Fireworks were displaying their majestic beauty up in the sky. It was Christmas Eve. Joyal and Maria were sitting in their college garden. Christmas songs, laughter and whatever was usually heard in any celebration were in the air of the eve. Maria's eyes were wide open and glued to the colours breaking and widening at the sky. But for Joyal, they were just decorations, for the sky. The night stars gave him a much better show. The fireworks went on for half an hour past midnight. 'beautiful wasn't it?' asked Maria. 'Yeah...' he replied. With a touch of disinterest. The next day was off. So, Maria thought she could spend the whole night with him. Roaming around in the town, walking on the beach through the crushing waves, taking a room and having fun all night into the dawn, and going back home slowly, drowsing the whole night's fatigue. And then enter into a ten-hour spree of just plain dark and dreamy sleep. 'I am going home.' Joyal said. 'What?' she asked, surprised. 'I wanna sleep. It's already too late. I'm going home...' 'Didn't I tell you what were my plans? Why are you doing this?' she asked. He stood up and started walking away. 'Will you give me at least a hug?' hearing this, he stopped walking. He felt it. Her sorrow. Her longing. He looked back and saw tears filling her eyes. But none of these are what made him stop walking. It was something else. "Will you give me at least a hug?". 'A hug?' he uttered, as if those words came out devoid of his permission. And his face emitted some confusion, an unclear emotion, tied along with surprise. She nodded, with tears flowing down her eyes. He walked back to her quickly. Slid his arms through her waist and grabbed her in them. He felt her soft and comfy. She rubbed smoothly on his hair. 'Why are you ignoring me?' she asked, her tears made her voice hard, stuck with pain. He didn't hear her. Her soft body brought him long-lost happiness. He wanted to extend these intimate moments a lot more, to absorb her into himself. Feel her tummy, breasts, neck, shoulders, waist and the magical soothing power of all of that. She was a bit happy now. A while later, she realised it was time for them to end the hugging session. Everything has a time limit. When she attempted gently to bring it to an end, something surprised her. Not simply surprise, but shocked her. She couldn't move. Their skin was glued and pasted on each other. 'Joyal... What's happening?' she was frightened. The glue was growing stronger and thicker. And soon it started to grow into skin. She started screaming but no one heard. Everyone was gone. The noise, laughter, Christmas songs, celebrations, everything had vanished. The garden, college, trees, flowers, stars and moon, only these remained. She felt the prolonging of this condition, and she was crying her eyes out. By now their bodies had merged into each other, like Siamese twins. Joyal was unaware of all that was happening. He was in a strong state of ecstasy. Her softness was so soothing that it was prompting his body to dissolve into hers. Happiness, in its most powerful form, had taken hold of his mind. Her cries became too noisy, and having her exploding vocal cord right next to his ear made him slowly open his eyes. 'Why are you crying?' he asked. She stopped crying, seeing that everything was now back to normal. Joyal was feeling nothing unusual, and he had no knowledge of anything that happened just now. All he saw was Maria standing dumbfounded with a scared face. She was amazed at the strange new normality. She couldn't speak anything. And Joyal finding this too awkward and irritating, left for his hostel room without saying anything. Once he was settled on his bed, he put the blanket on top of his face. Within a few minutes, he was snoring. Years and years ago... Precisely twenty years ago. On a moonlit night, Joyal's mother, Lincy, had him in her arms. He had a nipple of hers in his mouth. And his eyes locked on her face. Lincy saw her son's wide-open little eyes sparkling in the moonlight, with his gaze piercing into her eyes. Days and months passed, and Joyal grew in size and age. His childhood went like a soothing breeze, often accompanied by little pains that made his eyes wet. But in seconds, the same eyes would come to find joy and excitement. A blissful life. The most cherished moments he found were in his mother's hugs. After graduating from college, with a degree in psychology, he went looking for jobs. Just like everyone else. But he couldn't find any. Jobless and living on his family's income, he found sorrow devouring him. One day at noon, when the sun was burning too hot, Joyal was running on top of a bridge. Scared and tired, he ran endlessly. Why was he running? Was he being chased? By whom? A creature that resembled a demon. Giant bloody head, skinny steel hands and thick dark legs. His tummy was cut open, and his intestines drooped out. The bridge had no end. It seemed stretching too far, into an eternal endlessness. Below the bridge, he saw a huge sea, spread to all sides. He kept running and running. Suddenly, stopping him, the bridge tore apart and fell into the sea. The demon looked at him, from what was now a cliff. Joyal struggled for breath, desperately. He somehow managed to stay on top of the water. But the sea was deep, deeper than what he could feel. And what all lurked in its depths, only God knew. A few seconds later, he was gulped by a sea monster. Panting and shaking, Joyal woke up from bed. Within a few seconds, he came to know what happened. It was dark. Could only hear the clock's ticking. He got out of the bed and tried to turn on the light. But he couldn't, as there was no electricity. It was too dark he couldn't see anything. His way to the switchboard was a horrible one, smashing and hitting on many objects. His way back to bed was also the same. Tick-tick-tick. It was the clock. Ticking. Just like any clock. He got out of bed once again and walked another painful way till he found the clock and took it in his hands. But he couldn't make use of it. How could he? It was dark. Totally dark. That's when he noticed a crack in the window. Through that crack came a few rays of moonlight. He opened the door and let the moonlight come barging in. He then gazed at the ticking clock. It was ticking. Tick-tick-tick. But there were no arrows. No arrows to tick, but the clock still ticked. His hands trembled, and the clock slipped and fell. Along with it, he too. Rahul splashed a mug on Joyal's face. He jumped out of the bed, scared and frustrated. 'Just a mug of water, bro.' Rahul said. 'How long will you sleep? You're already late. The canteen will close in a few minutes. Come fast.' And he left. Even he got scared seeing Joyal's scary jumping-out-of-bed. That night he sat down to write. His novel. 150 pages completed. But the story has a lot more to go. Writer's block. Misplaced priorities. Lack of effective time management. Tearing up pages mercilessly after writing. All these complicated ways of doing things, created by uncontrollable psychological processes, are dragging the completion of his novel to eternity. He wrote a few lines. Struck every single word. Wrote another couple of lines. Struck again. Ten years passed. He was still writing and striking. But things got changed. He now lived in a squalid room. No good floor, no good walls, no good fan. He ate less and slept less. He was doing a sweeper's job. At a not-so-good restaurant. In an overpopulated city. He published his old novel. But no one read. For that piece of trash, that was obviously the natural outcome. He knew it, but couldn't give up on his work of art. "Trash hits are everywhere. Why can't my trash be one of them?" This was a question that he used to ask himself a lot. And occasionally sing too. Why did he do that? Mm... Mainly for consolation. Consolation? Yes. How? Well, the sorrow arising from the fact that his book is trash can be overcome by telling himself that many bestsellers are also equally trash. Now he is working on another book. It's been three years since he started writing and striking. And have reached the 300th page. According to the cruel mind of the one writing this story, this new work is also a trash piece. He didn't learn anything from all these years of writing and striking? You may ask. Well, my answer is: not really, maybe some slight unnoticeable improvements here and there. However, nothing to brag about. It's been a couple of years since he went home. 'Well done, you've proved to be an absolute loser. Why do you even exist? I wonder why God gifted me with a piece of shit like you.' His father had asked. 'Ain't I your seed? Aren't you the one who brought to this hell of a life?' 'How dare you dog, to speak like that to your father?' His father roared. 'Well, since I stepped into this house day before yesterday, you are treating me worse than shit!' 'Because that's what you deserve!' 'Why!!!??? Why do I deserve that? Because I didn't get a job?' 'Yes...! You are always proving your worthlessness. Even the dumbfucks in our neighbour have a job that's somewhat decent! Then why can't you?' 'I have always tried and I'm still trying...' 'But no one wants to hire you! Because you have nothing but a monstrous pool of mud and shit in your head.' 'Son, for how long do you intend to live on our money. Dad needs his pension money for himself. You know what all expenses he has. Medicines, treatment, mortgage. You know we are not rich to live off of our money.' His mother intervened. 'You think I'm being a drain on what you earn? Lavishing off of it? A prodigal son? I'm the most desperate, miserable piece of living flesh who wants but can't get a job to firm his legs. How can you tell something so wretched? Am I not your son?' His voice was getting weary, and his eyes were turning red for drops to arrive. 'We don't want you to be our son if you think of going on like this forever!' He was dumbstruck. Boiling tears had begun to drip down. 'You have any idea what all you've made us endure. The whole neighbourhood is laughing at us. You are a jobless wretch. Go beg or just die.' He walks out of the house. Bad old memories have a hobby of flashing once in a while in his mind. A few hours later, he was at his workplace. Sweeping the floor, cleaning the tables and washing dishes. Late at night, around midnight, he took the bus, back to his squalid lodge. A few hours of writing and striking. Then a few hours of sleep. A new morning came. Just like any morning. Usual. Boring. Gloomy. Like someone pulling his heart back, tying him to the bed. Not letting him get out of it. Stuck. Shedding the wrenching feeling away, he pulls him up, getting his feet firm. Then proceeded to the usual routine. On the way to the workplace, he got a mystical spark from that old hug. Which glued him on his girlfriend's body. He was on the bus. Standing, as all the seats were taken. That old spark. It still sparked. A thick and curvy lady was standing in front of him, with both of her arms on a bar. He slid his arms to her waist and tummy, holding her in them. Then slowly closed his eyes. Magical. Truly magical. The same old magic of the hug. He felt a tight and heavy touch on his face. It broke the tranquillity of his closed eyes and forced them into opening. In the span of a few seconds, he came to realise that the whole bus was thrashing him. The pain started kicking only a few more minutes later as he was still enchanted. Somehow, he got out of it. Pushing and beating back. He ran away, with no destination in mind and body full of aches and pains. He didn't stop, he ran and ran and ran, and when he felt tired, he slowed down and made the run a walk. He then walked and walked and walked, his walk slowly became wandering. He wandered like a wanderer. All around, the corners, the narrow lanes, the gutter and the skyscrapers of the city. He was lost. Lost in the roads, in the gutter, in the highways and skyscrapers. The city was the epitome of luxury and the long shore of poverty. Just like him, a mind with great imaginative power, but the words that came down dirtier than slums. An intelligent brain and a body poorer and more wounded than any slum. The years of angst and life in squalor had crumpled him. The city when contrasted with his creative works, had a bizarre similarity. The city had parallels standing against each other, as towering flats, shiny malls, colourful pubs and restaurants standing against slums, gutter, mud, dirt, unclean streets, papers and clothes lying littered around and flying at times, shooting up into the air. His works came down from the pinnacle of great imagination, but when they reached the paper, they looked cluttered, disconnected, scattered in conveyance, lacking refinement and elegance, dirty and ugly. He reached his residence a few minutes after dusk. His wandering was long and stopped only by that time. After showering and wearing a set of clean clothes, he threw himself to the bed. The white ceiling above had pieces of paint broken off and falling down, and it now looked like the world map of some other planet. And it was made to look lively by the moisture stuck there since past eternities. He kept his eyes on it for a while. Then for another while. Then again for another while. Seconds, minutes and two hours passed. He moved his body and got it seated on the chair accompanying the desk. He tried to write and strike but failed. His brain refused his commands to evoke creativity. He went back to bed. A few days later he visited a brothel. A woman of big sizes, aged more than himself, took him to her room. Nearly half of his savings vanished. She was a fine one in his eyes. Thick and curvy body, bulging buttocks and juicy breasts. He came here just in search of a hug but was urged from within to go for more than a hug. Roughly an hour later she was exhausted so horribly that she couldn't take another customer. But he came to realise that what he came for, was yet not fulfilled. Disappointed, he went back. His days became slow. His sweeping, instead of cleansing, made the floors even more dirtier. He couldn't hold the mop steadily. Lost in thoughts, lost in daydreams, lost in many fantasies. Eventually, he was fired. His wallet became empty in less than a month. Without even a single penny left. With a starving stomach, he aimlessly wandered around the big and wide city that stretched it out in crazy patterns, sometimes like a jigsaw puzzle, other times like a zigzag or a doodle filled with air. His wandering came to a stop in just a few days. As his hunger proved to be very effective. It paralyzed his limbs. And made his body find a place to lie on a footpath. One day morning, the sun rose as usual. But not him. His hunger closed his eyes. For all eternity.