A Day in a Picture Frame

… He woke up

The shrill ringing of the alarm clock was the first thing that pounded on his eardrums. Groggy, sleepy, with wild, tousled hair, he hobbled out of bed. He saw a dark stranger staring back at him in the mirror, a boy he didn’t think he knew…

A few intimate moments with a rush of water, and he was ready for the day… at least as ready as he could be. The morning bus came to pick him up, another day, at a place where her mother had promised he would “feel at home…”

She had disappeared the same way that promise did, the same way all promises do…

“Hey Buddy… wazzup?”
“Hey man… listen, we have a game today… wanna come?”
“Did you see that awesome babe in sixth grade man? Want me to set you up with her eh??”

Why couldn’t they leave him alone? They all were after the same old selfish desires after all… he did not like the conversations, because he did not want any friends. And so, he had no friends. Only acquaintances…

He knew how his day would be, the way all his days were. Nothing was a surprise to him, it was the dull mundane life that was the only thing he could call his own, and he was strapped on to it. It fed him, and in return he fed it.

It would be six grueling hours before he could be back at his Aunt’s place, a place he was condemned to stay by a big burly man wearing flowy black robes, sitting behind a big ebony table, a hammer in his hand. So tiny it looked in his hands, yet a single blow from it had the power to silence the other Men sitting in the room, deciding on his fate.

Lunch time, an added insanity to already insane corridors of the school. The cacophony reached him where he was sitting in the class, alone as usual… the sounds of laughter throbbing his eardrums. The visions of a drunken madman, looking quite similar to his father… but the eyes were different, as they looked at him. A bony finger pointed at him, the mouth opened into a derisive laughter… aimed at him…. The hand raising the revolver to his mouth, kissing the barrel of the gun… a deafening explosion followed by a red silence...

There was nothing much left for him at school anymore, but he had to survive it… one day at a time. This he did, one day at a time… waited patiently, staring quietly at the wall clock, watching the seconds tick by, the sand of the hourglass slowly slipping out of his hands…

Painfully, the day got over… and it was time to go back to the building which the man in the black robes had termed his home… a simple room with a simple bed with simple bed sheets, all of it a contrast to his complex life.

It was that time of the day again when he could hit the bed, put his alarm clock in place, and let his nightmares get back into action. He dressed, brushed his teeth, said goodnight to his Father and his Mother, and fell onto the bed.

He slept…

6 comments :: A Day in a Picture Frame

  1. u bring the word "melancholy" to life with this piece of writing

    (that's a compliment!)

  2. can totally relate to the kind of stuff u write

  3. now this is dark n sad!!

  4. @ Sumit... Didn't know people went this far into the blog to read the stories, thanks a lot. It was written a long time ago, I don't remember why it came out this dark and sad though...

    Cheers...

  5. Beautiful post reflecting melancholy... Good...

  6. @ Sowmi... Thanks a lot. One of my early attempts at fiction... glad you liked this one too :)

    Cheers...