Echo of Desire

Avi woke up gasping for breath. Sweat soaked through his nightshirt, clinging to his skin. The fan overhead creaked lazily, stirring the heavy summer air, but offered no comfort. He pressed his palms to his eyes, willing the images away, but they clung to him, stubborn and raw.

He had dreamed again.

For weeks now, sleep had brought strange, broken visions that made no sense. Bits and pieces, blurred and colorless, yet achingly vivid in their emotions.

There was always a woman — sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping — reaching for him through a haze. And there was a man, his face just out of focus, but Avi could feel his anger, a pulsing rage that seemed directed right at him. The worst was the pain — a sharp, gut-twisting pain that felt so real Avi would wake clutching his stomach, gasping like he'd been stabbed.

Tonight, the dream had shifted. Instead of random shadows, Avi had seen a courtyard, sunlight bouncing off sandstone walls. The woman was there again, dressed in white, her bangles jingling as she reached for him. Her eyes were swollen from crying.

Why did you leave me? she mouthed, though no sound came from her lips.

He wanted to answer, but words wouldn't form. Then something heavy slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He stumbled back, felt the stone floor bite into his palms, and looked up just in time to see the man — the stranger, the shadow — raise a sword dripping red.

Then came the searing pain. Avi screamed.

And then he woke up, alone in his narrow bed, heart hammering like a trapped bird.

He turned his face to the pillow, trying to calm his breathing. Slowly, the walls of his small room began to feel familiar again. The peeling poster of a cartoon superhero, the schoolbag dumped in a corner, the faint smell of soap from his mother's room. Real things. Safe things.

But the sense of loss — that deep, echoing grief — refused to leave. It clung to his ribs like a bruise.

Why did it feel so true?

He was just eleven. What did he know about swords, or dying, or a weeping woman in white? He had never even been outside their small town except to visit his grandmother's house in the next village.

And yet every night, the dreams returned. And every morning, they left him hollow, shaky, afraid.

Avi sat up and reached for the steel tumbler on his bedside table. The water was stale but cool enough to soothe his dry throat. As he drank, he tried to piece the dream together in his mind, the way he sometimes did with a difficult puzzle.

What if it's a story I read? he wondered. Maybe a TV serial he half-saw while Mummy was watching something dramatic?

But no. These dreams felt older, deeper, as if they belonged to a place buried inside him.

Maybe I'm going mad.

The thought made him shiver.

He heard a soft knock at the door. "Avi?" It was his mother's voice, gentle but strained.

"Ji, Mummy," he called, wiping sweat from his brow.

Shalini pushed the door open and stepped inside, still in the loose cotton nightgown she wore for sleeping. Her hair was tied up, but a few strands fell loose around her temples. She looked worried.

"You're awake again?" she asked softly. "Bad dreams?"

Avi nodded, eyes dropping. He didn't want to trouble her. Mummy had enough to worry about, what with the school, her coaching, the bills, and Papa being gone.

Shalini came over and sat beside him on the bed. Her hands smelled faintly of rose-scented cream. She placed a cool palm against his forehead, checking for fever, a habit she'd never dropped since he was little.

"Want to talk about it?" she asked.

Avi hesitated. Part of him did want to talk, to pour out every detail of the courtyard, the woman, the sword. But another part felt afraid. What if Mummy thought he was broken?

"It's just… just scary," he mumbled finally.

Shalini sighed. She drew him into a gentle hug. "Dreams can be scary, beta. They are like — like leftover thoughts. Maybe from something you saw, or heard."

Avi didn't answer. Instead, he buried his face against her shoulder. She felt warm and safe, the only thing that seemed real right now.

"Try to sleep," Shalini whispered, stroking his hair. "I'll sit with you a little while, okay?"

Avi nodded.

They sat together like that until his eyes grew heavy again. The dream still hovered at the edge of his mind, but his mother's scent — familiar, soft, comforting — helped push it away.

He drifted back to sleep, though unease still curled in his belly.

---

The next day at school, Avi's mind felt foggy, as if he'd left a part of himself behind in that dream.

When the teacher asked him a question, he stammered, struggling to focus. When his friends ran outside to play cricket at lunch, he couldn't bring himself to join them.

Instead, he sat alone under the neem tree, tracing patterns into the dirt with a stick.

The woman's voice echoed in his head again, silent but powerful: Why did you leave me?

Leave you? he thought. I don't even know you.

He almost felt like crying, but swallowed it down.

In the evening, as he trudged back from school, the golden sunlight made the dusty road shimmer, just like the dream-courtyard. He shivered, goosebumps prickling down his arms.

At home, Shalini was busy with the other students in her coaching class. Avi watched through the half-open door as she stood at the board, writing something with a practiced sweep of her wrist. Her posture was straight and strong, her voice clear and confident.

A stab of relief went through him. Whatever these strange dreams were, at least Mummy was still here.

He slipped inside, sat quietly in the corner, and began finishing his homework. As he bent over his notebook, he tried to force his mind to stay in the present: math sums, rough brown paper, the ticking of the kitchen clock.

But the moment he closed his eyes, the courtyard returned, as vivid as ever.

Somewhere in the recess of his mind, he felt a question forming, a question he was too afraid to answer yet:

What if these dreams aren't dreams at all?

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