Surreal Elation

The door of the bedroom opened and Mrs Bhimwal stepped in. She parted the curtains and the light of day flooded in revealing a colourful wall of the bedroom with different colours of butterfly and flowers.

She moved towards the bed and folded the open blanket from its top end to reveal a sleeping 11 year old girl Ziya. She was Mr and Mrs Bhimwal’s daughter and was younger than her brother Rishi.

Ziya while still in sleep tried to cover her face to block the intrusion of daylight, but Mrs Bhimwal uncovered her face again.

“Ziya, even though it is a Sunday, you have to wake up at some point, you cannot keep sleeping till the afternoon. It is already 10:30 am,” said Mrs Bhimwal

Ziya woke up with an expression which showed her dislike in doing so.

‘One holiday in the entire week and you cannot sleep till your mind’s content? Where is the fairness in that?’ Ziya thought

“I was having a dream. If you had waited a little longer, it would have been complete,” said Ziya

“Really? What was this dream about?” Mrs Bhimwal asked as she folded the blanket

“Dad brought home a strange seed one day and gave it to me. I planted the seed in our garden and looked after it as it grew and the seed somehow grew into a huge tree within a week. Rishi said he had seen online how to build a treehouse and he would build one on this tree. He kept working very hard day and night and built it, but when the time arrived I was going to see how it was… you woke me up”

Mrs Bhimwal smiled, “Oh sorry.. maybe tonight when you sleep, you might see the rest of it. But Rishi may need your help today, he is down with a fever. He is sleeping right now but later you should go and ask him if he needs anything.”

Ziya fell silent, her elder brother was no less than a superhero for her. In her mind he could do anything and for the most part he did go out of his way to do things for Ziya; like he saved every bit of his pocket money for a year to buy an expensive handheld game console for Ziya on her birthday. Every time that Rishi wasn’t well, it was surprising for Ziya.

Ziya brushed her teeth, took a bath and ate her breakfast. On her way back to the kitchen to keep the empty plate, she saw her mother coming out of Rishi’s room.

“Is he awake?” Ziya asked

“Yes, he just got up. Why don’t you go and see how he is doing?” replied Mrs Bhimwal.

Ziya kept the empty plate in the kitchen sink and headed for Rishi’s room. She opened the room and found him going through a book. She quietly sat on the chair beside the bed.

Rishi closed the book and kept it beside him, then he smiled at Ziya.

“Someone has woken up late today..” Rishi said

“Well.. I was having a dream..” Ziya responded

“Oh! The treehouse! Mother told me about it. A tree that big in that short amount of time can only come from a strange magical seed,” Rishi laughed

Ziya smiled, she was glad he was feeling better.

Rishi said, “When I get better, let’s see what we can do about that tree house though. We may not have such a tree in our garden, but I am sure dad might have some ideas.”

The thought made Ziya smile again.

“Brother, if you need any help, you can tell me,” said Ziya

Rishi laughed, “Well I wouldn’t want to ruin your Sunday. But there is one thing you can do for me. I was supposed to write a short story for the school newspaper and submit it on Monday. Although the teacher will understand that I had a fever and so I was not able to do it, nonetheless I was really looking forward to it. Can you help me out here?”

“A story? What kind of story? I have never written a story before”

“A story of any kind, write what you want to and how you want to. Sit down with a pen and paper and ideas will start coming. No pressure, if you don’t feel like it, don’t write it”

Ziya was confused by this help her brother had asked her for. She couldn’t understand what to write. The hours of the day passed by and Ziya could think of nothing to write. Her brother did not ask her whether she had written something or not and this further added to the guilt.

‘Could it be that he knew from the beginning that I would not be able to do it and that is why he is not asking me about it?’ Ziya thought ‘he very rarely asks me for help and I am going to turn him down like this.’

That night, after dinner when everyone went to sleep, Ziya laid awake on her bed, more bothered about letting her brother down than the inability to rise up to the challenge.

‘I am not going to let him down. I am going to write something even if it is the worst story in the world,’ Ziya thought as she got up from her bed, switched on the light and sat on her study table with an A4 size paper and a pen.

She stared at the colourful wall on her right and then she began writing-

‘Zaid was a kind and talented boy. His parents were always very proud of him and his neighbours, teachers and friends were always happy to see him and had praises for him.

Zaid had a little sister whom he loved very much and she loved him too. Zaid was her superhero and he always tried to make her happy.

One day Zaid learnt that his sister saw in a dream that he built a treehouse for her in a tree whose branches spread wide.

Zaid wanted to fulfil this dream but he could not think of any such kind of tree on which he could build a treehouse.

So, the next day, he told his parents he was going to his friend’s house and he set out to find the tree he was looking for. He travelled far and wide on his bicycle, he felt tired, but he kept going.

He asked people along the way but no one had seen any such trees around.

‘How alarming! There isn’t one big and tall tree around instead there are tall sky touching buildings everywhere. If greenery vanishes like this, people will be in trouble and these buildings won’t save them Zaid thought.

Zaid moved further and spotted a man carrying wood. Although he didn’t like the idea of trees being cut yet he decided to approach the man.

“Sir, have you seen a tree tall and strong enough to build a treehouse?” Zaid asked

“There is a small hill, you will see it if you go straight this way” the man said, “on the top of the hill stands a tree, it might be what you are looking for”, and Zaid continued on, pedalling his way through concrete roads, dirt roads and no roads.

He made his way up the small hill and there it was, the perfect tree on which he could build a treehouse. Zaid sat down to rest, and drank water and ate some food from the bottle and lunchbox he carried in his bag.

It was time to return home. But wouldn’t it be better if he climbed the tree and checked where and how he could build the tree house? So, Zaid began to climb the tree, trying to find the strongest branch there was and he climbed for a while before he found the one which satisfied his mind. But a problem arose, he couldn’t find his way down, all he could see was a cover of leaves and nothing through them.

‘Looks like I am in trouble’ Zaid thought, as he tried to get down the tree, at the first step down his fall began and he fell through the branches breaking them and being scratched by them. He felt sad, not about the fact that his life could end but for all the people who got to be happy because of him. Just as he was about to hit the ground, he stopped and opened his eyes to find himself floating.

‘I can fly he thought and he crawled to the ground as he landed on it. His hands and legs were hurt but he was lucky that he didn’t have to pedal his way back home. He hid his cycle to bring it back later and flew back home happy to have found the tree and also an ability which could make him a real superhero.’

Ziya stopped writing, she was done with it. She looked at the clock, it was late. She kept the sheet on which she had written the story in her bag and she went to sleep after turning off the light.

The next day, early in the morning, as Ziya got up for school she felt uneasy due to the lack of sleep.

Mrs Bhimwal insisted on checking for fever using a thermometer but found the temperature normal, “maybe it is a Monday thing” she joked.

Rishi was still asleep. It would take another day or two for him to get better. Ziya got ready and ate her breakfast and before she left for school, she decided to check on Rishi.

He was lying on the bed, but he opened his eyes upon hearing the sound of the door opening. He looked at Ziya and smiled.

“How are you feeling today?” Ziya asked as she sat beside him

“I wish I could say that I am feeling better but I am feeling the same as yesterday. Mom may not listen to my excuses of not going to the doctor today,” Rishi replied

“I wrote that story you asked me to. Do you want to read it?”

“Oh! That’s good. Thank you. Are you content with what you have written?”

“Well.. since it’s the first time I will say it’s fine”

“Then I don’t need to read it, hand it over to my class’s prefect at school, tell her that I have sent it” rishi was happy his little sister had done this for him, “by the way, I had an interesting dream last night too”

“What was the dream about?” Ziya asked

“It was about me and a lot of things happened which I will tell you later when you return from school, but at the end of it I found something interesting. I discovered that I could fly. Isn’t that cool?” Rishi said as he looked at his sister who was lost in some thoughts.

Written by Anuran Chatterji

Hey, Connect with Us:)

• WordPress
• Instagram
• Medium
• LinkedIn