Is he real?

____________________________________

Diseases suck. His condition was deteriorating as day followed day. He couldn't have a proper meal without choking on it or losing his heart. Vomits were frequent, clotted dregs in them even more so. He wheezed as he drank (smoking hurt way too much), wheezed as he coughed, wheezed as he slept.

And Bhoo had left him. Forever.

Apparently, the man in black was up to something. In what way are you giving your daughter a different life than yours? he'd said. Look over my fucking daughter if you're so fucking concerned! Avish had snapped back in anger.

But he loved his daughter. Sometimes, he could see his mother in her.

After the "big fight", Radha had shunned her father as much as possible. Preeti had made covert efforts, certainly, to make her talk to him - none worked. However, nearly a week later, his little angel approached him when her Mommy wasn't home. Unfortunately, she didn't chose a wise time. Avish had been an hour into drinking and coughing now, and was barely his own self. Not that he knew what he himself was anymore. Woozy, weak and vulnerable, that was his identity now.

'Daddy?'

Avish grunted in response. Perhaps a bit too rudely, for Radha flinched.

'That man is here again,' she said. 'He says he's worried about you. He says he wants me to be his friend.'

Avish grunted again.

'He is scary, Daddy. Shoo him away, please.'

A chair to their left suddenly lurched ahead, as if struck by an unseen force, and Radha jumped. Avish barely managed a grunt yet again. Probably fucking lost its hinges.

'Daddy, that was him!' Radha shrieked, jittering and clawing at her father's elbow. 'Look, look! He's right there . . .'

She pointed.

He looked.

No one there.

He looked back. Grunted.

'Can't you see him, Daddy?'

Avish fell off his chair. Grunted.

____________________________________

Hours later, while Preeti sent their daughter off to her dreams, Avish sat back in his recliner and contemplated.

His head was clear now, far clearer than it had ever been.

He hadn't been able to see Bhoo today, while Radha had said she could. So perhaps he hadn't been real after all? That was the only rational explanation, wasn't it?

Rational. Your life is the fucking antonym of rational in the Oxford dictionary.

But then what had Radha seen, what she so afraid of? Well, he had inculcated a terror in her heart as well, maybe let slip his mental fabrication of Bhoo to his daughter when drunk. Maybe.

Is he real? Was he ever?

______________________________________

The house was still there, but it was no longer his in the way that it had once been.

The board on the yard proclaimed: MR. GUILLERMO'S LIBRARY INC. PROPERTY. NOT OPEN FOR PUBLIC. DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION.

Some movers were racking shelves and almirahs in. The sun mocked him with its nondescript blaze. Avish did not feel so good.

'Home sweet home,' he whispered as he proceeded to set foot inside. Just the way he'd said it after returning from his grandma Bibi's home all those years back.

A measly-looking man kept a fist on his chest. His accent reminded Avish of Grandma's house-maiden. Antra, had been her name. Ah, memories. The funny way they operate. 'Yo, where do you think you're going, esé?'

'That's my house. It - it used to be.'

'Well, it's a fookin' library now, so drag ya pretty ass outta here.'

'I'm not here to cause any trouble or inconvenience, pal. I just want to have a last look. Nostalgia, you know?'

Coming back here was probably a mistake. Nothing good ever happened to me here.

But life's short. It's been making all the choices for me . . . it's time I made one for myself.

The measly man removed his fist. 'Yo, ya'rent gonna find nothing here. It's like a fist in a bump. Ya go in dry, ya come out wet.'

Avish rummaged inside his pants' pockets. Produced a crisp roll. 'Here.'

'Boss's gonna be mad, dog. This don't cut it.'

Avish sighed. 'I'll give you the rest on my way back. Not a word to your boss.'

The guy pulled a face. 'I dunno, esé - '

'You want it or not?'

Avish started putting the roll back inside in a feint, but the measly guy snatched it wildly and the notes vanished under his folds like magic.

'Ya got yourself ten minutes, money boy. A ball more than that and ya're not leavin' without a trespassing sue.'

'Where'd you learn a big word like that?' Avish said, and moved on. The guy made obnoxious gestures and remarks behind his back, but Avish knew he'd probably be counting the cash by now. And he didn't give a shit.

Entering the structure for Avish was like going to school after vacations for a kid. Only this was one long-ass vacation.

The air in there was humid as compared to outside. Sultry.

Avish walked over to the living room - where his first live nightmare had horrendously unfolded - running his fingers along the dry, ligated plaster.

'Fuck me.'

The living room was nothing like how it had used to be. Without the furniture and with the new glass-panelling along the installed shelves, the place was barely recognisable as one where Shweta had smashed her husband's skull with a broken bottle of booze.

A fan hung from the ceiling by a doddery cord. The walls developed hands and those hands clasped around his already compact respiratory tract.

There was cancer inside of him. And somehow, there was cancer outside as well.

Avish noticed a hardly discernible red daubing on the floor, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned in ages.

That's your blood, his thoughts said. That's your blood or your father's blood or your mother's blood from all those years back.

Avish bent on a knee to examine.

It's a cursed drop of blood from that cursed black night. Like Wilde's ghost, my friend, remember when you read that book with Bhoo.

(Bhoo?)

'Bhoo,' his lips uttered.

Just as he was about to touch the daubing, the fan above him screeched horribly as it's cord almost gave away and it plummeted by a good few inches.

Looks like someone doesn't want you here, the son of a bitch in his head told him.

After that Avish climbed the rickety stairs to the landing above, where his childhood room had been, and still was. The room where he'd first encountered the man in black. On that bean-bag which was no longer there.

Open your eyes, Avish, the room whispered in Bhoo's voice.

Avish rubbed his eyes. His cupboard. It was still here.

He crept towards it, approaching it like how a deer might approach a lion.

Opened it. Empty.

'Of fucking cour -' Avish stopped mid-sentence as he wheeled about.

On the floor in front of him lay a hat. A precisely titfer-shape hat.

I'm dreaming, he thought.

Yeah, the son of bitch inside his head agreed. You most definitely are.

Avish reached out, extended an arm to touch the hat, to feel it, to confirm he wasn't losing his marbles, but somehow his bones were glass and his eyes were wickets and his blood was semen and he couldn't do it. He just couldn't.

But that wasn't the point. Was it?

He stood there awhile with his eyes closed, voiding his brain and thinking of what to think. His chain of thoughts led him nowhere, but his legs did. They took him back to the foyer, back to the gate, back to the rude measly man on the threshold, without even caring to ask for his permission.

'Yo, you took, like, a century in there,' the man said, obviously exaggerating. 'Wha', you decided to fap or what?'

Avish produced another wad of cash, not in the mood to reply. The man snatched it from his palm in the exact same manner as upon his entrance.

'I could still tell my boss, ya know, esé. He'd be beatin' the shit outta your cock.'

Avish looked at the man, quite blankly, his face impassive - and said, with utmost sincerity: 'Fuck yourself. Because no one else is likely to do that for you. Maybe your boss will.'

The measly man had a hung mouth, and Avish had a tear in his eye, as he got back into his car and drove home.

______________________________________

Is he real?

______________________________________

The nameplate read a name he hadn't read nor heard in a long, long time.

It couldn't be her. That was ridiculous.

Everything's fucking ridiculous. You know you have to go in there. So stop staring and pretending like you can walk away.

Avish walked towards the snow white building.

____________________________________

'She's kind of . . . eccentric,' the smiley-faced woman who called herself Pooja said. Her tone was worried, nervous. Yet her smile was unwavering, and Avish couldn't help but marvel at how stark, really, the contrast between that smile and that tone was. 'No one's come to visit in years.'

Avish was barely listening to the woman. They were walking across a broad yet congestive hallway, her leading the way, him following her lead. She had a nice, stern walk and a nice, upright spine. Must be somewhere in her late-thirties, was Avish's guess. Nearabout the same age as Preeti. His wife was just . . . different. He had fallen for her practically the same week he'd discovered she even existed. Perhaps not a love as true as a childhood one is, but close. Very close. Preeti had been the perfect, independent woman. They'd married two months later, in a temple. He'd been fighting his demons then. Resisting, at least. Their marriage aged and, well, so did they and something inside of Avish broke. He couldn't fight anymore. He had no strength. He'd been fighting his whole damn life and he couldn't and he wouldn't do it anymore. He'd grown distant. He'd given in to alcoholism. He'd lost his love for his wife. He'd lost his love for life. Or, rather, his will to live.

'Mister?'

'Huh?'

The smiley-faced Pooja said in her giveaway tone. 'Like I said, she can be eccentric. She's really old, and she doesn't let anyone in all day. None of her old students ever cared enough to check. Doctors miracle at how she's still alive and . . . well, frankly, Mister, I would find it . . . relieving - if she just - if she would just die.'

Here not just the tone but the eyes of the smiley-faced woman betrayed her. They glistened with newfound tears. 

Avish didn't know why she was telling him all of this, but he let her vent.

'I mean,' Pooja continued, her voice breaking, 'she can't even go to the loo on her own. She doesn't eat without vomiting, she doesn't . .  . she's in pain. And I'm her daughter and I would never wish her death but . . . but . . . '

He kept a hand on her shoulder. 'It's fine. I understand.'

After all, you'll be just like the old woman if the disease has its way.

'Shut up,' Avish said.

'I'm sorry?' Pooja said, wiping her eyes and doing the best in her power to maintain that smile.

'Nothing. Tell you what. You have a glass of water. Take a rest. We'll be okay.'

'No, she can't, she has fits - '

'Hey, hey,' he pacified her. 'Long ago, your mother said something to me that got me through some rough patches. She'll know who I am. I can feel it.'

'No, I - I can't let you, Mister, she - I can't.'

Avish sighed. 'Fine.'

Pooja opened the door. In their highly interesting conversation, Avish hadn't even realized they'd reached the spot. He took a deep breath and entered. The woman's stern spine at his front.

The room had a sick tang to it. This was where Avish started regretting his decision.

'Momma?' Pooja called.

You used to call your mother that. Yeah, good ole times. Hardly good, though.

'Someone's here to see you.'

At first Avish thought the woman was talking to a ghost. Because nobody except them seemed to be in the room. Then he pinched his eyes and saw a figure, wrapped in layers and mounds and mountains of blankets. Poking from beneath this burden, a face smiled. The face was small, vehemently small and wrinkly.

But it hit Avish in the gut like an iron fist because all he could see was the same face that had said these words to him once upon a sullen time: You are a good kid, Avish. Brave, too. I mean it.

Ah.

Mrs. Pratibha. In flesh.

His teacher from his days of young.

He felt very sick. And it wasn't the cancer that made him feel so.

Then the sickness intensified, as the shrunken, wrinkled face spoke in an even shriveled voice: 'Le . . . ahs, Oja.'

'But, Ma - '

Oh, so she doesn't always call him Momma.

'-Ma, you don't even - '

'Leaf . . . ahs, Oja,' the voice commanded. Sure, it was a frail voice; but the command it enunciated was patent.

Avish somehow understood what the voice was saying. Leave us, Pooja.

In fact, from then on, he understood the old woman perfectly well. Every word she said was processed quite normally by his brain. Miraculous, almost as if the woman could talk easy to him.

Pooja left. It was just him and the old woman who had once used to be his teacher.

He sat on a vacant, low stool by her side. So that he could look directly into the face that was so, so different yet altogether the same from the one carved in his memory.

The sickly tang hit him harder than ever, and there was a pause. Not an awkward pause, not a mystical pause. Not uncomfortable either. Just a pause. A blank pause.

Then the shrunken head said 'Oo . . . aven . . . ' and then stopped.

You haven't, his brain translated. You haven't what? What, old woman? What, former teacher?

She said nothing, though. The slits that the shrunken head had for eyes closed, and Avish panicked.

The woman was dead, he was sure of it.

It was a scary prospect, but he slowly approached her. The way a hare might approach a sleeping dragon.

He touched her hand, and his whole life reeled into him.

His whole goddamn life.

*

Is he real?

*

Standing in a sand dune. An eagle with wings of fire flying overhead.

A hand shooting out from the sand underfoot, a green, corroding hand pulling him in.

The eagle veering lower and zipping with intent more ferocious than the fire on its wings.

Quicksand.

Sinking.

The eagle crashing. His legs sinking thoroughly.

Then . . . nothing but dark and sand.

Movement.

Light. Sight.

A man in black.

*

Is he real?

But, again, that wasn't the point, was it? The point was, did it matter?

The man in black seemed like a vague dream. All his thoughts were muddled yet clear. Insane yet comprehensible.

(is he real?)

Was he?

Or was he a channel Avish had used to convince himself that - yes, there is something, a power out there, looking out for him in this dark dark world.
But even in his imagination the power had turned out to be very real, followed him right to adulthood, right to lunacy and death and decay.

(don't let the bed bugs bite)

Why on Earth would he think of that phrase right now? Man, however much he tried to convince himself otherwise, he was going crazy.

Like every one else in his family. His father, check. His grandma, in her last days, check. His mother, in her last days, check.

(don't let the bed bugs bite)

(what is the point of this, Mom)

He had asked her once, back when he'd been eleven or twelve or whatever.

And suddenly it clicked.

Like when you are dead sure you don't know the answer to a particular math sum, but somehow you stare at it long enough and random thoughts come to you and you are able to solve it without method, without technique, without logic.

Bhoo was like a bed bug, in many ways. A dangerous myth that exists in kid's minds. Don't let the bed bugs bite.

(what is the point of this, Mom)

Just so that the child is assiduous while sleeping and not startled by things and doesn't fall off his bed.

We create things which are not real to protect ourselves from things which are.

Just like Bhoo. Bhoo was not a villain. Dad wasn't. The Boogies weren't. In the end, you yourself are your life's villains. In the end, things which scare you are like the bed bugs that scare kids.

So yeah, Bhoo was a bed bug. And whether he could or could not bite was no question. The only thing that could hurt you is if you took the myth of the bed bugs too seriously and let them become your reality. Then you endanger yourself and end up not sleeping at all or waking up your parents or falling off the bed. Either way, the end is destructive. One must not let the bed bugs "become real". If you do, they "bite".

The man in black was real, it was Avish who had beaten his wife.

The man in black was not real, it was Avish who had beaten his wife.

The man in black was real, it was Avish who had been careless and let his mother die.

The man in black was not real, it was Avish who had been careless and let his mother die.

The man in black was real, he had had a traumatic childhood.

The man in black was not real, he had had a traumatic childhood.

Everything that had happened had happened; whether Bhoo was in the picture or out didn't make a difference.

Did it? Did it matter if the man was real? Or did it matter if he believed?
He was who he was.

In the end he was what he did, not under whose influence he did it.

Yes. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

Bhoo. A bed bug.

Both there to keep you frightened.

Both there to keep you safe.

(I am only here to protect you from the one true enemy you have - yourself)

Hadn't the man said that? It had seemed folly back then, now it made so much sense.

He was his own greatest enemy.
Everyone was.

All his conversations, all his experiences and rendezvous with the man in black flashed before his dazed, teary eyes.

Mrs. Pratibha. The old woman who's hand he was holding, who's hand was making him experience all of this. The old woman who had once been young, as all old women once were.

The voice of the man in black, speaking directly to him, like a voice-over in a movie.

(open your eyes avish)

(not here to hurt you)

(know a lot about you avish)

(there are bigger hurdles in life than petty bullies and raggers avish)

(not here to handle things you should be taking care of yourself)

(you humans pity yourself, think the other is better off than yourself)

(I am ageless I am nameless)

(Bhoo)

(are you real)

(if you say so)

(you need to be taught a lesson)

(a curly white smoke rising up to your chest as you inhale, converting into pure stark energy as you exhale)

(let them leave let them go)

(nothing in this entire universe comes for free my friend)

(the man killed himself)

(I want to kill myself too!)

(on the walls of his isolation chamber were written these words in his own blood)

(follow me to my afterlife)

(I am no monster)

(Company of no other would soothe him)

(But that morphed into his reality his only reality)

(I warned him, I say again)

(you have learnt to fight your battles to some extent now learn to slay your dragons)

(you are not always going to have someone to rely on)

(not everything has to be to your liking not everything has to revolve around you the world is a tough place avish so learn to live in it there is no place for cowards or for those who rely on others they don't even get simple deaths, no life makes them suffer till they beg for death trust me you do not want for that to happen)

(WHY IS EVERYTHING HE SAID SO FUCKING TRUE! I AM DYING, AIN'T I? IN THE WORST WAY IMAGINABLE! AND I DESERVE IT! AND I KNOW I DESERVE IT!)

(because humans are as humans do)

(I AM NOT A HUMAN THEN I MESSED UP I SHOULD DIE)

(everyone has to lose what they love avish and your sorrow was simply a seed of preparation for the future you need to realize that)

(you my friend are still stuck up on the past which is never a good thing for anyone)

(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)

(what say avish? are you still afraid of me)

(you will be)

(No, I won't! I'm not afraid of anything! Only . . .)

(Only what?)

(Only myself. Only karma. Only life.)

He had done so much wrong in his life. Made so many mistakes.

That was why the man in black - or perhaps his own brain - had prevented him from suicide back then. He didn't deserve a simple death. He deserved cancer, he deserved the loathe in his daughter's eyes when she looked at her father. He deserved to be called a monster, a git, a douche, because he was. Hell yeah, it had been a tough life, but he had no right to make others life tough, too?

A tear plopped down onto the ground. He heard a realization in its plink. He heard his guilt in its plink. He heard his remorse, his great fucking remorse, in its plink.

And as an undertone, he heard what he said.

'Don't let the bed bugs bite.'

*

He jerked his hand away from that of the old woman's.

His eyes were ajar. And now, so we're the woman's.

Only there was no black in her eyes. Only smoke.

'He will always be there for you.'

This time the words that originated from the woman's mouth came out clear. This time his brain didn't need to translate.

Eyeballs returned to her glossed-over eyes, but not her eyeballs. Rather, dirty-green, fusiform, smoky orbs.

Her putrid, defunct mouth opened a tad, then closed, then opened back again, wider than a cave's mouth this time. Avish could see her tongue, moving along the rim of her mouth like a shambling grey snake.

'Yes, Miss,' the young, innocent Avish inside him said.

'You are brave, Avish.'

He could see the pain in her eyes. She wanted to die, she wanted to die so bad. But she had been waiting for him.

Later that week she would die of a myocardial infarction, and somehow Avish knew.

Just like the nightmares had shown him his grandma's death.

Life had kept Mrs. Pratibha alive, only to have her serve her purpose. So that she could, as a teacher, teach him this one last lesson.

'He will . . . always . . . be there . . .'

______________________________________

Later that night, Avish awoke to a severe pain in his ribs. He had gotten used to the pain, but sleep was impossible. His throat was scorched sand.

He got up wearily, drank some water, crinkling his eyes at the weak source of light somewhere up front. For a second all he could think of was one word: Bhoo.

But it was his wife's laptop. She must've left it on accidentally.
Avish looked at Preeti, fast asleep. Looking ravishing as ever.

It took endeavor to trundle over to the desk where the damned device was placed. He opened it up and read.

Entry. March 22:- When I first met him, he was a good man. I bet he still is. He doesn't tell me a lot about his parents or his past, I think it hurts him still. Whatever "it" is. I'll make him a fine husband just yet.
-

Preeti out.

Entry. March 30:-We had a fight today. It's just that . . . his past shadows his present. I haven't given up on him just yet.

Entry. June 4:-Today told him not to smoke in front of Radha, I could see it was bothering her. He got mad . . . and he just left to that pub of his. . . . . . . . I mean, is that even a reason to fight?
-Preeti out.

Entry. August 17:-Radha finished her vocal lessons. She's so good!

Entry. September 21:- Guess things don't always work out, huh? Yes. Lung cancer. Whoops. I failed to change him after all. Sorry, it is -

But Avish couldn't read ahead. Couldn't bear to. He was shaking. Every inch, every iota of his personal, was shaking.

Slowly, he walked over to Preeti. Stroked her lively cheek and hair. Stroked the scar on her temples, the one he had given her last week.

Her eyes fluttered, and she seemed naturally surprised to find Avish looming over her like that.

'Are you okay?' she asked, anxious. Immediately she jumped off the bed and checked his fever. 'You're burning up. What - what is it? Just lay down first, I -'

He laid a finger on her lips.

The intensity in his eyes shocked her. This wasn't her husband. This was someone else.

The new Avish embraced her, as compactly as he could in his current state.

This wasn't him, for sure. Not her husband. This was her groom, the one she'd married. Not the monster of his past. But the human that he was.

She hugged him back, just as tightly.

Over his shoulder, she could just barely make a long, slender shadow out, watching them from the dark. But no shadow could darken this moment.

'I'll try,' he said, and she understood. It was enough for her.

This chapter justifies the title of the book.

It's very personal to me. All these last few chapters are. They mean a lot, and it means a lot that you read them.

So thank you. I hope you learn something and have something to take away from Avish's story.