Inside the city of Kathmandu, Arun laid on his bed, thinking about his life.

Arun didn’t particularly like school, in fact, he hated it. He had already skipped school for the last 2 weeks and the school had called him more times than he could remember. He would have been expelled by now if he didn’t come up with an excuse of being bitten by a dog on his way home.

Even though most of his family members didn’t say anything, he could see it in their eyes, they thought he was useless. Coming from a family of well-educated individuals, he had been expected to outperform everyone in his class, since his parents did the same.

Alas, such things didn’t’ happen. After the 5th grade, his grades started falling. After the 7th grade, he started failing in subjects. In the 8th grade, he bought a 4 in maths out of a 100. In the 9th grade, he stopped showing up to school regularly. And, in the 10th grade, he didn’t show up to school for 4 months.

He would have been expelled from the school if his father weren’t a respected teacher. While others felt respect for his father, he didn’t. His father had gambled away their money when he was a kid. He had taken astronomical losses and till this day, there would be people showing up to his house in search for his father.

Anyone sensible man would know, this was putting an enormous amount of pressure on Arun. But, unfortunately, his father wasn’t a sensible man. After losing his money, his brothers started condemning him. One would expect his mother would stand by his side, but no, his mother started taking out all of her anger on her grandson, Arun.

After witnessing these events, his mother had gone to Israel, to make money for their family. She had left him when he was just 2. Growing up with his father and grandmother was hell on earth for him.

His grandmother, after seeing her son lose all her money, took all her anger out on Arun. She would say things no family should ever say to each other. She would not go a single day without yelling at him, condemning his father and mother in front of him.

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This all got worse in the 8th grade when Arun threw a flip-flop at his grandmother after being severely berated and beaten. His grandmother had left in the middle of the night, making everyone his father and his relatives panic.

They all gathered that night in his room and berated him and his father even more. Never seeing the fault of their oh so great-grandma. That day, Arun found out, his father was a coward. Unlike his two brothers, he couldn’t say retort the harsh comments thrown at him and his son. He couldn’t make things right, so he endured the insults while never thinking about the things his son had to go through being beside him most of the times.

At 9th grade, after his grandmother and father continually emotionally blackmailing him, he had enough. He started talking back to anyone who tried to berate him in any way. The stress and bullying from his school gave him depression. The humiliation of constantly being punished in school and being made fun of only served to push him deeper into the spiral of depression.

Now, he was in high school. He expected it to be different from school, he expected it to be fun. But Alas, this was nothing but his wishful thinking.

On the first day of his school, the principal had told them clearly, the only purpose of them being there was not to study but to increase the number of people who brought A+ in the finals. The other took it as a joke, ignored it, but, Arun couldn’t. He couldn’t accept it. He never understood anything in his classes because he couldn’t concentrate in class. The only way for him to ever pass his classes was memorizing when he got home.

And this still confused him. Every day, the teacher would read the book aloud, claiming that they were teaching. He didn’t get it. If they were going to only learn from the book, what was the purpose of coming to classes? Wasn’t it ultimately pointless? He could stay in his home and read the books by himself.

When he talked to people about his problems, they would always say, “Millions of people around the globe do the same thing. So, why can’t you?” After someone mentioned this to him, he would never talk to them again.

Just because others could do it didn’t mean he could do it too. He had no interest in studying, he wanted to be home and write novels. He wanted to capture his imagination in his words, bring the characters he imagined to life, in his novels. He wanted to earn by writing, to prove to himself, he was worth something.

When he read about the heroes in stories, they always repulsed him. Their hypocrisy irked him to no ends. He would search for his novels about evil protagonists every day, hoping he would find something worth reading, only to end up getting more irritated when something he didn’t like happened.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him, he didn’t want to live for more than 20. He didn’t see any meaning in it, he would die no matter what. It wouldn’t hurt ending it early. After accepting the fact that he would die, he no longer felt the pressure of his family affecting him. For the first time, he felt free. There was no telling what he would do from now on, but he hoped, he would be something great.