Guess what? I’m related to Frankenstein

“Guess what? I’m related to Frankenstein” 

That was the last text message Amir sent me. I had so many questions like “Isn’t Frankenstein just a story?” and “How’d you find out?”. But he left me on read.

Summer had come and gone, and with it the vacation. Clouds roared aloud at the height of the Indian monsoon. I looked out the school bus window, my mind as gloomy as the skies. Amir’s ghosting had got to me. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten and I was beyond frustrated. My plan for the day was to beat his ass as soon as I saw him.

I found Amir just before class in the hallway. He was mumbling something to himself. "Wassup!?" I patted him on his back, only to watch him struggle and stumble onto the floor. He looked up at me in panic, and scrambled away to his class.

That wasn't like him. At all.

Did I do something wrong?

I found Amir again during the lunch break. Out in the rain with a notebook, looking at the clouds. Calculating something and noting things down. Doing anything but having lunch. 

I was afraid of spooking him all over again. He didn't seem to be doing well either. His hair had grown out. He looked pale. Thin. Dark circles around his eyes. I'd like nothing more than to go smack him, I just didn't want his head to fall right off. 

Amir's face lit up. Thunder bounced all around the hallways. A shudder ran through my body.

I remembered his last text.

What had he been up to this past month?

I waited for him near the sandpit, near my bus. We'd play here as kids, making the most of the time the bus took to fill its seats. It had become a ritual. I'd wait outside, he'd walk home a little late, and we'd spend the time trying out our best imitation of the maths teacher. Well, at least I would, and he would laugh out loud till the honking bus ended our time together.

Miss Nidhi looked over at me concerned, and proceeded to honk questioningly. I looked at the bus, then the gate, and the lonely pale figure walking out of it hunched over. On an impulse, I waved her goodbye, and hurried quietly behind Amir.

Only, Amir wasn't heading home. He entered the "Government Model Senior Secondary School". He'd taught me how to fly kites in the school's deserted playgrounds. We wouldn't ever enter the building though, because his little brother was too scared. Amir's mom had fed them both with stories of lost souls seeking refuge in abandoned buildings. Just like this school, abandoned mid-construction since the government changed.

The school was built of stone, like European castles. Or maybe just concrete bricks that weren't painted yet. Hollow windows looked out at me under the now clear skies as a loud wind howled through the empty building. I waited, holding my raggedy school bag tight, afraid the wind might run away with my homework. The sky grew darker, and the empty building laughed louder with the wind. Clutching the bag, I stepped in.

Corridors curved up in ramps round the school, no stairs in sight. Metal doors barred any light from the streets or sky. Every inch of the building looked exactly the same. I followed the ramps up and down. I was sure there was at least one basement level, but it was hard to get a sense of which floor I was on. A dark hole emerged on the left once, probably for an elevator. I leaned over but couldn't see the floor below with my phone's flashlight on. I bolted up the nearest ramp searching frantically for the entrance. Or even an exit, a window, something! Desperate for light, I raced upwards looking for the roof of this endless place.

The twenty minutes felt like an hour before I next glimpsed a beam of light. An open doorway at the end of an up-ramp corridor. There were no more classroom doors nearby.

Dark orange skies opened up over a large circular rooftop. Loud winds seemed to push on me, making it hard to keep my eyelids open. I spotted a bright green kite up in the cloudless sky. Too early, it was still more than a month before the 15th of August.

Amir was sitting on one edge of the roof. He was bent over a notebook, pencil in one hand, the kite in the other. His school bag was open, several feet behind him. I carefully picked it up, and opened it only to be hit with a waft of pungent air. I put my hand in to find what seemed like a hard, fluffy toy. I pulled it out and screamed.

The lifeless eye of a dead pigeon stared up at me from the floor. Papers flew out of the bag I had dropped. Amir walked straight up to me, textbook pages fluttering all around him in the wind. His apathetic expression scared me.

“Do you want to be a part of this experiment?" he asked in a cold voice. "Come to the graveyard at eleven.”

I managed a nod.

“Bring an umbrella. There'll be a thunderstorm tonight.”

Convincing mom about the "sleep over" at Amir's place was easy. She'd heard me complain the entire month about Amir, and thought this would be a good way for us to catch up. No, the hard part was making the journey to the edge of the city where the graveyard was. My calves were sore from the cycling, shirt and shorts drenched in the non-stop drizzle. Whatever this experiment was, I was in no mood to be pranked.

The smell of the ocean grew intense. The phone's GPS guided me into an unlit street. There was just one house on the entire street, a guardhouse of sorts for the entire cemetery. No lights were lit inside. Who'd be mad enough to break into a graveyard on a stormy night? Amir, that's who.

I didn't bother hiding the bicycle, just laid it to rest on the muddy ground. It would have been smarter to climb over the fence, but I was just too tired. I slipped in through the barbed wires, and wandered aimlessly in the dark. There was something eerie about the place. Not just because it was a graveyard, no. It wasn't just inside my head. I felt something like goosebumps, a tingling sensation that seemed to almost snap at mere movement.

Lightning flashed!

It must have hit a spot nearby. I heard a manic laugh from the small hill near the seaside. It sounded like Amir. As I got closer, I heard a small cawing noise. Amir was down on all fours and looking at the thing making the noise. And he was laughing with it. A bird, a pigeon, struggled free of his grasp and flew past me.

“Amir!”, I called.

He was shocked to see me.

“What’s going on? Was… Are you okay?”

The laughter had stopped. He had a sombre expression. As if, somehow, me coming here was some kind of bad news. And he’s the one who invited me over.

I sat down to relieve my burning legs. I took a closer look at the place. A kite was tied down to a tiny hole in the ground. Was that the experiment? I opened up a pack of biscuits, offering it up to him.

"Want some?" He didn't look interested, eyes up at the sky. "I also have cake?"

"I'm not hungry," he shrugged. “Can you come with me? I need help.”

Not again. Pain jolted through my leg as I forced myself up on my feet. The short rest had somehow made it worse. I was too tired, but I followed him back towards the graveyard.

I took the time to text mum good night, promptly crashing right into Amir. The phone slipped off my wet fingers, plopping screen-down into the dirt. I rushed past him to pick up the phone, worried I had cracked the screen on what looked like a gravestone. The flashlight lit up the gravestone from below. There were some letters in Arabic, some in Malayalam, but the name was clear in bold. AYAAN, Amir's brother.

“He died in a car accident.” Amir was looking down, walking around the grave. He pressed on the grass, marking a boundary.

“When… When did this happen?”, I blurted out.

He was quiet for a little while. “The day I stopped texting.” I couldn't see his face, but I could hear it. He was holding back his tears.

I rushed in to hug him.

“You could have told me. I would have…”

Amir, Ayaan and I would fly kites in the abandoned school's playgrounds. Ayaan and I usually teamed up for kite fights with Amir. He was too young to hold the thread himself, but he loved to hold the spool. On occasion, we had managed to cut down Amir's thread, sending him running for the fallen kite. Most often we'd lose, Ayaan and I running through the streets to find our fallen kite.

This explains what Amir was doing there. And why he looked so feeble.

I sat at the grave for a minute in silence. Amir’s expression turned warm.

Then, he started digging.

“Wait… Amir! What are you doing?”

The dead pigeon in his bag. And the pigeon that just flew past me.

“We’ll need more power for him. Will you help me take him to the lighthouse?”

I sat there in shock for some time. He was a bubbly little boy. Fat cheeks, easy to laugh, easy to cry. I wasn't there when it happened. I wasn't there for a whole month. I wasn't there for my friend. Guilt moved my body into action.

Amir marked the halfway point by pressing the sides of his feet into the grass and dirt. He looked at me, and I already knew what the plan was. Amir handed me a spade, and took the shovel for himself.

As kids, we had once tried to dig out all the sand in the sandpit. Of course, the teachers wouldn't allow it. So we decided on the next best thing - carve out a deeper pit inside the sandpit. The dug out sand stayed inside, but it also made it much harder. And more fun. Amir had invented a new song, to the tune and rhythm of "Row Row Row Your Boat", with words that we weren't supposed to say as kids. Not like we knew what they meant anyway, at least not back then. 

I don't remember why we stopped playing. Maybe it was because I always won. I was faster, and could dig out a mountain of sand while all of Amir's sand kept falling back into whatever tiny hole he'd make. Or maybe it was our parents scolding us for getting our clothes and nails dirty. Or maybe we just grew up.

I started humming the old tune. Memories resurfaced of the stupid cringey stuff the two of us did. He must have remembered some of it, because he decided to throw a pile of dirt into my side of the grave. I laughed out and looked at his half annoyed and half smiling face. He finally gave out a weak laugh, and the competition was in full spirit.

Surprising nobody, I reached the coffin first. Begrudgingly, Amir handed over his shovel to help dig out his side of the grave. He decided to remove the nails of the coffin with the spade and whatever else he carried in his bag.

Once it was ready, I braced myself for the smell. I didn't know what to expect, but I did not expect it to smell of chemicals and the biology lab. This was not the first time Amir had opened up this grave. The body appeared to be dipped in some sort of a preservative liquid. There was also quite a lot of impressive stitch work, and a fresh looking set of clothes on the body of the little boy.

We managed to pick Ayaan up on some makeshift stretcher, and then took him to the top of the lighthouse. Well, lighthouse might be an overstatement. It was just a tiny tower, unlit and unassuming like the guardhouse out in the front. Climbing up the ancient spiral staircase was hard enough with the two of us. I wondered what Amir planned to do if I wasn't there. Maybe he'd make a stretcher on wheels, or something else. He was smart that way. But I doubted it would be half as smooth without me around to help.

In a small room at the top of the tower, Amir had set up all his equipment. We placed the body into a metallic box. Amir attached some screws to Ayaan’s neck. The wires lead to some machinery. The machinery was connected to a kite. Amir told me to wear some rubber gloves and fly the kite.

The wind picked up and I tried to make the kite go as high as possible, until it touched the clouds.

“Now we wait until the heavens fill life into Ayaan.”

A thunderous sound. The room lit up silver. Whirring of machines. Ayaan’s body trembled like it was having a seizure.

Then, nothing.

Seconds turned into minutes. Amir punched the brick wall, hammering his frustration into his knuckles. Until he finally tired of the pain, and sat down, staring with an empty gaze.

Just as tears were about to flood in, Ayaan moved.

Amir hurried to his brother's side, his bloodied fist painting Ayaan’s pale cheeks pink.

Ayaan sat up abruptly.

He looked at his bloodless palms and then at Amir. He looked terrified. His fingers trembled, voice struggled to find wind. 

“I can’t be here," he finally managed. "I died. I need to go back.”

He started itching himself, till he noticed the stitches. Then he started clawing at them. Some of his stitches got undone and his guts fell outside. 

“Noooooo…! Ayaan stop!” 

Amir pushed in the stuff that should not be coming out, gesturing at me to bring him his bag. There wasn't much questioning the terror on his face, and I rushed to help out.

Ayaan was eyeballing the kite outside the window. His expression changed from dread to pure childish wonder.

“Hey. That’s a nice kite. What’s the date today?”

“July 7th”

“There’s a lot of time until 15th August. We should practise." He was looking at me. "Last year all of our kites were cut. We only won one kite.”

Amir was too stunned to say anything,

I spoke in, “Yes. Let’s practise a lot.”

Ayaan tried to get up and noticed the wires connected to this body.

“Oh right. I am dead." He poked at one of the wires. Suddenly, a sense of disappointment came over the little boy. He looked up at Amir.

"Sorry ikka. Let’s play after you're dead. I need to go back.”

“No no. Please, don’t leave yet! Please, Ayaan!” Amir clenched Ayaan's hands tightly inside his own, smearing them with dry blood and gore. "Don't go!" His knees scraped on the floor as he moved forward to kiss him on the forehead. "Please! We can play all you like! There's no school!"

“Don’t worry, ikka. I’m not lonely in heaven. I got lots of playmates." The matter of factly tone had Ayaan's same playful voice that I remembered. "I feel scared here. This body feels like acid. I want to take it off.”

I pulled Amir into a corner and whispered, “You are not god. He is dead and should stay dead.”

“And why is that? I just brought him back.” He looked like a madman. "I filled life into his little dead corpse."

SLAP!

"LISTEN!" His face clamped between my hands, "Listen to him! LOOK AT HIM!" His eyes shrank back into his skull. "It’s not about you. Think about what Ayaan wants.”

"But..  " Amir finally broke down.

Amir wiped his tears and held Ayaan’s hands.

I walked away, leaving the brothers to their privacy. I made myself comfortable at the base of the tower, snacking on the biscuits. The rhythm of thunder had picked up, and a single green kite blew violently with the wind. I had resigned myself to another spell of heavy rain, but it never came. Some heavenly mercy blew the thunderstorm away to the north. And at last the lone kite, suddenly cut free from the tower, flew away with the parting storm.

"Biscuits?" I offered.

"Sure." We'd decided to walk to his place, and I'd cycle back home after. Amir had, of course, "slept over" at my place, just as I had "slept over" at his. Our parents trusted us way too much, to be honest.

"You said you had cake?" Amir said between bites of the biscuit, his thoughts clearly back at the graveyard. "I thought the reanimation would be the hard part." 

"Huh? Yeah, he was kinda heavy." A heavy raindrop hit me right under my eye. I wiped it off, only to catch Amir staring at me as if I had killed his brother. The rain grew heavier by the second until I was at risk of getting drenched all over again. The sun hadn't come up yet, and I wasn't sure I'd dry myself before I made it home.

"Like I said. You should have brought an umbrella." Amir had brought out a single umbrella from somewhere inside that bag of his, and opened it up.

So it was that neither boy noticed the pigeon plonking onto their umbrella, and off it. It fell on its back, staring dead and dumbfounded with one eye down at the road the two friends walked.