was not going to go without obiliterating everything, leaving only ashes.

As he ran, he thought about how, to other people, he could only be an crazy boy running through the rain. How they could not see his tears, how expertly the rain washed them away, how it was like a camouflage.

He had been too, expertly hiding, tucking away, everything inside of him, painting him in colours that others won't bat an eye at, that others would accept,each stroke perfect , applying his passion for acting upon himself, cursing at how good he was at camouflaging himself so well, that even he had forgotten that thing he had hidden.

But this rain was washing every one of those strokes, leaving him, like exposed nerve endings to the cold, cold whiplash from heaven.

His legs could run no more. They collapsed, he fell face first on the muddy ground.
He stayed there for sometime, then he slowly picked himself up, propping himself up on his knees so he was kneeling, and let out a roar so loud, that he could hear his vocal cords grind. The roar morphed into a scream, the scream morphed into a whimper and then, silence.

Only the rain made sound, mirroring the static in his brain. He was spent, utterly and absolutely spent, only the daze left behind by the intense physical stress being left.

Something hit him in the head, he turned around slowly registering a small black stone on the mud behind him. He glanced up and and his eyes saw someone sitting in a bench inside a shelter, a burger in a hand, the other playing with two more Rocks, it was a girl, with short hair and glasses and she was coming towards him.

He felt two strong arms lift him up with a grunt and some difficulty, and though he would remember all this only the next day, he heard her saying

"Always thought you were boring, but, seems like I was wrong"

And he would also remember the clear gray eyes he saw before he lost all feeling.