Believe it or not!

“By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.’’

What if the leaves were really on fire?

Cut to day one, from where it all began, if it was anything it was a tale of mediocrity. A set life of the usual monotonous routine of heading to college and coming back and to take care of her younger brother, since her mom was suffering from over-dosage of drugs and happened to have been spending her time in some rehabilitation camp on the outskirts of the metropolis of Mumbai.

Aisha had always wished how her life would be if she ever had gotten to know her father. But it was a distant dream to have come true and Aisha somewhere deep down buried that thought deep within and never muttered a word as she could feel that pain in her mother’s eyes and never wanted to be the reason to add on to her mother’s grief.

For a girl to be on her own and alone fending for her brother was a lot but Aisha was trying hard to bring food to the table, she grappled with her studies, working part time at an antique shop and managing her home. Her regular routine involved starting from waking up at seven in the morning doing the dishes, making breakfast, looking after her brother, attending her own college and somewhere along scurrying up to the shop to work the rest of the day off at her favourite joint. Her happy place, where the only person that brought a smile on Aisha’s face was whom she called lovingly uncle Damien.

She having no guardian at home was drawn all the more to his uncle Damien, who considered Aisha like his own child. His little anecdotes about life, love, people to places made Aisha feel a connection to the land that is so distant yet so close. Her evening sessions were made up with stories and that was her favourite time of the day where she forgot she even existed and delved deep within the characters of those stories.

One such story began where Aisha upon hearing, started questioning her belief, it was as if she had no way out rather than believing into what her uncle said, but stare in dismay.

A story of fate finding its own way. Damien started to be a little jittery in giving out full explanations but began with saying how he had once come across a man, who was in his early teens, somewhat fifteen years younger to him. This man with profound knowledge led him to believe that humanity still existed and it does for all the things this young man had done for him, and all that he could ever be was acknowledge his greater being. This man was named Cyril.

Cyril had powers unbeknownst even to him. A modern-day avatar of godliness may be, eh? Or was I wrong?

Cyril could at the drop of a hat get work done, never faced any crunch monetarily and ran on and off on his whims. This was what struck Damien who wanted to question Cyril all the more, but could not gather up the courage to cross question his very own, who has been his ally all along. Damien could not resist and started to initiate a conversation one such day, the beginning of holidays before it was going to be a new year.

Damien looked at Aisha and said, 15 years to this day Aisha.

Cyril knew that whatever it was he needed to come clean and could not hide it from Damien. Cyril started blabbering but said it is, it…. is not me, it is all but “Aisha”.

I found Aisha locked up in a trunk, an old looking trunk in a casket while I was at work at the port, unloading shipment. This curious looking trunk caught me by the eye, which was so old I could not even make out where or which place it came from, neither it carried any note. I brought it home without doubting what could be in there. Amelia (Aisha’s Mom), and me, we both exchanged looks and after much of an argument decided to open it ourselves, we were dumbstruck at what we found, our hands started shaking, there was pin drop silence for almost an hour.

We never in our wildest thoughts imagined that we were struggling for a baby for a while and this baby of whom we know nothing about, would be lying there so peacefully as if being in the arms of Morpheus.

We sat there by her side, till she seemed to wake up with some cooing. That twinkling eyes, we decided to keep her for ourselves and didn’t wish to let go. We didn’t go out for a very long time and moved places. Days began getting better and it felt we didn’t have to work for anything and everything just fell into place like it was supposed to happen that way.

But this was not long before we discovered it was all Aisha’s doing. She was the one with magic, the one who could wish something and that very wish came true right before her eyes and she felt she had the best mom and dad in the world and was lucky enough to have them around. On the contrary we were, we could not thank our luck enough for her bringing us together even more. Our getaways to places unknown would be the happiest of days that we ever lived as a family.

Damien while speaking had a tear trickling down his eyes. He wiped his tears and seemed to know it all before looking at Aisha as if questioning her just like he did question Damien.

Not very long after that a day came where uncle Damien mentioned of receiving the worst news that could possibly be. Cyril could not be found. He was long gone.

Aisha you and your mother Amelia stood at the portico of our house, your mother breaking down to bits, but you stood there a little child barely understanding the grief.

What really did happen Aisha? asked Damien.

Aisha seemed to harden herself, she seemed to get reflections of past episodes of her life. Her father was long gone, her father was long gone……., this kept repeating, and Aisha knew all along where he was, she was the one who could not stand her father’s periodic fights with her mom and decided to put an end to it once and for all.

Aisha again felt the need to. She wanted her past memories to not affect her present. Her wish her imagination led to rest the insanities of the world shuddering her and clouding her thoughts.

“By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.’’

“The house uncle Damien lived in was on fire too”.