The Exilir And The Poison

Chapter 2: The Ghosts

You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.
~Ernest Hemingway

*

It took some time to learn how to get into a habit, how to break one, how to live with a person, and how to live without them. It was always a long, terrifying struggle and the time defined certain characteristics, the incidents that meant something. In the long run, perhaps nothing really mattered. For the time immemorial, countless men and women lived through hell, in slavery, torments, persecution, and some fought for justice, for hope for their future generation and their better life that they could never have. Their combined efforts meant everything but their individual struggles were long forgotten. No one knew what they felt when no one was around, in the locked doors. Nobody knew what the father that returned home empty - handed after not finding anything to eat for his small children felt. Nobody knew what the mother felt watching her only son die before her eyes. A child who waited all day long for his parents to return home and the wait lasted forever.

They were all countless dots in history connecting the present to themselves. They were the inevitable incidents of the past that wouldn't be denied in any timeline. The stories we never knew yet we were a part of them.

Some things were meant to happen.

He knew the world didn't stop for anyone; the earth didn't stop its perpetual spinning, the seasons didn't stop.

Life went on.

The room in which Ranveer sat was silent, and the dim light from the lamp lighted it feebly. A tree outside made small, quivering shadows, casting them on the front wall as it swayed in the cool breeze. He himself sat quietly, not moving a muscle, and gazed into the darkness before him. His eyes were teary, profound, and a veil of a silent surrender hung thickly in the air. His countenance bore the look of a beaten man, a man defeated in the largest battle of his life. The battle he would never fight again. He was a loser. Even in silence the world laughed at him.

He was relieved that people around him paid him no attention; didn't question him why he had changed so much. Not making his appearance public had its own perks and Ranveer truly relished them. He could move the way he wanted to, he could go anywhere he wished without warning the media to follow him everywhere. He was a nobody to the world. His name, however, was equivalent to destruction.

His life had been a show for the world to ridicule him in the last several months and pass the judgments as if they knew who he was. Despite this, he did not go to clear the air and tell the world they got him all wrong. He was just a name they could laugh at. From the inside, Ranveer was still what he was years ago. It never changed.

Ranveer sighed. Exhaustion of working continuously for hours finally began to take its toll on him. He wanted peace. He wanted some sleep. But in spite of the pills, he had been unsuccessful in getting a more than 4-hour long sleep in the last week. Ranveer went through the files scattered over the desk, began to read and then stack them up in place one by one. He scorned at the uninteresting, mediocre work they'd all been doing and the slow progress they made
. This was not what he expected from his employees. His absence from the last two meetings had been mistaken for his lack of interest in the projects. He would make sure they got this right.

Ranveer went through his phone as the last group of his employees left for home. He was still in his cabin, unsure of moving from his place. Then suddenly, a distracting knock on the door breached his attention.

"May I come in, sir?" It was one of his senior employees.

"Yes, please," he said, without looking at him.