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I do not understand this place and this feeling constantly forces me to crawl down rabbit holes. These rabbit holes lack music of any form, they are cramped, suffocating, and there is no track of time.

Although, it was a week since I had shifted here, I had not unpacked anything. This continued till the day my mother came here and in turn helped me in unpacking. The whole day we were busy shifting, adjusting, cleaning and what not. Soon it was night. And in no time I was again there, in my dreams.

I distinctly remember being in front of a dimly lit shop at the end of a cramped, dark street. The shop felt old and dirty in every sense: smell, sight and touch. It sold electrical parts that were probably not in use since a long time. It was owned by an old man. He would sit facing one of the sidewalls, reading what seemed like a handwritten notebook. He would keep doing that except time when attending rare visitors. This time I gathered courage, I went close and talked to him, "Hey, I moved here some time before." He looked at me and did not say anything. I continued, "You seem to be living here for a long time."

He started looking through old cardboard boxes for something. I asked him, "So, is it a good place to live?" He ignored me and after a long silence, he stood up and went inside through a small door. I stood there for a while and hesitantly started turning away. But then something happened. The dim yellow light in the shop suddenly turned blue. I was in surprise. And then the door started opening. I did not wait for it. I stepped back and started running away.

The street was all empty and dark. My heart was beating loudly. I saw my mother had come outside, she seemed to be looking for me. And then she noticed me running towards her. "Where were you?", she shouted. "We have to leave this place right now", I said in rush.

I know my mother: I know what she says, what she does. I knew she would not understand what I was feeling at that time, or she would understand but ignore it. She cares for me. She would only hear me, console me, assure me. Assure me and ask me to come back home and sleep. The sleep where I am not in pain but I am besides a blue rose. This blue is different. I did not want that, I wanted to leave that place that moment. But this time she looked at me and nodded with a smile in agreement and we started running away.

We were running and running. A long silence grew between me and my mother. I looked back: all darkness. I started thinking about why she agreed. This thought came with a strange feeling of fear. I slowly turned my head and looked at her. She looked back. I knew she would. The same moment everything turned black, there was this physical feeling of settling: like sand in cold water, like I will never wake up again, to experience any color, anything. But finally I did wake up. I was scarred with the feeling of doubt as if I had carried it along. I could not tell if this was the same darkness or a different one.



-- Nimitt