In hindsight, all it had taken was one blurry, spur-of-the-moment, one dimensional photograph. Though that one glance taking in the obvious could barely ring warning bells in your mind about the looming crevice in the not-so-distant future, simply put, it made an impression. Not forgotten in its entirety, but tucked away in the subconscious which remembered it in its most impactful glory. A truth underlined by the fact that I remembered him in that weird smile long, long after. And those lit-up eyes, smiling with an endearing arrogance that was more adorable than I had thought arrogance ever could be. Did I know his heart then? More than I do now? Did I know mine? I thought I did but now, I’ll never know. All I knew at that time, for whatever reasons I’d given myself I don’t remember, all I knew- it was going to be an adventure.

The picture had had unleashed emotions that I didn’t explore or even acknowledge because that was the right thing to do. But they were there, bubbling right under the surface. I never paused to think of the consequences, for I scoffed, what consequences?! There was no situation to be any consequences. And then these were from my brilliant imagination running awry again- I was used to that. The same experiences that had taught me that, reality is the farthest thing from what my crazy brain conjures up.

But what I didn’t know, that there was another photograph too. What I didn’t factor into my well-established equation that there was a mind, similar in essence, that held that picture in front of wondering eyes, and thought, and imagined.

I wasn’t proven wrong in my theory of reality and my imagination, that one being a mere fraction of the other. It was just that I had gotten the factors upside down. That was my first mistake.

Note: This is a part of a series that I call “Chapters” because even if I cannot write a novel, I sure can tell a story in parts. While the story, the setting and the characters are entirely fiction, the emotions are always true as are the inspirations (aside from the need to tell a story and I am a master at concocting emotional and tragic pieces of ‘art’, as widely known already!). And writing, as always, is therapy, and there is no better way to channel the darkness innate in all of us than to create from it.