Was he real or imaginary?

Chapter 1

She picked up the towel and wrapped her body inside it by tucking the end of the towel above her right breast. She pressed all the four switches on the switchboard but none of the LEDs or tubelights glowed. She ambled to her cupboard and pulled open it's doors to take out a pink tee and a pyjama set. It had always been Pragati's experience to guess which particular coloured dress was kept where in her cupboard. She usually arranged to keep the same coloured clothes in a particular side of her wardrobe. She flunged with her pyjamas, sitting on the bed and when she moved her hand over the bed to find her tee, it was not there. She caressed the whole bed but still couldn't find it. She bent down and searched for it under the bed and all around it. She thought she might have forgotten to take out any tee and was just illusionating about it. The tension of the last night in Room 103 had made her really mental; she thought. Pragati went to the wardrobe again to pick a new tee and flunged it instead. When the lights came back, she ambled to the wenge dressing table to put some emollient but when she checked herself in the mirror, a second went in discomfition in guessing was it all a phantasm? For the first time her acquaintance went wrong. It was not her tee which she had worn but a blue checked andamen with a small oil stain on it's shoulder. She opened her wardrobe to search for the pink tee which wasn't present there on any of the shelves. How come her clothes disappear from the wardrobe when there is no one except her living in the house? And how come a man's cloth was present in her wardrobe? Her first suspicion went on Radhika, her housemaid. Pragati remembered she was staring at her pink tee while taking the clothes off the hanger in the balcony, and thus used her full energy on chastising her that afternoon. 'Maidam, why will I steal your clothes?' Radhika repudiated to Pragati who was blaming her for the stealth. 'My husband died a year ago. Now I don't have any cloth of his that I will put it in your cupboard. And also it is such a nice shirt. We didn't have that much money to buy these kind of shirts. My children survive in their torn clothes only. Pity on me maidam, I am not your clothe's thief', Radhika's appeal moistened Pragati's heart. She apologized to her and asked her to take care of the house while she picked her handbag and went out for work. Pondering over the shirt's sudden presence in her wardrobe, she was crossing the road when a car came in front of her and stopped abruptly, scaring her such that she fell on the hot bonnet of that white Acura. Her hands felt barbequed on touching the bonnet as she looked through the black windshield. There was a man in a black hoodie which almost covered his face. She saw a golden Rado Centrix on his wrist, noticing his firm grasp on the steering wheel. She followed his body contour which was sexy capable of arousing any women. Her reverie broke when he blew horn to make her side. Pragati stood aside giving him way and while passing from beside her he once turned at her and threw a chocolate wrapped in a piece of paper from the window at her. She kept on gazing at the car which had gone and then at the chocolate. It was a Bubbly chocolate, her favourite. On unfolding the note attached with the chocolate, she read a message written on it and swallowed a hard lump with fear shuddering down her body. It read : I was the one with you last night, Pragati