Aarav wrote the lines, crumpled the paper, and threw it into the dustbin.
His eyes drifted to the vast sky, luminous with patches of white clouds. A deep urge to hold the pen and write a few words brought a smile to his face. But he pulled back; the echo of his father’s voice had stayed with him.
“What do you do the whole day? Sitting, daydreaming, and gazing at the sky.”
“The birds sing to you. And you decode their exact meaning, isn’t it?” he had added.
Aarav turned his gaze away. He had mumbled, “Baba, writing makes me happy. I want to create narratives and write books.”
“Ah! Books. And who are your readers? Your mother. Your younger brother. Two people. How long will you take to come out of these crazy assumptions? How uncertain a life of writing sounds!
The world respects the rising sun, my son. Rest your wish. It’s your life.”
“Baba, one day, if I keep going, and if you believe in me, I will,” Aarav whispered.
“A struggling writer is a faceless ghost meant only for the pages he writes. Swallow this fact before you get engulfed by the harsh reality you are not choosing to see.”
His father’s voice trailed off as he stomped out of the room. The last sentence snapped at Aarav as the door closed with a thud.
“Fiction does not pay your bills.”
The silence rattled him.
Somewhere in the attic, his father’s old notebook still lay hidden, its pages filled with stories that no one read. A dream abandoned and put away, replaced by a regular, functioning life.
In the quiet of the night, Aarav sat huddled in the chair, facing the window. Moonbeams danced on the palm leaves. He wrote a few lines before his fingers tightened around the pen. He tore the papers as a heap formed beside him.
The pillow was smudged with patches of his tears. Some sighs escaped his lips; he wrote them, quivering under his stagnant breath.
“Who will read them?”
The question remained stuck inside his mind. If no one would, then why not pour out the raw feelings onto the open pages?
He wrote.
The messy, untangled words had no structure.
Just revelation.
Pain, if it had a form.
If darkness had a shape.
If despair could be touched.
What would it all look like?
Like the damp wall.
Like the silhouette of a tall tree.
Like the wick of a flickering candle.
Like nothing.
One piece of prose.
One poem.
He saved them.
Days felt exhausting and endless.
He joined a clerical job and quit within a few months. His mind wavered, not knowing what it truly wanted. Those nights seemed darker than ever. He wrote and wrote until he fell asleep at the table.
Vidyut, his younger brother, had been watching him collect the papers and safely lock them away in the drawer.
One day, he stood at the door of Aarav’s room.
“What makes you pace around with rapid steps, as if a fire is smouldering inside you?” Vidyut asked.
“Why do you have to hide from yourself what you are?” he continued.
Aarav looked at him.
“Vidyut, light a match and burn these papers.”
“No one will read them anyway?”
“I will read them. Everyone will, one day. Don’t you dare think of burning them.”
Aarav looked down at the papers.
“This is my love, Vidyut. Otherwise, I have no point. No format. All delusion. I feed on it because what lies outside my mind frightens me.”
He paused.
“I am scared I am not good enough.”
His voice dropped.
“Being real feels like a punishment, you know.”
Aarav wondered if dreams could ever really be put away.
Four months in a clerical office had been enough.
“Baba had spoken to the senior officer,” Aarav said quietly. “He trusted me. But I felt suffocated inside files, numbers, ledgers, and accounts. I couldn’t do it.”
Vidyut heard him without interrupting.
“Bhaiya, you know how you wrote a poem for me one day? I had recited it in the assembly and won the first prize. I had lied to the teacher; you know it wasn’t written by me. Your words have true power.”
A smile curled on Aarav’s lips.
Vidyut went on, “And forget what Baba said last night. You are my favourite writer.”
He pulled open the drawer to grab those papers.
“Vidu, no,” Aarav said. “You will not stop me today. I can’t see you suffering like this. These are going to a friend who’s a publisher. I have already spoken to him.”
Aarav’s eyes grew moist. He hugged Vidyut.
“Aarav Sinha. The author,” Vidyut announced. “Imagine the gallery. The people. The volley of questions. And you on the dais.
“So, share with us your experience… your journey as a writer.”
They laughed.
The sky stretched across as the light dimmed into a shade of pink. The sun rose again. Every day. The morning glowed and…
Ten years later, Aarav Sinha stood signing his book among people, voices, crowds, and words that had finally seen the light.
Who read him?
The world did.
TWO SKIES
—Aarav Sinha
