The Girl By That Window

                     19th June 2017

Dear Diary, 

The noise outside is simply deafening. I am not able to sleep in here. Mili is sleeping for an hour. We were gossiping for some time, and she fell asleep. I was listening to some music and then felt writing.

I have turned on the lamplight very gently so that Mili is not disturbed. I am now sitting in the chair, looking at the wall. Mili's room is designed in soft blue, it has a table and a chair, a small almirah, a glass window, a bed, night lamp, a bookshelf with some magazines in it and wall lights above. A very well polished, neat room with barely anything in it. I am comfortable here, but I prefer messy rooms with paintings, sticky notes, books of different genres, some board games, diaries, flower pots, much like my own room. Practically speaking, this room is dumb. There is nothing interesting to do here. If I were at my house, I would have stayed up all night and read my storybooks. I rolled my eyes at Mili who is now snoring and adding up to the noise.

I have dragged the chair up to the glass window. It made a creaky sound but did not wake Mili up. It is nice sitting here. There is a big building outside, an apartment just like this one, an open space in front of that, covered with grass, and then the main street. The noise coming from the busy road is distracting me. It is so tiring to look at the cars, that I have shifted my gaze to the apartment. 

It is an eight storeyed apartment, each window is facing ours. None of the lights is on. They all must be in deep sleep.

The apartment looks a little creepy. It feels as if someone is looking at me from the dark, like in the horror movies. I moved the chair a little away from the window. A gleaming light is coming from the moon. I feel a little relaxed and spread out my arms. This light is hypnotising me.

The tree beside the window nods a little as if to agree with me. I am glancing at the sky above it, the stars are glittering and I am mesmerised with it when suddenly the lights went on. I got a little distracted and looked away from the sky to the window straight to me. Someone is awake. I see a girl. She is in her yellow nightdress. Her hair is long and open, brown in colour. She goes to her bed and folds her legs. She looks sad. Now she starts crying. I wish I could help her. She unfolds herself, wipes away her tears and sits in her bed thinking something. I hope she doesn't find me gawking at her.

After a while, she jumps out of her bed and switches off the light in her room. I cannot see her anymore. I turn back to see if Mili is awake. She has now grabbed my pillow and is in deep sleep. I wanted to ask her about that girl.

It is 3:00 AM now, I wish I was asleep by now.

 I see her again, by the window, looking at the sky, mesmerised, like me. Her eyes are twinkling in the dark. Then, she looks at me. I quickly stop writing and look down at this diary. I sit up a little. She keeps looking at me in curiosity. I get a little cold and a chill down my spine. I again move the chair a little away from the window. I peek back and see her smiling and waving. Her smile is so pretty, I cannot stop smiling back at her. 

She now opens her window and sits upon it. She looks down and her face becomes gloomy. I keep staring at her. Slowly her face becomes blunt. She sits in one leg, glances at me once, and then, Oh God!

It took me some time to write this. I had to gather myself up and understand what had happened. This was one of the unusual things that happen to me much often. It was hard to believe at first, but now I am strong enough to accept it. I hope this gets over soon.

I saw that girl jumping from the window. I felt so horrified. I went to wake Mili up, but I found no one in the bed. For some moments, I stood stupefied. Mili had disappeared all of a sudden. I had seen her sleeping at one moment and the next moment she was gone. I had no idea what was happening here. I started yelling and screaming. I cried out Mili's name loud. I fell down to the floor and started crying. I did not know what to do. I needed help.

At that moment, a man with a white coat and a stethoscope came in and pulled me up. A woman gave me water to drink. They asked me if I was okay. I couldn't speak for a few minutes, my hands and legs were trembling. They gave me a tablet and water. I threw those away. 

Then, the man in the white coat said to me that I was in the hospital. He is my doctor and is treating me for schizophrenia for the past three weeks. I started to recall bit by bit. Flashes of memory were hitting me one by one. Both Mili, and the girl I saw outside, were my hallucinations. Yes, it was hard to believe since I spoke to Mili about everything, she was listening and laughing with me, and the girl I saw, I never felt she wasn't real for a single time. Mili, my only friend, turns out to be my hallucination. I felt a lump in my throat and a teardrop in my eye. The doctor said to me that they are all with me in this battle and tucked me in the shoulder. I nodded at him and wiped my tear away.

After calming down, I took deep breaths and swallowed the medicines. I wanted to go back home to my mom, but not until I win this battle of mine.

I looked outside and saw Mili and the girl gossiping and laughing at each other by that window. I turned my head away, shut my eyes close and hoped I never see them again.