Shamrock

Why does he sit alone in the park?

He sits on the bench, head bent low till his nose touches his dingy, little black notebook as he seems to be reading something.

What a strange, strange boy. Only in brief moments in time have I really had the chance to see his face.

A fleeting glimpse. Next to impossible to make out anything distinctive about him.

And yet, he seems so perfect.

He loathes company, they say, of the ordinary. Ordinary? Like me… and my imaginary friend…and my other imaginary friends…and their imaginary friends…all of my delusions.

What kind of extraordinary does he seek?

I wonder…

The leaves whistle. The winds are howling and raging. A strange day in mid-summer. The park is empty, apart from the two of us. A girl born ready to spill zillions of words out of her mouth each day but is forced to bottle them up and a boy with words shrouded by will, too defiant to confide in someone else. Two enigmatic souls tethered by a thin, invisible thread of silence.

Should I talk to him?

A polite remark, idle conversation.

Something about the weather, perhaps?

Perfect reason why I fumble over words while speaking. A boring, uninteresting, monotonous, bland girl. Dry as dust. He obviously won’t budge even in the tiniest bit.

And then being the castle in the air, delusional girl that I am

I, mustering up my courage, take slow, steady steps towards him.

He’s a statue. Stoic. A canvas painted with flawless, pristine features.

Every inch of him, perfect. He is beautiful. The most beautiful boy ever.

Yet, I yearn for his voice to be in my earshot. Clear.

It could be husky, deep, raspy, scary

Or what if it’s sweet, gentle, comforting and loving?

I stop on my tracks. Horrified. My heart racing marathons that never seem to end on a finish line.

He looks up.

His eyes. Oh, his eyes. Hot, scorching, blazing flames of crimson in the corners and an odd shade of green.

The kind of green that sweeps you from your feet and submerges you in thick, frothy poison.

The kind of green that would beguile you and drizzle excruciating scraps of lovely pain in your gullible eyes.

I think I will die.

I am floating in clouds and plummeting to the ground all at once.

It’s not a death glare. And yet, it is.

The hypnotic glare of a silent, beautiful boy.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, and centuries pass by, and the world stays as still as the rivers in ice, cold winter.

He stands up. I step back. He steps forward.

“Follow me,” is all he says as he shifts his eyes towards the exit of the park.

His voice is everything that I imagined. Deep, raspy, mysterious, and yet so beautifully consuming.

His glare latched his orders onto me. I am tethered to him, and I follow him, unblinking, jaw on the floor.

I must look ludicrous, but I could care about that as much as a starving, stray dog could about the germs on a heap of wasted food in a trash can.

I amble deliriously behind him. Following his trails. Eyes affixed to his back.

His hair is ebony black. A typical hairstyle for a boy.

“What’s your name?” I ask

My voice comes out quivery and I am almost embarrassed, knowing he won’t really be bothered to answer until he responds,

“Shamrock.”

Odd. So very, very odd.

He was named after the colour of his eyes. Yes!

Shamrock, an odd leaf too.

A metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity.

Young clover.

Perhaps, his family is religious.

I hope he’s not staunch.

Silence devoured us whole for the next few minutes until we finally reached a spot.

Secluded, surreptitious and a colossal parking lot. No cars, bikes, scooters, or any form of vehicle. It’s eerily empty.

I am shivering. Where has he brought me?

He stands ahead of me. Stock-still. Doesn’t twitch even slightly.

My spine has run cold. It’s ice. My hands are trembling. My legs are soggy noodles threatening to buckle.

The boy stands as is. His back facing me. Calm, silent as though he’s asleep.

Then he breathes. Hard. Long. Inhales…. Exhales.

I blink.

He’s gone. Out of sight. My lips are quivering. My eyes are threatening to fall from their sockets. I am hyperventilating. My forehead is forming beads of sweat. “He was a hallucination. Like always, I was delusional,” I convince myself.

And then, just as I was about to turn around, I heard soft breathing near my right ear from my back.

So soft and intoxicating, it’s almost palpable.

He is leaning towards my neck, so steadily, so leisurely. I am sedated. So perfectly stock-still and bewitched, the cold hangs its head in indignation for not having been able to transfer its shivers to me.

And then, in the spur of the moment, at supersonic speed, in a rapid flash, I am being poisoned.

He is biting my skin. Burying his sharp canines into my skin. I don’t scream. I close my eyes as the green of his eyes exudes out of my skin.

His shamrock eyes and my shamrock blood.

I am in a delirium hoping from every depth in my heart to freeze this moment so I could revisit it forever.

I fall to the ground; his teeth are no longer burrowed in my neck.

He is no longer in sight.

He is gone.

Forever.

The green of my blood is no longer seeping out of my skin.

I am healed. (Was I ever hurt?)

But my eyes droop.

My eyelids have almost shut until I feel a soft breeze on my face.

A breeze that brings along with it a leaf. A leaf that falls face-first on my face.

I clasp it in my hand.

It’s a young clover. Shamrock.

And I fall asleep.

Forever.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: There will be a sequel to this from the opposite perspective.