Cycle of Cliches
During that walk back home, the hand-written manuscript of my first completed story (going by the length, it would have been a novella), the yearning for The Booker, the aspiration of batting like Sachin, the fantasy of writing a story for my best friend’s film, the vision of the hilltop cottage, bringing Deuta’s murderers to justice – everything that made up my existence – felt like a heavy burden.
I stayed up the night feigning studies and waiting for Nisim to start snoring. Around midnight, when almost everyone was asleep in our building, I quietly sneaked out of the bed, grabbed the manuscript of my novella and my cricket kit, went out in the lawn and set them on fire. The flames rose up