09/11/2009: The Big Secret(s) & Succeeding Chapters

09/11/2009: The Big Secret(s)

The phone rang. Sawan was overjoyed when he glanced at it. Leaving his belongings by the computer he pressed the talk button as began heading across the room towards the elevator.

“Swaminwahanse?” Sawan asked.

“Sawan. So tell me, how are you doing?” Venerable Swaminwahanse peacefully replied.

“I’m alright. Well actually I’m not alright. It’s just I don’t know,” Sawan conflictingly answered, now outside of the library and headed towards another building directly across the street that was hidden behind some foliage. “It’s just so strange out here. It’s hard to describe. It’s just that I get the feeling that everything around here is not what it seems to be you know?”

Swaminwahanse calmly asked, “How are things not the way they seem to be?”

“I don’t know. Well, it’s like this,” Sawan paused. He felt as though he was breaching some sort of code of conduct by talking about it. People who talked about it would be labeled crazy. It was as though he was letting the society he had been raised in down by talking about it aloud, especially with an outsider such as Swaminwahanse. Still he had to talk to someone about it, he had to find the answer to this puzzling mystery. He had already pondered about it on his own and he realized the only way he would ever know if what he thought to be true was real was if someone else actually acknowledged it. “It’s as if everything’s different here.” The warm breeze danced on his features on that sunny afternoon.

“At school?”

“No not just school. I notice it more here, but it’s everywhere in America, it’s like a part of Western civilization. Everything here is on a whole other level or plane of existence. It’s probably been this way for centuries,” he bewilderingly contemplated. He began thinking. The West had been building banks and coliseums, trading stocks and bonds, wielding a power that had once circled the globe. A hundred years ago, Asia and Africa looked downright primitive. Sri Lanka in particular looked particularly primitive. Never mind that they had their own advanced civilizations in the distant past, millennia ago. What Sawan remembered was the recent past, Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and scientific discovery in the West. The list was enormous, Newtonian physics, steamships, cars, tanks, airplanes, electricity, ever exponentially evolving artillery, the atomic bomb, and least of all condoms. Bypass surgeries and miraculous pills and injections that more than doubled the human life expectancy. This disproportionate difference in technology didn’t make any sense.

Why was it that while most of his people lived on an island half naked, hunting with spears, arrows and swords living the idyllic simple life under thatch roofs that Europeans were travelling the world on wooden boats with cannons building empires? “It’s as if they have a power that we don’t have or weren’t aware of, at least until recently,” he bleated. There was a bigger picture that he couldn’t see. He felt excluded, like a kid and everyone around him was an adult. “I feel as though everyone around me knows something that I don’t. It’s as if they’re more intelligent or something, as if they can communicate somehow in a way that I can’t.” Sawan nervously looking around. He then noticed the big bold letters on the side of the building he was walking in circles outside of and breathed a sigh of relief.  The Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. He could talk about strange thoughts here. He sat cross legged on a concrete slab on top of a brick wall.  “Sometimes I get the feeling that people are talking about me when I pass them. Like I’ll THINK something and then they’ll SAY something that corresponds to THAT thought, almost as if they were answering or responding with a reply. Do you understand what I mean? It’s as if they know what I’m THINKINGwherever I go.”

At that moment a group of campus auxiliary police walked past in their pale blue uniforms. One of them muttered, “Completely insane.”

“Like it just happened right now! Like right now! Like when I was just talking to you a bunch of police officers were walking past and one of them said I was completely insane. It’s as if they knew already what we were talking about this whole time,” he exclaimed excitedly into the phone as he began pacing in circles again now. “It’s the strangest feeling ever like in the cafeteria or when its crowded around during the day when people walk on campus, sometimes I get the feeling that they’re talking about me, and all I have to do is listen to what they say and then they change the subject but not without making some remark about how I’m being gay or creepy or something like that for listening in, it’s as if they know I’m eavesdropping. I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, maybe I’m just crazy, but it’s weird that I notice these things. Perhaps after a certain age most people are able to communicate telepathically or something or everyone knows what’s on everyone’s mind and I’m just left behind because I’m immature. Perhaps it has to do with their religion. Maybe Christian people have something we don’t. Or maybe it’s like something that’s government regulated. I wanted to talk to you to find the answer to this question. I want to be told the truth!”

Swaminwahanse made a very deliberate pause over the phone before replying: “Yes putha… I think I know.” Sawan stopped in his tracks, his heart thumping suddenly, a giddy excitement building rapidly inside him.

“You know? You know the answer?”

“Yes… I know the answer.”

“Can you… can you tell me what it is?” Sawan demanded, readying to have his world rocked.

“Yes, I can tell you what it is. However, I need to talk to you face to face first,” Swaminwahanse serenely conditioned. Sawan’s heart sank.

“So close,” he thought. “You have to talk to me face to face?” Sawan dejectedly repeated.

“Yes I think that is the best way to do it,” the Buddhist monk gently insisted.

*          *          *

 “Daddy I need to come home. Like right away,” Sawan mandated. He was standing outside another random old building in the rapidly approaching dusk.

“Why Sawan putha we just saw you last weekend,” Sarath jovially replied.

“I have to talk to Swaminwahanse, it’s very important that I talk to him, he has something very big to tell me.” This was a necessity.

“What do you have to talk about with him that’s so important?”

 “Like I asked him a very important question and he said he had the answer, but he said I had to talk to him face to face,” Sawan carefully explained. “This has to get done,” he thought.

 “Couldn’t he tell you over the phone?” Sarath doubted.

“No,” Sawan punctuated his voice rising cautiously as he began emphasizing certain syllables. “He said it was going to be so important that I would need to see him face to face, and I need to see him because this has been bothering me for some time now. You have no idea how important this explanation is to me, afterwards I won’t have any problems or questions whatsoever-”

“Ok Chuti Amu,” his father chuckled. “But be careful, I already know the answer he is going to give you!”

“You do?” Sawan asked in surprise.

“Yes Sawan he’s going to tell you to become a Buddhist monk,” Sarath guffawed.

“No I’m sure that’s not what he’s going to tell me,” Sawan retorted. “Anyways you know I would never become a monk I like being a layperson too much.” Sarath’s unrelenting drive for material success throughout his life had passed onto Sawan. “Besides we weren’t even talking about anything like that!”

“I don’t know, I’m sure he wants to try to get you,” Sarath skeptically responded. “Tell me, what did you ask him anyways? Maybe I can explain better than he can.”

“Oh my god,” Sawan thought in exasperation; over what he perceived to be Sarath’s slightly protective resentment that a monk could offer his son better advice than himself. Now he was going to have to retell everything he had told to Swaminwahanse to his father. So he quickly launched into a brief summary of what he had said just a few hours ago. He neglected to mention directly that he thought all people could communicate telepathically. All throughout Sawan doubted his father would be able to comprehend what he was saying. “…But yea I just get the feeling that everyone knows something that I don’t. I feel like I’m left in the dark and everyone else is in the light, I’m not really sure what it is though-”

“Sawan,” his father interjected confidently, “I already told you the answer to this a long time ago!”

“You did?!” 

“Yes remember few months ago you came home and we discussed this? I told you the answer then and the answer is still the same.” Sarath was lightly scolding.

“We never discussed this I think-” Sawan shot back.

“No we did, you felt lesser than everyone else right? Everyone was more experienced than you and happier than you right? Then I told you the answer,” Sarath insisted. Sawan searched his mind because this sounded familiar and he vaguely started to sense where this was headed. Irritation and anger gradually flushed Sawan’s face as Sarath continued, “But you have to be careful, you can catch many diseases, you have to wear one of those, those… I don’t want to say that word out loud right now because Nungi (little sister) is coming down. But do you understand?”

“Yea but that has NOTHING to do with what I was talking about,” Sawan blasted.

Sarath shrugged, “Oh. Well I don’t know. I’ll talk to Mummy then… we’ll see maybe in two or so weeks, near the end of the month we can come ok?”

*          *          *

“Maybe he’s right, perhaps sex is the secret,” Sawan ruminated gloomily. Sawan shivered slightly as he fished out a small bag he had picked up from Ian earlier that night and an indented Starbucks can with thumbtack holes in it as he continued thinking, waiting for her to speak up. A chill had hit the campus this weekend. It dawned on him, he hadn’t heard from her after he had talked to Tharushi the previous day. Was V upset? “Well now I’ll definitely find out,” he thought confidently as he found his lighter lastly. In the state of mind he was about to enter he could definitely hear what other people around him were thinking at times even if they weren’t talking to him directly or opening their mouth. It was only this way he was guaranteed to hear V clearly.

A few minutes later everything was so crispy. The way the wind touched Sawan’s face, molesting him with frosty kisses. The Garden felt creepy tonight which was unusual because it was typically a very tranquil place at night away from people and police though nothing beat Sunset Park. Then he heard it. It was barely audible yet it was there. But it was different. It wasn’t her. The voice was whiny and angry, as if it had something lodged in its- “A*****e…talking… everyday. You a*****e. Hey a*****e! Look at me! No, not around you, up here! Higher, Higher!” Sawan slowly cranked his head up in disbelief and stared at the perfectly white circular moon that was now angrily yelling at him. “That’s better. Do you know who this is? TELL ME DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?!”

“Roshane!?” Sawan uttered aloud, feeling so bewildered that he may as well have been caught skinny dipping in the fountain at the front of the Garden by the police.

“That’s right a*****e. A*****e, you’re still talking to my sister!” Roshane accused.

Sawan’s first instinctive reaction was anger and he rose his voice to speak, “But-”

“Don’t lie! You talk to her all the time!”

“I haven’t talked to her since August!” Sawan defended, attempting to placate the angry pale orb, spreading his hands in askance. “What a stupid accusation,” he thought. “I haven’t even seen her since then, or refriended her on Facebook, or AIM.”

“Sawan, you talk to her every day,” Roshane testily alleged, slowly enunciating every word. Every day. It suddenly struck Sawan’s mind what Roshane meant. He was suddenly speechless for a moment and broke eye contact and looked down. “Don’t try to hide it!”

 “Ohhh… s**t, well… yea that’s true,” he sheepishly mumbled in guilt.

“I know you’ve been talking to her every day for the past few days Sawan. You’ve been talking to her telepathically this WHOLE TIME and you thought you could just get AWAY with it?!” Roshane castigated.

“Well…” Sawan slipperly started, lamely losing ground in this verbal sparring, slowly searching for words.

“Treats me like a w***e too!” Victoria’s voice grumpily reproached. Sawan wildly turned his head to the right and saw a particularly bright star twinkling at him in the distance atop the distant tree line by the driveway across the field. Now that he thought about it, the past few nights over the week he had only had his fun with her and dozed off right afterwards without so much as another word; still that didn’t stop him from trying to absolve himself.

“What?!  Now wait a second hold it right there, you practically crawled into bed with me! You’re just as guilty as I am!” he blustered furiously. “What the hell was this, entrapment!?”

“Hmph!” Victoria sounded.

“Stop fighting. I’m not here to make things bad. You can still be with her. But you’re supposed to keep it a secret! This is Victoria’s secret! You nearly gave everything away!” Roshane once again remonstrated.

“Oh you mean when I was talking to Tharushi online?” Sawan wondered, trying to desperately fix the mess that he was in.

“YES! You could have screwed everything up!” Roshane bellowed.

“Told her everything too, you b*****d!” Victoria bursted.

“Well I didn’t know!” Sawan muttered guiltily, shivering. He was downright miserable he had nearly screwed things up again based on those same boastful emotions that had gotten him in trouble in the past.

“Well now you do,” Roshane sagely declared. “You have to keep it a secret!”

09/12/2009: Penn State vs. Syracuse

            Sawan’s mouth was gaping open. His pale yellow teeth showed, his pink tongue visible behind them in his mouth and his purple pink lips were curled upwards in a wide grin. Large strong sounds emanated from his mouth echoing around the spare room mingling with the other sound waves bouncing around. He was laughing, along with Matt, Evan, Rachel, Tom, Jeff and Chase at some trivial joke. Jeff and Chase were from across the hall. They were always invited to parties at 720. His eyes darted quickly from one grinning face to the other. They were standing around a wooden table and a desk that had been pushed together to form a single rectangular surface that had red plastic cups positioned in an inward facing triangle on both ends. Jeff and Chase were playing Evan and Matt on the table. Rachel was pouring herself another shot. Tom was beside her. Sawan was opposite them doing nothing in particular other than observing the game and occasionally shooting the odd glance at Rachel and the alcohol behind her.

Sawan still felt somewhat envious that Tom had been able to get to Rachel first but he tried to not let this affect the way he treated Tom. Grabbing a shot glass he walked over to the Jager and poured himself more purple red liquid. He put the sticky edge of the glass to his lips and tipped it upwards but not before smelling the alcohol which was always akin to the smell of clean needles at hospitals. The sickeningly sweet taste of licorice and Robitussin poured over his tongue along with the undercurrent strong alcohol that was usually present in every kind of drink but especially shots. The taste of alcohol always tasted like poison and this made him guzzle the shot quickly. Eight shots so far.

Sawan was past tipsy, past the buzz point. He was drunk. So were his roommates. So was everyone else at Penn State, and from his point of view they should be. After all it was Luke’s birthday and they were all eating ice cream cake. It was also Saturday, a game day and Penn State had scored an expected victory over Syracuse, 28-7. “Push overs,” he thought smirking to himself. Penn State was the center of the world, the center of college life, it was the number one party school in America this year. Sawan hadn’t gone to the game of course. He had never bothered trying to get his hands on a ticket or season pass in all his three years at the school. Of course he didn’t really care for it when he lived forty seven miles south in Altoona for two years.

Everything he did had a righteous nature to it, as if he could do no wrong. Everything seemed funny. There was no thought of school, only this small room with pieces of grey carpet taped to the white walls to dampen the sound of the lightly playing rap music, occasional clinking of glasses and laughter. There was a fine collection of bottles building up on a shelf in the corner. He suddenly felt the tickling itchy sensation inside his groin. It was time to take a leak, again. Chuckling, he left the room and he went out the door. His mind spoke in short statements. “Hallway. A right. First stall. Toilet. Belt, pants, zip, elastic and finally dick.” He gasped loudly looking in relief at the fountain of green liquid hitting the increasingly waste filled water. This was probably about the fourth or fifth time tonight. He placed his foot on the metal handle behind the toilet and stepped. The contents of the bowl flushed away and he turned around.

He walked ungainly with his grin plastered onto his face back into 720 Hiester and into the spare room to find it empty save for Rachel and Tom. They were seated on the spare bed in the room. He went over to the other side of the table, picked up the ice cream cake he had hardly scrapped into yet and plopped down in a wooden chair opposite them, smiling in a very droll fashion.

Rachel’s head was cast towards the floor and her whole body shuddered as she hiccupped. She giggled at this and looked over at Tom endearingly who was scratching her back good-naturedly. She looked away to her right and at that moment Tom and Sawan made eye contact. In Sawan’s eyes, Tom had a very pleased, almost satisfied, complacently triumphant look on his face. It was downright cunning and gloating. Tom suddenly jerked his head ever so slightly to his own left, indicating the door. He clearly expected Sawan to leave. Tom obviously believed that something was going to go down between him and Rachel. As soon as Sawan realized this, his grin slowly slipped off his face and hot resentful anger quickly arose in him. If Sawan had been in a less intoxicated state, then he probably would have been more understanding, winked and left. But now, he felt flush with jealousy.

“Well f**k you I don’t think I’m leaving just because you want me to!” he thought dully towards Tom, feeling bitterness shimmer through his being. Instead of evacuating the scene of impending love, Sawan looked down and slowly began to play with his ice cream cake. Taking a half a teaspoon. Swirling it around a little. Cutting a clump in half, and smushing it. Scooping up the melted milky cream around the still frozen clumps and slurping on it. Licking the plastic white spoon with his tongue. It tasted like a milk shake but right now he wasn’t paying attention to that, instead he could feel the rising tension in the room. How long did he dare stay? “I’ll stay as long as I feel like,” he thought pompously, isolating a tiny slab of chocolate, scooping that up, and then crunching it between his teeth.

Matt came in and walked over to Tom and Rachel so Sawan looked up. He was pleased to see a very sour irritated expression on Tom’s face. He felt the slightest sliver of fear that Tom would hold this grudge against him, but he brushed it away, annoyed that he even cared. Sawan started scrapping the bottom of the Styrofoam bowl, making loud scratching noises. There was no longer any reason to stay. Sawan staggered to his feet, straightening his back and stretching his arms grandoisely, before silently turning back to the table, this time picking up the Captain Morgan, pouring another shot and downing that. With his head spinning and without another word, he sauntered out the spare room and 720 still feeling grumpy. He began to dwell on exactly why he felt so jealous. It was all around a fair situation but of course Sawan hardly felt rational about it at the best of times. He often viewed scenarios like these to be ones that made him appear the lesser man.

*          *          *

“Hey, is this your phone?” Sawan glanced down the table at the speaker. He was still feeling very buzzed and spaced out after his the trip to Garden. It was a black guy and two of his lady friends. Beside them, to his surprise, was his phone with his headphones wrapped around it.

“Yea, thanks,” Sawan muttered as he retrieved the phone pushed down towards him. He placed it in front of him, wondering how he could have been so careless, before returning his eyes to the replay of the game he was watching in Pollack Commons. He wasn’t very surprised the next day though, when he realized that his phone was missing anyways.

 

 

 

 

 

09/19/2009: Meeting Caitlinn

            The atmosphere of the campus matched his upbeat mood. The sky was purple and as he walked around the courtyard he was initially unsuccessful in finding a person who could give him a full cigarette. However, when he got back in front of Heister he was pleased to find a girl sitting in a posh fashion on the green bench, chatting on her cell while puffing smoke rings into the air. Smiling his big winning smile he walked up to her and asked, “Do you mind if I have a cigarette?”

            “Are you ok with cloves? That’s all I have,” she answered, as she lifted the cell from her face.

            “I love cloves!” Sawan grinned slyly. She smiled as she handed him the long cigarette with spices and herbs mixed in the tobacco and wrapped in brown paper before quickly returning to her conversation. Sawan was somewhat taken by his benefactor. She seemed like a really nice person, and this cigarette was smoothing his buzz so that he could think clearly. He suddenly sensed that this was a chance to make a friend. “How to proceed?” he wondered. He needed to get physically closer to her. “Hey is it okay if I sit next to you on the bench?” Sawan casually inquired being as polite as he could be. Wordlessly the girl slid over to the left while Sawan sat to her right.

            Sawan was fast to pick up that the girl next to him was listening to a friend of hers tell her some tragic tale. The only thing the girl next to Sawan had to do was agree about how miserable the other girl’s situation was and throw out some advice. He could see that the girl next to him was not really interested in what she was talking about. “What she needs is a distraction,” he plotted. “It’s a great night to be out isn’t it?” he abruptly asked her.

The girl picked up her head, and glancing at him with a smile, bobbed her head slowly as she sweetly replied, “Yea it’s a nice night,” before once again bringing the mouthpiece end of her cell next to her lips.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked with an even bigger grin on his face, clearly implying with his smile that he knew she wasn’t exactly enjoying herself at the moment. He didn’t care if he came off as a creeper, he was drunk and she was just some random girl. If he did connect, great, if he didn’t, oh well. This time she looked over and seized him up for a moment, roving her eyes over him by twitching the muscles that moved her eyeballs ever so slightly and rapidly that it wasn’t visibly noticeable to Sawan but he could nonetheless sense what she was doing.

She smiled wryly at him realizing his intent, batted her eyelashes in exasperation and pointed at her phone while her friend continued to yammer on. Sawan chuckled and nodded his head in understanding, muttering, “Yea, that sucks.” She nodded her head in agreement rolling her eyes. Sawan patiently waited, smoking the clove very slowly to prolong his reason to stay with her at the bench. By the time Sawan was three fourths done with the clove the girl had hung up the phone to his delight.

It was at this junction that the girl placed the phone neatly into her black purse as she turned slightly to face Sawan, giving him a chance to look at her properly. She was endowed with a beautifully formed pale white face that had a light smattering of slightly scarred popped pimples on her cheeks and chin complete with pink lips and a petit nose. She had dark brown straightened hair, and small arms that ended with tiny hands. She carried mammary glands each about the size of a large navel orange, a slim waist which broadened slightly at her hips and connected with skinny pale legs at the bottom of which there were little feet tucked into black high heels. In fact everything about her gave Sawan the impression that she was smaller than him, and Sawan wasn’t a very big guy himself, being only about five feet and five inches. She was wrapped in tight patterned black stockings and a short black dress. Obviously she was heading out to party. “Hey, sorry about that my girlfriend was just going on forever. I didn’t know how long it was going to take, but I’m glad she finally got off my back it stinks you had to hear all that,” the girl stated in a pleasantly annoyed manner.

“No, I totally understand, you had to give someone advice, it happens all the time to everyone, no need to apologize,” Sawan chortled.

“It’s all just drama. Stupid stuff that’s not important that people get upset about.”

“Yea talk about it people should not worry over and get caught up in the small problems in life,” Sawan agreed quickly. “My name is Savan by the way, what’s yours?”

“My name’s Caitlinn,” the girl answered in a coyly coquettish manner, smiling demurely as she glanced at the space between them before looking up again at Sawan. “I was going to go to my friend’s birthday party downtown so I got dressed and then as I was about to leave Ritner my other friend called me about her mess and since I had time before the party was supposed to start I decided to sit down here and finish talking to her until I was called to go downtown and that’s how you found me here,” Caitlinn slowly explained. She appeared to be a very airy girl, as if she was the kind of person who seemed to float or drift from one place or topic to the next with a very calm laidback demeanor. Perhaps she had clouds tied to her feet.

“So you’re going downtown to a birthday party? Sounds like that’ll be good time!”

“Yea but I found out it’s not going to start till later, so I’m just going to hang out here I guess, nothing really to do ‘til then,” Caitlinn diffidently told in a relaxed yet bored tone of voice.

“If you want you can come up to our place in Heister until you have to leave. We’re having a small party up there too right now.”

“Like drinking party? In Heister? The dorm? How do you throw a party in a dorm room? Doesn’t the RA give you guys s**t?” she gently exclaimed in a hushed voice, thinking of a regular dorm room that only houses two people.

“Nah, we live in supplemental housing-”

“Oh I do too!”

“Oh so then you know we get lots of room, plus an extra spare room to play beer pong in and our RA is cool, he doesn’t bother us. It’s usually just my roommates and a few friends anyways. So you wanna come?” Sawan croaked the question.

“Well… I suppose I could chill with you guys until I have to go, probably won’t have to for awhile anyways… You sure your roommates won’t mind?” Caitlinn thoughtfully concluded before uncertainly glancing at him.

“Yessssss, an opportunity,” Sawan thought, hissing triumphantly in his mind as she said these words. He was brought back to reality with her question and quickly dismissed her concerns chuckling, “Nah they won’t care, they bring over friends too. You ready?” Anyways Sawan knew they wouldn’t mind if he brought a girl.

“Yea, let’s go,” she consented.

*          *          *

“Hey guys, this is Caitlinn thought you guys wouldn’t mind if I brought her over to chill for awhile,” Sawan assured his roommates with satisfaction. Bringing a girl to a party was an achievement for Sawan. The other inhabitants of the room stared at Caitlinn, at Sawan then back at her as they digested this news thoroughly for a moment. His roommates walked around the table to her vicinity so that they could introduce themselves and start talking to her.

Once Evan had finished introducing himself he asked Sawan, “How did you meet her, from class?”

“Nah, just outside right now, asked her for a cigarette and figured out she wasn’t busy so I invited her back here for awhile,” Sawan explained in a low tone while Caitlinn was still talking with Matt and Tom.

Evan flashed a big grin and lazily answered, “Not at all, it’s always a good thing to bring girls to parties.” Jeff and Chase suddenly bounced into the room and noticed Caitlinn. Puzzled, they also asked Caitlinn her name and introduced themselves.

“Who told you about 720?” Chase blurted casually gazing into her face.

“Oh he did,” Caitlinn replied in her sleepy slow fashion, turning around and pointing at Sawan with a smile. Chase looked past her shoulder for a moment in disbelief at Sawan while Jeff turned his head and looked over her head.

 A grin slowly spread across Chase’s face while Jeff nodded in Sawan’s direction with a small smile acknowledging him as he raised his voice slightly to softly yell, “Hey sup Ghandi!” Somewhat embarrassed that his friends were clearly praising the fact that he had brought a girl to the party and hoping that Caitlinn wouldn’t notice this, Sawan turned away to face the table as he poured himself a shot.

“Have you had a shot yet?” Chase asked her cavalierly.

“No, I haven’t,” Caitlinn replied dreamily. Upon hearing this banter Sawan felt stupid he hadn’t already offered her one himself.

“Here, take this one,” he hurriedly interfered and walked over to her and handed her the rum he had poured for himself.

“Why thank you,” Caitlinn thanked him gently as she took the glass with a sly smile, and looking at it for a moment, put it up to her lips and slowly tipped it upwards, tilting her head backwards elegantly and downing the amber liquid. As she finished the aftertaste of alcohol hit her so that she pouted her lips, scrunching them together unpleasantly before she was lazily smiling again as she smacked her lips. “Can I have another?” she wondered aloud.

“Of course, help yourself,” Sawan said moving his hand in a sweeping motion towards the rum and Jager.

“Oh goodie,” she giddily replied as she moved towards the liquor. Sawan followed her and grabbing another glass, helped himself to another shot. As the minutes slowly past by and the night wore on they all steadily consumed more and more alcohol, occasionally going out for a leak or a smoke break. An hour or two after her initial arrival found Caitlinn lying back on the sofa animatedly talking to Tom. Sawan had been playing a game of beer pong and now finished approached them.

Slightly uneasy about this turn of events he looked at Tom, who sensing Sawan’s gaze, looked up at him and gave a thick, pursed lipped smile as he nodded his head in approval. Sawan relaxed, realizing that Tom was giving him props for his accomplishment in bringing a nice looking girl to their place of residence. Still feeling slightly bothered however, he decided to sit on the arm of the sofa to maintain some proximity to her without intruding into their conversation. He noticed that Rachel was talking with Evan and Matt. After sometime Tom got up to play a round so Sawan started talking to Caitlinn about her classes. She asked him about his major and so he launched into a small explanation about economics and why he thought the subject was relevant for the times. She in turn told him how she was a music major.

“It’s great you get to do something fun that you enjoy,” Sawan said ruefully. Music seemed more like a hobby than career to him.

“Yea I think it’s awesome,” she happily bubbled. “The hardest class I have to take right now though is French. I like French though, so I get by,” she explained languidly.

“French? I took French in middle school and high school. I thought it was cool, but I sorta gave it up my junior year. I bombed it that year,” Sawan lamely mumbled, remembering his horrible grades.

Caitlinn suddenly giggled and became a tad more animated again. “Do you know what ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’ means?” she interrogated flirtatiously.

“No… What does it mean?” Sawan demanded. Sawan had actually heard this French phrase before even back in middle school but had long forgotten it.

“It means ‘Would you like to sleep with me tonight?’” she pleasantly spelled out before turning her head somewhat distractedly towards the table and praising Chase for scoring. Sawan’s ears perked up and his eyes widened in disbelief and excitement as he heard her explanation.

 Impatiently leaning over and poking Caitlinn’s arm to get her attention again, he stupidly croaked, “Wait how do you say ‘I would like to sleep with you tonight’ in French? Teach me!” Caitlinn turned towards him and stared directly at him but apparently hadn’t noticed his silly mistake.

“It’s ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’” she said once more too rapidly for the drunk Sawan. It was also loud in the room with the others talking and the music in the background.

“Wait say it slowly,” he pleaded. Caitlinn leaned over the couch so that her head was close to the arm where he was sitting so that he could hear her better. She glazed into his eyes with a serious expression. Sawan was being sucked into them. Such big gray eyes.

“It’s voulez,” Caitlinn began imperiously.

“Voulez,” Sawan said desperately trying to grasp the simple sentence.

“Vous,” she continued enunciating the ‘v’ fiercely.

“Vous!”

“Coucher.”

“Coucher!”

“Avec.”

“Avec,” Sawan said, recognizing the word dimly as meaning ‘with.’

“Moi,” she uttered as she continued to gaze directly at his eyes in an almost hypnotic fashion.

“Moi-”

“Ce Soir!”

“Ce Soir!” he imitated. He suddenly remembered the word ‘soir’ meant ‘night.’

So it’s ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’ Caitlinn dictated to Sawan, as if trying to train a parrot. This time he finally understood.

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir!” he demonstrated, breaking into a broad smile over the fact that he could finally ask the seven word question.

“There you go,” she said beaming at him cozily. He suddenly realized how close they were to each other. He cursed the presence of others in the room. “Do you smoke?” she suddenly asked. He immediately knew what she meant.

“Of course do you?” he replied. He had a feeling this girl smoked, perhaps it came from the stereotype that girls who smoked cigarettes smoked other things as well. She definitely did seem like a seasoned partier.

“Yes,” she sleepily mumbled. Now things had definitely taken an interesting turn in Sawan’s eyes. He had always imagined having sex with someone in an altered state of mind. “I like to smoke opium,” she rambled. Sawan did a double-take and stared at her in disbelief as the same sort of excitement that had come over him when he heard that Eric had bombs seized him once more. This happened to be another substance he had only heard and read about.

“Opium? You can find opium?”

“Oh yea you just have to know the right people,” she said softly. “I actually have some with me right now.”

“Who the heck was this girl and where the hell did she come from?” he thought wildly. She seemed like the perfect person to hook up with. “Can I see?” he excitedly begged. Wordlessly she produced a small bag with a dark hairy moist tightly balled clump of material in it. He stood up and carefully grabbed the bag and inspected it. “May I?” She nodded. He opened the bag and lifted it to his nose out of curiosity. Tree had its own distinct fragrance; he was intrigued to find out what opium, the main component used in the creation of the far more concentrated lethal drug heroin, smelled like. To his horrific surprise and then absolute amusement it struck him that he had smelled this scent before. It smelled like incense.

“What’s that?” Evan interrupted. When told, he raised his eye brows in disdain. Rachel also wore a puzzled look. Apparently they didn’t appreciate the substance as much as Sawan did. Nonetheless curious they peered at it when handed the bag, wrinkled their noses in distaste and handed it to the next person. Only Jeff seemed as enthusiastic as Sawan upon looking at it. He handed it back to Caitlinn and began talking to her. Sawan walked over to pour himself another shot, and Tom sat back on the couch next to Caitlinn. Chase and Jeff eventually left. Sawan walked back over towards Caitlinn when he heard Rachel saying that she was leaving with Matt and Evan and would be back in short while and that if Caitlinn and Sawan wanted to come they should get ready. He knew what that meant. Caitlinn staggered to her feet, somewhat disoriented.

“I’ll pay you back,” Sawan offered in thanks, knowing that he probably wouldn’t, at least not for some time.

“Don’t worry about it.” Rachel dismissed.

Sawan went to go take a leak and when he returned he found the short Caitlinn standing with a goofy grin on her face next to the tall Tom who also had a very greasy smile plastered on. His hand was visibly on her bottom and they were laughing at some joke that a recently returned Chase was telling them. Riveted on the spot and totally helpless to do anything about this trespass he stared for a moment. Sawan was captivated and unable to yank his eyes away from the spectacle of Caitlinn’s willingness to be felt up by Tom, and Tom’s total disregard for respecting what Sawan clearly saw as his girl. Suddenly remembering that Tom was theoretically with someone, he managed to look away by turning his head to look at Rachel who was standing aloof in a corner with her arms folded and glaring with angry jealousy at Tom.

Matt, Evan, Rachel, Caitlinn and Sawan eventually left Heister. Tom and Chase of course couldn’t be near smoke as they were in the ROTC, while Jeff only did it sparingly. Caitlinn was giddily tottering about on her high heels and upon reaching the parking lot she began to complain of the pain in her feet the high heels were causing her. She decided to remove them and walk bare foot but was upset because the pavement was slightly damp from a small shower earlier and it was beginning to ruin her stockings. Being the gallant horny fool that he was, Sawan offered to carry her.  “Well ok, if you can…” she hesitantly agreed.

Picking her up with an arm under her knees and the other under her neck, he found her surprisingly heavy for one who looked so small. He carried her down Pollack Street and they both fell rapidly behind the others who were already near the junction of Shortlidge Rd and Pollack. Sawan was quickly becoming exhausted as he was quite drunk himself and he saw Rachel walking back to them rapidly. “Guys we’re going to split ok, we’re going that way, so peace.” she informed them before turning back around and hurrying in the direction of Matt and Evan who were already walking towards the Life Science building. Baffled by this sudden strange turn of events, Sawan walked a few more feet as these words registered in his mind. He stopped and placed Caitlinn back on her feet.

“Why what happened?” Caitlinn questioned.

“I don’t know, they just said they were going there own way for some reason I don’t know why…” Sawan answered slowly feeling dejected. Instead of taking into account the fact that Caitlinn was carrying around a substance far more troublesome than tree and she appeared to be drunk enough to not want to walk on her own and thus could be a potential liability if someone in a dark blue uniform were to question why a man was carrying a woman in such a ludicrous fashion, Sawan remembered Rachel’s jealousy. He concluded this was the reason that they were being ditched and he felt resentment grow.

“Well that’s strange,” Caitlinn plaintively exclaimed.

“I know it’s very strange,” Sawan muttered angrily.

“Well in that case I should just go downtown to that birthday party. It’s probably going to start soon,” Caitlinn decided. They both reached the junction. Sawan felt screwed over slightly by his roommates; he had been so certain something was going to happen tonight.

“Well I have you’re number. I’ll call you tomorrow or something,” Sawan stumbled, trying to make amends to this nasty conclusion to the night.

“Right. I’ll see you later dear,” she mumbled, her voice like milk, as she gave him a hug, put on her shoes and tottered down the road. The next day when he borrowed Tom’s phone to text and call her, she did not reply. Apparently, she was gone from his life like smoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

09/20/2009: The Ever Present Letter V

“You have to focus on school if you want to succeed and actually want to be the right person for my sister! Stop getting high all the time just so you can hear us better!” Roshane prattled. He was totally right of course. Roshane had turned into some sort of advisor, though he sounded more like a nanny. There were some things that he said that Sawan could agree with and other things that Sawan flat out rejected. Deciding Roshane was right this time, he decided to wrap up the evening and bid the brother and sister good night before heading back to campus.

As he walked down the sidewalk on Shortlidge Road a cop SUV drove by on the opposite side of the road. For some inexplicable reason the police officer driving in it glared at Sawan as they both became parallel to each other. It was seemed to be a female police officer. Her white face was an upside down triangle with a rounded top where her black or very dark brown hair was pulled back in a bun and her black eyes were abnormally large, the same as those of a praying mantis. It was as if she was an alien from outer space. But just in that moment the car had hurled past. He pondered for a moment thinking of the stark stare the police officer had shot at him. It was as if she had known what he had just finished doing.

Sometimes Sawan was under the impression that police were somehow capable of detecting and locating people high on the insanity scale as if Sawan was emitting some signal or frequency they could pick up on. Shaken, he crossed the road and headed down one of the side roads that led to Pollack. Resolving to sleep over at Pollack Commons so that he would wake up at the proper time in the morning instead of over sleeping in his comfortable bed, he went up to 720 where everyone else was already sleeping with the TV on, and gathered a few belongings for his Econ 302 and Econ 333 class for the next day.

Still feeling as though his head was in the clouds Sawan arrived in the cultural lounge of Pollack Commons and collapsed on the sofa. “I’ll do anything to succeed, anything to win,” he boasted. He repeated these lines everyday like a mantra, as though by saying them he could accomplish his goals by simply willing them.

It was in this Victorian state of mind that he shook himself out of his reverie because he had subconsciously noticed something in his line of sight. Staring at the large collage on the wall in front of him depicting images of peace and love he was suddenly struck by how many ‘v’ shapes there were on it. Wherever there was a line that intersected another line at a point there was a ‘v.’ They came in all shapes and sizes, at all angles, even if it was upside down wherever two lines intersected there was a ‘v.’ Why even other letters in the alphabet contained the shape ‘v.’ Broadening his vision he looked around the room and to his awe found his entire reality was filled with ‘v’ shapes something he had never noticed consciously before. Where the ceiling met two walls. Where the floor met two walls. Where there was a door in the wall. Any picture frame, cabinet, table, corner of the couch, book, chair, anything rectangular or like a square had at least four of them.  “A V there, there, there… there, there, another V there, holy s**t!” he gasped in disbelief, “Victoria really is symbolized everywhere, and means everything in my reality! Everywhere I look all I see  Vs! Oh my god, I’m literally tripping Vs!”

09/23/2009: Exam day

It was sometime in the midmorning and the sun showed clearly in the bright blue sky which his blue Aeropostale shirt matched. He had two exams today. The wind rush around him as Sawan pedaled hard and fast up Shortlidge Rd. Leaving the sidewalk he went onto the road, his face a mask of determination. He was flighty, nervous and perhaps that showed too because he always got the feeling that everyone was staring at him as he rode past them. He could see some of them doing so as he went by, but it was most noticeable in his peripheral vision where it seemed that everyone on both sides of the road were turning their heads and eyes onto him. He reached the library where masses of people were walking on the pavement and sidewalk. Sawan hopped off his bike with purpose, a spring in his step as he headed towards the bike rack. Feeling desperate, he suddenly shook his head violently and his face twisted into a grimace as he sensed this insecurity and he grinded his teeth in sporadic anger. There was the steady drone of chit chatter from people walking by. He was taken completely by surprise though when two typical looking Caucasian guys walked past him and the one dismissed to the other, “He’s crazy, lives in 720 Heister!” Sawan stopped in his tracks for a moment and then turned around to stare at the two complete strangers who had continued to walk away from him.

“The hell?!” he thought still gazing wild-eyed at the pair who became lost in the flux of people walking to and fro. “Like how the hell do you guys even know me?!” There was no rational explanation for what he had transparently heard. “What in god’s name is happening today?” he wondered in utter perplexity and feeling more despaired and panicky than ever. Everyone seemed to be muttering something about him today and what had just happened was the most clear cut example that there were complete strangers on this campus who knew him for some reason. With uneasy tension keeping his body wired he wandered around the front of the library until he found a found a fat middle aged man sitting on the far concrete wall who spared him a smoke. “Do you happen to know what the date is by the way?”

The man peered at his digital watch before saying, “Wednesday, September 23^rd 2009.” 23. What did 23 mean?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

09/24/2009: Meeting Sumi

Her face was like a beautifully formed pale brown oval, her nose perfectly symmetrical above her dark pink lips. It was difficult to discern her eye color in the light of the walking path lamps nearby. She cut a figure that could be classified as shapely with a decently proportionate and prominent chest, slim waist and slightly wide hips with full but shapely legs fitted into a pair of tight jeans, a typical hot brownie. “Hey may I have a cigarette?” Sawan surly asked her.

“Yea of course… here you go,” she said sympathetically. Sitting down beside her he took the Marlboro menthol and lit up, taking a long heavy drag while looking sideways at his new companion.

“Thanks. Really ‘preciate it. School’s just so stressful right now I really could use one of these,” Sawan chuckled tiredly as he ran his hand through his hair.

“Oh it’s nothing. Please. Yea school really is a pain in the butt. I’m taking these bio and chem classes, because I’m pre-med, that takes up so much of my time and I’ve been going out too much now I have to buckle down ya know?” the girl exclaimed in a somewhat dramatic fashion.

“Yea I know exactly what you mean,” Sawan sounded trying to be like-minded. “I’ve been doin’ excel labs for the past two hours, each one takes about an hour each too; it really sucks. I need to start working now too, I’m definitely done with partyin’ on the weekdays.”

“Yah me too, I used to go out like every night, but when you’re a junior there’s just so much more work! It’s unbelievable! Like more than half the people in my Chem class are failing and like for a third of the class it’s like their second time taking it!”

“Is it Chem 110?”

“Yah, how’d u know?”

“Oh, one my friends is pre-med too,” Sawan clarified, thinking of the fat Eric. “He told me that most of the material that you learn in that class you don’t even actually apply in real life on the job, it’s just busy work that’s used to weed out the misfits.”

“Yah it’s such bullshit. I just hate school so much these days uggrhh!” she grumbled in frustration. There was a pause for a few seconds during which they both quietly took drags. Sawan was still so puzzled about her apparent background and her behavior that he couldn’t help but venture further onto a more delicate point.

He blurted, “So you’re Indian? And you smoke cigarettes? I mean no offense that’s totally cool that’s awesome, it’s just I don’t know any brown girls who smoke.” He just had to know if she really was brown.

“No, its ok,” she smirked slightly before saying, “People ask me all the time why I smoke. Guess I’m a bit of a party animal… not really the average brown chick, I don’t know. I’m not really Indian I’m actually Sri Lankan-” Sawan suddenly froze in surprise.

“Sri Lankan?! Me too!” he yawped breathlessly. Needless to say this was an auspicious occasion as this was the perfect girl for him to wheedle himself into, both figuratively and literally. “A naughty Sri Lankan chick,” he thought lustfully.

“Really?! Where are you from?” she demanded excitedly.

“New Jersey-” he gabbled.

“Me too! What part?” she rushed.

“This is just getting better and better,” he thought. “I live in Somerset County, What about you?” he stated uneasily not expecting at all what came next.

“Oh my god, me too!! I live in Montgomery!” she gibbered excitedly, wide eyed as her left leg started to spasm in agitation.

“No way!” Sawan half yelled. “This is so strange,” he thought. “Why haven’t I heard of you before?” he blustered.

 “I don’t know, wait are you Tamil?!” she asked hopefully her eyelids batting as her dark eyes zeroed in on his equally dark eyes. Everything had unusually harmoniously clicked between them but now there was a discordant note.

“Um, no, I’m actually Sinhalese,” he bashfully revealed as his shoulders drooped slightly in tiny disappointment. Sri Lanka had recently emerged from a nearly thirty year civil war between the government that was overall led by the Sinhalese who form nearly three fourths of the population, and a separatist terrorist group called the LTTE who claimed to represent the Tamils who formed the largest minority on the island. With the government forces steadily cornering the group since 2006 when hostilities resumed after a short ceasefire, the war had ended when the military crushed the Tigers (as the LTTE was also known) and their leader by the beach in the northeast of the island. The vast majority of Tamils and Sinhalese coexisted peacefully throughout most of this time, yet even today there was still a sense of mistrust and wariness in their parents’ generation, not unlike the gap between white and black people still today in America even with Obama as president. The girl’s eyes shifted down and then away at this setback.

But then she glanced back at him and quietly muttered understandingly, “Oh so then that’s why we haven’t met before.”

“Yeaa,” he mumbled awkwardly. “This is a little embarrassing but nothing I can’t salvage,” he thought. He was happy to find out she felt the same.

“Yea I don’t really care much about politics over there, it’s like whatever. Such stupid s**t ya know?” she dismissed brazenly.

“Yea it is, I don’t really care about all that war stuff,” Sawan lied remembering those days as a high school kid going onto lankanewspapers.com and threatening to eat Tamils. “It’s retarded, it’s not like it affects us here in America, we should all just live peacefully,” he appeased.

“Yea we should! Like is that too much ask?!” she blasted at the nature of things. “This is so weird… wait when’s your birthday?” This was getting so ridiculous it wouldn’t surprise him if they had similar birthdays but then again really-

“November 27^th,” Sawan uttered uncertainly.

“OH MY GOD!!! NO WAY! YOUR LYING!” she screeched, her eyes ready to fall out of her sockets, her mouth gaping in shock.

“Why what are you?!” Sawan’s voice rised correspondingly, feeling more bewildered by the second.

“November 28^th!!” she shrieked with a laugh before calming down quickly and regaining her composure. “Wow this is SO strange. It’s like scary even, what a small world. We have like so much in common it’s like… freaky!”

“Yea it is,” Sawan stammered, slowly realizing in his mind that it was if he was meant to meet this girl. “Surely it can happen with her,” he calculated eagerly inside. He suddenly realized he didn’t know her name after all this. “What’s your name by the way?”

She smiled meaningfully as she replied, “It’s Sumi… short for Sumithra. What’s yours?”

“Savan,” He pronounced. “It’s really cool we met up though we should definitely hang out and party sometime…” He launched into an explanation of how his residence was the perfect party hub and that she was welcome to visit. He found out that she lived in West Halls, not far from the Library they were sitting outside of. “You should definitely come to our dorm this weekend; we’re probably gonna be drinking so why don’t you come over?”

She seemed to ponder his words and then acting slightly reluctant as if she had a million other engagements slowly acceded, “Well… so long as I’m not busy with homework, I have to go somewhere on Friday but definitely let me know about Saturday night and I’ll come over.”

“I should probably meet you here and-” Sawan ecstatically planned.

“Nah I can find my way to Pollack Halls, everyone knows where that is,” she smirked as they both got up and began heading towards the steps. “But no I love going out and getting drunk, other Indian and Sri Lankan girls are so judgemental…”

 She complained, relating her exploits with the other brown people at University Park, while Sawan nodded his head regularly at the appropriate intervals, saying “yea” or “that sucks!” or “that blows!” or “wow!” only half listening. Instead he rejoiced in his mind at his most lucky and unusual discovery, a Sri Lankan girl who lived near him at home, with a similar birthday who liked to party according to what his definition of party was.

“… so when I was in tenth grade that’s when the community found out that I was drinking and stuff, so there was like a huge thing about it, it was insane,” she blubbered as they made their way across the lobby towards the elevator.

Sawan’s mouth opened into a gaping grin at her words, and his mouth emitted a cackle as he laughed, “The community?! That’s what we call it too, the Sri Lankan COMMUNITY!” He sympathized with her, remembering the numerous times he himself had been cited for violating their moral standards. “What floor are you on?” he questioned as they stepped into the large slow metallic rectangular box that moved people up and down, half expecting to hear she was on his floor, five.

“Four,” she automatically informed.

“Oh well, not quite but almost,” Sawan thought as he jabbed the circular opaque four and five buttons on the wall so that they both lit up.

As the elevator came to jerky halt on the fourth floor Sawan unwillingly parted ways and hesitantly voiced, “Well see ya, I’ll call you. Good luck with your homework.”

“Yah I’ll see you, let me know about this weekend… thanks, same to you,” she answered meaningfully, gazing into his eyes, a serious expression on her face as she stepped out and turned away. The shiny metallic doors slid towards each other, gently colliding and just like that she was gone.  

 

 

 

9/26: The Dam Explodes

Blue and white was decked everywhere. Today was the biggest game day of the season so far, Penn State vs. Iowa. Penn State was expected to beat the other Big Ten mid-west school since it was a home game and the festivities were in full swing in the morning. After more than half an hour of stretching his feet in lazy languor, eavesdropping on his companions while his desire to join them increased, and feeling the morning aches fade away from his body, Sawan bounced out of bed and quickly started getting dressed.

Looking out the window in the same regal manner a noble would look out over his estate he took note of the rather drab miserably gray skies and light sprinkles cascading from the heavens. Turning around, he walked over to Matt and his pretty girlfriend who was staying the weekend to be candidly given a shot of Captain. Having done that, he went over into the spare room to find Evan, Rachel, Chase and Matt drinking as well. “Nearly eleven,” he thought, thinking of Sumi. “Still too early to call her.” Everyone was pre-gaming before going to the game as was the customary thing to do so he decided to do the same even though he wasn’t going himself. He took another shot. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another, a total of seven. Now it was time for a smoke with the others before they went to the game.

Evan, Rachel and Sawan headed down the elevator and outside into the dampness. Everywhere people were milling about wearing blue and white scarves and shirts with PSU or the Nittany Lion emblazoned on the front, holding similarly colored pompoms. Standing under the now useful shelter offered by the crisscrossing metal roof structures over the paths they smoked near the green bench before walking towards Shunk. The cigarette was giving Sawan a very delicious buzzing sensation in his brain that felt very soothing and relaxing after becoming edgily hyper since he had taken seven shots. Now he felt just right, smooth and clutch, very suave, forced cheery from the alcohol, without any problems or dilemmas on his mind. He felt downright giddy actually, it was almost too good to be true and he knew this. “I think I’m bipolar,” he speculated openly to Rachel and Evan who stared at him in perturbed way. “Well it’s like this,” he quickly went on. “I don’t know sometimes I feel really good while other days I’m just totally down… like sometimes I’m jumping to get things done and I do it really quick, while other days I’m just sooo tired, and lazy, I don’t know why.”

“You drink caffeine right?” Evan interjected.

“Yea all the time, even at night,” Sawan replied.

“It’s probably just that that’s why I stopped, used to drink it all the time last year and I would crash hard,” Evan lazily explained.

“Yea,” Rachel agreed. They had been discussing their living arrangements next year and how Evan, Matt and Rachel would be rooming together downtown as juniors. Sawan wondered if he’d be welcome to visit them.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Tom had walked up to them, having just returned from ROTC Air Force training.

“Hey sup dude,” Sawan replied beaming at him. For the first time in awhile Sawan felt comradery with Tom, perhaps because he was drunk. “It’s always best to get along with people,” he thought cozily.

“Hey Savan,” Tom grinned, glancing down at him. Tom started discussing how practice went as Rachel walked over to him.

Seeing this Sawan firmly thought, “Today is definitely my turn to score!” Having finished their cigarettes, they all went inside at which point Evan, Rachel and Tom got ready to go to the game while Matt and his girlfriend would stay behind for some private time, presumably in the spare room later. Sawan had a few more shots and was wasted. Everything was starting to look shaky and his ability to interpret things started to become foggy. Walking outside into the hallway by the window he found Luke with his girlfriend perched on the radiator. He began a drunken conversation with Luke about his most favorite subject, getting laid.

“It sucks you know, almost everyone else I knows done it, why can’t I just go ahead and f**k like everyone else?” Sawan half shouted vulgarly, ignoring other people who might have been in the hallway. “I just wanna know what it’s like that’s all. Is that too much to ask? Pisses me off!”

“I haven’t had sex either,” Luke mumbled softly, though pointedly making a slight verbal jab at his girlfriend.

“It’s important to do it with someone special at the right time, otherwise you won’t enjoy it as much as you should,” Luke’s girlfriend shot back, smiling sweetly and understandingly at Sawan nonetheless. Sawan remembered Victoria for an instant, but she vanished from his mind as soon as she had come, along with the words he had just heard to be replaced with impatient anger and resentment at his situation.

“I can’t wait for her! That’s like forever! What am I going to be, the thirty year old virgin waiting until she’s twenty two?! F**k that! I need this, NOW!!!” he thought, torn between the unfairness, outrage and guilt at his dilemma. Everything would be fairytale perfect if he waited and after all he had somehow managed to stay this way for this long until nearly the age of twenty one, but the question was would Victoria wait?

Sure Sawan talked to Victoria nearly every day whether at night or even now during the day sometimes but he couldn’t predict the future and he knew he would die of jealousy if she knew more than he did. He hated this culture that pushed good girls to be seduced by clever idiots coming out of high school. Never mind that wasn’t supposed to be what mattered the most in a relationship, because it didn’t but it did still matter as something, purity, most selfishly to him, it was just the way he was brought up to think.

“I should be the one to teach YOU what sex is all about, not the other way around,” he thought drunkenly as he staggered into 720 which appeared to be empty, looking for his wallet. At least if he did things this way, have sex now with someone else, and Victoria did happen to not be a virgin, then he wouldn’t feel as horribly incompetent, and he would be able to remove his right to feeling as though he deserved better, because by not being a virgin himself, he felt that by karma he wasn’t supposed to deserve better anyways. Instead they would be on par, equals; and if one of them didn’t have sex Sawan would rather be the one who did so that he knew more than her, so that HE could show HER the ropes. He couldn’t risk waiting to find out later that she didn’t wait.

“I’ll fix this right quick!” he thought arrogantly, finally finding the flabby piece of brown reptile skin shaped leather on his messy desk. Sumi; that was it. He opened it and peeled back the leather pockets, looking for the card that Sumi had given him. He decided that he’d better call her now to figure out what her plans were so she could come over after the game. To his exponentially increasing annoyance however the card with her number on it was nowhere to be found. Not registering the fact that it was missing he looked through each little folder in his wallet meticulously again, also looking for Caitlinn’s number which was also supposed to be in there. Caitlinn, she would put out.

That number wasn’t there either. Now positively agitated he spilled all of his cards onto his desk, and flipped each one over one by one yet not finding either card much to his boiling frustration. “It has to be here, it just has to!” he muttered in irritation. “The hell! The f**k is that stupid piece of… goddamn it!! This can’t be happening right now, seriously!!! I need those numbers!!!!” his voice rising frantically as his eyes and hands started to dash all over his desk, flipping books over and knocking papers away to peer under them impatiently as rage started to take over. An air of desperation and despair washed over him, those were the only two numbers of prospective girls he had met this entire month here, and while he talked with other girls he had never bothered to get their numbers. Right now, those two pieces of rectangular thick paper were worth more than diamonds to Sawan and he had lost them. So he lost it, his mind snapping in two. Grinding his teeth in fury as tears of defeat started welling in his eyes the last thing he remembers for a few minutes is shoving most of his books off his desk.

What happened next can be categorized as a blackout. He knocked a picture of himself at the carefree age of three squinting in annoyance and wearing a cocky smirk at the camera next to his mother and father, and another photo of his beloved sister, along with his table lamp off the table as his search for the business cards ended in mayhem.

Roaring, “I MMUSST GET LAAIIIIIIDDDD!!!!!!!!!” he lashed out by grabbing his chair and hurling it several feet away so that it landed against the radiator, the back cracking. Stumbling over to his clothes rack he proceeded to yank the clothes out of their hangers, flinging them onto the floor and bed before knocking the rack over. “I MUST HAVE SSSEEEXXX!!! I MUST! I MUST HAVE IT!!!!! I MUST I MUST I MUSSST!!!!” He hissed as he paced wildly about the room screaming and shrieking in suffering, falling onto his face several times, grabbing the belongings of others and pitching them across the room. He was high on his own strength and power to wreck anything he touched. Sawan didn’t hear the door to the spare room open behind him. He doesn’t recall being tackled and wrestled to the ground by Matt so that his arms were pinned to the floor but he does remember looking up at the slowly moving image of Matt’s contorted angry face turned ruddy looming above him, shaking him.

“SAVAN YOU’VE GOT TO CHILL THE F**K OUT MAN, YOU’RE DESTROYING EVERYTHING!” Matt bellowed at Sawan, his mouth gaping open and close as he spoke.

“You don’t understand!!! I have to get laid! I just have to!” Sawan sobbed, convulsing beneath him.

“I understand but you have to STOP, this isn’t helping you at all-” Matt hollered slowly into his face. Sawan suddenly realized instinctively that he’d been in this position before, not drunk, about ten to twelve years ago. Humiliation built up in him at his weakness and if it was possible for him to become madder than before, he did.

“F**K YOU!! GET OFF, YOU PIECE OF S**T!!! F*****G PIECE OF-” Sawan snarled. He hated being in this position, and it showed, as he thrashed from side to side, his back bucking off the floor, his head rearing up to spit at Matt whose alcohol he had been drinking earlier, before banging it against the ground again, with a mask of pure venom on his face.

“Just don’t break anything, Jesus Christ!” Matt blasted as he lifted both arms up simultaneously as if he were being arrested and backing off hastily. Muttering obscenities loudly as he somehow scrambled to his feet, Sawan swayed himself erect for a moment so that his usually slightly hunched forward back was now tilted backwards with his chest sticking out, and he pointed a crooked finger at the other people in the room which now apparently included the quiet humble Luke.

“F**K YOU! F**K ALL OF YOU! I WILL KILL YOU, YOU HEAR ME!!! M***********S!! I WILL F*****G KILL ALL OF YOU, I WILL SLIT YOUR THROATS AND EAT YOU ALIVE, I WILL TEAR OUT YOUR HEARTS AND EAT THEM, YOU F*****G PIECES OF S**T, I HATE YOU ALL, YOU F*****G SCUMBAGS… F*****G… SNAKESSSS!!” he spat, his voice dripping with hatred, appearing even demonic as he tripped backwards and began crawling for the back door near his bed that led to the stairs. Mumbling, “Traitors!” he banged the door against the wall as he smashed through, and fell through the door leading to the stairwell.

“Savan come back!!!!” Matt hollered, but Sawan was gone, hot tears of shame at what he had done and said to his bros spattered on his cheeks, feeling an overwhelming sadness grip himself. It wasn’t the first time he had crossed a bro either, all for stupid drunken reasons. He didn’t think coherently about any of these things, only feeling them. What Sawan does recollect are shaky images of crawling down all seven floors, most of the time on all fours. He didn’t feel even human anymore, but instead felt the mental agony of an animal being slaughtered and sounded like one too. From the floor, it seemed as though the view he had, as well as his limbs, looked and moved like that of a spider, scuttling like an insect.

Spluttering incoherently as he once again managed to get to his feet, he slammed his way through the double doors into an empty lobby floor. How he managed to get away with what happened next remains a mystery as he looked around the small lounge with curtained windows, feeling his destructive side ascend once again. Planting his feet on the floor he groaned as he managed to turn a heavy wooden armchair over until it was upside down. He turned to the other armchair and did the same, kicking over the piano stool as well. Suddenly his eyes fixated on the soda machine. Audaciously stepping towards it he roared in blind thunder, closing his eyes and seeing red with yellow and purple stars as he tried to tip the heavy soda machine towards him. He could get it to lurch slightly but not enough to make it fall towards the ground. Giving up he stormed towards the door leading outside Heister just as people were entering the building. He turned around reactively when he heard the gasps of shock from the students upon seeing the trashed lounge, who did not know that the person who had just walked past them was the perpetrator. One of the guys snorted pointing to the living room and hooted, “This lounge deserves to look like this tonight.” Apparently Penn State wasn’t having a victorious night either; its fortunes had mysteriously turned and now it was trailing behind Iowa in the football game.

It was as dark as the dusk though Sawan had no idea what time of the day or night it was. The fact that the Nittany Lion was losing was something he took very personally for reasons due to intoxication. Reading the approval of others at his earlier work as motivation to continue his rampage, he bounded over to the heavy brown garbage can in front of the green bench and chucked it onto its side, spilling the revolting contents inside onto the wet green grass. Next he turned to the green bench and grunting with effort managed to turn that upside down too. Every time he flipped something over he felt some kind of ruthless vengeful pleasure the source of which he couldn’t quite pin down. “Everything upside down,” he thought maliciously feeling the exact opposite of good, compassionate and noble. The skies were purplish orange, a hellish color it seemed.

*          *          *

Now he found himself walking downtown in the light drizzle, feeling moodier than ever. The streets were crowded with blue and white people who had left the stadium, many from out of town as well as students. “They seemed to be pretty happy,” he thought in annoyance as he walked past a bar of similarly dressed people crowded onto a sheltered patio laughing and holding martinis and beers. “So even when they go through their biggest loss these people celebrate,” he thought in disbelief shaking his head. “They’re not true fans, they just come here to get drunk,” he thought, forgetting about his own behavior. Suddenly he felt unwell. It was happening. He stepped down grimy concrete steps leading to the basement entrance of a building and standing outside suddenly vomited red gook. Because he was below ground level no one really noticed. “This is some great day, just great,” Sawan thought glumly, thinking of all the high expectations he had initially had, all the great plans to get a girl drunk at 720 to have sex with gone to waste. “It always ends like this,” he thought miserably, thinking of other times in Altoona he had tried to make things happen but had always ended up too drunk to carry out any respectable social interaction. By the time he got back to 720 everyone was asleep and falling onto his bed in the dark, he became unconscious in a heartbeat having already forgotten about the mess next to him in the dark he would have to clean up tomorrow.

 

09/28: Hello CAPS

After being ushered into the room the questioning began. “So what happened?” Travis asked frankly.

“Well... um… I got drunk…,” he explained uneasily. Sawan felt tired and worn down just thinking about it, it was just too embarrassing to discuss but he knew he was going to be pried open since Travis probably already knew everything.

“Yea we know, that much is obvious, I don’t want to know how you got drunk, though I’m assuming that you were drinking with your roommates. I don’t care about the drinking because I could be standing here writing people up left and right for that all day and that’s all my job would be. No what I care about is what happened next.” Travis interjected curtly. His voice sounded very feminine to Sawan. It came as a bit of a surprise to Sawan that this Travis guy wasn’t upset that they had been drinking.

“Well… at least the police weren’t involved, no one complained, so I don’t really see how there’s a problem.” Sawan politely but cautiously defended.

“Actually the police were involved… but we told them that we would handle the matter ourselves, which is why we’re sitting here talking today,” Travis revealed, causing anxiety to froth inside Sawan. “So why did you try to destroy your room, any problems with your roommates, any issues from home? Any stress, financial reasons maybe?” Sawan couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He had wrecked Heister’s lobby and trashed it outside and Travis was talking about 720? They probably didn’t find out about that part.

“Ugh… no. How do you say um…,” Sawan blundered, eyes looking down and his brown face reddening slightly. “I was trying to get a girl to come over. And I couldn’t find her number. So I got upset.” Pictures of Sumi and Caitlinn flashed briefly in his mind before subsiding. He was conscious of how ridiculous his voice sounded right now, but the words spilling from his mouth made him acutely aware of how babyish he was. Travis stared at him.

“Ya,” Travis sounded quizzically. He paused very deliberately. “I heard. So what’s the big deal about this girl? Why did you get so upset that she couldn’t come over?”

“Ugh…  I wanted to hook up with her. Lose my virginity,” Sawan answered, knowing he sounded freakishly selfish.

“So you were going to get this girl drunk to try to have sex with her? Is that right?” Travis pressed, his gray eyes penetrating into Sawan’s dark brown ones still looking sterner than ever. Sawan felt sick. The way Travis put it, it was almost as if Sawan was going to sexually assault Sumi or Caitlinn, even rape one of them. Still, that was the way people hooked up; that’s all he had ever seen in most single people at parties since he came to Altoona two years ago. And he still hadn’t struck gold.

“Yea, that’s right,” sounding a little stronger now, remembering he was a virgin anyways.

“Ok I just wanted to make sure I understood that. You tried to destroy your own property as well as the property of other people just because you couldn’t have sex.” Travis parried, attempting to sink some guilt into his suspect.

“I was drunk-” Sawan protested.

“Ya. You were drunk. Not just drunk but blackout drunk. Do you know how dangerous that is?” Travis lectured. “Blackout drunk is when you lose consciousness. You could have been taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. When you blackout you may not remember what you do or say. A person can become extremely unpredictable in that state. You were by all means dangerous. Apparently you even made threats.”

“Threats?! Against who?” Sawan thundered in surprise but sensing more remorse automatically flood in.

“Oh not against anyone specifically it seemed, you just kept saying ‘I will kill you, I will kill you’ or something along those lines,” Travis reviewed in a hurried fashion yet nonetheless trying to give Sawan the impression that he had behaved like a maniac.

“Aw… I don’t even remember that… guess I must’ve scared them,” Sawan mumbled bashfully.

“Ya in fact everyone was worried about your behavior Sawan, and that’s why they came to us, because they didn’t know if you had any issues with them or what was going on, they were kinda also wondering if you were ok, if you had anything going on that they didn’t know about, or if you even wanted to live with them anymore,” Travis disparagingly told him.

“Live with them?! Of course I do, they’re like bros! All of them!” Sawan blustered desperately.

“Well right now they’re wondering if you really want to, or if they really want to put up with you, after what happened on Saturday, because if something as irrational, as little as that could trigger you then what if something more serious happened to you, then what?” Travis impounded. The words “put up with you” hurt Sawan but what annoyed him the most was that none of his roommates had confronted him directly after Saturday night to tell him what they were thinking. Instead they had to resort to this, tattle tailing. Then again what he had done and said was pretty serious given that they hardly knew each other for more than a month. “What I suggest you do is go back as soon as possible and apologize to all of them for what happened. Let me know how it goes. Consider this a first time last time warning next time this won’t be tolerated, we’ll move you out of student housing, and there could be charges. As for the losing virginity thing-” Travis launched into a detailed lecture of how hooking up at parties wasn’t the smartest thing to do, what with STDs, and the unimportance of the actual act when doing it with a stranger. Sawan was half listening until he heard Travis say, “For example I’m doing a masters degree in the changes that happens to adolescents during puberty, the things that boys go through…”

Sawan thought, “Wow this guy really is creepy!”

Travis went on saying, “So I know you’re hormones are raging and I know this is quite silly to say, but you know there are other ways to relieve yourself other than sex, like I mean really.” This was starting to sound stupid. Sawan was still amazed that he wasn’t in trouble for everything else he had done. He felt grateful and it showed.

“Yea I know I definitely acted like an idiot that day, and I’m actually taking a break from drinking because of it because I definitely caused a lot of harm and damage,” Sawan said, looking into Travis’s face to see if there was any recognition of what Sawan was actually implicitly admitting to. There wasn’t. “So I will definitely apologize, and make it up to my roommates, and regain their trust.”

“Sawan, do you go to CAPS (Counseling and Psychiatric Services)?” Travis grilled.

“Um, yea,” Sawan monotonously admitted. “I have an appointment today actually. I don’t really talk about much with them.”

“Well when you go today, I would like you to discuss this incident with your counselor ok?” Travis directed.

“Sure,” Sawan consented wearily.

*          *          *

Sawan had originally signed up for CAPS in late August or early September because he thought that he could use someone to talk to about stress, a face to face replacement of the role Swaminwahanse had served at home. It had taken about two weeks for them to process him into getting his own therapist, so this was only his third or so session. He never discussed Victoria, or telepathically communicating with her or anyone. Again, Sawan believed that was something that he was supposed to keep a secret. Instead he did discuss how school work affected him, his sleeping habits, drug use, and philosophical subjects, like religion. Today he found himself sitting in front of the cropped haired brunette with piercing gray eyes, Lisa, ready to discuss how he had gone into a drunken rage because he couldn’t lose his virginity. She chided him for becoming that intoxicated, and suggested that he not drink as well, but he told her he had already decided to stop. “You should find other replacement activities,” she suggested.

Sawan became conscious of the fact that he hadn’t worked out in several weeks, and had only been doing homework and partying sporadically. He felt progressively tenser as the days past, increasingly frustrated. He had shunned going to the gym and immersed himself in nothing but work, and it took its mental toll on him as his pent up energy remained inside. He understood then that no matter how much work at school he had, he had to go to the gym, which was the only way he could feel happy and relaxed afterwards. Even talking to Victoria wasn’t enough to keep him happy because unless he felt himself becoming physically stronger, he would feel himself declining, aging, becoming gradually weaker with less strength and that was depressing no matter how good things were. “Well I guess this is a wake up for you,” Lisa finished sagely.

“Yea it is,” Sawan said dispassionately. Later that night, after spending most of the day at the library so he could try to catch everyone in 720 at once, Sawan apologized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10/2: Ian and Drew

It was about ten minutes since he had went outside that he looked around to see a maroon Chevy Impala stopped in front the Computer Lab in its parking lot. There was a Caucasian auburn bearded man with a short hair sitting in the driver’s seat. Comradery and some excitement shot through him at the sight of seeing his best friend at Penn State.

 Stepping purposefully towards the car, he walked around the car to inspect once, before getting inside. “Nice car dude!” Sawan greeted enthusiastically. “How’d you get it?”

“I took out a loan,” Ian described tiredly. Ian always seemed worn out, but then again he worked fulltime. “I figured I needed a car since I now live about five miles away. So what do yeh wanna do? We could go to my place if you’d like.”

“Yea that sound like a plan,” Sawan answered idly. “Haven’t been there before. What’s it like?”

“Oh it’s not bad. I guess it’s good enough for now. I’m happy,” Ian drawled as they reached the outskirts of State College, heading west into the winding countryside. “Guess you’ll have to see it for yourself, you know?”

“Word,” Sawan replied. He studied the twisting road. “You had to bike all this to and from work before you got this ride?”

“Yea it was a real pain in the a*s, but it’s good exercise, keeps me in shape, so I can’t complain, is just when it starts to get cold I can’t do that anymore so that’s why I got the car,” Ian elucidated.

“Yea that would be impossible… So what’s goin’ on with you? What are your plans?” Sawan asked.

“Eh, I’m studying for the LSAT when I have time, see I have the book in the back… I’m still selling too, think I told you that a few weeks ago,” Ian answered, keeping his eyes on the road. Sawan turned around in his seat to see the heavy thick paper cover book in the back.

“Yea, how’s that goin’ for you? The selling?” Sawan questioned.

Ian slowly replied, “Well it’s not bad, but I could use more people, I need money pretty bad now, especially now that I’ve bought this car, between my job and this, I’m still barely making ends meet, so I need more people… maybe we can cut a deal like you find me people, and I give you some so you don’t have to buy anymore does that sound good?”

“Yea I can find people on campus,” Sawan quickly agreed. The notion of not wasting any more money by just finding people for Ian sounded very agreeably to Sawan. By this time, Sawan had gotten the idea that it was best to resort to smoking more heavily now that he had stopped drinking. He had done this before, switching back and forth between the two vices and now he was firmly back in the green leaf court. It was quite clear that this was the reason they were arriving at Ian’s house. They were entering a small hamlet with shabby houses lining the road. Eventually they turned into a bumpy side alley, the kind common in Pennsylvania where people parked their cars in their backyards. Parking behind a small dingy house, they stepped out.

“This is it,” Ian droned. “It’s not much, I live in the back; let me go out front to let you in this way, just wait here.” Ian disappeared around a corner while Sawan waited on the small open porch in the back of the house. He didn’t feel well at the moment, instead he felt antsy and nervous, fearful almost. He couldn’t pinpoint the source of his edginess; even when he exercised the relaxation that followed only lasted a few hours. “It’s just the stress from school, my consciousness biting me because I still have so much work and I’m standing here, wasting time,” he thought. “Stress that’s it… and this is the best cure I know,” he continued foolishly. The door suddenly squeaked open. “Come in,” Ian welcomed. Sawan stepped into the room. It was messy. On the floor upside down, lay Ian’s bike, and a mattress, as well as a boom box, CDs and a pile of clothes.

“Do you still have my jacket?” Sawan asked  awkwardly.

“Oh yea, it’s… it’s right here,” Ian muttered, pulling the black zip up hoodie out of a pile of clothes. “Thanks for that, it’s a little too small on me though… I’m going to take a wash, get ready to go out alright? Don’t mind my roommate’s dog, its harmless,” Ian bumbled as he grabbed a towel and headed up into the kitchen. Sawan drifted around the room for a few minutes, until he found some CDs and decided to begin playing them. As he flipped open the CD panel on the boom box and placed a Lil Wayne CD inside he heard a soft growl behind him. Turning around in surprise, he saw a small fluffy white dog baring its teeth at him from the kitchen. Whistling, he walked closer to it, but it snapped loudly at him and turned away. “Stupid animal,” Sawan thought in annoyance at being startled into stretching his eyes open and flinching when the dog had barked. Turning up the volume he sat on the mattress for a few minutes until Ian returned. “Do you mind stepping outside for a second while I get dressed?” Ian requested plainly.

“Yea of course…” Sawan stuttered backing away towards the porch, turning away from the half dressed twenty five year old.

“Here take this, I’ll meet you out there,” Ian murmured as he handed Sawan a small packed chillum. Going outside Sawan began taking tokes as he looked out at the point where white stars began to appear in the deepening blue sky. They started to look more and more fantastical as giddiness began to arise in him, an excitement that he could barely contain.

“Here we go again,” he thought agitatedly.

Ian appeared next to him. “How do I look? Do you think I look good? Is this good bar attire? Too much? Too little?” Sawan turned to gaze at him uncertainly not really being much of a connoisseur of fashion himself. The former boxer for Penn State was wearing baggy jeans and a white button up long-sleeved shirt. He shuffled to and fro modeling himself in front of Sawan. The shirt didn’t fit tightly over his stocky upper body but it wasn’t loose enough to make him look flabby either.

“I don’t know, I don’t think it looks bad,” Sawan answered hesitantly. “You don’t have any better pants? They look kinda… ghetto,”

“Nah, this is all I got. Sorry,” he sarcastically apologized. “I don’t make enough money to buy lotsa clothes.” Sawan chuckled uneasily as he handed Ian the chillum so that he could take a toke.

“Hey do you think I could have a valium?” Sawan pleaded suddenly. “I just feel really shaky, tense, I don’t know why,” as he shivered. Ian looked at him.

“It’ll cost ya five bucks,” his host bargained. Ian took an assortment of prescription drugs to help him alleviate pains associated with the third concussion he had suffered that had forced him to leave boxing.

“Screw that,” Sawan rebuffed. “Five bucks for one pill? I waste enough money thanks,” he thought angrily.

“Here take a seat,” Ian offered pulling a chair up so that it faced another chair. They both sat facing each other. Sawan typically felt on par with Ian to some extent, level headed, but today he felt definitely weaker. Ian on the other hand looked more relaxed and lethargic than ever, seeming like the manly man with his hands on his knees with his legs thrust apart. Sawan was huddled in his seat, hunched over, as he squinted at his friend. Ian had gone through a far more troublesome life than Sawan had but he had made it out of college somehow, alive, and apparently on his way into either the Navy SEALS or law school.

Sawan often thought, “If someone like Ian could get through college, I most definitely can.” Ian studied Sawan’s pathetic appearance.

“Yea there’s definitely something wrong with you, you’re shivering like crazy… put on your hoodie!” Ian scolded. Sawan did, but he was still shivering, feeling paranoid too by now.

“I don’t know, perhaps it’s just a bad day,” Sawan stammered.

“ Maybe you should go to the doctor, they could probably give you something to calm you down, have you seen a psychiatrist?” Ian pressured.

“Well I’ve been to CAPS but no I haven’t gotten meds from anyone,” our protagonist responded.

“You look like you could use ‘em.” Ian simply stated.

“Yea I don’t know school is so stressful these days-” Sawan said as he raised the chillum to his mouth.

“Put that down for a sec, my roommate just came home,” Ian nodded behind Sawan. Another car was parking behind them. Slightly surprised and spooked out, Sawan quickly dropped his hands. A young woman stepped out and started walking into the alley way of the house to go through the front. Sawan nodded his head at her, as she walked past. “Let’s get going, we have to get Drew.”

“Have you seen Drew?” Sawan asked warily yet enthusiastically.

“Yea we hung out last night. We went around everywhere looking for this girl of his and then after all that he ended up going back to his place to have sex with her,” Ian exasperatingly told him. “I mean it’s great he gets so much a*s and all but I told him to go look for it on his own time. Oh here you go,” Ian handed him a bag after they stepped into the car. Sawan handed him five dollars. He was going to stuff it into his pocket when Ian cajoled, “Do you mind sharing a little since I shared some of mine?” So Sawan pulled out a few crumbles and stuffed them into the chillum and lit it as Ian drove back to State College while they listened to Kanye West. Sawan enthusiastically stared at the rough gray pavement with double yellow lines whizzing before them while electrically tampered voices and sounds blasted into his eardrums.

“Burn runs are fun,” Sawan thought. They arrived outside East Halls after about ten minutes, and waited about thirty seconds before they spotted Drew.

Tall and leanly built, the legally blind black freshman on the Penn State Track Team walked up to the Impala and got in the back seat. Drew was one of those miraculous people who seemed to get away with anything. Despite having done and sold lethal substances in the past, here Drew was getting As easily and on the school track team, while hooking up with chick after chick as easy as shuffling cards.  All while getting high periodically and being legally blind enough to not get a driver’s license. It seemed astounding to Sawan. Ian and Sawan had met Drew one night after being stranded at the HUB while it was raining during the summer session sometime in July. They had formed a strong clique at the time, bike riding around State College exploring its different parts at night, smoking downtown at one Ian’s friend’s places, learning basic boxing from Ian and sparring.

Sawan enjoyed the company of these two hardheads dripping of machismo, all three of whom carried a chip on their shoulder. Drew being legally blind and the first close black friend Sawan had ever had; Ian the brain injured boxer depressed on being forced to drop his favorite sport, with a terrible past; and of course our hero Sawan. Ian described Sawan as being a very tough and angry looking guy when he first met him in their Sociology class. “We’re both loners, outcasts so that’s why I figured I’d talk to you,” Ian had said of the first time he had approached Sawan one day outside Pollack over the summer.

Neither Drew or Ian knew exactly what it was that Sawan was in love with, but the little information Sawan had revealed about not being able to “be with this girl right now because it’s not the right time,” probably had left it open for them to figure out, which they probably had much to their amusement. If they had figured out they hadn’t let Sawan know.

“You just have girl problems,” Ian had teased when finding out what it was that bothered Sawan so much over the summer. “Girls aren’t important, there are so many of em out there, one is nothing.”

 “So what do you guys wanna do?” Drew asked. Clearly tonight being a Friday night they were supposed to go out on the town, and smoke more. But tonight Sawan felt overall under pressure, anxious and tense. He had already smoked and he didn’t want to overdo it, even though this meant he wouldn’t be able to chill with Drew. He could only think of his studies, and the classes he was still struggling in. Some exams he had done well in, others not so much and he was obsessed with learning all of this obscure economic material. He was starting to feel isolated, as if he didn’t enjoy the company of people much anymore after what had happened on the 26^th. He was beginning to turn inwards.

Thinking of Victoria, and how important it was for him to succeed in order to get to her, he hesitantly muttered, “Well I have alotta homework to do, so I guess I should be getting back.”

With that he parted ways with Drew and Ian after shaking their hands, not knowing that it was the last time that he would ever see them.  

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10/06: Hatred and Hunger

            The month of October felt fresh and crisp in Happy Valley but someone in Happy Valley was not as cheery as he should be. Beyond the laid back students tossing footballs and Frisbees on the open lawns a lean thinly cropped black haired brown kid marched heavily down the pavement. His eyes darted to and fro alertly taking in every movement, classifying every person into a category. White. Black. Asian. Brown. Mexican. Tall. Short. Fat. Skinny. Hot. Ugly. Jock. Dork. Pothead. Old. Poor. Rich. This young man who grew up in the age that was supposed to be all about transcending these external differences involuntarily labeled people. Resenting some groups he deemed above him, looking down and scoffing at those he deemed below him, while fearing other groups he had been taught to think were dangerous. This animalistic primitive casting wasn’t something that he was born with; it was instead something he had developed in high school and college. There was once a time he wasn’t really aware that he was brown, and sometimes when he interacted with the right people he could still forget too. But most of the time now he was all too aware of his place in society and the expectations and stereotypes that went with it. He was unable to stop himself from reflexively reading every letter on a sign, or bus, or flier he passed.

            As Sawan walked past Heister under the steel awning near the green bench a thin brunette walked past him going the opposite direction. Turning his head automatically to glance at her shapely buttocks contained in black tights, Sawan saw that the thin fabric clung to every curve and bend in her slim fit legs, leaving little to the imagination. Her lean leg muscles shifted powerfully with her hips quivering sassily as she strutted away. Sawan was suddenly struck for an instant with the wild desire of running up to the girl and jumping her from behind, wrapping himself around her like an anaconda using his arms and legs. The illustration in his head went to the point where as she was falling forward from his assault, he began jerking his hips obscenely back and forth on top of her from behind. Shaking his head violently and convulsing as he pulled his head out of the gutter he wondered where on earth that violently predatory urge had come from. He was shaken by how much he had actually wanted to assault the girl.

            Looking ahead and feeling jitterier than ever, Sawan neared Pollock Commons. Whenever a thought of insecurity for whatever reason came across his mind it was immediately replaced by one of anger and hatred. It turned off the human inside him so that there was nothing left but a very miserable ugly crippled creature inside that felt like lashing out at the entire world. It was one of those days where it seemed as though the whole world was out to grab him so he felt as though he was constantly on the defensive, a soldier walking naked in enemy territory. Sawan had by this time come to accept that pretty much everyone on campus probably knew who he was, and what he was. Furthermore while people did seem to make fun of him, they appeared to tolerate what he was. Still the jokes wore on him and perhaps that was what was pissing him off and making him feel unsound at times. Every time Sawan passed a guy he had to make sure that he glared into the other man’s face, to acknowledge him, so that he wouldn’t be seen as a coward. He wasn’t ashamed anymore of what he was, whenever he thought about it he felt full of pride about his love.  Still, there was something wrong. Something just wasn’t right. There was something that he didn’t know, something that he hadn’t been told yet. Why did all these people know him? Why did they know what he was thinking?

As a second of anxiety entered him, it was just as rapidly placed by one of anger as red and strong as molten steel. He mechanically clenched his teeth, feeling his molars grind heavily against one another, hearing the faint gritting sound of friction while his jaw muscles twitched and tightened. “Yea that’s right keep on grinding those teeth!” a guy joked from a small group of walking boys and girls giggling as they shook their heads in resignation at Sawan’s anger. They were about fifteen feet away from him at this moment and Sawan was once more totally disarmed in shock. But this was starting to become a more common occurrence, so after pausing to think about it for no more than five seconds, Sawan continued walking towards Pollack Commons and stepped inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10/7: A Monkey in the Tree and the Meaning of Effort

            There is a subject that has to be discussed in this little fairy tale. Our main character is a drug user. Some would argue that for this reason enough this fairy tale should not be heard by adolescents. The advocates of that view speak from an overly protective perspective, to the extreme where they would rather conceal the facts from youth so that they are left as ignorant as possible about the reality of what drug use actually does to a person psychologically. Unfortunately this perspective is the one that has been adopted for generations and sponsored by the government. Remember that DARE education begins in fifth grade around the age that children turn eleven, so this official viewpoint is already being taught at that early age anyways. In these classes the curriculum uses obscure biological physical terms to describe the effects of a high, so that children don’t really know what is happening to the person inside that person’s mind, only what is happening chemically to his or her  brain.

            For many years now in America children, including Sawan, have gone through this education yet it is a known fact that the vast majority of children who go through this education still end up at least experimenting with illegal drugs at least once and drinking under the age of twenty one. Something is wrong here. If the whole purpose of drug education is to convince children not to bother trying drugs, then why is this method ineffective in preventing the majority of Americans from experimenting with illegal substances and drinking? Children are told that drugs chemically alter their brains. They may even be told what emotions these chemicals in the brain are responsible for influencing and the various moods a person might experience when the amount of natural chemicals in the brain are changed. But they are still not told what actually happens to person.

Once a person’s senses are distorted, their reality changes. These classes don’t bother describing what happens to the conscious either. The influence of peer pressure is an important factor, definitely, but what is stronger is the curiosity of discovering what lies behind these untold mysteries that DARE leaves out. This is the real reason why children may eventually at least try drugs. It is inevitable that in this culture those teenagers who lead what is the modern definition of social lives will at least meet people who have done drugs and these people who have done substances will describe to people who haven’t effects and feelings from substance use that no one is told is class.

            So what is the point of skimming over the facts, the truth, if cloaking the actual psychological effects of substances has not really worked in convincing people who are exposed to users from not trying substances? On this issue this story takes a different approach. It seeks to give the correct factual view of what actually happens to our hero by describing exactly what his perceptions of these experiences are. There is no attempt to omit what he is thinking and feeling. The reason behind this is to truthfully tell what is happening to Sawan and what he feels about it. This way by telling things as they really are, maybe children won’t think there is some kind of indescribable intellectual discovery about reality and life awaiting them when they consume a substance because they will already know what actually happens and won’t be interested.

There is no use in concealing Sawan’s views on this subject, something that should be revealed now. Let there be no doubt. The boy enjoys doing drugs. It is obvious that every time he does use a substance that the flow of events don’t always go smoothly though and that unpredictable bad things may occur. But if bad things happen, why does he still use them? After all of these substances take a much longer period of time to become physically addicted to, unlike cigarettes. The reason is because he is emotionally attached to the alteration that occurs in his state of mind whether it brings him some temporary semblance of happiness or not. Clearly during the past month or so at school in the fall of 2009 he increasingly uses substances the way a cripple uses a crutch to get from point A to point B. These days he finds the stress, insecurities and the unhealthy anger that arises as a result from the everyday process of his life to be too aggravating and so he tries to use substances to change the way he views his situation temporarily. Besides he can hear and talk to Victoria, his little girlfriend from New Jersey much louder and clearer too.

Sawan would say that in this country as well as most western countries kids are taught vaguely on the actual psychological effects on drugs intentionally. He would then say that at a later age because of this ambiguity a majority of kids will rebel and break the law by high school or college because this country was founded on the principles of rebelling against authority and that defying the law is inherently an American ritual that is a part of growing up. He says that authority here even goes as far as to lead and guide precocious curious children into logically reasoning as they age and become more independent that drugs are the right thing to do, whether they actually are or not. When confronted with the notion of DARE he would laugh and say that he interprets the concept of DARE not to mean Drug Abuse Resistance Education , to dare to resist the influence but to actually mean dare as in telling students to hear about what is being taught and then to dare to go against authority and do drugs.

Sawan says, “Look at the big picture.” It is a known fact that many illegal drugs have been invented and manufactured pharmaceutically by western chemists originally for medical purposes either for physical or psychological reasons. LSD and Ecstasy were originally prescribed by psychiatrists. It is also known that there are plenty of musicians who thought they could use drugs as means of enhancing their creativity and that if musicians were doing that other artists and inventors were too. Sawan says that he theorizes that the overall exponential expansion in innovation in West for the past seventy years has been due to drug use.

When scoffed at and asked why then are drugs illegal if people think they are so useful, Sawan says he speculates that the reason drugs are illegal in America and Europe is to set a standard, a precedent, so that these countries can righteously insist that the rest of the world illegalizes drugs strictly as well. This way they can prevent the majority of people in the world from doing drugs to ensure that the masses in other countries do not ever end up having that unpredictable experience that can provoke people to start revolutions or come up with innovative ideas that can make them compete technologically with the West. Sawan would then go on to say that this is an old outdated policy though because a significant number of people anywhere in the world are very well aware by now of what drugs do to the mind anyways so western countries are changing their policies gradually to sound less hypocritical by legalizing substances such as marijuana.

On the other hand Sawan lectures, that does not stop countries like those in Asia and the Middle East who sincerely actually want to prevent drug use, from continuing their extremely strict laws against drug users, places where not just selling but drug use is given long prison terms, beatings and even death. These Asian and Middle Eastern countries, including Sri Lanka actually honestly believe that drug use is bad, for several reasons on both a political and religious level. These governments believe that the thought process obtained from drug use is potentially politically dangerous because it has proven to make people more liberalized and disobedient as in the West during 1960s and 1970s when drug use was most widespread and prominent.

The rigid moral, religious and cultural values of the West deteriorated and changed rapidly during the sixties and seventies and in a large segment of the population who used drugs, college students and hippies, patriotism waned to the extreme where it influenced a majority of the public to turn against the Vietnam War. For the first time ever the mighty American superpower definitely lost a war, as a result of its own citizens protesting from within! In the past most Americans had always stood behind a war no matter what the circumstances were, until Vietnam.

The result of mass drug use in this scenario Sawan argues led to faltering morale and loyalty among citizens towards their own government and mass dissatisfaction with everything traditional. Now people were marching in the street with signs fighting for or against this issue and that issue while wrestling with the police, establishing cults, engaging in more violence in some cases and doing all sorts of strange things that went against the norm. In other words plain and simple, a lot of people were going crazy, which by the way, is what drugs simulate, insanity, another little tidbit of fine print DARE most definitely neglected to tell Sawan back in fifth grade, which Sawan happens to think is a bit strange to forget to mention, that small detail, to children, the fact that drugs simulate mental illness, if the whole purpose of education is stop people from doing drugs. Needless to say, people who like to go temporarily mad from time to time probably tend to think and behave more unpredictably don’t they?

*          *          *

 “I don’t care, I’ll walk in the middle of the street if I waount!” Sawan grunted rashly in aggravation. Everything appeared off balance, intolerable. “What is wrong with tonight?!” He then remembered how odd it would look if someone caught him talking aloud by himself. Rules, rules everywhere, on where to walk, how to walk, where to be, what to do, what to say, how to say it; and if authority and society in general caught you doing otherwise you were bust. Grunting and shivering in the slight cool October breeze, he hurried onwards until he gratefully reached his dark sanctuary in the center of the neighborhood, at its northern edge. The dark forest, the gentle unknown was always more soothing and relaxing to Sawan than the bustle of humans and their habitats.

Placing his senses on alert now, particularly his vision, hearing and feet, he proceeded to thread slowly yet resolutely into the pitch blackness where the lights of the street lamps faded and purple sky (more clouds had arrived) was concealed by trees. He had to make sure that he didn’t stumble off the concrete path that was impossible to see visibly. He walked carefully past the parking lot and a small playground, and at the fork in the path took the one that headed to a roofed picnic table patio, not the one that led to the nearby open baseball field. As he walked uncertainly yet with deliberate calm in the dark unable to even see the front of his hand he briefly wondered about his current actions and wondered what sort of people would walk alone at this time of night in a park and what was said about such people. “Most people would not be out, walking alone in a park in the middle of the night. I on the other hand, I enjoy doing this for some strange reason. I wonder,” he boasted softly with a sinister chuckle. “… I wonder what that means!” Sawan knew the secret to being out alone at night in a place like Sunset Park beyond the parking lot was that just about everyone else was too afraid to go out at night into a park anyways, hence no one to fear of running into. Because that was the only thing to be scared of at night. Another human being. 

He arrived at the roofed patio much to his satisfaction and eased himself onto a rectangular wooden picnic table seat facing the direction of the open field as always. Convulsing slightly as he shakily pulled out everything and placed them in front of him on the table, he flicked his lighter on for a few seconds to find everything in the before getting down to business.

The sky became more and more purplish tinged with orange. There were voices too it seemed, strange man-made sounds of laughter and shouting off in the distance. He tried to pinpoint exactly in what direction they came from and it seemed to be from the edge of the field to his left where there were some visible houses and beyond the trees directly in front of him. A car could be heard driving in one of the back roads near one of the houses nearby and parking. He could hear the sound of a car door slam and voices murmuring from across the field. A dog was barking, perhaps at its owner’s arrival. Sawan was watchful, listening hard to see if the sound of anyone perhaps approaching with the dog could be detected. He did not want to put up with any stupid canines, possibly police canines, at night. The quiet whimpering and mewling of the dog seemed to stay at the far distance that he could hear it from. This park that usually seemed so empty was suddenly filled with people in its relative vicinity, doing who knows what in the middle of the night.

The trees rustled, every leaf brushing against its neighbor leaf creating a crispy crackling noise around Sawan. Everything looked thicker, deeper, with every noise louder and more amplified until Sawan could feel everything moving around him as though it were inside him causing him to twitch and look this way and that if there was anything that sounded unusual. The park wasn’t empty tonight at all. “What the freak is going on, why is everything so weird tonight?” he complained aloud in discomfort. There was a sound frequency to everything around him, pitching like an extremely faint moaning that whined weirdly up and down everywhere, so that it seemed part of the environment, fluctuating with every natural movement and sound. Out of this soft quiet wailing noise that pitched high and low which seemed to emanate from both inside and outside his mind, there arose a voice whose texture was fuzzy as if the person speaking had a nasal congestion problem arising from a cold. It sounded a little the same way Roshane sounded in his mind but it definitely wasn’t Roshane. The voice blended in with the eerie disturbing whining noise so that it rose and fell with it and had a menacing tone.

“The government… is… keeping track of you!” it warned, whispering dramatically. Sawan looked about himself in a hostile on guard fashion. The nasty nasally congested voice impetuously sneered, “We are… watching you… keeping track of your every movement! This park… is under our surveillance… you are breaking the law… on public property…. We don’t like it when… criminals… come to our parks to do drugs… or… pedophiles! You are… trespassing…. What you doing… is illegal!” The voice was so quietly devious and ominous as it emphasized every word slowly. “The government… is here… monitoring you…. The State College police are arriving…. They will find you… and hurt you!” the voice evilly bullied.

“Oh f**k off,” Sawan shuddered grouchily, feeling more and more out of place and unwelcome by the second. “A******s… I’m just doing my thing in peace… stupid government… where are they anyways?” He peered ahead looking through his now hazy vision at the trees around him, the field and forest beyond. There didn’t appear to be anything or anyone he could see yet there always seemed to be people or creatures just beyond his range of sight, lurking in the shadows. “I’m just here to talk to my girlfriend, this is the only place I know to come to I’ll be gone soon sheesh… Victoria?” Sawan bleated like a baby goat calling for its mother, remembering the reason he was here in the first place. As if right on cue to his summons her voice quickly ascended out of the cacophony sounds that included rustling leaves, cackling, hoots, shouts, yells and the soft whining noise that was inside everything.

“-And that’s why you shouldn’t do drugs, and that’s why you shouldn’t be out alone at night, you could get into big trouble-” she pompously scolded, ticking off the reasons he shouldn’t be here.

“Oh will you quit it! I didn’t come here to get lectured by you, god! You’re always bitching about every little wrong thing I do, I have enough trouble as it is… I just wanted to hear you more clearly!” Sawan snapped initially, before pleading his case for being out.

“Well… now you can hear me… so what is it?” Victoria sulkily replied, slightly peeved he had told her off.

“I don’t know dear… it’s just so… weird out tonight! Everyone seems really mean… it’s never been this bad before!” Sawan muttered very quietly looking about in wonder.

“You shouldn’t have come here… tonight’s a bad night, I guess I don’t know why… but people obviously know that you’re talking to me so they probably aren’t happy,” she sadly grieved. “I want you to be safe… there are people who could hurt you, who don’t like it that you talk to someone my age like this at night.”

“Screw them, I’ll talk to whoever and whatever I want!” Sawan snarled at the thought that anyone could stop him from talking to his beloved, even like this. “You hear that!” he challenged, raising his voice a little, yet not fully because he didn’t really want to draw any physical attention, “I’ll talk to my twelve year old girlfriend for as long as I want and there’s nothing you dick-mouths can do about it! If you guys want to stop me you’ll have to come and get me!” He exaggerated the pronunciation of every word so that they all dripped of swagger and pride. He nursed the words “twelve year old girlfriend” as if it were a pearl necklace he wore.

Immediately the fuzzy nasally spokesman of the government responded, “The government is listening to this conversation between you and the minor in question… and is recording every word!”

“Doochbags! They won’t leave us alone, Christ what did I do to deserve this all of a sudden!” Sawan blasted.

“They don’t want us talking anymore, they’re probably going to try to hurt our connection,” Victoria morosely mourned.

“This is absolutely ridiculous… We’re not doing anything wrong, we’re just talking that is totally not against the law… I’m going to ignore them and see what happens. So what are you doing right now?” Sawan asked changing the subject and deliberately ignoring the soft fuzzy noises in the background. He flicked his lighter on again to locate his can and bag again for some dubious reason before letting it go out quickly, not wanting anyone to see the faint light. “I’m not afraid, I can handle the pressure,” he blustered dishonestly to himself.

“Oh nothing… I’m just lying in bed… talking to you,” Victoria sounded, for some reason sounding slightly evasive, or at least Sawan so perceived.

“Really? Well I guess that must be true, seeing as it’s so late by now… must be around one or so… definitely past your bedtime!” Sawan snickered and scoffed before realizing he was being rude. “Sorry I’m being a jerk again... you know I don’t mean it… it’s a weeknight so it’s a good thing to be asleep by now, you do have school early tomorrow I guess,” Sawan cajoled. “Suppose I’m keeping you up aren’t?” he added ruefully, whispering in the dark.

“Nah… I probably wouldn’t be sleeping anyways,” she bumbled.

“Oh yea? Then what would you be doing?” Sawan questioned.

“Probably, just thinking of you,” she replied sleepily, but the way she paused made her sound hesitant to Sawan. He began to notice it was weird that he only heard Victoria aloud at certain times, usually at night, but also sometimes during the day. He knew he could definitely hear her best when he was high but there were other times when she was quite clear too. He knew there was a correlation with his drug use and the fact that he could hear her better and now he couldn’t help but wonder-

“Victoria have you ever done drugs?” Sawan asked suspiciously, suddenly dreading to hear the answer.

“Well… I was asked to smoke a few times….” Victoria timidly let slip.

“WHATT?!!!” Sawan thundered in disbelief and anger. “NOOOOO!!!” He loudly bellowed in anguish. Just the thought of people influencing Victoria to smoke, the image of the lanky brown skinned eighth grader sitting in a circle with a bunch of blank faced white teenagers one of whom was shoving a bowl into her small hands which she was now raising into her lips with a lighter in the other hand filled Sawan with outrage. Now in this situation like in all situations he had already assumed the worst. It was for reasons like this that made him wish that he could control every aspect of her existence, because he never trusted her to do the right thing, just like in the virginity scenario. “If only I could lock you in a dungeon and swallow the key! The things you do Christ!” He hissed viciously, he was losing it, all the garbage he had to go through tonight and now this.

Despite his strong desire to protect her, to keep her innocent, truth is deep down inside of Sawan there was a very slimy green creature that envied her. This green monster that represented the dark selfish side inside him would much rather she do drugs with him first if she was going to try or want to do drugs at all, because he didn’t know what would happen to her or what she would do if he wasn’t there. Sawan had a very slanted hypocritical view on girls who did drugs, because he assumed nearly all of them to be s***s too.

This entire time Victoria hastily tried to placate him pleading over his angry yells, “But I said no, I said no, I didn’t do them gawd! You get mad so easily will you calm down!” It finally sank through his extremely thick skull what it was that she was denying.

“It’s just not right, you shouldn’t do them… definitely not now, or ever!” Sawan angrily muttered. “Who tried to get you to do them? Huh?” He interrogated still feeling flustered. Sawan’s mind wandered over every possibility.

“Just friends, it’s not a big deal, like seriously you’re overreacting you don’t even trust me to be good!” she objected before snipping again. “Besides you are such a hypocrite if you’re so against them then why do you do them? You don’t exactly set a good example yourself!”

“Because I’m a loser who b*****s about life! Just because I do it doesn’t make it right… I’m a bad person… Stupid white people!” Sawan vehemently added like a true racist automatically deflecting criticism away from him by thinking of her friends who had tried to get her high. It was freaking him out that there were young cocky arrogant potheads who thought they had the whole world figured out in middle school, trying to pull her into this horrible drug culture. It was so aggravating for him to think there were punks who were trying to loosen Victoria’s mind, and loosen her, away from her straitlaced virtuous Sri Lankan upbringing just for the fun of it, for some other devious sinister purpose. “At least she was able to say ‘no,’ for now,” he ruminated to himself, still worried about what she would be like in high school and college.  

Sawan gradually settled down realizing how loud he’d actually been. He quieted down and once more peeked this way and that, looking over his shoulder and then to his left. He gazed deeply into deathly black, trying to decipher the presence of people he could sense were there, but were just beyond the distance his vision was capable of penetrating, slowly moving towards him, closing in on him. A swing squeaked creepily in the larger playground to his left but he couldn’t tell what moved it. Sawan stretched his ears wide open, reaching into the environment around him with them. The swing creaked again. At least one other person definitely had to be in the area around and near the playground next to roofed picnic table patio, watching Sawan covertly, readying to jump him if he was distracted enough, or made a single weak move. Deliberately ignoring this intrusive presence, Sawan looked away ahead of him in confusion once more listening to everything around him.

“Everything’s so wrong and off balance tonight,” he thought again as he peered into the trees in front of him, listening to all the strange sounds, including the weird humming noise that vibrated inside everything, yawning and whirring as he cocked his head his head upwards looking closely at a particular tree and the bits and pieces of purple sky he could see through it.

At this moment the nasally government spokesman evolved again out the bizarre whirring whining and gloated, “The government… is laughing at you!” The whole world seemed to be projected from his head at the moment and the second the government agent spoke Sawan had been staring at the tree which he was now scrutinizing harder. The voice came from inside his mind like the rest of the sounds yet it also seemed to come from what was right in front of him too. Now that he looked at the tree meticulously he noticed that he was staring at a very clever collage. All the dark black leaves in the tree in front of him along with the slivers of purple sky beyond it formed the shape of a huge round headed monkey wearing a cap with a large macabre grin open in laughter on its face, sitting on its bottom, with an extended index finger pointing towards Sawan. The shape of the monkey was mocking Sawan, laughing at him, as if he were a fool.

“The f**k… is that?” Sawan blurted stupidly, staring at the collage of leaves and sky that formed the hat wearing chimp laughing at him. He was so fuddled about all this, pausing as he tore his eyes away and looked at everything around him. “What… the... f**k…,” he slowly uttered, “is this place?!” He had fallen into a nightmare, as if everything had suddenly become as unreal as a bad dream. “This is so disgusting,” he said, not fully acknowledging that he engineered himself into this position in the first place.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Victoria abruptly mumbled. He realized he had to be ripped, ripped enough to… go to Dunkin Donuts and keep working. Coming to terms with the fact that he was definitely done wasting time he quickly picked up his belongings and tossed them into the small compartments in his backpack, lit his cigarette and got up.

“Work… that’s what I need. Definitely ‘ill feel better then… I’ll talk to you later, before I go to bed,” he muttered, bidding V goodbye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10/8: The Invisible Molester

Two glaring red eyes were gazing ominously back at him from outside the window in the dark. Jerking awake from his slumber in the armchair he sat upright the instant he had become awake and focused his eyes to find himself staring back at the two red eyes with a feeling of dread and foreboding, unable to tear his eyes away for a moment. “Evil… Evil is always waiting to take me soon…. Time is always ticking, and I never ever have enough of it,” he thought, his eyes glazing over for a moment as he stared in fear and anger at the two red traffic lights in the distance below him from his position on the fifth floor in the Paterno side of the Library. He snapped and cracked his neck to both sides aggressively, rotating his head like a ball, breaking nerve endings intentionally in a villainous way of awakening himself, just like in the movies. He had been dozing lazily very much exhausted and now he woke up in the blue twilight feeling frantic, a guilty conscious on his soul from all the work. Work, work, work, never ending work with exams, quizzes, essays, homework, extra-credit, projects, labs, going on and on and on.

If he didn’t work, if he didn’t succeed and he failed, and if he died for any reason in the next moment such as being run over by a bus on his way out he knew he’d go to hell just for feeling incompetent, a pathetic waste of existence at the moment he died. He would go out in hatred, hatred at himself for being a loser and not fulfilling his true desires in this lifetime, hatred at everyone else around him for leading seemingly happy carefree lives and getting what they wanted whereas he didn’t, and hatred therefore at the very nature of existence, suffering. The only cure was to continue to try, to continue to plow through the snow, to continue shoveling, no matter how stupid shoveling was.

Schoolwork to Sawan is like digging graves at a cemetery, you dig one hole for a body but then you have to start digging another. More and more holes, and there’s no end to it. It’s such a stupid task to go through all that digging and hours of work when you can just burn the body.

             Whenever he passed over starting work by procrastinating because of sheer exhaustion by the mid afternoon, he knew he’d wake up naturally coked up, nervous, frantic to do his work. As much as he despised working under a sense of fear of failure, he knew that this was the best way to get work done quickly and efficiently, even if he did not thoroughly understand it. He did not need to think, and if he did his thoughts were immediately translated into actions. If he inadvertently thought of Victoria, it was like a cup of coffee that only galvanized him to work harder, faster, with more desperation. Despite Roshane’s warnings telling him not to talk to her during the day and in public, he found himself easily ignoring him and reaching out to her with every spare moment he had during the day. Stretching grandly as he sprang to his feet, he hopped over to the computer desk nearby where his belongings were. “Let’s see… I can finish these labs when I go home but I need to finish reading and taking notes on the definitions in this section in my textbook so I can work on the problems,” he muttered softly to his assistant.

            “I can read you the definitions and you can write them down,” Victoria quickly volunteered. If anyone else heard the girl speak, Sawan was the only one who acknowledged her words as he yanked his notebook and Econ 333 textbook out promptly.

*             *          *

            “Evan could I have a cigarette?” Sawan asked with cautious expectation. He had started to barter with Gatorades in return for cigarettes, still refusing to buy a pack.

            “Yea the pack’s on my desk Ghandhi,” Evan plaintively assented. Sometimes, Evan sounded like Eeyore, even if he wasn’t a sad person.

            “Oh… yea, here it is,” Sawan informed after spending a few seconds scouring the cluttered desk. “Thanks.” He went over to his desk to grab a lighter and looked at the time. It was 10:23. Taking note of twenty three in the time but not feeling bothered, he turned and left 720. He had gotten quite a few fragments of work done and he was kind of confident about tomorrow’s Econ 302 quiz and now he was feeling a bit giddy after sating his urge to do work. Along with working out the past few days, and keeping up with his work, things sometimes didn’t look so bad, but were manageable on this side of the spectrum. Now it was time to chitchat with Victoria as opposed to just thinking of school work. Going back down and outside he sat on the concrete wall with his feet planted on the seat of the green bench, legs splayed apart. “So… Vic-toriaaa!” Sawan enunciated, his voice as low to the ground as a deep croak. No one at the present was nearby so he spoke aloud. He was feeling very jaunty and good about himself tonight just for doing his work, and studying most of the day. “Tell me… BABY, how- how wazz yo day?” he spoke with a cocky tone of voice, giggling at his own self-ridicule as he posed his arms and fingers intentionally like a model when he took a deep inhale of smoke, a wide yellow toothed grin smeared beneath his brown cheeks. Tonight everything felt righteous, he was drunk off nothing else but life, but he was nonetheless aware the good feeling came from the work he’d accomplished.

            “Oh please you sound like such a creep when you talk like that,” she chided. “But today was pretty good!” For some reason Sawan couldn’t hear Roshane’s usual grumbling and whining warnings in the background right now, which was a good thing, because Sawan didn’t really care what other people thought of him and her. “I’m pleased that you’re doing well, and in a good mood. See what happens when you do what you’re supposed to be doing? So… I’ve decided to give you a gift!” she revealed, her voice sounding deliciously wicked suddenly. Sawan’s ears perked up when he heard her say ‘gift.’

            “Oh,” Sawan smirked, “What GIFT? What could you possibly have that I want?” the college junior at Penn State teased in his croaky voice provocatively in excitement, sneering playfully at the Sri Lankan American middle schooler from New Jersey, knowing very well how purposely dirty the double meaning of that last question he had asked was.

            “You’d be surprised, Mr. Sawan,” she retorted delicately and with sarcastic formality, playing along. He found the name “Mr. Sawan” to be slightly annoying because that’s what Kavinda called him sometimes back when they were friends, but he paid no attention to that. “I think you’ll like it. All I ask is that you give me a gift first.”

            “Oh yea? And what’s that?” he demanded becoming more wound up with each passing word.

            “A kiss. A real kiss, right now!” she whispered, daring him to do the ludicrous. Sawan hesitated, then, looking all about him three hundred sixty five degrees and not seeing anyone in sight, looked ahead and with growing embarrassment puckered his lips together and closed his eyes. “No! I want a real kiss… you know, a French kiss, and then I shall give you your present! Come on, don’t be shy,” she baited insistently, yet coyly, sounding far more like a knowing temptress than a kid.

            “This is going to look so silly, especially if someone sees me,” Sawan muttered uncomfortably, rubbing his temples and black hair bashfully as he peered around his settings once again, rotating his head this way and that, making sure there really was no one around. No one was outside Shunk, or coming up from the parking lot or coming from the Commons, or from the HUB or downtown, or towards or from Heister. He sat on the concrete wall wearing the black zip up hoodie he had retrieved from Ian and the same dark blue jeans with baby blue cloth belt he wore nearly every day.

Sighing at how stupid this would look yet not really caring because he was enthusiastic to find out her favor to him, Sawan closed his eyes and formed his mouth into an o the way a goldfish does from time to time when it gulps water. Then Sawan extended his tongue into the cool night air and wiggled it around for a few seconds, picturing that he was tonguing the inside of his beloved Victoria’s mouth passionately, trying to imagine the texture of her braced teeth, gums, the pink insides of her cheeks and softly grooved tongue along with what her slimy saliva tasted like yet simultaneously feeling extremely foolish. This was something surely all guys rehearsed solitarily at some youthful juncture in life but really, in public? Apparently no one saw him. He quickly finished and retracted the long, slimy, pink but slightly stained white from neglect of proper toothbrush hygiene human tentacle back into his foul tobacco stained and smelling mouth. “Well I did it! So can I have my prize? Huh?” Sawan commanded impatiently, claiming his award. Victoria giggled happily.

            “Yes, you entertained me by being such a baby in public, so now you can have your reward!” she hissed enticingly.

            “And? What is it?!” Sawan probed, starting to become thrilled in anticipation.

            “A kiss!” Victoria exposed cheekily.

            “A kiss? Why I just Frenched you right now!” Sawan scoffed in disappointment, starting to feel manipulated into doing something silly.

            “I’m not going to kiss on the lips you b*****d! I’m going to kiss you somewhere else!” she smugly muttered in a pleasantly cheerful tone yet stressing each word so that it sounded as if she spoke with a sense of need and urgency.

“Oh? Somewhere else? Where?” Sawan unthinkingly asked like an idiot, not realizing fully for a moment what this meant. But Victoria didn’t answer. Was she busy? Where had she gone? For a moment nothing happened. And then, he felt it. Sawan was flabbergasted, gasping, “OH?!” This couldn’t be happening, but it unmistakably was, for the first time, and it changed his perception of where the boundaries of the possible and impossible lied. She showed him she was there. Right here at Penn State.  Sawan could actually feel her. Feel her touching him.

It was as if there was something, clearly perceptible yet unseen, a tangible touch, as light as a feather, that was slowly gently moving inside his pants, touching his thighs and, something else. It wasn’t as if he was moving at all or there was any breeze to make his clothes rustle against his skin because he was sitting completely still now to ensure he wasn’t just imagining this. It was a perfectly still night. Nope, there was definitely a solid invisible entity that was kneeling between his broadly opened legs, something that he could definitely feel shifting heavily and thickly around his entire groin and inner thighs, bobbing this way and that with its feathery airy touch, tickling here, tickling there, and tickling in naughty places that shouldn’t be mentioned, moving and behaving like a slithery tongue.

Staggered, still unable to accept what he could feel, touching him in his most personal of spaces he cried, “WHAT?! NO F*****G WAY!” This invisible yet tangibly licking tongue’s contact with Sawan can be described best to his perceptions as small solid tickling tingling sensations that moved like broad licks until finally something much larger than a tongue, some deep invisible solid that behaved more like a small invisible mouth engulfed his entire male appendage ever so gently and very gradually, millimeter by millimeter, before pausing for a moment once it had reached the base. Somehow Victoria and Sawan had developed such a deep connection with one another that she was now able to telepathically perform something called fellatio to Sawan, something he was now experiencing for the first time in his life as if she were an invisible girl kneeling before him. Sawan has not consumed any substances other than coffee and cigarettes on this day. This was just them, for real. She worked with such superb skill, in Sawan’s unprofessional first time opinion.

Sawan was still in shock, shaking his head in denial at Victoria’s brazen, wanton, X-rated, primitive display of affection and the adult-sized insatiable lust contained in this precociously creative, fiery, mini chocolate minx. She always had something up her sleeve to outdo him with unnatural daring and cleverness for one so young. Sawan was always in awe of Victoria because he saw what other people didn’t see, which was what lay underneath the façade this child put up. At first glance to most people, if seen during Singithi Sil (religious observance day for children) days at the Buddhist Monastery dressed in pure white, she always wore this solemn bored expression on her face that made her appear very plain looking and simple. However those who knew her well enough knew she wore this expression because she had a thousand far more cooler places to be.

This was because behind this bronze adolescent’s dull sleepy droopy eyed cover was actually an extremely shrewd lass as two faced as Clark Kent was Superman, with a double identity, able to assume a sexy spicier than Habanero chili peppers alter ego the same way this incredibly masculine comic strip superhero could jump into phone booths and change outfits in a second, complete with her own fan club like Superman too. No, our overly curious young man knew all too well that beneath all those prim and proper Victorian manners and posturing Victoria had was a really fierce, physically lean and strong, untamed animal, more than just your typical feisty fox, but a true little hungry beastie. Sawan softly ribbited, “OH MY GOD… THIS CAN”T BE HAPPENING, THIS IS… THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!” After a few deliberate seconds where his entire male organ was miraculously encircled with such finesse, she then started to move away, feeling like a circular suction to him, swirling that invisible tongue on the way out until there nothing but a sensation at the end, then a distinct tender bite of the tip by lightly clasping her invisible teeth before letting go. Then she began flicking her little, mysterious, perfectly camouflaged to his surroundings, mouth tentacle this way across the tip so delicately. That way. This way. Flick. Flick. Flick. She paused and probably if she were only visible, looked up at him with those soft deep brown puppy eyes.

“Do you want me to stop? Is this too much?” she asked playfully.

“NO! Keep… keep going, don’t stop-YESSSSSSS!” he hissed snake-like with triumph after begging to be gratified, encouraging her by thrusting his legs even further apart and planting his feet firmly on the useful green bench as she engulfed him fully once more, this time quickly and resumed bobbing. “Oh my god I love you so much, this is too good to be true, Christ I can’t believe this is actually happening to me… in public!” Sawan released excited chuckle of embarrassment as he remembered the setting, looking to and fro, watching a few pedestrians walk resolutely by on the nearby walk paths. They were completely ignoring the brown lad placing his hands on his knees and a lit cigarette in his fingers with a strange wide toothy grin on his face as he looked goofily to and fro. No one was joking nearby, or ridiculing him in the least. Apparently it seemed everyone was condoning this act by totally not reacting at all!

A girl was walking up to him. Feeling naughty at being found in this position by someone walking right past him and his busy invisible girlfriend, Sawan sneakily glanced quickly into the college girl’s face just as she came within a yard of him, trying to make eye contact and looking for any signs of condemnation or disgust at the unashamed sexual act that he was engaged in. He was unable to wipe the small timid smirk on his lips as he peered at her as she walked by without so much as acknowledging him with eye contact. She wore an unsmiling mouth as she firmly kept her eyes to the ground and ahead. She seemed to deliberately avert her gaze the other way when she was right in front of him, totally snubbing him. His small shy smirk turned into a large cackling open mouthed wide grin as he began shaking with laughter after the girl had passed. It was as if the girl had been too shocked and revolted to even look at him. Who would?

“This is so funny!” Sawan snickered, looking around mischievously. It struck him how ridiculously hilarious this was, how absolutely comical it was to be having oral sex, with a minor, in a very busy public area, on this little green bench; except the minor couldn’t be seen! No laws broken! And everyone knew he was doing it and they couldn’t say anything because oh, she invisible! This felt so outrageous, so dirtily scandalous and rebellious, what Victoria and Sawan were doing, because it shattered every level of this society’s imposing regulations and controlling stifling rules. It was a very direct counterattack on every single repressive hypocritical notion of decency that dictated who was allowed to love who. But isn’t decency a good thing? In this case no.

Decency was hypocritical on this issue to Sawan because the majority of kids at any age do what they wanted to do with their peers, hooking up with different people over and over again like at Penn State or in high school or middle school, that was acceptable. But special people like Sawan and Victoria, in a unique situation where they had a larger than average age difference yet for some unknown reason had a bond strong enough to look past that, virtuous enough to try to make it work in the long term, because they were attempting to try sticking to loving one person as opposed to many, that kind of supposedly unusual relationship was morally wrong, and illegal. Everyone else officiously judged Sawan and Victoria’s love as wrong, incorrect, evil, something that should be hurt, undermined, and torn apart.

Sawan was someone America had been taught to fear, to hate, to think was a vicious sick monster worthy of being the subject of cruel jokes, threats of physical harm, and of theoretically being raped in prison if Sawan and Victoria were the type of people to actually act prematurely on their love for each other and people found out. Sawan was viewed as a freak for accepting that he was in love with a minor and being honest with her about the truth, because this was seen as trying to take advantage of her. He was domestic public enemy number one, the potential child abuser, the finest distracting scapegoat on national television, making the masses go “how horrible!” and “that’s just wrong!” while so many hypocritical elders silently think perverted thoughts in their minds without focusing on more serious profound unmentioned problems around them.

Victoria suffered too because she was forced into feeling shame and being the butt of humiliating jokes by her jealous peers and bossy elders for being willing to receive attention from one so old, for still continuing to be friends with Sawan despite knowing very well that he loved her. Instead this culture thinks of young girls like Victoria who accept and openly seek the attention of older boys labeled pedophiles, as ambitious power seeking suck ups.

Frankly, Sawan thought all this was total bullshit. Sawan felt he and Victoria had been pushed into this situation as a result of a complex combination of personal circumstances on both his part and her part, and a fitting historical context that set the stage for all this to occur and go down the way it did. It was nothing to be sorry and sad for, at all. Their love was as pure as any other relationship, if not more if it could endure this suffering inflicted by the world. Yet despite all that conspired to keep them apart here they were, still managing to make ends meet, this way. This was the brave Victoria’s and the droll horny Sawan’s joint statement to the harassment they endured, to every judgmental person, including the obnoxious government, straight up. What an act of defiance against hatred! He shook his head. No, this felt so right, so strong. This connection he had with Victoria, this love, made him feel extremely powerful, more than ordinary people. He knew there was a natural instinctive tendency in every man to desire for domination over someone younger than him. Victoria made him become alpha alpha male at an early age more than his peers because he could now challenge anyone of any age without fear after undergoing this difficult trial. Ah, speaking of Sawan, just what is he up to right now?

“That’s the real reason they hate us, because they’re so jealous, because other boys and girls unconsciously wish they had the guts to do this, and older men and women unconsciously wish they had done this when they were younger! It’s the natural order of things for a mature girl and an immature young man to like each other. That’s why they resent us so much cuz they wish they had what we have!” Sawan thought. “If I have the balls to tell her I like her unlike the rest of y’all other guys who wish they could ask out someone younger than eighteen, then I get to be with her, you haters! You guys, you have your parties, your, your drunken hookups (try to ignore what Sawan’s been attempting to do college), and your s***s, but Ah, Ah have dheiss! In yo’ faces!” He sniggered, pointing at himself with both of his thumbs, feeling so proud of Victoria and being with her. Victoria was his forbidden treasure, a holy grail, his pure, good yet naughty minded, little yet not so little girl, and here he was showing her off, parading themselves in the most rudest, lewd and indecent of ways in public. Now that he thought about it, this was probably one of the biggest “f**k yous” to authority in his life. “Victoria, you’re the best!” he praised of Victoria’s good work, urging her on. “Don’t stop!” he commanded his girlfriend. Victoria obediently continued bobbing and licking.

Sawan looked around. He giggled thickly, his snorts dripping of decadence. Deeply cackling with heavy depravity he felt himself dripping in his boxer briefs, gray smoke whirling from his mouth and drifting up in thick swirls in front of his face after a thick inhale in which he could experience the small sharp pinch of pain in his blackening lungs. He felt so good, so genuine, so correct, as lucky and privileged as royalty, a raja (king) from ancient times, sitting on this green bench as if it were a throne. Righteous even if others didn’t think so, which made it wrong, naughty. Here he was supposedly corrupting a child who was hidden in plain sight, being the worst type of criminal short of murder, except she had jumped him! In this situation, screw society and their lame fascist rules, this love and this lust that developed out of that, was so just to Sawan and Victoria, and if they called this evil then Sawan had no problem with being cast as evil. If this was wickedness, this act, this joy, if these thoughts were unacceptable and offensive then so be it, Sawan was an offender. Sawan had no fear, no guilt because he knew what was actually right and wrong at heart, what was the real truth.

The reality is, true selfless love between any two beings is never evil, if only the rest of the world could see that. Come to think of it, if only everyone including Sawan could actually see Victoria visibly now! Sawan stuck out his tongue trying to touch his chin, just like his best Sri Lankan friend Juni used to do; and had seen Victoria do so many times over and over again, like the human dog she was. Sawan panted like he imagined she did when she did this, with a huge grin on his face, before retracting it back into his mouth and baring his teeth aggressively in a ghastly suggestive villainous grin that his friends call his joker grin.

He hunched over, his black eyebrows inclining downwards and inwards so that he appeared menacing, and peered sinfully to and fro, his dark eyes tightening into slits of lust as he looked beyond the lit walk path into the dim shifting hues of darkness and lamp lights outside Shunk. Sawan adopted this grotesque devilish mask he wore presently whenever he accepted the role he was born and cast into in this life, of being called evil, get over it. He was a corrupter of little girls, of their minds at least definitely, just like every other marketed punk on TV, and at times like this actually wished he could ‘make a young girl squeal,’ just like in the song Bad to the Bone. Of course he had gotten into a horrible car accident in 2008 when he heard those lines and thought of Vicky. The thought of her had almost killed him then. But that didn’t change anything.

“Ah don’t… Ah don’t even feel human!” he thought. Perhaps it was the animal like behavior he was engaged in right now which, like all sexual activity, made him feel as inquisitive and playful as a simple minded baby. Perhaps it was because the predatory Victoria had now made Sawan become a predator. For Victoria’s sake, it is important to point that it is predatory guys like Sawan who had made Victoria become a predator in the first place. Perhaps either way all these reasons. Giggling like a mischievous kid who had gotten away with sneaking cookies from the cookie jar he exclaimed, snarling and growling the last word deeply, his eyes flashing wide dramatically, “I feel… I feel… laayk a dawg! Laayk… a wolf! A…A BEAST!”

He began wagging his tongue and panting again. This is how someone chooses to be bad. Because it is right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10/9: One Last Day of Total Ignorance

            It was a damp morning topped with a hundred percent gray cloud covered sky, with moisture dense in the air so that the distant objects were hazy. H₂O was ingrained in the tiny miniscule grooves in the pavement, so that everything looked a shade darker than it would have been if it were dry. Sawan had left the Multicultural Resources Center on Pollock road and was now proceeding past the HUB after having apologized for missing his first appointment with his new counselor. It was impossible to make morning meetings anyways, between work and sleeping it just wasn’t feasible. Sawan looked into the faces of other students. Sawan was feeling very upbeat at being up early and after last night but everyone else seemed to have a gloomy grave look on their faces, as if they were depressed. They all shuffled about quietly, as if some great crime had been committed, as if someone had died, or some great trial was imminent. “Come on, what’s wrong with you people? Go Nittany Lions, RAWWRRR!!!” Sawan yelled in his mind. No one even commented as he walked by. Deciding to do what he had seen Matt do over and over again with much success outside during game nights, now in the early drizzly morning he burst out loud, “WE ARE!”

Everyone looked around at him as if he was mad and stupid. One person replied softly yet assuringly, “Penn State.”

Every one really was dejected today. Perhaps it was the weather, or the fact that it was early but really this was downright annoying. In fact it was starting to piss Sawan off, it was as if they were all upset with him for something. For the first time it crossed his mind whether it had something to do with what he had done last night. But he dismissed that. He didn’t care what other people thought, and it was none of their business anyways. With his nerves rising to where he felt thoroughly irritated by the time he was passing Willard, he was unconsciously walking with a stoop and looking at the pavement when he looked up to be shocked.

There was a brown girl who looked identical to Victoria, perhaps if she had been eighteen or so but with the same facial features. She bore a skin tone as light as Victoria’s would be in the winter, and a small dispersion of pimples and acme on her cheeks and chin just like Victoria was accumulating. This Victoria clone was walking right past him going the opposite direction. The moment he looked up the girl looked up too and flashed him a large knowing sloppy grin that displayed braces! She was walking beside an extremely tall lumbering white man who was perhaps twice her size. Sawan jaw dropped slightly and he gawked at her in astonishment as he walked by, and turned his head once they had past in surprise. Sawan began shuddering in frustration at the strange flukes in nature on how some people resembled other people, and filling with disgust the color of snot and resentful purple racist jealousy against how this Indian girl who had looked like Victoria was walking with such a tall heavy large white man. The way she had smiled at Sawan seemed to him condescending, and full of tease, as if she were goading him to try to challenge her, to get her. 

Sawan was a racist. Even though just last night he had decried haters hating him for being who he was, a pedophile, he couldn’t help but be a hater himself against people in different stereotypical positions. The reason he couldn’t help but be a hater stemmed from his own insecurity about his own racial stereotype and the way felt he was judged by others, and his own shortcomings. He knows that everyone who looks at him assumes that he’s a med student, a bio major. They assume that his parents work at Dunkin Donuts or Seven Eleven. He knows everyone around him believes that he belongs to the second to last least physically endowed group of men on Earth. That last fact, makes Sawan feel acutely, distinctly lesser than his peers, the concept that he is, supposedly, on average, smaller than most people around him. It makes him less respected by girls, less sought after by girls than white boys, black boys and Latinos.

Sawan senses this racial favoritism in Victoria and other Sri Lankan girls too. For Sawan, he resented the fact that Victoria acted as if she were so infatuated with Caucasian actors, and rock stars with her peers, when they both very well knew who she actually cared about. Sawan expected mature Victoria to know by now that no matter how many pieces of cardboard cutouts of Taylor Lautner she hugged and claimed would marry that she would probably never be with anyone like that, ever. Why? Because there were millions of Victorias out there, millions of absolutely gorgeous adolescent girls like her in love with the unreachable. Yet it was Victoria’s preference of white people as being the people whose company was worth pursuing, the ones worth mimicking, and the ones who were the ideal people, which made Sawan feel inadequate. It made him think desperately he had to be abnormally wealthy, famous and acting like a Caucasian to satisfy her ridiculous expectations and demands.

It made Sawan think that he was in love with a white girl wearing brown skin like a dress, or as the Sri Lankans laughingly say, someone who was white-washed. Growing up he had fitted into his brown nerd stereotype, living the part happily, but as he entered college he realized he hated the position of imagined weakness he was born into in this world, and this realization of insecurity of his own status is what makes him turn that hatred that would otherwise make him resent his own background outwards at others, because he would rather be proud than ashamed of who he was.

*   *   *

            “Didn’t even vote for Obama man, really, that’s just mad disappointin’,” a black man sitting at a black picnic table outside Pollack told his African American friend with an doubtful skeptical tone of voice that showed his disillusionment. However he wasn’t really talking to his companion even if he was looking at him. No, the African American was actually criticizing the much shorter Sri Lankan boy hunched over at the picnic table next to them eating chicken tenders, who had heard him say these words.

“What?!” Sawan thought becoming defensive and feeling guilty. “I wanted to vote for him, I just… well I guess I was just too lazy to finish the registration process but I wanted to vote, I told all my friends to vote for him too!” Sawan spluttered desperately in his head. Sawan was annoyed and upset that these black people had questioned his loyalty to their first national leader in the executive office, as if insinuating that by abstaining from voting that his allegiance automatically belonged to the people who didn’t support Obama’s agenda of change, of equality. He had just returned to Pollack from going to the Information Sciences and Technology Building to retake a Computer Science exam he had missed and done some work at West Halls before going to his Econ 333 class.

            “Practically lives at West!” a brown haired kid with thick framed glasses disapproved to a girl next to him as they walked out of Pollack. Sawan retorted in his head, “I don’t get it, I don’t mean to spend most of my time there, it’s just so close to the library that’s all, it’s more peaceful than my room, I still care about Pollack… what’s this place coming to, tribalism?!”   

*            *           *

            “Stop being a little b***h and looking at my sister’s profile Sawan!” Roshane slandered.

            “Yea stop stalking me, what’s the point if I talk to you all the time anyways!” Victoria complained insistently.

            “You’re wasting your time! A*****e! You have schoolwork you could be doing!” Roshane prodded persistently. “I can’t believe how lazy you are. How do expect to succeed when all you do is look and think about her. Idiot!” Roshane bawled.

            “You’re being such a pervert! You creep!” Victoria whined. Sawan could hear their voices so easily and loudly in his humongous headphones while this song called “Dido” by Tiesto played. The actual chorus in this song was singing her name over and over again too! Sawan felt some remorse, but at the same time he was highly amused he could hear both them and her name over and over again in this techno song. After ogling shamefully at her profile picture on Facebook, because that was all he could see, he returned to his profile.

He knew that he had done well on today’s Comp Sci exam, and this week’s Econ 302 quiz, even though he found out he was doing poorly in Econ 333. Naturally he felt very giddy, so giddy in fact that at the present moment as he now went to his own profile he decided that overall the past few days he’d actually been extremely happy, compared to how he had felt through most of September. He remembered the satisfaction he would feel whenever he managed to get up and go to class, and understand the material, and review the material, and the relaxing at ease and peaceful feeling that coursed through his body after working out. The odd thing was that this ecstatic feeling just wouldn’t go away right now; it didn’t fade away at all. Instead he felt like this for long minutes at a time as the clock inched towards midnight this Friday night. As he thought about it at the moment, right now appeared to be the only time he had felt this constantly happy for such a prolonged period of time since he had done e, when he was rolling upwards that is. Except Sawan hadn’t done e today.

            He wrote down as his status on Facebook the following words to express his mood:

“i've been naturally rolling all dayyyyyy :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.”

Then he added the following comments:

 “and high for days at a time :]”

“naturally”

“off life ;P”

The clock shifted from 12:00 AM to 12:01 AM as he did this. It was now Saturday October 10^th, 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometime in Early October: Sweet Dreams

The atmosphere enclosed inside the impenetrable canopy of soaring tropical green trees was dense and heavy with a humidity that was so profound that everything underneath the shelter of the roof provided by the trees was sweating with dew or oily perspiration. Because none of the blazing scorching blonde sunshine could break through the billions of soft plush leaves that covered one another on the tops of the trees, the light could only make its presence known by hitting the surface of the leaves so that they were illuminated on the other side a bright shiny jade color. This lush golden emerald tinted glow that shone from the crown of the trees cast its effect on all beneath it. The trees were long and thin, wearing a dark blackish brown bark smothered with a soft furry living lime colored moss, standing next to each other every yard or so. The grimy soil was moist black, unseen through the youthful leafy sea of green vegetation. Large exotic parrots of silly clownish shades squawked in delight and smaller birds chirped shrilly, gossiping, unseen in high branches of the trees unless they flew from one branch to the next, playing tag and pestering one another. Tiny mosquitoes, and enormous dragonflies fluttered around, and other giant black beetles scuttled about on the leaves, bark and soil.

There is a small solitary black haired chimpanzee sitting on a low branch in one of these lofty trees. With sweat accumulating on his brow that he wipes away with the back of a black wooly hand, the chimp begins gently working down the peels of a plump yellow ripe unblemished banana with his gray shaggy fingers as logically as a human being with an intent look on his face. He begins munching on the succulent edible part of the banana, with light soft gooey bites and all by himself. As he taking his midmorning snack the chimp drowsily gazes out from his perch at this picturesque hot and sticky paradise which seems to be devoid of any larger life-forms. That is until some lengthy oval shaped leafed ferns swish and part on the ground far in the distance. The silent chimpanzee in the tree leans forward slightly, grabbing an overhanging branch deftly with one hand so that it can balance itself while still holding the banana in the other and constricting its pupils, scrutinizes the sudden movement below.

There was a creature poking its head out of the ferns, looking around. The chimpanzee peered at it closely. The creature shuffled forward resolutely, crawling on all four limbs. It looked like a primate overall because it had the same basic shape but in contrast to a chimpanzee that had hands for feet, this creature’s legs were shaped differently, so that the elbows and forearms on its long slender mud colored legs dragged along the ground strangely. It was crawling. Also only the head of the creature was covered with a black downy tangled mane that fell past its thin bare brown shoulders and upper back. To the chimpanzee’s amusement the odd primate that seemed unable to climb trees but lived on the ground wore a skirt of long dead gray and yellow grass around its thin midriff, as if it had something to hide. “Humanoid,” the chimpanzee concluded in recognition in its head as an idle broad close lipped lazy smile curved onto its face, knowing there was nothing to fear. The chimp inspected the lone humanoid that was marching enthusiastically on all fours through the wild shrubbery on the floor of the endless jungle for a moment before looking back at the banana and slowly chewing another bite.

Abruptly though the chimp sensed more rustling on the forest floor than was normal for just one humanoid so he glanced up again from his snack instinctively. Sure enough another somewhat heavier and larger humanoid had appeared cutting through the ferns, crawling on all fours as well, and pausing for a moment to look at the environment warily before doggedly returning its keen gaze to the other humanoid. The chimp is now increasingly interested at the rising activity breaking out on the ground far away and strains his eyes to look into the face of the other humanoid with larger arms, chunkier legs and shorter black hair than the other lighter humanoid ahead of it, to study its expression checking to see what the issue was here. There is a look of timid grave yearning and puzzlement on the bigger humanoid’s face as it uncertainly looks ahead at its companion. “Why, humanoids usually travel in larger packs, now this is something…. Probably worth checking out!” The chimp thought to himself as he watched the heavier humanoid that wore a fuzzy reddish brown loin cloth start moving behind the other humanoid slowly, from a set distance, stalking the opposite sex of its species.

Tootling quietly, the nosy chimpanzee gobbles up its remnants of its banana and throws away the peel and starts swinging stealthily from tree to tree so that it is soon in the trees above the pair of humanoids below. The sharp humanoids are already aware of the quiet stirring and crunching overhead and simultaneously twist their necks upward to scour the same direction of the noise in one single fluid move. Was it another predator? No it was just a chimpanzee. The thinner humanoid being trailed by the other humanoid giggles and points at the chimp with one of her front arms so that she’s balanced on three limbs. She glimpses behind her to look at the other humanoid some ways away from her and breaks out laughing at both the chimpanzee and the expression on her friend’s face, covering her mouth coquettishly with the hand she had once pointed at the chimp with.

The male humanoid looks back and forth between their distant cousin in the tree and his friend up ahead, his features showing both wry amusement at the hairy monkey in the tree and shy eagerness he tries to hide whenever he made eye contact with his pursuit who is still shaking with loud trills of mirth. The male humanoid, attempts to appear robustly mannish by showing off, and barks loudly at the chimp in laughter to intimidate it playfully. The chimp, annoyed at being spotted despite attempting to remain unnoticed becomes irritated knowing it is being made fun off, isn’t deterred and starts hopping up and down wildly and shrieking and howling in rage. “I know what’s going on here… that male is trying to make that female his mate!” the monkey thought lecherously, leering with incense stamped on its scowling face. The humor at discovering a prying spectator slowly subsides in the pair below. The male humanoid is now silent and once more wearing a serious significant needy look on his face as he once more gazes at his companion. In response the female humanoid catching his gaze for but a second before she looks back ahead promptly, tossing her black mane of hair with ladylike swagger before tramping ahead once more without a single backwards glance, playing follow the leader once more.

The male humanoid was stupefied and bothered at where his prey had been leading him all morning, ever since they had left the rest of the pack after she had slyly hinted discreetly for him to come hither but furtively from a distance. He once more began thumping forward after his chase. “What is she up to?” the male humanoid wondered utterly perplexed, trying to suppress the instinctive thirsty yearning and urge that simmered inside him. He had reason to hope that something important was to happen between them today, an outcome that was going to happen eventually after all the time that had passed over the years. The humanoids ignored the snooping chimp full of suspicion, who was now trailing behind them in the tree limbs above.

“I know what you humans are trying to do!” The perverted chimp muttered firmly as he scampered from branch to branch in a cautious dawdling fashion. Unfortunately for the meddlesome chimp though it seems as if the female humanoid could read its mind because she continued onwards until she came to a large thick solid underbrush of dark evergreen colored shrubs and stopped. She turned her head to look back at her stalker with fat grin on her face before it faded away. The male humanoid also stopped behind her from the respective gap between them, and grimly looked at her questioningly, doubting what was to happen next because it had never happened before. The chimp also halted quickly, surveying the scene silently now.

“She wouldn’t dare!” the chimp thought in outrage after slowly realizing where the female humanoid intended to go before the male humanoid did. Glancing at her to-be mate with a somber meaningful look in her eyes, her lips pursed into the smallest of soft smiles, she hesitated for moment before doing what she knew what she was going to do next. This was an immensely significant step after all, in fact the biggest to date in her life. But it had to be done someday, so why not today and who better yet than her biggest and longest admirer. So she decided to take the actual initiative, because of course he was too proud to take the first step after all this time of hankering after her and staring at her as she had sprouted into a grown girl.

A twig cracked and fell onto the ground as a branch creaked overhead and the female humanoid noticed the monkey above who had inched closer foolishly and taken a wrong step. She smirked impishly at the peeping chimp as the male humanoid looked upwards then impatiently back at her. There was an awkward moment where all three beings wondered what the other two were thinking before the girl met her future hubby’s confused face once more. Suddenly she stuck out her long wet pink tongue and wagged it with an open mouthed smile playing on her lips, panting more like canine than a primate, her eyes expanding. Sawan cocked his head quizzically in surprise. In response the female human dog wiggled its derriere temptingly so that the useless dead circle of long grass shivered charmingly. Sawan gawked in shock. Victoria then swept her hair snobbishly and with her round nose stuck up the air and her eyes seemingly closed demurely she flouted brashly into the undergrowth, squeezing herself into the dark compact undergrowth until she was not visible from both the ground and above much to chimp’s anger.

“In there?!” the male human dog thought desperately as he already began shuffling forward fervently, becoming ravenous as excitement rose. Growling tenderly after what he had just seen, Sawan was deaf to the intrusive greedy chimp above who began screaming and hooting in a boiling frenzy, as if to alert the whole jungle about what was to happen, frustrated that it could not get any view of the impending action because of where the pair were heading. The chimp crawled agilely from tree to tree peering this way and that trying to find a chink in the large dense wild hedge below but failed.

Sawan hurriedly approached the dark shadowy shrubbery and peeked into the depths. Victoria was nowhere to be seen. “I have to GET IN THERE!” he thought hungrily as he roughly began forcing him way into the enormous bush with far more difficulty than Victoria, tearing through the brambles and small gnarly gray brown branches until he too disappeared. In there. With his envy at not being seeing love consummated in a lustful fashion sinking, the dejected chimp calmed down, glumly whimpered and gloomily scurried away slowly, leaving the concealed pair far below to their, business. Frankly it’s no one’s business what happens in those bushes between those two animals, so this beautiful scene shall end here.

*   *   *

            He had to get to his goal. He just had to. He was striving blindly through the black depths, relying only on a surly instinct inside the very core of his being that told him he was headed in the right direction hopefully, writhing frantically against millions of identical masculine competitors. He hoped to be the fastest, the strongest, the worthiest, the champion, The One for her, to outrun all of the others and win the race. They were all trying in vain longing to reach the same end, that temporary cessation to their struggle, where it had all began and would begin over again. The end of all things and beginning of all things occurred instantaneously once he came home, to her. He only knew that this was where he came from, and this was where he wanted to return and nothing else. He was made incomplete, born unsatisfied with his existence as it was. The only way he would ever be fulfilled, ever pause his relentless drive that was the sole reason for his existence from birth till death, was if he created this transformation through her. It was only after his fusion with her that their two lacking halves that lived in want of this single connection could be whole, one.

Only once two beings became one being could he and her cease the sentence they had endured and suffered before, the endless searching, the endless performing to please and impress, and the choosing. Once he achieved this union with her they were given the greatest reward this life could offer, that both him and her had been preparing for ever since their separate births.  It was for this solitary reason they lived, that gave them the illusion they could rest in peace once this dissatisfaction was alleviated even if for only a moment. To him it made toiling pointlessly forever worth it, just the single simple soothing contact with another actual living being, to know for certain beyond any doubt that another living being was real. He just needed to reach his destination and merely touch her and merge with her to become It; this was all he asked from his miniscule time in this world. Just that ultimate act of love made everything right in this life. Even if it meant that the process would have to repeat itself over and over again for all eternity. The curse of immortality is that there is no true finish line to this never ending quest, because each finish line is only another starting line, to every living being.

He was almost there, nearly reaching her, she was within grasp, if only he could just actually cling to her and make it happen, conclude this story once and for all with happily ever after, say he did what he was supposed to do, and change into a single being once more. Of course this single being from the moment it was created, would already be inclined to be either a he or a she, and disintegrate over the next few weeks and months into a half again, so that he or she would feel as though they were wishing for something that was missing and become ingrained with the instinctive desire to walk down the same path of yearning. This new being, would then start to grow and someday start working while seeking his or her other half, repeating the eternal cycle. But he didn’t care about that undying aspect, that showed neither he nor she had ever truly slept and rested forever in the past or in the future. No, what was important was the here and now, the current task given to them which was this moment, which was approaching as he came closer and so close, he nearly had her!

Except, he couldn’t reach her. He was destined to search blindly, squirming and wriggling this way and that way along with his millions of opponents, twisting and thrashing in senseless excitement with his rivals so that they were enmeshed in a disgusting pulsing orgy. It was a true hell for all of the mad testosterone driven beings frantically struggling for sanity because there was no satisfaction in finding The One, her. Instead, he along with his myriad of adversaries were doomed to slowly age, rotting, so their frenzied movements became more feeble and feeble until they froze in an agonizing death filled with disappointment, because all the fluid that made them function as beings had evaporated.

*   *   *

            “Victoria?” Sawan mumbled in his mind, still feeling dead, as if he had just woken from a coma inside which he had been stampeding to heaven. He could hear a strange deep booming cackling laughter of a grown woman in the air of 720 Heister, whose quality was obviously telepathic in nature because it seemed as though it were reverberating both inside his mind and from a distance. The derisive disconcerting cackle went on and on, as if she, whoever she was, couldn’t get over something she found hilarious. It sounded contemptuous and mocking and Sawan found it a bit scary. The cackle echoed like a wild bark, as if it could have belonged to witch or a hag, yet at the same time it was strangely familiar. 

            “Hmm?” Victoria contentedly answered sleepily.

            “Who is that? Laughing?” Sawan queried with confusion and some anxiety as he tensed up for a moment, clutching the big fat white pillow, that had come to represent Victoria whenever he went to bed, with his arms and legs, looking around the black and purple room filled with quiet snores.

            “Oh… that’s nothing, don’t pay attention to it,” Victoria shiftily claimed, obviously knowing more than she wanted to admit to.

            “But who is it? Laughing like that? She seems so… mean!” Sawan persisted.

            “Well… it’s actually my mom,” Victoria sighed in boredom.

            “Aunty Veenus?!” Sawan exclaimed. “Why is she laughing like that at us… she sounds so… obnoxious!”

            “My mom is not obnoxious! Anyways she’s not laughing at us, she’s laughing at you!” Victoria defensively snipped.

            “But why? Why is she laughing at me?” Sawan protested.

            “Because you, you know, thought she approved of us, and you, like told people.” Victoria gently and unenthusiastically reminded him, in an evasive tired tone of voice.

            “Oh… yea. Well yea I did that,” Sawan conceded sheepishly. As he reflected back to what had transpired in July and August, he automatically began lamely grudgingly apologizing, for the millionth time, saying, “But I only told like two people! And I didn’t mean to make you guys look bad, I was just so confused so I told them to ask them what they could make of it! But yea, perhaps I did try too hard to convince Kavi that this wasn’t all just in my head and it wasn’t just a one way street. I guess if I really believed we were together, even if in a very weird indirect way, then I wouldn’t need to try to convince anybody, to prove this was real, because I wouldn’t care what other people thought or their inaccurate conclusions. They didn’t know the whole picture anyways, and it was bad idea for me to try to tell them, since it was none of their business to begin with.”

            “Yea it was a kinda stupid thing to do,” Victoria sullenly heckled, lazily berating him, playfully rubbing salt on his wounds.

            “Well yea, I know that now, sheesh, I hope she gets by now that I didn’t mean any harm, I was being retarded and it was silly mistake,” Sawan appealed, saying of Aunty Veenus.

            “Yea I know, whatever, just ignore her, she’ll leave us alone eventually,” Victoria uninterestedly advised, totally disregarding the soft cackling as if she were flicking a bit of dust off her nightie. As they rested quietly over the next few minutes, the cackling began to fade away until there was silence. Sawan’s mind drifted to what had happened earlier. The final rush to his brain had felt so unusually electrifying, so absolutely unworldly, where everything was gone and for a brief moment he had been zapped to another black dimension with sparkly purple stars and rays that shot through his vision, where he had no body, and no sense of time or space. Instead, Sawan was only a zealous flying roaring emotion of perfect bliss, the emotion of complete glorious triumph, and pure victory that came from truly wishing, willing with all his being, that he was accomplishing his biological task in life, to and with, Victoria, successfully. This victorious emotion had felt like heaven, and afterwards he had become unconscious again, instantaneously, only to awaken now sometime later.

            “It’s never like that… ever! That was so insane!” Sawan reflected in awe, thinking about past orgasms and the trivial tingling sensation in his groin he usually got. Victoria didn’t answer him. She was dozing off. He continued thinking about it and it dawned on him why it had been so great, so unusually powerful. It was not desire for the silly act itself as it typically was, but the deliberate conscious intention and objective to achieve something beyond the act that he had of late genuinely started to crave with all his heart. This totally separate personal fulfillment that he sought was the cause of the cataclysmic experience he had just faced and now it irresistibly brought him to an incredible theme that seemed totally unheard of for someone Sawan’s age, and definitely Victoria’s age, in this generation, to intentionally contemplate. It was such a natural yet weird, serious yet funny concept that before he could stop himself, he was already rousing Victoria awake automatically. “Victoria? V?” No answer. “V?” He listened and then there was a soft humming, before she spoke, groggily.

            “Mmm… go to sleep froggy,” She murmured soothingly, like a fatigued mother tucking in her turbulent wide eyed restless toddler to bed.

            “Victoria… sweetheart… I know you were sleeping and I should be too, but, I, I have a question, it’s important,” Sawan hesitantly whispered, yawning himself, physically exhausted yet in his mind now, quite awake.

            Victoria, still half asleep, drowsily burbled, “Question? What question?”

            “Do you want to have children with me someday?” Sawan wondered. It suddenly struck him the depth and enormity of what he was asking of her. The idea of having babies, with anyone, someday, was such a heavy overwhelming concept to even think of for them, much less ask aloud. Yet Sawan felt compelled to.

             He had never given any prolonged serious thought in his life to the assumed underlying purpose, and consequences, of sex, only being obsessed since fourth grade with just the plain and easy act. Over the years, Sawan had childishly fantasized and made simplistic presumptions about married family life with his various crushes. It was true, he wanted to marry crush after crush since middle school on. But he had never really understood or noticed the inconceivable sacrifices a person made to his or her family, putting the priorities of others over themselves first, the loving prison, that marriage was supposed to symbolize until he was nearly twenty. He had never thought about getting a job and working day in and day out, like his parents, not for himself, but for his family. He had never thought about the inescapable miserable side of family life either, until he had begun to fall for Victoria that is, about a year ago. The inevitable arguments, fights, manipulation, stress and rivalry for affection of the kids, it was a part every human family out there. Obviously it made sense if one was going to go ahead and live that naturally tension filled family life, with children that they would have to find just the right person to help run things as smoothly as possible, and Sawan believed he had already found such a girl in Victoria. But what did Sawan see in nearly thirteen year old Victoria?

            Back in 2008, Sawan had come to conclude that love consisted of three basic principles that separated it from lust. The first principle was the belief that if someone truly loved someone then they wouldn’t care about their physical beauty. Sawan came up with the frank analogy that even if someone were to endure some horrible accident, such as a fire, or car accident and became completely burned, or handicapped or diseased, that the other person would still love the victim, and stick by them for good and not care about any physical deformities because what mattered was what was in the spirit. This idea might make seem like basic common sense and decency to elders to do so obviously, but remember for a young man who growing up, had only cared about looks in the present, this was seemed like a very solemn authentic concession.

            Victoria was having the time of her life right now celebrating her beauty, and it was true, Sawan was obsessed with her elegant form, but Sawan understood that no matter how much he masturbated to it he could never, and would never be with her when she looked like this. Sawan had foresight enough in her case to look forward to who Victoria would be in the future, which was no different from every other Sri Lankan girl. She would age.

            Her legs would thicken. She would put on weight and accumulate more fat so that her waist would become broad and not so appealing, her tummy chubbier. Her flesh and skin would become less firm and softer so that her muscles and skin would start to sag. Her skin would become wrinkled so that more creases and crinkles would appear on her face that was currently dealing with pimples, so that her features became pockmarked and dented as she entered her forties and fifties. Eventually Sawan expected that reality would catch up with vanity at some point and Victoria would allow her hair, hopefully not too damaged through excessive straightening in her youth, to turn a silvery grey and then white instead of dying it black; or cinnamon brown the way she did sometimes now  as was fashionable among certain Sri Lankans and Indians. Truth is she would probably look like her own mother, Aunty Veenus, or Sawan’s mother, Geethika, or any one of the other middle aged mothers in the Sri Lankan community. Sawan knew that if he spent his life with Victoria, regardless of how she may look for a very short amount of time as a diva, chances were that for a way longer period of time after that that she would be an angry bloated old lady, like all ammis (mothers). 

            Again most mature or married people would laugh at this, and say, “Well of course Sawan, you’d have to accept aging in a partner, you’re aging too, into a very ugly decrepit senile old man!” Sawan agrees but, usually used to think immaturely that for someone at his age, only looks matter. Sawan typically is very picky because he feels he, like Victoria, deserves someone beautiful too. However in her case, because he took her more seriously than most girls in the past, he felt that he had to take into account her personality way more than just her looks which were impermanent. The fact that he had to look at her character made Victoria more significant than other girls he had crushes on in recent years. This brings in the second principle of love that Sawan had pieced together. To understand it and apply it, one had to be rational enough to not be blinded by superficial beauty, and look instead into a person’s character and conduct and see the imperfections.

            This second principle was the idea that someone could be aware of the faults in a loved one but still accept them for who they were and love them. As the years passed and Victoria grew older, Sawan had noticed her more and more, and started to study and judge her character. By 2008, when everything changed, Sawan was more than well aware of her flaws. Victoria was by all accounts a snobbish bossy little girl who happily accepted the attention of countless boys but a devious tease too, who was naturally skilled in manipulating others to do things for her, getting her way. She was known for being willing to suppress those she deemed lesser than her. She was easily offended, as skittish and cautious as a fawn, sensitive to insults directed towards her and her tastes, yet had no problem casually dishing out the verbal abuse towards others.

Victoria seemed to believe that she always deserved the best of the best, whatever it was, and when it came to material things, in Sawan’s eyes, it seemed as though she usually received it. She was an all round typical girly girl as Sawan called them, a female so feminine in her behavior, appearance, interests, and attitude that it seemed to pour out of every pore on her skin. Sawan thought girly girls, however old they were, to be extremely annoying and plain stuck up. But, for some reason, he found their company to be totally irresistible, perhaps because they were so amusing and they found him, the Sri Lankan man who hadn’t grown up and tried to hit on every girl he met, to be funny even if annoying too. Victoria was no exception to this stereotype.

No, Sawan knew she had all these negative flaws but he felt he could still tolerate her. Sawan was very well aware he wasn’t perfect either. Truth was they more or less shared many of the same foolish yet gifted, conceited yet at heart, loving, traits. Sawan felt that despite the visible negatives qualities, that she had many hidden positive qualities too. Sawan knew that however much he viewed her as being popular, and no matter how much she liked to prop up that image, that she really lived in small little bubble, like a garden. Everyone laughed at Victoria for what they saw as her cruelty, and arrogance, but Sawan saw something different. What Sawan saw beneath the tough exterior she put up was someone who extremely vulnerable, frail, gentle, powerless to stop people’s negative perceptions of her that resulted from jealousy and sanctimonious conclusions about her behavior and way of life, who only wanted to be loved and cared for. Victoria was in truth like a flower, her time on earth as fleeting as a yellow daffodil in early spring. There are so many daffodils in a garden. If you go up to just one daffodil and stare at it, next to all its companions, it really looks quite identical and insignificant next to all the other flowers. It isn’t any more special than the rest. However, if you give this one particular daffodil a chance and you pluck it, and look inside, you will find that it has own unique mild fragrance that is released at its own strength in set quantities, that is always slightly distinct than every other organism, its own individual qualities. Of course once you take the selfish step of plucking a daffodil, the prudent thing to do next would be to keep it, put it in a vase, and give it water and plenty of sunlight, and take care of it while it lived. 

A pretty flower leads a very innocent life. Sawan saw this quality in Victoria, innocence, no matter how much she enjoyed pretending to be knowing and naughty. It was the integral reason behind her self-centered behavior. She could not be blamed for anything because she didn’t really know anything. She was virtuous, pure as freshly fallen snow, because she was still inexperienced. This was what Sawan cherished the most, her gullible side. Sawan personally wished that Victoria, like all yellow daffodils could be frozen in time forever in that flowering innocent state, in those two weeks in spring when they bloomed, and lived in their prime. Unfortunately Victoria like all girls, like all daffodils, was destined to lose her innocence and destined to wither, age and pass on. Sawan felt responsible for her for if he plucked this particular daffodil, Victoria, he would have to do the correct thing and nurture it for the duration of its time on earth. If Victoria had to lose her innocence, as she inevitably did eventually, then it should be to him, Sawan, the person who obviously cared about her the most, next to her immediate family, on Earth.

            The third and final principle of love, and probably the most important and enduring one that Sawan required be reciprocated from Victoria or whoever he ended up actually marrying, because he exercised it on them, was forgiveness. No matter what happened between them in the past, or what would happen in the future, they should always be able to overcome pride and pain to forgive each other. All arguments, fears, misunderstandings, rumors, insults, fights, were a pile of poop that needed to be flushed from time to time. Victoria and Sawan should be mature enough to see garbage as just garbage, and nothing more than that. Neither should let the words of others come between their affection like in the past, ever again. All said and done words were just words, not deeds which mattered more. Insults, mean jokes, and arguments did not change who made dinner every night for everybody, or who mowed the lawn, or made the bed in the mornings, or who slept next to whom every night for that matter. Sawan felt that no matter how bad he may have been to Victoria that she would always forgive him, because he knew that no matter how bad she was to him, that he would forgive her even if it was an excruciating injustice to swallow. Sawan always felt unnecessarily worried these days that he might lose Victoria whenever he got into a disagreement or misunderstanding with her. He shouldn’t have worried in the least though because she was always in his heart despite everything.

 In this culture, divorce seemed as common as getting a disease or disability in old age. Divorce for Sawan, for any reason, no matter how often threatened, was a solid NO and actually IMPOSSIBLE once children were in the fairy tale. It would be impossible because Sawan expected both him, and his future wife, whoever she was, to take an oath on their lives before they married, that they would never part once children were in the picture, because it would ruin the children. Whenever Sawan’s parents went at each other’s throats when he was younger, his world would be ripped in two. It went against his upbringing because after viewing two animals manage to cantankerously coexist for twenty years he was determined to make sure his future wife understood that once she was in this, once she officially signed up for it, there should definitely be no out. Marriage with Swanson is a loving life sentence in a happy prison.

Sawan was now nervously waiting for Victoria’s answer on having children with him, because she had been too shocked to answer right away. Sawan needed to learn that regardless of what her answer was on her future with him, he would be absolutely fine. Why? If Sawan truly loved Victoria then the only thing he would desire would be her happiness, whatever her decision was, even if they broke up someday and she fell in love with another person. Sawan needed to accept that even if Victoria was The One for him, perhaps he wasn’t The One for her, because he knew most people always had to settle for second best and that like every other time in the past he was totally capable of being in love with another person again, something he feared not being able to do. It was very rare that two people clicked, perfectly synchronized, and fulfilled each other’s fantasies. Sawan found his fantasy in Victoria. If anyone were to ask Sawan why he fell for her, there would be three reasons that would come to his mind, consecutively ordered from the most easily visible and superficial reason, to the deepest and hardest to explain reason. The first reason was because he found her beautiful. The second was because she was nice to him. The third reason was simply because it was meant to be. As for Victoria’s fantasy, well Master Frog has already been discussed. So what was her answer?

There was a very poignant pause before Victoria answered. “Yes,” Victoria answered, speaking tenderly but firmly.

Sawan shifted in bed and thought about what she had just agreed to. It took him a moment before he snapped out of his reverie and asked, “Do you think we’ll be happy?”

Victoria thought for a moment then answered decisively, “Yes, I think we’ll be more happy than sad. I don’t think we’ll be perfect at everything, but no one is. I’m sure we’ll fight and argue a lot about silly things everyday but I think in the end we’ll always make up. Don’t you think so?”

Sawan tentatively concurred, “Yea… I think we’ll be ok… if I Iet you beat me up though, don’t expect me to just sit there and do nothing, I’ll probably feed you a knuckle sandwich right back…. You know what if I ever learn how to box then I’ll teach you! We could spar our problems out if we can’t talk them out!”

“Thanks, but I could beat you up any day anyways,” Victoria smirked. They both laughed and then there was a silence.

“Savan?” Victoria hesitantly questioned.

“Yea?” Sawan answered.

“Do you think I’ll be a good mom?” Victoria shyly wondered.

Sawan immediately dismissed, “Of course! You’ll be awesome! You’ll probably be super protective and stuff like your mom is! Always be fussing about how their hair looks and giving them baths and making sure they take showers when they’re older-”,

“Ew, you mean make sure YOU take showers too?” Victoria teased playfully. Sawan remembered the camping trip earlier back in June. She had done that then.

Sawan doggedly continued excitedly, “Well yea that too and nagging them about how clean their rooms are and making sure they do their homework!”

“Well then if I do all that then what’ll you do?” V pouted.

Sawan pondered for a second and then said, “Um, I’ll make sure they brush their teeth.”

“That’s it? Make sure they brush their teeth?!” V barked.

Sawan hurriedly soothed, “No, no I’ll cut the grass, help clean around the house, we can work together as team doing it as opposed to just assigning it to the kids because kids never get it done right… help them understand their homework… I’m sure there’s more can’t really think of anything else. I know I’ll probably be busy with a job putting food on the table… guess you will be too… we’ll be doing the slave work, chasing the dream, like everybody else.”

“Don’t look at it that way otherwise it won’t be any fun, it’ll just be depressing,” Victoria complained.

Sawan snorted, “Well I’m sure even if we had to work like dogs until retirement that we’d still have lotsa fun along the way. We could go to clubs when we’re young; it’s hard to imagine sneaking out at night when we have kids-”

“We could try!” Victoria giggled.

“Yea we probably will anyways,” Sawan resigned. “After they show up we’ll probably go to the park a lot, the movies, or the beach and fly kites-”

“The beach? So we’ll live in New Jersey?” Victoria wondered.

“I don’t know really, I love the beach though!” Sawan exclaimed.

“Where do you think we’ll live?” Victoria persisted.

Sawan speculated, “I honestly don’t know. New Jersey’s cool, it’s home for sure and all our friends are based there, but I don’t know if I’d still live there forever, it’s so expensive, and it’s getting so crowded…. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in Sri Lanka.”

“Sri Lanka?!” Victoria blurted in shock.

“Yea it’s such a paradise. It never gets cold there. I don’t really like shoveling snow. Everything seems so… tropical and exotic, it would seem like an adventure!”

“Yea but we can’t even really speak Sinhala!” She protested.

“Well yea, but we could pick it up in a year,” Sawan briefly advocated. “We could live pretty rich too I would think, I mean look at the exchange rate. Besides, it would probably be easier to keep the kids good and well behaved there, unlike this place.”

Victoria argued, “We could still raise good kids here! Besides people there can be so… strict!”

Sawan explained, “Yea but it would definitely be a lot easier there to raise good kids and keep them outta trouble… and as for the strict culture… well we can live our own life and not care what people think or say! Anyways it was just an idea, maybe we can go back and forth if we can afford it… I think we’ll all call you Ammi, no matter where we all live!”

“Ammi? I’d feel so old then!” V laughed.

“Not now silly, later! Besides better that than Achi (grandmother)!” Sawan snickered.

“Don’t even talk about that! Yea I know, it’s just… I can’t even imagine anyone calling me that, even then. Can you imagine anyone calling you Thatha (dad)?!” Victoria parried.

“Um… yea I don’t know about that. Do you think I’d be a good father?” Sawan doubted, looking at the pathetic weak state he was in these days, with his expletive and tobacco reeking mouth and laziness.

V responded jokingly, “I’m sure by the time we have kids you’ll be a gentle responsible hypocrite-”

“Hypocrite? F**k that!” Sawan vehemently disavowed.

“I’m just kidding, chill dawg,” Victoria humorously cajoled suggestively. Dog; Sawan remembered the weird out of this world dream he had had earlier tonight but brushed it away. “I don’t know it seems just about all good normal parents have to be hypocrites though, because it’s not like we want them to make the same mistakes we make…  if you’re not a gentleman later then we won’t have any kids!”

“Alright, alright I’ll clean up my act eventually, goodness gracious,” Sawan pacified. “I wonder what they’ll be like.”

Victoria clarified, “The kids?”

“Yea,” Sawan affirmed.

“I don’t know really. I want them to be drug free, that’s a must… I want them to able to stick up for themselves but they should be nice, not mean or rude… they should know their place and not argue back with us!” Victoria concluded.

Sawan added, “Yea I feel the same way, I hope they don’t give me too much trouble and I don’t have to go out of my way to protect them. Especially, if there are girls, like, yea I don’t want to think about it. If they genuinely believe in something they should be independent enough to stand up for it but they shouldn’t try to rebel just for the sake of rebelling like I did, just because everyone before me did, because that’s stupid. They shouldn’t be afraid of anybody, even us, but they should love us enough to respect us. They need to find happiness instead of having it dictated to them. But at the same time I won’t tolerate whoring around, or drugs either, not while I’m around, because that doesn’t really make a person happy in the long term.” As an afterthought Sawan determined, “We should make them play sports too, it’s for their own health and good.” There was another pause. “We should have dogs. I always wanted one. But not something as goofy looking as Cody,” Sawan said, referring to Victoria’s little dog that looked like a stuffed animal.

“What’s wrong with Cody?” Victoria indignantly objected.

“Nothing, he’s just so small and puny looking, no offense,” Sawan honestly critiqued.

“What then?” Victoria asked in exasperation as she yawned. Sawan could hear her opening and closing her jaws and lips several times as she licked the roof of her mouth, like a sleepy baby. Sawan did it too, usually when he woke up. They were both getting tired again.

“A Rottweiler, maybe I’ll feed it blood like my grandfather did to his dog in Sri Lanka,” Sawan mused, though aware of what the nasty consequences of owning a violent bloodthirsty dog would be. 

“A Rottweiler?! No way, not with me!” Victoria declared.

“Eh, it’s just a suggestion, we’ll figure it out later,” Sawan thought as he snuggled closer to the big fat firm pillow next to him and kissed the edge of it. “V, do you love me?”

“Of course I do stupid… why else would I agree to all this,” Victoria burbled, her voice growing fainter.

“Then say it, I want to hear you say it!” Sawan eagerly demanded.

“I luvvvvvvv you Sawan,” Victoria bubbled contentedly with enthusiasm. “Do you love me?” she asked, feigning timid uncertainty.   

“Yup, yup I luvvvvvvv you Victoria,” he mumbled blissfully, looking forward to the future. Silence had fallen again. Sawan’s eyes were closed now. They felt extremely heavy, as if they had half dollars over them. His head felt really thick, as if there were weights inside his brain, crushing his skull onto the smaller slack pillow beneath his head. He was on the verge of sleep, before he remembered something. “V, make sure you learn how to cook Sri Lankan food, from your mom. I really like that stuff. Learn how to make paripu, and malung, and mus (meat).”

Victoria whispered, “But I’m vegetarian-”

“You mean fish-eater?” Sawan scoffed, making fun of the traditional Sri Lankan version of being vegetarian. “Well maybe, just maybe I’ll be one someday, because it’s healthy. I like meat lots now though, helps build muscle. Learn how to make cutlets. And fried fish. Those shrimp. Oh yea, I love those curry mushrooms your mom makes, they’re so healthy and yummy!”

“So I have to cook everything then?” Victoria sullenly said with a tired tone of resignation.

“Nah… I’ll help out.” Sawan muttered.

“Oh yea? What can you make?” Victoria countered.

“Omelets. Spaghetti. Hamburgers. Hot dogs. Pancakes. Hmmm. Guess I do have a lot to learn too.” Sawan ruefully conceded.

“Hmmhmm,” Victoria hummed.

“Night sweetheart,” Sawan thought as his brain suddenly started to tug on the switch to his conscious.

“Sweet dreams love,” Victoria sighed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACT II:

Judgment Day

 

 

October 10^th "October 12th, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foreword

Some people will blame the girl. Other people will blame the drugs. Yet others will claim it was because of genetics. But I know, the only one to blame is myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day had been dull. Sawan didn’t really remember what had happened earlier that Saturday, only that he had tried to do some work and it had been finished. He was lying back on his bed. Victoria could not be heard. As he lay there, thinking about what it was he had to get done tomorrow, he realized that there was something wrong. His room was tinted red. “Now that’s weird,” he said to himself. There was a sound, the sort of keen metallic tinging hiss that would come from a metal tuning fork or triangle, not so much the actual tremor that came from the percussive movement of hitting a tuning fork, but the underlying rapid vibrating frequency that rings during the duration and goes on after the actual percussive sound fades away, like an imprint, or echo. This sound fluctuated, increasing and decreasing in volume, and Sawan instinctively grasped it, holding on to it, because he felt as if it was something momentous, as if this sound held a secret he had to uncover. He looked around the room, and he noticed something.

There seemed to be a reddish orange mist, or haze that floated about the ceiling. His eyes became fixated on it and they swirled around in their sockets, following the moving red shadow, around the ceiling of 720. The shadow halted near Tom’s laptop to Sawan’s front and left side. It started to condense and it formed a distinct shape. “What is that?” Sawan wondered, stricken with an eccentric excitement and apprehension. He looked at the shape that was forming and to his amazement and dumbstruck shock it turned into a nasty ugly evil spirit. This spirit had a very wicked leering gaping grin shaped like a sickle. It had wide open diamond shaped holes for eyes. It had no visible nose. The spirit came over to Sawan and it looked down at him. Sawan stared back up at it, unable to tear his eyes from the apparition, frozen in place, clutching his bed sheets to his neck. Sawan himself was wearing a glazed look of anticipation on his face, perhaps because he had never seen anything like this in his life before.

            The spirit hovered over him, for what seemed like an eternity before it faded away and disappeared. It was at this moment that they arrived. “PUT YOUR HANDS UP!” They bellowed. Sawan’s head rotated about wildly on top of the pillow as he looked about. “We know what you did!” they screeched.

            “Wait, what did I do?!” Sawan beseeched.

            “You are going to shut UP! Don’t talk. We don’t like it when people break our laws,” The police said.

            “What laws?!” Sawan muttered.

            “You had sex with a minor in public, absolutely disgusting!” They charged.

            “Victoria?” Sawan whispered.

            “Yes, and now you are going to pay the price!” They hissed. By now Sawan was paralyzed. Every part of his body was rigid with fear. He had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, because his bed was his only sanctuary. The government then proceeded to molest him. They rubbed their hands all over his body. He could feel it everywhere, and he wasn’t even able to shiver, or jump out of bed. He could only lay there and allow himself to be touched. He was helpless to stop it. He wanted to yell, scream for anyone to stop this indignity, but he was powerless. He was only allowed to lay there and suffer through what was the most disgusting experience of his life. It was then that he heard them.

            “Leave him alone!” Victoria screamed.

            “Yea piss off!” Roshane challenged.

“We don’t think so, this criminal has to learn what it feels like to be molested,” The government indifferently replied.

“I thought this country was all about freedom, and Miranda rights!” Roshane protested on Sawan’s behalf.

“Shut up f****t, mind your own business,” The government scoffed at Roshane.

“M***********s, I am going to kill you guys,” Roshane retorted without tire.

“I am going to put you in jail if you say one more word, you freak,” The government answered in a snide voice. “Let me tell you two something. Just because this was consensual sex does not mean that we will tolerate it. We have zero tolerance for pedophiles in our society, especially those who think they are above the rule of law!”

“We have the Bill of Rights a*****e and it is written in our Constitution that we have the freedom of speech, so f**k you!” Roshane argued.

“Yea that’s right doochbags!” Victoria shrieked. Sawan watched the volleyball game of insults play out, unable to speak for himself. The only thing he moved were his eyes, which roved around frantically in loops and swirls. The room started to look brighter, as if there was some unseen light emanating from the objects in front of him so that everything was quite visible. Perhaps there was a nightlight turned on somewhere.

“We are going to kill this creature if he doesn’t conform to our laws!” The government sniveled angrily.

“He has every right to talk with my sister, he didn’t do anything physically wrong!” Roshane defended.

“He’s my boyfriend, so why don’t you guys just leave him and I alone, we didn’t do anything wrong!” Victoria squealed.

“We are going to make him suffer for being an evil insect, a bane on our good society!” The government righteously declared.

“He’s a good guy, he’s one of the nicest people I know, and he wouldn’t harm a fly!” Roshane blasted, taking a stand.

“We want him to DIE!!! He doesn’t deserve to stand among human beings!” The government commanded.

“NOOOOO!!!!! He’s my… my future husband!” Victoria whimpered protectively.

“We don’t care who he is to you we just want him to feel the pain a monster deserves to feel and we will dig a hole into his brain and analyze every piece of evidence we can find to persecute him and bring him to justice!” The evil authoritative figure said.

“I am sick and tired of listening to this garbage from these a******s, I have a great idea, why don’t you guys go home, and f**k yourselves!” Roshane suggested.

“No we have a better idea, why don’t you go and f**k your parents into giving you a better education!” The government sneered.

“F**k you, I’m happy with what I do, I enjoy playing music for the rest of my life who the f**k are you guys to judge what I want to do with my life!” Roshane counter-attacked. Suddenly a very different voice stepped into the battle. It sounded as if it came from a sanctimonious hypocritical silly little boy who was sitting in an extremely high stuffed armchair, whose feet couldn’t even touch the floor. In Sawan’s mind’s eye, he could picture the boy whose face he could not see, at the head of a long rectangular table along with his unseen colleagues, as if he were some pompous professor, psychiatrist or ranking government official. The little boy spoke the way a scientist would at a presentation, to his supposedly esteemed contemporaries. The subject he was lecturing on was Sawan’s mind, dissecting and analyzing it very meticulously, with the same incredulity a scientist would have towards a new specimen. He may as well have been a flabbergasted satirical little prosecutor in a courtroom, because he always spoke with an air of being amazed, at Sawan’s dilemma, and Sawan’s side of the story. Stroking his makeshift beard the boy cop spoke.

“Gentlemen… it appears as if Sawan has two friends! What are we going to do about this, hmm?” The little professor questioned. There was no answer from the other “gentlemen.” Sawan listened intently to this analysis.

Roshane furiously countered, “Everyone needs friends, and Sawan has plenty!”

“Yea, he’s got ME!” Victoria pined in frustration.

“He’s got balls, definitely have to hand him that but we’re going to cut them off now, so he won’t be able to harm you any more Miss… um never quite caught your name, whatever you are,” The original voice of the government disdainfully answered, as if speaking to a piece of t**d.

“My name is Victoria and I am sick and tired of you people harassing my best friend!” Victoria shoved back.

“No, I think Sawan’s punishment has just begun so please shut up and allow us to do our duty!” The government jeered.

“Please don’t hurt my love, it was my idea to do what we did in public-” Victoria pleaded.

“Not another word, Miss. W***e, otherwise we’ll have to pack the bags of a twelve year old girl named Victoria and send her to juvenile hall!” The government tortured.

“Gentlemen!” The little boy spokesman for the government deduced. “It seems as if Miss. Victoria is afraid of what we are supposed to do to Sawan this evening. Are you going to give us evidence to prove that you were guilty of this thought crime too? Because frankly we don’t care what children do, what we care about is what adults do to and with children!” At these words for the first time in a long while Sawan suddenly realized he had the ability to speak.

“THOUGHT CRIME?” Sawan babbled in surprise.

“Yes, Mr. Pedophile, thought crime, is what we call illegal infractions committed by one person’s mind against the minds of others!” The government pronounced. “What you did, with this, girl, who is only twelve years old, is one of the most heinous thought crimes that has ever been committed by a student at Penn State! We at Penn State do not like people who obscenely flash other people in public and commit atrocious sex acts in public! We intend to make sure that you face the consequences of corrupting children with your brain in public and offending our sense of decency!” The government informed viciously. “Please suck on the long dick of the law before we sodomize you!”

            “Suck on this f*****s!” Roshane assaulted in lieu of Sawan’s inability to respond again.

            “Yea, you guys are freaks for trying to hurt people just because they love people who are under eighteen!” Victoria decried.

            “No, what we seek is justice for the evil this f****t, committed. This lawbreaker is someone who deserves to be eaten by insects after we cut his body into pieces and throw it into the forest outside State College! We tolerated his relationship with this, minor,” the Government smirked tauntingly, emphasizing the word ‘minor’ as if it were a little black seed in a splattering of white and speckled bird poo. “for weeks, but two nights ago, on the night of October 8^th, this sick, dog, in human skin, raped this girl’s mouth, violently, not in his room, where sexual activity is tolerated, but in an extremely public location, on a green bench outside his dorm. He challenged the laws laid down by our holy government by thinking about oral sex with a minor, who is only but twelve years old-”

            “A willing minor who wanted to give her boyfriend a favor because he had been working so hard at school by simply telepathically putting out at a place he happened to be sitting at, it’s not like people could actually see anything, he wasn’t actually, visibly flashing anyone anything, and neither was I!” Victoria shielded, correcting authority.

            “Yes yes, child but you were both trying to make a point that loving someone who is not within the acceptable age group is a good thing, you both were trying to change the way we view the natural order of things and we don’t like it when people try to change our way of viewing the natural order of things!” The government decreed, while they continued to molest Sawan’s arms, legs and, well other places too sadly enough. Even if their touch physically felt the same way Victoria’s had felt two nights ago, and they too were invisible like Victoria had been, just the fact that a group of strange men were doing this to him instead of his true love made him feel extremely uncomfortable. These people from the government tried to attack Sawan in the most malicious of ways, by trying to make him feel as if he were a sexual assault victim. “We made eighteen the basic uniform sex age so that we could regulate the population from having too many babies, at a time when medicine was making exponential advances in the world. We don’t want a population that is exploding enough as it is at a period of time where we have to worry about feeding and providing aid to billions of other people around the world.”

            “My brother is going to kick your asses if you don’t leave my boyfriend alone!” Victoria vilified, not really digesting the piece of information she had just heard. Sawan however, once more found to his complete surprise that he was shocked enough to speak.

            “Wait, so this isn’t even about morals, it’s about regulating the population?” Sawan abruptly interrupted weakly, talking to the room at large.

            “We don’t need to explain to you why things are the way they are we just want you to keep your ugly tooth ache from infecting the minds of others!” The government brusquely fired.

            “Shut up, we don’t need to here this nonsense coming from a bunch of donkey faced sickos who sit around and just whack off all day to tormenting other people who are trying to fall asleep!” Roshane retorted.

            “The government… has decided… to kill Sawan for molesting Victoria, with his brain, and we will make sure that he does not live beyond tomorrow!” The government cried.

            “Nasty f*****s, all these guys do is give homosexuals a bad name by hurting people who don’t want to be touched!” Roshane muttered.

            The government ruled, “Silence, we only hurt people who deserve to be touched! I think we should let the other students of Penn State tell Sawan what they think of his recent exhibition outside Heister Hall! Penn State has a very special way of dealing with freaks like Sawan! LISSSSTENN!!!” Sawan listened. The window was open and the curtains fluttered about. Outside sounds and voices rose and fell weirdly but the more he listened the louder they became. Something that was very distinct above the shifting volume of voices though was the chinking of shattering glass and noisy aluminum clatter of beer cans. There were people outside on the ground floor were smashing glass beer bottles and beer cans violently against the side wall of Heister. A lot of people actually, more like a small mob, or riot in fact. Definitely about thirty to forty people at least. As Sawan listened from his bed he suddenly became aware of what they were shouting in hatred.

            “F****t!”

            “P***y!”

            “Pedophile! What a little b***h!”

            “We always knew that little Indian boy was gay but what the f**k, who the f**k would do something like that?!”

            “Child rapist! We should like cut his dick off and chop off his n*****s for doing what he did!”

            “You rape children! We know what you like to think about all day in class!”

            “Let’s f**k him up, someone should definitely come up with a plan to have him get pushed out of a window tomorrow or something!”

            “You know what, I don’t think that’s enough, we should eat him haha, like he said he’d eat his roommates!”

            “Yo we shouldn’t go down to his level man!”

            “Yea let’s make him eat his own s**t! Let’s get some f****t to rape him! He’s always walking around alone at night! Thinks he’s so tough just because he walks around alone! Mr. Three AM hahaha!”

            “Yea I know right he’s always singing that song by Eminem ‘3 AM,’ he’s always like ‘oh s**t it’s three o’clock in the mornin’ guess that makes me a real bad a*s!’ Oh my God he’s such an actor!”

            “Yea what a wimp, it’s like he’s afraid of everyone during the day so he only feels happy when he’s by himself at night!”

            “It’s like he’s not chill with us because he likes to f**k twelve year olds, what an immature b***h, probably has a small dick, that’s why he likes kids so much!”

            A girl outside suddenly shrieked, “‘She puts the lotion in the bucket, it puts the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again?’ you like songs that say fucked up things like that? You like it when people kidnap and torture girls? What a sick f**k! ”

            “Yea he wishes he was like a serial killer, as if were something cool, maybe we should show him how serial we can get with pedophiles who want to f**k innocent little girls!”

            “Naw yo if we let him get away with what he did on Thursday night man, s**t like that’s just wrong! Who the f**k sits in public thinking about getting head from a twelve year old b***h who thinks she’s the s**t? Can’t believe any real home dawg would fall for a little b***h like that! Like what the hell did this b***h a*s even see in some baby like that? Kid prolly don’t even have tits!” Sawan by this time was so overwhelmed by the hatred expressed by his fellow peers that he was even powerless to stop this guy from insulting Victoria.

            “He likes them flat and little, that’s his problem, probably means he likes little boys too, b***h gayface!”

            “Boy wants be like Peter Pan, that’s his problem, him and his little gang of Lost Girls, haha, him and his Sri Lankan community! What a loser!”

            “Homo!”

            “Yea yo this guy is a homo, can you imagine how gay that must be, to have a roommate who doesn’t have the ability to stop himself from whacking off in a room with seven guys! You know how weird that is? How do his roommates even live with him? Grow some balls and get some actual a*s that’s your age son!”

            “Yo I saw him that night on the bench out here, and I was like ‘WHATTTT?!’ to myself cuz I knew what he was doin’ and I just looked right the other way cuz I knew this guy was gonna get his jaw cracked for it later!”

            “Yea do you think any of us can just sit somewhere and imagine we’re jizzing in some kid’s throat and not get beat up and harassed for it? Think this is a place where you can just daydream about anything? Face it you want to break the law and f**k this girl, if you only had the balls to do it, I’d really like to see what happens then!”

            “it’s so funny seeing this little s**t faced twit hating on white people, black people, latinos, like even all guys in general, and hot girls just because he doesn’t get a*s from them just about everybody actually. He judges everybody. Like he hates guys who are stronger than him just cuz he’s jealous they get more p***y and they can beat him up but he also makes fun of and is weirded out by the actual gay people he behaves like. That’s why this punk has like no friends, straight or gay and he’s always wondering why he doesn’t have more! Because we know what you think of us, stupid fool, acting so friendly to our faces, but you didn’t know we could read yo mind and hear what you actually thought of us!”

            “Sandnigger!”

            “I’ve never seen a pedophile try to hate on so many people, like I didn’t even know these people could even speak up in public for crying out loud, cuz they’re all guilty and s**t! I’ve never seen such a hater in my four years here, ever! We have to put this m**********r in his place!”

            “He hates cuz he’s scared of everybody, he’ so insecure!”

            “He’s so scared of everyone finding out his weakness when he doesn’t we already know all about it, his little- yo what’s that b***h’s name? That girl he’s so in luuvvvv with oh my gawd I could heard him a few days ago-”

            “I think her name’s Victoria!”

            “Yea little Victoria hahaha, I heard him a few nights ago, he was like ‘I luvvvvvvv you Victoriaaaaa, I wanna make babies with you!’”

            “Yea that’s just f*****g disgusting-”

            “That’s so, wrong… I’m getting nasty images in my head hope they don’t call the thought police on me, not my fault, was yours!” someone snickered. Sawan couldn’t tell whether he was serious or not.

“Yo my bad, dude, but he actually thinks he really loves the girl when we all know he’s lying! Human instinct is just all about breeding, we’re animals!”

“Yea survival of the fittest, and we tried to get him fit like us to fit in with us by getting him laid but he wouldn’t rise up to the task, he just kept thinking about little Miss. Diapers in New Jersey. That shows he’s not capable of being competitive among peers in his own age group and should be terminated, if he isn’t chasing after girls his age-”

“Couldn’t rise up to the task, that’s a good one man!”

            “S**t’s weak son!”

            “Hey five dollars he even doesn’t even have a dick, he has a little vagina!”

            “Only one way to find out haha, let’s strip and search him for real! Naw I think this thing is a transvestite!”

            “Oh my Gawd it’s going to be so funny seeing whether he has the nuts in his pants to go to the gym and face actual guys anymore after tonight!”

             “It’s not like we didn’t give him some space too, like Penn State’s chill, we can tolerate pedophiles and freaks and s**t, but we have rules, like just human decency really, like any advanced civilization!”

            “Yea I mean it’s one thing to like be in bed at night and thinking and talking to your stupid little girlfriend, like we say that’s acceptable, but during the day? Like everywhere you go? We know why you’re so distracted everywhere you go, we know who you’re talking to!” Someone teased.

            “He’s always running off to Sunset Park, or his silly little Garden, to get away from other people, just so he can talk to you-know-who, wearing her little training bra, man this s**t is so funny!”

            “We didn’t say anything then really even though we wanted him to stop being a little whiny b***h and join the mainstream, be like the kids his age around him, and socialize with us, we put up with his flaunting ridiculous bullshit for so many days. What did he say? This baby was his prize? Some weird s**t trying to make out he was better and cooler than all of us, just because the rest of us have to smash girls our age! Hate to break to ya but we live in a world that has rules about where and when to engage in sexual activity, we don’t like it when someone thinks they’re above the laws us ordinary citizens have to follow!”

            “Yea like the rules sez we can look the other way if you talk to Miss. White Panties in your head at night in bed, that’s the loophole we give to puny guys like you who can’t stop thinking about children, f*****g nasty, but trying to flash the whole college your pathetic freakish nature is not cool!”

            “He’s always trying to go on his laptop late at night so his roommates won’t catch him looking at her pictures and then he goes on Facebook just so he can stare at her profile picture, what a dumb loser, if she’s so tight with you in your head then why isn’t she friends with you for real?” Sawan had no answer to anything they said. He was stupidly silent, unable to take a stand. It appears as if both Roshane, and Victoria, had no answer to give back to the very real physical crowd gathered outside, who were still yelling, throwing their bottles angrily so that the breaking glass ricocheted against the solid red brick wall in a million directions, like the glass breaking during Kristallnacht. The smashed dented aluminum cans continued to clang and jangle loudly as they were thrown against the wall outside too. For some reason, the regular Penn State police was conspicuously absent to arrest the group of loud noise makers outside. Perhaps because it was Saturday night and they had better things than riots to take care of.

            “Speaking of which, have you seen this lamo’s profile pic? Him wearing that dorky black tie and making that heart with his hand? What a suck up! Like we all don’t know who his he’s making that heart sign to!”

            “Aww how adorable, sending a secret heart message to his girlfriend, give me break seriously, I crack up every time I see him all pissed off and scared stomping around campus, as if we were all going to jump him. Now after what he did on Thursday, we’ll be more than happy to show him how right he was!”

“It’s time for us to just leave him to his fate guys, like I honestly expect him to be dead by morning!”

            “F*****g piece of s**t, hope he gets killed off like the rest of his kind!”

            “Yea what a scumbag, hope he rots in hell for trying to f**k children!”

            “I am so sick of people like him who think they can change the way our people do things, the way we make the natural order of things so that things are the way we like them to be. If anyone thinks they can defy the system, then we have to find them and crush them, immediately. Otherwise this whole world be anarchy, what with everyone f*****g anything!”

            “Yea like Doomsday! People would just go around claiming they were in love with trees and screwing them in public because they were in love! America is a land of the free and home of the brave to those who follow the laws that we vote on in a democracy. If you don’t like it, then leave! Always whimpering about how awesome that stupid little island in Asia his parents are from is!”

“I hear kids give hand jobs there on the beach for like a dollar! That’s probably why he wants to go there so bad! What a b***h. He’s born and raised here, uses our tax dollars to become educated to figure out what the world is really all about, does our drugs so that he knows ten times as much as his parents did when they were his age, and yet he’s all whiny about being an American after we give him the truth!”

“Traitor!”

“Yea little actor is a traitor!” As time passed, the voices outside shouted less and less often, as if the crowd was slowly dispersing over half an hour. It was probably about 3:15 in the morning when the voices outside had completely died down, leaving a very frightened poor Sawan by himself again. Except of course, he was never by himself, not tonight anyways.

“His mouth should be shut with cement and his ears ripped off. We want him to suffer, to learn the price of pedophilia in this great country by making him drink his own urine and eat his own s**t! It is time to make him believe that what we do is for his own good, because today is his Judgment Day!” The nasal voice of the government announced. Sawan’s eyes darted back and forth in trepidation, as if he could actually see the people talking up on ceiling, except he couldn’t. At least for the moment. This was the first mention of Judgment Day and the phrase made Sawan’s attention peak higher, if that were any more possible.

“This is correct! Gentlemen! We have to carry out the task today of judging this felon who committed these atrocious thought crimes!” The boy prosecutor exclaimed with enthusiasm.

“For crying out loud, you know what? You guys need to go and take a little stick and take turns shoving it up your asses!” Roshane deplored against this annoying harassment of Sawan, speaking up for the first time in more than an hour. Apparently Victoria hadn’t gone to bed either.

“My daddy is going to sue you people once he wakes up and finds out that you guys tormented Sawan!” Victoria retaliated.

“Your father works as a repairman and doesn’t know his left arm from his right arm when it comes to anything else but repairing things! What a third class loser!” The government berated.

“No, the real definition of third class losers means grown men like you who don’t have lives,” Roshane rectified.

“The government… is sick of these two bags of s**t interfering with our important process of transformation! The actual reason for what is occurring tonight is because we are trying to help and reform this delinquent from his wretched pedophilia and masturbation habit. If that is not possible we will surely have to kill you unless you follow the rules we dictate to pedophiles to live under! Pedophiles are not to look at children under eighteen! Pedophiles are not allowed to communicate with girls under eighteen! This includes Facebook stalking girls or if you are gay, boys, under eighteen!”

“My boyfriend is NOT gay!” Victoria screamed.

“Yea you guys are the ones behaving queer, molesting people, what a disgraceful world we live in, I don’t know why the f**k I was born into such a nightmare!” Roshane disparaged.

But the government dictated, “No interruptions please! The government… was just saying… that pedophiles should not communicate, with underage children. Pedophiles are to follow these standards and procedures down to the last letter of the law! As for thought crimes, that is whole other ballpark isn’t it?”

“Why yes… GENTTLEEMENN… it is time we explain to Mr. Sawan here the rules we expect him to obey if he is to continue living here in this world! On thought crimes. We expect pedophiles or any criminals for that matter to not ever break our regulations on thoughts controlled. We tell you what is ok and not ok to think, otherwise, you get killed,” The young boy professor who spoke from his high chair sagely lectured.

“Killed?” Sawan mumbled bleakly.

“Yes boy, you get shot, or run over, or stabbed, or mutilated, or dissected piece by piece, bit by bit, your innards exposed to the light of day as we string you up from a tree in woods and leave you for hungry cougars and bears to find!” The government hissed with a degree of excited revolting desire.

 Roshane argued, “Ah cry me a river you b*****s we don’t care about your empty threats, Sawan, don’t listen to them and allow yourself to be put down by these a******s they can’t actually harm you-”

“Oh I’ll say we can, you and sister too if you both don’t go back to sleep immediately in New Jersey and let us deal with our subject!” The government scowled.

“Gentlemen! Perhaps we may have to call their local thought police and get them resolved? Eh?” The little professor suggested distractedly, probably inspecting some residue on his thumb and forefinger, rubbing the two fingers together absentmindedly.

The government blackmailed, “Yea, you know that’s not such a bad idea, get those Jersey boys on these two punks in no time? Whaddya kids say? You snotheads wanna be molested by authority? What about you little girl? Huh? Wanna be felt up by the police? Why don’t you guys just butt out of our legal business and leave us to do our duty!”

“Read my mind, we don’t really give a s**t about possibly being molested by cops because we protect family and this kid has definitely shown us he practically is family to us! Cuz you know what? That’s all you guys can do! Sawan you listening? That’s all they can do, just rub their invisible hands with their minds on your body! That’s all the thought police can do about non-life threatening thought crimes! Just hang in there! Why don’t YOU guys leave Sawan to rest, he’s had enough of your bullshit for one night! This isn’t the way we run Judgment Day in New Jersey! We don’t threaten people with death and a lynching by mobs, it’s unfair you guys are both punishing him and putting him on this trial on the same day!” Roshane criticized.

“Well too bad, we have our own way of doing things here in PA, so buzz off, Garden State band geek!” The government shot back. “Besides, this kid here even has an assault record too, I wonder if he remembers what he did to that female victim at 6:42 PM on October 6^th, just outside Heister? Couldn’t contain himself, had to mentally undress her and then jump her with his brain too, didn’t he? Assault is a very serious crime we take at Penn State University, and we like to weed out the potential suspects by keeping an exact record of what everyone is thinking! No, we intend to complete his judgment in one session and because of his multiple infractions upon the moral conduct expected of a United States citizen, it is absolutely necessary that we be extremely severe! And by the way as for our ability to punish pedophiles, we are definitely allowed to do more than just molest people, aren’t we?” The government was sounding very slick and happily animated with repulsive anticipation as it asked this.

Sawan’s eyes widened even further if that were possible as they rolled and bounced like pin balls in his sockets. Even though Sawan had always suspected that everyone knew what he was thinking at Penn State, and he was aware he was probably always being spied on like that night at Sunset Park with Victoria, it was still a shock to start learning everything about the truth, the system, at the same time he was being molested in bed. These were the answers he had been seeking to the questions he had asked Saddhu and his father a month ago. The truth was that everything he had ever thought his whole life was systematically noted, processed, and documented as evidence for illegal thought crimes designated as immoral or treasonous, that he had committed. Furthermore, Sawan was not unique. He was not special. This was the case for everyone around him and he was just learning this, tonight.

“Gentlemen… is it time to start the next process of Judgment Day?” The invisible premature child scientist hurriedly questioned, as Sawan stopped trying to comprehend the enormity of what he was learning and began listening keenly again.

“Wait, I don’t get it, if I there are some types of thoughts that are illegal then why haven’t I gotten in trouble before, or why wasn’t I warned before, or, or-” Sawan suddenly fussed, begging for mercy on the grounds of his previous ignorance.

“SILENCE! The reason you have never been prosecuted for thought crimes before, is because you have never been subject to your Judgment Day, which one of the most critical days of your pathetic life! After this day you are considered a fully fledged adult who is held responsible for their incorrect thoughts!” The government roared.

Sawan moaned, “But why am I being punished if I wasn’t aware befo-”

“This kid!” The government interrupted, the man speaking probably shaking his head in disbelief. “He just can’t learn to shut his mind up can he? You’ll be better off on your Judgment Day if you just learn your place and stay silent while we take you through this mental obstacle course. You are being punished because the crimes that you have committed with your brain are so particularly horrendous that you are being given a baptism by fire, a preventative preemptive measure that will teach a good lesson to such a potential terrorist like you to watch what he thinks, lest he gets into trouble with the law if he thinks he can try to change the way we do things! We don’t care what you do; we care about what you think!”

“Gentlemen! The time has come to sleep with this boy tonight! He must suffer our full wrath!” The horrible young creature sitting in his high chair dramatically cried. “Sleep?!” Sawan thought. Before he could totally fully realize and accept what had just been declared, it began happening abruptly, what was to date the most shamefully degrading and humiliating experience of his life, more than any insult he had ever had to endure in the past.

“THISSSSSSSS ISSSSSS YOUR PUNISSSSHHHMENT!” The government hissed with gleeful triumph. Sawan could feel a very solid thick unseen figure suddenly fall into bed beside him. Sawan turned away from this invisible man to his right. This clear as crystal glass government agent threw his arm over Sawan’s shoulder, and hunched closer, hugging himself to Sawan. Sawan who was sickened, cringed in terror and shrank to the far edge of the bed. In truth he should have just gotten up, and fled in refuge to the Health Center, if not weeks ago, or in the past few days, or past few hours, or past few minutes, then definitely right now.

He should have shaken his roommates awake, and borrowed a phone to call his parents, or Swaminwahanse, the noble Buddhist monk. He should have tried to take a stand, or defended himself, but how to do so against something untouchable, a force that was bent on punishing him eventually no matter where he went? He would always have to get back into some bed, somewhere, eventually, and authority would have been waiting. What he should have done was gotten out of bed anyways though, and acted, and objected vigorously against this monstrosity. Instead he accepted this sentence, unwillingly submitting to this wrong, because he believed he had no choice but to bend over and resign himself to what the bullies of the government told him he had to suffer. They told him he should suffer because of who he was, a horny virgin, who became a pedophile and nymphomaniac as a result of never having sex.

As Sawan moved away, the figure clung to his body, and whispered, “Don’t move otherwise I will make you suffer even greater, killing you and splicing your organs into many fragments!” So Sawan stopped moving. Lying on his side, he felt something pushing against his anal cavity, something that was pushing inexorably upwards, sort of like a long thick piece of excrement being pushed inwards, not outwards, in reverse. Freezing in shock and disgust, completely frightened by his tormentor, Sawan lay in suffering as the elongated invisible broad object slowly pushed into his body, upwards into his abdomen until it stopped moving. Then it started to move outwards. Only to start pushing back in. This went on, and on for many long minutes; until there was a change.

The rapist who worked for the government stopped moving and grunted, “I want you to suffer. I want to cause you pain. I’m gonna give you a really nice time tonight, because I know how you think. I know what you like to do to other people. I know what you want to do to little girls. So tell me Sawan, why do you think you’re a pedophile? Hmm? Is it because you watched too much child porn on Limewire as a boy? Or was it because you liked to read too much erotica of daddies having sex with their daughters? Just because you didn’t get any real a*s in life? Hmm? Are these your reasons for being such a monster? I don’t buy it. It’s not good enough for me. Here’s what I think. I have something to show you. Turn around and sit up! Behold your greatest fantasy!” Sawan flipped over onto his back, and fearfully peered up, propped on his elbows.

There was a moving reddish image floating above the end of Sawan’s bed. It was composed of tiny red, pink, orange, and purple particles, bouncing molecules that danced crazily, flowing rapidly like a fountain and cascading into space. These particles eventually coalesced into a concrete shape. What sort of shape? There was a round headed man who appeared to have no hair sitting in the air as if on an invisible chair, with a head so round that it looked like a small round boulder on his shoulders. He was holding something. He was holding a child, in his lap, who was facing him. A girl with small pigtails. She too had a round head. She looked younger than ten. They both seemed quite oblivious to Sawan’s presence. They didn’t notice Sawan because they were busy mashing their faces together, rubbing, and nuzzling each other enthusiastically, both of them, the man and child, while wearing strange blissful grinning faces of satisfaction. It suddenly dawned on Sawan that their behavior was actually of a sexual nature. This weird man was sitting in the air holding his weird daughter and he was making out with her. The creepy part was they appeared to be enjoying it.

Sawan’s darkest secret was that in the past until Victoria had arrived telepathically to him over a month ago and he had changed his routine, he had typically fantasized being Uncle Damith, her dad, but without picturing his face and committing incest and statutory rape upon Victoria. Sawan would come up with all sorts of scenarios of being Victoria’s father, and being seduced by Victoria and vice versa. He would try to visualize himself living in their house, doing Uncle Damith’s job, living his life. Except for one difference. Every night he would sneak into Victoria’s bedroom. Every night he would molest her. Every night he would rape her. And she would like it. Sawan was a pervert.

Sawan was disgusted and appalled by the grotesque vision. As much as he fantasized he would never actually want this. He was not like that at all. He was absolutely horrified and sickened by what he was looking at, because authority had ripped out his most guilt-ridden, extremely personal and purely symbolic fantasy out of the root of his being and made an actual caricature out of it. Still if Sawan was a pedophile as everyone said he was, then why did he find this so alarming, and shocking? Because this desire, this wish to dominate someone’s heart completely, fully, totally was genuine but only in the sense that it was nothing but a figment of his imagination. This perversion was the product of an unapologetically sinful lust that had exponentially increased over unfulfilled years. What bothered him the most wasn’t the vision itself but what the vision represented in his life. A father and a daughter making out meant that the third party, the boy in that girl’s future who would be in love with her, was being screwed over. Him.

The vision eventually faded and was replaced by the purple darkness. Sawan flipped over and faced the other side. The time was about 4:27 AM. It was near dawn. The oblique shades of orange had yet to tint the purple skies outside that Sawan couldn’t see. The hecklers outside were long gone but the hecklers inside his mind were still present. The government, the thought police and the boy who seemed to have majored in all disciplines went without pause, without break, entertaining themselves at Sawasn’s expense. The hours drifted by. Sawan couldn’t tell who was who after awhile. It was around 5:49 AM that he looked up and saw the young man and the boy with their wireless xbox shaped controllers. “You are controlled by us, this is our video game!” they laughingly chuckled happily to Sawan below. The cruel angry image of the video game fiends dissipated. There was a pitching noise again. Sawan clung to the rising volume and tone of the pitch, which steadily climbed higher and higher with the sun.

Tom was waking up. Sawan noticed that he was getting dressed in his corner as if nothing had happened last night.

“You are supposed to tell at least one person about Judgment Day,” someone whispered into Sawan’s ear.

“Tom,” Sawan blurted.

“Yea,” Tom answered, turning around, facing Sawan’s bed while putting on his trousers for ROTC Air Force.

“Last night I experienced something profound, something life changing…my Judgment Day,” Sawan explained. Have you ever experienced Judgment Day?” Sawan queried.

“No, can’t say that I have,” Tom replied with uncertainty written on his face.

“Oh,” Sawan puzzled. This was strange. He had been given the impression that everyone knew what Judgment Day was, and here was Tom denying the existence of such a day in his own life. Perhaps Tom was denying the existence of Judgment Day intentionally.

“It is an extremely personal experience he wouldn’t want to reveal his experience of that day in his life to anyone,” the professor hypothesized.

*          *          *

Sawan skipped lunch. For some reason when he checked the loft above his floor was unlocked. Sawan went inside and began pacing the room. The blue miniscule yarn ball carpet scratched beneath his feet as he went over to gaze by the window. He could see the other buildings and a cloud gray sky moving into the vicinity of his vision. “You have to be able to silence your thinking on Judgment Day the government explained as he looked out on to the horizon.

“The rain hasn’t started yet,” a thought police officer mulled. Somehow they could detect what it was that Sawan was looking at even. Then Sawan looked towards his face in the glass and saw an imprint of himself. He couldn’t tell what made him feel more different the strang-THINKING. He moved back towards the present . He turned around and observed the wooden chairs pushed up against the table. Perhaps-THINKING.

“Learn to behave with Victoria and then you will see!” the government extolled.

“Yea, well what do you mean by behave we haven’t done anything wrong but love each other,” Victoria bluntly spoke.

“Behave means knowing knowing when to interfere in the business of others in your case,” the Government balefully claimed.

Sawan interefered, “But-”

“No, just stop, this is all THINKING, so SILENCE!” the Government roared at Victoria and Sawan. There was no end to or way to stop the committing of a thought crime; the thought process could not be stopped. It appeared as if he was stuck doing this staying in the present thing for the long haul. But how long was the long haul? This time it was too long, too stressful, too much to bear. If this was a sane activity then obviously there wouldn’t be a problem. This on the other hand was traumatic activity.

“Thinking is an action that is considered negative and not correct,” the government hassled. The sky was still gray-THINKING. Sawan broke down.

“How can I stop thinking when she’s always on my mind! This is ludicrous, absolutely insane, V you’re a big help but I can’t help it! My whole life revolves around you and it’s like you don’t understand, WHERE ARE YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“I’m trying to help you that’s what I’m doing you idiot!” Victoria pacified. “Just stop talking, my brother said that you’re undergoing suffering right now because you like me too much when I was still a kid.” Sawan tried to remain silent but he couldn’t.

“What purpose does it serve to prove that I can stop thinking,”

“So that you can work harder to earn the girl as opposed to just dreaming about her,” the government informed. There was a door. Sawan automatically walked over to it and opened it. There was a short dark hallway. Sawan stared down it, hesitating for a moment before closing the door and walking back to the desk and plopping himself down. It bothered him that he couldn’t sleep. That he was experiencing this Judgment Day at all, where he "THINKING.

Was there a method that Sawan could look at the sky without succumbing to his own internal speech? Only the others were allowed to talk. Sawan involuntarily muttered,“Vi-”

“THINKING!” The Government yelled. But where was she? She had been silent for an extended period of time. She was allowed to speak, but where was she?

“Your subconscious mind asks questions that you must silence,” the government tasked.”Your strength flows from you friendship with the minor in question but it has to come from something else; you have to have an ability to follow orders, directions from your superiors… do not analyze the mistakes you make in life, stop trying to chase your dreams. STAY IN THE PRESENT!”

“The present,” Sawan echoed stupidly as a bush plane echoed overhead in the distance. “Oops I spoke, I mean the pres-”

“Just shut up . Just focus on the moment. Forget about the girl. Watch how the moment flows from moment to moment,” the thought police advised.

If a minute turns into an hour and an hour turns into a day how long a sentence does a boy becoming a man deserve? As long as he can remain awake. It was turning into a war, a struggle for control of his ability to shut up. Some time when he thought he was improving he would lose ground because he had THOUGHT he was improving. What then followed was a period of belittling and chastising himself for his wrong doing.

Sawan couldn’t realize that it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t capable of shutting out his own subtle commentary on reality. More so there was no end to thinking about V.V was on the corner of the table, on the grooves of his hand that were V in shape, he was overwhelmed. The only thing that he could do was to push onwards. His feet tapped and his moving fingers were outlining shapes on the table.

He shook his head. This wasn’t a good way of being. Had this ever occurred to him before? A trial where he was trying to make himself shut up? It was hard to concentrate and yet his energy levels seemed the same as they were yesterday. He was still antsy but with bouts of fatigue. During one such bout he laid his head down to rest on the table. It was dusk.

His failure to concentrate was depressing and by lying his head down Sawan felt as if he was licking his wounds. It was like bunking down in a warm dark fort that were his folded arms to survive the battle. Frustration leaked in whenever he saw light.

“The feeling of highs and lows can be seen…” The government incessantly prattled.

“Sweetheart don’t fall asleep otherwise they’ll bully us more if you don’t-“ Victoria gently insisted. Sawan jolted upright and took a deep breath of air through his mouth. He started hyperventilating to remove fatigue from his body in the now completely dark room. Yet Sawan knew that the feeling of being almost passed out was one where there seemed to be almost near complete silence on his par-THINKING!

“It doesn’t make any sense still,” he whined. “Why can’t I block out the-”

“THINKING, Sawan, still ruminating about why you suck at life, perhaps now it is time for you to move downstairs!” the government argued.

“Yea- oops,” Sawan bashfully muttered, enthusiastically leaving the pitch black room at the top of his dorm and traveling one floor down to the seventh floor back into 720. It was past eleven at night. Everyone was asleep. Sawan hastily went over to his bed and began undressing, stripping his pants and jacket before climbing into bed. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

“You have to be less nervous than that,” the government sinisterly compelled as a feeling of fear ran through him. All of these negative feelings made him feel like a rat at times, as he huddled under the blanket in the dimly lit room he shared with his roommates. There was a clicking whirring sound in his mind before another character entered the conversation.

“Hey man they let me off of work pretty late,”

“Ro?” Sawan gasped. “Where have you been?”

Roshane replied, “I was at work, I hope sis looked after you and you didn’t do anythin’ stupid like trying to I don’t know man you’re-”

“I think you’ve said enough to Sawan this is an officer for the Penn State Thought Police,” someone suddenly spoke in clipped measure fashion.

“Oh baloney, That’s bullshit!” Roshane spitefully answered.

“Is it bullshit, or are you just a pathetic piece of s**t who lies about the purpose of our good work here in Pennsylvania,” the invisible cop blasted.

“You people are sick!” Roshane derided in annoyance.

“So we’re the ones who produced the obnoxious pedophile? We don’t think so. You Sri Lankans from New Jersey created this particular pedophile. Clearly your people don’t know how to abide by our society’s norms,” the police accused. This caused some soft anger in Sawan to arise. He wanted to speak up but he couldn’t being relegated the position of the silent spectator to this endless quarrel. The rise in emotion didn’t go unnoticed. The boy professor had returned.

“Our faculties detect some anger in our suspect,” the professor boisterously clamored. “What are we going to do about that hmm?”

“You a******s don’t have to do anything about it, why do you care if he even expresses an emotion, is it that big a deal?!” Victoria defended without fail. Victoria was always there to defend and look out for him even when she really wasn’t present.

“You think you are wise and you think you know everything, but tell us all what you really are capable of doing other than pratting- nothing, nothing at all!” the spokesman for the government hated on Victoria.

            “Why aren’t you pricks occupying yourselves in a more fruitful way eh?” Roshane idly jabbed back on Victoria’s behalf. Sawan moved slightly in his bed as his eyes peeped out of the covers in the half-lit gloom of the room. His eyes had now adjusted to the room and he could see about. There was a light coming from Matt’s desk or the top of his dresser, some electrical device that behaved as a night light. Sawan had never noticed it before. The bluish white light emanated outwards and prickled the soft small dark corners that it could reach around Sawan’s bed. He didn’t know what to expect next. Surely last night would not repeat itself. Surely he wouldn’t be touched and raped.

“Turn around!” The government imperiously demanded. Fearfully Sawan looked around. He`didn’t see anything at first, but then it slowly appeared. The demon from the first night had reappeared in the gloom of the first light with his sickle faced grin and this time he wasn’t alone he had brought similarly faced cronies. “The President of the United States is going to screw you for what you tried to do!” The sickle shaped demon was President Obama. Sawan was struck with shock. Obama’s ability to turn into a cloudy vaporous demon was intriguing but what was of even more concern was the reason for his visit to a college student in central Pennsylvania and what he was about to do to him.

“I am going to screw you and rape you!” Obama said.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” Victoria cried.

 Sawan began trembling in fear as the sickle shaped demon closed in on him with his cronies closely following behind. Again like last night Sawan didn’t move. Sawan didn’t budge. He only allowed himself to be torturously mutilated. Once again he felt something moving against him, moving inside his bowels. Sawan’s respect for Obama went from very high to nothing in a moment. Sawan didn’t know what he had done to deserve this, from this person of all people. His ragged breathing flowed anguish. He could feel and sense an overwhelming sense of hatred and dominance in the figure behind him. Obama. The demon who was Obama didn’t seem like the man Sawan had previously come to admire and know on youtube videos and newsreels at all! Sawan’s mind rotated around in a big circle as he remembered bygone memories as the night withered on. He could not recollect a single instance he had ever offended the Obama administration. No, he had always been a steadfast Democrat.

*          *          *

            Sawan moved off of his bed. He got dressed. He headed up towards the loft again but he found that it had been locked sometime last night. As he turned around he paused to look at the drop in the staircase below. Only a steel railing stood in the way of a fall that would certainly be capable of spraining his back or breaking his neck. There was something daring about standing on the precipice of an injurious fall in Sawan’s mind. Sawan put his foot into the metal railing and stepped upwards. Then he stepped back downwards. Back upwards. And then back downwards. He quit playing around and sat down on the stairs near the top. “So you have been put to the test! You’ve withstood the test of time!” The government sneered in the early dreary Monday morning. “Well we must tell you, you haven’t done nearly enough to impress Penn State. There is a mob ready to kill you outside if you don’t do everything we ask.” Sawan heard large booming going off in the distance. His senses were on high alert. “The mob will go away if you complete the next part of Judgment Day which is converting to Christianity,”

            “WHAT?! No way! I can’t do that!” Sawan bellowed angrily. He grabbed his head and squeezed it in anxiety.  Roshane piped up.

            “Man, you have to, you don’t really have a choice we all have to eventually,” Roshane agitatedly prodded.

            “What?! What do you mean? I’m a Buddhist Ro, they can’t make me do that, that’s not right,”

            “Would you do it for V?” Roshane testily asked.

            “For V? What do you mean?” Sawan had a bad feeling about where this was headed.

            “What I mean is you have to if you want to live,” Roshane explained brusquely.

“You mean I- I don’t have a- a choice?” Sawan stuttered.

“No, you don’t,” Roshane finished.

“I have to?” Sawan questioned again. Roshane was silent. Sawan got up and descended the first flight of stairs to a window and looked out into dull abyss. Sawan felt hopelessness come over him, like a prickly wool shroud being pulled over his face. Sawan spread his arms in askance and said the words, “I love Jesus Christ.” At that instance Sawan experienced a concrete tingling sensation that ran through his entire body. The tingling sensation meant that he switched over into a different reality. His body felt different. His mind felt attuned to different plane of existence. He had apparently been greeted by the Western religion with open arms.

“It is done,” the government happily chortled. “Now go off to breakfast everyone is waiting to greet their new convert.”

*          *          *

The breakfast tasted very thick. It felt sickening. He had piled on large amounts of English muffins, scrambled eggs and waffles with coffee and orange juice. The entire cafeteria was making a cacophony of noise that spoke as one voice the more he listened. “We don’t care about what you do, we care about what you think!”

The coffee was bitter, but also tasted ugh.

The orange juice was thick, sweet; a sterile sugary fruit juice.

The waffles were plain. Sawan had forgotten the syrup.

The English muffins Sawan plastered butter onto. They tasted like doughy chubby mufflers.

The scrambled eggs tasted strangest. They were slimy yellow mushy dead scrambled slugs.

“This is nauseating,” Sawan thought.

“So what is the range of the Automatic-376?” someone nearby candidly asked.

“Range of what?”  Sawan interrupted with a slight bluster, peering at the other students down the table.

“The Automatic-376, it’s an automatic rifle,” one of them answered.

“Oh, I see!” Sawan flustered, slightly alarmed. “If you think, then you are killed,” Sawan remembered.

“Christians believe that human beings are bisexual,” a voice iterated from an unknown source, sounding like a commentator for a bio sex-ed video. Sawan stared dimly around the table of guys as he digested this fact. Sawan got up after his meal and placed his tray on the conveyor belt with its food half eaten. He had felt like vomiting. He went outside into the cloudy day and went back to Heister to collapse on his bed. 

He had to find a way to complete the transition, to fall asleep. His roommates were too loud, all they did was play video games and watch television during the day. He decided to drag all of his blankets into the spare room. Sawan laid down on the bed after slamming the door shut. Aside from a red emergency light the room was a reddish dark. He tossed and turned as he cuddled close to the pillow while the pitching noise began to arise. “This is the last part of your Judgment Day,” a voice mumbled.

“If you speak or think during your judgment then you are classified as gay,” the other voice intoned.

“But-“ Sawan muttered in protest.

“No ifs, ands, or buts,” the Government implied threateningly.

“Yea just remain silent, while we try to distract you from figuring out what your classification is,” the other snidely derided.

“So, I just have to "“ Sawan foolishly asked.

“You just thought, this isn’t going to work for you it seems,” someone snipped.

“Yes, no thinking…,” the Government answered, “Does anyone get the feeling that Sawan feels cornered?”

“Yea he just seems to be getting stupider as time goes on,” the other replied. Sawan silently hoped for the best.

You know this reminds me of that other kid we had in custody who was a pedophile,” The one voice juicily gossiped to the other.

“Yea he had a hard time accepting his judgment, because he was frightened of what would happen afterwards,” someone explained.

 “So anyways-“

“Yes it looks like Sawan may succeed! When the pitching sound goes up that means you not thinking, Sawan,” the other harasser stated. Sawan could hear the sound of the tuning fork climb higher and higher. He gripped the pillow in excitement and "“You were thinking about excitement!” the voice blared annoyingly. Sawan sighed in frustration.

“Darn it!” Saawan gullibly stated quietly.

“Shh, you have to be good if you want to succeed,” the one voice blandly countered.

“ Do you know what we do to people who don’t pay attention?” the Government questioned as the tuning fork noise dropped in pitch.

“This is madness… I can do it though!” Sawan desperately thought remembering that he was fighting for his sexuality.

“This sucks doesn’t it?” the government snidely questioned.

“Our faculties detect that you are doomed!” the professor suddenly joined in.

“You aren’t able to shut your mind-” the police officer declared.

“This boy is slow and incapable of deciphering the saliva that is dripping from his mouth,” the professor cut in. Sawan suddenly noticed that he was indeed salivating. He consciously rubbed his lips and chin against his pillow. Suddenly a door opened.

“Sorry man, just needed to get something,” Matt muttered as he looked for something from the little table by the door. His ipod. Sawan viewed the intrusion with cantankerous silent annoyance, followed by relief that washed over him as the door shut again.

“Remember silence kid!” the police officer barked. The pitching noise whined higher.

“He could reach his goal only with interruptions it seems,” the Government sardonically intervened.

“Yes there are more peoples waiting to greet you after you pass your judgment you are on track towards being classified as straight,” Sawan felt some euphoria and dumbly took note of it.

“Are you stupid?” the Government questioned angrily. “Why would take note of something as common as an emotion?”

 “This is a difficulty that can only be solved with practice,” the Government answered.

“Bullying a pedophile is socially acceptable because it is necessary to try to break them,” the police officer explained.

“Play with the pillow, but do not speak to her,” the professor advised. Sawan cuddled with the beloved pillow; following the professor’s instructions.

“Do not intrude against the peace at Penn State!” the police officer butted.

“Yes, how dare you think of moving against the pillow and then actually move against the pillow!” The Government retaliated.

“But he said-” Sawan whined.

“Gotchya!” The police officer chortled.

“No sir you have the wrong idea there,” the professor resigned.

“He had to trip up eventually, he’s supposed to be classified as gay for being a pedophile! Still he’s a good hater perhaps we should be lenient with him,” the government happily scoffed as the silvery tuning sound pitched lower.

“The pressure to force a boy to turn into a man is-”

“Enormous,” Sawan somehow sensed. For some reason Sawan could predict what was the next word they would utter. He reveled at this ability but his reveling was a hindrance.

“So he’s getting wiser eh? Must mean he’s made some progress then don’t you think?” the Government critiqued.

“Yes but if he wants to win us over he’s going to have to not do that, isn’t that right?” the police officer huffed.

“You must reap the power of evil up to a certain extent but no more than that on Judgment Day,” the professor indicated.

 The door opened again. Luke was looking for something. He silently came in while Sawan cowered in the dark, trying not to react. Luke retrieved what he was looking for and left. Sawan didn’t know for how many hours he lay there. Door open, door close. Door open, door close. Door open, door close. Sawan’s mind would drift to the pillow next to him, at which point he would be caught and cited for gayness by his harassers. Slowly however he improved. His period of silence grew longer and longer to the point where the government seriously considered giving Sawan his actual judgment.

“You are judged to be…” the Government with deliberate calm would utter. Sawan knew that he was straight. He knew because despite his insecurities he had always liked girls. He knew in his heart, deep within himself that his straightness was true, a real entity, even though his entire life he had been slow to get with girls. Yet during the actual period of pause before his actual judgment, that exact thought process would instinctively flash into his mind. And now it was impossible to judge him, because he had already judged himself. He was gay. “I’m gay, because I am too arrogant to accept my judgment!’ Sawan groaned in defeat. There was no escape. He was doomed because he couldn’t shut up about believing he was straight. He collapsed back on to the bed.

“Now that you’ve accepted your judgment may you now be pronounced husband and wife. Look under your sheets!” Sawan looked. Sawan saw Victoria. She had large wide red hips and black flowing hair that covered her face. She was young, fresh and in her twenties. She could not be stopped. She continued to hug his body, smothering him with caresses and kisses. There was one problem though. Sawan despite his youth, could not rise up to the task. He couldn’t become erect. He was in a state of utter shock. Sawan moaned desperately but even the vision’s lascivious long licks couldn’t rouse him.

“I can’t believe I lose even my own manhood today!” Sawan exclaimed, clutching his forehead.

“Fine, beat her if you must, she’s yours now, just remember you have to take us out of this place and to the Promised Land okay? And… DON’T DO DRUGS FROM NOW ON!” Aunty Veenus, Victoria’s mother, suddenly intruded and demanded.

“Okay but wait what do you mean about the Promised Land?” Sawan wondered.

“They’ll explain later right now your mother wants to talk to you.”

“Chuti Amu?!” Sawan’s mother cried.

“Mummy?!”  Sawan yelped.

“Yes are you okay?” she whined.

“Yes I’m alright, where’s daddy?” Sawan asked.

“He’s here, he’s home but he’s very upset, he can’t speak right now because he didn’t want this to happen to you at this age, he thinks you’re too young. But what can we do, that’s just the way things are…  take care of Harini okay?” Sawan’s mom’s voice increased in crescendo.

“Why what about you and daddy?”

“Don’t worry about us-”

“But why, why not-”

“Because in 2012 we are going to DIEEE!!”

“What why?! Mummy?! Why are you and daddy going to die in 2012?!”

“Because we’re POOR!”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“Because there’s going to be a civil war chuti amu, between the rich and the poor, the rich think the poor is holding this country back, is making it sink so the rich want to fight back and kill the poor…  I have to go now but you take care of yourself,”  Sawan’s mother sobbed.

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later, I’ll reach you somehow,” Sawan lamented. The voice of Sawan’s mother faded. It was instead replaced by the callous cackle of the Government.

“We expect to see some great Judgment Day sex now that we got all the hooey booey cleared up,” the Government commented. Try as he might though he failed. The only possible method of escape from this horrible situation was to give up. He didn’t know what this would mean or symbolize in his life later down the road. It was a very intolerable scenario, the concept of erectile dysfunction with V. What was he to do in the face of such an actual failure down the road? He didn’t know the real reason behind his erectile dysfunction. He had been up for about forty five and half hours straight.

*          *          *

            Sawan awoke around four pm. He couldn’t remember what had happened before only that it had left a very bitter sensation in his life. Slowly bits and pieces of the memories started to filter into his imagination, the past flooding his mind like a bleak tide hitting a lonely shore. His brain started fizzling in shame.

            He didn’t know where his feet were taking him. They dragged him out of Heister and past the parking lot. They were taking him to CAPS. “It wasn’t the going gay part, or the being raped part, but converting to Christianity, that is something that I can’t accept, that I won’t accept,” Sawan thought to himself as he began tearing up while he crossed the street and the intersection. He plodded up the hill and made a left and went into the building. He asked the receptionist if he could be given an emergency appointment. She told him to take the elevator to the top. Sawan did as he was told. He turned and jabbed the elevator button, the anxiety creeping up and down his body as the elevator came down. The door opened and he drifted inside like a ghost. The metallic elevator door closed and Sawan hit the button to go to the third floor. There was a moment where he blanked out as the elevator rose and clanged in arrival at the proper floor.

Sawan stepped out and found himself in the CAPS intake room. “Can I help you?” the receptionist crooned.

“Yes, I’m the one who reported a psychiatric emergency.” Sawan responded.

“Just have a seat, one of the psychologists will be right out to see you,” the receptionist said, wearing a very staid expression on her wrinkled face. Sawan moved towards the lounge and sat down. He began flipping through a magazine without registering the symbols and characters as letters or the glitzy faces as anything more than a pariah of reality. Lisa turned around the corner and spotted her client, morosely on the verge of tears again in the lounge.

“Sawan?” Lisa beckoned. Sawan looked up.  He quickly put down Sandra’s Greatest Trials and got up.  “Come with me.” Sawan obediently followed, quickly closing the gap between him and her. They went into a small room with a sofa and a chair. Sawan sat on the sofa, while Lisa took the chair. “I’m just going to take some notes if you don’t mind okay?”

“No not at all,” Sawan tiredly replied.

“So Sawan, tell me, what’s happening? Last time we met everything seemed okay… ”

“Well… this is hard to explain… but basically over the past forty eight hours I’ve been going through a crisis… and now I’m… GAY… and Christian too! And it’s just so… HARD, you know it’s just SO HARD!” He broke down into large sobs of tears that came pouring out of his eyes.  Lisa nodded her head sympathetically and handed him some tissues. She remained compassionately silent, waiting for him to continue. “I had nowhere else to turn for help so that’s why I came here.”

“There there, it’s okay you’re here now,” Lisa soothed gently. There was a pause. “Do your roommates know about this?”

“No, not really,” he mumbled. He could only recall talking to Tom on Sunday morning, that was it. “I hardly talked to anyone over the weekend. It’s hard to understand what happened. And why it happened.”

“You didn’t see any friends? Nobody?” Lisa skimmed for information.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you take any drugs?”

“No.”

“Okay, I see… so how did everything unravel on Saturday? Was there anything troubling you in particular?”

“No nothing was troubling me, I was doing my homework!”

“And everything seemed normal, nothing was out of the ordinary?”

No, not at all.”

Lisa looked at him carefully. “So what happened next?”

“I went to bed and that’s when I saw spirits... demons… I was raped,” Sawan muttered. The room fell silent for a second.

“You were raped? How so? Sorry I have to pry but-”

“It’s ok. I felt someone touching me,”

“Were your roommates around when this happened?” Lisa asked sharply.

“Yes they were.”

“Did you see any actual person come near you or-”

“No whatever it was, it was invisible, nobody was physically near me at all,”

“So you weren’t physically assaulted by another person? Because we take those kinds of crimes very seriously at Penn State,” Lisa concisely clarified. Sawan shuddered at the sentence she had uttered. He had had enough lecturing about crime and punishment at Penn State for a lifetime. “But you felt assaulted? You felt someone invisible touching you? You didn’t see any apparition?”

“Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t,”

“So it happened more than once?”

“Yea at least twice.” Sawan stated.

“What else happened?”

“That’s the main gist of it,” Sawan tiredly summed up.

“Well, how are you feeling right now?”

“I feel very used, after that experience,” Sawan scratched his brow. He released some methane into the air. “Sorry, I farted.”

“It’s alright,” she said gently. Lisa looked down at her white notepad. “We’re closing up for the day but we’ll get you all set before we leave,” She had made a list of activities for Sawan to do. She ripped it cleanly from the notepad and handed the list over to Sawan. Her grey eyes pierced Sawan’s dark brown ones. “These are a list of things for you to do. We need you to take it easy. I wrote down leisure activities you could do like eating ice cream, or listening to some light music. You relax, spend tonight lounging about. You don’t have to rush off to class tomorrow either. If you feel you’re up to it then you may go though.”

“Thanks, Lisa,” Sawan didn’t know how to express his gratitude. Sawan sensed something glum about the list of activities subconsciously but in lieu of what had happened he couldn’t think of anything better to do other than to agree with Lisa.

“I’m also giving you this business card with some appointments I need you to attend,” Lisa wrote down the appointments and handed them to Sawan. You’ll see a psychologist tomorrow and then the psychiatrist on Thursday at 2:00 alright?”

“Yea,” Sawan answered.

“It’s really important that you attend both meetings so we know how you’re doing,” Lisa emphasized.

Sawan met her gaze looking dazed. The meeting had seemed all too short. “Yes, I understand,”

 Lisa looked Sawan up and down as they got up. Psychologists have a very acute sense of surveying an individual and Lisa was no exception. Apparently Sawan passed the sanity test.  She ended, “Then I’ll see you soon, you take care, Sawan.”

“Goodbye,” Sawan said needily. He didn’t bother asking for a phone at the time to call his parents. He just left. He went back towards Heister in the gathering dusk. It was past 4:30. He didn’t know what to do when he got back. He felt embarrassed walking into 720. He didn’t know what to expect. All he knew was that he was definitely on track to being made fun of. He had failed on Judgment Day. What would his roommates think of him? Worse yet what would Victoria think of him? Of course she obviously knew because she had been with him throughout the whole nightmare but they didn’t talk much after Sawan’s judgment had been sentenced. He only remembers passing out. He had slept for probably about four to six hours. “Speaking of Victoria… where is she? Victoria?” But there was no answer. Sawan went back up the elevator to the seventh floor and got out. He entered 720. The room was half empty. Dan was slumped over his bed, snoring in his afternoon slumber. Luke was at his desk conscientiously tasked doing some homework. Sawan cautiously crept past the two and headed back to his bed and sat down on the edge.

He didn’t know what to do next. Life seemed dull. He did have homework to do but Lisa had told him to take it easy. Still he had been taking it easy through much of September, waking up late and missing classes on numerous days. His mind slipped in and out of focus. He didn’t hear anyone at the moment. All was silent. He yawned. He was still exhausted. Homework. Where could he possibly start? He had skipped classes today. Fear flooded his eyesight and he momentarily wiped his eyes silently. He didn’t know why he had become so sensitive, it was just how he felt. He turned away not wanting Luke to see and then collapsed sideways onto his bed facing away from the door, staring morosely off into space.

Then there was the gay label he had been branded with. He was forced to pretend to behave gay. Simply based off of his arrogance. Everyone had to go through with it. Yet it was such a lowly position in his eyes. Homosexuality is something that Sawan never liked. Sawan didn’t enjoy being called names. He didn’t like it when people deemed him lesser or different from others.

 As he grew up and learned what the modern definition of the word “gay” was, Sawan would shiver with repulsion at the thought of having sexual contact with another guy. Sawan was firmly against the idea of such behavior in himself and in others. He despised the concept, hating those he felt were queer, looking down on gays. Behind this aversion though was a fear that only revealed itself with the conscious question. “Am I gay?” he would wonder from time to time relatively infrequently as he grew up. He would contemplate the concept seriously and deeply searching into his being. A feeling of fear would surge through him the deeper he looked but he would always remain calm in the end. Because he would realize the only gender he happily craved was girls.

Now he found himself in an adult society of bisexual people who were categorized based on behavior as either straight or gay. The words “gay” and “straight” had something more to do with character and appearance rather than sexuality itself. This meant that everyone around him were also in a classification too. But what did this mean? How did everyone else feel about being categorized and labeled into a group that they weren’t a part of? Sawan paused for a moment in his thinking. Now he would have to dress gay, talk gay, just to put up an act. Surely this was happening to him now because he had made fun of gay people like everyone else in his age group. Half an hour had gone by. He couldn’t sleep, only tiredly think. Now that Judgment Day was over he was obviously allowed to think it seemed, because he wasn’t dead yet, but perhaps they were just giving him an allowance because he had to get up to par with everyone else in his age group. Clearly he was a late bloomer on the whole adult anti-thinking principle.

Sawan wasn’t going to let other people get to him though. He wasn’t going to be put down even if he had to pretend to be gay. He knew just what to do. Sawan rose out of bed and angrily started changing. He peeled off his jeans and slipped on a pair of gym shorts and a tie-dye. Tie-dye shirts represented the epitome of gayness in contemporary America even if popular among peace loving subcultures. At least this was the case in Sawan’s experience. Sawan could recall a day he last wore the tie-dye outside and being catcalled by a group of black kids from another table. They probably assumed him to be black like them because of his bald head at the time, giving them a reason to pick on him. Tie-dye shirts were definitely not cool in black culture or much at Penn State for that matter. But what was cool and what was not cool no longer mattered to Sawan. Wearing a mask of fury Sawan headed towards the White Building, which held the local weight room. As he walked his mind was fixated on exercising and showing those jocks that someone who was clad in an unpopular fashion could still work out.

He entered the building, and into the weight room. The receptionist stared at Sawan as he fished his pockets for his wallet which was nowhere to be found. He had left it back in Heister! Baffled at his own stupidity, Sawan stumbled out the doors, heading back upstairs and out the doors into the cold. With that pastime effectively deferred, Sawan headed back to Heister. He no longer had the will power to go back out into the bitter cold again to prove that he could work out, the fact that he had showed his face was proof enough. He had received some strange looks in the White Building because of the scowl on his brow as much as for the shirt he was wearing, making a rare sight to see, an angry brown hippie. When Sawan got back he decided the best course of action was to do some homework.

He hastily got out his Excel 2007 book, and turned on his laptop. While the computer was loading he could hear a booming sound outside. It sounded ominous. Sure enough someone confirmed the worst. “This could be a bad scenario for him if he doesn’t focus on his work,” someone on the television behind him said. Shaking in disbelief Sawan turned his head half around but he couldn’t make out what was on the screen.

“Yea too bad he’s distracted easily, Hey there! Ha ha!” a woman on the TV said.

“Well back to it big guy,” the man presumably next to her chortled as his desktop came into view with a large binging sound. Still surprised Sawan turned back to his computer and quickly got to work.  As Sawan worked he double-checked for errors and found some mistakes. Undeterred though, he quickly corrected them and moved on. Once again wondering what the purpose of Excel in his life was he found the work to be relatively painless with the television making conversation to his thoughts.

“This formula… doesn’t go here, so it should go… hmm…” Sawan thought and muttered. Tom was back in the room. He flicked the television channel so that it landed on The Office.

“You should ask for more instructions from your boss,” the person on the screen stated flippantly. Sawan thought for a moment. He actually could use help from his professor on this section. He stared blankly at screen for several seconds trying to figure out what to do next.

 “I don’t have all day you know!” the doctor from the current season of Scrubs grunted. Sawan quickly went into motion, filling in what he thought he knew and leaving what he didn’t know blank. Sawan saved the file and decided not to submit it until he had figured out the rest. Closing Excel, Sawan got up and went over to look at Tom’s television for a moment. However when he paid attention to everything that was going on in the screen, it didn’t necessarily apply to him. When he had been working on Excel the other hand, was similar to the day he had been in front of a television screen while rolling on e back in September.

“Bedtime,” someone on television cheerily said nonetheless as Sawan turned around. Sawan got undressed and hoped into bed early. The lights were still turned on in 720. As Sawan’s mind struggled to fall asleep, the gay subject wafted back into his mind again. A thought struck Sawan.

“If I was forced to behave gay even though I’ve been straight all his life, then it makes sense that the actual straight community was the minority forced to pretend to be gay, because nearly no one can stop thinking. Nearly everyone else then who was actually gay was masquerading as straight people! The majority of people was gay! That must mean that more than half of 720 was gay, practically everyone else but myself and Luke! Matt, Evan and Tom were all gay! They just pretended to be straight! I think? Or am I wrong?” Sawan asked himself, glancing around the room, suddenly very uncomfortable. He felt surrounded. Matt rose from the sofa and made eye contact with Sawan.

Nodding his head at him, Matt greeted him.”Hey Sawan,”

The voice of the boy professor returned to Sawan as Matt turned off the lights. “Yes it is true everyone is typically categorized the opposite of what they actually are. People are born bisexual but the majority are inclined to be gay, even though they don’t wish to be gay. It has been this way since Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden. Always desiring to be straight, the majority of people tried to exemplify fashionably what they deemed to be straight in recent rimes while the minority of people who were actually straight was suppressed by the majority to behaving in a way deemed to be gay. You don’t have to be gay forever though, people may switch out after going through an interim period during which they are feel an immense amount of hatred directed towards them. Older adults do this. It’s referred to colloquially as ‘coming out.” You may try this later. You could be rather unusual, an openly straight, open pedophile.

“An open pedophile? Really? Why would I want to do that?” Sawan asked baffled.

They boy professor affably replied, “Oh I think Victoria would want you to open up about pedophilia. Make it a big issue, maybe on campus. Are you pleased that you are allowed to talk again?” Sawan didn’t hear. He had already been switched off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACT III: Satan

 

 

 

Scene I: Tuesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Sawan bolted upright. He glanced to his left. The clock read five in the morning. He was surprised that he had woken up that early. Nonetheless he rolled out of bed and peered at Matt who was awake also. “I’m looking at something for Chem,” he said, squinting at his desktop’s screen.

“Oh,” Sawan answered uncertainly. Sawan decided that now would be a good time to work on his Econ 302.  Sawan got dressed and went down to Pollack Commons to get to work. He flipped through his notebook and textbook to start working on some of the problems. He couldn’t concentrate though once he started. At 7:50 AM Sawan got on his bike and headed to the IT Building for his 8:00 AM Computer Science class. He arrived there slightly late. Moving off of bike and tying it to one of the bike stands, he hustled inside, flush with moody irritation as he parked himself in a chair. Everyone had stared at him as he had opened the auditorium’s doors. Sawan had resolutely looked past everyone as he had gone to his seat. Now, he looked around the filled room. Everyone was looking up at the projector screen or at their computer screens. He didn’t know what to make of the scene; he was sitting at a chair with no computer in front of it. He gazed sternly out over the lecture hall and fixed his eyes on the mouse moving across the Excel worksheet. None of it made any sense as usual, and what was still bothering Sawan foremost was Judgment Day. “It’s not fair,” he grumbled to himself.

The more he pondered the subject the more irascible he became. The volume of tension in Sawan’s forehead rose to pitch that he could hardly bear. He became agitated but kept his feet firmly grounded. Instead he started grinding his teeth in aggression. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Apparently nobody had. “It’s just ridiculous… didn’t this all just start with me and Victoria? Me liking Victoria? And now I’m categorized as gay because of it? This is just bogus!” he ranted in his mind to himself. Now he felt distant from everyone in the room. From everything that was going on in the class. Right now he could care less about the class. Everything fell silent for a few seconds. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. “Am I supposed to be against this? Am I supposed to feel all cut and chopped up? What is the meaning of a life where one is forced to being what one isn’t?” Sawan looked around the room again. It was still silent.

“Just do what you’re supposed to do. Ask your heart if this right,” the government suddenly intrusively whispered.

“So I’m supposed to… defy my Judgment? Defy Judgment Day? You know that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea at this point. Because this really sucks. This deal really blows. So does that mean I should hate Christ? Hate Christianity? Hate that which I am? How do I live from day to day? URGH… It pisses me off so much!” Sawan thought to himself. He grumpily eyed his peers. “Alright fine then, I am Satan!” An audible sigh of relief went echoed throughout the room. What he detested about this whole procedure, this act of going to Christ and then turning against him was the ritual itself, of acting out as the good egg gone bad. He was utterly tired of trying to figure out where his allegiance was supposed to lay.

“Sometimes we have to figure out where IT has to go,” the Asian professor said. Sawan realized suddenly for some reason that he could pay attention to what his professor was saying now. “If we place IT only in the correct cell then will we be able to get the formula to work.”

“So I’m the formula he’s trying to get work,” Sawan thought, before chastising himself for thinking. Everything the professor said made sense relative to what Sawan was doing in his life. It was like a therapy session. Sawan was designated as it, or the formula. At the end the class Sawan thumped down the stairs of the auditorium to speak with the professor. While waiting in line Sawan stared, disturbed at the walls. The patterns on the wall looked overbearing and oppressive somehow.  They appeared hellish. “I need extra help,” Sawan explained to his Asian professor once it was his turn in line.

“Okay, then come to my office hours, what exactly did you not understand?” the professor asked.

            “Just everything in general, but none of this is on tomorrow’s test right?” Sawan asked.

            “No, none of this is,” the professor answered.

            “Well, ughm, I’ll stop by on Thursday alright? Eleven o’clock? I’ll see you for tomorrow’s test,” Sawan replied.

            “See you,” the professor said. Sawan turned and went up the stairs, retrieved his bag and left the auditorium. What he usually could use right now was a nap in the IT building before his next class. But not today. Sawan bounded the steps two at time to take himself to the top level of the IT building. He plumped himself down in on a sofa. He then started pulling out his books. He got to work as best he could. The economics was arduous and Sawan felt grinded to the point of no return.  He bit his pencil nervously. If he didn’t ace Friday’s quiz his grades would drop even lower.

“I must succeed, I must,” he thought, reiterating his old motto like a mantra. His eyes zoomed in on his chicken scratch and darted to and fro trying to make sense of what lay before him. He licked his tongue over the roof of his mouth, as he felt the pressure beneath his skull increase. He moved his fingers which adjusted the angle of the pencil on the paper to commence writing- but then there was that constant pressure on his forehead. Gingerly copying a problem down, he tried solving it. His hand trembled. He started calculating in his head. Going through the instructed motions, applying the basic algebra he had learned eons ago in terms of the economic jargon he had recently learned. Sawan arrived at an answer. Grinning in triumph, he moved to the next problem.

*          *          *

            “TOUCHDOWN!!!! And the score at the end of the 2^nd quarter is 24 to 12 the Nittany Lions!”

            “We’re doing pretty good aren’t we?” Evan dolefully asked Matt.

            “Yea I’ll say we are,” Matt agreed.

            “And it’s the first of the third, first down…” the television yelled excitedly. Sawan sat tensely at his desk absorbing the banter. He tried to focus on his studies but to no avail. His ability to concentrate seemed to be the subject matter of the football videogame. “The quarterback is definitely going to try some daring plays,” the television echoed loudly. Sawan mind hopped and skipped after that sentence like a stone skipping across water for a few short seconds with something related to economics before sinking again into the still pond of listening to the television. “And the wide receiver fumbled the ball, a shame he had was going for such a great pass,” the synthetic commentator loudly commented. Shaking his head in angry defeat Sawan got up and decided to lay down for a while. “The Gays vs. the Straights,” Sawan thought to himself as he cuddled close to his pillow facing the door near the bed. He passed out.

            When he awoke he saw Luke standing beside his own bed. Catching his eye, Luke grinned sheepishly at Sawan who still dazed and had his last thought about gays and straights on his mind. Luke pulled a rubber ducky out of nowhere. He squeezed it several times, making it squeak and then threw Sawan a look, as if to say ‘We’re on the same side now, cheer up!’

                       *          *          *

            “Left. Left. Right... Right. Left. Left. Right.…” Sawan was retraced his steps through the vast library, lost amidst the large swath of materials. He muttered softly to himself now and then but kept track of where he was going mostly in his head.

            “Do it silently, do not say anything just walk and you will find your way,” the boy professor advised him telepathically. Sawan decided to try it out and take his advice. He moved fast and quickly, striding with purpose, causing people to look up from their desks scattered throughout the building. He didn’t know exactly where he was going only that he needed to find the exit. He felt important and all powerful but something was missing, something that had to be done. As he found the exit he was told what he had to do next.

            “You must work out before 12 o’clock midnight if you do not wish to die!” the Government threatened. It was 6 PM. Sawan started sprinting in the autumn cold wearing long black jeans to the White Building from the Paterno and Pattee Library. People stopped to stare at the short stubby Indian looking boy with little hair sprint in full regular attire to the White Building. Sawan didn’t care. He knew everyone on campus knew who he was.

He reached the gym and went right in. He didn’t stop for a second as he began lifting weights. He picked up two dumbbells and started flexing them. He felt no strain as he continued flexing for a longer duration than usual. His life depended on it! He released the dumbbells on to the floor when he was done, picked them up and then put them back on the rack. He went for a machine next that stretched his chest muscles. Sitting on the seat and placing his arms on the handles he started moving his arms up and down. The machine was designed such that it was as if he had wings and he was stretching his wings to and fro. It still wasn’t enough though he wasn’t exhausted yet.

It was time for him to start running on the treadmills. He went into the room with treadmills and discovered a sea of girls exercising on them as usual. Getting on one of the treadmills in the back of the room, Sawan started pedaling anxiously, hoping to fulfill his obligation. “The government has decided to change your sexuality from gay to bisexual for your good effort,” a voice sounded in Sawan’s mind. “You may gain energy to exericise by gathering lust from the beauty of those around you.”

Sawan looked ahead of him desperately as he started huffing on the treadmill, gathering speed. There was a girl. Sawan stared at her haunches wrapped in tights. He studied the texture of the garment she wore and the way it covered her body. The girl moved lazily on her treadmill. Sawan became distracted. The girl slowed down. Nervously Sawan refocused his eyes on her body. She started gathering speed again. Sawan would become distracted. By his feet, the speed of his machine or a thought. The girl that was his target would slow down or leave the treadmill accordingly. But if he remained on task then the girl would run further, and faster. There was always more girls to replace the ones that had left. Sawan ran for about an hour. When he was done, he discovered he still had more pent-up energy yet.

 Wiping his brow he went back into the weight room and started doing the machines. The weight room was filled mostly with guys. “Do not be afraid to exert your power over them. Show them who’s boss.” The government pushed. Sawan uncertainly looked about, not knowing how to go about what he was about to do. He picked a brawny looking guy, and eyed him up, staring at him indiscreetly, openly ogling him in fact. The brawny looking guy did not take notice. If anything he looked slightly more timid and cowed. Sawan then felt it. The spread of warmth throughout the region of his loins. Riding on a wave of sexual energy Sawan felt euphoria as he continued straining. Amazement came over him as he realized the benefit of pretending to be gay was the power he had over others. Fixing others with his predatory gaze, the leech Sawan had become continued sucking in energy without restraint. The music bombarded overhead and his reality vibrated around him as he finished doing chest dips.

“IT’S NOT ENOUGH! I CAN DO MORE, MUCH MORE THAN JUST THIS!” Sawan mentally bellowed his face a sketch of furious creases. People around him muttered much to his annoyance and satisfaction.

“He’s insane.”

“Yea he’s crazy.”

                       *          *          *

            “Isshp… Isshp,” Sawan sipped muscle milk contentedly to himself. He was up on the stairs above 720 again outside the loft. The government started to hiss.

            “You did well today, spending two and a half hours at the gym. You gained a lot of masculinity points, and the government is deciding to award you a special status and change your sexuality from bisexual to straight for tonight. However now is the time for you to receive your report on what you are to do with your future!” The government spat.

            “I’m listening,” Sawan replied.

            “The Republicans want to hire you to assassinate the president at a rally that is supposed to take place in 2012,” Sawan listened on, dumbstruck into shock. “They figure this is the best chance at revenge that you have against him, and seeing as he is not doing what he promised he would do which is taking over the world.”

            “The Republicans want me to assassinate Obama?” Sawan wondered, snapping out of it.

            “Yes-” The government attempted to answer.

            “But why?”  Sawan asked aloud.

            The government gave the following straightforward explanation: “Obama is extremely popular. Some wonder whether he’d use his popularity to stay in power longer than his term. Also they fear his welfare plan that they would need to end up paying for through taxes exclusively targeting the rich, those with higher incomes. Lastly Obama is the Anti Christ, the leader who is supposed to be able to lead everyone to a world dominated by Satan. Because he has failed to move in that direction and because everything is gridlocked politically, he is proving to be a much shabbier leader than we thought he would be. The government is even turning against him even though we work for him. The Republicans want you to kill Obama because they believe it is the only way they can return to power. They fear domination by Obama. This is the reason Obama raped you, because you are Satan. As Satan, you are meant to assassinate him since he has not been doing what he is supposed to be doing. So he raped you while he had the chance to, since he was certain that he was going to die anyways. Obama is ready to move against you right away though should you choose to assassinate him immediately.”

            Sawan blinked slowly like a fish. He didn’t know what to make of what he had just been told. He slowly digested and processed this information. So this was why he had been mistreated so roughly. This hatred being vented on Sawan went beyond pedophilia and into something far more personal. Sawan responded hesitantly, “Well, why hasn’t he done anything? If he’s the Anti Christ then why hasn’t he taken over the world?”

            “Because he doesn’t want to risk losing what he already has. And he doesn’t have enough faith that people will follow everything that he does. He doesn’t think that the system is capable of supporting a world take-over when clearly you have declared the time is right now more than ever that the world is ready for one. And you are his boss,”

            “I’m his boss, but then why-” Sawan beseeched.

            “He raped you anyways because he has more power than you technically right now. In this lifetime he is older, and a world leader. You chose to come into being in the form of a college kid who happens to be a pedophile, in other words, a complete nobody.” The government said with a tone of indifference. As Sawan listened with an expression of incredulity spread across his face, he realized the enormity of what he was being asked to do. He was born into a family of Democrats. His father was a Democrat as was his mother. Now he was being asked to assassinate the Democratic president. From a traditional standpoint it could be looked at as a betrayal of their party’s leader even if he did have much to gain by doing a favor for Republicans. But what was at stake here transcended politics. Obama had raped Sawan. Did Sawan want revenge? Would he strike back? Was he that type of person?

            No, Sawan wasn’t that sort of person. “You guys want me to take a side, in this conflict, between the rich and the poor. I don’t want to. Why don’t I strike out on my own? Start my own group instead of joining the republicans? I shall be the leader and it shall be called ‘TRUTH!’”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scene II: Wednesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            It wasn’t the first time that Sawan had encountered the word ‘truth’ as a name for a political entity such as a party. Sawan had come up with the ideal of ‘truth’ as a political perspective years ago and posted it as his political view on Facebook. However what truth meant was not something that he always understood. It used to mean something related to the Buddhist view of what truth was, but now even he didn’t know what he was doing with the banner of the white flag. After all he assumed that there was a red party, the republicans, the blue party the democrats, and now a third, white party, Truth. If only he knew what being neutral really meant. Because that was his position, neutrality. Little did Sawan know after he went to bed on Tuesday night that several key figures in the Republican party threw a fit when they found out that their assassin was no longer up to the task. Not knowing what the leader of the new third party would want and sensing unpredictably in the months ahead, they anxiously awaited to speak to Sawan. But they would have to wait.

Sawan woke up early as usual and went to his Econ 302 class. After returning he went back up to the top of the stairs of Heister outside the loft. Sitting down, he plugged his fingers into his ears to hear the voices with headphone quality clarity. He called this activity “putting the helmet on.”

“The president wants to talk to you, sir,” the Government communicated.

“Okay, put him through,” Sawan said uncertainly. It seemed as if he had earned some respect over the past twelve hours since becoming the leader of a movement. Now he was about to talk with the man who had virtually raped him.

“Mr. Gunasekera?” Obama charismatically toned.

“Mr. Obama. How do you do?” Sawan plaintively asked. Sawan didn’t know why he was addressing his rapist respectfully. Perhaps it was the tense circumstances that he found himself negotiating in.

“I apologize for the rude way I met you. However I didn’t think you’d be nearly as merciful and competent as you are proving to be. I ask you your forgiveness for my ingratitude,” Obama politely oiled.

“I forgave you by deciding not to kill you, you are forgiven,” Sawan dismissed.

“I thank you, I am most grateful,” Obama addressed. “I need to discuss with you the future of the United States and the world. But first tell me. How do you feel? This must all be coming at you rather quickly, you’re being bombarded with tasks and ideas and you have to keep up with school too, and now you’re the leader of your own movement. I’m glad you chose not to take sides in this rather vicious debate about how we get to the Promised Land, and who takes us there, you, me or other people. Personally I have a family to take care, a wife and kids, two little girls. I can’t afford to lose them by risking everything to win everybody over. That’s why I backed down. I could have taken over the world, but I chose not to. Now, I’m pushed up against a wall. Do you see my position here?”

“Yea, it seems as if you were in a lose-lose situation. After all, either way you would be putting your life on the line no matter where you stood on the issue of taking over the world or not. Also you seem to have a problem with authority. That is to say my authority. Because I am Satan am I not?” Sawan finished with a courageous tone of strength. He didn’t know what made him speak the way he did. He only spoke the words that came to his mouth unbidden and accepted that they made sense to his listener.

“Yes, Sawan you are indeed Satan. Yet you do not think as I think.” Obama stated.

“And how is it that you think? Anti Christ?” Sawan perked up nonetheless. He was curious to discover how his rebellious subject thought. After all, didn’t they both hate the authority they were subject to in different ways, one another?

“Well it has to do with the meaning of reality itself. Surely you know the truth? Or were you not told on Judgment Day?” Obama sneered slightly, bringing up that most painful experience that Sawan still felt raw from.

“What is the truth about reality?” Sawan asked listening closely, shoving his fingers deeper into his ears to hear better, his elbows in his lap as he clenched his eyes shut.  He could feel the pressure.

“The truth about this reality… is that you are all alone… and that you are playing a video game, the video game of your LIFE!” Obama hissed. Sawan had somehow anticipated this answer. That he was all alone, and that this all was just a game.

Sawan exclaimed aloud, “I knew it! So… if I am all alone, and it’s all just a game then why should I do anything? Why do you do anything?” Sawan asked.

“Because it is fun to! The whole purpose of the game of life is that it is fun. Don’t you see that?” Obama declared proudly. Sawan was completely ecstatic that he knew the secret of life.

*          *          *

            He looked up from his three-seater in the lounge in the library. She was sitting demurely with her legs tucked to the side beneath her on the sofa. She was casually working on something out of her textbook. He heard the Government speak then. “These are your people. You must lead them to the Promised Land. Remember that every time you look upon one of them,”

            “But what am I leading them out of?” Sawan wondered pensively.

            Sawan was looking at the girl who diligently continued working as the Government spoke, “These people have worked in servitude in Hell since Adam and Eve were exiled out of the Garden of Eden. You are living in Hell. You as the King of Hell have to lead these people out of Hell so that they can once again live the lifestyle that God promised.” Sawan felt acutely strange watching the girl who had a very soft expression on her face work on her homework as he heard those words. It was as if what he had just heard had a very real portentous meaning in the present. Everywhere there were people working nonstop, so that while some slept, there was always another at work elsewhere doing some sort of inane activity. They were all living in servitude. A boy came over and sat down on the armchair in between the couches that Sawan and the girl sat at. The girl briefly looked up and smiled at him. Perhaps they knew each other. The boy wore shorts. He put his legs on the couch. Sawan studied the boy’s leg hair for an extended period of time. The boy and girl exchanged glances often but took no notice of Sawan until he sprang to his feet. He had to get going. Saving the world was no easy task and school was the key.

*          *          *

            Sawan didn’t know how he was going to do on this computer science exam. He felt increasingly pessimistic about it as the time approached to take the exam. “Your sexuality is being changed from straight to bisexual,” the Government pressured. It was all because he was feeling down. Sawan looked around 720 with a glum expression. Having his sexuality demoted didn’t exactly improve his mood.  He didn’t know what to do other than to feel pity for himself. “Your sexuality is being changed from bisexual to gay!” the government vilified. For some reason though, Sawan’s face broke into a broad smile as he turned back to his computer science work. It felt as if he could sink no lower. Once he hit rock bottom, the only way he could look was up.

*          *          *

            He stormed out of the exam building and started walking towards Sunset Park. He had bombed the exam, he knew it. He needed alone time, there was just too many people he could hear talking on campus. The cold air bit his wrists, neck and face as he walked.  “I’ll have more masculinity points to ace the next exam and I’ll study harder too,” Sawan consoled himself.

“The Government feels that you are not working hard enough to earn your wife in real life,” the Government said.

“I’m working very hard!” Sawan protested.

“You have to earn one million dollars in order to be with Victoria who may have a brain tumor if you do not become her husband,” The government intoned viciously.

“One million dollars? Brain tumor? This is ridiculous why do I need to earn one million dollars in order to be with Victoria and save her from having a brain tumor… that’s just ridiculous!” Sawan huffed angrily. He huffed and puffed his way to Sunset Park wishing to talk to Victoria. He was worried about her health and wellbeing but at the same time he found it absolutely ludicrous that she could get a brain tumor at all. He couldn’t help but fret still more as he thumped off into the darkness of the park and sat down on a bench not too far from the entrance of the park. “Absolutely outrageous… Victoria?! Victoria!” But he cried out to no avail. She could not be heard at the moment.

“We have someone for you to kill,” the Government crooned. Sawan immediately became alert and excited.

“What? Really? Where are they?” Sawan enthusiastically answered, jumping on the opportunity.

“Not too far from here,” the Government cryptically answered. “Obviously it has to be someone worthy of a violent death, someone hated and most despised.”

            “Like a rapist,” Sawan thought to himself his mind all aflutter between figuring out how to go about the deed seeing as he had no weapon of his own, and condemning his future victim. “I don’t have a weapon though, how can I kill?” Sawan had always wanted to kill for a just reason, the same way a soldier or a police officer would have to, except Sawan didn’t want to join the police force or army. He thought the experience of doing so empowered him over other beings.

            “There are sticks and rocks you may use in the park.”

            “If only I still had my knife, it sucks I had to give it to Alex,” Sawan muttered thinking of his Residence Hall Assistant. It was cold. Sawan shivered and clenched his teeth as he dug his arms into themselves. He looked around in the chilly icy cold pitch blackness. It made Sawan wonder who else was outside at this early hour of the night. It was only around eight or nine. That reminded him. What about witnesses? Didn’t that matter? But of course this was all planned out by the Government, no one would be outside, no one would want to be outside to bear witness to Sawan’s great crime, Sawan’s favor to the Government. After this no one would pick on him, everyone would fear him, he would be a hero among adults everywhere. He paused to wonder what Victoria would think of what he was about to do. He was sure she’d understand his choice to commit murder on behalf of a greater good. Or would she? Was she too young to comprehend why Sawan believed some people who did wrong should die over others? After all come to think of it this all started when he had cried out to ask to speak to Victoria and she hadn’t answered and then the Government came and proposed that he-

            “Ok time’s up, you may leave,” the government said with a tone of indifference.

            “Where’s the bad guy? Huh? The guy I’m supposed to hunt down where is he?” Sawan whispered furtively.

            “Oh you’re too late, he escaped,” the government said in the same plain voice.

            “WHAT?” Sawan bawled.

            “That’s right you heard correctly,” the government stiffly spoke. “If you have any complaints take it up with the thought police.”

            “So you’re telling me I came all the way down here for nothing,” Sawan rebuffed as he strode madly back down the path leading to the street that went back to campus.

            “Well at least you learned that Victoria doesn’t have a tumor yet,” the government maliciously reminded.

*          *          *

            “Are you asleep yet?” Victoria mumbled.

            “No, how can I when I’m being watched and listened to everywhere I go, no privacy even when I go to sleep,” Sawan frowned. “The Government has to be everywhere even in our minds their invasion of thinking is ridiculous! I’m so happy I could finally reach you after Judgment Day everything’s just been so hectic here, as I said earlier I founded my own movement because the Republicans wanted me to assassinate Obama and it’s like how am I supposed to take charge of everything in such a short period of time, like how does that work? And I thought Satan had magical powers why can’t I use them now? There’s so much to worry about, it’s so frustrating!”

            Victoria mumbled, “Sshhhh, don’t worry about it, forget about all of it, I’ve missed you so much and after last Sunday when we became eternally bonded I found reason to pine for you all the more but we mustn’t give up hope, we’ll find peace someday.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 Scene III: Thursday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The pencil dashed across the surface of the note card insanely fast, leaving behind a barely legible scrawl. Sawan’s eyes darted frantically back and forth between the text in the textbook standing up on the table and the note card. His hand moved the note card to the side so that it joined the small stack of finished cards there on the right and picked up a new one from the other stack of blank ones on the left. Sawan continued scribbling. “Military-industrial Complex: a huge network of governmental agencies, industrial corporations and research institutes working together to supply a nation’s military forces,” He paused. How did the army feel about Sawan and his movement? Berating himself for stopping for even a moment he went right back to work. He wrote furiously. He could not stop. He had to keep going. There was hardly a moment to take a breath. Faster, not enough time in the day to fufill the assigned tasks in a day, not enough space on the card to fit in all of the required description; oh woe to the worker. Is there not any easier way to finish a task than becoming speed itself? With double triple haste Sawan finished the note cards.

He got up. Time to earn more masculinity points. He stalked as a bird of prey would the hallways of the library until he came up to the fifth floor of the Paterno library. He had been writing note cards in the Stacks. He strolled until about until he found a young man sitting at a rectangular table facing away from the wall behind him. Sawan walked behind him to a rocking chair up against the wall. Sawan sat down in the rocking chair and pulled on a children’s book on the shelf. It was about Sojourner Truth. Sawan pretended to flip through the pages as he discreetly began to glance at the young man. The young man was subliminally aware of Sawan’s presence behind him and slightly turned his head. The young man then off-handedly moved his hand to scratch his legs which were in a pair of shorts as Sawan greedily watched. Sawan drank in the image of the young man’s flesh, fixating his eyes on it as if it were something to cherish, trying to develop sensual lust towards the young man.

Sawan stayed there for eight minutes, before he got up.

 

*          *          *

            “Write an essay about a diplomatic crisis that has occurred. You are a diplomat. Identify the key points you need to address in order to resolve the crisis,” Sawan read silently. Sawan immediately started writing his response messily. He took to this last part of the poly sci test with relish saying, “In a situation where there is a national security crisis, there are several routes one can take to achieving a lasting peace. In times past there were few methods of hashing out international issues other than resorting to conflict. Now, there is a forum, the United Nations in which we can discuss our issues to resolve our conflicts. The United Nations was created to prevent a world war from engulfing the world again. However in a scenario where the United Nations setting fails to prevent a catastrophic misunderstanding, there is the possibility that one on one negotiations maybe necessary. Yet one on one negotiations aren’t always reliable and may fall through as in the situation with LTTE and Sri Lankan government. It is possible that we may have risked complete nuclear annihilation if the one on one negotiations between the US and the USSR had failed during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The only way to completely end most conflict around the world even in remote regions then is to unite the world under a new world order.”

            Sawan continued as some students got up to hand in their tests. “This new world order should be composed of all regions of the world. It appears to be difficult to unify the world under the status quo of the world system as it exists in the present. However what is needed is a radical shift in the mindset of many in believing in what actually truly possible. Some argue that a large conflict or crisis needs to catalyze this change. While this is one method, it is not necessary. Instead what is needed is one political party that behaves as a compromise between different factions. This political party needs to transcend the ordinary manner in which politics are run by appealing to people’s love of what is fun. Fundraisers should be held doing car washes and lemonade stands in places like the United States. Which brings up another point. This political party shouldn’t only exist in the United States. It should exist in every country. It would have to spread via travelers and word of mouth in the beginning. It’s platform should be world peace and open accountability of those who are elected into office.”

            Sawan began to furiously scribble and scratch away at the paper, making slashes through ‘t’s and smashing ‘i’s. He was the last one in the class. “Due to popular appeal the party will be elected into office. It may take some time for it to secure a majority. Once it has a majority in a country the legislative branch or parliament can then pass legislation to combine their national sovereignty with that of another country that also has a similar majority. What would take place eventually is the domino effect where countries would unite with one another not unlike the way communism originally behaved. This whole process would take several years instead of decades given the fact that it is the digital information age but the whole world would eventually be united under a new world order. A lasting peace would be achieved and that concludes this argument.” Sawan got up and hurried over to the professor who was standing waiting.

            “Sorry I took so long but there was so much I wanted to say,” Sawan blubbered as he crammed his papers in order and handed them to the professor.  

            “The Devil,” his South Korean professor muttered with a sullen looking face. Sawan said nothing.

            “I guess I better get going,” Sawan piped.

            “Yes, have a good evening,” his professor answered. Sawan left the Willard building and began walking back to Heister. He was hungry. He thought he’d stop in at Pollack Commons and use some of his meal points. Out of the corner of his line he saw them. It was a group of boys with short hair walking single file in the distance. They looked like skinheads, and they all wore black. They walked outside of Pollack Commons and disappeared around the corner.

            “They are followers. You can have your own followers too if you so choose,” The Government whispered furtively to Sawan. Sawan shivered in the cold and reflected thus: “Yea. Followers would be cool.”

 

Scene IV: Friday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The Econ quiz was disappointing, to say the least. So disappointing that Sawan decided to commiserate with a cigarette, the first one he’d smoked since last Sunday. “They deplete your energy levels and masculinity points,” the Government warned. “You lose respect as Satan.” A large glop of snow plopped onto Sawan’s head from an overhanging tree as he walked back to Heister. Sawan threw away the half burning cigarette onto the pavement outside Heister and stood around outside listening to his people around him. Then he walked inside. Going upstairs he logged onto his computer and then onto Facebook and it was there that he found the Triangle fraternity invitation.

            Later on in the day he was walking inside a random building thinking about the fraternity invitation. “It is an opportunity for you to meet new people, people who could potentially become followers, so you aregoing to RSVP yes, we assume?” the boy professor queried, appearing out of nowhere after hours of silence, as opposed to the always present government.

            “Yes, it sounds like a good idea. I wonder what it will be like,” Sawan thought as  the image of his last frat party visit in early September came into mind, with its large dark lit room, dj with large speakers and virtual orgy of men and girls dancing and carousing by grinding and playing beer pong.

            “You will not be drinking, just going there to make contact with Janith and his people. And now we have a book for to read,” as Sawan now trudged down the snow covered lane outside the library now, as more thick crunchy snowflakes heckled down from the gray heavens. “It is called The Prince.”

            Sawan didn’t know what to think when he first heard the title of Niccolo Machiavelli’s book, written some five hundred years ago. He simply marched into the library though and stole the largest copy only to find out later in his dorm that this was the Italian translation. He went returned this and stole instead a small blood red edition of The Prince instead. After buying two sandwiches from West as night started to fall, Sawan resolved to go back to the library and into the lounge in the Pattee Library and read the book until he finished. He went upstairs and sat down in his favorite sofa and commenced reading. Immediately he heard them. It was the voices of people he didn’t know. They were talking in middle English. He cautiously started reading THE PRINCE again.

“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” someone familiar suddenly quipped.  Sawan couldn’t tell who it was immediately but the person who spoke next was unmistakably Kavi.

            “I do bite my thumb, sir,” Kavi stated blandly. It dawned upon Sawan that the Sri Lankan boys involved were quoting Romeo & Juliet as Sawan read THE PRINCE. Why this was happening now made no sense to Sawan other than having a vague idea that a Juliet would probably be involved.    

“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” Juni repeated.

            “Is the law of our side if I say ‘Ay’?” Kavi whispered to Eranda, his brother. Sawan continued to read The Prince.

            “No,” Eranda said astutely.

            “No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir,” Kavi said to Juni.

            “Do you quarrel, sir?” Eranda asked Juni, full of swagger.

            “Quarrel, sir? No, sir,” Juni confidently told the two brothers. But the quarrel progressed to the point where a fight broke out.

            “What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!” Uncle Damith thundered.

            “A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?” Aunty Veenus asked in annoyance.

            Uncle Damith insisted, “My sword, I say. Old Sarath Montague is come and flourishes his blade in spite of me.”

            Sawan’s father, Sarath then spoke with anger: “Thou villain Damith Capulet!-Hold me not; let me go.”

            Sawan’s mother berated, “Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe!” Sawan was trying to picture all of this ruckus play out when suddenly Uncle Gamini starring as the Prince of Verona could be heard. Uncle Gamini warned Uncle Damith and Sarath not to allow their feud to disturb the peace of Verona anymore and that if anyone tried to break the peace that they would be put to death. Sawan took a bite of his sandwich. Now they were talking about him, Sawan who was Romeo.

            “Um, excuse me, daddy? Why are you guys speaking in Shakespearian English and talking about Romeo and Juliet?” Sawan beseeched.

“Shh Sawan putha, you are Romeo, you do not come in yet,” his father mumbled softly to him. “Keep reading The Prince to find out more!”

“Yes keep reading, it is your destiny, read The Prince,” other voices soothed with growing passion.

“Read onwards!”

“Read this book as many times as you can, and you can become great!”

“Like Napoleon!”

“Like Mussolini!”

“The play Romeo and Juliet is the meaning of your life and you can hear it as you read The Prince.” The voices died down and Sawan continued reading. Suddenly there was a silence.

“Let no one be surprised if in speaking of entirely new principalities as I shall do, I adduce the highest examples of both prince and of state; because men walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him act like the clever archers who designing to hit the mark which limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able to with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach.” Sawan read the passage several times before realizing what it meant. “So shoot for the stars and you’ll end up with something better than what you started out with. That sounds like good advice. What’s so evil about this book anyways?”Now another pair of voices rose up. It was the next scene. Sawan continued to read. People came and went in the library. The clock inched closer and closer to the closing time of the library.

            At seven o’clock, Sawan received a tap on the shoulder. He cranked his head up quickly, and found himself staring into the face of an elderly librarian. “We close at seven, son, you’ll have to go downstairs to the study room, that’s open until midnight,” The old man tiredly explained.

            “I’m not moving, I’m staying here,” Sawan answered imperiously. The librarian stared at him benignly.

“We’re closing though, you’ll have to leave. Do you want me to call the police?”

            “If you feel you must.”

            “Okay, I’ll call security,” the librarian shrugged. He reached for his walkie talkie in his belt, yanked it out and started to speak into it. “… I have a student here who doesn’t want to leave. What shall I do?” The old man waited for a reply. Sawan tried to keep reading, proud of himself that he was making a stand. Perhaps they would take him to jail, and then he could show that he was a real rebel to everyone. Someone spoke inaudibly on the walkie talkie. “Got it.” He left momentarily leaving Sawan to preen himself for dealing with the situation head on and asserting himself, though his body felt some anxiety at the imminent appearance of police or security guards. Instead though the old librarian returned. He wore a warm smile. “How would like it if I found you somewhere else to sit in the library, just not these chairs, would that be okay?”

            “Um…” Sawan hesitated. Sawan thought, weighing the pros and cons. He really wanted to just end the fuss, and return to reading his book in peace. The old man seemed so friendly and accommodating surely it wouldn’t matter if he just moved to another chair. “Okay then, I’ll move.”

            “Okay, right this way then.” He waited for Sawan to gather his belongings before they moved towards the door leading towards the stairs. Sawan didn’t protest when the old librarian opened the door and led him down the stairs. He didn’t say anything as he led him into the study room which was filled with students. “Here you are then,” the old man said, before turning around and departing. The realization that Sawan had been fooled into entering the study hall downstairs slowly began to filter into his brain, filling him with resentment and outrage at himself for allowing it to happen. Did him allowing himself to be fooled into leaving his comfort zone show stupidity? Did it make him look weak?  “What a sneaky thing to do!” he thought of the old cunning librarian. Grumbling, he sat down at a table and picked up The Prince to continue reading.

            The next part in the telepathic play was downright juicy to Sawan and Victoria, who were now actively involved in certain scenes. Sawan would take a break from reading to speak the lines he knew telepathically. “O Sawan, Sawan, wherefore art thou Sawan?” Victoria woefully cried. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”

            “Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” Sawan dramatically spoke forth. Victoria giggled.

            “We rock!” Victoria declared royally.

            “I know, right?” Sawan agreed. There was a brief pause. Then Sawan said, “I love you.”

            “I love you too, Sawan,” Victoria whispered softly. Sawan looked warily around the study room. Victoria coughed lightly. “Eh hm, dear you should get back to reading. You get distracted so easily.”

            “You distract me sweetheart,” Sawan mumbled as he returned to moving his eyes over the lines in the book.

            “So I distract you from success?” Victoria said lightly.

            “No, you contribute to my success, it’s just sometimes… oh I don’t know, I have a habit of blaming you for my flaws.” Sawan conceded.

            “Yes, you do that… a lot!” Victoria expounded fiercely. “Now keep reading, it’s the end of our scene!” And Sawan read. The sounds and voices of the other students in the study room were a constant disturbance to him. Luckily though, he had come equipped tonight most bizarrely with a pair of ear plugs that he had in his backpack from some inexplicable reason. He smashed the ear plugs into his ears, squishing them all the way in. The sounds of the study hall became a dull background noise that wasn’t wiped out completely. One of the ear plugs began to fall out. Irately desperate, he miserably plugged the ear plugs back into his ear with his fingers and kept his hands there to keep them from falling out, holding The Prince open with his elbows. In the uncomfortable position that he was in, he continued reading. Theplay of Romeo and Juliet continued.

Sawan became increasingly anxious. He became antsy and trembled with excitement. He was captivated by the play. The meaning of the play was beginning to make tears well up in his eyes. He was beginning to understand why he had to read The Prince. He wasn’t really reading the blood red book but he caught snippets of information here and there. It was a strenuous experience. The Prince talked of war, historical battles and brutal methods to control a populace, topics that a future ruler of the world would need to know and live by. Why it was necessary to keep secrets. Why it was necessary to lie. Why it was sometimes necessary to pillage. Why these tactics worked. Why those who didn’t practice cunning and force were weaker than those who did.

All of these ideas were not how Sawan’s mind always naturally worked but The Prince was influencing him, changing him, so that he was morphing into the leader that he had to be. It was all about seizing opportunities. Taking charge. Becoming the hero. Winning the girl, against all odds. Hand in hand with The Prince, went The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Sawan listened desperately to the play as everything began to fall apart. It was too much to bear. Tears spilled forth. It was the story of his life.

After their parents had found out about him and Victoria, their families had become more distant. This animosity created bad blood. It made it less likely that they could ever be friends again. Nobody wanted them to be together. Others preyed on Victoria. Sawan was too old. Victoria was too young. That alone was a distance that made communication difficult. It was hard to find common ground at the best of times and at the worst they were barely on speaking terms. Yet there was something in their eyes when they looked at each that spoke that which was unspeakable. It was their secret way of showing intrigue and interest. Sawan’s heart burned whenever he looked into those dark brown eyes, struck by them the way a deer gets struck by a car.

“Hey, is everything okay?”  Somebody nearby asked. Sawan looked up wiping his eyes, tapping his legs against the ground excitedly, his knees trembling. It was a security guard with a librarian. Obviously they had come to express concern at Sawan’s odd behavior.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Sawan assured, wiping his drooling nose.

“No problems?” the guard questioned once more, with a skeptical serious expression.

“No problems, I’m just very into what I’m reading.”

“Alright but if you have any problems, let us know,”

“Yea, I will,” Sawan said. The guard and librarian left. Sawan went back to reading. He was more than half way done. In The Prince, Sawan slowed down his skimming as the familiar words crossed his eyes.

“Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them into one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.” Sawan blinked. He reread the passage several times. “So people should fear me more than love me? But I don’t like being cruel. Justice is good, but violence should be suppressed. Just violence or violent justice is not acceptable either.” Sawan looked up. It was nine o’clock. He only had a few more small chapters to read.

“The death of Sawan and Victoria approaches!” someone foretold telepathically.

“A great sacrifice shall take place!”

“A blood sacrifice!”

            All of these voices screamed at him inside his head. They demanded the suicide of Sawan and Victoria at the end of the play of Romeo and Juliet that was playing inside Sawan’s mind.

            “Yes! Yes! I know!” Sawan thought wildly, rushing on in his reading of The Prince. Sawan couldn’t help it. He was entranced by what would occur at the end. In the play of Romeo and Juliet all his and Victoria’s suffering would end with their simultaneous death. Only in death could they be together and find peace.

            Sawan read the remaining chapters. Victoria had faked her death in the play of Romeo and Juliet to escape marriage to the person Damith Capulet and Veenus Capulet wanted her to betrothed to by taking a sleeping potion. Sawan, supposed to be unaware that she had faked her death, had bought poison from the apothecary to kill himself, in the play. He had gone to Victoria’s tomb and after bemoaning her death drunk the poison. He waited for Victoria to speak now after she had woken from her deathly slumber as the sleeping potion weakened.

            “Speak Victoria, speak I’m almost done with The Prince!” Sawan eagerly thought to himself, in deathly repose, shaking as he continued to read the last few pages.

            “She’s already dead,” Damith Capulet informed. Sawan stopped.

            “What?”  Sawan asked in surprise.

“She already died in the play, she’s dead,” Veenus Capulet repeated monotonously. There wasn’t even a cry or groan, much less any noise from Victoria. Sawan had been expecting a dramatic scream of sadness as she had plunged the dagger into her stomach. There was nothing. It all seemed a bit anti-climactic. Had she even died? Sawan didn’t know what else to do except to finish reading.

“There,” the Government declared loudly as he finished. “You are done! Now announce to everyone who you are! Tell everyone here your true name! Don’t be frightened! Show them your colors!”

Sawan stood up and looked around the filled study hall room as he felt excited anticipation well up in him. Then he roared, “I… AM SATAN!!!!!!”  He felt as though he had faltered slightly at the beginning of the sentence.

“You’ve lost it man!” Someone exiting the room responded. Sawan looked around nervously, suddenly feeling naked as he stood by his table, waiting for more reactions. There was nothing. Hardly anybody looked up. Everyone continued working and mumbling to each other in soft study hall volume voices after a small pause that had occurred when Sawan had spoken. Except for one girl at the table in front of Sawan’s; she had smiled at her friend at the same table next to her as if something funny had just happened. Yet it was as if everyone had been expecting him to say those words, as if there was no surprise, and this wasn’t a special announcement. Everyone knew that he was Satan. Sawan was exhilarated. He packed up his belongings and headed out of the room. He took The Prince with him, which he knew he would have to reread over and over again, and ingrain into his mind like a holy text, and which he would have to refer to time and time again as a world leader.

“You have to check that out, sir,” a receptionist with a guard standing next to him called to Sawan.

“No I actually don’t have the time to, sorry,” Sawan breezily answered as he held the book over the screening device so it wouldn’t alarm and walked out. He hurried out in the cold air, wondering if he’d be followed but he wasn’t. He went inside Pollack Commons only to bump into Travis.

“Sawan your dad is coming to pick you up tonight, you’re going home.”

“Really?” Sawan happily asked.

 “Yes you’ll have to borrow someone’s phone to reach him, as I hear you don’t have a phone.”

“Alright, sure,” Sawan said dreamily, already thinking of spending the weekend home in New Jersey. He went back to 720 Heister and began packing his things. He told his roommates that he was leaving. Matt looked glum as he played video games. Sawan borrowed Evan’s phone to call his dad.

“Hello?” Sarath, Sawan’s dad croaked.

“Daddy?” Sawan asked, saying the word ‘daddy’ quickly so that the ‘a’ in the word was not long but short.

“Chuti Amu, I’m still on that I-80 but I’m near exit, will be there in half an hour, like 10:30, ok?”

“Ok dad.”

“I’ll come to that parking lot outside your building, and I’ll call this phone when I’m nearby ok then you can come out, don’t stay outside in the cold, it’s starting to snow now.”

“Sure.”

“How is your feeling?”

“I’m okay dad, I’m feeling okay, it’s been a pretty crazy week you know?”

“Yes, we can talk all about on the way home.”

“Yea, I have so much to tell, it’s been such a week!”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Sarath sighed. “So I’ll be there soon, okay Sawan putha?”

“Okay dad, see you soon.”

 “Bye.”

“Bye,” Sawan said. Sawan looked around his side of the room. It was a wreck. Bending over he picked up some of clothes that were strewn on the floor and put them into his backpack. He tried to tidy up his area, looking for essentials but he left his bed unmade. All too soon, the phone rang and Evan handed to him with a somber face saying, “Your dad.”

“Thanks Evan,” Sawan said. “Hello?”

“Sawan, I’m in the University Park, I’m driving around trying to find your place. I’ll be there in five minutes, wait in the parking lot.”

“Okay.  See you.” Sawan hung up the phone and said goodbye to his roommates. “So I’ll see you guys next week.”

“See you man have a good time at home,” Matt said.

“Take it easy Gandhi,” Evan echoed. Sawan went outside into the parking lot and waited. Thick flaked snow was falling pointlessly onto the pavement, where it didn’t stick, except for the sidewalks, which had a small layer. It was cold, the night pitch purple black, with the white flakes materializing out of the sky. Everything seemed to be a blur until it came time to wait for his father to arrive. Whenever he waited for his father to pick him up, time always seemed to slow down. Girls walked in short black skirts and high heels in the parking lot waiting for rides to parties. He wondered how they could stand the cold even if some of them were wearing tights. Sawan looked at them and their long legs deviously. Suddenly the black Honda was pulling up. Sawan grinned. Sarath smiled a big fatherly smile from inside the car. The Honda parked, and Sawan opened the door to step in.

“Chuti Amu, do you want to drive?” Sarath offered.

“Eh, sure,” Sawan distractedly replied. Sarath got out and walked around the car as Sawan did the same. Sawan didn’t hear any voices telepathically; he was too caught up in actually talking to his dad in real life after more than a month, even though he had spoken to him telepathically in the play of Romeo and Juliet several hours ago.

“Did you eat dinner?” Sarath questioned.

“Yes, I had sandwiches, I’m more than full; I have leftovers for you,” Sawan replied.

“Oh thank you Sawan putha. I’m very hungry because I had nothing to eat whole way.” Sarath warmly professed. Sawan opened his bag and brought out the aluminum wrapped sandwiches. Sarath inspected them. “Does it have cheese?”

“Yes, but not mozzarella.”

“Then I can’t eat it… maybe if I take out the cheese then I can eat it… So let’s go.”

*          *          *

            So they left State College. Sawan launched into a discussion about what had happened during week. The reason behind why he was now a gay Christian. About Judgement Day. About being touched and raped by invisible police forces. Sarath listened silently, staring off into the road. Sawan looked at his father out of the corner of his eye. The car lights on the road played tricks on Sawan’s eyes, so that when he looked at his father’s face from the edge of his vision, it looked like he wore a deathly devil mask.

            “Are you listening?” Sawan wondered aloud, as he drove on I-80 behind a tractor trailer.

            “… Yes, I’m listening.”

            “They told me that when I had the chance to, that I should talk to you in person about Judgment Day, that you would have something to tell me about it. They said that your nickname was The White Devil and that you knew this would happen to me; that I would become Satan that’s why you left me at Penn State without bringing me home last time I asked,” Sawan said, looking for a reply. Sarath didn’t answer. “When I look out of the corner of my eyes-”

            “Yes?” Sarath, said as if rising from a reverie.

            “When I look at you from the corner of my eyes I can see your face change into a white mask, a devil’s mask with a large nose!”

            Sarath laughed, and tickled Sawan under his chin jokingly saying, “I have many masks!” Sawan laughed too. “Hey, Hey! Look out, slow down!” Sawan was rapidly nearing the tractor trailer which had stepped on the breaks so that its rear lights glared at them. Sawan also hit the breaks and the Honda slowed down accordingly. “Be careful, otherwise we can fall off the mountain.”

            “I know I’m watching the road too, and talking.” But Sawan continued to almost tailgate the tractor trailer several times. The ride was long but they managed to talk to each other the entire way. It was three and a half hours to Bedminster, New Jersey but they made it out of the snow and into the more milder and temperate climate. It was past 2:30 when they pulled into the driveway of the small light blue ranch house.

            “You go inside, mummy is waiting. I’ll carry the bag,” Sarath instructed.

            “Okay thank you, you sure you don’t need any help?”

            “No it’s okay, just go inside.” Sawan stepped out of the car and walked up the wooden steps. The outside lights were turned on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scene V: The Interim Period

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Sawan knocked.  He waited a few seconds and then heard footsteps and a muffled voice. The door opened. “Hel-lo!” Geethika happily greeted.

            “Hi Mummy,” he tiredly smiled giving her a hug. He walked in and looked around. Everything was the same. Smelled the same.

            “I made good Sri Lankan dinner for you, you must be hungry!”

            “Yes, I am a little bit. Thanks,” Sawan said of his reawakened hunger as he walked into his small wood paneled bedroom and flicked on the light. Everything was tidy. His bed was made and there were fresh blankets on it. He turned off the light. He walked back to the kitchen and sat down at the table as his dad came in. His parents spoke in Sinhala rapidly as they discussed the trip home. With the food on the table Geethika served him some of the dishes while Sawan helped himself to others until his plate was full.

            “So, what happened?” Geethika asked uncertainly, as she stared at him with concern from the other side of the table where Harini usually sat. Harini was asleep.

            “So much has happened!” Sawan said loudly as his mother brought her finger up to signal him to bring his voice down for his sleeping sister down the hall. “Oops,” he grinned and looked down so he could dig into the plate with his fingers, mashing the rice, dal, vegetables and goat meat together so that it resembled a colorful green speckled three dimensional mosaic of mush. “I was so confused before. Do you remember how confused I was back in September? Back last time when I said I wanted to come home?”

            “Yes, yes?” his mother hurriedly replied wide-eyed wanting to hear more.

            “But now I’m not confused.” He said as he rolled a segment of the mush into a fist sized clump with his fingers and brought it to his mouth. He paused as he chewed and swallowed. “Now I know everything.”

            “You know everything?”

            “Yes now I know what to do. And I’m all set, all I have to do is just do it.” And he smiled.

            “What do you know?” Geethika’s eyebrows were furrowing.

            “About the civil war in 2012 and how I have to stop it from happening. A civil war between the rich and the poor.” Sawan looked down again and continued eating. Geethika looked at Sarath who was seated at the head of the table in askance.

            “Mama tharane na (I don’t understand),” she told Sarath, who explained in Sinhala. Sawan waited.

            Sawan said, “I heard you speak to me last week. You told me to look after Harini if things didn’t turn out so well and I didn’t succeed. You said that you would die in the war because we were poor, that’s why I became Satan, to save everybody.”

            “But we aren’t poor,” Geethika protested. “You became Satan? Who’s that?” Sarath grumbled and interrogated her briefly in Sinhala in exasperation. She nodded her head in understanding and turned back to Sawan.

Sawan divulged further, saying, “He’s basically someone Christian people think is bad, but many people secretly respect him and worship him. He’s the leader of Hell.”

“Hell?!” Geethika exclaimed softly. “Why do you think you are the leader of Hell?”

“To show everybody that he isn’t really a bad person- that I am not really a bad person,” Sawan said correcting himself. “I am going to become the leader of the world soon. I know I can do it. I am going to bring everybody out of Hell and into The Promised Land. This is Hell. We are living in Hell-”

“This is not Hell! Hell is a much worser place than this… this place may be bad, yes, but not as bad as that place!”

“That’s what I learned this past week that’s what I’m telling you.”

“Who told you all this?” Seriousness was etched on Geethika’s face as Sarath listened on.

“The Government,” Sawan said. “And other people. The people around me. Other students.”

“The government?!”

“Yes, the Government.” Sawan indifferently said. Sarath jumped in now and clarified that no actual person had said anything to Sawan, instead only invisible voices had spoken to him in his head. He too had a serious look on his face, as Geethika looked back at her son in fear and sadness.

“They raped me too,” Sawan added.

“Raped you?” Geethika asked in shock.

“Yes and touched me all over. Invisible police. They said at the time that they were punishing me for liking Victoria. They also said it was an important life test. It happened to Daddy even. They said I had to be gay too, because I didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut during the final test. They were passing judgment on me, and I couldn’t keep myself quiet. My mind always had something to think, something to say. It wouldn’t stop thinking.”

“Sawan. Tell me truth. Did you see any person come near you? Any actual person? This is a very serious matter, because if someone did, we have to tell the police.” Sarath asked pointedly.

“No, nobody was there. Besides, it was the police who did it, they did it with their minds, they were invisible, I could feel something moving inside my back and fingers creeping all over me,” Sawan retorted. Sarath nodded in understanding grimly.

“Because if it is a real person then we have to do something,” Sarath muttered. Geethika continued to stare at her son pensively. She turned to Sarath.

“So… he’s not really gay?” Geethika asked Sarath in Sinhala.

“No, he isn’t, he’s just doing what he heard the government told him to do. They put him in that category because of his behavior, because of his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking,” Sarath explained back in Sinhala, smiling slightly in relief. “He’s pretending.”

“They said it would be a good way of standing up for gay rights too, especially because I used to be so mean to them before,” Sawan replied in English, following the Sinhala conversation. He had long finished his second dinner and the plate lay empty before him.

“But you don’t have to do that, they can take care of themselves,” Geethika attempted to dissuade.

Sawan firmly stated, “No, I have to for now, it’s one of the ways I win them over, I need their support when I take power, besides, I deserve to be in this position.  It was worth it. In the end I married Victoria,” There was silence. Sawan’s eyes flicked back and forth between his parents who looked back at him.

“Victoria? Who? You married someone?!” Sarath motioned for her to keep her voice down.

“Yea you know… Uncle Damith’s daughter,” Sawan stated bravely. He suddenly felt awkward. The word ‘daughter’ sounded so royal, as if she were that man’s, Uncle Damith, property, not his. It sounded strange as it rolled of his tongue.

“Oh, Victoria. But how they live in New Jersey. Did they go to Penn State to see you?”

“No, I married her at heart. Like in the mind. For now. Someday we’ll do the real thing. It was just a part of Judgment Day. It happened at the end,” Sawan defensively explicated. 

“Oh so you just thinking you married her, not really. Anyways you can’t, that’s illegal, you could go to jail, she’s only a kid, a child!” There a pause then, “Tell me again, why is there a war?” Geethika asked once more. Sawan reiterated what he had told his dad in the car, that the Republicans were afraid of America turning into a welfare state run by Obama and that they were willing to take the country to war to massacre the destitute who supported Obama and his social reform programs.

“They told me that you both knew all this already. That I was supposed to tell you everything that I knew about Judgment Day and what I had learned this past week when I came home so that you would tell me the truth about what you knew. They said we were only allowed to discuss this out loud at home, because outside home it’s illegal to talk about the war in the future, and telepathy, which people don’t understand. You know all this already right?” Sawan anticipated hearing his parents tell the truth about the world as adults.

“No, we don’t know about any war in 2012!” Geethika declared, shaking her head from side to side, wide eyed. “It’s very strange what happened to you. I don’t know what to tell you, very strange you are hearing these voices. When are they disturbing you, at night?”

“During the day, and night, all the time, it’s just normal, it’s the way people interact, it’s a second mode of communication,” Sawan diffidently explained. Geethika nodded in understanding, her narrow diamond oval shaped slowly aging face with her lips parted still full of concern.

“Are they disturbing you right now?”

“No I can’t hear anything at the moment, usually I can,” Sawan said lightly.

“It’s way past your bedtime. I think you can get good rest, sleep late tomorrow. Can you sleep without any problems?”

“I’ll be fine,” Sawan assured confidently as he picked up his plate, stood up and brought it to the sink to wash. He washed his plate as his parents went into the other room muttering together. He bid his parents good night. They told him that if he had any problems to say the Ithibiso Gatha, a Buddhist religious verse, or to find them in their respective rooms. Sawan went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and after doing so, stood by the toilet to take a leak. As he looked down he noticed a lump in his right pocket. Reaching in he was amazed to find a bag filled with broken crushed green leaves. He had never finished his last bag, and hadn’t smoked since before Judgment Day. Not knowing what to do he stared in fearful surprise at what he had brought into his house by accident. Would he use it? No. He would keep his promise to Aunty Veenus. He was a man now, and men didn’t smoke weed, only children did. Feeling mischievous and nervous, he dumped the contents of the bag into the toilet, took a leak, flushed, stuffed the empty bag back into his pocket and headed into his room. Once more he gazed around after he had stripped his clothes and found himself looking at his image in the mirror. There were two mirrors in his room. He looked at his belly.

“I have a six pack!” Sawan said in astonishment. He was surprised to find that he had abs. They had somehow become visible through the layer of flabby fat that lay across the lower half of his stomach usually. Sawan beamed at himself and turned in different angles, flexing his muscles. His arms and shoulders looked jacked too.

“You’re a hottie for eyes to see!” Victoria smirked telepathically.

“Victoria! How are you feeling? I haven’t heard from you since the end of the play!” Sawan thought excitedly.

“I’m doing good now go to bed!”

   Sawan jumped into bed, and slept exceptionally well after difficult nights most of the week. There was no government disturbing him tonight. The last thought on his mind before sleep took him was feeling very virile.

*          *          *

            “You must not deter from your great work. Your great work calls you!” the government hailed as Sawan quietly ate spaghetti. He looked down at his plate and suddenly recognized that eating spaghetti was a waste of time. He stood up from the table.

            “Yaiya your not done with your dinner yet,” Harini yawped. Sawan didn’t answer.

            “Yaiya? Yaiya!” Harini yelled. She looked at her mother Geethika, who was also looking at Sawan. He was about to walk out of the kitchen when Geethika grabbed his arm.

            “Just where do you think you’re going, little piggy?” Geethika said sweetly. Sawan acted as if he had just noticed them.

He stared at her and said forcefully, “I don’t have time to finish dinner. I have work to do.”

“Can’t you have one more bite, please?” Geethika insisted.

“No, I can’t, I have to get back to work I’ve wasted enough time as it is.” He tore away from her grip and swept into his bedroom.

“What about all this spaghetti then?” Sawan didn’t answer.“Chuti Amu! Oi!” Sawan turned around pensively, looking distracted.

“Huh?”

“What about all this pasta?”

“Save it,” Sawan commanded as he shut his door. He picked up The Prince from his bedside table and plopped onto his bed.

*          *          *

            Sawan was extremely bothered as he lay in bed hours later. He couldn’t sleep. He had read more deeply into The Prince as the telepathic voices had encouraged him on, this time without a reenactment of Romeo and Juliet. He was discovering that the possibility of war was the most instinctive thought that arises in a conflict, and more often than not, problems that weren’t solved with diplomacy were finished with the sword. So now he realized there to be a conflict of interests. Asia. Asia was made up many religions, but one of the foremost, split into many sects was Buddhism. What if things didn’t go well? What if the world didn’t trust itself enough to unite? What then? Truth was religious differences were the cause of mutual mistrust everywhere, with each group eyeing the other with distaste.

            As the leader of America, he would be called upon to massacre all the Asians, and not just the Chinese but more. This jeopardized his relationship with Sri Lankans as well. The safety of Sri Lankans everywhere would be at stake. No wonder he felt as though he had an uneasy relationship with the Sri Lankan community in his new position as Satan. Also it wouldn’t be enough to destroy the enemy itself; in a war of hatred it would be necessary to attack them at the core of their beliefs. Sawan’s mind suddenly pictured the death of thousands of Buddhist monks being bloodily massacred with machine guns. This frightened him. The death of innocent monks in a costly war was something he would not accept. Sawan suddenly decided spontaneously that he wanted to become Buddhist again, to make a point that everything should be balanced and that his people would not be harmed. Even if legally in this country, all adults were supposed to be secretly Christian. At first he was uncertain of his decision, but as every minute passed from his declaration, “I’m a Buddhist,” the more strongly he believed it.

Now he was being molested again. Invisible government agents had come to his house and now were molesting him, and the rest of his family. The government was pissed off over his conversion and they were now harassing him in retribution. “I’m just doing my job, son, sorry,” the greasy old agent muttered as he moved his calloused hands over Sawan’s body. After a few minutes Sawan couldn’t stand it. He got up and turned on the fan light. He laid back on his bed and stared silently off into space as the molesting hands receded.

            There was a knock on the door. Sawan turned his head. The door opened. It was his mom. She smiled from the door way.

            “That was very brave of you, you did the right thing,” he heard his mother telepathically tell him. Sawan gaped at her in surprise at being able to suddenly hear her.

            “What’s wrong, you can’t sleep? Here let me come and lie down with you for awhile.”  She told him. She turned off the fan light and got into his small bed with him.

 “We weren’t sure if we could trust you before, because of who you are, that’s why we never talked to you telepathically after you came home. You’ve been through so much. But we know you can save us. You just have to learn how to behave,” Geethika soothingly told him.

“I know I can do it. How can I learn how to behave?” Sawan asked with yearning as he lay silently next to his mother, breathing slowly in the dark.

“Listen… come doggy come come come, ok now go doggy go doggy go… now fetch this doggy fetch this… now roll over now play dead- do you understand? Don’t be a doggy to other voices who aren’t important. Some are important, like me your mummy but others like all these government people aren’t all the time ignore them. Pay attention to what your family is actually saying in real life too, because that shows you can actually talk to people. People like holding real conversations more than talking this way, because this way it’s hard to trust if someone means something or not.”

“I see.” He shifted his legs a little. He was beginning to feel sleepy. The government was not bothering him now. Perhaps this bond between mother and son was too strong a connection for them to disturb at the moment.

*          *          *

            “Let’s play cards,” Harini yipped. Sawan dazedly sat down on the floor next to her in her bedroom. Harini shuffled the deck and then dealt the cards out on the floor. They were about to play Spit. She placed the cards face down and facing up accordingly in piles for her and her brother. “Okay ready set go!” She flipped over a card from one of the piles and then started placing her cards in order on top of the original card, arranging her other piles in order simultaneously as well. After flipping his first card on the other hand, Sawan had stared blankly at his piles, not really grasping how to play. “Yaiya, flip over your cards, like this see, like I’m doing, find one number higher, or lower or the same card, it’s not that hard.”

            “I don’t get it, show me how to do it slower,” Sawan said dully. He wasn’t really paying attention as Harini groaned and went through the motions again. “I don’t get this dad,” Sawan thought dully to his father who was seated on the computer to the side in the same room.

            “Shut up, just play,” Sarath said angrily.

            “But-”

            “Shut up, don’t argue with me!”

            “I just don’t get it.”

            “I said SHUT UP, no whining in this house,” Sarath ordered. Sawan crumbled. He began to cry on the floor. Harini stared at him in bewilderment.

            “Yaiya…” Harini softly said.

            “Why what is it?” Sarath asked as he turned around in his chair. He saw Sawan crying. “Why what happened? Harini what did you do?!” he demanded.

            “I didn’t do anything! I was just showing him how to play!”

            “Well maybe you didn’t show right way! You weren’t patient!” Sarath heatedly claimed. “You know Yaiya is having a hard time these days! Get a tissue for him!” Harini quickly got to her feet. She returned with a tissue which she handed to Sawan and she sat on the floor. Sawan blew his nose loudly and wiped the excess tears away.  

            “I’ll do it slowly next time too, ok?” Harini offered quietly. “Sorry Yaiya,” Harini whispered telepathically. Sawan looked up and stared at his twelve year old sister. Her too?

*          *          *

            “Sawan, you are not strong enough to carry me,” someone deeply spoke to him. It was past midnight and he was sitting on the toilet.

            “ Who is this?” Sawan questioned sleepily.

            “This is the being you claim to be. Satan.”

            “Satan? But how is that? Aren’t I Sa-”

            “Silence! You and I are intrinsically connected from your birth because I chose your family to be born into in recent times. Now that everything is being revealed to you at this stage we expected you to move quickly in your studies. But, you haven’t been reading the red book hard enough.”

            “The Prince?! I’ve been reading that book lots!”

            “But it’s not enough,” Satan dismissed. “My strength inside you is fed every time you read that book. Millions of people have died over the knowledge on those pages over the past five hundred years. It is their dried dead blood that condenses again when you read that book, their bones that shiver in their graves. YOU MUST READ HARDER, AND LONGER!”

            “Alright sure!” Sawan was shaking violently.

            “Now on your knees, I shall commit my first murder through you in Bedminster tonight!” One of the ways of killing someone in real life without even being near them and doing it telepathically was to sodomize someone and contemplate the crime of murder on the murder victim while engaged in the act of sodomy. Sawan had been told earlier that he would have to commit twelve such acts of murder this way. Sawan fell to his knees and hands. Sawan felt his body tingle as the invisible form of Satan moved behind him and started making the crude motions behind him. Sawan laid his head on his hands and closed his eyes in suffering. This occurred for several minutes before footsteps were heard in the hallway. “We’re finished, the deed is done,” Satan sadistically intoned. Sawan got up. He heard someone approach the bathroom door and knock.

            “Sawan?” Sarath asked.

            “Yes dad, I’m coming out soon, I’m done,” Sawan replied shakily.

            “Is everything okay? You’re inside for long time.”

            “Yes, I’m fine, I just fell asleep.”

            “Well hurry up.”

*          *          *

            Sawan woke up and went into the kitchen. It was Monday morning and Harini had already gone to school. He didn’t really notice or seem to care that he was missing school at Penn State. He figured this would be a small vacation at home. He got out some cereal and was about to start eating when someone bellowed to him in his mind, “Sup? How do you do, how do you do?”

            “Who is this?” Sawan tepidly asked.

            “My name is Sawan, I’m your future self when you’re in your thirties,” this future self of Sawan guffawed. He sounded as though he was eating something.

            “Really?”

            “Yup, I just thought I’d drop by to give you some encouragement after what happened with you and that old red beast last night. You know, Satan?” the thirty something year old Sawan said.

            “Yea, I didn’t know he’d do that, I didn’t know I wasn’t really Satan.”

            “Relax, things look a lot more fruitful down the road if you just stick out through the hard times. For example did you know that when you’re twenty five that you, being I, will become the King of the World? Officially?”

            “Really?!” Sawan was joyous and wanted to hear more.

            “Yup, you do. You succeed,” the older Sawan confirmed. “And by the way, you are Satan but the way it works is that he is really his own spirit inside of you, interlocked with you, and moves from one powerful figure to the next over the centuries, waiting to take power, and the world. He’s the spirit of a fallen angel. Taking over the world officially under his name is all he’s ever really wanted, to officially be recognized as the king of his people, and it hasn’t happened this entire time.”

            “Oh,” Sawan thought, twirling his cereal inside the milk of the bowl.

            “You also get officially married to Victoria, before the Apocalypse, at the age of twenty three.”

            “The Apocalypse?”

            “Yes, which starts for a seven day period at the end of 2012 on December 21^st of that year. The Apocalypse is a period when you, Satan, come to power in the United States and civil war is averted because a majority of the people believe in Truth, your movement.”

            “I see.”

            “However the radical political changes in America during the Apocalypse scare the rest of the world that doesn’t believe in Christianity and it takes a lot of tough negotiations to prove to other nations that uniting the world is the real deal and that you are The One. It takes a lot of faith to avert nuclear disaster but believe it or not, nobody really wants nuclear war, which is why peace wins out in the end and everyone gives up their sovereignty. This process takes about two years. After this you are crowned king in 2015.”

            Sawan had so many questions. He asked, “So you’re the King of the World? How is it? What’s it like?”

            “Well, I’m not king anymore. I messed up, kind of. Had a kid five years after becoming king.”

            “With Victoria?”

            “Yup, and nobody wants a hereditary monarchy, so I ditch the throne. Everything was then set up so that a municipality is the primary seat of power without a central world government after I gave up the world throne. However there are some bad guys in the beginning of the new world order who try to take advantage of this system of local government so I have to work with a league of friends to stop them around the world. That’s the situation I’m in now,” the older Sawan explained.

            “So you’re trying to stop bad guys… like a super hero.”

            “Yea, and it’s no easy task, but I’m in touch with myself in my fifties who I’ll introduce you to in a moment-”

            “Do you have any flaws?” Sawan couldn’t help asking, he wanted know if there was something that he could work on, or prevent from happening.

            “Well I still drink wine now and then, it’s a trait I picked up from my father as you know. I have to go now… just finished having lunch… nice chicken... Mmph… yummy… I have to catch a chopper… I’ll talk to you later, but before I go I’ll have to introduce you to yourself in your fifties, by then you live in The Cottage peacefully.”

            “The Cottage?”

            “Yes The Cottage with Victoria, far away from other people,” someone else with a far more gruffy voice said. “As you can probably guess, this is yourself when you’re in fifties. The Cottage is a nice place…” this fifty something year old Sawan said as he described The Cottage to Sawan. Sawan could suddenly picture it as a place hidden by light green ferns and beside a small blue pond, larger than a shack but very animated looking in its features. He could hear what sounded like many children frolicking about in the background, playing in the long grass. “But yes right now you have to toughen up, accept the evil things Satan makes you do, these are the last days of your childhood that you are experiencing, yes sir,” Sawan looked down at his cereal and found his eyes welling up in tears at this statement. He couldn’t help but choke up. After all, he still felt like a kid. His father was in the kitchen too, but he was facing the counter top, looking away from him. Sawan rapidly blinked his eyes in an attempt to make the tears go away.

            Sarath turned around suddenly and asked him, “Do you want to go on a walk this afternoon?” Sawan rapidly nodded his head up and down.

            “Sure,” he managed to say.

*          *          *

            Sawan and his dad Sarath went for a walk that brisk cold October afternoon. Most of the time Sawan was quiet as he caught some of what his father was talking about. “This is very good for the blood, walking fast. Good for the heart,” Sarath said looking to his son for agreeance.

            “Yea, it is,” Sawan absentmindedly said. He could always manage throughout his life to usually give the appearance that he was listening when he wasn’t.

            “Listen carefully to what Satan says, he has good advice for you, like I do. Keep your devil close to you,” Sarath telepathically told him.

            “You shall be great in your free time, especially after you retire from saving the world and being King of the World. You shall be a writer, an author, one of the best in the world!” Satan declared.

            “Really?” Sawan thought as they climbed a particularly long bumpy hill in Far Hills behind their house. He had never considered being a writer. This concept had come out of nowhere. He was supposed to be an economist, someone who worked at an insurance company, or college.

            “Yes you shall become one of the best writers in the world! Your usage of language shall excel beyond others, and be deep and profound. Take these leaves before your feet,” Satan said, gesturing to the autumn leaves on the side of the road. Sawan looked at them. “How auburn these speckled pieces of foliage fallen from the crackled branches laid bare by the season’s turn. They lie here some crispy, others soggy, laid to waste, to be crushed into dusty oblivion by the passage of time.” Sawan was somewhat impressed. “You have the skills inside your head, you just have to utilize them.”

            “A writer…”

            “-but Dr. Caponi said that these problems can fix themselves easy we just need to take you to a special doctor, what do call them? Sawan?” Sarath rambled, now looking at Sawan who was still gazing at the leaves.

            “Huh?” Sawan blankly replied.

            “See, you weren’t listening. That’s the problem, your mind is on another planet, we have to help you focus again, I asked you what kind of doctor do people go to when they have a, a mental problem?”

            “A psychologist.”

            “Psychologist, that’s what Dr. Caponi said. We are going to taking you to the best psychologist in this whole area with Dr. Caponi’s help. He says he knows the right person.”

            “Yes but, I don’t really need any help anymore, besides I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I? I’m paying attention to what you are saying right now, right?”

            “Yes Sawan putha you are now, but most of the time now you give the answer very slowly, and after what happened to you those nights, don’t you think it’s better we see someone? You went to them first at Penn State.”

            “Yea but that was then, I don’t need anything now, I understand that that was supposed to happen to me, besides it happened to you when you were younger.”

            “No Sawan, nothing like that happened to me,” Sarath said vehemently. They reached the top of the hill.

*          *          *

            “Sawan,” Sarath said. It was the next day. Sawan looked up at his father. He was lying on his bed reading The Prince.

            “Yes?” Sawan inquired.

            “Dr. Caponi got us an appointment to see that specialist today, get dressed, we can gonow,” Sarath explained.

            “I don’t want to go, I’m fine, I don’t need to,” Sawan whined.

            “But I got this appointment through Dr. Caponi, if we cancel, then what is he going to think? We have to go to this one appointment at least first, and see if they can do anything, if not then we can go somewhere else or try something different, but this appointment we have to go,” Sarath huffed angrily. Sawan wilted under his father’s forcefulness and capitulated reluctantly.

            “Okay, just this one time.”

            “Yes, we just have to show our face and come back, otherwise we can’t do anything to help you,” Sarath soothed.

*          *          *

            Sarath, Geethika and Sawan piled into the old Honda and left. It was a sunny warm day. Sawan remembers going to a gas station and looking around bewilderingly. After they left gas station Sawan telepathically met a new being.

            “I am God. I have decided to come to you at this time to tell you what you have done for me in my great story for eons of time.” God told Sawan. Sawan listened attentively. “Once you were a snake who lived in Paradise. You made mankind fail a test of trust by seducing Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit. You were banished from Eden, along with mankind. Later you were born as Jesus. You tried to become King then. However, your people, the Jews, didn’t have enough faith in you to take them to the Promised Land then. They betrayed you. You died and tried to take over the world many times after that in other lives over the centuries. You were eventually reincarnated as Hitler who killed the Jews in revenge for their betrayal nearly two thousand years ago. Now you are born this way and you are still trying to take over the world.” Sawan looked dazed at this prophetic realization of his position in history. It was so base to think that he had once tried to become the leader of the Jews and after having failed, blamed them and tried to kill off that entire group of people just because they had been responsible for his death nearly two millenniums ago.  It was in this completely perplexing complexity that found the small black Honda parking outside of Carrier Clinic that afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACT IV:

The Underground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            “Do you hear voices?” the nurse intaker asked. Sawan looked around the small cluttered room dreamily, and nodded his head. “Yes?”

            “Yes,” Sawan replied.

            “Have you seen hallucinations?” Sawan remembered Judgment Day and the demon faces. He nodded.

            “Yes.” The nurse then looked down at her papers and scribbled something. She looked up at him and then looked down and continued scribbling. She was a round woman, with large jowls and dark steadily graying hair. She asked more questions.

“Do you have trouble sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“How has your appetite been?”

“Good.” Sawan looked around the room nervously and then stared at the ceiling. He could see patterns in the texture of the ceiling. The questions went on. Sawan slowly answered them. Soon the questioning was over. He rejoined his mother. Sarath had taken the Honda and gone to work. They waited in the hallway. There was a vending machine. Sawan walked over to it. He nudged his mother who was next to him in askance and stared through the glass at a Snickers bar. She whirled around and then openly grinned at him.

“Do want one?” Geethika asked.

“Yea, I do,” Sawan yakked, nodding his head up and down and goofily smiling at his old childhood indulgence. Geethika gave him a dollar with a stern yet playful expression on her face. Sawan slipped the dollar into the machine and punched E7 so that the coils revolved and the row pushed the Snickers bar forward. It fell downwards and landed in the space where it could be retrieved. Sawan pushed open the elongated door, grabbed the bar and tore it open quickly. He took a sensuous bite out of the bar and walked towards the exit. He walked out of the hospital and down a side walk. He finished eating.

“It is time that I show you the full extent of my power over you. Give yourself to me,” God said. Sawan stopped walking. He dropped the wrapper into the breeze and let himself go. Suddenly his feet were moving. They moved shakily forward, in short halting steps. He then turned around. Now he was walking backwards in a parking lot. He walked in a circle. He felt as though his legs were controlled by another being, like a puppet whose legs were being shifted unsteadily. He found this feeling to be amazing though. He laughed in wonder at the blue sky that had white sunlight thrusting downwards upon the land as an ambulance drove by. The driver stared at him. Sawan didn’t think strangely of what he was doing. He then stopped and the movement of his legs was given back to him. “I just wanted to show you that I could do that.” Sawan found a dirt road. He followed it. It led in a muddy circle back to the entrance of the hospital. Geethika was waiting outside for him. She smiled sadly at him.

“We’re going to bring your things for you. They want to keep you for a while,” she told him. She brought her hands up moved them through his wavy black hair. Her eyes looked moist and red around the edges. Sawan stared at her in bafflement. He had heard her.

“Keep me?” he thought.

“Why? What did I do? Was it something I said?” Sawan asked.

“I don’t know let’s go inside and talk to them first.” They walked back into the building. They went into a waiting room. Sawan looked at words written in Spanish on the wall. He translated them instantly. He had never spoken Spanish before. He was euphoric at the newfound abilities that he was acquiring. Another nurse came into the room with documents in her hand and sat in front of Sawan. She carefully asked Sawan to commit himself voluntarily to the hospital. Sawan politely refused. She looked at him and then cautiously explained to him that they now had enough information to commit him involuntarily if they wanted to. Sawan realized then that he was trapped. He had no choice. He may as well come quietly then.

“Alright fine, I’ll sign,” Sawan told the nurse.

“Sign here,” the nurse responded. Sawan picked up the pen and signed. “And here.” Sawan moved down the page and signed again. The nurse flipped the page. “Here.” Sawan drew another signature. She flipped two more pages. “Here too.” Sawan signed again. “This is a confidentiality form, fill it out, and sign here.” Sawan did as he was told and handed it back to the nurse. There were other documents he signed, all in the same monotonous fashion. “This way.” They got up and left the room. They walked through a maze of corridors deep into the hospital until they came to a large thick metal bolted door. “We’re here,” the nurse said. Sawan turned around. His mom looked at him and crumbled.

“We’ll get you out soon, you be strong, okay?” Geethika sobbed onto his shoulder as she hugged him.

“I’ll be fine you just help me get out, I don’t want to be here,” he said, as despair rose within him. He felt tears building in his eyelids, but held them back until they had finished their hug. Then he wiped his hand briefly across his eyes.

“I know Chuti Amu, but what can we do? We just have to be brave.” Geethika was regaining her composure quickly. “We’ll come back tomorrow to drop off your clothes, you’ll be safe?”

“Yes I will.” Sawan looked more lost than ever.

“Be good. I’ll go now. Bye.” Geethika then turning around.

“Bye.” Sawan faced the door which was unbolted. He was led inside.

*          *          *

            He was inside a small chamber. It turned out there were two doors leading into the wing that he would be staying at, the one he had just entered through after being abandoned by his mother and the other second bolted door ahead. “This is like a prison,” he thought gloomily.

“It gets better dear,” the nurse said. The nurse swiped a card. The door beeped and unlocked as a green light near the card slot flashed in recognition. The nurse swung the heavy door open and they walked through. “This is where you’ll be staying, the Psychiatric Acute Care Unit,” the nurse explained as they entered a small dining room that contained round wooden top tables. “We’ll get you settled down quickly but first thing we have to show you your room.” They walked past the dining room and past another opened dead bolt door into a corridor with bedrooms on either side. Sawan looked around. He was completely struck by the reality that he was now in a mental ward. “Here this is your room.” They turned into one of the rooms on the right. It had two beds, one for him and someone else, and window that had a metal screen over it. There was a desk in the corner for him as well. He walked into the room and sat down on the bed as the nurse left him there briefly.

“How could this happen to me? This is so embarrassing. What will my friends think? What did I do to deserve this? I feel so… hopeless. This isn’t right, this isn’t fair, they have no right to do this to me. I can’t take this!” he thought sporadically, clenching his fists.

“Sa-wan?” Sawan turned around from his position facing the window and looked up. A man of average size was standing by the door. He was balding so that he had a forehead that stretched beyond the top of his scalp and was tanned, with an open shirt that exhibited chestnut chest hair. “Sawan my name is Paul, I’m your social worker. Just thought I’d stop by and say hello.” He had an Australian accent. He walked up to Sawan and shook his hand. Sawan shook it. “Brighten up chap, and make yourself comfortable. You’re Satan aren’t you?” Paul telepathically communicated to Sawan.

“It’s just that this sucks balls, Satan isn’t supposed to be locked up, Satan is supposed to be free,” Sawan thought angrily. But he didn’t say anything physically to Paul other than “yes,” “I understand,” and “sure,” to Paul’s explanations and queries.

“We’ll be meeting more often during your stay here, my goal is to get you recovered and outta here as fast as possible, because I’m sure, you don’t want to stay here, do you?” Paul inquired with a smile.

“No, not at all I’d appreciate it if I could leave as quickly as possible,” Sawan quickly said without hesitation.

“That’s what I want to work on doing, but you have to work with me, make sure you take your meds and attend groups.”

“I have to take medication?”

“Yes, usually everybody does. It will help you recover, don’t worry Dr. Goodnick’s your doctor, he’ll take good care of you, I’ve got to see other patients but it was nice talking to you, we’ll talk more later alright?”

“Yea sure,” Sawan said. Paul turned around and walked out the same way he came in. Sawan looked down and morosely stared at his fingernails. They were dirty and getting long. “This isn’t what the revolution was supposed to be about,” Sawan grumpily thought.

“Sometimes sacrifices are necessary to win,” the Government retorted. “Besides this place is safer, we put you here to protect you, the staff will explain.”

“To protect me?! From what?!”

Satan cried, “Silence! The boy deserves to know why he has been brought to a mental asylum. The truth is because it is a secure location, and your enemies cannot reach you here. Everyone here-”

“Snacktime everybody, snacktime,” someone called. Sawan looked uncertainly at the door. A nurse appeared.

“Snacktime Sawan, we have sandwiches,” she repeated. Sawan got up wearily and walked towards the door. “It’s down the hallway.” Sawan went back to the dining room and found people standing and sitting around. Sawan saw that one of the tables in the corner had a tray piled full with sandwiches. He walked over, sat down at the table with sandwiches and folded his arms on the table, placing his head on top of his arms, hiding his face.

“Hey look it’s a newbie! He looks like he needs to be cheered up, I think some reiki should do the trick,” a lanky scruffy looking guy Sawan’s age said. Sawan didn’t see him, but he felt the air moving around his head as though someone was twirling their hands about him. This was Justin. Justin had long dirty blonde hair and an elongated face. He was a bit taller than Sawan. Sawan felt the air moving on his scalp as Justin worked his hands in the air just above the surface of Sawan’s head in hurricane shaped patterns. He could feel the air closing in on a specific point on the top of his head and then Justin stopped moving his hands. Justin made a pulling motion with his hands as though he were pulling something out of Sawan’s head and immediately Sawan couldn’t help but feel lighter, as if his stress was being somewhat relieved. Sawan lifted his head and turned around. He looked at Justin and smiled, who smiled back. “Welcome brother, what’s your name?”

“Sawvan,” Sawan replied.

“Really? That’s a nice name, are you Indian?”

“No, Sri Lankan but it’s all most the same thing,”

“Yea? It looks like my reiki worked on you, do you feel better?”

“Yea, I feel much better, what did you do?”

“Oh it’s just my moves man, I’m glad I could be of service to you, consider it a token of friendship.”

“Thanks that’s really chill of you!”

“No problem dude, have a sandwich.” Justin nudged the platter over towards Sawan. Sawan reached for a ham sandwich and a packet of mayonnaise. He unwrapped the plastic off the sandwich and ripped open the mayonnaise to smear inside the sandwich. He then took a grateful bite out of the soft white bread and meat in his hands. He looked at the other people around him. They all seemed like normal middle aged people who were at a quiet social function. It didn’t seem like a nuthouse at all. One of the staff walked over to Sawan and spoke to him. Sawan nodded his head in understanding but he was really listening to what the staff had to say telepathically.

“This is the Underground… where those most involved in the revolution live. You’re being kept here for your protection because the civil war you are preventing goes against the plans of a select few factions who want to thwart you. They are trying to kill you and this is the Government’s way of protecting you,” the staff member said. Sawan suddenly realized he wasn’t a prisoner but instead in the midst of the movement. He no longer felt homesick. Instead he felt resolve that he had to take charge. He inspected his followers. The people here were in general older than those at Penn State, but no doubt they were those most devoted to the world takeover. Sawan had to be involved in the community and socialize with them. He continued talking to Justin. Soon snack time was over. Sawan headed back to his room and laid down on the bed. He was lost in deep thought about the revolution. He had to get back to reading The Prince. This book was the key to his success. He would make sure that his parents brought that book to him while he stayed here. The Underground served more than one purpose to the revolution. Other than being a safe house, it was a site of coordination as well. He had to take action by showing his followers that he was their leader.

Sawan was on the edge of passing out when he heard the call for medicine out in the hallway. He didn’t get up though and nobody came to his door. He got up and took of his clothes to lay in his underwear when someone in a wheelchair was wheeled into the room by a nurse. It was a dark haired shriveled old man who was hunched over in the chair. The man nodded to Sawan in acknowledgment from his seated position. The nurse held the old man as he was moved from the chair carefully onto the bed where he languidly shuffled in the blankets. This was Sawan’s roommate Thomas. “Nurse can I have a percosect?”

“Yea, we’ll bring one for you. Sit up, here, I’ll help you,” the nurse replied to Thomas. The nurse left and then returned with the power pain killer made from opium. He fed the pill to Thomas. Thomas took it with water. Sawan watched this. The nurse left.

“Victoria?” Sawan asked sleepily. There was no answer. Sawan waited. He was puzzled as to what she was doing. After a few minutes of wondering what she was up to, he called again. “Victoria?” Suddenly she answered.

“Oh hey Sawan How ya feelin’?” Victoria burbled.

“I’m in The Underground, and I’m safe but you’re not safe here with me you’re out there. There are people who might try to harm you because you love me. What were you doing just now?” Sawan asked curiously.

“Oh nothing,” Victoria deflected.

“Tell me.”

“Oh fine I was talking with Satan. He wanted to talk to me so I decided to have a chat with him. He’s nice to talk to, he’s very funny.”

“Satan? But how he’s with me all the time,” Sawan said in surprise though realizing it had been sometime since he had heard Satan’s voice. Could Satan leave him and talk to other people?

“I don’t know, he just began making jokes and I started laughing. It made me feel… excited.” Victoria plainly revealed.

“You mean horny,” Satan said, intruding into the dialogue.

“No you a*****e,” Victoria giggled. Sawan was completely thrown off guard by this new friendship between his wife and this ancient demon. He didn’t know how to respond except that he felt left out of the loop. He couldn’t help but wonder suddenly what Victoria thought of Satan in comparison to himself. Did she think Satan to be cooler than Sawan? Helpless is the best word to describe how he was feeling. He didn’t know how to respond. He could visualize a muscular shafted animal winged Satan standing on its hind legs deriding him. He couldn’t handle this. He flipped over onto his side and grumpily stared off into space.

“Victoria do you like him? He’s a dooch!” Sawan protested.

“Yea he is but sometimes I get lonely when you’re not talking to me. So I hope you don’t mind that I have other friends to talk to,” Victoria said plainly. “Besides it’s not like I like him or anything you’re getting worried aren’t you? Well I’m not a w***e thanks.”

“Victoria I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything-”

“But you asked me if I liked him. Why on earth would I like being treated badly. Besides he’s you, he’s a part of you, isn’t he?”

“Well yea, but he’s his own being, his own spirit, even if he worked through me since I was born, he only became a conscious force that surfaced since I’ve read The Prince. He’s hard to control,” Sawan whined. He had to find a way to control this dark force. It now seemed to Sawan as though Satan was subverting his relationship with Victoria.

Satan huffed, “Sawan I would never steal your wife Victoria. So rest easy, I was just playing when I talked to your girlfriend Victoria-”

“You mean wife,” Sawan grumpily reminded.

“Yes, wife-”

“In order to have a better handle over Satan, you must read Buddhist books,” God informed him.

“Really?” Sawan asked in surprise. Then again it made sense. Buddhism was a way of controlling impulsiveness. Satan was impulsive when it came to misbehavior. Satan was upset that Sawan had learned this but he couldn’t say anything. Satan was inferior to God.

“Excuse me, this is a journal for you, you can write in this if you want to,” someone from the staff standing by the door said. Sawan got up from the bed to retrieve the marble book. He took it into his hands and glanced at the blank surface of the marble journal. His eyes suddenly flashed in recognition as he was suddenly hit with the significance of what he was holding. Here was the best way to record the ludicrous incredulity that he had been feeling, to become the author that he was meant to be. He had the urge to start now.

He walked out of his room and turned right cautiously not really sure where he was heading but he sensed the wing he was staying in was small somehow. Sure enough in a few feet he came to an intersection in the hallway with a windowed counter. He turned right instinctively again, following the sound of a television and he walked into a room on the left. The room he turned into was colorful, red and orange. It had an lcd tv in one corner and board games on a table with a sofa behind it. There were people seated in chairs in front of the television. Sawan sat down in one of the chairs. He looked at the television. There appeared to be a History channel special about Indiana Jones and his movies playing. This was it. Sawan got up, retrieved a pencil, and sat back down, flipping open the marble journal to the first lined page.

He wrote, “The truth is I don’t know what I am supposed to say stuck here in this asylum, but I ask you to please understand the reason I am here is to prove to people that I can do something regardless of a stain on my official record. I am not afraid of being labeled insane, and I am not afraid of the consequences of being labeled a pedophile for being in love with a 12 year old girl. I feel the fear course through my own brain, and body my mind shivering with doubt as I listen to myself compliment my own vocabulary and simultaneously worry about my brazen and forthright nature. I am pleased the boy can finally see the useful nature of being able to write finally, having finally found his voice.”

*          *          *

            Sawan’s eyes cracked open. At first he didn’t know where he was, but then he realized he was waking up into a nightmare. He didn’t know how long this nightmare would last. He sat up tiredly and bleakly stared out of the window. He looked down at his single pillow. This pillow was nothing like the pillow he had kept as Victoria in college. This one was made out of some plastic material with soft plastic filling. He began to remember then that it wasn’t such a bad thing that he was in here, away from his family, that this was all for his protection. Yet something didn’t feel right. It had to do with the fact that he was being kept here against his will. “Breakfast time!” someone called. People slowly filtered out of their rooms into the hallway to go to the dining hall at the end. Sawan got up and eventually joined the crowd. He walked into the dining hall to find people picking up small see through plastic cups of orange juice with aluminum foil lids from a table. He was about to sit down when a nurse came abruptly and held up a small cup with some pills in it.

“Medicine,” the elderly nurse with orange hair said with a pointed look on her face. “Place that under your tongue. Just swallow the rest. From now on you just come to the Nurses’ Station to receive your medicine, your next dose is at four.”

            “Okay,” Sawan bleated helplessly after swallowing. Sawan didn’t know how he was supposed to feel, or what would happen to his mind. He sat down and looked at the paper menu. He saw that he could order an omelet, and decided that this would be his choice. He looked across the table and saw a heavy girl who looked as though she had North Indian descent in her, with pale skin, rounded features and full sized breasts; and long straightened dark brown black hair.

            “Hi,” Sawan said casually.

            “Hey,” the girl cheerfully replied.

            “Sorry, but are you a patient? Because you don’t seem like one.”

            “Haha, that’s funny you don’t really seem like you’re a patient here too!”

            “Yea I know right? It’s like I don’t even belong here. Weird isn’t it?”

            “It is, how did you get in here?” She burped.

            “Well basically I told them I was Satan and that was enough for them to lock me up,” Sawan explained as the girl burst out laughing. “For my protection.”       

“You?! Satan?!”

            “Yea, it’s funny, I know. My name’s Savan, what are you in here for?”

            “Well they actually put me in here, because I can get really moody, like for no reason at all.” She stared at Sawan then suddenly in an instant had burst into tears, crying, sobbing. “I can’t really control it, and I don’t know why it happens, I just suddenly feel really sad and need to have a cry, but then I feel better.” This was Aeysha. She wiped her eyes with a napkin and in five minutes no one could tell that she had been upset. She was more mellow and quiet now though, and not as talkative as the food arrived. Sawan looked at his omelet. It looked pretty scrumptious. He dug in, and then remembered he had forgotten the salt and pepper, so he sprinkled some. He ate up and was full.

After breakfast there was the community meeting. Sawan went down the hallway and took a right at the Nurses’ Station following the traipsing patients into a room at the end of the hall. Chairs of various sizes were arranged in a circle in the center of the room whose walls were composed of just windows. Sawan took a seat and waited for everyone to come in.

            “This is it. Your chance to introduce yourself to your subjects so that they have the firm conviction that you are their leader Satan. You shall be my voice, the voice of God, and speak my words and laws to my people. Simply open your mouth and my words shall pour forth,” God instructed. Everyone seated themselves. It was time. Sawan then raised his chin and opened his mouth slightly. He then heard God speak, and his voice echoed from Sawan’s mouth, dimly vibrating upon the air. “This is God. I have come here through this individual, who is Satan to speak to you about how you will all be saved.” People in the room were conducting a meeting that Sawan wasn’t really listening to. That meeting served as small talk, a distraction to what Sawan’s telepathic voice was saying. People in the room sighed and looked downwards towards their knees as they listened to God. “The time has come to move towards salvation. You have all disobeyed me before, but this time there you have a chance to repent for your sins by taking the proper steps to moving towards the Holy Kingdom. What you have to do is help everyone in the world believe in this leader, Sawan. During the Apocalypse he will lead our people in a mass conversion to Buddhism. Those who resist are not following God’s will. Those who are not originally Christian and who do not wish to convert will be dealt with peacefully, so that they coexist with the world religion during the new world order that will arise after the Apocalypse. It is your duty to help those who believe in violence to see the light before it is too late. Leading up to Apocalypse there will be unrest as those who do not want my people to go the Promised Land will plot against us. There will be riots conducted by both sides, and there are those who would risk war to slaughter many. But do not be afraid. Put your faith in me and you will see that Sawan, who is Jesus reincarnate, will finally reign over the world.”

Everyone had a somber religious look on their face. The task was done. Sawan lowered his head and looked around at everyone as if seeing them for the first time.

“Would you like to introduce yourself and state your goals for the day?” a member of the staff asked him. The group had been going on the circle answering this question.

“My name is Sawan. My goal for the day is to help others,” Sawan said.

“Well said! Next person…”After everyone was done they began to talk about coping with problems. But Sawan wasn’t listening to that conversation. He was trying to reach Victoria telepathically. Somewhere, in this very state of the union, Victoria was at school hard at work. She could not be reached. Sawan wondered how many other kids in her grade could communicate via the mind. Perhaps it had something to do with puberty. The meeting was over. They all rose up and they left the room. Sawan went back to his room and decided to start writing. He went over to the desk and sat down pulling the journal towards him and flipping over to the second page. His mind was still dwelling on Victoria, whom he thought of fondly.

He could imagine her now and began to write: “My wife is lovely. She is like a little terrier. She smells li-.” There was a tap on the door.

“Sawan?” He looked up in annoyance. A Jewish man wearing a kippah on his head and a white medical coat with thick glasses stood at the door way. He was bald.

“Yes?” Sawan asked.

“My n-name is Dr. Goodnick. I’m your psychiatrist, p-pleased to meh-meet you,” the man said, coming into the room with an extended hand. The doctor could barely get the words out; he had a serious stuttering problem. Sawan got up from the desk and went to shake his hand feeling suddenly as though he was being put on the spot. This was the person who was responsible for figuring out what was wrong with Sawan, if something was wrong with him to begin with. He wanted to handle this encounter very carefully and smoothly. It was very important to make a good sane impression, even if he was already deemed as being insane anyways. “What were you d-doing? Writing in your meh-marble book? That’s g-good, very good. I’d like to t-talk to you for a few minutes, l-let’s go d-down the hallway.” Sawan followed him down the hallway into a room at the corner with an upright piano in it. The room had light blue pastel walls with a picture of a sad looking doll in a frame placed on the wall. In the corner was a tall cart of enormous binders placed in stacks on its metal frames. “Have a seat.” Dr. Goodnick indicated a wooden chair near the center of the room. There was another chair near the cart. Dr. Goodnick sat in that chair after pulling one of the enormous binders out the cart. Sawan saw that his name was on it. The binder was full of pages of information already for some reason, a lot of data. Sawan had no idea what this information was. Dr. Goodnick skimmed through some pages of the binder before settling on one. He picked a pen out of his pocket and poised it over the page with a serious expression on his face. “So Sawan, do you hear voices?”

“I have before, but I haven’t really lately,” Sawan said. He knew that talking about hearing Victoria and the others that he heard telepathically had landed him here at the Underground, even if it was for his protection, and he wanted to be as honest as possible about it, but the truth was that at the moment he didn’t hear any voices whatsoever. It was all about staying in the present staying in the moment, that was what he had learned on Judgment Day so difficulty.

“Do you know what a delusion is?” Dr. Goodnick asked, not looking at Sawan directly but down at the page tersely.

“Well, I have a good idea.”

“It’s when you believe in something that in unrealistic, unfeasible or doable to the extent that it controls your thought process. Do you think you have any delusions?” Dr. Goodnick asked, still not glancing at Sawan. Sawan couldn’t help but think this was a very odd encounter. It seemed very indirect. It was as if Dr. Goodnick didn’t like his patients. Rather he seemed to act as if they weren’t really in the room but as if he were talking to himself. Something about the doctor made him appear nervous. Sawan thought to himself briefly. Everything that he was doing seemed enormously difficult. But he knew that all the pieces had to fall into place over time so that he would succeed in taking over the world. It would take years. Right now everything that had to be done was being revealed to him slowly. It wasn’t a delusion to be a conqueror; other men in history had done the same thing.

“I don’t see how aspiring to be a world leader is a delusion.” Dr. Goodnick began scribbling in the binder. Sawan wondered what he was writing.

“Okay Sawan we’re done talking for today, but we’ll continue talking the next few days,” Dr. Goodnick said in a clipped sterile way as he got up and placed the binder back inside the metal cart. “Make sure you take your medication as prescribed; that will really help you.”

 “How long will I have to take my medication for?” Sawan didn’t want to be categorized as someone who was scarred mentally permanently. He wanted to believe that for whatever reason he was taking medication he would be cured from that.

“For another year.”

“How long do I have to stay here?” Sawan desperately asked in the hallway. He wanted to go home, even if there were going to be assassination attempts in the future.

“It depends on your progress and recovery, I’ll see you later,” Dr. Goodnick shortly stated as he went into the nurse’s station, leaving Sawan at the junction in the hallway staring after him helplessly.

“You did good,” the Government praised Sawan telepathically. “But it’s going to take some time to get you out of here. Things are taking a turn for the worse outside. More murders are occurring.”

“I don’t know, even though I’m in charge, it seems to me as though that man is extremely confused about his position here versus mine, he acts as though he’s a guilty schoolteacher,” Sawan thought warily as he headed back to his room. He saw Aeysha in the hallway and waved at her cheerfully. She waved back and smiled.

*          *          *

His father came later in the afternoon with his belongings. Sarath had brought The Prince, a large illustrated biography of the Buddha’s life, and Cry, the Beloved Country. Why they sent the last book, Sawan had no idea, other than the fact that it was probably sitting on his dresser or desk randomly. They went to his room and placed all the clothes in the cupboard by his single bed, leaving the books on the desk. Sarath had brought some food from home as well, some rice and curry in a gladware container. Sawan ate in the dining hall with a plastic spoon for propriety’s sake and told his father how he was doing.

Sarath was all smiles with his toothy grin. Sarath had told him seriously though that no one in the Sri Lankan community was aware of the fact that Sawan had returned to New Jersey and entered a mental institution. Sarath had said that this fact would remain hidden, so that this unfortunate situation would not become an embarrassment to the family. Sawan wondered what his Sri Lankan friends and others were thinking of his extended leave of absence. After all he hadn’t written on Facebook in days. Perhaps not in weeks! There was no internet service at the Underground. No cell phones allowed either, not that Sawan had one anymore. It was a nice brief encounter with his dad that lasted about a half hour before Sarath had to leave. All too soon the nurse was sliding her card through the card reader and the metal doors were opening so that his father could be escorted to the other side. Sawan sullenly raised his hand in farewell and went back to his room, ready to immerse himself in The Prince.

Patients in the hospital engaged in various groups and activities that Sawan was unaware of for the time being. Instead he spent the whole evening reading his red book and no one bothered him. He came out of his room for dinner and snack, feeling ravenous even though he had already had lunch plus the second meal that his dad had brought. There were more sandwiches and mayonnaise tonight. “This place certainly has a lot of food,” Sawan thought as he grabbed two sandwiches and some mayonnaise packets. Tonight he decided to opt for turkey as well as ham. He ate the two sandwiches and to his surprise found that he was still hungry. His stomach grumbled. Getting up he grabbed another two, more mayonnaise and a carton of milk. Gobbling this up, he finally felt sated. More bloated actually. Sitting in his chair he stroked his full belly under his t-shirt. It was still quite firm but he hadn’t exercised in a while. Strangely he noticed he didn’t really care about exercising anymore. Yet he wanted to care. What was wrong with him?

*          *          *

            “Breakfast time!” someone called from afar. Sawan rolled over in bed and tossed the covers over his head. He did not want to wake up. He felt tired and dull, even though he hadn’t stayed up past ten last night. Now presently he was scratching his groin which felt itchy.

Rolling on to his stomach he moved the pillow that his head had been resting on and noisily stuffed it under the sheet between his legs. Sawan glanced surreptitiously at his motionless roommate who was turned away facing the other wall as he slowly began to grind against the pillow making as little noise as possible. He looked at the door which was cracked open slightly and paused. He could see people moving through the crack and he wanted to get up and close it but he was too busy. “Breakfast time, everybody breakfast time!” Another announcement from the dining hall. Sawan began to move frantically faster, thinking of Victoria and better days. It was a weekday, he wasn’t sure which one it was, but it was one. That meant Victoria was probably awake and getting ready for school, eating breakfast already, or perhaps waiting at the bus stop. She would be in eighth grade. There were other kids there. Other boys. The thought of Victoria’s ex boyfriend cropped nosily into Sawan’s mind. Then Kavi. Sawan angrily pushed these negative images away and tried to focus on being alone with Victoria in her house. In her bedroom.

Suddenly the door opened and a nurse peeked in. Sawan stopped moving instantly and looked at the door. He lay motionless. The nurse came in to get Tom for breakfast, but looked over at Sawan and said, “It’s breakfast time, you have to wake up.”

“I’m going,” Sawan hastily said. The nurse was prodding the seemingly lifeless Tom to wakefulness as he groaned.

“I need a percosect,” Tom whined.

“You can have one after breakfast,” the nurse assured him. The nurse began dragging Tom into an upright position. Sawan watched and waited. Yet he already knew it was no use. He noticed that while he made his efforts he could not attain hardness, he was soft. He didn’t know why this was. Grumpily getting up from bed he left the room and went to the dining hall where he ordered French toast. He began to forget about today’s episode of erectile dysfunction as he talked to Aeysha. With her he could always exhibit confidence and manliness. He tried to also talk to the older lady who was at their table in a social manner but that woman seemed to be in her own world and wasn’t as responsive. Aeysha on the hand seemed pretty happy today, even though she looked very sleepy.

“It’s the medication, makes me tired all the time, they have me on so many mood stabilizers,” she explained sleepily. “Do you feel any side effects?” Sawan pondered the question as he looked down at his half finished French toast. He absentmindedly realized that he would want to order a second plate. This stuff was delicious. He couldn’t have enough of it. “Did you hear me? Hahahaha!”

“What?” Sawan asked suddenly, holding a fork to mouth, a piece of syrupy French toast on the prongs. “Oh you asked about side effects. Well I don’t really know it’s only been a few days ya know? But I’ve noticed I’m feeling a little more sleepier and lazier since I came here, and eating more too, I just keep eating what they have, and I’m hungry for it too!” Sawan didn’t want to describe sexual impotency but he couldn’t help but burst out, “I think I’m less horny too!” Aeysha rolled in her chair and looked as though she would fall off but she managed to stay on as waves of laughter poured out of her mouth. Sawan laughed as well. He was starting to grow fond of Aeysha but he knew he only had one true love. “How old are you?”

“I’m twenty five, I’m so old, what about you?”

“Twenty five?! You don’t look twenty five.”

“I am. It’s depressing,” she said, looking for a moment as though she’d begin to cry. She maintained her composure. “I’m twenty five and I still think like a teenage girl, I don’t know why. It’s so annoying. It’s not normal, I’m not normal. I’m bipolar. It stinks. It stinks being in this place too, I want to go home.” She brushed a single tear away from her eye.

“Don’t be sad, you look young, you look like you could be twenty, or nineteen!” Sawan felt guilty he had brought up the age subject. “I can’t believe you’re twenty five, maybe you got the wrong birth certificate or something!” Aeysha smiled a little but looked dejected for the rest of the meal. After the meal Sawan went back to his room and continued reading The Prince. Now that the meal was over and he wasn’t with Aeysha, he noticed that everything was very static while reading. He usually felt fervent and enthusiastic but now he was devoid of emotion.

“Medicine call, Medicine time,” a nurse called. Sawan didn’t move at first but then remembering the doctor’s instructions stiffly got up and reluctantly went to the nurse’s station to stand in line. The hallway was all a bustle. People chatted with each as they waited to take their medicine. The window was open at the counter and behind it nurses moved back and forth in a tight space with a long cabinet behind them full of pill bottles, holding metal pitchers of water, fetching the pills from the cabinet placing them in small plastic pill cups and feeding the meds to their patients, witnessing the patients swallow the medicine to make sure they did it. Aeysha was in another place in line so he had no one to talk to. He waited his turn attentively like the others, yet at times silently fumed at this medicinal practice. He sensed that it made him weaker, a lesser person, an indistinct man. So when it was his turn he looked on as the nurse fetched his medication, poured him a cup of water and placed the medication inside his mouth, waiting resolutely to watch him swallow it. He wished he could spit it out. He didn’t want to take it. But with this onlooker watching, he had no choice and swallowed.

Sawan went back to his room to keep reading but he vowed then and there that he would protest taking the medicine. He already had an alibi. It was for a religious reason, a Buddhist reason. The fifth precept prohibited taking intoxicating drinks and harmful drugs. From his standpoint these pills fell under the category of harmful drugs because they affected the mind and body in a negative way. Sawan noticed that he felt more despondent throughout the day, as if he was depressed, even though he was the Jesus reincarnate, Satan, King of Hell.

By the time four o’clock rolled around Sawan was dead set on not taking his meds. Med call came. Sawan didn’t stand in line. Instead he continued to read. Fifteen minutes later there was a rap on the door. The orange haired nurse stood in the doorway. “Sawan? You have to take your medication,” she said.

“I’m not taking my medication, for a religious reason, it breaks the fifth precept, do not take intoxicating drinks or harmful drugs and those pills are harmful drugs,” Sawan calmly stated.

The nurse looked at him for a moment as if he had not heard her, paused and then said, “Come on Sawan, you have to take your medication in order to get better, it’s a part of recovery, you have to take them.”

“I’m not taking medication it’s against my religion, and I signed a contract here when I came that I would be able to practice my religion to the full extent,” he retorted proudly, remember one of the documents that he had signed during his intake. For a second he commended himself on remembering this fact and praised his memory. The nurse ignored what he said.

“If you’re not going to take your medication, I’ll have to administer them to you with a needle and those hurt, so I think you should just take the pills.”

“No, I’m not going to take any of them, this goes against my rights that were stated in the release I signed,” Sawan shot back.

“You also signed a document that states we have the right to administer antipsychotics and other psychotropic medications to you for your mental illness. You have a mental illness and it has to be treated.” The nurse shakily replied. “Are you going to take your medication or are we going to have to give you shots?”

“No I’m not taking them.” Sawan was taking a stand. He was nervous and excited now. He knew he was fighting for what he believed in, besides he was the boss here in this place and these people were forgetting it.

“You’re not? Okay. Wait a moment.” The frazzled nurse went out of the doorway into the hall and called at some unseen person saying, “Excuse me? Yes, we have a patient who is refusing to take their medication. We need syringes. I’m going to need some help.” She looked back inside the room at Sawan who was watching this play out. “Hold on.” She left. Sawan went back to reading dedicatedly, sure that he would be able to resist somehow. After a few minutes three people entered his room, three black men who spoke as if they were foreign, from an African or Caribbean country. They weren’t nurses here; they acted more as security, without wearing a uniform. They were all middle aged men in their thirties and forties.

“You not gonna take your medication? Come on take the pills,” one of them cajoled. Sawan shook his head. “We’re gonna have to restrain you ya know, it’s not gonna be nice, you should just take it so we don’t hafta put up with this fuss.”

“You have no choice you have ta take ‘em!” another sternly said. They began to move forward towards his bed. Sawan got up, standing next to his bed near his dresser. He shook his head vehemently.

“NO I’M NOT TAKING ANY MEDS!!!” Sawan yelled loudly.

“We’re gonna grab you,” another softly said. Sawan was now backed into a corner. One man was at the front corner of his bed, and the other two were one the other side. Suddenly a dark heavy black man more than six feet tall entered the room. He was large and round around the waist and had huge muscular arms. The nurse stood at the door way looking on, as well as another nurse. There were other people in the hallway that he couldn’t see. Sawan eyes darted back and forth quickly between his aggressors, sizing them up. He tensed himself.

“Okay let’s get him,” one man commanded. The one closest to Sawan near the front left corner of his bed moved in to grab his arm. Sawan wrenched away and pushed him violently away but the man just as quickly recovered and lunged at Sawan throwing his arms around Sawan and tried to pick him up but Sawan was his height and this was a difficult feat. The other men quickly moved around the bed to assist their colleague, also taking a hold of Sawan’s arms and legs as he struggled to free himself from their tight strong grip, roaring loudly like an animal, feeling inhumane.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! RRRRRRRAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Sawan roared. The over six foot tall man moved forward to the foot of the bed. Sawan kicked his legs in all directions, trying to punch and push away his enemies, but they ducked their heads and managed to keep their large hands around his abdomen as they lifted him up in a combined effort and shoved him face down on his bed. “ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!” Sawan screamed. “EEEEEEUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” He continued flailing, writhing on the bed as the more than six foot tall man climbed on top of the bed then, and then laid down on top of Sawan, pressing his full weight of two hundred thirty pounds on top of Sawan’s one hundred and forty pound frame. “HHHHHHHHHHHRRUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Sawan could feel the big man’s heavy breathing near his ears. The other men spread Sawan’s arms to either side of the bed so that the man on top of Sawan could grab a hold of them. With his legs trapped together by hands at the end of the bed, he resembled a horizontal Jesus on the cross. Sawan was aware of this.

“I’ve got him secured,” the African man on top of Sawan puffed, wheezing as he shifted his weight, pushing his groin into Sawan’s rear, and his hefty belly squashing Sawan’s body into the bed.

“F**K YOU, YOU PIECE OF S**T, GET OFF OF ME, YOU N****R!!!!” Sawan shrieked. It was almost the worst stereotypically racial nightmare Sawan sensed.

“It’ll be over soon!” The man above bellowed. “This is what you get for trying to be great. This is what telling the truth brings you. You wanted to be a hero, now you’ve got it. Keep fighting me. You’re doing a good job. This is your moment. “This is your chance to show who you are. Fight back!” Sawan eyes rolled around wildly as he tried to look around but all he could see was his pillow stuffed into his face. He could hardly breathe. “Keep it up is that all you’ve got?”

The man’s telepathic words weighed on Sawan’s mind. The man on top of Sawan was right! This was the consequence of telling the truth, about anything and everything, the whole time. And he was being punished for it. He had to suffer for it. Sawan had told the truth about what he heard and thought. He had spoken out against the Government’s treatment of him at Penn State and this was how people who tried to fight back were treated. This was what his movement of Truth had brought him to, this. Everything he had believed in that could be accomplished with honesty was being shattered with the way society worked today. Telling the truth brought him humiliation instead of creating happiness. Sawan continued struggling but his body was losing stamina fast. His muscles were becoming fatigued, pushed to their limit to no avail.

“We have to move him, three, two, one, NOW!” someone said. Sawan made feeble movements as the man on top moved off slightly, picked him up face down with the help of others and moved off the bed onto a stretcher on wheels that had brought into the room. They quickly strapped him into the stretcher in seconds and wheeled him out of the room into the hallway and rolled him past the nurse’s station and the other perpendicular hallway. They opened blast doors and took him down another empty hallway into a seclusion room. Sawan was now on the edge of passing out. He gasped, and took large deep breaths. He was calming down, but still making grunting and groaning noises.

“Don’t worry it’ll be over soon, someone’s bringing the shots now,” someone near the stretcher said.

“Eurrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhh, LEAVE ME ALONE, GO AWAY!!!!!!” Sawan groaned, tears welling in his eyes as he tried to turn his head to look at the speaker. He couldn’t. He wanted to believe that if someone could just see his face and see the expression there, maybe, just maybe at the last minute someone would decide that he didn’t need to have medication, even for just this once. Instead all too soon he could feel the faint prick in his left calf as a needle was shoved under his skin into muscle. Then another. He didn’t really feel any pain. By then he was passing out. And he did.

*          *          *

            Sawan woke up his bedroom at the Underground. Nobody was there except him. He yawned and looked around. As he remembered what had happened, he shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t believe they had forcibly given him needles. He didn’t understand why his own health wasn’t his choice to look after. He knew now that he would rather take the pills for now. After all it was only for a year. Besides he could always try skipping when they were handing them out. Perhaps he could make sure the red pill didn’t dissolve under his tongue by swilling his mouth with a lot of water and spitting it out before it dissolved after he took his meds. He was tired. He looked at his calves but he couldn’t find where they had inserted the needle. Chewing saliva for a moment as one does when they wake up, he looked over at his dresser and saw The Prince. Reaching over and picking it up, he felt comforted that at least he could continue reading.

            As he read he could hear the voices of his Sri Lankan friends talking to him, cheering him on and encouraging his reading. Still sometimes it got annoying. While reading, Sawan’s mind began to become obsessed with weapons. Machine guns, and knives appeared in his imagination. He could visualize them in his hand, some weapons sprouting out of his arm. Perhaps it had to do with the violent nature of what he was reading. It was all about conducting medieval warfare after all.

Sawan remembered God telling that Buddhism could contain Satan. He hadn’t acted on his advice then, but now seemed a good time to do so. He retrieved the Buddhist book he had on the Buddha’s life and began reading that instead. He read carefully and looked at the illustrations. Adoration and admiration filled his heart. The Buddha’s image was hypnotizing. He unblinkingly stared into the Buddha’s dark eyes. As he did after a while Sawan’s eyes appeared to ache and burn. Pain arose in them. He looked away, rubbing his eyes and continued.

*          *          *

            The next day in the morning the nurses came to take a blood test before breakfast. They took him to one of the windowed rooms near the nurses’ station and put him in a padded chair with straps for this. Sawan suspected that they were testing his serotonin or dopamine levels somehow this way. He knew that because he was a leader, an alpha male, that the levels were probably higher than average which meant that there would probably be negative consequences because this, perhaps more meds. This made him unhappy.

            “You must resist. You must show them Satan,” the Government cried.

            “The Government is right, I shouldn’t put up with this!” Sawan thought. He looked at the chubby dark haired nurse who was arranging the necessary blood utensils in front of him. He stared wide eyed at her and crooked his neck to the sign and spoke deeply as Satan saying, “You dare take my blood? You dare touch ME?” The nurse looked baffled.

            “Yes I have to, we’re supposed to take your blood today, you’re on the list dear sorry,” the nurse replied explanatively.

            Sawan loudly growled, “I don’t think so. Do you know who I AM? I Do you know WHAT I am? You cannot touch me! I AM SATAN!”

            “Satan? That doesn’t sound good, can someone hold down his other arm?” the nurse uneasily answered, reaching around placing the strap from the armrest around Sawan’s left arm as he angrily looked on with clenched fists at the people haranguing him.  “Marie he says he’s Satan. I’m holding his arm down you can do it now.”

            “He’s Satan huh? Looks like we’ve got the devil on our hands!” the nurse sternly said with slanted eyebrows as she approached and then stabbed him with the long hollow needle crudely and rudely near one of the veins behind his elbow. She pulled the plastic top back and sapped murky dark thick red blood out of his vein, so that it filled the tube. Sawan glared on in helpless fury. They did this three more times, changing tubes and pulling the top back so that more blood flowed in through the needle. Sawan didn’t know when he would ever be vindicated, but then and there he hoped that these nurses met a wretched fate for what they were putting him through.

Sawan was confused though. He knew that he held a very paradoxical view of these nurses, the other patients, and the Underground, Carrier Clinic. On one hand he knew that he had to be here for his protection, that everything being done here was for his wellbeing and safety. He knew that these people at heart worked for him, even though they were prisoners to the system, slaves to their occupations, and that they didn’t want to do cruel and unusual actions toward him intentionally. Yet on the other hand, some of these nurses and guards seemed all too willing to dominate, to force medicine down the throats of their patients and he wondered which ones really wanted him to succeed and which ones were against the new world order. True he was a part of the group of people who had problems with how society worked. That was why he was being medicated, because he had complained about Judgment Day. Yet were such stringent measures really necessary? How was he supposed to succeed without his emotional drive that he sensed these meds were slowly robbing him of?

            “There, all done. We needed those blood samples to check for certain physical illnesses. It’s for your own good hun’!” the one putting away the plastic vials of blood exclaimed. They undid the straps after putting a band-aid on the miniscule hole in his arm and Sawan crossed his arms huffily, feeling a twinge of pain in his arm as he did so. “You can go now.” The nurse directed him. Sawan got up and left.

*          *          *

He stretched in his chair after writing in his journal, raising his arms widely over his head and yawned. He wanted to know the time now but there wasn’t a clock in this room. There was one inside the nurses’ station in the hallway but he was too lazy right now to go check. Perhaps placing a clock in each bedroom was too expensive. Who knows they were probably right. To Sawan he was beginning to feel that an exact time was irrelevant usually in a place like this. Why bother with the time? Where else did he have to go? What deadlines did he have to meet? He wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t going to have to meet anyone at an appointed time. There wasn’t anything he had to turn in by a certain date in here either.

            No, without any purpose in the Underground the only real importance time had was telling a person when they had to take meds, and when they could be discharged. A clock in a bedroom would probably be seen as a disturbance to one’s sanity in such a confined setting. One could go mad just looking at the clock again and again, with nothing to do other than waiting to go home. Home. It seemed so distant from the Underground, even though it was only a half hour away. He could visualize his bedroom from the position of lying on his bed. He could see his red and white desk in front of his bed at his home, with the window behind it, the sun shimmering clearly in the sky outside.

            He lay daydreaming about these images on the small bed he had in the Underground now, feeling longing. When he was in college, being homesick for his family and friends in New Jersey was always something he felt mildly from time to time, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Now though with bolted metal doors keeping him separate from all that he loved, homesickness seemed that much more acute.

For a moment he briefly forgot the fact that he was supposed to help people in the Underground and be a leader. Instead he fantasized about tricking or bribing one of the nurses somehow into opening the metal doors and letting him through or escaping by stealing one of the door cards and running away into the open grasslands and forests surrounding the Underground. Because his family would probably bring him back to the hospital he would have to covertly hike to Holmdel, Juni’s town.

Then he remembered his responsibility as Satan, leader of Truth. He sighed. Sometimes he wished he was just a normal person. That he didn’t have to be a leader who had to prove himself. He shook his head. What was he thinking? “I have to be great. Besides it’s the only way I can be with Victoria sooner rather than later,” he thought, remembering the plan that had been outlined by his older selves a few days ago. Form a political party in America, attain wisdom and popularity as well, marry Victoria when she was fifteen before the Apocalypse in 2012, go on a honeymoon in Las Vegas, takeover the United States and other countries during the Apocalypse, and then deal with the left over countries that hadn’t joined Truth before 2015. It was a packaged deal, a preplanned life. All he had to do was suffer now, but enjoy the productive fruits of long seeded passion later. Yet this was a paradox. He now preferred getting actually married to Victoria while she was a still a minor, simply because it seemed more just to both of them that way after what had happened on Judgment Day. But that was still not now. Victoria would be fifteen in about two years, so sooner was still later, it wasn’t right now.” If only right now were possible,” Sawan lustfully thought wistfully.

*          *          *

 “Sawvan putha, how are you feeling? I heard you got in a big fight yesterday!” Sarath exclaimed.

“Yes, they forced me to take my medication,” Sawan tiredly recollected.

“See what happen when you don’t listen to them? Look what they did! You have to take the medication and do what they say. I wanted to come but they said you were sleeping. They said you were very tired after the fight, otherwise I wanted to see you right away but I think it was better to come next day,” Sarath explained of his absence. Sawan said nothing. It would have been nice to have seen his dad yesterday. It would have been a comfort. “Why didn’t you want to take the beheth (medicine) darling? Is anything wrong with it?”

            “It makes me feel, weak,” Sawan muttered. “I feel weak and sleepy and hungry, I’m eating too much,” Sawan complained conscious of the fact that he was sounding like a girl when it came to complaining about how much he was eating.

            “Chuti Amu, we can talk to the doctor to see if this is normal. How do you feel weak? Whole body, or just what?”

            “I don’t know I just feel like I have less energy. Like I don’t want to exercise, not that you CAN exercise is this stupid place, and I don’t know like I don’t want to do anything. My mind is very… dull, like I don’t feel any happiness.” Sawan neglected to mention his erectile problems, but he had never discussed such private issues with his father, ever, not even girls typically. Still, his father knew about Victoria.

            “Sawvan you have to be strong. This is a difficult time I know but you cannot give up. Never. You have to have a strong heart. If you have a strong heart then you can face anything. ANYTHING. You have to be brave. I know you are unhappy, I am very unhappy too. I cannot sleep well. I don’t know what to do with you stuck in this place. But they are going to make you better then you can go home. Did they say how long you have to take the medicine?”

            “One year, Dr. Goodnick said.”

            “One year? Then finished?”

            “Yea then I’m free.” Sawan grimly said of his current chained position. He wouldn’t have to stay in the hospital for that long hopefully, not at all. But he still felt mentally tied down to a stake. Everything was starting to seem so narrow. What was really his future? Was he really going to become a hero, become the world’s first mentally ill political leader, the first leader to be accepted who had previously been to a madhouse? Sometimes it seemed impossible.

            “Do you BELIEVE?” the Government asked him as he stared off into space silently next to his father. Sawan knew what they meant instantly. Did Sawan still believe in everything that had happened since Judgment Day? Did he believe in the revolution, the world take over, the world government, did believe those things were attainable, possible? If he did, only then could he continue on his quest of success. Otherwise, all was lost.

            “Yes, I do,” Sawan silently thought.

            “Savan you can’t be a girl!” Sarath angrily berated.

            “What?”

            “My son is King and he feels depressed. This is not the person I raised you to be. I need you to win. I want you to become a champion! You have to show everyone who is King here by acting like one, not being like this. But most of all I need you to get out of here so that you can screw that B***H who put you in this place and did this to you!”  Sarath blasted in Sawan’s head.

            “That b***h? You mean Victoria.” Sawan didn’t really see this entire adventure that he was on as being Victoria’s fault. But obviously, Sarath felt differently. Sarath’s crude language reverberated in Sawan’s mind as such vulgar demands that made mankind’s purpose in life reduced to screwing.

“Eat something Sawan putha, here,” Sarath verbally told his son quietly as he pushed a small brown paper bag towards his son from his side of the table. Sawan reached inside for a cutlet, which was a ball of pieces of potato, fish and spices that were dipped in egg yolk, rolled in bread crumbs and fried. Sawan slowly nibbling at it before reaching in the bag for another one. His father quietly took his other hand and squeezed it as they sat in silence. “We also have to do that medical bill too this place is sooo expensive, private facility, one of the best but you don’t have insurance! This place is thirty thousand dollars per day I think or about that much…It’s lots! I don’t know how we going to pay for all this. Then when you get out we have to pay for your medicine too, we have to get you insurance somehow, otherwise we are going to go under!” Sarath looked frantic, his eyes wide.

Sawan ignored what his father had just said and drank from the opened Coca Cola can that his father brought him. There were so many goodies for him these days that he normally didn’t receive. Cutlets. Soda cans. Candy bars. It was almost as if his parents were making up for something, atoning for some wrong they had committed in Sawan’s eyes. Or were they simply trying to cheer him up in the crassest of ways? He felt spoilt but he didn’t mind it. Not in the position that he was in. “So, Sawan putha I have to go now, okay darling?” Sarath tepidly asked as he crumbled the paper bag up with his hairy fist.

“Okay,” Sawan said.

“You can keep the Coca Cola can, they won’t say anything, no?”

“No they won’t.”

 “I will come tomorrow if I can with mummy. You know I try to come every day to see you, no matter WHAT!” Sarath, at the age of fifty four, was so full of vigor still. Sawan saw the difference in their strength now, and he realized that he was now weaker, like a young helpless child again when compared to his father. “Goodbye Chuti Amu,” Sarath sorrowfully stated from the metal doors as the stoic nurse slid her card.

“Goodbye.”

*          *          *

            “Now, Sawan. Do you hear any v-voices?” Dr. Goodnick asked. It was Monday morning.           

“No,” Sawan lied.

            “Nothing at all? You heard voices before d-didn’t you, when you arrived here correct?” Dr. Goodnick skeptically asked.

            “I heard them when I came here, I haven’t heard any voices for several days now.”

            “Good now you know how things work. You must never admit that you hear me. That’s just the normal protocol of things, that’s all,” Dr. Goodnick telepathically praised. Sawan grudgingly accepted this status quo in a very learned fashion, like a dog that had finally been trained to pee outside. Truth was for the future, after he took over the world. For now he lived in a world of lies, where lying was sanity. Otherwise to tell the truth would mean to be placed in detention in the Underground indefinitely. Sawan was beginning to get the hang of this. This was Hell. Obviously it had to feel that way in order for it to be called that.

            “G-good, that’s very good, some p-progress. The medication must be working.” Dr. Goodnick said slowly with precision, scribbling down notes into the huge binder. “You h-have to t-take the m-medication. D-do not try to r-resist taking them. You will be c-caught and then we’ll h-have to give you shots and you don’t want that p-painful experience again, do we?” Dr. Goodnick looked up at him for once, his face an expression of pity.

            “No, I don’t want that to happen again, I will take my medication as long as you prescribe it,” Sawan robotically answered like a machine, yet seething within.

“I’d like to t-talk about the episode you had at P-Penn State. Y-you described a night where y-you saw hallucinations and said you were m-molested by something invisible?”

“Yes, Judgment Day.”                       

“Can you d-describe this night for me?”

            “Yea I was raped.”

            “I see. By someone that w-wasn’t there?”

            “I couldn’t see anyone there, no.”

            “Did anyone s-speak to you? W-was there any reason y-you think this h-happened?”

            “Yea… they said I was being punished,” Sawan evasively explained. He didn’t want to talk about why he was being punished.

             “How l-long did these hallucinations l-last? They talked to you t-the entire t-time?”

“For several hours. They insulted me. They said it would make me a man. They said it happened to every guy at a certain age.”

“Who were they?”

“The Government.”

“The government? D-do you usually have p-problems with law e-enforcement?”

“No, not really, no more than your average guy really, I’ve never really been in trouble with them. Sir? What am I diagnosed with?”

“Well you’ve experienced psychosis. You also may have bipolar disorder, that’s something that will require more observation. I think this meeting is finished. You can talk to your social worker today, he wanted to see you.” Dr. Goodnick said.

“Okay,” Sawan said.

“Believe in God. He will keep your spirits up sir,” Dr. Goodnick telepathically said.

“I do, as a Buddhist,” Sawan replied.

“Good man.”

 When the meeting with the psychiatrist was concluded, Sawan saw Paul waiting for him in the hallway. “How ya doing mate?” Paul boisterously asked.

“I’m alright,” Sawan answered.

“Let’s go into one of these side rooms here, we can have a brief chat that sound good to ya?”

“Yea.”

“Nice here we go, have a seat, just wanted to talk to you about some things. How ya doin’? Is everything okay? Liking your stay here? Not really?”

“I just want to show that I am a normal person and ready to go home.” Sawan was trying his best to keep alert. This was hard. The medication made him dull minded and on top of that he was listening to Paul say other things in his head.

“So I’m dealing with the Great Satan here, the Great Satan. Make sure you keep that thing on a leash otherwise he’ll go after your girlfriend!” Paul telepathically warned.

“You mean wife, Paul, wife. Yea that’s what I’m trying to learn. To get better control over him. Not easy when I’m trying to make him stronger at the same time too,” Sawan stated.

Aloud, Paul cried, “That’s what we’re all working on Sawan, we all want you to show that you’re a capable young man, who doesn’t need to be here and when everyone can see the obvious we can get you packed up to go! No one more than I wants to see you released from here! I hope you are doing everything you can to get yourself out, agreed?” Paul otherwise said out loud. Sawan didn’t say anything for a moment then realized he was slow to respond to Paul out loud. He desperately began talking quickly.

“Yes I’m keeping myself occupied, I’m reading, writing in my journal, talking to other patients, making friends, taking my medication now.”

“That’s good stuff man, good stuff, keep up the good effort! You going to any groups?” Paul said. “Pay attention now, this is also about learning to doublespeak. You have to be good having two conversations at the same time. One up here, another with your mouth. Otherwise people will think you’re a klutzy nut!” Paul also said sternly in Sawan’s head.

“What?”

“Keep up with me, stay on top of the ball.” Paul cheered. “Are you going to any of the meetings, any of the groups?” Sawan paused for a moment as Paul continued inside his head.

Slowly Sawan spoke, “Well I go to the morning meetings. The community one.” He remembered how every morning he would broadcast God’s message to the other patients.

“Good do you like them? Participating?”

“Yea I speak when it’s my turn.”

“Nice. Make sure you stay vocal. Nurses are always checking to see who is participating, those are the people who are most ready to go home usually. Do you go to the other groups?” Paul asked. Sawan was growing tired of this conversation but this surprised him. “Stay focused in the present I may try to throw you off to see if you’re paying attention. This is a test after all.”

“Other groups?”

“Art, relaxation, recovery, those things?”

“Um, no, I didn’t really know about those. I usually spend most of the day in my room reading and writing. Nobody told me.” Sawan reluctantly revealed. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t actually know what other patients did during the day. He never was bothered about it either. He was so busy, yet now he realized he probably also appeared very reclusive. But he was busy learning how to save the world from his bedroom! It dawned on him that he probably looked like a very aloof leader. How was he supposed to interact with his subjects? He obviously wasn’t doing enough.

“Well you have to go to those too, I’m surprised no one told you. The nurses keep attendance and they look to see who’s coming and showing their talents. You’ve gotta be involved man! Be lively, show your colors and what not! You follow me?” Paul joyfully cried. “This is your royal court mate! All your subjects want to hear about what the plan is! It’s a good forum to practice doublespeak too!” Sawan was busy studying Paul’s animated facial expression. It was very flexible as the skin creased moved, the muscles contracting and flexing underneath.

“Uh yea, I’ll try to go. How do I know about the times?” Sawan hurriedly asked. Doublespeak was quite the feat but he was managing it.

“It’s written on a board near the nurses’ station, I’ll show you after this meeting which we’ll wrap up soon. But yea, if you have any questions, getting in trouble with anybody, the staff or patients, just let me know and I’ll be glad to be of service, this is my job ya know? I’d like to ask you some questions about what happened to you at Penn State too. What did the doctor say about that?” Paul asked. Sawan explained again what had happened at Penn State briefly while Paul posed the odd question here and there. Sawan wished he had a tape recorder that could play the story about Judgment Day to people so he wouldn’t have to repeat it so many times. But he didn’t. “I see, I see. That sounds horrible, so the good doctor said it was psychosis and bipolar disorder. Tsk Tsk, gotta stay away from those substances man, they’ll ruin your life and you have such a bright future ahead of you, you don’t want to destroy that, do ya?” Paul asked. Sawan noticed that this conversation was one that demanded his participation. Paul was constantly asking questions and confirming things. It was as if this was to check if Sawan could hold his own ground in conversation. Sawan knew he had to impress.

“Yea, I’m not doing drugs ever again. I just want to go back to college and finish my degree.” Sawan said, remembering his promise to Aunty Veenus. Yet there was a part of him he sensed that didn’t mind smoking again. He had to make sure that he would never give into that desire again.

“Good man. That’s what we all want, I talked to your parents on the phone they say they also want you outta here so you can go back to school mate! So I’ll let you get back to your thing, I’ll write down that we met up for the record, and that’s a wrap okay buddy? Oh and I’ll show you that board on the way out.” Paul said. “Good job you passed! Better let you get back to your gal, otherwise she’ll be jealous!”

“Right,” Sawan said. Paul and Sawan walked out of the glass walled room into the corridor and Paul pointed at the board that Sawan had never noticed to left of the nurses’ station before disappearing into the office behind the nurses’ station. It had a bunch of activities listed on it. Sawan noted the times of some the scheduled meetings before heading back to his room. He was in the mood to write. He felt that keeping a history of his life in The Underground was the only pastime that made his stay here meaningful, a real record of this period in life when he seemed to have descended into the depths of despair, loneliness, hatred and suffering with so many others feeling that way around him. This gave him hope.

*          *          *

            Sawan awoke the next morning with Victoria on his mind. He had been in the Underground for a week. From his bed he tried to call out to her. After some time he heard her. “Sweetie! My froggy! How are you?” Victoria asked.

            “Hanging in there, are you doing good? Behaving? Doing good in school? Keeping the boys at bay?” Sawan asked.

            “Yah, everyone telepathically molests me, but it’s been that way for years, when I found out about it, I was so grossed out. Don’t worry munchkin I don’t do anything back, promise!”

            “Love, when you’re older I have a gift to give you. I think when you’re fourteen it’ll be complete. It’s a journal I’m writing. May be you’ll fall in love all over again when you see it. Satan told me that even that wouldn’t be necessary, I just have to say ‘I love you’ out loud to your face.”

            “Ew, no I just like to say ‘I hate you,’ you creeper!”

            “Saying ‘I hate you’ is for babies, that’s how we always were, we were never direct with each other about our feelings. You always said ‘Ew I hate you, ew I hate you, ew, ew’ but that’s so immature.”

“You always knew I didn’t mean it though! You knew what I really meant!”

“I know but if you really like someone you shouldn’t just tease them, you should be honest about how you feel, not put them down playfully and make them feel disgusting and icky.”

“Sheesh, I’m twelve remember?” Victoria muttered.

Sawan ignored this and continued, “I know but you’re not being truthful when you say ‘I hate you.’ True though, I always knew you meant something else when you said it and that you meant it in a joking way. The thing is I never told you ‘I love you’ before because I didn’t think you’d appreciate or understand how deeply I meant it. That’s why that first night I confessed I sounded so stupid.”

*          *          *

 Sawan remembered that night of all nights. The first time he had ever admitted to anyone that he liked them. He had just turned twenty. It was a party at his house, back in the December of 08. Back when his father and Damith uncle were like brothers, the best of friends. He had begged and pleaded with the girl named Victoria into joining him alone in Harini’s yellow room. She had been all smiles that night, her braces gleaming, but now she was puzzled and had reluctantly consented after mildly protesting. He tried to lock the door once they were inside but then some toddlers came in. “There’s something very important that I have to say,” he had said.

“Okay?” Victoria said with concern. Then the toddlers wanted to leave. Victoria had stood alarmed and worried in the corner beside the single bed watching a nervous Sawan slam the door open and shut several times. Try locking it again. No intruders wanted. “Can’t we just talk with the others?” she had whined.

“Just wait there’s something personal I have to say,” Sawan had commanded. Then his mother had knocked and told him to unlock the door, no locked doors in the house. He told her he would be out in a few minutes, yelling through the door. Still he hadn’t said anything to V. Finally it seemed as though no one would intrude. It was time. He stared at her. She stared back. How to begin? “I have something to tell you, it’ll just take five minutes,” he had repeated in a hurried anxious fashion several times throughout this short self imposed imprisonment. But he hadn’t said it. Laughter and shouting echoed through the house.

Sawan wanted to tell Victoria everything about how he had felt. Tell her the ultimate story of his life. Confess that he had peeped at her online photo album, photos of adorable smiles and heart wrenching pouts. Photos of her wagging her tongue. Now Sawan wanted to accuse Victoria that she knew that complete strangers peeped at her public Photobucket album because the number of views on the website had gotten bigger and bigger over months. Yet more and more pictures appeared, stranger ones. There was one photo with one of her friends hoisting her bare thin leg high into the air so that she was balanced on one foot, her black hair totally disheveled, with another maniacal tongue wagging expression on her face. Then there was the one in which she had taken a green stuffed animal frog and placed its crotch in her mouth, biting down on it. Most telling of all though was the picture of a series abstract scenery piled together and named iguyguysawaa-. At the time, Victoria was eleven years old.

Sawan had puzzled over this photo the most, because it seemed to have his name on it. Other than the fact that he instantly concluded that Victoria now suspected, or at least fantasized that Sawan was viewing her photos obsessively,  he couldn’t make sense of the statement “iguyguysawaa-.” The way the word “guy” was used in the strange phrase was unusual so he searched it up online. He actually came up with a large amount of definitions for the word “guy,” but the two that caught his attention most was: 1. To mock, ridicule, make fun of. 2. To steer, guide. In frustration Sawan wondered whether Victoria was guiding him or mocking him. He finally concluded it was probably both, which was why the word was chosen, for its obscure multi-definitional meaning. Yet someone going into the seventh grade had actually utilized the English language this way?

Sawan knew for certain then that Victoria was exceptionally smart. That she wanted this attention. That she was looking for something. Looking for something in him. Just the thought of anyone he liked liking him back was a phenomenon he was totally unfamiliar with. Even if she was eleven. This had driven him mad with desire. He began to think of confessing to her every few seconds in his head. She had broken up with her boyfriend months ago, and now he had to do something before anyone else did.

How much Victoria now meant to Sawan. This was love, an obsession so deep it had to be revealed so that he could rest in peace if he died suddenly in an accident. Life was so fleeting, so vulnerable. But love? Now? How? More banging on the door. Sawan yelled, “WE”LL BE OUT IN A MINUTE!!”

 Sawan had drank that night. This had made him irritated. There had been another guy Sawan’s age there visiting from Sri Lanka and he was chatting up Vicky. This had made him more irritated. He had to do something. Earlier Sawan had sat next to her like a guard as he usually found himself doing over the years, as she had texted away on her phone with Kavi, who she had said at the time was being strange. Sawan had responded that Kavi was weird and she had agreed. Now though Sawan was the weird one. ‘What was going on?’ she must have wondered to herself as she looked pensively at Sawan now in Harini’s room. To Sawan she looked frail, thin and defenseless. She wore a blue colored shirt, like him in contrast to the yellow room. It was as if they were living parallel lives. It was meant to be. It just had to be. True love at first sight. Sight. It all revolved around her beauty and her way of using it. Had she ever been taught to be careful of the big bad wolves? Probably not. Now they were both about reap what they had sown because of their past actions regardless of how old they may have been.

Now, right now at this moment, now or never after all this hassling of getting her alone. Love? This was love? Stalking an adolescent? Really? She was so little yet his height. All this crammed into head in a few crazy seconds. “I have something to say?” he whimpered.

“Then… just say it?” Victoria had helpfully suggested, looking sick. It was almost as if she knew. What else could this be? She definitely knew. Love. Seconds passed. Love.

“I… l-like you?” Sawan croaked hopefully. A stuttered lie. Liking someone was different than loving them.

“Okay, let me out,” Victoria had hissed firmly. She was moving towards the door, her eyes on the floor.

“You look so… mad!” Sawan had said in surprise.

“That because it’s so, WEIRD!” Victoria had angrily grunted. He unlocked the door and they walked out. Sawan felt lost after that, as if months of happy fictional fantasies had come into fruition as a nonfictional nightmare he was living. But at the same time he was ecstatic, and extremely pleased he had finally done the deed he had never done his whole life, admitting a crush face to face. He would whimper something alone in his room despairingly. Then he would congratulate himself jovially. That night he was definitely bipolar. The rest of the night Victoria was also depressed. She looked heartbroken. Tharushi, the Goose, tried to cavort and dance with her, but it was no use. She looked away from Sawan whenever he hopefully tried to make eye contact. He had let her down. Broken her trust in him. Later she would tell people that he had practically raped her. Yet for some reason, after a few weeks, she forgave him and they were talking again.

*          *          *

“Maybe I should have manned up then, but you were barely twelve at the time and I knew it sounded preposterous at the moment to say ‘I love you.’ How could you possibly know how I really felt even if I said the truth? I didn’t think you were ready. So I said what was more common to say. I like you. It wasn’t really what I meant to say, but it conveyed some of the feelings I had nonetheless. To say just ‘I like you’ after all this, after all that has happened now though this past year is not enough. I’ve decided the next time I see you that I’m going to say ‘I love you.’”

“No. Just say ‘I hate you!’ like me for now. I’ll get mad at you if you say ‘I love you’ to my face when I see you!” Victoria threatened.

“No, I think you’re more than ready now, I’m tired of all the lies. You deserve to know how I feel, it would make you a more mature person in the long run. Once I say that then you’ll be really to fall in love and then we’ll be happy with each other. May be you’ll have the courage to forgive me for the wrongs I did to you earlier this year and we can be together again. This will make things better. You do want to be my friend again don’t you?” Sawan dreamily said.

“I do, but Savan, you’re being irrational! I’m just a kid, I don’t want to say ‘I love you,’ to your face I’m not ready!”

“Come on, saying ‘I love you’ will make you a real grown up. I’m so tired of waiting for you to grow old. I don’t even want to wait till you’re fifteen. Why should we? We can get married sooner,”Sawan greedilysaid, thinking of her burgeoning youthful body.

“You impatient sicko! No patience!”

“Physically you’re more than ready really. I don’t know we’ll need our parents’ permission, maybe move to a different country with the way things are now,” Sawan dreamed. He was changing everything, the plan, everything he had been told to work for, just because he wanted her as she was now, with her full thin brown legs, small perky breasts, tight round bottom, and petite simple face. At this age she was like what a model looked like as an adult with hips that weren’t widened. It was decidedly rare to find that in an older girl. After puberty was over most girls had wider hips for pregnancy. Sawan wanted the best and that’s what he saw in Victoria as she was at this age. Sure he wouldn’t mind how she looked like when she was older, after all she was The One, but he desired to experience being with someone who was truly beautiful. Right now everything he adored about her bodily form was to kill for. It was so… yummy, like chocolate. To him there was no one finer, her body as an object worth more than all the treasure in the world.

“Swanny you’re not listening! You’re being a hungry poop-” Victoria chided.

“Tory, I am listening-”

“Well then listen to this! I don’t want to get actually physically married at the age of twelve or even thirteen, what’ll my friends think?! Besides I love my parents, why would I abandon them so early?!”

“You don’t want to get married?” Sawan dazedly asked. He had always assumed Victoria would be willing to go along with being together sooner rather later, enjoying wedded bliss as freshly as possible.

“NO!! NOT AT THIS AGE IDIOT!!”

“Oh. Well I’ll still say ‘I love you’ anyways, that way everything will be as it should be,” Sawan said, determined to physically lay claim over her in some way anyways. Victoria didn’t say anything. Sawan began thinking huffily to himself. “Enough ‘I hate you,’ all this creeper business.” It made him sick. After awhile he noted her absence but then he heard sniffling. “Vicky? Are you alright?”

“Savan, I beg you, please don’t say ‘I love you,’ to my face, not yet , I couldn’t bear it, I’ll go mad, I’m not ready to grow up like that. My body will change too soon, I only want what we have right now!” Victoria wailed. Sawan sighed. He couldn’t say anything. Victoria already looked older than her age. If making her fall in love caused more physical changes how old would she look then? Like Aeysha as a teenager? Sawan didn’t want to be the cause of that.

“Oh alright, we’ll see,” he conceded. He heard her snort snot back up her nose. It was frustrating he thought. Victoria could only play mind games. That’s what she preferred. That’s what she was best at. They were still at square one.

Sawan remembered all the times he had stalked her old Myspace profile, which was now defunct. He remembered the time he had told her the color pink was sexy. She had turned her profile pink and put up a picture of herself wearing a pink shirt even though he knew her favorite color to be blue. He remembered what she did after they had stopped being friends at the end of July in 2009. He had gone on her Myspace again one night to find a profile picture of Victoria in a black and white vest. She had a glum look in her eyes and her jaws dropped. Crammed entirely in her mouth, perched there between her lips, was another smaller soft toy green frog. Her status read, “I’m still effin twelve.”

The sexual implication was obvious. Previously when Victoria had friended Sawan on Facebook right after she had created an account Sawan had put up a quote on his Facebook that said, ’In the 21st century it seems you have to give a frog head instead of just kissing it if you wanna make a prince,’ in reference to her original frog crotch in her mouth picture. She had seen it. Was this her way of making up? Apologizing for her angry outburst that had finally terminated their friendship on Facebook after a mere fifteen days of it? By taking such a photo with her webcam and putting up a status implying that she fantasized about being sexually active at the age of twelve and a half years old?

 To Sawan the black and white shirt she was wearing clearly symbolized that she was saying she was a prisoner in her home, that she was constrained and tied down. Or was she telling him that she was jailbait? There were a few other instances like these but these were the ones that came to his mind at the moment as he lay musing in the hospital after their latest argument.

This was how they had always communicated their feelings, in this excruciatingly indirect way, with pictures, songs and status messages addressing no one in particular. It was maddening. Was Sawan just obsessed? He didn’t think so. He believed the mischievous girl knew exactly the type of person he was. A stalker. And she had played along! Wishing that they could somehow achieve a direct relationship rather than this game of hide and seek, Sawan turned to reading The Prince. He felt ready to resume work.   

*          *          *

            “Sawan you have visitors,” the nurse said from the doorway.

                “I’m coming,” Sawan replied. He got up from his bed, putting The Prince down and went out into the hallway, a look of anticipation and curiosity stamped on his face.

“Surprise!” Geethika exclaimed from the entrance to the dining room with a huge gaping wide grin, her straight white teeth showing between her red lipstick smeared lips. She wore a dark black coat. Sarath was in a suit next to her.

                “Hey Mummy,” Sawan softly said. He was happy to finally see her.

                “Chuti Amu, let’s sit down,” Sarath suggested. They went to one the tables that had a large brown paper bag of clothes in it and took a seat. Geethika looked around, sizing the room, the smile fading from her face into a pursed lipped look.

She then put her hand on his hand and looked at him emotionally and asked, “How’s your feeling? You alright?”

“Yea, I’m hangin’ in there,” Sawan said.

“I brought you your favorite,” she happily said as she reached into her large tan colored handbag and produced a couple fun-sized Snickers. She placed them on the table in front of him. Then she reached for his hand again.

“Thanks,” Sawan mumbled. He didn’t touch the candy for now. He was appreciating the warm touch of his mother’s hand over his. They didn’t say anything for awhile and they sat in silence, enjoying each others’ company. Geethika eventually awoke out of her reverie with a serious look on her face.

“So what’s new? Talk to us, you have show us that you can talk like a normal person, have a normal conversation, that’s what they are looking for, we have to report your progress, they want to know how your behavior is when you see us.” She squeezed his hand.

“Really? Who said that? There isn’t much to say, I don’t really do anything here, I just read and write. I go to some meetings in the morning but some of them are canceled. Even when they have a meeting they don’t really do anything there we just sit there!”

“You have to talk when they have meetings, otherwise you’ll never get out they’ll keep you for a long time that’s what they said.”

“They can’t keep me here forever, I’m well behaved now, I take my medication, I do what they tell me to do, they said I could write in journal and I read because I like to read so what’s wrong with that? Who said I don’t talk enough? I can’t jump and talk all the time, I have to let other people talk too otherwise they’ll think I’m being rude!”

Geethika retorted, “Yes but you got in that fight before-”

“That was before, now I understand I have to take my medication and I take them, they can’t say anything!” Sawan whined. Sarath was listening throughout this conversation not saying anything, just looking around with a very composed look on his face.

“I don’t know, they keep track of everything you are doing here, they know every little thing; you have to do your best to show you are ready to go home. We have to also file for the medical withdrawal from Penn State now, one day you can talk to Marie on the cell phone… so many problems,” Geethika sadly said. “I don’t know what our family is going to do with you here in this hospital, all our dreams…”

“Don’t make him feel bad. Right now we have to just help him, soon he can get out, I talked to Dr. Caponi so he can tell Dr. Goodnick to make that appointment,” Sarath muttered to Geethika in Sinhala. Then he told Sawan about the meeting in English. Apparently they were going to have a family meeting to discuss Sawan’s progress soon. Sawan nodded his head in understanding. They fell silent. Geethika looked glum.

“We are so evil… such evil people,” Geethika told Sawan telepathically in a very forceful way as she wiped her nose with a tissue, her eyes reddening with tears. She had withdrawn her hand.

“Why?” Sawan asked in shock. Sure Satan said that bad was good, but the way Geethika said it made it sound like they were genuinely evil, not just cast under that category.

“Because we are protected by the Government now… but the Government is killing our relatives!” Geethika angrily shouted to him telepathically.

“Distant relatives, not your cousins, ones who don’t like us,” Sarath interjected.

“They are? Why?” Sawan asked in horror.

“Because we want to be famous! Because you want to be famous! Because you want to be great! Because you are Satan! So no one else in our family claims to be Satan, it’s a way of settling arguments over property too, but I feel so bad we are such bad people,” Geethika cried. Sawan didn’t know what to say.

“The blood of Devadatta runs in our family. We are his descendents, our family,” Sarath explained. Devadatta was the Buddha’s cousin back when the Buddha lived. Devadatta had tried to kill the Buddha several times in hatred and usurp the Buddha’s authority over the Sangha, the order of monks. Devadatta had lived a life of jealousy and viciousness. Sawan was once more surprised by this new information.

“Chuti Amu? Chuti Amu? See right now he can’t hear us. He’s talking to something else, he can hear something,” Sarath quietly said in Sinhala to his wife. Sawan absentmindedly fiddled with candy on the table oblivious to what his father had just said.

“Yes, he still has that problem. Should we tell the doctor? He still didn’t get better,” Geethika firmly said back in Sinhala. Sawan awoke out of his reverie. He realized they had just said something about him.

“What?” Sawan asked.

“Now you’re listening, I said your name you didn’t say anything. Something is still wrong with you,” Sarath knowingly stated.

“Yes I can see that, maybe you have to stay more longer,” Geethika said pointedly.

“What? NO! We weren’t talking for awhile so I just began thinking, it’s normal I’ve been this way for years it’s nothing new! Remember Ms. Buchanan the Bedminster School librarian used to call me the absent-minded professor back in sixth grade? That’s what it means sometimes I get preoccupied with what I’m thinking it’s not a big deal, I’ve always been this way,” Sawan said.

“It’s not normal, anyways that time you’re a kid now you have to change. Thinking too much is bad you have to live in this world not just in your head, now we have your attention, what were you thinking about huh?” Geethika interrogated. Sawan stared at her uneasily. He could say that he was talking to her in his head, but what would the outcome of that be? Talking about telepathy was still forbidden in today’s age, and he had to conform for now. So he lied.

“I was just daydreaming… wondering about when I’m going to leave! Is it really a big deal?” Sawan angrily asked, feeling strange they were making the leader of Truth into a liar temporarily.

“Sawan it’s a big deal, now you’re angry, that’s not a good sign,” Sarath droned. “You are failing the test.”

“What? This is a test?” Sawan asked panicking as he struggled to do doublespeak. “I’m not angry!”

“Yes everything is a test Chuti Amu, everything is a test. We are testing your mood when you are harassed, checking you for bipolar disorder. The Government put us up to it. Right now you not doing good. You can change it, we have a little more time before we go hurry up and calm down! And right now it’s good to lie, otherwise they’ll keep you!” Sarath telepathically advised.

“Yes look at your face, you look upset!” Geethika exclaimed with a grin on her face. It was as if she were taunting him, even though he was trying to realize that she was ignorant of how she was making him feel. He felt like a lab rat being inspected, like a specimen for an experiment. Nevertheless Sawan calmed down, recomposed himself and put a very plain bored expression on his face. This was all about acting. All adults did. Sawan despised this but he knew had no choice but to learn how to act, like all the other grown-ups.

“I’m fine see, you were just making me mad, I like to think, you do too, it happens all the time, just chill out, god!” Sawan muttered.

 “We also think but not as long you do. Anyways, let’s not fight that’s not why we came here.”

He was actually getting a little tired of their company too for some reason that he couldn’t place. Truth was he already just wanted to be left alone. Having company was becoming complicated. “So when can I get out? Are you talking to the doctor and doing everything that you can?”

“We can’t do anything until we have that meeting, even then it’s all up to them. We also have that party for your birthday coming up, I hope they release you by then, otherwise what are we going to do? We can’t cancel we told so many people already!” Geethika bemoaned. They made things seem so negative even when they tried to stay positive, Sawan ruminated.

 “We have to go now don’t we?” Sarath said in Sinhala to Geethika.

“Okay Chuti Amu, I’ll come soon again when I’m free, but Daddy is going to come every day. You know we love you very much, right? We didn’t mean to put you here to stay,” Geethika said, breaking down. Sawan’s eyes reddened too and he wiped them.

“People are here, they’ll see, come on clean your face,” Sarath chastised Geethika in Sinhala as he looked around.

“Stay strong, okay? Are you reading that book about the Buddha?” Geethika asked, after she finished composing herself.

“Yes, I read it a few times,” Sawan said.

“Keep reading it, you really need his help. I go to the temple and pray for you on Friday, also  Achi (grandmother, Sarath’s mother) is going to temple giving the offerings for you too in Sri Lanka,” Geethika told him. Sawan remembered Achi. She was such a pleasant woman, so far removed from the insanity of this hell. Sri Lanka seemed so far away, so distant.

“I will,” Sawan said as they rose from the table. He pocketed the Snickers.

*          *          *

Sawan went to bed but he couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned and couldn’t find the source of his anxiety. He sensed another presence in the room other than himself and Thomas. Sawan looked about the room and squinted in the dark. He suddenly saw underneath the window the shadow of a rectangular box less than yard long. It was the apparition of a coffin for an infant. Sawan instantly realized what it meant. If Sawan married Victoria at this age, and if she got pregnant, there would be the heightened risk that the baby would be still born, born dead. And what would such complications mean for Victoria? Sawan realized then that it was better for her sake that they wait until she was at least fifteen. Patience.

*          *          *

The more he read The Prince the more sapped he was. He felt a tension inside his head thatjust would not go away. He didn’t want to stop yet it continued to make him suffer. Every page of the little red book was making him bleed now. He sensed that he had learned a lot but that the knowledge was making him evil. The evil attacked the boy inside of him, the innocent child, who still lived in his heart. It was injuring him, and it made him feel as though he was dying. Perhaps it was also the nature of where he was living. This mental institution was like a stuffy box in which people were kept away in, locked away from the light. Everything was artificial, including the light. He hadn’t been exposed to sunlight in days, even though this was his own fault, they did have breaks in the courtyard several times a day. Breaks he hadn’t taken advantage of because of his work. Saving the world, one page at a time. He was torn by what he was doing to himself. He knew that he had to do it but was this the right way? To cause pain to himself? Satan said that it was, but then again Satan only cared about attaining power at all costs at the expense of Sawan’s current state.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He went out into the hallway and asked, “Can I go outside? Please? I really need to I can’t stand it in here, I’m reading this book and it’s splicing my soul into pieces.”

“What book?” the nurse abruptly said. The book was in Sawan’s hands.

Sawan gazed down at it and simply said, “This one here why-”

“Hand it over, give it to me,” the nurse demanded, standing up and walking over from her desk.

“Why, I want to read it,” Sawan protested. The nurse grabbed the book out of his hands.

“That’s up to the doctor to decide. Now go along, shoo!” Sawan stood in the hallway looking lost, feeling bereft. What had he done? Now he wouldn’t be able to advance in power.

“You did good, it’s okay. You’ve read enough for now. You were making Satan too strong, too soon. You’ll get the book back soon. Don’t worry now you can do other things. Like reading Cry, the Beloved Country. This book will give you a better understanding on racism and help you get along with people of different ethnicities and creeds. This is also a vital part of being a multicultural leader, a leader of different groups of people.” The Government said. Knowing he had little choice, he decided to read that book instead. This book was different from The Prince. It was a story. He had never read it before but it had a very quaint earthy touch in its style. It didn’t make him feel angry. It didn’t instill violence and hatred in him. Instead it spoke about the sorrow of inequality and the beauty of South Africa. Later that day his father visited him. More food from home. More friendly banter. He told his father that his book was taken away to which his father furtively said they had to obey the doctor in all ways and to not argue. Maybe at the meeting they would bring it up. Then hugs and kisses goodbye. The visit didn’t change anything.

He felt hatred at his father for being so calm at his son’s torture. He went into an empty room near the nurse’s station and thought about killing his father telepathically. From afar his father told him to go ahead and do it. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t in him to harm his own father, even if trying to kill him would only weaken his father’s ailing heart. So positively crying and moaning he telepathically shot his childhood self. Then a nurse came in and yelled at him to leave the room. She didn’t ask why he was crying. But that night they gave him an extra medication they would administer from then on, lithium, for bipolar disorder, just off the basis that he cried, once. Was it ethical to administer bipolar medication to someone on the grounds that they were homesick and didn’t want to be in a mental institution anymore? Is that a symptom of mental illness or would even a normal person cry, at least once?

*          *          *

            “NUUUURSE!! NUUURSE!!!!” Thomas yelled. Sawan groggily looked up and turned in surprise to look at his roommate who lay on his bed in the darkened room. “I NEED A PERCOSECT! PLEASE!” The nurse came and administered the dosage. Sawan looked on in disgust. Sawan remembered meeting a student at Penn State telling he had abused them. Back then Sawan had wanted to try it too. Now he thought otherwise.

*          *          *

            “Sawan, do you BELIEVE?!” God thundered. Did Sawan still believe in this reality? That this was even God talking to him? It was the only thing that made sense. Otherwise he’d be categorized as stark raving mad. What else were these voices? They were who they said they were; how could they all sound so different from one another and have such detailed personalities? This wasn’t all in his head. No, this was the real world.

            “ I do,” Sawan affirmed.

            “Then you have nothing to fear. If you do everything right then you will pass away at the age of two hundred and ten and go to Pari-Nibbana. Victoria will attain Sotapanna (Sainthood) and die at the age of one hundred and sixty nine. The better a person you are in the life you lead in the Promised Land the sooner you die, so that you can go to heaven sooner. Because she is a better person who leads a purer life she dies before you, Sawan. Victoria will then live seven lives in the period of time that you live as a widow of Victoria. In one life she is a goddess who lives in the realm of gods and goddesses. She leaves the realm of the Gods and Goddesses after a very brief span of human years, to go to Parinibbana at the same time you do, when you die. So in the mean time before you die she is born afterwards as a boy who dies of cancer. In her next she is a deer. In her next she is a frog. In her next she is a fox. Then as a polar bear that dies of pneumonia. Then finally as a fly.  As you die, she dies in her last life as a fly and as you go to Pari-Nibbana she joins you there too. Does this answer your questions?”

            “Yes… but I have one last one if you don’t mind. Who are you? How did you become God? Why do you know everything?” Sawan asked.

            “I live in Pari-Nibbana. I am you as I am everyone. I talk to you from Pari-Nibbana. You become me. The creation of existence and all powerful control of the universe is what Pari-Nibbana is,” God revealed. Only one part of what God said was relevant to Sawan and he paused what he was doing, the toilet paper in his hand. Sawan felt so close to anyone that he talked to in head that he didn’t really care or notice what he was doing when he talked to someone, even God. If God was all seeing and everywhere, did it really matter?

Awed he asked, “So I become God? I become you in the future? And all I do is control the past, the present and the future at all times?!”

God dismissively said, “There is no time in Pari-Nibbana. It doesn’t even feel like eternity. Someone who lives in reality, what your life in Samsara (existence) is, would not be able to comprehend it. It is something that I will not bother to describe. You have to achieve it. Now go to sleep!”

*          *          *         

In about fifteen minutes they reentered the dining hall. “Sawan y-you can come in n-now,” Dr. Goodnick warmly said. Sawan placed the empty plastic container in the plastic bag and then they all went into conference room, this time with the patient in question. Sawan sat across the rectangular table while mother and father sat on the side with Paul. Dr. Goodnick sat at the head. “C-Comfortable? Good. Sawan we were just t-talking to your parents about how y-you would be doing when you were eventually discharged and w-went home. There are some issues th-that have to be s-settled before th-that though, you are d-definitely doing well now this past week. N-no conflicts. We are pleased but I feel it would be in y-your interests to stay here a-a little longer. A-agreed?”

            “Okay, how long?” Sawan asked.

            “A-again it depends on a-a lot of criteria really, and w-we have to make s-sure that you are functioning normally before y-you are released. You h-have some emotional instability s-still,” Dr. Goodnick said cryptically. He was of course referring to the other day that Sawan had cried. “T-there is also s-something that was brought up by y-your parents. When you were at P-penn State y-you had… feelings, for a-a girl w-while you were there?” Dr. Goodnick uncertainly posed. Sawan looked at him in bafflement.

            “Girl?” Sawan repeated his voice lilting in pitch upwards in surprise. He had no girlfriend at Penn State. “Who, Caitlinn? He thought, remembering the opium head he had pursued there. Suddenly it hit like a rock over his head. How did they know, what-

“Yes, girl, your parents told us that there was a girl that you thought that you had married,” Paul candidly explained. S**t. He didn’t want to talk about her! Not to these people at the hospital! He looked at his mother and father. Traitors. He didn’t know what to say. Pedophilia. Pedophile. Underage marriage. Sex with pillows. Picture after picture. These words and intimate images shot unbidden through his head.

“Uh, y-yea there was a-a girl from Rutgers who I corresponded with,” he stuttered in alarm. He looked at Paul and Dr. Goodnick with shaky confidence at the fib he had just spoken. He could do this, pass a lie test. Show that he could lie. That’s what this was. Geethika loudly interrupted though.

“Rutgers?! Whose this?! What are you talking about? No that’s not true! He’s lying! There’s another girl, Victoria! Sawan you said you married Victoria that’s what you told us!” Geethika exclaimed. Apparently this wasn’t about seeing whether he could lie or not then. Why had they told these people what he had told them? About his love life? What did who he cared about have to do with anything?

“Victoria. Yea. There’s a girl named Victoria that I liked,” Sawan lamely admitted. His lie was broken.

“And she doesn’t go to Rutgers? She’s actually under eighteen? Right?” Paul gently pressed.

“Yea,” Sawan shyly admitted. He suddenly wished he wasn’t here.

“She’s actually how old? Thirteen? Is that right?” Paul looked at Geethika for confirmation.

“That’s right, I think… no she’s twelve, almost thirteen,” Geethika definitively stated, correcting herself.

“That’s young mate! Whew aren’t there any girls you liked at Penn State?” This made Sawan feel so weird.

“Of course there were, I talked to them,” Sawan defensively said. Sure, he was a regular player. At least he tried to be.

“But you liked this, Victoria, instead? How’d do you know her?” Paul questioned. So many questions.

“We are actually all family friends, from the same… community,” Sarath said with a smile. He always smiled when he spoke in a formal setting it seemed.

“Yea the Sri Lankan community,” Sawan added. The community. How could that group possibly be explained here? “I’ve known her for almost five years, we’re childhood friends.” He realized he had a pleading tone in his voice. He had been a teenager back then. Befriending children. It seemed normal to do in such a setting as the Sri Lankan community. Everyone of all ages was friends with everyone. Couldn’t anyone understand?

“Five years? That’s sure a long time! So when you met her she was about… eight?” Paul queried. For second there was an awkward silence. Eight. A real child. Someone a few years older than a toddler. This was so embarrassing. What did Paul and Dr. Goodnick think of Sawan’s tastes? This all flashed through Sawan’s head.

“Yea, we met at a Sri Lankan show in Philadelphia,” Sawan warily said. They were trapping him. They were trapping the pedophile.

“So, r-recently, you felt this girl w-was ready to be married to you? Y-you wanted to h-have sexual relations w-with this g-girl?” Dr. Goodnick seriously asked. This was so digusting and appalling.

“NO!” Sawan yelled. “Not NOW! When she was OLDER! Maybe I just wanted kiss her, THAT’S ALL!”

“Relax, we’re not trying to harm you in anyway, everything said in this meeting is confidential, we aren’t going to call the police or anything, not that any of this is illegal bud!” Paul assured him. “You didn’t do anything illegal right? You never touched her?” Sarath interrupted firmly.

“No, he never did THAT. He just imagining he has a marriage with this girl. She’s the daughter of a very close family friend, we know them now many years,” Sarath explained. “When he’s at the Penn State he was thinking about her very much, dreaming about her. He say he love her. I don’t know. I told him he should talk with the children his age, in the college, but he didn’t listen. Now I think that girl made him crazy, only thing he thinking about all the time is her, still I think. Whenever we talk to him, he’s not responding. He thinking he can talk to her with his head. That’s why we told the doctor, not to cause any problem. Don’t worry Chuti Amu, we all here to help you. Tell the doctor everything.”

 Everyone stared at him, waiting for their chance to analyze, dissect, judge and medicate Sawan’s feelings for Victoria. Sawan felt like crying. Tears were coming to his eyes. They dripped over his eye lids and he began sobbing. This wasn’t wrong. Loving Victoria wasn’t wrong. He knew it, he felt it in his heart.  Geethika also began crying. “This girl cause our family SO many problems. We have SO much suffering because he like her at this age. We told him to wait but-”

“No she didn’t! It’s MY fault not HERS!! I AM WAITING!” Sawan sadly protested, bawling. All he wanted was someone innocent, like himself his whole life, and he found that in Victoria. Never mind she had gone out with Justin, a boy in fifth grade who she thought she had loved. Never mind she loved Taylor, the werewolf from the Twilight series and had covered her room with pictures and posters of him and other adult men. Never mind that this was all unusually s****y behavior for a Sri Lankan American girl. To Sawan Victoria had always been perfect, her true heart untouched yet. Everyone looked at him uncomfortably. They all realized they had touched a nerve.

“Chum, of course it’s not her fault she’s just a kid and probably doesn’t know what she’s doing, it’s not anyone’s fault really, these things just happen we can’t control who we like,” Paul said, trying to make him feel better. “Does anyone have any tissues?” Geethika, who had wiped everything onto her sleeve including her boogers began looking in her bag.

“I have some,” she confirmed in an uneven voice. Sarath patted her back and stroked her hair. She snorted snot up her nose loudly, then blew it out after handing Sawan some tissues.

“Give our man here some tissues. Don’t get upset, things like this happen to all of us in different ways.”

“A******s. Pieces of s**t,” Sawan hissed in his mind thinking of everyone in the room, as he vehemently wiped tears on his cheeks and chin away, and hotu (snot) out of his nose, wiping his upper lip of the hotu too. “Scumbags, SNAKES.” They put him in this position. They were making him feel bad over Tory for no reason, he had enough guilt trips over months as it was and he had finally overcome it, he didn’t feel bad anymore. He had ruined her childhood, but he cared enough to take responsibility for her for the rest of his life, so what was the big deal.

“Snakes are nice,” Satan added.

“Mate, sir, take it easy, we have to open up about this pedophile subject now, we have to make a difference don’t we, it’s time, all those boys like you suffering out there!” Paul admonished.

Dr. Goodnick instructed, “Sawan, we just want to help you. Remember that. This is not about saying you can’t have feelings for anyone, we are just looking out for your mental health-”

“What does she have to do with my mental health? I’m fine, I don’t want anything to do with her right now, she’s a kid GOD, I know but I love her, I know I’m a pedophile but I don’t care-” Sawan cried, breaking down again.

“SAWVAN! Stop it! You said that B***H was talking to you inside your head, that’s a serious problem. That’s why we have to tell the doctor, look at what those people did to us, they make us all go crazy!” Sarath snarled in despairing hatred, referring to Damith’s family. It was if they were mortal enemies now, except Uncle Damith didn’t even know how Sarath and Geethika felt. Was there no love to be found, in all the world?

“NO, they didn’t they didn’t DO anything they helped me, she helped do my homework, she made me feel happy on Judgment Day her brother, Roshane and her protected me from the bad voices!” Sawan defended.

“Judgment Day?” Paul said with a puzzled look.

“That’s t-the day y-you developed psychosis at P-penn State i-isn’t it,” Dr. Goodnick softly said.

“Yea,” Sawan said.

“Their voices helped you? And you thought they were actually helping you? Talking to you, consoling you?” Dr. Goodnick clarified.

“Yea, they defended me, Roshane and Victoria defended me,” Sawan reiterated.

“So they were good voices? I didn’t know there were any good voices, they must have been good friends to you in real life weren’t they?” Paul jovially said, grinning from ear to ear. Sawan didn’t know what was so funny about this.

“Yea, they helped me, I didn’t have any problems with them when I was at Penn State,” Sawan continued.

Sarath corrected, “Sawan they got very mad with you in September remember? Tell the truth. Because everyone chatting too much? Remember?” He turned to Dr. Goodnick and said, “Her brother call him and get very angry with him, like he’s going to beat Sawan or something, then after that Sawan get all shock and began to think too much about everything…” He finished sadly, his last words hanging in the air. Sawan jumped in though instantly.

“No! He was upset with me, but then I talked to him and I cleared everything up! I never said he was going to beat me! He never said that… besides, he can’t do that!” He added, thinking of Roshane’s slim physique.

“I don’t know that’s what you said in September.” Sarath wore a small smile.

“No! I never said THAT!” Sawan was disgusted, beginning to hate his father again and this was making him boil. “WARNING, WARNING, WARNING,” a voice yelled in his head.

“Remember Savan I am your father. This is a test. Remember your place and kneel!” Sarath growled.

“Okay everybody needs to calm down,” Paul directed. “You love the girl, we didn’t say you had to change-”

“B-but I think you h-have to t-think differently about your r-relationship with her,” Dr. Goodnick cut in. “B-because you can’t d-do anything w-with her now, sh-she lives under the p-protection of her family, y-you don’t have the r-right to have a r-relation with this c-child-”

“I KNOW that,” Sawan lamented.

“Sawan we told you, calm down!” Geethika said, her eyes popping out of her head. There was an awkward silence.

“Time for a change of pass. Alter the subject,” Satan wilily suggested to Sawan.

“There’s a book that I had. It was taken away from me. I want it back,” Sawan quietly demanded, seething at what had just taken place. “Such drama, CHRIST!” he thought taking his own namesake in vain.

“Don’t change the subject, he’s changing the subject!” Geethika howled.

“No, I think we’ve talked about this particular matter enough… touchy subject, we’ve all had enough of it for one day,” Dr. Goodnick cheerily said, looking around the table. Paul looked composed, his hands pressed together, a fist covering his mouth. Sarath’s hands were laying in lap, back straight, like a king. Geethika was fiddling with a tissue in her hand. Sawan was hunched over in his seat, the delinquent.  “He k-knows his c-current position, th-that’s all that I wanted t-to get a-across, we’re h-here to help him cope w-with these p-problems that we’ll d-discuss with him at a-a later time… and as f-for that book…” His eyebrows became raised, his forehead creasing.

“Book? You had something belonging to you confiscated? What was the reason?” Paul asked, looking at the doctor.

“I-I don’t know, Sawan w-what was the name of th-this book?” Dr. Goodnick asked skeptically.

“The Prince, written by Niccolo Machiavelli like five hundred years ago,” Sawan said, his reddened eyes being the only indicator now that minutes ago he had been hysterical. “It was read by Napoleon, Mussolini.” He didn’t want to add his former self, Hitler. “It’s supposed to make people become great, that’s why I keep rereading it over and over again, I want to memorize it, that’s all, one day I was feeling stressed from reading and I wanted to go outside to read but they took the book away.”

“I read th-that in c-college I believe,” Dr. Goodnick said plainly. His glasses seemed to magnify his small eyes.

“Really? Did you like it?” Sawan excitedly asked, for a moment forgetting his disdain of this nervous old Jewish psychiatrist.

“I thought it w-was boring, but it w-wasn’t really m-my k-kind of sub-subject,” Dr. Goodnick informed, the ends of his lips tilting upwards a little. “Well Sawan I-I understand, y-you may like to r-read it, b-but if it’s c-causing mental in-instability then I will have to say th-that you should stay away from it f-for a-aw-while, t-take a break from m-memorizing, th-that’s a-a very ambitious task! Isn’t it?” He looked over at Sawan’s parents.

“Yes, my son was the best student when he was a young boy, when he’s little I gave him Hooked on Phonics,” Sarath said, referring to a self-learn reading audio cassette program. “After that he picked up reading like a, FISH; he’s number one always, now so sad to see what happen to him but I know he can pick it again, he’s my number one!” Sarath praised. Sawan now felt bad he had gotten angry at his father.

“I agree though, taking a break from reading something that is making you feel worse is a good thing. After you recover then you can have the book back, maybe,” Paul said.

“Maybe?” Sawan worriedly thought.

 “Okay I think we’re done. That’s all we wanted to say. You can say goodbye to your parents, I’ll be there on your court day, next Monday, hopefully you’ll be released soon after,” Dr. Goodnick said.

*          *          *

            They were wrestling over the television remote. Suddenly Sawan brushed against her large left breast. It wiggled and jiggled on her chest as the Pakistani giggled and cowered away. Sawan excitedly looked on at what he done. Did she notice? “I hit your b**b!” Sawan accused himself animatedly.

            “No you didn’t!” Aeysha lied. They stood breathing heavily for a moment. He suddenly wished he could hook up with her. He loved Victoria but he didn’t care about getting some. Being here in this madness had made him loose his inhibitions more, he was more loose. He cared less about what he said and was more open. If he wanted it, he got it. When they served pizza on some days he would loudly demand slice after slice of thick fat cheesy pepperoni and supreme. And the guards would give it, yelling at the server in the kitchen off the dining hall to cut it up. He becoming plumper but that didn’t faze him. He was turning into a fatter player who was flirting more and more with anyone and anything when he was in the mood.

There were days when he didn’t feel like talking. Justin was more steady in his conduct with the chicks. He definitely was a ladies’ man. Sawan only was sometimes and it made him feel jealous whenever he saw Justin talking up Aeysha and Lindsay, the new girl. One day he had cornered Lindsay when she was going to the bathroom and asked her if she wanted to make out. Sawan preferred this to actual sex, which he sort of wanted to save for Victoria if he could help it. Lindsay had smiled and politely declined.

*          *          *

“You good? Nice, make yourself at home. Let’s get right down to business so you can get back to that meeting if it’s still running. I’m glad you went to some groups recently. So long as you go to at least a few here and there that hits the target, though the more that you attend the better. Are you sleeping well?” Paul asked. Sawan thought about the deathly knockout punch that he received from medication that put him in a short coma from ten to three at night. Then waking up abruptly at exactly three every night to drink water down his parched esophagus, take a leak and then go back to his room. He would then go to a fragile vividly color world he now dubbed Dreamscape, the light dream state in his sleep he would be in until around 7:30 or eight in the morning. He had so many dreams that he was starting to grasp lucid dreaming slowly, the ability to control what he was thinking and doing while dreaming. “Hurry up, speak!” Paul warned Sawan in his head.

“Yea, the meds put me out, they make me sleepy during the day, I have to take naps sometimes,” Sawan said.

“Yea they can do that to yah but you’ll get them reduced eventually,” Paul said. “Besides they offer coffee in the morning groups. You could always drink that!”

“I prefer hot chocolate,” Sawan dismissed. He didn’t add that he used three cocoa bags a cup instead of just one like everyone else, making the triple chocolate flavor rape his taste buds thoroughly.

“Nice! Now anyways getting back on track, I’d like to chat with you about your plans in life,” Paul told him.

“…Okay. Shoot,” Sawan replied, totally ready to take on this conversation. The violent word “shoot” repeated itself unbidden in his mind.

“Right… so, once you get out, you’re going to go to outpatient therapy, take your meds, and what?” Paul challenged, gesticulated with his arms and hands as he spoke.

“Get ready to go back to school,” Sawan said with certainty. “I really want to finish my degree, I owe that to my parents.” College, the true heart of revolution.

“I’m sure you do, like I’ve said before all we want to do is see you get better, move forward, and succeed! We’re all on the sidelines cheering for yah and definitely most of all Mom and Dad, their happiness matter a lot to you right now and everyone may be very unhappy these days about the position you are in but you can change that and show everyone who you truly are in good time, right pal?”

“Damn straight,” Sawan muttered upstairs as Paul continued talking without waiting for an answer.

“Just bust outta here at the right time, do outpatient, take the meds, and be on your way to college,” Paul robustly pounded into Sawan’s skull, as if Sawan’s memory was bad enough now to not remember this. “What I’d like to ask you about now are obstacles in this path you are embarking on in life. Anything we can advise on. Can you think of anything that would hurt your great plans?” Sawan thought for a few seconds. The medicine didn’t help. But he couldn’t say this, at this juncture otherwise he would be showing that he didn’t want to conform with his treatment. He didn’t know what other obstacles he had really other than himself, his own flaws.

“I have some personality or character traits I want to work on. Like being less selfish, more religious, more generous, more loving, less lustful, even though the meds already are affecting that last part…” He paused, to let the meaning of his last words sink in. Paul nodded, acknowledging Sawan’s impotency. “And just maturing more… being a gentleman.”

“These are definitely god things to work on. Having a strong character is vital to making a good impression,” Paul advised wisely as Sawan listened intently. “Making sure you hang out with the right crowd is also important. Hanging with the wrong people can land you in trouble again and I couldn’t bear to think of you landing in a place like this again. No one wants that! What you have to avoid are drugs users. Alright? And the people who drink alcohol, at least for now, when you go back to school. Mom and Dad won’t be able to look out for you there, will they, and neither will we! Definitely avoid the potheads, because pot is one of the substances that contributed to your stress at school right?”

“Yea,” Sawan replied, the thought of Ian flying across his mind. Hadn’t they discussed this before?

“Alright, that’s settled. Now let’s broach another important subject,” Paul directed, steering the topic onto- “So, let’s talk about the girl, for a bit, if you don’t mind.” The girl. Sawan let out a small sigh. Of course, Sawan didn’t have a real choice. He didn’t want to appear intolerant, did he? “So… you love her, this, what’s the lass’s name?”

“Victoria. Yes, I love her,” Sawan stiffly said. “I want to marry her someday.”

“Marriage, that’s strong stuff mate, I know when I was twenty I wasn’t thinking of marriage!”

“You and I are different. We grew up with different values.” Sawan felt bored.

“That’s true. I don’t know too much about Indian culture. But I know we have some things in common, eh?” Paul cavorted. Paul was as dandy as a talking cartoon beaver living on a dam without a care in world, without the big buck teeth.

“I suppose so.”

“Anyways, you already know, we both know, you can’t be in a meaningful relationship with this Victoria at this point in time. How does that make you feel?”

“I’m fine. I can wait,” Sawan assured. “This is so stupid. Haven’t I already told them this?”

“That’s awesome. But you thought you could marry her when she was this age, isn’t that right?” Paul asked. “Be patient this is just protocol, all bullshit, you can really do what you like!”

“No, as I’ve said before, I knew I couldn’t marry her now I only married her at heart, I just wanted to tie myself down, make sure that I was faithful to her until we actually married is that really a big deal? I know I didn’t really do anything,” Sawan said. This was definitely covered the other day in that meeting with his parents. What was Paul trying to say? Make him do? In the back Sawan’s mind he sensed that Paul was going to tell him to forget about Victoria. This is what he was afraid of. Well he didn’t care. He could say he did get over her. That didn’t change what he thought of Victoria inside his head. Nobody could persecute and harass him for still wanting her if he didn’t tell anyone out loud.

“No it’s not a big deal, you’re a good guy for wanting to wait and be faithful for such a long time we’re just worried about this situation of you thinking that you’re married to her when you’re actually not, even if you know you’re not. What happens if she gets a boyfriend when she’s older? From what I thought I heard the other day you haven’t really talked much to her recently have you, your families told you guys to stay apart? What are you going to do if she moves on? How is that going to impact you?”

“I don’t know, I would be upset sure-”

“See, that the problem!”

“-but I would get over it. I’ve been screwed over before, my whole life, and it’s my fault typically and I feel bad but I get over it. Guys have to deal with this all the time with anyone, it’s normal, isn’t it? I’ve dealt with it before, I can deal with it again, I’ll just fall in love again with someone else,” Sawan simply said. The thought of Tharushi floated into his mind like a ghost. He shook his head. He was annoyed. Did these people really think Victoria was some fickle w***e? They didn’t even know her! Yet sometimes he wondered, what did Victoria and Kavi always talk about alone on Facebook and the phone, or telepathically? He wasn’t God, all seeing and knowing. It bothered it from time to time. Nah, Vicky was faithful. If she wasn’t there was always Thar-

“So you would get over it? Just like that? I thought you were in love!” Paul accused.

“Well like I said, it would take some time like a few months maybe-”

“You could become depressed! See this isn’t really a healthy scenario. By the way just something I wanted to mention, while you’re here you might want to not tell anyone that you’re technically a pedophile, like the patients, some have had bad experiences as children and they may not like you, could cause some disturbances, we want you to be safe.” Keep his mouth shut. Don’t tell anyone. Keep a secret. Sawan resented this immediately. Be afraid. Be guilty. Cower in fear of others. Sawan wanted to speak up. He wanted to make this idea that pedophiles were also abused even if they had good intentions an issue. Make a difference.

“Yea,” Sawan said. Whatever. Outside of these meetings, he would talk to whoever he wanted about whatever he wanted. “Get a life Paul!” he thought.

“Mate, I’m just my job, I’m a slave who works in Hell don’t forget it!” Paul defensively said. “But yea back to the other subject, you could become totally depressed, and we’re worried that’s going to happen dude! I don’t know…” Sawan stopped listening as Paul’s voice turned into an unintelligible sound. “This girl could cause some serious problems!” Paul finished.

“Victoria is not a problem. She’s an asset,” Sawan countered painfully in his head.

“Of course, but just show me you’re listening you’re starting to look sleepy. That’s a bad sign. If you’re not paying attention then it shows that you’re still having some issues with interacting with other people. Have to be patient and put up with the s**t if you wanna get what you want! The girl!” Paul decried.

“I don’t think so. I’m used to not getting along with girls. Victoria is just another girl. If she doesn’t like me later then I’ll deal with it like anyone else. I won’t get that depressed, I’ve dealt with feeling of not being liked by her before. And I still did well in school. I was doing okay in school this past semester, I struggled sure, but they removed me from school just because I had that psychotic break even though I could have stayed and coped with it. I was happy about Victoria, I didn’t have any problems, she and she and I have gotten mad at each other before, but we usually forgive each other, she can be a friend. I know there are plenty of fish in the sea, I’m not a fool.” Sawan wearily said.

“Hey, I never said you were a fool! I just said maybe this is something that could hurt your recovery!”

“Well it WON”T!”

“Alright. I’m just trying give you some good advice that’s all. If you feel comfortable, then there’s nothing we can do about it, we can’t change who you like. I just want to say that perhaps you should think of this Victoria as just a friend for now instead of feeling obligated to being in a relationship with her in your head. I have an idea. Listen to this scenario. Just a suggestion, you can take it or leave it. Okay?”

“Hmmhmm,” Sawan sounded.

“Right now you’re twenty and this girl Victoria is around twelve, almost thirteen. Right now you guys can’t be together. So what you have to do is try your best to keep this girl Victoria out of your mind. Try not to think about her if you can, after a while it gets easy. If you happen to run into her at a family function, you can talk to her if want but briefly, as a friend. But overall try to avoid her for awhile, if you can. In the meantime go to college, make friends there, be social, hang out, meet girls, go out with them, they’re great college man that’s when they’re  just in their prime!” Paul softly growled. “Of course,” Sawan disdainfully thought. “Just be a manwhore. Great advice.”

Nonetheless Sawan was picturing images of going to class, meeting friends, girls, and hanging out, going on dates with strange fully grown women and laughing with them about anything and everything, trying to find an excuse to mate. No Vicky in the picture! “So just do that for a while, a few years. Meanwhile Victoria is long forgotten because you’re having so much fun in your life! You’ve gotten over her! Graduate, move somewhere you like after you get a job, get an apartment, keep hanging out with your pals and doing your work. One day you’re in the city and you’re at a bar. And you’re having a drink. And you look at the girl next you and holy cow! It’s the girl Victoria you knew from childhood!” Paul happily said, and stopping his fantastical plan for Sawan, looking at his listener to see how this idea sounded to him.

Sawan blinked. He had been picturing everything Paul had said. Going to a bar. Having something that looked like a scotch and soda. Turning to his right. Then seeing an adult Victoria in slim black night dress. Sawan stared blankly at Paul as if this social worker had lost his mind. Yet Sawan weighed this idea in head. Meeting Victoria in a bar. No, that didn’t seem right. Sawan couldn’t see Victoria as the bar going type. What would she be doing there? Dancing with strangers? Having a few drinks? Sawan snorted involuntarily in derision. Paul continued, “And she’s all grown up! She’s a woman, and you say, ‘My god how have you been! I haven’t seen you in years!”

“Well yea, because I was hiding from her the whole time wasn’t I. Then I just run into her like a decade later. Paul can’t possibly be serious,” Sawan thought.

“I’m not being serious, I’m being a clown your court jester, this is all just a joke! I am a joke! But of course if you wanted to give up everything, and not take over the world, this is always an alternate solution,” Paul suggested telepathically.

“A f*****g bar,” Sawan thought despairingly. He snickered and smiled at the idiotically grinning Paul. Was Paul on something? Sawan could picture the wooden counter. The wooden walls. The bottles on the shelf, vodka, whiskey, rum. And Victoria being so pleasantly surprised to see him. Unafraid of him. Ready to deal with men.

“And you can strike up a conversation with her and talk to her and maybe she’ll want to have dinner with you and one thing will lead to another and next thing you know you propose and she accepts and your happily married to the girl of your dreams!!” Paul shouted.

*          *          *

Victoria’s fifteen year old self was writing to him from the future, in her diary. Sawan wrote down her words: “… So I’m about done with homework. Can’t wait to get married to you in a few days. You’re just going to fly to my house magically and appear and then whisk me away to Las Vegas. Can’t wait for that. Oh yea one last thing. I’m really pissed off sometimes about your plan to marry Tharushi too someday.” Sawan’s head fell off a cliff. Marry Tharushi too? Have two wives? “I think that having Tharushi around is a bad idea even if you deserve it and it would give her a better more exciting life. Because you might try to use both of us against each other someday. That’s what worries me. I think she’s the type of person who wouldn’t share and keep you all to herself. Never mind this sounds like a good idea to you right now horny Swanson. Never mind all the fine Tharushi Swanson sex. It might make me sad later. I’m telling you now first so that maybe you’ll change your mind.”

            Sawan underlined his bewildered response asking, “Where did you get the idea that I want that? I never said I wanted to marry Tharushi and Victoria both at the same time?!” Tharushi was just a friend that he sometimes, well, liked but, nothing more than that, not like Victoria. Sometimes though when he didn’t along with Victoria he had thought about Tharushi. She seemed like a potential friend with benefits. Nothing more. Tharushi was over fifteen and a half years old now, in 2009. 

            “I don’t know, you told me recently to my face that it was all part of the great plan in life, that Tharushi from the future told you that it would happen,” Victoria replied. Sawan stared at what he had written. The only one who had told him about this was her, Victoria at the age of fifteen!

            “Vicky you’re the only one who just told me this! I don’t have any entries from her, ” he wrote.

            “I don’t know maybe she’ll write to you later and ruin my life then,” Victoria lamented. “You decide what you think is right. Stay in the present man. It’s the only way out of the magic trick box, hat, thing you’re living in these days. Best advice I can give you. Peace out. Vicky.”

*          *          *

            Sawan groggily peered around the darkened room. Someone had walked in and was walking to his cabinet. Sawan observed the person in the dark and realized it was one the nurses. It was the Caucasian guy in his twenties with the slicked black oily hair and goatee, the one who had told him telepathically that he was a practicing Buddhist at home and was a faithful follower of Satan. What was he doing? “Bringing this back to you,” the man muttered once he noticed Sawan’s eyes were gleaming in the dark, following him as the nurse drew next to him. Sawan looked at his hands and saw The Prince. Sawan grunted. Maybe they had said he was ready to have it back. Yet there was something fishy about the nature of this. Why had this man done this, this way, past eleven at night? The nurse placed the book on the dresser and quickly walked out.

*          *          *

            Sawan went back to reading The Prince. He did it furtively because he had a feeling this nurse had done this without the permission of the staff. Yet on the other hand, he was allowed to read so when he was reading in his room, he didn’t hide it. On the other hand when he was done, he would put it under his music books on the desk. The guards would search the room like twice a week here, probably for drug paraphernalia, or illicit prescriptions that visitors sometimes snuck to some patients on visits. They found nothing and left his dresser untidy.

            Sawan continued writing too. Sawan also received small letters and notes from Victoria here and there of all ages. Letters from himself too assuring everything would come to pass. More encouragement and advice. There were letters from other Sri Lankan friends, even Uncle Damith, Victoria’s dad. A letter from Neha, his first crush in middle school, came through too. But it wasn’t the one he was looking for. Finally though he received it, on Thursday. He had been here for more than two long weeks. A letter from Tharushi.

            “Hey there, loser,” it began. Tharushi always called him loser. “Yea that’s right loser. This is for real. Satan.” Tharushi was also an admirer of Satan. “Tharushi’s making a comeback. Loser. I am 50 years old actually now. Don’t know the year. Don’t care. In the Promised Land, no one cares about that stuff yah know? Yea I just wanted you to know. You and I get married in my thirties because I’m finally ready settle down and Victoria thinks it’s hot. She was grossed out as a kid but as she got older she finally allowed the bi in her to come out yah know? Besides you can’t help it either. You’ve just always craved it. We have three kids. You only have two with Victoria. Didn’t she ever tell you that in her letters? Haha. Yea so I’m going to take a nap now. I did what I had to do. Insert myself into your love life like the way a person moves a cursor over a space between two words and inserts a new word. ‘Tharushi.’ Okay bye. Love Tush”

Sawan skipped a line then in underline wrote back, “This is so weird, two wives that’s crazy!”

Tharushi ended reassuring, “Don’t worry, she accepts by now that I love you too. Haha, so what if she get’s jealous sometimes? Screw her! :P”

*          *          *

            “Hey what is that book in your hand? Can I see it?” a Chinese nurse demanded. Sawan nervously handed the red book to him. “What is this?”

            “It’s a book from home,” Sawan said.

            “The Prince. You’re not supposed to have this. It was in your file, how did you get it back?”

            “I don’t know one of the staff came and gave it back I don’t know his name.” So it was true. The nurse who gave the book back really was on Sawan’s side and openly worked for him.

            “I’m confiscating and reporting this, you can return to your room.”

            “What a d****e,” Sawan muttered as he stood there stupefied after the nurse walked away. This was so confusing. What was behind the mystery of the The Prince?

*          *          *

Later, the next day his parents were there. “Who gave you the book back? We can tell them if you know then they can punish him,” Sarath said. They were standing in the dining room. Sawan looked around and saw the nurse that had handed the book back to him. He was down the corridor near bedrooms and looking at Sawan’s family and Sawan. Sawan looked back at him and they made eye contact.

“Don’t do it,” the nurse who had helped Sawan said in his head. Yet automatically Sawan raised his hand as if in a dream and pointed at the man.

“Him, he did it!” Sawan said loudly in bafflement like a silly baby. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. What was going on in Hell? Was he supposed to have The Prince back or not? He wanted to know what would happen to the man if got caught. Would he be fired? Sawan instantly felt like a traitor though.

“Okay we’re going to tell them, we’ll be right back,” Sarath said courageously. “Good job, it’s okay we have to do something this place doesn’t know what it’s own workers are doing!”

“I don’t want him to get in trouble though.”

“We have to report him, I want to find out why he gave that book to you before the doctor said it’s okay, maybe they want to keep you crazy and keep you here longer, that’s what some hospitals do, we don’t know, we can’t trust anyone right now.”

*          *          *

Nothing came of reporting the issue of the illegal remittance of The Prince. The man Sawan accused denied the allegation and wasn’t fired. Sawan was so puzzled. A ghost may have well handed him the book.

            Sawan was starting feel depressed about his increasingly bloated physique. He was mad too. He went to the nurse’s station and began a tirade. “This place is SICK! It’s DISGUSTING! All you people do is give medication that slows metabolism, and feed us so much food that all of us just gain weight! It’s like you want to MAKE us FAT! It makes us feel depressed too!” Sawan cursed, damning The Underground. He felt he was speaking for all the revolutionaries. All the patients.

            “You feel depressed?”  The nurse listening asked. It was as if that was the only thing that they could remedy, with meds of course. Sawan caught himself. He backtracked.

            “I mean this place makes people feel overweight, you don’t even allow exercise, this is so unhealthy!” he whined.

            “The courtyard is opened now, they’re playing badminton outside, you can go, there also has been a group that goes to the gym in the other wing every other day, it’s on the schedule, didn’t you see?” the nurse asked. Sawan couldn’t believe what he had heard, his mouth hanging open for a moment. The courtyard was never open except for smoke breaks. They were playing badminton? They had a gym group? They never had one this whole time, Sawan had checked. Clearly they had just made it up now because he was protesting about it. He had just made a difference for everyone.

            “No… I didn’t.” He wandered dreamily outside and picked up a racket. He stood there, feeling so surprised at what he had done. Then he looked at the door and saw his mom and dad coming outside. “What is this?” He dully thought. How had they suddenly appeared now of all times?

            “Sawan putha you perform a miracle. See outside open. Now they have gym group! Now we here! We came to congratulate you!” Geethika happily told him telepathically. He walked over to them and greeted them.

*          *          *

            Sawan went to the gym the next day. He was the only who attempted to do anything really strenuous. He was trying to jog. His body was sluggish and his feet hit the ground awkwardly but he jogged for a good while. He didn’t really feel energized or euphoric as he normally did when he ran. Of course this was because of the medication he was given. Most of the people were just lying on the stage at the edge of the gym floor. Some were shooting hoops. They stayed an hour then went back to the rooms.

*          *          *

            “Hey Mr. Sawan, what’s going on. I never actually liked Victoria and I’m never going to at the age of 27. If only you knew what you were going to become. It is quite possible that these are all simply your own crazy thoughts. But exactly like the song says, ‘Don’t stop believing.’ But I am pleased with your immense ability to judge people when you are older. Aight, just wanted to clear things up and make the peace so you can be friends with my thirteen year old self again. Peace out bro. Alsta La Vista Baby. Kavi.”

*          *          *

            “I love you love & I just want you in my mouth. So what’s going on let’s see nuthin to do except to write to ppl in my diary. I have a plan. Look in the mirror and tell yourself what you see, and then tell yourself what you feel, and then remember why you here, and then figure out who is to blame and then decide what it is that you want to do. Go ahead and do it. Play life. No I’m done… ur a loser, like Tharushi says,” Victoria’s words said.

            “Thanks for the advice,” Sawan wrote back.

            “You’re actually a champ. Love, Victoria. B.S. age Sawan. I’m ageless,” Victoria’s last words were.

*          *          *

            One day they had a fire drill. The fire alarms blared as they were all herded into a room. The door to the room was then locked, locking them inside. “This isn’t how you conduct a fire drill you’re supposed to go OUTSIDE!” Sawan thought in disgust and alarm. Were they were that afraid someone would escape? “This is illegal… The people at Carrier Clinic want us to die in this room if there was a real fire!” Sawan determined.

*          *          *

            Sawan stopped writing in his journal. He left it neglected and untouched in a corner on his desk, forgotten for some inexplicable reason. As each day passed Sawan began to care less about going home. It was as if the emotion of happiness no longer existed to him. But he still believed. He still believed his dreams would eventually come to pass. What he did was dig himself into a trench in his mind and built a cozy small fort in the ground there in his head, fortifying himself against the hopelessness all around him and that attacked him. Instead of writing he went to groups. As many as he could. Maybe his effort would eventually wear on the place. He was making some progress. He was now allowed to go on walks with parents around the facility outside. But this taste of freedom only intensified the feeling to be free to go home; it was almost as if he was being taunted.

*          *          *

            “So my grandmother went upstairs and she found me there trying to hang myself. That’s why I got sent here. These are the marks on my neck,” the man in his late twenties said. Sawan looked at the marks from across the dining table. They were red long scars. Sawan found it disturbing. It was even more disturbing to him that he himself was now associated with these people.

            “Savan, why are you here? Did you tell me? I forget,” Aeysha tweeted as she cut a steak on her plate. So it was time. Screw Paul’s advice.

            “I’m a pedophile. I’m in love with a twelve year old,” Sawan said proudly but on the alert for the reaction of others. Aeysha dropped her fork on the plate and raised her hands to cover her mouth, which almost spilled what she was eating because she was laughing. Justin on the other hand scrutinized Sawan as if meeting him for the first time. Aeysha stopped laughing and in seconds she didn’t seemed that fazed.

Justin on the other hand seemed increasingly incredulous as Aeysha asked. “Twelve? Is she nice? I don’t think it’s that strange.”

“Yea,” Sawan said. He noticed Justin’s facial expression which was still staring at him as if he had suddenly morphed into something you found on the bottom of your shoe and Sawan didn’t like it. Surely a young guy like Justin would understand liking someone a little more than a few years younger right?

“Did you… touch her? Did you molest her?” Justin asked slowly in a revolted and disgusted tone.

“NO!” Sawan said in surprise. What did Justin think Sawan was? A child abuser? “Man, I… I really love her! It’s not such a bad thing really is it?” He desperately sought his approval or concession that this was alright. Justin had been such a good friend when Sawan had first got here.

“It’s weird dude,” Justin muttered and looked down at his plate. Nobody said anything. Sawan looked at the suicidal man who had tried to hang himself across the table but this person was eating as if he hadn’t heard anything.

*          *          *

            Sawan trotted unevenly down the long maroon steps with mahogany seats on each side. Passing two women and a child on the way down, he finally stopped and looked around. He glanced at the stage. It was bare save for a few children on it, as the speakers blared, “Test 1 2 3, Test 1 2, Testing…” Girls and boys were dressed in elaborate colorful costumes of white, red, blue, orange, and purple, the girls of varying ages wearing ornate saris that showed their bare midriffs while the boys wore long white sarongs that looked like long skirts with colorful patterns.

Heavy dull white yellow strong lighting lit the front seats and center stage. With one quick heave of his hands he exerted himself onto the shiny polished light brown wooden stage. Microphones draped from the high gray and black ceiling on the stage. Sawan looked at the thick yellow curtains to each side. He walked to the left side of the stage where he found all the DJ equipment that was supposed to run the show. His father was conversing with another Sri Lankan uncle backstage while another Caucasian lady who worked here was questioning another man here about the lighting for the particular performance being practiced right now. After standing beside his dad for a few moments Sawan became bored listening to the fast pace Sinhala in which they were conversing in. Sawan again strode to the center of the stage and boldly looked out.

“Savaaaan!” Geethika yelled. He heard her from the back of the half filled audience room. He scoured the audience. Gallantly jumping off the stage he began hopping up the long steps to his mother. As he moved to pass the two women who were conversing near the middle of the auditorium steps he glanced at the child next to her, a little over half her mother’s short height by her side. Her hair was tied back in a polite bun. She had a slightly high forehead. She wore a purple sari. The moment he had glanced at her the child had looked away from her mother and at the person approaching her. Sawan gazed directly into her eyes and her eyes seemed to penetrate right through the retina of his eyeballs straight into the brain, piercing everything inside along the way. It was as if he had just glanced at the sun. He jumped two steps at a time and swiftly moved past them as if he was going somewhere important, running to his mother. The girl, who had worn a solemn expression, seemed startled.

“Woah! What was that?!” he thought, feeling disconcerted at what he had just seen. She was intriguing, it was as if he had met her before. Her head had been diamond shaped. She reminded him of Udani. This new girl looked small though. “Who was she?”

Later hanging out back stage he saw the same girl. He looked at her. She did look an awful lot like Udani. And yet at the same time they obviously weren’t twins. The girl in front of him had more of a baby face. She looked to and fro, then at her hands, playing with her fingers. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She was by herself, other people standing a few yards away. On a whim he strode up to her. She had noticed him skulking in the corner and now she smiled as he stopped in front of him. She had very big wide eyes as she peered up at him. Sawan peered down at her curiously. He studied her face. Her red painted lips framing small white teeth and black paint tracing the edges of her eyes. It was as if  he was looking at a gigantic Indian porcelain doll.  She wasn’t disturbed in the least that this chubby teenager who now towered over her had walked over. Instead it seemed to Sawan as if she knew he and her had shared a moment before, that she was just as mesmerized too and she had expected him to speak to her. Now she was pleasantly pleased as if he had come over for a cup of tea.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi. What’s your name?” Sawan asked.

“My name is Victoria,” Victoria announced, her humongous bright white eyes with dark brown pupils shining at him. She spoke a little slowly in a voice that enunciated the sound of every word.

“Nice to meet you. My name’s Sawan,” Sawan informed. He didn’t shake her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Victoria mimicked. It was time to get down business. He just had to know.

“How old are you?” Sawan demanded. The question was the purpose of the conversation to him. To her, she had just made a new friend.

“I am eight years old,” she declared. Eight. That was a little too young. Yet she seemed taller than the typical eight year old.

“Eight?” Sawan repeated skeptically. “She couldn’t be eight, even if her face looks so childish, she’s way too polite and mature.”

“Yes,” Victoria confirmed. She was being questioned by an elder. She showed respect and now wore a serious expression. “How old are you?”

“I’m sixteen. I go to high school,” he boasted importantly.

“Do you like it?” she asked him.

“Yea, it’s fun, a lot of work though. Tough stuff… what grade are you in?” Sawan once more interrogated.

“Third grade,” she answered.

“You just finished third grade? That’s nice,” Sawan said, weighing all this in his head. “So you’re performing? Doing a dance?”

“Yes. I have to practice with the others, I think we’re up next,” she informed him. She hadn’t looked down nor turned away; she was completely undistracted by the noise and chatter around them, giving him her full undivided attention. She was direct, the very opposite of shy. She was decidedly unusual.

“Well I’ll let you practice. I’ll talk to you later,” Sawan promised.

“Okay, I’ll see ya,” Victoria happily burbled, beaming at him again.

“Precocious, very precocious,” Sawan mused after they parted. Precocious was a good quality in girls, even if it made them seem a little impertinently brazen and forward. He liked it. But apparently his stomach didn’t. After a few hours while still backstage he vomited in front of the girl named Victoria into a garbage can while she was waiting to perform, spurting forth this thick yellow slimy goo. Sawan looked at the child next to him he had talked to earlier instinctively after he had finished puking, as if to see what she would think, his face tired and coughing phlegm and left over excess.

“Ew,” Victoria muttered, her face scrunching up like a sponge being squeezed. She turned in disgust and walked away.

*          *          *

            Sawan woke to the sensation of something slithering over his body. “I just have to have you I need this,” Victoria faintly muttered, barely audible.

            “Victoria,” Sawan whispered and yawned, remembering what he had dreamed. How had he dreamed it? Was it possible to dream the past like that? Apparently so. It been so detailed, everything exactly occurring the way it had actually happened, more than four years ago. “It’s been awhile. Like a few days, hasn’t it. I can’t hear you that well anymore. I can only hear the people who are in front of me… these meds,” he sighed. He shifted a little, and enjoyed the invisible shape moving over his body. His parents had finally brought him one of his pillows from home and he clung to it.        

*          *          *

            “What are you looking at? Stop staring at me.” Justin muttered. Justin was different now. He spoke quietly. He always wore a staid expression. One night he had been caught smoking a cigarette in his room. Sawan didn’t really understand why he did that. It was cold at night but everyone had jackets. Sawan looked away but then looked back as Justin continued a conversation with Aeysha. Sawan and Aeysha were standing outside in the chilly night air on either side of Justin, who was supporting his weight on one the outdoor tables.

            “Why is he so mad at me?” Sawan wondered. It had been several days since Sawan had admitted to being a pedophile. Justin hadn’t really avoided him.

            “I like you. I’m gay man. I like you but I don’t like liking you and when you stare at me I get nervous. I’m trying to deal with it by being mean to you but don’t worry I’m just playing. I want to kiss you,” Justin mumbled casually to Sawan telepathically.

“Kiss me?” Sawan asked.

“Yea, kiss you,” Justin muttered. Justin had a crush on him. How did this make Sawan feel? Usually Sawan would have been filled with disgust. Or hatred. But right now he stared at his former friend curiously. Justin flicked his cigarette butt in his fingers. Flecks of ash blew away in the breeze. So Justin was gay. Gay was weird to Sawan. But Sawan felt sorry for Justin and felt some warm affection for him instead. It was a miserable position Justin must have been in. Sawan remembered how mean he and Victoria had been to each other even though they didn’t want to be. Sawan continued to look at Justin, who was totally ignoring him now. Justin had a nice elongated unshaved face, with dirty blonde stubble. He looked very striking. Justin wanted to kiss him. Sawan pictured this, feeling very lukewarm about even thinking of it. A kiss from a guy. It seemed so surreal and unreal, such a strange thing to do. Yet a kiss from anyone in this world that was devoid of human contact to Sawan suddenly seemed appealing.

“I almost wouldn’t mind,” Sawan thought to himself.

*          *          *

            “Sawan? Sawan. Wake up. You’re being discharged today,” Dr. Goodnick told him, positively beaming at Sawan for the first time in the more than three weeks Sawan had been here. Sawan stared blearily at the doctor, the dried eye fluids crusted on his eyelids, and dried white saliva on the corners of his parched lips. Sawan didn’t understand fully. He had a clue but of course, surely, that was impossible no one got out of The Underground-

            “Discharged?” Sawan asked.

            “Yes, you’re parents are coming to get you, you’re leaving today. You can say goodbye to everybody and start packing your things. When your parents come we can give them a full supply of the medication for several weeks, but they’ll have to go to a pharmacy to get refills. We can give some prescriptions but you have to make sure to sign up for the outpatient program at Richard Hall. Do you understand?” Dr. Goodnick asked. “Congratulations sir, time to save the world!” Sawan stared at him. Was he still in Dreamscape and asleep? Nonetheless things began to go into motion in his brain in a very long instant of processing information that was only a second long.

            “Yes, I understand, I’ll start packing immediately.”

            “I’m very pleased at your hard work. It’s been nice working with you.”

            “Yea… this is great… what is the DATE?” Sawan asked incredulously.

            “November eleventh.”

            “November eleventh. Thanks.”

            “Yes. So I’ll go prepare everything,” Dr. Goodnick said before he walked out. Sawan just sat there on his bed. Home.

*          *          *

            They descended into the pit of The Underground, finally ready to rescue Sawan. Everything was folded into brown paper bags. Sawan asked them to return The Prince but they told him they would keep it. Well, whatever. Even if he couldn’t get the red copy that had been so powerful back, he had the same text at home in another edition. Sawan waved cheerily at Aeysha who was playing a boardgame with others in the dining hall. He walked out the metal doors. Down the maze of hallways. Out of the glass front doors. Into the Honda into the back seat. He didn’t remember the car ride home. It went by quickly. Then he was at the white front door. Past the living room. Down hallway arriving at the wooden door without a lock on it. He opened it. The autumn sun streamed into the room through the window on his bed just as he had always pictured. His bed tidily made; a stuffed animal and football in the corner. He walked to his bed and collapsed on it blissfully, passing out. He had made it home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

   

 

 

 

  ACT V:

Home

 

 

     

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

  

 

 

            For the next few days Sawan lived in seclusion with family at home. He would wake up late in the morning and read the copy of The Prince he owned. His parents bought a gym membership for him. The place was a five minute walk away. So he tried to go everyday and get back in shape even though this was extremely difficult. He no longer had the physical enthusiasm for strenuous activity. Yet he did it anyways. He would then come back home and continue reading. Then he would eat dinner, have the medication administered to him by his parents and go to bed early, around nine o’clock at night.

            It was one day in late November that Sawan was taken to Metuchen. It was adult Sil, a religious observance day for the parents of the Sri Lankan community who attended the Mahamevnawa Bhavana Monastery of New Jersey. Parents often brought their entire families, even if children didn’t really understand the religious discourses that were lectured in Sinhala. Instead the children played outside in the fall breezy day. Sawan’s family got there and his parents went inside the tiny former school house that the Bhavana Monastery rented at the time for days like this. Sawan was walking aimlessly around outside in the yard, looking at the ground when he looked up. His heart stopped, then began thudding loudly, his body tingling.

            It was Victoria. She was talking to some children. Sawan just stood there, frozen. “Don’t just stand there! Talk to her!” Voices chorused to him alone. Sawan feet began striding forward. He stopped a few yards from her. She looked up.

            “Hey,” Sawan breathlessly said. He remembered the last time he had seen her in August he hadn’t even said goodbye. Would she forgive him? Victoria just stared at him. Sawan studied her face. There was doubt and uncertainty stamped all over it, her black eyebrows slanted downwards in scrutinizing Sawan. She didn’t say anything. It was as if a veil stood between them. It struck him how wary yet curious she looked. “This is awkward,” he thought. “Well, I’ll talk to you later,” he firmly told the now thirteen year old Victoria. He walked away, wondering at her shyness.

            The rest of that afternoon Sawan was distinctly aware of her presence. She brushed passed him a couple times. They made eye contact a couple times when Sawan caught her staring at him. But she didn’t speak. Not even telepathically. This bothered Sawan. He wanted an explanation. So at one point while he was sitting inside in the schoolhouse with his sister Harini, she took his left hand in her right and talked to him. “There are too many people here. That’s why Victoria doesn’t want to talk to you, people will start to gossip,” Harini told her brother inside his head.

*          *          *

            Sawan’s parents had to prepare for his birthday party. They bought food and stored in freezer. They began cleaning the house. Stress levels were high and they no longer mollycoddled Sawan anymore. Instead their frustration began to show. A letter came from Penn State saying they were dropping his financial aid because of his low GPA and medical withdrawal. He could no longer go back as a full time student. Sawan cried. His dreams of success were crumbling. All of his parents’ hopes were dashed.

*          *          *

            Sawan was lying on his father’s bed in Harini’s room. He had just woken up. He cracked his eyes open slightly and peered at his father sitting by himself in the metal computer chair in front of him facing the wooden console. Sawan didn’t say anything. Harini came in. “Harini duwa (daughter), did you finish your homework?” Sarath asked.

            “Yes daddy. What are you doing?” Harini asked in a faint voice. She was this family’s princess.

            “Oh I’m just thinking,” Sarath croaked.” Thinking of all the problems. I don’t know. My whole life I never been in a situation like this. I came to this country and I made your brother and you here because in this country anyone can become successful if they have good education and strong mind. But now my life is like… a hell. We are all six feet under now… Sometimes… I think I should kill myself…” Sarath’s sad words hung in the air. Sawan and Harini both stared in shock at their father. “But then I think of you… and then I think I have to live to help you. You are our only hope now. Your brother… before we put all our dreams on him… our number one… but now I don’t know if he can go back to college. He doesn’t have the same chance like he did before. Everything get screwed up for him. You have to study hard. Go to college, you have to succeed!” Harini was silent.

*          *          *

            Sawan drifted around his house. There were people chatting everywhere. A big turkey lay on the dining table. He was looking for her. Days earlier his father caustically told him that “That guitar man,” would be here. Maybe Uncle Damith would bring his family too. Maybe she would come. Sawan floated from room to room as if in a dream. Sure enough when he went downstairs at one point he saw Uncle Damith playing on the guitar. Uncle Damith smiled and acknowledged him, nodding his head. Sawan nodded his head in recognition too, suddenly feeling warm in the face. If he was here; that meant she had to be here! So he continued searching. People would stop him and talk to him and he tried to talk to them, but he couldn’t hold a conversation. He was busy listening to what they told him in his head. The guests were confused as to why their host seemed so lost in his own house.

            Victoria wasn’t in his bedroom. Not in Harini’s room. Not in the dining room. Not in the living room. Not in the kitchen. Not in the basement. She hadn’t come with her father. Sawan walked desolately into his parents’ bedroom to see teenagers playing poker. He reluctantly settled down and began playing. He took risks and started winning. Suddenly a shadow loomed over him and he looked around. “Happy Birthday,” Tharushi mumbled softly holding a bunch of blood red roses in her hand, bending down and hugging a Sawan stupefied at this treatment. “I love you,” the gold skinned Tharushi whispered silently as they hugged. She gave him the roses and then sat down next to him.

*          *          *

            One day Sawan’s parents told him that Venerable Swaminwahanse was coming to his house to talk to him. Sawan had seen Venerable Swaminwahanse during the Sil day but didn’t have a chance to speak to him since he had been busy giving sermons and chanting. Sawan went to the gym before Swaminwahanse came and the entire time wondered what the Buddhist monk would have to tell him. Sawan knew he would have to tell him everything that happened to him but how would the learned monk several years older than Sawan explain it? How did Buddhism actually view this subject on the world take over. Sawan knew he would accept the explanation, whatever it would be, because he had faith in Buddhism. Yet he sensed that it was possible that everything that had happened to him was wrong, everything that he had believed in, the revolution and telepathy would be seen as impossible and just himself inside his head, respectively.

            He went home and found Swaminwahanse waiting for him, seated on one of the armchairs that had been covered in white cloth out of respect. Sawan bowed to the cheerful young monastic that Swaminwahanse was and then sat on the floor to one side. Sawan began enthusiastically relating to him the story of his life. Since Swaminwahanse was a religious person, it would be okay to talk about these illicit subjects with him. How Victoria began talking to him inside his head for over a month at Penn State. How he had been molested by her one night outside on a green bench. How he had subsequently been raped by the Thought Police at Penn State and then President Obama. How people had shouted in hatred at him that night, hazing him with vulgar language. Then afterwards how he had decided to start a cause named Truth and how he was working to take over the world by the Apocalypse in 2012 to prevent civil war. How Satan, the Government and God advised him to do this. At this point Swaminwahanse calmly interrupted and asked him very jovially: “Sawan. Do you like to be a puppet?”

            “A puppet? No,” Sawan asked, surprised. “Have I been puppet to these other people and beings? Doing what they want? But isn’t this what I also want too?” he thought.

            “No our Sawan doesn’t want to be a puppet. That’s what I thought. Continue with your story, I just wanted to ask you that,” Swaminwahanse said smiling. So Sawan continued. How he had came home from Penn State then been taken to Carrier Clinic. How even though he took meds he still heard voices. His parents weren’t present currently so they didn’t hear this fact; his father was downstairs so that Sawan could have privacy with the monk. “Do you still hear voices?”

            “Yes, I hear them. I heard you when I came in. Don’t tell my dad, okay?” Sawan furtively said.

            “I’m not going to tell your father.”

“But yea I’m fine, I’m used to it now. Wasn’t that you speaking to me?”

            “No Sawan putha that wasn’t me. I have the answer that you wanted to know back in September.” Sawan waited expectantly. “The answer… is impermanence. The nature of all things is impermanent. Isn’t it?” This was a Buddhist concept.

“Yes,” Sawan said, gazing in Swaminwahanse knowing smiling face, trying to understand the connection.

“Tell me. How much marijuana have you smoked this past year?” Swaminwahanse asked. Sawan hesitated.

            “Well like three times a week at most, on and off-” Sawan began.

            “Three times a week, see that’s lots. The reason you hear these voices is because you have a hungry ghost that is bothering you,” Swaminwahanse calmly explained.

            “Hungry ghost?” Sawan asked in surprise. Hungry ghosts were wretched creatures from a lower world in Buddhism.

            “Yes, a hungry ghost,” Swaminwahanse repeated. “Hungry ghosts can mimic the voices of your friends and family, of people around you. You can think you are really talking to those people. But really it is just this one being that pretends to be many at once. Because you smoked too much marijuana this past year, you opened a connection to the hungry ghost world. This hungry ghost tried to make you do many evil things for him. He tried to use you, live his desires through you. This isn’t what you really want, taking over the world.”

            “It isn’t?” Sawan asked in slight protest.

“That is extremely difficult. Only the Universal Monarch can do that without violence. You are an ordinary person, not the Universal Monarch because you don’t have any of the Thirty Two Signs of a Great Man,” Swaminwahanse said, referring to the physical qualities of the Buddha’s body. Sawan looked dejected. “Causing riots to save the world will not lead to peace. It only causes problems. Trying to get married at an early age with this violent method is selfish and greed; it is the plan of that hungry ghost to ruin your life because it also has greed for that girl, Victoria as a child. If you follow that way you will never get married to Victoria in this very life; that much I can say certainly.” Swaminwahanse looked very grave.

            “Never?”

            “Yes never. She is just a little girl, no? I have told you this before! She has no lust for you at this age!” Swaminwahanse gently reminded.

            “But, but I talked to her! She talked to me! She wanted this! We’ve even dreamed of… having sex together. So it wasn’t her the WHOLE TIME? It was a GHOST?” Sawan asked dazedly. “I was molested and raped by a single GHOST? It even made me move my own legs once!”

            “See that is very dangerous. If it can do that to you, then you have to be very careful. Since then has it made you move, or do anything of that kind?” Swaminwahanse asked in alarm.

            “No… just one time… so all of these plans to make the world a better place, to make a Promised Land, it’s impossible? To escape Hell?”

            “Sawan this world will never change. Even when the Universal Monarch comes, long in the future, not in 2012, this world will still have problems, even if it is a much better place. This is not a hell world, there is much more suffering in hell worlds, I know,” Swaminwahanse sagely told him, nodding his head.

            “So… if this isn’t possible… if all my hopes and dreams are unrealistic… and I’ve been crazy the WHOLE TIME… then I don’t know what I even want anymore,” Sawan glumly said.

            “Sawan wants to go back to college soon, as a part time student,” Swaminwahanse gently said. “Sawan wants to help his family. Sawan wants to give offerings to the Sangha and Supreme Buddha. Sawan wants to listen to Dhamma. Sawan wants to study hard and finish college and get a good job. Then maybe… someday… Sawan want to get married to our friend Victoria if she likes him,” Swaminhanse giggled and snickered jestfully. Sawan sighed. The normal life. “But that is far away in the future. After she is eighteen at least. You didn’t follow my advice on this subject Sawan! You are like the woman who cut her own stomach prematurely to see if her baby was a son and died as a result in the tale I told you! You weren’t patient! You didn’t wait!” Sawan looked at the floor sullenly then back at his older friend sheepishly.

“I should have talked to you back in September or October, that would have been so much better than going to a mental hospital. You made me sane again! Not these people! Not these meds! So how do I get rid of the hungry ghost?”

“Practice lots of metta, loving kindness meditation. That will sooth your mind. I can also help. come here,” Swaminwahanse said. Sawan crawled to him and paid homage to him as Swaminwahanse put his hands on Sawan’s head and then chanted something for ten minutes softly, moving his fingers, back and forth, massaging his scalp while Sawan lay kneeling before him, his head on the floor. He finished. “Good. Do you feel better?” Sawan searched his feelings and realized he felt more resolute, peaceful. He couldn’t hear the hungry ghost he called Satan.

“Yes,” Sawan said.

“When I see you, I can do that for you. Stop reading The Prince. It is a bad book. Read the Dhammapada, the stories in that book will show you many good things,” Swaminwahanse advised. “And forget about marrying Victoria at this age. It will never happen. Patience.”

“Okay,” Sawan said meekly.

*          *          *

            Sawan had been on a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster that went up and down, upside down, plunging in freefall and finally tossing him out the other end, that’s what the past three and half months had been like. It had been an extraordinary period in his life. It was now December. Whenever Sawan reminisced about what had happened to him, he would laugh despairingly. He had never talked telepathically to Victoria. Instead Victoria thought Sawan had been frolicking in college as usual. They had never made up. Instead Victoria was still upset with Sawan. Upset that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Upset that he had no patience.

            How did this make Sawan feel? Sawan thought it was really funny, in a very cynical way. After all he hadn’t really been alone. He had been with a hungry ghost. A hungry ghost who called himself Satan. This was the incredible fantastical part, the concept that a spirit had come to him because his mind was weakened with drug use. That this spirit had seduced him one night into believing that it was his true love. That this hungry ghost had become all the friends Sawan didn’t have and consoled him and encouraged him. How this cunning creature had then tried to take over Sawan’s life, changing all of his ambitions into an impossible fantasy.

            One day the incredible nature of his own mind struck him as extremely marketable. He should write a book about what had happened and sell it. Try to make a fortune and if he didn’t at least the few people who did read it, his family and friends would know what it had been like. What had happened. Maybe someday, years into the future, Victoria would hear about the book. Flip through it out of curiosity because someone had told her there was a Sri Lankan American girl named Victoria in it. Maybe she would actually read it. This made Sawan snicker.

It was such a farfetched scheme but the voyage in life was long. Everything required patience. Wasn’t that what writing a novel was all about? Suddenly one night he had to get started he just had to. And he had to know how to do it, how to go about it. His new plan would come to life. It would happen simply because he could do it all by himself. Except he needed some advice, someone who would remember details. Phrases they had spoken. Words they had said.

            He grabbed his journal, which he had forgotten for over a month. He went into his sister’s room. Nervous with anticipation he began writing:

            “So who do you think you are taking such a long break from writing in your beloved journal? This is your beloved sister Harini talking to you,” the words said. Sawan looked up. He heard footsteps in hallway and saw his sister walking away towards their parents’ bedroom. No, this wasn’t his sister. It was someone else, far more sinister.

            Sawan wrote his reply, “Nice try Satan. You are a liar.”

            “I am called that from time to time. I am who I am. No one can change that. What do you want,” Satan stated in Sawan’s handwriting.

            “I’m writing a book. About what you did to me. And… I want your help,” Sawan firmly wrote. “I want to become famous. I think my story is appealing. The story of a young pedophile who went crazy. I want people to know what happened. You could get publicity, that’s what you get out of it.”

            “Well. I don’t know. You seem very puny. Like you don’t deserve this. Like you don’t deserve what you really want. Which is that girl. How do think you are going to accomplish all of this. You will not be able to stand what people will say about what I have to say. You may lose your mind. You may begin to think that what I say is real, and that I am you. You may begin to believe that you are Satan if you write as me long enough. It’s called plagiarism. You take someone’s work and call it your own. Bad things… could happen if you start to believe my work is your work.” Satan wrote.

            “How could I confuse you with me? I know your really nothing more than a hungry ghost that I call Satan. I could call you whatever I want. I could even call you Mr. P for Mr. Pedophile,” Sawan derisively wrote. Sawan was talking to his mortal enemy. The one who had raped him. And he was trying to make him an ally he could control.

            “No call me Luc. Short for Lucifer,” Satan wrote. “I think if you do this, that I may be of service. Because I hurt you so much didn’t I? I feel obligated.” He was going to do it. Satan had signed up. He was going to help. So much was flashing through Sawan’s head about what he had to do, the plot, the characters, the length. It occurred to him. What would he call his book? Abruptly his hand began moving again. “Why don’t you call it… The Good Pedophile?” Sawan stopped. He looked at the suggestion with reluctance. The Good Pedophile. It sounded so, true. It was totally direct, forward and accusatory. It was what the story was all about.

            The next day Sawan didn’t know how to start his book. He stared at the page. Then waited. Then he began moving his hand. Satan wrote, “It began one night after a game of chess…”

*          *          *

In 2010 Sawan was freed from the company of the hungry ghost and lived happily ever after. This work is a memoir of an actual instance where a Buddhist monk counseled a lay follower of the Supreme Buddha, and helped him move towards overcoming a series of difficulties in his life, towards happiness. This memoir contains four fictious elements. These four fictional elements are: The opening and closing sentence is fictional, a nonfictional simile at best of firendly rivalry. The carnations given are called roses, and the elaborate description of the dream beyond standing & smiling on the jungle floor. Finally, The title "The Good Pedophile" came about in that time period, approximately that month, December, while resting at home in bed, not in the setting described in the second to last paragraph when pencil was first put to paper.