Breakup Stories (Prompt 13)

Stage One - Binge eating

You stare at the plate in front of you. You have never seen so many carbs at once, ever. All the celebrity foods in the world have assembled on a single stage, your plate. You see the world famous pizza and the heavenly juicy burger. A fat burrito and an even fatter hot dog. A taco which tastes same as a burrito and has all the same ingredients but for some reason has a different name, completes the food items. There is also a large glass of Sprite and a not so large glass of boiling hot coffee. You wonder if you have ordered too much. But your depressed heart whispers that it just might not be enough. Unable to decide where to start from, you pick up the coffee. She loved coffee. This very coffee. What a coincidence. You sip the coffee trying to visualise her drinking the same coffee. Ohh, her soft lips! How they caressed the sides of the tasteless paper cup. She would just suck up the hot drink, taking precaution not to burn her sensuous tongue. Her dark red lipstick, darker than your blood, would leave its impression on the edge of the lucky cup. You remember how jealous you felt. How fortunate was the cup! 

You pick up the Sprite then. Lucky for you, she never did like transparent drinks. Much like her character. Honest and transparent people don’t cheat on you with another, or for that matter on that another with some other. The anger on your face in palpable. You drink up more of the carbonated drink than you wanted. You barf out the loving, caring feelings you have for her. Still it is not enough. You miss her. Maybe you should try burying those feelings deep inside and then efface them from your heart, through another medium. You start with the pizza. It tastes good. Your digestive fluids are having the time of their lives, decomposing the cheesy thick crust. Next in line is the burger. You ravage the finely cooked meat patty along with the round, soft buns. The buns remind you of something naughty and you can’t help but smile. You have been complemented on you skills of scourging buns. The taco, the burrito and the hotdog don’t even get a second thought, before being swallowed whole. They vanish as fast as the dark clouds in the sky when the weatherman forecasts rains. You drink up the rest of the harmful drink, which is cold no longer, to help digest the accretion in your stomach. The digestive juices that were once dancing with joy are now swearing out in frustration because of the tremendously increased workload. 

Only the coffee is left. You challenge yourself to finish what you started, even if it means that it will remind you of her. You close your eyes, and drink up the milky, sweet, creamy coffee in one sip. You breathe deeply having just finished a meal on which a small family could have survived on for weeks. The fluids on your body protest and the digestive organs retaliate. They are tired of your atrocities. The food that was to help you bury your ersatz feelings, comes rushing out of your mouth and nose, partially decomposed, in a semi liquid form. You continue to puke for a long time, seeming like hours, and fall asleep immediately, covered in the slimy spawn of your crazed eating.

Stage Two - Binge Drinking

   It’s three in the afternoon. You have just woken up from a disastrous nightmare where you saw yourself vomiting junk food all over the place. As your eyes come into focus, you realise the nightmare was actually true. You get up to wash yourself. The hangover from eating is much worse than the one you had got that time from drinking. This gives you an idea. You pick up your phone. You have the photo of your ex-flame as the wallpaper. You spend a couple of minutes admiring her and then another five minutes fulfilling your bodily duties, giving yourself up to physical desires. You seem relaxed now. You message on the chat group asking your friends if anyone is up for drinking. An hour has gone by and no one has replied. Quite reluctantly, and out of sheer desperation, you type I’ll sponsor. Within minutes, after, the plan is made. Everyone apparently is available.

   You reach the bar earlier than everyone. You order yourself a patiala peg. Might as well start big. The hole in your heart is the size of Nubra valley. Small apportions will not fill it up. Your friends arrive on time and find you swirling in your seat, your head pivoting about your neck. You tell them, with dejection in your tone and sadness in your heart, that you were cheated upon after they order their drinks. They share your pain and call her a bitch. Yes, you agree. She is a bitch. Not only that, she’s a whore. And a slut. You call her plenty of names and your friends being as supportive as they are, agree with you. Unbeknownst to you, a group of your dearest friends have bet that you will crawl back to your cheating darling within a week. The odds are stacked against you. Drinks keep coming and so do the cockamamy adjectives for your erstwhile sweetheart. Finally, the waiter announces last call. At this point, you can’t tell your face from your stomach, your right leg from your left hand. The waiter hands you the bill and suddenly, as if hit by lightning, your drunkenness burns away. You don’t have that kind of money. You ask your friends to contribute. They make excuses but finally realising you are in no position to pay, shell out enough to cover the bill. They call you cheapo behind your back and vow never to come drink with you again.

   

   Once you walk out of the bar, the intoxication finds you again. It has reincarnated or was it only playing dead. The world revolves around you as you start to feel queasy. Your legs shiver and shake, unable to carry you. You walk, as a snake crawls, always taking a step to either the right or the left, never straight. Your friends, aware that they might have to take care of you, rush away. Only the truest of true, the

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dearest of dear stay back. Lucky for you, there is one such friend who does stay back. He helps you puke. You regain some sense of your surroundings. You beg him for a cigarette. While he hesitantly walks towards the shady bicycle guy to buy you one, pleading you to stay at one place and not wander about, you take out your phone and call your girlfriend.

Stage Three - I will win her back

   After calling her about ten times and defending your ephebic actions to your only real friend a hundred times, you take a breather. She hasn’t answered any of your calls. That’s probably because its two in the night and she is probably snoring or because she is with that son of a bitch, possibly whoring. The thought of seeing them together infuriates you and you call her a couple times more. Your friend on the other hand is silently puffing on his cancer stick, having surrendered to your obsessive behaviour. You rack your brains on what to do next. The alcohol convinces you to send her texts. A hundred texts, nay a thousand. You start to type furiously, sending apology messages and love you messages and I want you back and We belong together messages. Once you run out of content, you send her cute dog pics and broken heart pics. This goes on till your phone runs out of juice. You ask your friend for his phone and he slaps you hard.

   All the active and the passive smoking has clouded the air around you but has cleared your head. You know what you have to do. You have always known. You have to go to her in person and ask her to take you back. Your conscious reminds you that she was the one who cheated. But your balls rubbish the thought away, saying anything’s acceptable than staying blue, for the rest of your pathetic life. You try to convince your friend to drop you at her house. He says no. You shout at him. He says no. You beg him. He says no. Finally, you tell him. I’ll set you up with Hemangi. This time, your best friend is already rushing towards the parking lot to get his bike.

Stage Four - Fight and Flight!

   You sit on the back seat as the bike curves its way down the road. Your intoxication is contagious and you realise that even the bike is not immune to the effects of alcohol. You feel light headed as the warm air hits your face. You try to light another cigarette while sitting on the moving bike. For some reason, you are not able to light it. It’s hard to figure out, why. Your friend, the rider, is singing a song while riding. Although, he brays like a donkey, you don’t say anything. Never distract a drunk driver. 

Somehow, miraculously, you reach her place without any crashes or incidents. She lives on the fourteenth floor of a thirty storied apartment. You approach the main gate, puffing a cigarette. You were able to finally light it. You wake up the dreaming security guard and order him to open the gate. He asks you who you are. You tell him, you are his master and he is your servant. You go one to blow the smoke in his face. The security guard takes offence. You don’t understand why. You shout at him, wildly, threatening him of getting him fired. He is unmoved. Your friend, on the other hand, tries a more cunning approach. He dangles a ten rupee note infront of the security guard. Even the generous ten rupees don’t seem to sway him. You ask your friend to increase the bribe. The friend shows you his empty wallet. You have run out of options and you angrily shake the main gate causing a loud thundering of metal. Although the gate stays closed, you notice a few people coming towards you from inside the compound. They are holding long, thick wooden rods in hand. For a moment, you think they will teach the ignorant and stiff-necked security guard a lesson. Meanwhile, your intelligent friend is pulling you away, making terrified sounds.

Only when they start to open the gate and softly inquire with the arrogant security guard about the events, do you realise that maybe, just maybe, you are going to get beaten to a pulp. Keeping your eyes on the oncoming perpetrators, without looking at your friend, you try to grab him. You grab only air. You look behind and you see that your truest of friends is trying to frantically kick start the bike. You sense your own frailty and then suddenly imagine being squashed by those bamboo sticks. You run for your life. Your attackers, the people you pissed, are not far away. They chase you. You sit on the bike and remind your friend that the bike has a self start. He stops his kicking, leaving his leg mid air. He pushes on the self start and bike engine roars to life. You cheer. You will soon be safe, out of danger. Your friend twists the accelerator with the force of a jedi and the bike zooms ahead. For a second, you breathe a sigh of relief, and then you hear a loud crash, the sound of two asteroids colliding. The next thing you realise is that you are on the ground, surrounded by angry looking people, hovering above you. You faint.

Stage Five - Recovery

   You awaken to the sound of fiery whispers of two people wearing labcoats. You realise one is a doctor and the other a nurse. You look around the white room surrounding you and the white bed on which you lie. You notice a transparent tube running from your hand to a blood filled bag hanging in mid air supported by a stand. Your head hurts. The doctors are seemingly relieved at seeing you awake. They tell you that you fell off the bike and hit your head to the ground. You had lost a lot of blood. You inquire after you friend and they tell you that he was the one who brought you here.

   After telling you more about your injury and the process of recovery, the doctor leaves you in peace. You find yourself drooping with exhaustion. You close your eyes and fall asleep. Never once do you think back to the girl. Congratulations! You have moved on.