Harry

“The design is good. Well done. But the content should be catchier. Shazia, you will give Naz our new version of the document”. He spoke and we all listened. 

Our only job is to let him be the mind and become his hands, each doing its job as directed. It is an important meeting; today I am to play the hand as well as the eyes. 

I shift my gaze from one face to the other, I can hear what they are saying but they can’t do the same. Certain odors, they bring with them memories, too strong to shake away, overpowering and haunting.  It’s getting hard to breathe in a perfectly ventilated room, I can feel my chest heaving, this familiar odor from the corridor at the left, it is filling my head and reality is all getting so cloudy. I want this to end, I want this feeling to disappear, I want to run away as fast as I can but I am crippled by the odor. 

This tasteless nameless odor, a blend of gaily painted orange walls, light brown wood and a tint of rexine, picture-less memories crowd at the corner of my eyes, currents of pain climb up my jaws and I tell myself to control my breathing. These shadows around me can see me drowning into it and I can’t let that happen. My eyes are turning red in their constant battle to swim against the ocean. 

“Once we are done with the basic design of the Brochure and the contents, you will have to make further simpler versions of it. One Brochure for each of the segments. Naz, you will design that too”

I nodded. He shifted his eyes from my face to Akmal’s and Akmal continued the nodding. I cleared my throat, ready to speak, if spoken to. But the odor wouldn’t let me. I felt my veins ticking at my temples.

It is Harry, this smell coming from the Corridor. The odor, the pain, the shakes, the racing heartbeat, I am in the middle of a meeting and Harry surprises me. I can feel him without having to close my eyes. My head is getting all fuzzy. My body is losing its power; I am a heap of bones and flesh dumped on the chair.

I beg him to leave me alone, at least now just until this ends. His presence is everywhere I look, the loosely fitted white cotton. He does not even look at me, but he is there and only I can see him. I want someone to shake me, talk some sense into me, I can’t move a limb, I can’t make a noise. Fear is crawling up my spine, I think I have lost it, I think I am mad but he is there. He is there and I know only I can see him. 

I covered my mouth with the back of my hand and hide my open mouth breathing. I clenched the armrest with the other, transferring tremors of emotions in the cold lifeless object “HARRY, HARRY, HARRY.  I want you; I will do anything for you just, just make this end please Harry please”.

My hands are shaking; all I can hear is my throbbing heart beat. There is nothing right anymore, there is nothing wrong, everything is Harry. In the middle of night, day, heaven or hell, I go running to him. When he calls, the world stands silent around me and voices disappear, faces fade away, we become the only two beings in the universe and the rest becomes background. 

You cant run away from what lives inside you. I AM HARRY.