Imaginary

Remember what they told you about Imaginary Friends? 

Arnab, Tanya and Hiren were inseperable. Tanya and Arnab were an item. They had been dating since freshman year. Hiren was well Hiren. He was a bit Goth. Dark tees, with a hood so you really didnt see his face. And the same pair of baggy jeans. Arnab was the sarcastic one, always with a witty retort. Sometimes he was unbearable. As for Tanya, she was the doormouse. She was meek, and kept quiet most of the time. When she did talk, she had a brilliant point though. Arnab was quite wary of her retorts and she could keep him under control mostly.

Hiren on the other hand was almost everyhing these too were not. He was reserved. He talked a lot, but just to them. He always had his mp3 player with him and was headbanging to Avenged Sevenfold or Iron Maiden. If it wasn't that he was on Whatsapp, chatting with this "mysterious" girl he had met; and whom no one had seen.

The three of them stayed together for the most part of college. After that, the placement interviewers came in hordes. Tanya and Arnab got jobs in the same city but for different companies. Hiren didn't say where he had landed up as was his usual response to almost anything. He preferred keeping his personal life to himself. Tanya and Arnab had gone to his house once. They didn't see anything apart from an old, dilapidated cot and some magazines in a corner. There were no photos on the wall or any personal trophies anywhere. They found this odd, but then again, they knew he was a kind of lone wolf.

Time passed. Tanya and Arnab continued to see each other and eventually ended up getting engaged. Their familes knew each other very well and approved the match. Unfortunately, they had never met Hiren; who seemed to be the infamous one in the group, Funnily, even Arnab and Tanya hadn't been seeing Hiren much these days. They knew he was working in Bangalore. That was all. He did show up for the wedding though. He had swapped the tee for a shirt and a pair of formal trousers, but he still had the hoodie. You still had to strain to see his face. 

And one day, Hiren was gone. He just vanished. He did it gradually. Stopped calling. Stopped texting. Tanya and Arnab started to forget what he looked like and what classes they had taken together. One fine day, they woke up and realized he was just gone. 

Meanwhile, Arnab had been promoted to General Manager at his company. This meant he was out late a lot and usually came home in the wee hours of the morning. Tanya was tired out from managing their young daughter, who was still in the toilet training stage; although she was 7. Naturally, the homestead was less than domestic bliss. Fights broke out on a regular basis. Words were said. Tears spilt. Tanya started sleeping in the guest room. Arnab took to drinking a lot.

A few weeks later, Arnab was away at work when he got a text from Tanya. It just said "Hiren is back. Babli saw him". Arnab dropped everything and came home. He found Tanya smiling at him. He was surprised. Tanya told him that Babli (their daughter), had come running to her in the afternoon. She had been playing in the garden and had seen a man. A man dressed in a black tee, with a hoodie and the same jeans that Hiren wore Arnab didn't know how to react to this information. He walked to the sidebar to pour a drink, but found one already poured out for him. He looked up and came face to face with Hiren.

Arnab was shocked at first, and then realized what was going on. Tanya and Arnab were so much in love that that feeling had personified itself into a physical form. Hiren. That's why he was everywhere that they were. That's why he was gone when they started scrapping. He was empathically linked to them. To their love. 

Arnab smiled as he took Tanya into his arms. Hiren was back. Everything would be OK now

The Bilge Master