M A N I K

Walking in the rain, my veins are tiny rivers from the oceans of flashes I'm getting of her face. I walk faster running hand through my wet hair thinking an elevation in my pace will get me rid of her but her face is like a melody that my head isn't forgetting. It's all going Nandini Nandini Nandini Nandini Nandini Nandini Nandini Nandini and Nandini.

"Manik, what the hell? Manik stop!" I swat someone's hand who's trying to stop me.

"Oh Jesus, I can't walk this fast so just stop!" I shrug the hand away turning to face who I know is Noelle.

"What?" I roar my lungs out which makes her take a step back. "Why the he'll don't you leave me alone?"

"Has something happened, Manik? I came from that Church and you were mis-"

"Goddamn, you woman! I get it that you don't have a life of your own but that doesn't fucking mean you'll put your nose in my every fucking business." I glare.

"Buddy, you look terrible. I can hel-"

"God, just shut up! Just shut up! Just shut up, Noelle?" I shout throwing my hands in the air. "Don't you get it? I don't need your stupid help." She notices the veins popping out of my throat while I hit my fist on my forehead.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" She yells while I wish the sound of the rain to block my ears. "You are my friend. My best friend and I can't leave you."

I unblock my ears to look into her eyes, "Well, then that's your problem. Not mine."

Just as I turn around, sharply, she makes me rotate giving me no other choice than to scrunch my face vexatiously. There, the thunder rolls across the malevolent sky. The untamed power reverberates and echoes across the vast cornfield spreading on both the sides of the street we are standing.

"I will not allow you to get back into that prison where your drugs and alcohol are the only blue skies you have." Her grip on my forearm hardens.

"Listen Noelle," I free my arm off her nail-digging fingers. "You should just get lost from my eyes. I don't wanna say or do anything which may end up insulting you."

"Where else will I go, Manik? You are my best friend and I can see you are in pain an-"

"Well, that's the thing, Noelle." Piercingly, I stare at her shrugging my hand which she tries to grasp. "The truth is you have nowhere to go on this bloody planet." Her eyes widen slightly.

"Manik..don't you go there, you coward." She apprehends some madness which I know I'm capable of owning.

"Ironically, you are stuck here with this baby in your womb with no career, no ambition, no family, no friends, no happiness whatsoever so all you have now to do is pinpoint the lows of my life and become the virtuous bitch who tries to make everything right. Do you know what you are trying to do here?"

She tries to turn and leave but grabbing her shoulders, I nudge her. "Who's being the coward now, huh?" She ducks her head low trying not to meet my eyes while her hands are fighting for me to let go of her but I plan to hold on.

"You just want to highlight the darkness of my life which can satisfy you that you are not the only one whose life is going downhill. Noelle, you don't give a damn about me but you just have to know I'm suffering as miserably as you are but you know what.." Though I don't want to but I end my holding her firmer, nudging her. "our struggles are different. I'm only sinking into my drug and alcohol problems but you..you have now oceans of troubles starting from parenting this unwanted child alone because the father of this, obviously, is never coming back."

My eyes face the metal road as my cheek burns with a swat caused by a very enraged and deeply emotional Noelle. I know, I have crossed my limits long back but the arrogant jerk in me is denying to meet her eyes which I know definitely will drown me in mortification.

"How dare you?" Nervously, I look up and she's shedding tears.

"How dare you, fucking retard?" Grabbing my collars, she nudges me and in between there's only the sound of raindrops.

Leaving my collar with a push, she steps back, almost stumbling. "The father of this child is not coming back...." She murmurs staring at the road and the wave of guilt starts washing over me.

"It's my fault, isn't it? It's my fault that I try to keep you happy. It's my fault that I try to forget about all the bad things in my life by bringing something good in yours. It's my fault that my child will forever have one parent. It's my fault that my husband is freaking dead. So dead..." Shaking my head, I try to reach out to her but her hand comes in between.

"And I'm the virtuous bitch, ain't I?" She sucks a shaky breath looking into the cornfield. "Manik, you know what? My Dad was dying when you had a fallout with your parents and you decided to leave your house..but in spite of that, I was sitting beside you on my porch giving you my shoulder..h-hiding every tear of mine from you. When my first boyfriend broke my heart, I came to you but you already were shattered because you saw Kiara with some lad in a club. I stayed silent all night.. because I wanted to be there for you so that you, my friend don't feel as worse as I was feeling. When..when..Ryan died and this baby was the only thing I had left with me, I still tried reaching out to you to pull you out of your mess when I had a bloody lot on my plate. When ideally, it should have been you telling me things are gonna be okay. I was there every bloody time even though my life was falling apart. Now that I think about it...where were you? In this friendship, it was only me...me. Really me."

"Noelle, I'm s-" She stops me by stepping behind.

"I don't have anywhere to go, Manik and I'm not afraid of this truth but tell me, if I stop bothering you..who else do you have?" My eyes widen and tears make their appearance.

Nobody.

I have nobody.

Shit.

My soul begs me to run and pull her in a dense hug telling sorry for all those times I couldn't be there for her. But my feet are frozen and I have no other alternative than seeing her leave, crying.

Looking up at the sky, I see the sun behind the clouds to be starting to go eclipsed. I find it, for the final time, the sun mingling with a darkness all around.

❁         ❁

Wiping the little mirror in the shower, I clear the fog that the warm water from the geyser has created and see myself bare..naked to my wounds. The water from the shower keeps falling while I intently refuse to look away from the broken man in such reflection.

'Hurting a friend sometimes hurts worse than a breakup.'

There she appears. My mirage. Dr.Nandini Murthy.

Her face is beside mine in the mirror and I breathe out, clutching the tap knob. Lowering my face, I nod.

'You went so extra. Saying all of that..wasn't done.' She places her palm on my bare back drawing a pattern with the bubbles there.

"I lost her forever, haven't I?" Keeping my face hang low, I murmur feeling her touch bring serenity to my distress.

Nandini stays silent placing her cheek on my back, contemplating.

"She was there each and every goddamn time. Damn, I'm starting to lose count of how many times I took her for granted. Kiara blinded me so much that my priorities-"

'Don't.' She turns me by my shoulders. 'How long are you going to keep blaming people for your own shits?' Softly, she questions whilst I stand clueless with her under the shower.

"I don't...." I stop not knowing what to say exactly.

'It's time for acceptance, mister. Accept it that you haven't been there for her no matter because of who. Because of what. You were her friend, her only friend and you stayed selfish. Stop sulking about it and think..think what you can do to make it right.' Her voice sounds like an angel.

"Things..are beyond my power now. I can't fix anything now. I just can't." I shrug powerlessly.

'You can.' She blinks. 'Trust me, you can. But first, you have to free yourself from all shackles and let go of that Manik who only thinks about his sadness, his pain, his love, his misery. All he sees around is himself. All he thinks about is how the world is being unfair to him. It's time for you to start thinking about how you have been unfair to others. It's time for a change.'

"I'm afraid of changes." I state, lowly.

'Not all changes are bad.' Her palm cups my wet cheek. 'It's not a bad thing to be afraid but you should know when to have authority over it. And, it's time...Manik.'

My hands move to her cheeks and fondle the skin with gentle squeezes as she beams under my touch. Have I ever been this close to anyone other than Kiara? No. But this isn't real too. But it does feel so.

I smile rubbing my thumb on her jawline. "I know it sounds creepy as fuck and I know you are not even real but can I hug you once?"

It's running through my veins again as I feel the rush, the high. I'm feeling kind of light and floaty. My heart speeds up to help me fly when she lifts her shoulders in light shrug and I know she won't mind. I'm flying far far away, my troubles in the dust when I wrap my naked arms around her naked back. I want this high to last forever. It feels like pixie dust.

She pours honey in my ears with sweet giggles falling out of her tongue and suddenly my starving soul craves the warmth she is providing me with, so I hold her tighter. This feels satisfying when I know she is hearing the beat of my heart which makes it beat even quicker.

Is my whole existence just a hallucination?

✿ ✿

The mountain-top view is not as serene as it was supposed to be. Amid the waves of fog and early evening stars, I stand watching my betrayed friend to be sitting by the edge, unaware of my presence. Her words, her tears, her valid accusations haunting me to the extent that I fear to take a step close to her. She looks into nowhere, down into the abyss and sometimes into the violet sky.

'You should go, you know.' Nandini holds my hand standing beside me.

"I don't have the balls." My voice falters.

Just as I turn my face away, leaving, she holds my hand nodding in a no. 'She can use a friend. The one she always wanted.'

"I'm not meant to be anyone's friend. I'm a bloody selfish bastard." I start to breathe in and out faster.

'Shackles, remember?' Smiling, she crosses arms across her chest. 'I want you to try this. If you fail, you can desert yourself forever. But for a change, even for five minutes, stop thinking about yourself and feel the pain she must be undergoing.' Nandini points her finger towards Noelle's back.

"Thinking about her pain only is sinking my heart. I don't think I'm strong enough to go through this without being high." I shake my head clutching the sides of my shirt.

"Shit. I can't." Grabbing my forehead, I start to feel low.

'You can leave.' She says with a smile and I look at her, a slight appalled.

'But just remember life always doesn't give second chances.' My heart shudders. 'Losing Noelle would mean having nothing. Plus, don't forget, I'm not even real.'

My jaw drops and I hold her hand quickly making sure she never says those words again. I don't know what she means to me but her saying so haunts my darkness even.

She smiles giving my hand a gentle squeeze. 'Go talk to her. Know, she maybe staying mad at you for a long time but also know, she has every right to. Just don't give up on things because they are hard. Because..she has never?'

She leaves my hand slowly and softly and I fix my gaze at my friend to whom I suddenly am, unknowingly, in a whisper taking steps to. When I turn my neck, I find Nandini to be leaning towards the guard railing by the cliff gesturing her eyes for me to carry on.

The human world, from the top now that I see seems too fucked up. The electric breath I'm having in gushes makes my bottom lip quiver. Standing behind Noelle, I lean ahead staring into the sea that lies underneath this high peak. To find what is speakable by me is tossing my sanity away.

Quietly, I sit behind her, a little higher but right close to her feeling the mountain breeze be the third person. For the longest span, I keep thinking of a word. Any word. But there's none. I'm such a loser. So, I gently and fretfully place my palms on her shoulders.

For minutes, I wait for her to raise an objection since she never even turned her face to know who it was touching her and when she doesn't for a long time, I inhale the courage to bend slight over and wrap my arms around her collarbone. She calms under my touch.

"When did I become so selfish?" I murmur in her ear.

Calmness relieves my stressed muscles when she ducks the back of her head upon my chest, looking at the cotton clouds float freely.

She didn't push me away.

My mind kept playing this line on repeat.

"You knew where to find me." She speaks.

I sigh. "We were eleven years old when in one of the stupid tests at school, I hid some weed in your bag at the fear of getting caught. I didn't think about the consequences because I just was being selfish. I think, I forever have been one. You were my friend. My best friend yet I didn't think twice before doing this to you. That was my first pack of weeds in life, trust me. When you got caught before the examination and the teacher sent you to principal, I fretted. Not only did you get detention for two weeks for absolutely no fault but also you were rejected from giving the examination. I couldn't manage the guts to go to the principal and confess because my father would have killed me... I-I was only permitted to travel some five blocks to and fro in my bicycle but I remember, I ran through the entire city that day only to find you here. So no, it was not difficult today having a guess where you could be found."

"But you told me it was your brother who dropped you by the cliff that day?" Her fingers rest on my forearm around her neck.

"Lies. I was too manly to accept I ran here for a girl. What would my friends at school say?" She presses her lips tightly not to smile.

"But I knew all along that it was you who hid that thing in." I nod my head at her revealed piece of information.

"Of course you did."

It's time for the momentary pain to pay a visit again. Noelle and I share a long and huge history. How could I ignore her all of that in times when she needed a true friend?

"I'm sorry I declined all your calls on the day of Ryan's funeral. I was stoned." For the first time in life, I'm owning up my shits and it sure as hell is scary to begin with but with it comes a lightness.

A tear rolled down on my forearm from her eyes and I held her tighter from the back, rubbing her shoulder.

"Cry in my arms if you want to because I couldn't offer you them when you needed." She begins to quiver in my hold shutting her eyes and I gently kiss her head, caressing.

It's difficult seeing someone breakdown in your arms and pretending to be strong for them at the same time. But she needs to let this out. She has been too strong for a long long time. She has been strong for the two of us and it's time that I act like a friend who will allow her to be weak for sometime. I can be strong for her.

Her whimpers still are in the air. Clutching my forearms around her neck, she continues letting everything out pouring into the mountains and seas. My own eyes blink a couple of time to keep the tears at bay. The mountain range looks indescribably gorgeous as the setting sun starts to bathe them in its goodbye rays and I rest my chin on her head feeling there to be sunrise in a sunset. It's all about perspectives.

"I know I'm difficult." After what seems like an eternity, I speak. "I'm impossible to be with. I'm a chronic over-thinker. I overreact more than I should. And every now and then, I'm insecure like anything. But I can promise you one thing wholeheartedly, Noelle." She turns her swelled up face to me and I wipe the wetness away.

My palm cups her cheek, "From now on, at every corner of life, you'll find me. On my own looking out for you. You have done your part in this friendship..now let me be the part I missed. I love you, Noelle. You're my best friend and I know you don't need my support at every step because I'm myself a mess who wouldn't be able to be of any of help. But I can promise, I can. I promise that..for you and your baby, I'll try being a better best friend. A better man. I'll see the light. I'm ready."

"Manik..." Tears gush out of her eyes.

"And, if I have to earn your faith back in me in a hard way, I will. I'll make up for all the lost times in this friendship because let me accept it...without you, Noelle Ryan Mitchel there's an awful lot of emptiness in my life. So, don't push me away, I beg you." Grinning through tears, she nods her head and pulls me in a dense hug.

I know what I just now did promise and I also know what it'd require me to do. So I will.

Turning my head still hugging her, I watch Nandini smiling and looking our way, arranging her hairs against the wind. She smiles proudly and I blink my eyes.

❀ ❀

Noelle leaves after we have sat in silence for some more time and giving her an excuse, I find her a reason to let me stay here for a little more. Wiping hands on the sides of my trouser, I walk towards a very patient Nandini.

Why won't she be patient? She's a figment of my imagination, after all. A creation of my hungry mind.

'That wasn't too hard.' She smiles tucking few strands behind her ear.

"May I?" I ask her chivalrously and she lets her fingers slip down.

One by one, religiously, I arrange all her hairs behind her ears and there overpowers a tinge of sadness in my eyes; the sadness I don't want her to look into. So, I keep looking at her ears and the little ear-tops.

'Don't make this any hard on yourself.' She tries looking into my eyes.

"I don't want to do this." Powerlessly, I shake my head.

She walks up to my mediocre car and leans with her elbow on the dicky. Her bright smiles pierces through my heavy heart and I can't deny that I'm becoming its slave.

'Shackles, remember?' Her eyes quickly indicate the dicky and I move towards it, opening it without saying a word.

Picking up a medium sized box, I gaze at it with full kind attention. These were all my years. My years of being me. In the brown box, lies every syringe, band, pot, red blue pills, powders, pipes, tin foil, needles, nozzles and their future is hanging on my sleeves.

Scared, I glance at her, fretting.

'You made her a promise and nobody said it's going to be easy.' She utters and I look down at the box.

It's not about my precious money that I'm about to throw down this mountain but it's been my identity, my company, my pillar of strength.

She presses her palm against my bicep. 'You are strong enough to live without these. Do it. You'll feel high without a pill.'

Gulping hard as I take a step ahead, my foot hits a stone that goes rolling down the slope and my breath hitches. Sweat starts wetting me and my heart feels like it's about to explode.

When suddenly, holding my hand, Nandini blinks with assurance. Swallowing, I stretch my hands holding the box in the air with her hand still snaking around mine boosting the level of my confidence.

'Don't overthink this. Just let everything go.' She says. I close my eyes, breathing.

'Even the Sun has set. If the nature can mould itself according to time, why won't you?'

'I promise it'll feel good.'

Without waiting for another word of assurance, without a thought, I just loosen my grip and the box slips through my fingers. It feels like my breath gets hitched when I open my eyes letting out a gasp. Everything slips through my fingers. Every goddamn thing. It's like I'm losing control over my insanity; my ticket to being unsocial.

The contents of the box float out of it against the gravity as they are going down the cliff and I inch forward watching them as my bits and pieces of insanity are saying a final goodbye. For some seconds, I'm able to see them free-fall before I lose sight of them.

'It doesn't feel half as bad as you thought it would be, isn't it?' She questions.

Chuckling, I close my eyes stretching my hands to my sides, breathing in and out. As if...as if I'm letting all of my shallow breaths out into the vastness of the sky with open arms for a new life. A new start. The more the air touches me, it feels it just doesn't touch my skin. My smiles gets wider and filling my heart up with a major breath of fresh air of this newfound freedom, I open my eyes finding her smile.

"Thank you. Thank you, Dr.Nandini." I say.

'It's not over yet.'

Saying so, she steps ahead of me, just a touch away from falling down in the slope. Reality hits my face. I grasp her shoulders swiftly at her stupidity of standing right at the edge.

"I have given up on every bad thing. I can't give up on you. You're not toxic for me. You-you-you because of you, I could do all of this. Please..no." My heart beats in my mouth and she holds my elbows. My hold gets tighter.

"I-I have le-let go of every shackle like you said. You are the only hook to me wanting me to be a good human?" My voice falters as I refuse to anything she has to say.

Her face is calm when she says, 'I'm the last shackle.'

"No. No no no. I'm not letting you go? I never wanted you to stay in my life since the beginning but now..now it just doesn't make sense how am I going to walk towards light without you by my side?" I freak out fearing every word between us to be the last.

Nandini smiles. 'You have let go of every drug. Materialistically. But I'm the last hook. If you don't let go of me, I'll be replacing all of your drugs one day. In a human form. We don't want that? I wanted to make you free. You wanted to make yourself free. You and I both want you to have normal life and letting me go right now would mean the start of it.'

"Why is it necessary for me to let go of you?" I ask, paranoid.

'Because I'm not real? You can't spend your life talking to some hallucination. You have to be out there for real people. You have to start your life.'

My eyes solidify and my grip around her elbows start to loosen up.

'Time for a new chapter in your life because my dear, you have reread the same old chapter for a thousand years now. Welcome the change. Move on.'

"What if I fail?" Sniffing, I don't even try to contain my tears.

'You'll learn the process.' She sounds determined.

'Enslave your mind. Ask it to free you. You can do it.'

"No" I shut my eyes

'Be there for Noelle and every other person who has missed out on what a wonderful human being you are capable of being. Write a new page everyday on the upcoming blank chapters. Make yourself proud.'

Parting my eyes, I draw in some air looking at the little space between us. "Can I hug you once?"

I press my lips, shaking.

'No' She replies after a pause.

"Please?" I beg with tears in my eyes.

'Stop doing this to yourself.' She mutters and I nod looking at the ground.

"What if I need you ever again?"

'You have to stop holding onto what can't stay.' She breathes.

Blinking, I allow little more teardrops to make my vision blurry.

"Dr.Nandini Murthy," I smile through my tears. "You have been a terrible doctor but you have been a hell of a person. In real world, you have no clue how this stupid is refusing to let you go or maybe..maybe in real world, I won't even keep you. You with profundity have offered me peace with your virtual existence and I'm glad that you did." I nod my head and our hands intermingle in a formal shake.

"You have partially fixed what someone else broke. You gave me courage but I think I should just locate my own route now. I need to be back in the real world and I don't know how I'll do it but I'll-I'll try." I bite my inner cheeks.

Our hands are still stretched in a shake when she awaits looking for just a withdrawal.

'Goodbye psychotic, Malhotra.' She smiles.

"Goodbye, Dr.Murthy."

My fingers open against her touch and it's maybe the wind but she falls like a feather out of my grip and into the womb of the air. Her heels lose touch of the ground and she's being wiped away forever from my imagination.

Her face lights up with a smile as she falls in that white flowing outfit and I can say it sure as hell makes me fill up with terrible voidness but it isn't the worst feeling in this eternity. Every memory of hers dances in the ballroom of my mind and slowly, it feels like every chain is breaking. Slowly and then all at once.

Dr.Nandini Murthy isn't easy to let go of and she knew that. No more question in my head did she leave unanswered with her sudden departure and maybe, that's the beginning of me, healing.