Haze. Voices. Light. Color.
Black out.
_____________________________________
Pain. Haze. Voices. Light. Color.
More voices.
Black out.
_____________________________________
Pictures. Static. Complete with noises. Plucked from his own life.
Mom. The sight of her mangled body. Her silky voice.
Pain. Hot, parching pain.
Black out.
______________________________________
Darkness. Only a voice. His mother's voice.
(don't let the bed bugs bite)
Light. Bright, blinding shades. A silhouette standing there, head down.
Indistinct talking.
Black out.
_______________________________________
Realization. Coherency.
She's gone.
Darkness, the voice again-
(don't let the bed bugs bite)
--light, too much to bear, the silhouette, the talking, more distinct this time
I am . . .
Fading. Haze returning.
Black out.
______________________________________
Tears.
Blurry white coats, bald people
(doctors)
--and behind them, the silhouette. The man in black.
I am . . . always there for you . . .
On his brain's curtain, Mom. Her soothing words.
(don't let the bed bugs bite deary)
The realization, striking hard.
She's gone. She's dead.
(D-E-A-D)
Uncontrollable crying.
This time, there was no black out.
_*_
The man in black stood there, his form appearing almost . . . crunched. A defeated air to him.
'You . . .' Avish grated. 'You . . . could have saved her.'
Repercussive tears tumbled down his shredded cheek. It burned. Oh, didn't it burn?
'My friend,' the man started, but Avish would have none of it.
'Shut . . . the fuck up,' he moaned. 'You killed her, you fucking demon. That's . . . what you are, right? I see -'
A turbulent chain of coughs. The man in black looked concerned. Or, as it appeared to Avish, feigned concern.
'I see right through you,' Avish managed to creak out.
'My friend, you should not be speaking in your current stage. I will return some other time.'
'No,' Avish said, resentment radiating out of his tone. 'You stay. You fucking stay and . . . and listen. You fuck. You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?'
The man was not spared a moment to answer.
'You always fucking know . . . don't you? You knew when Dad would go berserk, you were there. You knew what would happen. Mom . . .'
Ooh, the remorse in the crack of his voice just then. Had Avish never taken her out for a drive, she would still be alive. But how could he believe that? Why should he believe that?
All those times and he had never crashed. It was the man's fault. It was all the man's fault. Everything bad that ever happened was the man's fault. He was always there for cruel moments.
I am always there for you, old friend, the runes on his hat had read.
He will always be there for you, dying Grandma had said.
Yes. And he was there. Evermore and forever. For the vile moments, for events he wished had never occurred in the first place. But he never did anything to stop them. Though he very well could. Avish knew. He knew the man now like the back of his hand.
It was so easy to blame him. He just had to point his finger and say yeah and it was all the man's doing.
And it was justified. If anything ever was, then this was justified.
Had it not been the man inside his head which had led to the accident? Had it not always been the man when something happened? Was he always not there messing up and doing nothing fucking productive?
'. . . Mom said she didn't remember calling the ambulance that night after Dad passed out. I saw you. It was you, wasn't it? Because it's always . . . you. You are the root to every fucking problem I have!'
Another seizure of coughs. Avish heaved himself up on the bed with the support of his arms, but it was a futile shot.
'Protect me, do you? From myself? Well, guess what - fuck you! I just . . . lost my Mom. I've lost everything.'
The man listened patiently.
'Take Antra too, will you? Take the house, kill my friends! Take everything! Will that give you peace?'
The man had to intervene. 'What has to happen, my friend, will always find a way to happen. Irrespective of me, irrespective of you, irrespective of all that any being in the universe conspires. No web can catch a kraken, Avish, and I hope you realize you are accusing me of unimaginable things. Things I would never dream of doing in the dreariest of circumstances.'
'So you dream, do you? I never knew that.'
Avish laughed, but the laugh developed into a rasp, the rasp into a cough, and each cough disgorged a hundred swears.
'You know,' Avish calmly said, 'she always believed in guardian angels. And I always thought that's what you were.'
The man moved - or rather, glided - towards Avish, his feet looking like smoke and never touching the ground, but Avish guessed that was just the medications taking reins.
'Don't you come near me,' he said. 'Don't you fucking dare.'
He tried to sit upright again, failed spectacularly and met with the man's eyes. Or at least his one good eye. There was a pastel shade in there too today, and a ruddy brush of blood grazing the usual seaweed shine.
'You're no guardian angel,' Avish finally said.
And then something unexpected happened. The man's other eye, the left one, the atrocious one, it slowly - Avish could see the effort it took the man to open it - very slowly, dauntingly, slid upward, and Avish saw . . . well, what he saw he did not know, nor did he want to know.
But in future, he would be lying in his bed wondering what it was, exactly, that he saw in there. And conclude that it was, more or less, the man's life represented in an eye. He would realize that the man wasn't only Bhoo, he was called by a lot of other names, innumerable names, by countless different souls. All souls tormented, gaping holes in them that the man was attempting to fill with the wry mud of hope. All souls decaying, dying from within. Avish saw a sickle, bloodied. Figurines of the Jen (whoever they were). Grateful for the man's presence at some point, and later condemning the same. All souls, though divergent and disparaging, ultimately of one essence. The same essence as his own. One of the souls was his. He recognized it, Avish did. It was a golden orb, surrounded by a shapeless, mobile cage; it was a trap you could only enter and never crawl out of.
And amidst all that, the glistening grey ball of smoke. Larger than life, a titan amongst men, ever-growing, ever-consuming, lapping over all other orbs and cages of life.
The soul of the man in black. If he had a soul. Avish didn't think so.
He did not recall what forewent the next few moments, he must have whined, he must have mewled, he must have begged the man to shut that otherworldly Eye.
For the next thing he knew, his face - not his cheeks, not his forehead, not his nose, not his lips, not his brows - but his whole face was covered in tears and/or sweat. It was a hot, clammy sweat the likes of which he had sweated before.
The man was in front of his eyes, scarily close, again with that scarred, shut eye, the other one back to its usual mesmerizing quality. Avish was beholden.
'It is the truth you speak,' said the man - his voice had two contrasting effects; for one, it felt like it was murmuring in both his ears simultaneously, whilst at the same time resounding everywhere, in every crook and corner and crevice of the world. 'It is true, I conform, that I am no guardian angel. I am me. I am you. I am what you need me to be.'
Urgh, not again.
'Need, my friend,' the man resumed. 'Not want. I understand how you feel. I know it cannot possibly be apprehended by a human, yet trust me as you once did, that I do.'
There was an aberrant, quaint kind of silence in the room. If you've ever stood atop a mountain vale, wind blowing against your ears and filling your mind with sound - but still, even still, you feel like no sound can penetrate you now, you feel like you are at peace despite all sounds - well, then perhaps you understand. That was the kind of defiant silence in the room.
'She's dead,' Avish said, in a note above a rustle. His tone was flat, dead. That was all he knew at the moment, that was all he could wrap his mind around.
That his mother was gone - and at some subconscious level at least, he was aware it had been his fault. What was there to live for, anyway, now?
'She is,' the man confirmed. 'But that doesn't stop life, not by a mile. I know what you are resolving, young man, and I strongly oppose that.'
The words prodded his ears, but that didn't mean he heard them.
Avish got up from the bed, no matter how bad it hurt, no matter if he had been in an accident and the doctors wouldn't like him to move a cell, but he was resolute. His decision was inert.
He limped his way over to the door - apparently the dash hitting his knee had done severe damage - but now the man was standing in front of the door, too.
'I cannot let you do this, my friend.'
Avish waved his hand dismissively against the man's waist in a side-stroke motion, but instead of being pushed away, the man receded away in smoke. Avish proceeded out of the room.
It hurt to walk. The shank Dad had put in his stomach still hurt - or maybe that was just his mind's pure vagary, it couldn't possibly hurt him still - and combined with the injuries from the accident Avish felt on the farthest rung from invulnerable.
Still, he could not stop now. He passed Mom's room - the man was standing there as well, urging Avish to stop - the living room, where the recliner on which Grandma had passed away was sitting empty - the man was here, too, hell-bent on making Avish reverse his steps - and finally the balcony.
Avish shambled over to the railing awkwardly, supporting his hurt knee and clutching his stomach. He looked down over it. He couldn't take the risk of falling over and breaking a jillion bones and still live somehow. Because apparently, everyone around him died or suffered while he always survived. Avish the Unkillable.
But no. This was high enough.
Avish took several consecutive deep breaths. Hoisted his bad leg over, lugged himself forcibly. Looked down again.
I can do this.
So many people in the country did this everyday, he could do it too.
Yeah. Piece of cake.
'You don't have to, Avish.'
The voice startled Avish and nearly tipped him over. His heart pounded hard and fast.
'Bugger off,' was all he said, still breathing deeply.
Just now he realized the man's feet actually were smoke, he wasn't just seeing things. And now with surprising speed and agility, in a split second, the man was way closer to Avish than he had been before.
'Don't advance even a step now,' Avish squealed, tears washing his face.
'My friend,' the man said, 'you have not given this a fair bit of thought.'
'I've thought all I should!' Avish yelled. 'You know everything, don't you? Why waste your time? You know I'm going to jump!'
'This is you doing a foolhardy deed,' the man explained. 'What the universe has in store, we can never know. What you do, however, that we have power over.'
'Use your vision or whatever! You know I'm gonna be dead the next minute!'
'No. You are not.'
At this point, the man's voice was like that of a ghoul, at least as how they are depicted in movies. Deep, raw and decisive.
Before Avish knew about it, the man's smoke feet propelled him forward and the man's bony, misshapen shell of a hand was on his forehead. So much was reeled into him so fast.
The Boogies came first, of course. And what if we don't leave you alone, puppy?
(buttwipe assface nitwit freak)
The kids at the new school. Freak. Discarded plug. Aw, lost your alien grandma, you Martian?
(coward you're a coward never stood up to anyone)
No, his Dad said, transpiring out of thin air. My son's not a coward.
(what is he saying he always thought I was a coward)
Not a coward. He's a fucking weasel.
A tumult of laugh from a non-existent crowd. Some booing. Much roars of "de Novo!"
'You think they care whether you live or die?' the man in black said, his voice coming as if from another planet. 'They do not. They will always try to weigh you down. You have to find a way to remain afloat. That's what life is all about, my friend.'
His mother, emerging suddenly in front of him, in a pearly white form.
'Mom,' he muttered, a dozen emotions taking toll.
You're my braveheart, honey, she said. You always will be.
'Mom . . .'
You showed such courage that night, when your father raged. You are a good son. I couldn't ask for more from you.
'No, Mom, I'm nothing, I'm not . . .'
It wasn't your fault, deary. Remember that. I had to go that way, so I did.
'It was, it was . . .'
No, honey. Don't blame yourself. For my sake.
He extended his hand, but soon as it touched the translucent form - yes, he could faintly see the man in black through her - Shweta dissolved into the wind, and the wind sparkled for a while, licked his body, then blew away. The tears that followed were inexorable.
'She would want you to have a full life, Avish,' the man susurrated. 'A life filled to the brim. She would want to see you grow into a gentleman, like the fine lad you are. Prove to the world that you are much more than your father's seed.'
Avish was losing balance, shivering through and through. He was going to fall, meet Mom at the gates of heaven . . .
'She would not want for you to make the same mistakes she did. She would want you to fly, to soar above all and tell the world you are not some weakling. But a human with great potential.'
Avish remembered, all those years back. Bhoo telling him: you have such great potential, Avish.
(potential for what?)
Capable of moving mountains and rivaling rivers.
'Prove it, Avish,' the man persisted. 'That you are not your father's son. That you are more than your mother's mistakes. That you are more than your grandpa's face. That you are more than a weasel. That you are not another person quitting life, giving up.'
Avish was feeling dizzy. Going to fall any second now . . .
'Show the world,' the man said, 'that you can endure.'
He fell.
Well, that was dramatic.
Take this as "end of Part 2."