by Aiaran Radnay
I wish I could narrate to you a happy, everyday love story to you today. But today isn’t just another ‘everyday’ and this definitely isn’t another love story.
Well, it did have potential to be one; if only I wasn’t… me.
It started with a lonely night, the kind where the wind howls, bringing in the bitter cold. The blanket failed to give warmth as I lay on the bed restless; wide awake in the pitch darkness.
I was dead tired, with no sleep and well… I got bored. Then came in my first mistake –
My phone in hand, the white screen glared back at me as I sought comfort in the virtual world; scrolling through meaningless feeds of my social handles, only to sink deeper in the swamps of boredom and desolation. An odd advertisement caught my eye – a chance, to talk to people anonymously and maybe, just maybe connect with someone out there. Just this once, I convinced myself; after all I had my reasons.
The first conversation was fun – a boy from a big city, who was simply looking for some company as he waited to be discharged from the hospital. We started off with a rather odd conversation; a glitch in the application kept changing my gender from male to female to non binary. Intrigued, he asked me if I was drunk or confused or both. While the glitch sorted itself out, we had a good laugh about it.
It was indeed a fun conversation, one that lasted up to the wee hours of the morning.
The next night I was looking forward to another conversation; maybe the same boy, maybe another. Another night passed by – just me and the big city boy; our chat box brimming with messages, our topics spinning from the dumbest ideas to the dirtiest sexual innuendos. That night I was glad I had downloaded the app; I liked this, it felt good. I could gladly sacrifice my sleep for this boy.
But then, he could not.
Sure, he tried. His medication often kept him groggy the entire day, so he’d sleep his quota then, keeping awake at night. For me.
All was good, until he was discharged and he was back to his normal life. That day, his messages pinged in the odd hours of noon. “Hey listen…” it said, followed by a polite note of gratitude for keeping him company while he recovered. I was just about to reply, maybe joke about how this was our first morning-after talk, but he was faster – “I’m deleting the app… goodbye stranger 🙂 ”
My reply changed to a generic farewell, with a little bit of ‘get well soon’ and a lot of ‘best wishes’. I smiled as his contact soon disappeared from the chat box, our conversation disappearing into nothingness. It was always meant to be a temporary thing; we’d discussed it before – just somebody to keep company in the lonely nights, help scratch an itch. I was glad he’d at least bothered to let me know beforehand. Somehow, I was oblivious to the tiny feeling that slowly reared its head.
I should have deleted the app that day too.
But come night, the itch had returned. And I was willing to find another stranger to help scratch it.
Another boy found his way into my inbox. He was shy and young, and newbie to the app. Our conversations started light, me taking the lead. It was funny, soft spoken and clearly more of a ‘heart-to-heart’. It lasted much longer than the previous one, and soon we’d pulled away the secure blankets of anonymity completely. I now knew his name, his school, his face; even better, he lived close by. However, we met just once. And abruptly, the conversations stopped.
I should have learnt my lesson that day; should have deleted the app that day. But I let the feeling in me grow just a little.
The third one was a girl, fresh out of a broken relationship. She was insecure and tired, looking for a shoulder to cry on. When I offered mine in the safety of the night and anonymity, she probably felt safe. Her walls were high, trust issues decorating the very essence of her being. She’d lost her faith in the other gender, which worked perfectly well with me. We started off as ‘friends’; me being oh-so-considerate to her, always by her side as she learned to move on. Hell, I even changed my schedule for her, no more restricting myself to the confines of the night. It wasn’t my usual MO but it was a challenge, and it scratched my itch just fine.
This one took me longer, but it was worth it. Bit by bit, her walls crumbled and she bared herself to me like an open book. It also let the dark feeling in me nurture. One fine day, she confided in me that she was willing to take the next step, test out her sexuality. It came as a surprise; sure, I had given her the incentive, but she had taken the bait. I was elated, my heart soaring with mirth. I even took her to a date or two. An entire day together, we fooled around and went shopping for her favourite trinkets in the flee bazaar. I had been there before months ago; it hadn’t been this fun back then, but I had made a sweet deal on this fancy knife. That night, I smiled at the memory as I cleaned the blade, breathing in the sweet, metallic scent.
Just like the others, it ended abruptly. It was as if she suddenly dropped off the face of Earth. Oddly though, I felt content. The darkness in me was like a growing child, and had starved for way too long. Its hunger finally satiated, I basked in the afterglow of a high.
My fourth was a bad boy with an obsession for bikes and tattoos. His texts often doubled as dumb little dares to entertain ourselves. There was no specific time or place – the dark of the night, the rush hours of the morning; nothing stopped us from going wild. My days were filled with pranks and petty felonies that could earn me a good thrashing. All our mischief recorded on our phones as proof. The days were good – I indulged in them without too much a thought; my adrenaline ran high and the itch was at bay. And then suddenly, it wasn’t enough.
I flicked the ash of my cigarette as I held in a long drag, blowing it out softly. It was one of the dares, one which stuck even after we… well, he parted ways. I hadn’t expected to like the bitter taste and scent of tobacco, but it had grown on me. It even kept that odd scent of rusting metal away; a scent that had recently come to associate with me. The scent seemed to cling against me like it was a part of me. Maybe it was.
My final one was probably the smartest of them all. I never found out their gender, they chose to ‘not mention’ it. “I like the air of mystery it creates,” they’d explained while I laughed, amused. They were witty and sarcastic, with an air of confidence that made me swoon. It was refreshing – like a breath of fresh air in the suffocating reality. The real world was morbid at the moment – odd news of young teens being butchered, too close to my neighbourhood for one’s liking. I welcomed the distraction with an open heart. The conversations were so intense, it made me giddy. This person was a pro, they made my itch sing. The dark feeling in me surged like a high tide; oh boy I was in deep. And maybe, just maybe I was in over my head, for I made the biggest mistake of them all.
This time around, the one who ended the conversation was me. Admittedly it wasn’t on purpose; I had no choice. With hopes that I could cover up my faults, I ended it abruptly, no explanation or even a heads-up. Though I truly doubt they minded.
Alas, it was all in vain. In the end, I had screwed up; my blunder sat right there, with a neon sign pointing it – out for the whole world to see.
The high tide I felt came crashing down like a flood, bringing nothing but disaster; leaving behind nothing but a cigarette, a bloodbath and a rusting meat cleaver. The smell of rust and raw blood lingered heavy in the air, spicing up my true debut.
Like I said… it could’ve ended with sunshine and rainbows if it was anybody else. My story however, begins here – with the cold cuffs biting my wrists, rough hands guiding me to the cruiser and the shrill echo of sirens.
The Storyteller 