By the time you enter high school, you tend to graduate from most forms of bullying. By then everyone is either too tensed up trying to get good grades and get into a better university or they simply have better things to do than to mess with you. Yes, there are also students without conscience and life concerns, who don’t understand the importance of entrance exams and think they can tide through life without any difficulty as they had for so long. Little do they know that their life before college was but a safe simulation used to test their compatibility with the shit fest that is reality.
I was one of the latter, a kid who was so lost in his present and past that he had lost all sight of his future. I would have probably ended up a loner and a fool if I had continued walking the same path. But things were different now. Now I had a superpower. I could already disguise myself as anyone. There were endless possibilities with this power alone. Everyone knows Mystic from X-Men and her importance in that universe. I had even more potential than her. I could get a new superpower every day!
I was a God in the making. Only, this future God had things to do that were more important than world peace. Like how he can use his powers to make friends, preferably a girlfriend.
The bus stopped at the school gate and I was off for another boring day of classes where I pretended I liked studying. I followed a sea of students all dressed in the same grey pants and white shirts. You might recognize a few faces in a group and greet them on the way. But in a crowd all faces start to blur together, making it impossible to recognize anyone.
No one greets me, usually. Today was different. I was getting looks from others. They stared and glared, and whispered, and pointed toward, at, all over me. They weren’t mocking me. If anything, I sensed more curiosity and wonder from the voices and the gazes than anything else. As if, I wasn’t one of them but an alien pretending. I was not being paranoid. You learn to read the people's faces once you have been through a little too much sorrow.
Juniors weren’t allowed to bring phones to our school. Otherwise, they would have been out and about, capturing my strangeness from every angle.
The sudden attention made me awkward. A superhuman or not, at that moment I felt like I was walking naked in the crowd. My heart raced. I dropped my head and bolted down the curbed path to get away from them, from everyone.
Nauseated, I thought my face was molting again and that was the reason behind the attention. I didn’t dare look at the tinted glass windows on the way to the classrooms. I didn’t have the courage to see if it was true. All I wanted to do was to rush into the bathrooms and hide inside a stall. I had never done that before, but if I were to take something from American movies, they were the perfect hiding spot in schools, beside the rooftop.
I didn’t stop when I heard someone calling my name and kept rushing -- away from everyone. Up the stairs, past the water fountain. I had just stepped into the building when someone came from behind and slung an arm around my neck.
“Wha!” I slurred out of fright, almost falling to my knees. I was shaking in my boots.
“Where are you rushing to? I called you but you didn’t answer. Something wrong?” The voice blared into my ears. Or so I felt even though the boy talked normally.
I hurriedly pushed him away, hiding my face from him. Fear can make you do things that you won’t normally do.
“Whoa, whoa.” I heard. “Calm down man. What’s the matter with you? Are you all right? Jeez. You are gonna fight your friends now?”
I recognized the voice. Kartik, slim, short, and lanky. He was an arrogant loudmouth who was the complete opposite of me. He was smart too. We sat together in class and we were close, something that had always made me uneasy. He could have been one of the popular guys simply because of his hyper personality. Yet, he sat with me at the back of the class. I always wondered why.
“You look different.” Kartik threw out the statement at my face as if it was nothing. He was spontaneous and unlike me, he didn’t worry much about the consequences.
“Wha-What’s wrong with my face?” I stammered out. I was touching my face all over, trying to hide it.
“I never said face, but now that you mention it…” Kartik leaned closer, squinting and wondering. He was the exact opposite of me. I could never act and behave like him. Not only because of my childhood traumas but also because… well there was no other reason.
Being told you are ugly repeatedly in a multitude of fashions can break a back like nothing else.
“You are glowing, man. What did you do? Get a facial or something?”
“Oh,” I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I wasn’t mangled or something. That gave my heart some much-needed reprise. It was going crazy in my chest.
“Seriously what did you do?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. I still was not sure enough to raise my head and look straight at him. “I just took a… bath.” I ended up saying which made my ears hot for no reason.
“Yeah right,” Kartik snorted out.
I ended up going to the bathroom anyway. Now I really wanted to let one rip. Too much tension was not healthy for the bladder.
We both entered the bathroom, which was empty as usual, with no bullies trying to dip a lower grader's head in the toilet. I had never seen that kind of stuff happen in real life. The media always seem to exaggerate bullying into something physical. I guess, that was how it was in the West. I had only ever been assaulted verbally. Though to say the least, it didn’t feel good to have the whole class laugh at me.
I checked my face in the mirror and Kartik was right. I did look different. My skin was indeed glowing, or one could say it was too smooth. A man had no job having a skin like that. I guess, when I was comparing my face to my photo, I forgot that phones these days adjust the pictures with algorithms and erase all the little defects that a normal picture should have, beautifying them for consumer satisfaction. Something, I had completely ignored in my haste.
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I thought of adjusting my skin, to make it rougher, duller. Before deciding to keep it unchanged. Kartick would have noticed the changes. Besides, he thought my changes were within reasonable doubt; and I didn’t have the guts to disguise myself in the school either. There would be no hiding if anyone saw my drooping nose in the school. I didn’t want to add Frankenstein to my already very long list of nicknames.
I also noticed that while the skill could change my skin and the muscles underneath, it did not affect my hair. What kind of a disguise it was if I couldn’t even change my hair as I liked! Just thinking about a perfect set of dark, thick hair made me squirm in my pants. Never having to worry about getting your hair done again and always looking your best all day, every day? That alone was worth the trouble of wasting a day to get a superpower that could allow me to change my hair. I could get an infinite amount of them anyway or so the system said.
Out of the bathroom, up the stairs, our class was in the second room on the right. Everyone was already there. The seats were booked and divided by the various groups.
On the far right sat the popular guys, right under the only air conditioner in the room. Those were the best seats in the house in summer. They took up more than six seats. It was a large group. The front of the middle column was taken by the not-so-nerdy nerds, at the back of which sat the girls from the non-med division. The front of the third column was taken by the girls from the medical division. At the back of which sat Kartick and I, along with the rest of the discarded.
About popularity, I knew most of the people besides the girls, because why would they talk to someone like me? Not all of the popular guys were hard assess. They were a mixed bunch. Knew them all, talked to one or two, friends with one.
I took a seat and then got off when it was recess.
The only worthwhile thing that happened while I was in the class was the glances that I got from my neighbor. She didn’t care about me, but her friend did. Perhaps she was empathetic, could feel my sadness, and wanted to help me. I could only guess. Her name was Sonam but I called her Sunflower, because of her bright smile.
I didn’t have any romantic thoughts about her, but she was the first person who had ever talked to me in the school when I joined two years ago.
Besides that little incident, nothing happened that was worth mentioning other than that I failed another three mock tests. It caused no ripple in the already stagnant river of my teacher’s expectations. It was the middle of the year and the teachers already had their favorites. They didn’t even stop me from sleeping in the classes most of the time. They knew I didn’t want to study and were happy as long I behaved.
I was already thinking of changing that.
It was not like I didn’t like studying or was dumb. I was just having a tough time getting over my heartbreak. Especially since I could have had her, but my insecurities made sure that I didn’t. Other than that, my memory also seemed to have suddenly developed holes so large it couldn’t retain any knowledge. Why or how it happened was no longer my concern. I probably flushed my brain cells down the toilet.
During recess, I usually go to the next class to glance at my crush. She opted for Commerce after 10th standard, while I got stuck in nonmedical. The classes in my high school were divided into four courses: Medical, non-medical, commerce, and everyone’s favorite, arts. Unlike West, we didn’t change classes but the teachers shifted through every 40 minutes teaching different subjects.
Commerce, I didn’t elect for it, not because I was too interested in Non-medical subjects. Everything looked and smelled the same to me. I didn’t understand anything about anything. My parents said engineer and I said okay. Now we all were paying for that laid-back decision.
My legs felt heavy while I was walking. It had been weeks since I had last seen Anjali because I knew she had agreed to someone else. How did I know? Well, she got a haircut. We were too alike, too prideful for our own good. She cut her braid and got a pony, like every other high school girl. It suited her somewhat. I know she didn’t get it because of her friends. They were not the lot she was trying to impress. She would only do it to impress a boy she thought was too good for her. Just like I once did to try to become better for her.
I knew her so thoroughly that I could tell what was on her mind with one look. Yet, I never had anything to say when we stood next to each other. I didn’t enter her classroom. I stood outside by the railing and watched her from the open door. Was she beautiful? I didn’t know. I didn’t care about anyone else besides her anyway. One could say that I was obsessed. She gave me a rope when I was drowning. It's all good if one can grab that rope and make it out to the land. I didn’t. I drowned.
She sat at the front benches on the far side of the room along with her new friends. Friends who made her smile way more than I ever could. What I wouldn’t give to be there, with her. Superhuman or not, the distance made me weak in my legs.
For some reason or another, she turned her head and our eyes met. I didn’t turn away this time and saw in full clarity how the smile vanished from her face, replaced with a grim reminder that we were no more.
My heart yearned to go talk to her, but I knew it was over between us. Our small friendship was over. Besides my pride wouldn’t let me do it. It wouldn’t accept the people who had abandoned me. No matter how sufferable it made me.
I left her space when she turned away, back to being happy with her friends.
I went back to my class and had lunch with Kartik. The break ended, and the classes restarted. The teachers came and went. I didn’t hear a single word they said. I was too lost in the past. My mind was a prison and I was its sole captive. Before long it was the last lecture, a free period, and suddenly I found Sonam sitting on the bench next to mine. She sat alone, while her friend had ditched her to sit with others.
My sense told me she sat there because of me and I should talk to her. I didn’t. Despite having newly found some confidence, I wasn’t strong enough to talk to yet another girl, whose likes and dislikes were too foreign to mine. The last time I had talked to a girl was over five months ago and that was a long ass time to remember. Besides I didn’t have anything to say to Sonam.
The day ended soon. My only reprise was that I didn’t see her sulking. I didn’t want to disappoint her too.
The school ended.
The last bell rang and I was leaving the classroom when I saw Anjali coming out of her classroom at the same time. Only a few steps separated us. Our eyes met again and I saw surprise in her eyes. Her eyes stayed on for far longer than they ever had and this time she didn’t turn her head away. A spark grew in my chest, which blew out when her new boyfriend came out of the class, grabbed her hand, and tore her away from me. Leaving me standing in the corridor in a dazed stupor. Forcefully being reminded that despite all the attraction and the sparks between us, she was already someone else’s.
Now I needed to get my act straight. Unlike her, my superpower was real and the world awaited me to share the grace.