Chasing Cars - Episode 2

He looked around for his phone, which he heard ringing a while back. He found it lying under the pillow in a neglected condition. 7 new messages and a couple of missed calls were waiting to greet him, and he wondered if he could escape them somehow, escape everything and just fly off to some green, cold mountains with a constant drizzle and the smell of nature.
But escapes were not possible in his world.

He stood up and looked into the mirror. The face he saw looking back at him was not the one he identified. The cheerful young face that once was his, had given way to a hollow, hopeless, austere man he never thought he would be. So much had changed over the course of a few years. Now it all seemed like it happened long back in some other time. Like ages ago.

Nikhil Verma, a bright young prospect he was at school. There was something about him that would make people look back at him again after the first glance. He was tall, well, to be honest, tall enough to reach that category. He was a little less than 6 feet, with an athletic structure. His ethnicity was mixed, a British mother and an Indian father. He inherited his looks from his mother, but his structure was a replica of his father. Hazel eyes, medium length light brown straight hair which always fell down his brow, a pointed nose, high cheekbones and a strong wide jaw. He was one of the most good looking boys in the campus, and had it not been for Vikram Shergill, the basketball captain, he would've been the hottest property of Chelmswood International School.

Located below the hills of Nainital, near the lake, Chelmswood International was one of the most reputed boarding schools in India. The school had produced some remarkable alumni in the past. With the students coming from strong, reputed families, Chelmswood was a brand in itself. Nikhil's father was an alumnus of this school, and a well known personality in the elite circles.

"Pass me the cigarette, sucker!" Vikram bellowed. Kshitij reluctantly gave him the cigarette, puffing out the smoke luxuriously.
"Kshitij son of a bitch never passes anything, ball in the game or cigarettes. Saala selfish asshole." Nikhil smirked in sarcasm.
"That's the lamest comparison ever, loser. Football and sticks, haha! " Vikram snortled.
"Shut up and finish it quick, Vikram, if that warden comes in here we're screwed." Kshitij commented, looking around.
"Such a fattu you are,man. Why do you even smoke, you bloody mouth fag like that Ayesha bitch. " Vikram lazily reacted.
"But you got to admit Ayesha's bloody hot. Don't know what she did over the summer but she certainly has been driving all the guys from C section crazy." Nikhil said, with a little excitement in his voice.
"We know what she did over the summer, bro." Kshitij winked.
"Hahaha! Saala perv i knew you'd say that!" Vikram laughed, and Nikhil joined in.
"Let's get back to the dorm before haddi walks in, we got to work on that song as well." Nikhil spoke suddenly, getting up and cleaning the wet leaves and mud off his lower. The three of them got up eventually, and walked off the backside of the dormitory which was at the footsteps of the forest behind the school. The area was surrounded by trees, and wasn't visible from the hostel windows. Nikhil had discovered this area accidentally when one day he had to run around the campus to save his ass from the warden who caught him making out with one of the girls behind the Girls' hostel.

"Crazy days,school." He chuckled. He looked back in the mirror and was jolted back into the present. He missed the old days. There was so much he could have been from there. If only he could go back in time and change certain things and certain decisions, his life would've been so different, SO different.
If only.

Chasing Cars - Episode 1

11th of July, 2013.

He just sat there, staring into the distance.

There was a subtle calmness about the morning air, as if after a wild storm, the winds were settling down, tired and quiet. The roads looked back, as if making fun of him, going on till eternity, against his static and stagnant life. Even the clouds kept moving, and not wayward, but unidirectional, with some purpose underneath those shapes. Unlike his mind, the world wasn't blank, out of purpose, out of inspiration.

He stood up all of a sudden and moved towards the kitchen. He needed some tea. Trying to cut down on cigarettes, he needed something to drown his insides with. The house was quiet. Such an irony, he kept thinking. His mind was screaming inside- insanity, madness, thoughts, questions, desires, needs, hopes, plans, remorse, impatience, randomness -he took a long gasp of breath in, as if to direct the calmness around him, inside.
It didn't help.

Tea was ready. And he started recreating his reality in the head, comprehending the situations. If he wasn't home, he would've had to walk 3 miles to find a tea stall open at 5.30 am. Rs 7 for a cup of tea, and a classic milds for Rs 8, and then maybe another cup of tea, 'cause these jerks served tea in the tiniest cups ever produced by mankind,one body jerk and 3.5 Rs would spill all over one's shirt, and then maybe another milds. "Come on! One cig for two cups of tea, what am I, a baby?"  He saved 30 bucks, right there! "What a fuckin' cheapskate I am,ha!" he chuckled, but he knew somewhere inside, he would've given his decision a second thought while spending that too.

These were hard times. Inside the head, and out there in the world. Inside he was confused, deluded, mentally surrounded by possibilities that were trapped somewhere between 'might' and 'would'. Outside, it was a confused world, always had been. Belief was no less than a war raging in the head against needs and options. It had been while since he had the luxury of a salary in his pocket. The new workplace wasn't exactly an established firm, but a molding model with immense potential. He had worked hard there, very hard, worked without sleep and at times without food, just to make it reach a place where he would be able to lavishly swim in bankrolls. But things had taken a few twists and turns on their way, and it with each passing day, the battle was turning into a mosh-pit of emotions, wavering between the patience to hold on and the urge to move on. Each passing day, was a test of patience.
He hadn't failed yet.