How would you feel, if someone very close, questions your existence? What would be your reaction? Think! Just think about it.
You might raise your right eyebrow and look at the person in disgust? Isn't it?
"What makes you think so?" Well, that was my response to my friend, who did question my existence.
"Definitely you aren't real, stop fooling around. Enough of you bloody hallucinations!"
" Blood what?"
"I know! You are just the part of my fucked up head. Last time I got tricked but…" He waited for a second. "Oh damn it! I should not even be talking to you."
Well this is Rajesh bhatnagar, my friend. Rajesh is suffering from insomnia, critical stage, where regular hallucinations occur. I came here today, to tell him about the success our project was making. But here I am, trying to console him that I am in fact, real.
"You are goddamn right, because I am not real enough to know…"
"You know everything that I know," Cutting me off. "Why wouldn't you? You are me, you are simply the byproduct of my brain." Talking more to himself, gazing at his legs.
"My friend, I know you have learnt a lot about your problem, and I am glad that you are giving it a strong fight. But, what if I am real? What if I am here to tell you that, the project in which you and I worked together has an annual profit of Rs 6crore." I sat there hoping he would remember it, waiting for his response. But he didn't say anything.
"You were going to propose anayah, the day she died." I know I shouldn't have said that. But there was nothing else I could. For I know, you are most real, when you're suffering.
"What? I knew it, I knew she was not just the crap of my brain," tears started rolling down his eyes, I hated myself. "Oh my god, I can't believe they would't let me remember her, how could they? HOW COULD THEY!" Putting both his hands on his head, sobbing. "She is the only truth I have, dead or not I don't care." I rose from my chair, grabbing my friend by the arms.
I agreed with him, love doesn't die, people does.
"I understand, but you have to let go, you have got to move on. The very reason you have this problem is that incident itself. And that is why, they don't want you to remember it"
"I don't care, I would give everything in my possessions just to have her in my memories. In fact I don't need to be the part of their so called 'reality' . I am happy in my own subjective reality."
That was indeed true, I don't know why, but his words were making so much sense. Perhaps all the levels of reality are justified. He had his own world carved in his brain. And in his world, he was real, and that is all that matters.
I heard some footsteps coming up.
" I think, its the time I bid you my farewells. Take care my friend. "
Suddenly a nurse barged in.
"Good morning Mr. Bhatnagar, I see, reading newspaper huh?"
I stood up and paced towards the door.
"Where are you going?" She asked looking at me, I was rather shocked.
"Well, I have to leave for my office, I am already late."
"Really? And where exactly is your office?"
"Jawahar road, NH-24, Ratan complex, first floor, New Delhi"
"It is rather very accurate Mr. Bhatnagar, isn't it?"
"Mr. Bhatnagar? I'm sorry miss, you misunderstood me for Rajesh." I said, pointing my finger at the bed where my friend was sitting. But he wasn't there, must have slipped into the bathroom amidst our conversation, I thought.
"From where did you get the newspaper?" She asked me, contemplating the front page.
I was hating these questions, she kept throwing at me, as I was some third grade student. I thought I better leave for the office before its too late.
"Can you please tell me your name sir?" She asked me rather politely. Still going through the newspaper.
"Check that in the visitor's list, and please miss, with due respect, no more questions!"
"Just the last one sir."
That woman was impossible.
"Throw it."
" What was the purpose of this visiting?"
I thought for a moment, who on the earth is she? Is she a patient too? Well, this could be true. But I don't have time, I must be running by now.
"Our project has proved to be a huge success, and profits…"
"And profits amount upto Rs 6crore per annum, isn't it?" She said, cutting me off, showing me the headline in the front page which said…
HUGE SUCCESS FOR BANSAL BROTHERS, PROFITS SURMOUNTED RS6 CRORE PER ANNUM
She didn't stop there, pointing her finger at an advertisement. Which said…
RESONANCE
THE BEST IIT COACHING INSTITUTES IN INDIA…
and at last was their institution's address
"Jawahar road, NH-24, Ratan complex, first floor, New Delhi." She said loudly.
"Mr. Bhatnagar, you are our patient, and I hope you understand what I am trying to tell you here?"
"You can't fool me, I sensed some conspiracy when I was talking to Rajesh. Clearly you guys are upto something. Tell me, if that's true, how would I remember the exact address, in one go."
"This newspaper is dated a week before, you have read it numerous times. Athough we don't allow newspapers or books or any such articles in here, god knows how you managed to get one."
"There is no other Rajesh, but you."she said finally.
"He is in the bathroom."
"There is no bathroom but a washroom right in front of this room. If one have to go, they need to go through that door."
"What did you do to him!"
"What is your name? Tell me a name, you know. Any name at all, which is not in this newspaper."
I tried to say my name, but nothing came out.
"I don't know," I broke while speaking. "You mean I am Rajesh, and the person I was talking with was…"
"A hallucination, right." She said, putting her hands on my shoulders.
"Anayah was my girlfriend? I am the one who don't want to forget her?"
"My name is Anayah. And what you remember is a story from page 3."
"Is there anything true about me, something that is not the part of that goddamn newspaper, anything at all?" I asked her hopelessly.
"Your name."
"And?"
"Go to sleep Rajesh, you will be fine." She stood up, made her way towards the door.
"Wait! How do I know that you are real, How do I know that everything you told me isn't some story scripted in article lying somewhere else in the room."
"Will you trust me, if I tell you I am real?"
I shook my head.
"Just go and sleep, you will be fine." She smiled before closing the door.
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139,843 Literary Works • 672,776 Reviews
Hey! So whatever I'm writing, may be a bit harsh depending on your nature. So I hope you will not take anything personally. That said let's get down to business.
The story was, for the lack of a better word, a bit 'chaotic'.
It did a good job of presenting the mind of a broken man. And I liked the twists.
I'd be lying if I said it failed me to keep me from scrolling down. I really did enjoy it.
Now for the break down of the story.
>For one, the dialogues didn't seem natural. And I am not talking about the wording. I want to highlight the sentiment which is behind every dialogue.
For example the initial conversation is taking place between two friends. But you used formal use cases instead. Think of a conversation you had with your friend. Get what I'm saying right?
Now how can you improve this? I got the impression from your story, that your first language isn't English, but when you write a story, try to think from every character's POV. Think how that character would have reacted in that circumstance.
>The story started off as a conversation between the narrator and the reader and swiftly transitioned into one sided narration. Now I'm not saying this is wrong per se, but generally a conversational narration is used when a character is reminiscing about an object or a memory. So choose a style and stick to it throughout the story.
The story overall is very good. Start looked a little clichéd, but that may very well be because of my reading taste rather than your mistake. And there are areas where you can improve.
I hope that you take everything constructively.
Looking forward to your writings.
Cheers.
Thanks for the review, a very good one from a newcomer.
Welcome to YWS!
Hey, thanks.
Hey! Heather here to review
Admittedly, from the beginning, the story was difficult to grasp and was a tad muddled in my opinion, but towards the end everything began making sense and made up for any confusions at the start.
I loved the twists! They were awe-inspiring and intriguing. The pace was perfect and proved to have a great flow for the story line, although I will add in my own personal opinion and state that I felt this had the potential of novel material; the work was so vivid and thought provoking. It, in its own rights, was worth far more than a short story format, but even still, I enjoyed the story's contents nonetheless.
Grammar was something I picked up on multiple times throughout the story, mainly misspelling of words and other grammatical errors like,
"You might raise your right eyebrow and look at the person in disgust? Isn't it?"
You have used [isn't it] which first of all, is rather lacking in appeal for a written piece. But also, the sentence doesn't fit overall. I would have changed it to...
"You might raise your right eyebrow and look at the person in disgust, am I right?"
These are only a few of the things I picked up on, but also [...an annual profit of Rs 6crore."]
I assume that Rs 6crore is a currency, however since it isn't commonly known, you may want to change it into something well-known (namely a western currency, e.g. dollars, etc) or you could make a small note about it at the beginning or end of the story. For example, you could make a small indication at the side of the currency - Rs 6crore(1), the (1) shows that there needs to be clarification to the words' meaning.
I hope some of this helped. I enjoyed the story, good job!
Keep writing!
~ Heather
Thanks for the review, I agree, I should have put a note about the currency thing.
Well, 1crore=10million and 1$= Rs67.5
Heya!
What I liked
I liked the twists and turns of this story - I didn't see the ending coming and perhaps I should have, but it was really cool for the story to come to that conclusion. I felt as if your flow of writing was quite good in terms of pace - nothing really dragged on. Really well done with creating a story premise that was interesting and not too overdone. It reminded me of something a patient of House M.D might have experienced, which is just (to me) super cool.
What can be improved
> I'm unsure as to whether English is your native language. There seem to be a few tense errors, plural mistakes ("love doesn't die, people do") and sometimes the dialogue sounds stilted. Sometimes sentence/paragraph ideas aren't quite finished and you're left with no context. For example:
This should be: You might raise your eyebrow in disgust. It's a silly thing to think, isn't it? For someone to believe you are not real?
> You tend to leave words whole instead of using contractions in speech. It makes your writing very formal and removed. It doesn't sound quite right. For example you write "you are", "should not", "I am". Most people when they speak say "you're", "shouldn't" and "I'm" unless they're specifically making a point.
> This means nothing to me, "annual profit of Rs 6crore". If this is a form of currency, it is unknown to me. If you're writing for a Western market, you'll have to Westernise it. That could be anything from changing it to a commonly encountered currency or speaking in general (but still specific) terms. For instance, "Our project is a gold mine. We're earning millions per month. Annually we've increased our profits by nearly 80 percent. It's unprecedented!"
Keep up the good work!
Cheers,
Jai
Thanks for the review.
Since it is a local newspaper in India, I thought of writing Indian currency and terms only.
Thanks again, your review surely gonna help.