The life of Myra - Chapter 6

“Ok, so this is your plan,” I exclaim, interrupting whatever it was that Mahika was saying.

“Listen to me Myra, I am your well-wisher and…”

“If you are really my well-wisher, you mind your own bloody business,” I bark down into the phone before disconnecting the call.

I am again hyperventilating, this time with rage, and it takes a few moments for me to calm down and regain my poise.

I turn around, a smile plastered on my face, to see the chair where Viraj had been sitting moments back, empty.

I look around, to check if I can see Viraj around anywhere. He’s nowhere around. So I walk up to my chair and sit, waiting. He probably went to the washroom.

As minutes tick by, I begin getting restless. Where is he?

I take my mobile and call him. His phone is switched off.

I wait for a few more moments.

The waiter brings in the bill, after confirming that I don’t want any desserts, not even their complimentary banana pie.

Irritation fills me as I pay the bill. How mannerless and insensitive of him to leave me in a lurch and just vanish? Even if there was some sort of emergency, the least he could have done was text me.

I am glad I thought about driving on my own here. Else I would be left stranded at the restaurant, looking for a cab at this night hour.

Back home, I again dial him a few times. But the phone is always switched off.

Another weird thing which I realize is that, every time, I have to save his number. Again, the next time when I check WhatsApp, his number appears and not his saved name. I have no idea why that happens.

The evening which I had immensely enjoyed, has been ruined now by Mahika’s call and Viraj’s running away.

Sleep eludes me, as usual, and I am finally able to sleep only when I pop my sleeping pill.

When I wake up, a strange orange light is streaming in through the door. I get up and walk out of the bedroom, into the living room. The orange light seems to be filtering in from the open window. Is it twilight?

I walk across the room to close the curtains. Because the light is too bright for my taste and it casts fearsome shadows in the room.

As I reach the window to close the curtain, I realise someone is standing there, outside my window.

How can someone be standing outside my window when I stay on the fourth floor?

I squint my eyes against the bright light, as the shadow of the person becomes clearer and clearer. It dawns upon me that it is the same woman, the one I had seen in my hall, in the previous dream. The one who called herself Jigyasa.

So, is this a dream? Or is it real? It feels so real! But maybe it’s a dream. How else do I explain her?

She is saying something, rather muttering something. I squint my eyes even more and try to decipher what she is trying to say.

‘kisssssshrr’ I hear.

“What?” I ask.

‘Kisssssssshhhhrrr’

I strain my ears to listen to what exactly she is trying to say.

“What?”

‘Kill her’ she says, very clearly this time, and I jerk awake with a start.

I am in my bedroom and there is no orange glow.

So it was a dream after all.

I glance at the bedside clock. It shows 3 am.

I sit up. There is no way I am going to be able to sleep again.

I don’t understand why I get these dreams.

So basically, I have two types of dreams. One type, the dreams are so vivid and feel so real, that it is difficult to differentiate them from reality. Like that dream about Jigyasa. The dream felt so real, yet somewhere inside of me I knew that it was a dream.

Some time back, I had read about lucid dreaming.  Lucid dreams are when you know that you're dreaming while you're asleep. You're aware that the events flashing through your brain aren't really happening. But the dream feels vivid and real. You may even be able to control how the action unfolds, as if you’re directing a movie in your sleep. Some German researchers say, lucid dreaming may be kind of a “between state” where you aren’t fully awake but not quite asleep, either.

So, if these are really lucid dreams, do I have the power to control them?

Other times, I wake up, to find myself sweating, palpitating, hyperventilating, even screaming at times, yet unable to remember what the dream was that caused this reaction. I wonder if they are in fact nightmares which are actually so horrible that I am better off not remembering them?

Are these night terrors? I have read about them too. Night terrors are recurring night time episodes that happen while you're asleep. When a night terror begins, you'll appear to wake up. You might call out, cry, move around, or show other signs of fear and agitation. But generally there is no memory of the dream that caused it.

Are my dreams connected to each other? Whom did Jigyasa ask me to kill? And why? Is the answer to it hidden in my night terror, the one that I can’t recall?

And if I have control over my lucid dream, will I be able to ask Jigyasa the next time I get the vivid and almost real dream?

I have no idea!

I get up and walk to my wardrobe. I take out something that is very, very personal and extremely precious for me. Something I have not touched since my break up with Anish.

My dream diary.

I used to see a psychiatrist some time back, Dr Siya. She used to make me very comfortable, and she really understood how my psyche worked. She was the one who had suggested I keep a dream diary. And I had, for some time.

I don’t know why I stopped writing in it. But I guess I can start again. So I open a new, fresh page, and with date and time, I jot down both the dreams about Jigyasa.

I start feeling sleepy again at around 4 am. So I check my mobile once, to see if finally Viraj has replied to my innumerable messages. But still no reply. I slowly drift off to sleep.

Next morning, I am still groggy eyed when I wake up at 7:30 and I somehow rush to the hospital, without even having breakfast, for my 8 am shift. Rasika doesn’t speak to me other than to give me over of all patients. She is still mad at me. But I don’t say anything. Let her take her time to cool down, I guess.

Moreover, I am lost in my own thoughts. In my rush, I probably noticed something, but didn’t dwell on it. But now as I try to recall, I begin wondering, did I really see a blue Innova parked outside my apartment today morning? I was too occupied to see if anyone was tailing me today, so I really don’t know! Plus, I haven’t heard from Viraj yet, and though, till now, I have been angry, now I am starting to get worried.

The morning shift is generally very packed, and I don’t get any time to think any more. I have two new admissions, two patients to be shifted out to the ward, two to be sent to CT scan on Oxygen, and in all the rush, I somehow squeeze time to have a brunch at around 11. Saloni joins me, as she too has missed her breakfast today.

She is rather cheerful and asks me how my date went.

I tell her what happened. How Viraj disappeared in the middle of our supposedly amazing date.

Secretly, I am also worried if he has over heard my conversation with Mahika, and the way I was speaking to her. Did that made him suddenly change his mind? I wonder.

“It is odd, certainly, but there must be some valid reason, some logical explanation,” Saloni says.

“I doubt. The only logical explanation I can see here is that he wanted to run away from me. For whatever reason,” I say, feeling the disappointment and the bitter tone in my voice.

“Give him time and he will get back to you,” Saloni says, though her words do nothing to allay my anxiety and doubts.

I reach home by 5 in the evening, after a really tiresome shift, but my mind is alert. I check everywhere in my neighborhood for the blue Innova, but now its nowhere to be seen. Did I imagine it this morning?