21stOct2008EarlyMorning

Hide and Seek

I saw myself in my hostel room in NBH third floor. I kept the door open and frequently stared at the corridor on the other side of the doorway, with a strange fear in my mind. Then suddenly I decided that my room was not a safe place anymore, and simultaneously saw myself in a huge lobby of a big house, which was as if had been teleported to the big house or my room had suddenly grown large, or maybe it was just my imagination. The idea of examination next day increased my fear, and I had a lot left to prepare.
It all started the evening last week, at the beach party where I and my friends started the game of a new kind of hide and seek. The beach looked lovely with the lighting and the palm trees and large no. of people singing and dancing, but we had lost the mood for the party. So, we all went and sat a little away from the crowd and while chatting decided to play hide and seek with a small alteration in the rule that the ones found by the seeker would also become the seeker, something like becoming a vampire after being bitten by a vampire. We played that game all night till the last campfire burned out.
In a state of agitation, I decided to study with my friend Atul in his room. Atul was one of the players of the beach party hide and seek last week. I started studying again, doing my preparation the usual way.
Next thing I see myself sitting in the corridor, beside the open door of my room, with friends from the beach party beside me. They said it was fine, and that it was just a game and that I should forget it. One of them, Gaurav I think, said that he was the seeker and he touched my arm to show that what I was thinking was my imagination and was not true. The fact is, I was having visions, visions of places I was not at that time. While studying, once in a while, the pages of the book change into someone's bedroom or lighted road in the campus and it was not because of I drowsing while studying. I drowse quite often while studying and I know the difference. It wasn't day dreaming either. It felt like I was in those places, the visions looked so real. And with all these visions I saw a man, in his late 40s or early 50s, looking at the beach from the window of his suite.
I thought that as a seeker I had some kind of powers to see what the other seekers of the game are viewing at any time of the game, one at a time, just like one can change view while playing video games. Our last game was left incomplete because we had run out of lighting on the beach and it was too late to continue. Since I was one of the seekers in the last game, I thought that the powers of a seeker again took over me at the time same as the time last week when we played the game. I then realized that similar thing happened last week as well, but since any part of the beach looked mostly the same as the others I didn't notice the visions at that time.
Didn't my friends get the same visions?
If they did, why didn't they say anything?
If they didn't why didn't they? why only me?
Could it be that the man in his late 40s is the main seeker, looking at the world through other seekers like me? Did he touch me to give me such an ability, like a seeker in the hide and seek game?
Will completing the last game of beach party hide and seek help me get rid of these visions?
Before I could get answers to any of these questions, I guess I woke up.

14thOct2008LateAfternoon

I saw myself in my present college life, a pleasant yet slowly turning into a highly irresponsible guy. I saw myself doing nightouts for no good reason and sleeping all through the day, sometimes skipping classes and scoring average in exams...
The dream looked like reality, and felt like I wasn't sleeping, that I was still awake and living my life, until he came...
I saw myself in some circular shaped, highly spacious room which looked like an office. I saw a man standing behind his desk, his back towards me, looking outside the window behind his desk. He was short in height, and reminded me of babidi, a villian in DragonballZ. Let's call him Mr. A.
"I have heard a lot about you and so wanted to meet you in person", he said with a bit of squeakiness in his voice, still facing the window. I felt numb and nervous, and thought, "this must be about my skipping classes because of no attendance taken, and about my late submission of assignments."
"Wrong", he said, and turned away from the window, to face me. I was astouned at his remark. He did look a little like babidi. "I wanted to meet you because I want your expertise, your skills. I want you to work for me, in my research lab. You would be paid well."
"I don't understand", I said. "I haven't been going in any direction as far as my MS in IIIT-H is concerned. I have been procrastinating all my work. I think there has been some mistake."
"No, no mistake. I know who you are, what you do with your time. All I want you to do is, work for my lab and I'll fund you during your MS and PhD and beyond maybe. I could provide you with assistance in your MS. There are things to be done in my research lab that only you can do."
He gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. Instead of living on mere stipend from college, why not get a full pay package by devoting a few hours everyday for his work.
During early hours of that evening, in some classrooms (our classrooms were large seminar halls), some or the other movie was to be shown. I went into one of the classrooms, and sat on a seat in the middle-row. I looked around, for familiar faces and couldn't help notice that one of the person in the room didn't belong to our college. And when my eyes met his, he looked nervous and moved his gaze away. I got a feeling that something was wrong.
After the movie, I walked out of the room/hall and towards the mess for dinner, while many students discussed the movie they saw, I couldn't help notice that the stranger in the same classroom as I, was nowhere to be seen just after the movie was over, i.e., he didn't get out through the door. 'Maybe I am thinking too much', I thought, 'but that man had some purpose in mind, something which he had planned to do in recent future, tonight maybe.'
After late dinner I went to my room, tired and ready to hit the bed. While lying on my bed, half asleep, I thought I heard some sound coming from the window. I didn't want to bother about it, but it disturbed my sleep, so I got up and went upto the window. I was surprised to see the same guy from the classroom movie hall, hanging outside the window, trying to create a small breach in the window glass... no it wasn't glass, the window of my room was also not the same, it was different, and made of something unbreakable maybe. As I stood there, digesting the sudden surprises and thinking of various possibilities of causes and effects, the sound at the window vanished. I saw that guy outside, and for some reason, I blocked that breach in the window. He tried his best to push me away from the window, but I didn't budge and gave it all my strength. But he won, and I was pushed away from the window and on the floor. I got up from the floor, only to see him standing in front of me.
'How could he enter the room through such a tiny breach/hole/cut in the window?' I wondered. And while I wondered that, he reached for my cupboard, and took out a cardboard carton. It was packed and sealed, and addressed to me. 'How could this carton be in my cupboard, and I didn't even know about it?' I couldn't contain my curiosity and decided to ask him about all this. But he seemed to be too desperate and panicky. He pushed me back on the floor and went out of the window, the way he had come in.
Next day, Mr. A summoned me in the same office/room in which we had met last time. 'You must be having some questions', he said.
"Yes I do", I said, and by now getting used to some doses of everyday surprises.
"The man who broke into your room yesterday is one of those people who don't like my research. And the carton in your room was sent by me, as a small gift before you started your work." he laughed slightly, a squeaky laugh. 'And that fool thought it was some part of our project information that I was sending you.' He seemed to enjoy making a fool out of that man.
"So what was in that carton, Mr. A ?" I asked.
"Chocolates. You like Chocolates, isn't it?"
"Yeah I do."
'Wow, chocolates.' I thought and felt sad for myself.
"Don't worry, I'll get another carton sent to your room", he said, "and it is my obligation to take care of you, so don't take it as part of my courtesy or good deed or something."
He was a mind reader, for sure.
"I still don't understand why you want to keep me happy and want my help?"
"Because you're a genius!" he said.
"I, what?" I said, as I encountered another shot of surprise.
'Nobody called me a genius except my sister, for some reason only known to her!' I thought.
"Yes, your sister is right, though not for the same reason as mine." he said.
'I had better be careful before thinking anything in front of this guy' I said in my mind.
"Yes you should. But it won't take you much efforts to do so. Thought control comes naturally to you." Mr. A said.
I felt helpless, but my curiosity kept me going.
"You can understand the forces and energies around you, hence you can understand the intentions of a person, or sense that something is not right. It is your natural skill of playing with energies and understanding them, that I want to use for my experiements. Of course I could have used those skills without you knowing what was happening, but I guess its better that you know, and now you know it."
"Don't worry, you won't be experimented on, and almost everything is computerized and simulated."
The word "almost" bothered me a little but I only realized the truth when I went to his lab.