Heat Waves

The hot burning sun shone deceptively through a thick, gnarling veil created by dark ominous looking clouds overhead without exposing a hint of blue from the sky. The people of the village found respite from the torrential rain offering relief for the students and revelers to mollify the effects of the dizzying heat and humidity on the school playground.

At Ideal School and College, there was a hubbub taking place during the morning tiffin break as the kids swarmed around a new student who had moved from the capital Dhaka, offering novel entertainment. The incongruity was almost laughable. He had slick oiled spiked hair, a key chain linked to the lapels of his trousers and a smartphone in his possession, a coveted asset among his curious cohorts. The attention thrilled him, but was aloof and disconcerted about the girls in the vicinity who busied themselves nearby, laughing and giggling while whispering secrets into each other’s ears.

Soon enough the school bell rang and the boy was left to his own devices as he made his way through the dusty, muddy small alleyways towards home. Akash ran right up beside the kid and bumped into him almost knocking the wind out of his sails.

“Heya, new kid! What’s up? My name is Akash. What’s yours? I like your style… I think you’re cool. Do you want to be my best friend?”

“Uhm…hi. I’m Rafi,” he said trying to brush off the guy. He seemed like a strange character.

“I mean who else do you know? No one has ever seen you before. You’re not from around here. Can you even speak Bengali?” Akash squeezed right up to his new friend and even put his arm around his shoulder.

“Yeah...I’m not really into making friends. My life isn’t going well and I really don’t want to be here. “

“What’s wrong? Are you depressed? It’s a girl, right? Look, I know you’re from the big city and everything but we have everything here! What do you want?”

Akash administrated the usual interview asking the like of which state was he from, how many brothers and sisters he had and what he had had for lunch. Rafi obsequiously responded to this interrogation until Akash squeezed Rafi’s cell phone number from him.

“Listen man, we really shouldn’t be friends. I’m not the type of guy people like you should mix with. I’m sure your family wouldn’t like it.”

“What are you talking about? Why don’t you come by my place! I live in a huge house you can come over and we can chill out, watch TV or whatever you want.”

“You don’t understand, we used to have everything back at home. No one could touch my father. He even took his pistols to board meetings and no one could do anything to him. We lived like kings and no one said anything. Then, when the new political party took power we lost everything. They boarded up the house and took all our money. You can still see all the toys we had from the windows outside our old house. The people who took over are just as corrupt,” Rafi pined.

"So are you guys poor now?"

"Pretty much. I mean I hate my new place. We all have to share the same room and it's always hot. They took all of our stuff, froze our assets and now we live by the grace of God."

“What’s your Father’s name?”

“That’s confidential. I’m not supposed to tell people it’s all over the news, pretty much everyone knows about it. We are pretty much ruined. My family are different. They like to push people around, get into gunfights and even prostitute women. But you know, that part is legal is in this country!”

“That’s rough man. Hey, you can come by my place anytime you want! You could even spend the night.”

“ My whole family has to share one room and it’s always hot. It’s so depressing to be honest.”

“Well,” Akash thoughtfully responded, “ my whole family shares a huge building all to ourselves. It was built by my father and his brothers. You can come spend the night at mine and no one will even know you’re there!”

Akash pushed right up to his new companion and asked with wide eyes and mouth wide open, “So…do you like Sunny Leone?”

“I like action films with Sharuk Khan and Salman but I’m not that much into films to be honest. I mean I guess Hindi films are okay but they copy Hollywood movies shamelessly. It’s so obvious too! They don’t even make an effort to try and hide it.”

“People just need an excuse to get out and find something to do, get out and enjoy life. Do you like to have maasti? What do you do for fun?”

“Oh, yeah cool. I do all that too.”

“Why don’t you come to my house and we can do it there.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sure! Why not? We are best friends after all. We’re almost at my house anyway, why don’t you drop in for a bit?”

They went through another narrow, congested dusty alley until they came across an unfinished brick made building with all kinds of chickens, goats, cows surrounding the compound.

As fate would have it, at that very moment on the front steps Akash's cousins were congregated in a circle together; they were playing, laughing and enjoying themselves under the protective shade of the building from where they were taking refuge from the unforgiving sunshine. They were playing, laughing and enjoying under the protective shade of the building from where they were taking refuge from the unforgiving sunshine. One of the girls there grabbed Rafi’s attention as he felt his soul leave body. Rafi was present in body, but nowhere else. From that second on he was a different changed boy...he didn’t feel like a boy anymore, he felt like a man. His gaze turned into an intense stare, much to the delight of Akash’s young cousin Maya who loved to impress any company and happily seized her opportunity to make an impression. She pushed up her ample, newly budding precarious bosoms and in her most seductive lilt she used while entertaining her friends continued the story she was telling her cousin brothers and sisters.

“At the function down at our town center Jewel Bhai asked me if I wanted to star in his next picture,” Maya expressed haughtily. “He’s always trying to get me to model for all his shows…” From here on the Maya show just kept going with good jokes and flirtatious eyelash flashing. The boys having nothing to do with the action continued on their way and Rafi followed Akash into the brick house.

Akash’s house was in a dusty, congested alleyway but was the only fully–erected building in the neighborhood. The house was owned by Akash’s father and his uncles who somehow managed to create a home for their family. They each had their own flat, with entrances in the front and back of the building. There were brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunties everywhere. It was the kind of family Rafi could only dream of.

“So you like Maya?” asked Akash coyly. “If you want I can hook you up with her, she is my cousin sis after all.” Akash was speechless, clearly spitted by the same bloody bow that Cupid had struck so many other unsuspecting victims, but breathlessly changed the subject.

“Your place is pretty nice. It’s like a palace.”

“You can come by here whenever you want. Just call first.”

“Thanks! So d’you have anything to eat?”

Over the next days, Akash was Rafi’s only companion at school. To an outsider, the only explanation for his newfound jubilation would be that he had gone completely insane. He intimated to his new “best friend” that him and Maya had been sending racy messages to each other all night, every night and even sent some NC-17 rated pictures on Facebook.

“Listen Rafi,” said Akash, “ let’s keep this between ourselves. She is my sister after all.”

Soon enough, strange events again took Rafi down to the depths of his idiosyncratic depression when Maya wouldn’t pay him the slightest attention and even harshly reprimanded him for being a perv. In a confused state of despair, Rafi reached out to his friend who told him not to worry and to meet him at his place before school so that he could tell him what’s what. Rafi arrived at dawn in the morning looking like a complete wreck as he made his way to his friend’s house.

“Where is she?” he implored. “I need to talk to her.”

“Hey, listen man. This is serious. Her father is getting ready to take her to school and before that happens you really need to go…”

All of a sudden the dark dawn sky burst into life and thunder shot through the sky. Akash grabbed hold of Rafi and pulled him close.

“Listen man, don’t be so stupid. Do you really think she likes you? I mean look at you…with a haircut like yours, does she need someone like you in her life? You have nothing in common, and even if she did have feelings for you, do you think that that would change anything? You’re the son a druggy, everybody spits on your family. What do you think real life is, a movie? You’re better off without her! Guys like us don’t need all that shit in our lives. Listen to me, that girl is nothing but trouble. I mean admit it! You’re are such a virgin!

“So what...” he sobbed in response.

“You’re so innocent, you have no idea. She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t even know who you are! Are you going to spend the rest of your life chasing some chick who wouldn’t even talk to you?”

“What are you talking about? You don't know what are you saying? We’ve been talking all night on the phone this whole time.”

With the tears indiscernible due to the unforgiving rain pouring down mercilessly Akash did the unthinkable. He pressed his face into Rafi’s clenched mouth violently, the force throwing him against the ground, thrusting his whole body into him. In a state of speechless shock the tangled wrestling match continued until the tussle allowed Rafi to shake loose the secret he had been hiding this whole time. He scrambled in his warm, winter jacket for protecting him from the rain to reveal the handgun that was his baneful plan all along.

Cowering back in fear Akash rushed to his feet and entreated his friend

“I am sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was me the whole time. I was the one who sent you those messages and sent you the pictures she had on the computer to send them to Lord knows who... not to you. The thing is ever since I first saw you… I… I…I really did love you. I really do have feelings...for you…I can’t explain it…you don’t have to do this.”

Suddenly in a simultaneous bolt of what sounded like thunder and lighting the dark dawn sky filled with light and the Rafi's dead, bloody corpse fell into the arms of his unrequited love.