A Gay Story

How long do I fake it? How long have I to live in this surreal world with my 'anomaly'? How long do I fear the acerbic bite of the tarantula if I let out who I am? How long have I to tremble fearing being the pariah? How long do I hide from the world that I am gay?

I still remember the day I had confessed to the priest what I was going through. He was shocked. He said it was a sin. He said I was going against the order of creation chalked out by Him. But I asked why was it a sin? It was God himself who had made me different and how could he punish me for the wrong he had done. Wasnt it God who had said that our greatest duty is to love all? Then how could I be a sinner when my heart was pure and love ran through my soul like blood. The all-knowing priest said that God had put me through a test and I shouldnt succumb to it. But his voice said that he understood that I had failed the test.

When i look at my childhood photographs, I wonder what brought this change in me? When did this convivial nonchalant kid turn into a morose creeper? I realised that as a small bud blooms into a flower, so has it been a slow transition for me, though without the fragnance.

I had a rosy childhood,having everything a kid dreams of. I was somewhat reticent but had many friends. I played in the open, singing songs in rhythm with the birds, catching butterflies and basking in the sun oblivious of the darkness that lay in front of me. When my friends learned that girls were to be looked upon differently and ogled at them and kissed the co-operative ones, I just shied away. They called me 'the saint' then.

Years seemed to fly by with happening in my barren life. I still remember that evening. I was returning from my class. It had been raining hard some hours before, the first rain of the season. I love it after the rains, the leaves a shiny green and everything looking bright and new as if washed out of all their evils. I saw him alight from the taxi and take out his belongings. The taxi whizzed past him splahing muddy water all over his trousers while he looked on helplessly. His tousled hair falling on his forehead,his wrongly buttoned shirt, the guitar strapped to his back all gave me a tangible pleasure.

I went upto him and said if I could help. He smiled. A cute smile! It was a small room, with a small window for ventilation. Little did I know then that it was in this room that I would be spending all my evenings henceforth and that small window would be my eyes to see the world. He was in college, had recently broken up with his girlfriend. That day, he played 'Feel' on his guitar, my favourite song.

I had a lovely dream that night. I had gone to his house. He gave me a hug. Not a tight embrace but a greeting hug. But I wanted to smell that sweet cologne from his neck for a longer time. We talked. We talked about music,pets,studies. We talked about things we were concerned about and things we were indifferent to. And then...he touched me...and touched me...and touched me.I cried when I woke up not because I regretted but because the dream was over.

We have been friends for over six months now.He often asks me why I look at him so lovingly? Will I be ever able to tell him why? Will he be ever able to understand that? No, he wouldnt. He would just wave his hand and say its a joke. What if I convince him that its not? And even if do it, what after that? He has got a life, he has got his own roads, he is not 'different'. Perhaps we would be friends even after that. I even now smile at the shock on my mother's face when I tell her this. She would send me to the local doctor as if it were a disease. How would my frigging homophobe friends react? They would laugh at me. They would paste 'Beware of Robbins' on the boys' restroom door. Some would say I am doing this for attention. Some would be sympathetic. I would be ousted from their groups.

Everyone would oust me. Would even God? I take a lot of sleeping pills from my mother's cupboard to have a nice sleep and wake up to a new tommorow where all this would be a lie, a nightmare.

They spun a web for me.
They spun a web for me.

/fiction