If Drugs can make you feel so good, what's the problem? : Part 1
- A Short Story -

Dr. Neha Thangjam *

There was chaos.
Loud footsteps along the stairs. Stammering voices.
Lots of screaming and apprehension.
Alarming fearful noises.
His friend ran down calling for help. Something just happened.

"He just breathed his last breathe"

He stands still in front of the mirror spellbound. He stares further deeply. He doesn't seem to see himself but something else, an image which he never plans to become. The same eyes but now sunken, the same lips but now afraid to tell another lie and everything seems different. He saw a deep dark truth that day.

Really, the combination of his thin frame with the dark circles under his eyes give a hideous look.

That's him Harsh, a drop out engineering student, the youngest son of a rich businessman.

He has just returned home after a year, he was put in rehab which should have been a four months stretch but he escaped or in a better word he ducked out and never returned for a year. So here's he finally home after a year of running. Oh this isn't the first time though, he has been in and out of rehab for a long time now and jailed twice.

His neighbour said "spoilt brat has no more money so he has to come back" ,his friends talk about how he sold all his belongings.

May be its true, his watch are missing, no finger rings, no chain, he even seem to have sold his wallet.

Crushed by drugs,his condition has become dreadful.

His story on how he started abusing them is no different. As a teen he started the occasional experiencing of alcohol and tobacco for enjoyment. Like any other youth he thought drugs and alcohol use can be handled.

Adding to that was his neighbourhood, who either has no jobs or rebels who relieve their boredom and has their peace by escaping from reality with substance abuse.

They think drugs are the solution but eventually drugs become the problem.

Constantly seeing all his friends using drugs which seem fine rationalise that he can do it too moreover he wanted to fit it when hanging out with them. PEER PRESSURE!

And once high, they cant forget the sensation of Euphoria it gives so people chase the high they once experienced and get hooked to it.

But they don't know the highs are equally as powerful as the lows felt when coming off the drugs.

He must be around 16 when his mom found a tobacco container under his pillow. Sometimes she sees cigarette and the other time when his niece, Dolly drank water from his room, she threw out for it wasn't water but alcohol.

With time he got in way deeper. He wouldn't change his clothes for days and wont eat his food and his academics started slipping by.

His mother tried her best to stop him. She felt like she had to give him money or he'd go to steal from others. Being called his son 'a thief' is the last thing a mother wanted. But she realised without trying to be she was the enabler.

Giving money to an addict is the worst thing someone can do!
So she stopped giving him money.
It was then things started missing from the house. Sometimes they will find out something is missing only when they go to get them. He will steal his own parents money, even to the extent of from his little niece piggy bank. He would break any lock in the house to get money.

He drained the family financially, physically and emotionally.
Drug(s) is the worst thing in the entire world. It not only affects the user but everyone around them.

That day On his return after a year, Everyone was elated to see him, his old mother was crying, a joyful tear, his father though frowning and sitting in his chamber , a sense of happiness can be seen in the corner of his eyes constantly eyeing his son from his peripheral vision. It has been a very painful path to go down for his parents to see their own son suffer.

He looked at his niece in amaze. The last time he saw her which was three years back ,she was still in her pony tails and pinafore, now shes in phanek. She was crying too and hugging her grandma.

Dolly was a daughter to him and a friend at the same time. She was one person whom he will pour his heart out "no ones born a king you know, kings are made."
She would ask rather curiously "so who made them?"
"The king made his son a king" he always seem to blame his parents for what he has become for reasons not known.

The afternoon was ending with the dusk settling in, the shadows lengthening, the cool breeze from the hills blowing and the sky darkening.

A year has gone by since he slept in his own home. He starts remembering things that happened there and looked around and was happy and surprised to see the guava plant which he planted years back has already bore fruits. Back then it was just a few leaves and stem,his mothers hair has gone greyer and everything else has either changed or seemed new or different. He looked up at the picture hanging on the wall, it was the picture of his girlfriend Malvika.

They have been dating for quite sometime now but his habits has deteriorated the relation. The relation gets bitter as time goes by. He tried calling her only to find her phone was off.

To be continued..