Pranshul's father looked over the railing in the morning and saw in a pool of blood, Pranshul's body lying on the ground. He knew he was dead. He walked down Three flights of stairs slowly. He thought of all the proceedings that would follow. He had other plans for the day. There was a case for which he had to appear in court that day. He wished this hadn't happened. Not because of the trouble he'd have to go through that day but because he really loved his son. His thought suddenly shifted to Pranshul's childhood memories that he possessed. The day Pranshul was born came to his mind first. By the time he reached the ground floor, Pranshul's body was gone. He thought he was probably in the middle of a Dream and climbed Two flights of stairs back up to his flat.
He looked around the house but Pranshul was nowhere to be found. He went back up to the terrace and looked over the railing again. The ground below was spotless. He realised he would find the truth in sometime. But he had a few possibilities in mind. One: this was a Dream. Two: he was a part of the novel Being written by Pranshul. Three; Pranshul was actually dead but somebody had hidden his body and cleaned up by the time he reached the ground floor. In the first Two possibilities, he had no control over the situation, so he chose to believe the third One. As he put the pan filled with water on the induction plate, he thought what should be his next steps. It was almost Eight and he was supposed to reach the court by Ten. It would have taken him Fifteen minutes to make, pour and drink the tea. Then Half an hour to clean the dishes, mop the floor and wash the clothes. And an hour to take bath, change into fresh clothes and perform his religious rituals for the day. He realized in a moment of epiphany that only Twenty minutes would be left for him to prepare breakfast, eat it and ride Six kilometres to reach the court. He pressed the temperature setting button with an upward arrow on the induction plate, twice.
He reached the court Three minutes early and was seated on the last bench before the judge entered the room. On his way, he had greeted with a smile the Public Prosecutor, a woman of Thirty. She was appearing on behalf of the Builder against whom the plaint was filed by Pranshul's father accusing him of forgery, robbery and what-not-ery. After waiting for an hour, his turn came. He presented the arguments for the case in the next Twenty-Five minutes. The judge gave him a date in the next week to resume and finish the remaining arguments.
After neatly packing all his documents, Pranshul's father went out of the courtroom. As he started climbing down the stairs, the thought of Pranshul's death again crossed his mind. The chances of it turning out to be a Dream were negligible now and after the past couple of hours of a realistic setting, he had started to believe that Pranshul had probably just gone out somewhere and whatever he saw in the morning was perhaps a side effect of old age.
He inserted the key in the key-slot below the handle, turned it counter-clockwise till he heard the pop sound and then lifted the seat of his scooter. As soon as he took out the helmet and was about to put the documents inside, he heard the Public Prosecutor behind him.
"I know how Pranshul died. He killed himself. Jumped off the terrace. He was possessed by One of his characters. For a Story he was writing. He was trying to explain what was it like experiencing the girl he loved. He had been living in her memories for past Two years now which was the main reason he started writing the novel. He thought he would get over her if he'd write about her. But trying to put all the emotions he felt in words, it drove him mad." she said.
"What are you talking about? You don't know anything about my son." he replied normally, hiding his astonishment.
"Actually, I do. I met him once. He came here to take a copy of the reply I filed for your case during the initial dates. I asked him to withdraw the case and he told me all about himself. We sat in that restaurant for Four hours." she said pointing towards the ground floor of a nearby building but Pranshul's father couldn't see any restaurant in the brief glance that he took in that direction before returning his blurred vision back to the woman standing in front of him in a black robe.
"I remember that reply you filed. It was amateur at best. I have practised all my life in the Supreme Court. These district courts are nothing in comparison to what I have experienced. And how dare you ask my son to withdraw the case. Do you have any idea what I have been going through for the past Fourteen years? Do you know that my entire life savings are at stake here? Do you know that the person you are defending is a criminal? Do you have no morals? No Character? No soul? Have you all been bought by that criminal Builder? You will all suffer. I promise you!" Pranshul's father concluded and then shoved the document in the hollow Space below the seat, put the seat down and rotated the key clockwise. As he sat on the scooter, put it in ignition and revved the accelerator, she almost ran behind him.
"I am the Public Prosecutor. I know Pranshul because the name of his Character starts with the letter 'P'. I was sent to tell you there is not just One of him." she shouted but her voice didn't reach the ears of Pranshul's father. As he took the first turn out of the court compound, he looked again where the Public Prosecutor had pointed earlier. He found a restaurant.
"This place looks disgusting. There must be flies hovering over food in the kitchen. When I'll meet Pranshul, I will make him understand that eating at such places is not good for health. It's better to make something on your own at home. I hope he is back by now. Otherwise I'll have to start calling his friends. It is already half past Eleven. If he's there, I can make time for a quick nap before making lunch." he thought to himself.
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The rest of the way he focussed all his attention on the road ahead and the vehicles around. He reached his building in the next Twelve minutes. He unlocked the main gate and locked it again, then the gate at the beginning of the stairs and finally, the One at the entrance of the flat.
Realizing that Pranshul hadn't returned, he immediately went into his room, sat on his bed and opened his laptop. He went into the recent folders and opened the last saved document. It was titled 'The Twist'. All his life he had never read anything except his legal and religious texts. But this was the first time he was reading fiction, that too written by his own son.
It was a Story about a suicide letter which was suddenly discovered in an ordinary household. All the people in the family came together and opened up to each other to find out who had written it. Although it remained undiscovered till the end who wrote it; everyone in the family, including the domestic help, Peter, appreciated the fact that everybody got a chance to pour their heart out.
After reading the whole draft, Pranshul's father tried to understand what all Pranshul was going through in his head, but what he could really appreciate was the part in the Story where the presumably villainous father cried in a room all alone when everything got sorted. He suddenly had so much to say to his son but Pranshul wasn't there.
After missing his nap, lunch and evening prayer, he was on his phone, calling Pranshul's friends. None seemed to know his whereabouts. He ate Seven bananas from the fridge contemplating if he should call the police. Just then the doorbell rang. In that moment, he flung the peel of The Seventh Banana towards the sink, made a dash for the door and prayed that it was Pranshul simultaneously. He opened the door. It was him.
"You have no interest in my Story?" Pranshul asked disappointedly as he walked past his father, got inside his bedroom and shut the door.
"What do you mean? Of course, I do. I read the whole thing. It was really good. Open the door. I have been worried all day. I didn't even eat anything. Where were you?" cried Pranshul's father at the door. The door opened in response to his cry.
"What do you mean, read the whole thing? What thing are you talking about?" asked Pranshul.
"The One on your laptop. The Twist."
"Oh no! That One is from my college days. That's a play I wrote. How did you even reach there? I thought you didn't know how to use a laptop. The file you were supposed to see was right on the desktop." Pranshul said, walking towards his bed. He opened the laptop to Show him and made space for his father to sit beside him. On the desktop, there was just One file. A spreadsheet titled 'The Twenty Sixth Character'.
"Well, now that's a twist!" exclaimed his father.
Pranshul opened the file and showed him a colourful grid with cells of varied sizes. It had the layout of Twenty-Six characters, Sixteen of which formed a Four by Four matrix. The characters in each row and each column combined to become One Character each against every row and column respectively, making Eight more characters. The Four characters against the Four rows combined to become One Character which was placed towards the left of the matrix. Similarly, the Four characters against the Four columns combined into another One placed above the matrix, thus, making a total of Twenty-Six characters. Each Character was represented by a letter of the English alphabet along with a word and its description associated with that Character. For example, Character One, the combination of the Four characters against the Four columns placed at the top, was represented with the letter 'A', the word associated with it was 'Pran' and its description read 'Observes himself'.
"So, this word 'Pran'. Does it have anything to do with your name?"
"Yes. Each alphabet of my name is a Character. This One has Four characters: P, R, A and N. Pranshul has Four more characters: S, H, U and L. So, I, in this Story called my life, have Character traits corresponding to each of these Eight characters."
"So, in this Story called your life, I have the traits of characters A, R, U and N?" Pranshul's father asked in an attempt to make his son believe that he was genuinely interested in his Story.
"Not just my life. In this overall existence. The concept is basically derived from the fact that the sound that is made throughout a person's life, to call him or her, plays a very important role in defining their identity. Not just their name. Even their professional designation, their gender, their region, their religion or any other word that is used to identify someone. The sound of it has an impact on their personality. I have been studying these Twenty-Six characters and the impact it has on people who are called by words containing any One or a combination of these characters. Specially the impact of The First Character of those words. The Character with which a name or a nickname or a designation starts. Like 'A' for you and 'P' for me." Pranshul explained with passion.
"You mean to say that my dominant trait is that I observe myself which is written next to letter 'A'? But it is depicted by the word 'Pran', which is in your name. That doesn't make sense."
"The words used here are customised for my own self. You have to assign your own words to these characters. These words should be the ones you use the most while talking to yourself. The words you use to make sense of everything. There is a process of figuring that out too. I will tell it to you some other day."
"Alright! But just One more thing. What is so special about The Twenty Sixth Character that you kept it as the file name?"
"It is based on the girl I love, Ragini. I used her name as the word associated with Z. Her description is that she doesn't want to be understood. She is the girl in me. If you see, she is the combination of the Four characters against the Four rows. She represents my unpredictable nature which complements Pran's nature of observing himself, thus, creating a never- ending cycle of self-exploration."
"This is quite a lot to wrap my head around. Specially, at this age. Let's eat dinner and go to sleep." Arun said while he got off the bed and went towards the kitchen.
After putting the pan on the induction plate to make chapattis, he went to the prayer room. A small alley led to the room. The room had walls on all sides. Each wall had a painting. Lord Krishna and His gopis on first, The Last Supper on second, Moses and his followers on third and a star inside crescent moon on fourth, along with a dome shaped ceiling of plain white colour.