I suddenly awoke at 4. I sat up on the bed fearfully. My mom might not hear the word that time as she was in deep sleep.
"Oh! It's just a dream," I muttered to myself. "What kind of a nightmare this is!"
I quickly turned the lights on and I examined from ajar door that my mother, father, and sister were fast asleep. Trembling a little, I proceeded to the bathroom first to wash my face. Afterwards, I sneaked into the kitchen conscientiously to drink water so that my foot sound could not distract them from their deep sleep. The steel container had some lukewarm water which was enough to quench my thirst of fear.
Back to my room, I lay on the bed, facing and staring at the ceiling.
My father usually used to wake up early at 4, but that day he was still snoring. I had been restless and could not sleep again and merely thought of what I needed to do then as there was still one and half hours to happen a new morning. I always used to wake up late and sleep till 8 o' clock. I left the lights on, seized an adventure based book from the bookshelf, and started reading, waiting to disappear dark.
After some time, while reading, I again got a shut eye and slept restfully for about an hour.
My slumber again broke at 7 upon the yelling sound of the alarm. But I was just lying on the bed, being too idle.
Later, I got out of the bed, rubbing my eyes that had turned a little red due to intermediate sleep.
I scuttled to the bathroom for shower, meanwhile, my mom had kept ready breakfast.
At half past nine, I had to reach my art gallery shop where I would have a deal with some regular customers.
My mother placed a cup of tea and a plate that contained three chapatis, some fried aloo, and boiled eggs. I chewed quickly as I always hurried to finish food.
While I was eating breakfast, my mom looked at me and asked, "What happened to you? You've woken up early morning today lest you'd had any scary dream,"
She might have heard when I screeched 'mamma' or maybe some noises that I had made a walk to the kitchen in the early dark morning.
"Umm! Yea!" I said hesitantly.
"Don't worry! But you must not share with anyone what you saw, and take it easy,"
As soon as I finished breakfast, I left home for my work to the gallery shop which had already been opened by my assistant, Anita, a married girl of about 26 who had been working with me for the past three years. She also had keen interest in arts and paintings and wanted to learn how to use a paint brush with different colours and carve beautiful pictures on the canvas sheets.
The customers had not come yet or they might have been delayed to come, so I just sat on the chair, thinking about last night's nightmare which was really scary and horrible for me.
"What happened, sir? Is everything all right?" My assistant asked, coming near me with two cups of tea and passed one to me.
"Yea! Nothing! Everything is fine," I replied
"Thanks!'
"You're welcome sir," she replied.
Having tea, I kept on thinking the same thing until some of the customers had entered the shop and had talked to them.
When I happened to be busy with my daily work and with customers, it had become normal as usual.
We had a good deal with the customers and some of my recent new paintings had been sold as the customers found them very elegant to display them on the walls of their homes.
After staying some more hours, I moved to the institution to give arts and painting lessons to the learners, including some more new and novice learners while the gallery shop was dealt with by my assistant.
"Anita, take care of the shop. I'll leave now,"
"All right sir! Don't worry!"
"Ok!Thanks!" I said.
I reached the institution and sat on my chair leisurely until the learners arrived.
"Sir, would you like to take lunch now," Dhiren sir, the owner of the institution asked.
"I think students may come any time. I'll take it after the class. Thank you sir," I said.
"Ok! Then we'll have lunch together," he added.
I usually used to take lunch with Dhiren sir at the office at about 1.
I had a two hour class, and after that I had lunch at the office.
I again went back to the gallery shop to close or calculate the whole day's income.
My assistant had sold a couple more paintings that day and accumulated a good amount of money which obviously made my face cheerful.
At six in the evening, I went back home. After being refreshed and changing dress, I sat on the chair, holding one book with coffee, and I started reading a bunch of interesting words while sipping coffee.
I had dinner with other members, sitting together in the dining hall and quickly moved to my bed.
I tried to carve a few words on the paper as I wanted to pen down a book, at the same time, I was again engrossed by the horrible nightmare that was still revolving around my mind, but I just kept on trying to write more and more that I needed to finish soon. At the same time, somewhere in my mind, I was getting a completely dim picture of the girl whom I had seen in a dream and now her face had completely disappeared from the mind, but I was thinking of the girl whom if I would meet in reality, I would definitely beg to marry me.
However, I spent around two hours writing some pages and moved to the bed to get proper sleep that night.
This time before going to bed, I put a container of hot water on the table near my bed in case of thirst at night, and I slid a lighter under my pillow as according to our forefathers, we don't get caught by any bad dream and evil if we do this. This is a little superstitious belief by Hindus, but I came to know that it usually works, so I switched off the lights and went to the bed. I covered myself from top to the bottom with a thin blanket and tried to sleep, hoping this time a sweet dream not a bad dream.