The Lost Story

“I don’t know exactly how to say what happened. It was just--just so much. I don’t even know how I got this far.”, I say, taking the cup of coffee presented to me from the center table. I am sitting in a white room with paintings of famous artists on the walls and dark blue furniture. The man standing in front of me, leaning against the table, and looking straight into my eyes, is Dr. Henrick, the college therapist. He responds, now turning away from my face and going back to sit in his chair,” Look, I’m not appointed to listen to every student here in a day for them to ask me questions. I’m here to make them answer me, to listen to them and what might be bugging them. I need you to tell me what happened to you on the evening of 24 April 2006.” He gets his face closer to me while sitting on his chair, not with intimidation, but with concern. I get a little nervous and try to loosen my tie but fail. I reach for the cup of coffee again but then realize that it’s empty. “Ok. I will tell you.”, I say with a sigh, with sweat building on my forehead and the darkest memories, buried deep inside my mind, coming back to me. I see Dr. Henrick clasping his hands together and slightly nodding. “I was at a carnival with my family in my hometown, Kolkata. It was very big and very much crowded…”

April 24, 2006

“Wow! This carnival is so beautiful! And big!”, I look around with big, surprised eyes (in a +good way). It is full of energy and color and is bustling with people. Wherever my eyes wandered, I could see food stalls at one side, a family taking a boat ride on the other, a girl taking a camel ride on my right, a humongous Ferris wheel in front of me, and me in the center of it all. I feel like I am dreaming and I could be waking up at any moment. But I never do. My sister, Rhea, says to me,” Earth to Sameer!” I open my eyes and see a hand flailing in front of them. I see Rhea standing on my left, wearing blue jeans with a black top, hair down. She says,” Where are you, Astronaut? C’mon! The train ride is about to start!” I am feeling double the excitement that she is and run ahead of her. She starts to say something but is drowned out by the noise of the crowd. I reach the ride and yell “Yes!” but there is no one there to clap for me. I call out for Rhea, mom, dad, but no one answers. I turn back in the same direction I came from, but I don’t think it is. Then I realize it. I am lost. I burst out crying and look for anyone who I know, even if a little. I start walking to wherever my feet take me. I could feel the gaze of men and women on me, but no one helping. I finally come to a stop and see that I’m at the exit. I am sure that my family would come here at some point. I wait and wait, but no one comes. I start crying again, louder. Hearing my cries, a woman comes to me, followed by a man and 2 children. The woman sits down to my height and asks what’s the matter. I stop crying at her voice and wipe my tears. My eyes seem to focus again. I see that she’s wearing a dark yellow colored suit, and the man behind her is wearing a black shirt with blue jeans. The lady asks,” Are you lost?” I slightly nod, with tears again forming in my eyes. The lady says,” Don’t worry. We will get you to your parents. My name is Jhalak, and he is my husband, Keshav. Can you tell us what your parents look like?”, she says standing up and me holding her hand. I hold it as I’m afraid, not because I believe her, not entirely. We walk out of the carnival even though my family is inside. I get a little worried. Pursing my lips, I ask the woman where we are going. She says, with a suspicious, sweet voice,” Don’t worry! We’re just going to the police station to get you back to your family.” She smiles at me and then looks away. We walk and walk and walk until I see a small house in a dark, eerie place. I look around for someone but it’s empty. There is no one around. I raise my head to look at the woman and see her grimacing. I shiver a little at the piercing eyes of the two boys looking at me, but I could hear their frightened breaths. I ask, afraid,” Where are we? You said we were going to the police station.” The lady just smirks and says nothing. I try to get my hand out of her grasp but fail. It doesn’t take much time for me to realize that I’m being kidnapped. She drags me into the dark house as I try to resist. I cry so much, but she still doesn’t stop. She takes me to a dark, small room in the corner and commands,” You will not utter a word until I allow you to, and don’t even try to escape because that would be a waste of your energy. Understand?” I don’t say anything, which is an answer enough for her. I cry in the darkness of the room, imagining shadows on the walls trying to get me. But I guess they already did. Time passes, and after almost 4 hours, she brings me a chapati and sugar with a glass of water. I get back, my knees curled up to my head. She says,” We’re not going to hurt you--unless you don’t do what we say. You have to do everything we say and you will be safe. You try to escape out of here? Well, you don’t want to know what would happen after. Now, eat the food.” I slink back towards her and take the plate in my hands, not because I’m not afraid of her but because I’m hungry. I’m not going down without a fight. 

After 2 days:

I’m carrying a school bag, not full of books, but full of packets of drugs. That’s what they needed me for. As I’m getting ready to go out with the other two boys to sell them, the lady says,” You are not to go anywhere and remain with Aashish and Veer. You will not try to escape. They learned that the hard way. Understand?” I nod and peer at the two boys ready to go. The man whose name was Keshav took us to a back alley, 20 minutes far. There are 5 men, dressed in black clothes, waiting already. They look impatient and as soon as they see us, they sprint towards us and grab the bags, vigorously. Then Keshav gets a handful of money and takes us back to his house. This continues for a week. I try to find a way to escape but to no avail. Every time I went out, I could see posters carrying my face. That’s good. It was on the 9th day that I decided it’s time, time to get out of here. And take Aashish and Veer with me too. I would need their help. At midnight, when everyone is sleeping, I get out of bed and wake both of them up. As soon as they wake up, I signal for them to be quiet. They comply and I tell them the plan. We tiptoe out of the room and there’s a window at the back, above the kitchen shelf. I climb onto the shelf and try opening the window, and it does! My optimism disappears as quickly as it came. I peer outside the window to see two men standing on either side of the wall, standing guard. I imagine there would be even more standing on the other end. I look back at the two boys, their faces hoping for freedom. I come back down and tell them about the guards. They both drop their shoulders and faces. Aashish whispers,” I knew it. We can never be free. We’re stuck here.” His eyes start tearing up. I tell him that there’s always hope. “Wherever we are, however stuck we are, there’s always hope.” He pouts, crosses his arms against his chest, and starts going back to the room. But before he has reached halfway to the room, Veer says,” I’ll do it.” I ask, confused,” What will you do?” He takes a step forward, eyes closed and his hands balled into fists at his side, and says,” I’ll distract them. Then you can run away and go to the police station. Tell the police what happened.” I am horrified. He can’t do that for us. He doesn’t even know me. But, that’s exactly what we need. I say,” You can’t do that. They will kill you!” He says, positively,” That’s why I’m believing in you to bring the police here before anything like that happens.” He stares at me with his dark brown eyes. Aashish says, hopeful,” Sameer, that’s exactly what we need. We will run as fast we can and bring the police here. Nothing will happen to him.” I am reluctant but agree after all. “ Okay. But just---just be safe, okay? And run as fast as you can.” He says with a smirk,” A well-known fact about me-- I’m a pretty fast runner.” I and Aashish both hug Veer before he climbs onto the shelf and glances at us one last time. He climbs out of the window and just--starts running. The guards see him and call for the other ones standing on the opposite side. They run after him. We quickly do the same he did but run in the opposite direction to the police station, hopefully. We run and run, as fast as we can. Until we can’t anymore. We come to a stop and see some people roaming nearby. We ask them for directions to the police station. A man wearing glasses guides us. I’m reluctant to believe him but there’s something about him that tells me to not worry. Finally, we arrive at the police station. We burst through the gate and go to the first policeman we can see. We are yelling and crying at the same time. The policemen tell us to calm down and we tell them everything. They follow us to the dark house and burst through the door. The image I see when I look through the door will always haunt me my whole life. The lady has a knife in her hand, Veer on his back, and there’s blood coming out of cuts on his bare skin. The police quickly grab the pair and handcuff them. One policeman lightly carries Veer and onto an Ambulance that came outside out of nowhere. Veer looks at me as he passes me and then faints. The policemen take us and the rest of the night is a blur.

Present Day

“See? I told you you wouldn’t want to know anything.” I raise my arms to yawn and Dr. Henrick does the same only without raising his arms. Two hours have passed and I missed my English class for this. He looks at me, then down at his desk, and then adjusts his glasses. He says,” I--was very much interested. I’m happy that you got to talk to someone about it. And I’m happy that it was me. What happened to Veer and Aashish after all of this?” He asks with an eyebrow raised. I just shrug and say,” We’re still friends--best friends. Ashish is still in India, Veer’s in the USA and I’m here in Canada.” “One more question. What happened to Veer’s cuts?” “ Well, he still has scars. On his back and in his mind. But he is okay.” He smiles and tells me to get out of here. We both say goodbye, smiling widely.