When the Mind Is Alone by Ritam Chakrabarti

It was the sixth week of the notes coming, they had been coming for six weeks straight, and what did the notes say? Run Away, Run Away, that's all each note said. Every night when he went to sleep, the next morning there was a note underneath his bed, and the note said run away. His name was Javed, Javed Khan. Javed had messy black hair, and had brown eyes, he had coffee colored skin, and a short stubby nose.  

“Javed come down for dinner,” Said his mom interrupting his thoughts.

“Yes ma, I’m coming.” He had set himself to finding out who is putting these notes underneath his bed. Surely it would not be his parents, but then who, no one else comes to this house it was almost in the middle of nowhere.

He slowly munched on his food, trying to favor every bit of it, they were from northern India, his house had rich and stylish architecture, the ceilings had golden indian designs. There were paintings of famous Indian authors. Because his mom loved writing, in fact when she was young she took lots of writing classes. He lived to far away from any school to go to one. So, his mom homeschooled him. His dad had to drive three hours for work everyday. Javed picked at his food, the finally decided to stop picking at it and finished his food hastily,

“So, Vishwan how was work?” Javed’s mom asked.

“Work, work was terrible.” His dad replied. They started rapidly talking, Javed stopped listening. It's not like they really cared about him, except his mom maybe. He went back to his room, he needed a camera so he could see who was putting the note under his bed every day. His dad and mom both did not let him use their phones. So he would have to sneak his mom or dad’s phone, and it give it back before they found out. He decided he would have to sneak his mom’s phone, his parents would describe him as shy and timid. But, truly he wasn’t. After his mom and dad went to sleep he started walking toward their room. Their room was a few feet away from his. His mom always kept her phone on the side table next to the bed. His mom was on the outer side of the bed so this would not be too hard. He slowly started walking trying to make no movement at all, then he opened the door very slowly. Then he gently walked to the side table, and slowly grabbed the phone, and took it back to his room. He pressed the on button but it didn’t on. NO! The phone was out of charge, he slowly crept back and put it back on the side table. Now he needed to get his dad’s phone, but he realized he had no idea where his dad puts his phone. Javed decided he would have to wait till tomorrow night to do this.

He went back to his room, and then thought of another idea what if he stayed up all night and watched, but that wouldn’t work, he needed his sleep. As he tried to go to sleep, he kept on thinking, it can’t be mom but what if it’s dad. Dad never showed any care about me, he thought. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his dad wanted to get rid of him. His dad always complained that Javed never did any work, and they he complained about paying extra money for his food. So it must be his dad, he thought. Then after a while he rolled into a deep sleep.

He woke up at six a.m. in the morning the next day. Then he went down to eat breakfast. Breakfast was the same as usual, dry, tasteless, pancakes. His mom was getting ready to study him, and his dad had left for work. That was his daily life that’s all he ever got to do. After he sat through four hours of his mom homeschooling him, he ate lunch. His mom started talking about his dad’s internship and stuff like that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He didn’t listen a single bit, by now it was about ten thirty a.m., he did his chores, and while he was doing his chores he found his diary, it was under the sofa, he went and put it back in his room. Then he went downstairs again and watched television. In the TV, he saw different amazing places like, America, Australia, and Africa. How he longed to visit those places.

After a few hours of television, he started eating dinner, his dad came home right then. Javed quickly finished his dinner, and went to bed, but before he went to bed, he took his mom’s phone which was in her bedroom. As he walked to his bedroom, he thought mom wouldn’t notice, she doesn’t even care about her phone. He placed it on the top of the dresser in front of his bed. Then put it on camera and pressed the record button. He then, slowly walked up to his bed and rolled under the covers.

“Did Javed go to sleep,” Vishwan asked his wife.

“Yes,”

The rest of the meal they ate in silence.

Javed woke up again at six a.m. the next morning, he crept up to the dresser and grabbed the phone. He pressed on the video he had recorded, he kept on fast forwarding it until he saw movement, but it was himself, getting out of the bed.

“What! How?” Javed saw himself, getting a piece of paper out of his diary, and then writing something. He zoomed in the video, the words said run away.

Then he saw himself putting it under his bed. Javed stopped the video, he ran over to his bed and looked under the bed. There it was, a piece of paper, he picked it up and read it. It said run away. Javed felt so confused, he ripped the paper in pieces and drop the pieces in the garbage. He then went and opened his diary, and read the first page:

I have to run away, get away from here, i can’t spend the rest of my life like this.

Javed read the sentence again, and then read it again, and again. His hands trembled, he threw the diary in the garbage. Javed was down to tears now, he went in his bathroom and wiped his face with a towel. Then he walked downstairs and turned on the television. He looked at the name of the show he was watching. The show name was how to tell if you have symptoms of sort. Javed looked at the TV. 

The voice from the television was talking, he paid attention to what the voice was saying.

“Chapter 7, not having self-awareness, this is when you are not aware of what you are doing or what is happening around you.” Javed suddenly paid close attention to what this woman was saying. 

“Chapter 8, amnesia, this sometimes happens with not having self-awareness, when you’re doing something you’re not aware of you still are aware a little bit, so that little bit that your aware of, you forget it later when the amnesia clicks in.” Javed turned off the television. Was this what was happening to him, he walked over to the kitchen where his mom was cooking.

“Ma, do any of our ancestors have amnesia, or a case of not having self-awareness?”

“Well, your dad’s mother had amnesia from a very young age. Not having self-awareness, that I‘m not sure anyone in our family had. But, why do you ask?”

“Why do I ask? You and dad don’t even care about what's happening to me! Dad’s always at work, I mean I do understand that he has to get money for us, but even on the weekend's he’s always on the phone with someone! Why did you guys even get a house in the middle of nowhere! I hate my life and you guys!”

“Javed, please calm down.” Javed stopped yelling and took three deep breaths very slowly.

“Javed, when me and your dad had married, we had looked at a very nice house near a wonderful school, and in a nice neighborhood. We had actually moved in, but the only problem was-” Javed’s father came in right then,

“Hello, hone- Javed why is your face so red? Go wash your face right now.” Javed obeyed without saying another word.

“Now, hone-”

“Vishwan, we have to tell him.” Javed washed his hands very quickly, then he walked back to the living room.

“Javed,” His dad said.

“Yes, father,”

“The reason we moved out of that house was because your sister died there.” Javed felt like he had been shot in the heart.

“Wha- what do you mean?” Javed just couldn’t process it all.

“Your sister had been born three years before you had, and she had died in that house from cancer, it was when she was three years old. So we moved out of that house and had come here where we’re all alone, and that's when i had you.” Javed’s mom said.

“But, you don’t understand, I think I have amnesia and I don’t have self-awareness either. Because i’ve been finding notes underneath my bed for some time. So yesterday I took your phone and used it to record myself sleeping. But, iI saw myself getting up and putting notes underneath my own bed.”

“Come on then Javed let’s take you to the doctor,” his mother said.

The drive was amazing through the whole way, when he got to the doctor, that's when things got bad.

“He’ll need to be doing brain exercises for at least six to seven months, and I’ll need one of the parents to monitor him for at least three months, and sleep with him to make sure anything doesn’t happen.”

“Thank you doctor, we will do that from now on.”