A glistening smear of gory red, like that from a fresh wound, had filled his sight.

A lemon-yellow crescent appeared at the bottom, spreading like a contagious infection, it fouled even the corners of the screen.

The dazzling light peeked through, the way sunlight does when blinds are opened.

Jacques had woken up. His eyelid was the wound and the crescent, a picturesque landscape sun-kissed like a translucent cloth, drying under the scorching sun of June. Rarified air made the barks sway, burnt edges of leaves rustled, and through the foliage, sunbeams danced on his highly contoured cheeks. Bees buzzed openly in the air, exploring new places. Unbothered about choosing a flower to sit on, for the air tasted of the very nectar that the heat had deprived the flowers of.

It was the most beautiful nook in France. To its left, the world seemed to cease at the horizon; to its right, were endless possibilities. Here, the Sun touched a trail which was haunted by chirping grasshoppers, leading to his house. Jacques visited this sanctum sanctorum every night; yesterday he had fallen asleep here.

He walked up to his house. It was isolated from the rest of the locality. It stood high, on a hill; more tastefully white walled and hence, more elegant than the other houses, painted in tacky colours.

He completed his chores, had breakfast with his dad and got ready to go to the library. In the mirror, he saw a French boy who had unrealistically gigantic blue eyes and fairly long brown hair.

Being a student during the summer vacation was his favourite part of being un étudiant.

His life lied in those tracks between the Library, the house and his sanctum sanctorum of a nook.

Every noon he'd smell a new page from an old book as the smell switched to that of lavenders or oleanders as his eyes read only the first few syllables of such words, staying resolute about finishing at least one book each day.

Today's trip to the library proved to be rather fruitful for he was able to get his hands on a book that his father had suggested. Watching him spend his day was making me feel serene until it was time that his biological clock forced him to wake up into a world he wished were a dream, from the one he longed to be the reality.

The crescent expanded for real this time and it did not fill a dazzling light but grey dust. This was all he had to see in order to conclude as to which world he had woken up in. The broken bed and the wires protruding out of the wall only made it obvious.

He trod on the burnt carpet and saw in the mirror, his beautiful face, not deemed so by any norm but his charisma. His face was adorned with very prominent Vietnamese features. His every aspect was reflected back except for that despised look in his eyes, the feeling which he had for himself. In this world, Jacques still had his distinctively vicious stare but his reflection, Phan Matthew lost it to a crack in the mirror, which split his right eye in two.