Real

It was, from environmental studies, something( I don’t remember the intricacies) taught in a way in lower standards to make it easy to understand, which seems far from the truth when you consult the explanation given in the higher standards. We had quite different views regarding the topic of our immediate discussion. I told him that perhaps he would not understand the explanation I was going to offer him as it required the concepts he had yet to learn.

I was in higher secondary, and it had been only two years since he, my cousin, completed his primary school. To my pleasant surprise, he pulled out an XII standards textbook and began opening the mentioned concept. I was shocked, and his answer to my dazed expression was that he got bored of his video GAMES and had nothing to do. He pointed to a big, white, shining rectangular box. A box with no keys or anything. Just a plain white, beautifully shining box.

x x x

The surrounding was merged shades of creamy yellow. The mud walls were pale yellow with brick-red-brownish sloped roofs. I was running along a street of mud yellow color decorated on both sides by the above-described huts with matching colors. I was conscious that this was quite near to the river. And there was also this unsettling feeling that the river ran parallel to the street.

When I reached them, the two dogs with them eyed me suspiciously because I was running. I told my cousin to handle them. Both of us had our younger brothers sitting with us. The number of us was five in total. But at the immediate, my middle brother was not there. My older cousin then made fun of his brother, the smallest in our group, and we all laughed out loud. Though we lived in separate cities, we and our cousins came to our original village to witness a major GAME that was going to be organized throughout the village.

x x x

Everything else was real. The guns looked like real black Glocks. The adrenaline rush was the same as that in a real deal of life and death. Everything else except the death. If you fired what would have been a Deadshot in real life, it knocked you out of the Game.

I remember that a girl was pointing the gun at my youngest brother. He was standing there in the open, hands held high in surrender, looking around him, thinking what he could do. She was shielded behind a pile of wood. I was behind another pile of wood, a gun in my hand, watching the proceedings. they couldn’t see me, but I could shoot them both. all around us was lush green, and we were in a forest-like garden where all was peacefully quiet. she was going to shoot him. I aimed at her and pushed my trigger.

We all watched the bullet go in slow motion. We all were in the game. Her eyes widened with realization as the gun pushed into her stomach. She let go of the gun and held her abdomen with both her hands as she fell backward on her behinds. I left in slow motion like a professional shooter.

It was a different morning than the one which preceded the afternoon which witnessed the game. The next one. I couldn’t find my brother other than the youngest. I hadn’t seen him the moment I shot him. I came into the house directly after the moment I turned away like a professional agent. He is not afraid that his shot won’t kill the person. He knows when it is a deadshot. So do I. He doesn’t look back to confirm. SO DO I.

No, of course, he wouldn’t have been killed in the game, by that shot. It was just a game and a harmless gun. I went to search for him in the garden. There he was, lying peacefully. No, the gun couldn’t have killed him. Perhaps some snake would have.

My mother was saying that I never cared about him. He wasn’t the eldest and never got the happiness of taking decisions and responsibilities. Although he was more capable than me. He wasn’t the youngest to get unconditional love and care. It was all his fault. It is his fault that he was born as the middle brother. She was saying. She told me about an incident when I brought something for my youngest brother but not for the middle brother, him. She told me how I was partial with my decisions because I loved only the youngest. Everything else was real. Everything except that ‘ it was his fault.’ It was mine. I am the one who was partial.

I was standing in the yard wondering what my father would do when he knew that my brother…. My mother told him. He advised my mother she should not weep. He didn’t seem moved. Not a bit. He told us that there was nothing wrong with it. Everyone is destined to meet an end. My fear of his outburst eased out slowly while another feeling filled the vacuum — not very different from that of the guilt.

Wouldn’t there be any funeral? He was unmarried and perhaps would be buried. But when? Perhaps the earth would swallow him as he was lying there peacefully. As nobody went there to disturb him.

x x x

We were inside the well and swimming and bathing — I and my older brother. He held my hand and began to irritate me playfully. I grabbed him and pushed him down. Surprisingly, I was able to force him down a lot. But he didn’t come back to the surface.

x x x

I woke up. Slowly, the events and then the meaning of that fragmented, long dream started to soak in. I had slept continuously, longer than a whole journey of the hour hand round the clock. The guilt was still there.

I tried to process the strange feeling and the weird dream. I searched the internet for an hour. I went through a complete article.

I didn’t wonder how my dreams drifted with the word ‘game.’ But how, in most of them, it was always he who was mistreated. My actions in life had not been much different than those I witnessed in the dream. They would have led me to the same result, those I created in the dream. But now I have executed them in the dream, the realization has dawned upon me. Though I may still dream of him, the next time I do so, he won’t be a cunning girl aiming a gun at people. We both will be on the same team, and he will be my hero.