RIYA adjusted the strap on her new pink top as she logged onto chat like every other evening. The top was expensive but a good buy, she decided. The messages started as soon as she logged on.
RaZor: “You look good in pink. You always bite your nails? Riya looked down at her nails, jagged at the edges.
RaZor: “I’m waiting for an answer.”
Riya stared blankly at the screen for few minutes when another message came in.
RaZor: “You don’t want to chat with me?
Riya turned sharply and looked around the café. “No, he isn’t here,” she realised.
For some months now this guy has been stalking and watching her every move. She has never seen him, but she can always feel his presence. She can even smell him, a musky smell of Gillette deodorant that she always liked. Her neighbour uses it a lot. She has confided this fact to her friends. But they cannot see him.
As soon as she entered her house, the phone rang.
“Hello?” said Riya.
“You didn’t have to run home. I didn’t want to scare you. Friends don’t scare each other,” said the voice from the other end. Riya froze.
“Look, relax and talk to me. I am standing right outside your house. Do you want me to come in?” asked the caller.
The black bike follows her school bus. She even saw it standing outside her school building. She wondered where the guy was. Curiosity got the better of her and she left the class to go to the washroom. As soon as she entered a hand grabbed her from behind. She gasped but the hand held her waist tight…she started to struggle to break free. Then she felt a warm breath on her neck. Her skin broke out in goose bumps. A voice whispered into her ear, “I never thought that I would get to hold you.” Riya screamed and fainted.
Since, that day she hasn’t returned home. Riya is undergoing psychological tests at the hospital. She is suffering from ‘hallucination disorder’. When she was a 10-year-old, her neighbour had raped her. She always was very close to the young guy and thought of him as her brother, so she could not accept that he would do such a thing to her. She hadn’t informed anyone of this incident, though she feared that it might happen again. She still can smell him around sometimes and just hopes he leaves her alone…
BY Anvesha Ganguly Times Of India Kolkata