31 May, 2010.
"Steve Wiig!".
"Present, sir".
"Johnathan Ross!".
"Present, sir".
"Andre Augustin!".
No answer.
"Andre Augustin!!".
My high school class teacher was very tall, so much so that he had to quit his job due to back pain from bending down to write on the blackboard. He was a bald man with a heavy beard and wore thin specs. Maybe another reason to quit was, students like me, who fell asleep during the attendance. But I have my reasons.
Excuses*
Back then, my school used to start very early in the morning, I think around 6 am. But what did a student like me do the night before? When I think of it, I get flashes of memories of running through a crowded street and pulling out pranks on absent minded people in the metro with my two best friends.
Assholes*
But if my life was a tunnel, they were the light at the end. If my life was an office, they were the Sundays. If my life was America, they were Obama.
"That's a fact! Mona Lisa has no eyebrows", said Seth. We all hung in the canteen, after school was over.
"Are you sure bro?", asked Tyler in complete bamboozlement.
"You can check it. It's a fact."
Tyler looked it up on the phone but still looked confused.
"I think it has faint eyebrows".
"Just google the fucking fact", Seth said in a fit of friendly anger.
Tyler checked it and nodded his head for the approval of the fact. Seth smiled and looked up. It seemed like he was proud to bless this great piece of information on us.
Seth was the type of guy who has all the information in the world that is of no use in the practical sense. In precise words, his head was full of bullshit. He read various stuff like encyclopedia and could be mostly seen with a general knowledge book or looking up something on Wikipedia. He was obese to the extent that if his chest was the only visible part, you would surely think it's a hot woman. He wore a cap as well coz he had early hair loss and he was deeply insecure about it but he pretended that it wasn't a big deal to him.
"What the fuck, bro. How come Da Vinci forgot the eyebrows? I mean, when I just scribble in our rough copy, even I don't forget the eyebrows", Tyler exclaimed.
"There's a reason behind it, dumbass," Seth said and leaned in," Monalisa doesn't have eyebrows or eyelashes because it was a fashion in the renaissance period of France to shave them off. Women of that era, French women to be precise, shaved off their facial hair including their eyebrows".
"Okay, but what if the eyebrows in the painting got erased over time?", Tyler questioned.
"Could be, you never know the truth, you know."
Tyler nodded and took out his phone to play some game.
Tyler was the kind of guy who was not good in academics but had high sense of logical reasoning and practicality. He was a particularly average guy with very long hair. For some reason, he never used to cut them and could be easily found in some gaming parlor, playing some obscure game.
"Where should we go today?", Seth asked.
We both kept silent.
"Andre?", he asked me, seeing that Tyler was now busy on his phone playing, which meant that he had gone into a temporary hibernation.
"Hmm..", I was going to speak when I got a message from one of my two sisters. I looked it up. It was a message from Lily.
'We are in danger. Save us! Bye, bye."
I became confused for some time and then looked at the date. 30th April. Now it all made sense.
"So we going home?", Seth asked.
"We should hang out by the pond, I guess", I said.
"Good idea. Tyler? Tyler?"
Tyler was in no mood to listen. He swiftly moved his hands on his touch screen android and stressed his forehead into a Wi-Fi signal.
"Fuck you", Seth finally got the words off his chest and we cycled away. After a few minutes, sensing irrational human disconnection, Tyler stood up and cycled fast to catch up with us. The sky was slowly getting dominated by black clouds and the wind had suddenly gone cold. Passing through a densely forested area, we reached the pond as the cranes and the other fish hunting birds roamed around the pond in circles.
"How the hell do you guys reach the class early?", I enquired.
"Isn't your alarm clock good enough?"
"Nope, I guess."
"Hanging out with you guys is pretty tiring anyways. You can ask your parents to help you".
"Umm.. No, I guess".
"Or any one of your sisters".
"I don't think they will be of any use. Their college starts at around noon. So, those girls can wake up whenever they want to".
We talked for a while and Tyler also joined us briefly.
"Maybe I will go home early today", I proclaimed to them.
"Why? Aren't we going to the mall now?"
"I have some work at home. And besides, I have to wake up early as well. Can't have the bald guy scold me again", I said which made them burst into laughter. But it wasn't meant for laughter. You know, there are two types of people with good sense of humour. One are the tragic narrators of simple incidents and the others are the simple narrators of tragic incidents.
And I was the latter one. I still am, by the way. They must have made some other good plans while I cycled fast as it could have rained any time. People usually judge me when I say that don't like rains. I enjoy the rain only when I am not under it. Watching the rain from the window is great anyways.
Mid route to my home, it began raining cats and dogs. I was almost wet when I reached home. Sometimes, people say things like if you run in the rain, then you get wetter than you would if you just walked. I don't think there's any scientific proof of it. Atleast I don't remember Lily and Rose telling me one, since they were pursuing advanced Science.
The lights were off and my mom and dad had gone for a short vacation for their anniversary. I walked through the dark using my accustomed dark peripheral eye and took the stairs to Lily and Rose's room. I searched for the lights and straight up into their desk. The wall to which the desk rested, was vigorously decorated and painted to exhaustion. The table which was mostly clean with books neatly tucked away in the cornor, was now the base to an overflowing pool of blood and a small note floated on the blood.