Redemption..

6.00 p:m-Just Another Weekday

A futile day.Just like the whole week,the whole month,to be truthful,the past 5 years.

He chuckled to himself as he gathered his stuff and walked out into the world that despite having been cruel,was still his only refuge.

It was drizzling;it didn't bother him;there are far worse things and he smiled to himself and started humming:

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head,

Just like a guy,

Whose feet are too big for his bed

His feet guided themselves;hell,he could have walked blindfolded if was asked to.Habits could be that effective.

1106 steps and he was at his destination.The guard saluted him,he walked up a flight of stairs and opened the door.He was always grateful to find these familiar faces that had been his companions for the past 4 years,perhaps the only faces that had smiled at him in ages.

If misery is relative,so is happiness.In that sense,he felt happy and at this moment he couldn't ask for more.

He walked towards the corner and kept his stuff.He remembered the first time he was here.

It was another set of familiar faces,though much dearer ones.This memory was a ritual too.Thinking about them. Nidhi's carefree laughter, Aniket's mind-numbingly pathetic jokes, Meneka's constant fretting about anything she could lay her eyes on, Ranvir's boasting and above all,his own happiness.The day his first book got published.

He tried to put away those thoughts,afterall he had to live in the present.He himself had written,'Better be slayed fighting with the present than be a prisoner of your past'.How could he forget?!

But it was all lost now.Nidhi, friends,a promising writing career.Afterall,what was left to salvage?

And yet,he knew there was still a part of him that at times felt that he could make things right.The part that made him think of the memory.The part that still had faith in his abilities.The part that believed in redemptions.

As he was musing,Rakesh's face appeared next to him,"Sir,the usual?Old Monk and lime?"

He looked towards his writing journal,unused in the past 5 years and smiled.Whom was he trying to fool?There is no redemption for the damned.He nodded,"Yeah,a large one and keep topping it up till you shut down". He rested his head on the seat,imagined what his life could have been and waited for his drink the same way he had done for the last 4 years.