Until Next

Sahil always had a nightmare about that small kid. He once told me that the kid won't let him sleep for so long. I couldn't see Sahil suffering this much. Though, I couldn't convince myself about all that he told me. How that could even happen on earth!

I still remember, he called me one night and requested me not to hang up the call until he was asleep, for he was not feeling well and getting odd vibes around him. I couldn't help but to accept that then. I wished I was with him at Mumbai, but due to a meeting, I had to travel to Chennai. We talked for about two straight hours that day, turning 1 am to 3. I asked him about our future, and all the things that we had already discussed. But to keep him comfortable and feel safe, I had to keep him distracted from getting that nightmare again.

I still remember how badly he got beaten up from his dad in his childhood when he broke the wind chime gifted by his grandfather to his father. Those chimes and its sound still deafen him, mixing with that sound of slap that he got from his father. Maybe it was all a nightmare as well. I don't know. I have not met his family yet. Anyway, I don't know when he got asleep while we were talking. I felt relieved that he finally slept without any more nightmares.

Sahil used to see a kid, of the same age of what he was once in his childhood. That kid threw a stone on the wind chime that was hanging outside our garden; garden of our home—Sahil and mine. After the sound of breaking that wind chime what he would hear a devil laugh from that kid. That laugh would be so intense that it was able to give him goosebumps and he would get sweaty all over and

end up waking up with a jerk! Next day, with a bleary eye and pounding heart he used to recite me his nightmare—again and again. I couldn't figure out the way to make him sleep, and how to tell him that it was only a nightmare.

It was then, when years later I heard the same voice, outside my house. I rushed and what I saw was something that gave me chills down my spine. I saw what exactly Sahil told me earlier. That was the same kid, the kid of his dream or a bad dream or merely a nightmare. Maybe a live nightmare. I couldn't help but I slapped Rohan for breaking such an expensive wind chime.

It’s strange how sometimes we can foresee our future veiled in a different person. That was years back when Sahil saw his own Son, repeating the same mistake that he committed. Breaking a wind chime and leaving an echo of that voice that gave Sahil nightmares for years. I don't want this thing to happen with Rohan as well.