Tinted Scars

9. Reflections

“You’ll never be able to find yourself, if you’re lost in someone else.” – Colleen Hoover.

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Fip-fop, Fip-fop, Fip-fop…

Eri kept pressing the hilt of his pen with his thumb, unremittingly—till it created a steady rhythm. It wasn’t that he didn’t have something better doing on the Saturday afternoon, after tests—when most people were living it up as regards leisure activities. Manifold rooms across all blocks had transformed into arcades and were playing host to hordes of boys, gathered to play video games. The demographic of boys who weren’t in had either left the hostel for the field, to engage in sport activities—or were hanging with their friends, on campus.

It was only two weeks away from the Christmas vacation, and the tests for the semester had ended the past Friday. The examination was scheduled to hold a week after resumption and end early February. So the time frame that spawned the present day, November 14th till their vacation date in the middle of December, was pretty much the only inkling of free time that was available, since the holiday itself was a direct prelude to the examinations and anyone with a brain, automatically knew that it was time to beef up preparations and burn the figurative night candle, so as to be adequately primed and prepared for the crucial examinations. 

Eri would have read a newly-downloaded eBook if he didn’t have a poem to complete, and he didn’t want to procrastinate because he knew once he had imbibed that spirit—it would be difficult to renounce it. But seated on his desk, his book and pen—laid out in front of him, the words weren’t coming and the muse had refused to visit. He hadn’t been in a choppy mood of recent, so he was unable to tap into some tempestuous emotions of his. It was always a lot more difficult for him to write, when he wasn’t in an emotionally grey area.

Fip-fop, Fip-fop, Fip-fop…

Eri didn’t expect the assault of a hurled sachet water, slamming into his face and bursting open—spilling over his desk in the process that he had to quickly lift up his jotter, so it didn’t soak it. He looked up to find Bilal sitting up on his bed, and scowling down at him—water droplets dripping off his fingers, thus implying he was the one who had thrown it.

“What’s it with the endless pressing of that pen? You’re giving me headache.” Bilal groaned, before rolling back onto the bed and throwing his sheets over his head.

Eri scoffed, flabbergasted at the misplacement of Bilal’s anger. Ever since his friend’s fallout with Wonu, he had become excessively moody and irritable—which was quite uncharacteristic of him and Eri was getting sick of it. It had been two weeks of endless, grouchy whining and peevish grumbling that was way overboard for a friendship that might have gotten derailed. If his girlfriend of a decade had ended things out of nowhere with him, then Eri would have understood but he and Wonu weren’t even best of friends—although Eri knew Bilal had feelings for her—and yet he was acting like the government had ruthlessly demolished a house, he had built with every last dime and penny he had.

Eri went into the bathroom to grab the mop and when he came back outside, Bilal was now seated on his bed. He didn’t afford him a glance and simply mopped the wet region, before returning to his work. But unfortunately, the words still weren’t stemming forth and it infuriated him further, making him bang his forehead on the open book. Bilal then spoke, after he threw his head back on his chair.

“You know, she never replied since these past weeks. And I’ve not been lucky enough to run into her.” Eri’s concern at the moment was writing his poem, and he didn’t really think he could give Bilal the empathy he was looking for. Nevertheless, they were friends. “And that’s the thing that is killing me the most. I don’t know if I’ve become too insignificant that my message has not been read or she didn’t deem it worthy of a reply, or she is even more angry. It’s just annoying not knowing anything and not being able to do anything about it.”