Kumayl was a quiet kid. He seemed calm and gentle. He cried if people snatched his eraser away in class. He laughed at bad jokes that his friends made. Most of all he stayed under the radar all throughout school. Sometimes he used to come to school with a white bandage tied around his knuckles as if he was preparing for a fight. But, I always used to dismiss that as some kind of fashion statement.
On the other hand, Rishik was an outgoing kid. He wasn’t super popular but he was fun to be around. Some people teased him with the nerdiest girl of the class and he begrudgingly accepted that as a punishment for the rest of his school life. Rishik used to be the one making bad jokes, and he had a small group of friends to laugh with him.
The main thing to remember is that Rishik and Kumayl weren’t friends. In fact they hardly ever interacted with each other.
But there was this one incident. It was pretty minor and hardly a blimp on everyone’s radar.
One day we found Rishik teasing Kumayl in class. He was holding Kumayl’s notebook and trying to throw it around just out of his reach. Kumayl seemed visibly frustrated. Usually he kept his cool but for some reason he seemed to be breaking out into a sweat. Eventually Rishik got bored and gave the book back. Later we found out that that was Kumayl’s diary.
That incident changed things a bit between the two boys. Earlier, they weren’t friends and now even more so. Kumayl started coming to class more often with the bandages on his knuckles. His friends kept pestering him about it for years and it became a sort of class joke at one point.
On the last day of school, everyone was allowed to wear coloured clothes and we got a bunch of free lectures to chat and sign each others’ school uniforms. On that day too, Kumayl turned up with the bandages. Just as school was closing up for the day Kumayl started speaking really loudly to his friends. Which was odd, this guy hardly ever raised his voice above the lowest possible decibel. He started saying, “You want to know why I wear these bandages? For the last few years I have kept a punching bag at home. I practice on it every single day and my knuckles are sore from the amount that I beat it up. You want to know why I got the punching bag? Because I had someone’s picture to stick on it. I took the clearest picture of Rishik and kept it there as a reminder that one day I’m going to get my revenge!” Okay, that was really odd right? But his friends just cracked up laughing and “luckily” Rishik was right there so they roped him into their conversation. Poor Kumayl looked extremely serious and I’m pretty sure that he said all that just because Rishik had been standing around. His friends weren’t taking him seriously at all, neither was Rishik, and I had no clue how to feel about it.
It’s been 10 years since then and all this happened a long time ago. You might be wondering why I’m bringing it up now. It’s because Rishik went missing. I only found out about it on the news while I was randomly switching through channels. He was supposed to get married in the next month, but his fiancée and his family weren’t been able to find him at all. It was been a week since he went missing and there were no leads at all.
Knowing that your school friend is missing is a weird and eerie feeling. This is someone that I was friends with once upon a time and I want to do something about the situation. I started contacting old friends to tell them the news and ask for information. Maybe one of them had been in touch with him and knew something. When I eventually contacted Kumayl he just sent me a laughing emoji.
I know that this kid held some kind of grudge but I didn’t think he’d start laughing at a missing person’s case. Ugh!
Obviously I’m not a detective so over the next few days I was left with no leads and a lot of frustration. So it’s like my mind started concocting things.
I started wondering whether Kumayl “knew something” more about Rishik’s disappearance that we all weren’t aware of. And by “know something” I think you all know what I mean. You know right? Um…maybe he…killed him? Hmm that’s quite a serious accusation, I know, but why would he send a laughing emoji unless he was truly up to something sinister. An emoji is no joke…er…unless it’s a laughing emoji.
I thought of voicing my suspicions to someone, maybe the police? But I had no evidence and I couldn’t just accuse someone like that. But after another week Rishik actually reappeared. Well, he was actually found by the police in Costa Rica lounging around with another woman. Turns out he was just a scumbag having an affair and cheating on his fiancée.
Rishik’s life went downhill after that. After such a hue-and-cry over his disappearance, all the papers wanted to take up the hilarious angle that it ended with. They kept reporting information about his life and also about the girl. Apparently she was a forensics major from a struggling family. But she seemed to be doing well for herself as she had recently received a prestigious once-in-a-lifetime scholarship from Emerson University.
I felt bad for the guy, but, let’s face it he brought it upon himself right?
It’s odd, but I received a text from Kumayl randomly one day. It just said “The deed is done, he doomed himself.” Yeah, either this guy watches too much anime or he is a sinister weirdo.
I didn’t think much of that but as you probably know by now, I overanalyse things. For some reason I decided to learn more about Kumayl. I found out that he worked at Emerson University. The same place that Rishik’s lover was from. He was also the professor of the Forensics department and the Head of the Scholarship Committee.
After that I decided not to do any more research. The dots were all there but I was too afraid to connect them.
Everyone says that Revenge is a dish best served cold. But I’d honestly advise you just to return the dish and leave the restaurant. It’s not worth it!
Fountain Of Thought 