Was he real or imaginary?

Chapter 18

'Radhika throw the rubbish in the dustbin' Pragati said while cleaning Vishal's wardrobe. Suddenly a white envelope fell down from the wardrobe. She picket it up. It had no name and was empty. Pragati thought that the hoodie man must have sent the chip inside this envelope as Vishal had said he got the chip inside an envelope. She checked inside and on one of the inner walls of the envelope was written: now you can find the concretion. Pragati's heart was beating loud. She checked somewhere else also. There were no other messages on the envelope. But what was an empty envelope with the message of the hoodie man doing in Vishal's cupboard? She stared at it carefully. An idea struck her. Pragati went to the bathroom, opened the tap and placed the envelope under the water. A white paper exfoliated from the envelope. She then read on the envelope: Chandra Photos. That means there were photos inside the envelope. But what kind of photos? And where were they now? She couldn't get any clue about the photos' location. She searched Vishal's cupboard, her cupboard, everywhere in the bathroom, under or behind the bucket, under the soaps and shampoos, under the bed, mattresses......but the photos weren't there. This was the best clue to find concretions about the hoodie man. She hoped the photos were now not of her meeting with Sahil in the Club Escape. But that was an accidental meeting. She hadn't gone there to meet him. Suddenly Radhika called her, 'Madam, ye sab kya hai?' Pragati went to her near the stairs. Radhika was pointing behind the stairs. Of course there were stones. But wait! Pragati examined them picking up a stone and looked carefully at it. She was astonished! She ran upwards to the terrace. 'Arey mem sahab bata to jaiye inka kya karu?' Radhika shouted behind her. Pragati ignored it and went straight to the bricks at the corner of the terrace. She removed few bricks and picked out those stones. She went in every direction on the terrace, finding small stones, some in the pipelines as well. She brought all of them as a heap on the centre of the terrace. Damn! They were all mini microphones!  So the hoodie man communicated with her via these mini stuffs. Pragati was climbing down from the stairs. 'Maidam what happened? Why did you run to the terrace?' Radhika asked Pragati. Pragati showed her the microphones. 'What is this madam?' Radhika asked her, confused of why Pragati was showing her stones. 'Leave it, you won't understand' she said and went to throw them in the dustbin. But before throwing them, she saw some white pieces of paper lying inside the dustbin. She asked Radhika to pick them up. Though the dustbin was new and not so dirty, Pragati hated to pick anything from dustbins. After cleaning them with a cloth, Radhika gave those pieces to Pragati. They were torn pieces of any photograph. It was like a puzzle. She just had to join them. Sometimes, the hoodie man played nice games with her. She anyways loved her thrilling life finding mysteries.

Sitting on the bed and matching the pieces, Pragati found it wrong every time. Vishal had gone out to meet a dealer. She spread all the pieces on the bed. There were total twenty six pieces. One had a woman's face, one had a kid's face, another of a hand over a shoulder. The pieces were blurry and yellowish. They were old photos of someone. Step by step, she tried and joined all the pieces. And before looking at the pieces, she cellotaped the solved puzzle. Pragati picked the photo up. One photo was solved. Sixteen pieces were still left. She solved all of them and cellotaped the photos after joining the pieces correctly. Three photos were there in total. She picked and observed one photograph. It had an approximately 30-40 years old woman, a decent man and two kids, one in a blue shirt and another in a green shirt. The mother's hand was over the green shirt one's shoulder and the father's hand was over the blue shirt's one. They were standing infront of their parents. It could be a family photo only showing a couple and their two kids. But what did the hoodie man want to point through this? Was it his picture? To solve this confusion, Pragati checked the two more photos. The second one was of the birthday celebration of those kids. The other was sitting on the sofa behind the cake stand and one of them was blowing the candles. The third was that of two yound lads in school dresses. Wait, they were alike in faces!