SUBHRAVANU DAS is an Indian writer living in Bhubaneswar. His work has been published in ANMLY, Chestnut Review, Denver Quarterly, and The Margins, among others, and included in Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf’s Top 50.
Possibility No.1:
After 4 whiskeys and 6 beers, I ignored the book club members I was hanging with and started screaming along with the band belting out bhajan rock from the low stage in the corner of the bar. I later followed the band out and joined their smoke circle. When I offered to buy them dinner at a kebab shop a short drive away, they welcomed me into their car. Perched right behind the swaying driver’s ear, I screamed so loud that he braked hard and a flower-seller on a bicycle rammed into our taillights. We sped away from the mangled petals and the band yelled at me till I gave them all my money. They asked where I lived and dropped me in front of my building. I stumbled into my apartment. I woke up four hours later in my pajamas and ate leftover dosa from the fridge.
Possibility No.2:
After 5 whiskeys and 5 beers, I sang along with the band for a while before sitting back down with my book club members. The gymming guy, whose name I could never remember, kept saying how it wasn’t enough to read about resistance and how we needed to organize a march against corruption or caste discrimination or some such. In response, I spilled my secret—I had been bullied into resigning from my job at the Temple Authority in order to open up a vacancy for my boss’s new son-in-law. And while the notice period’s impunity allowed me to be vocally anti-establishment, I preferred more aesthetic causes like freedom of expression. Still surrounded by keen listeners, I tried to call my mom and come clean to her as well. But I kept dialing my bank’s helpline number and screaming maa, maa into my phone even as the music died out. I sat comfortably knowing I would never be confronted about this night since I would never again show my face to the book club members. But then the gymming guy insisted that I go home and hoicked me out of my chair, toppling over a beer. While I tried to wriggle out of his hold, my money must have slipped out. He dragged me out into his car and dropped me in front of my building. I hurdle-jumped into my apartment. I woke up three hours later in my pajamas and ate leftover dosa from the fridge.
Possibility No.3:
After 6 whiskeys and 4 beers, I cursed out the band and turned my attention towards the book club. The photographer girl was discussing her upcoming wedding outfit. She had a link to a lehenga open on her phone and kept on about it being unaffordable. I grabbed her phone out of her hand and insisted on immediately buying the lehenga online. She grabbed back, latched onto my hair, and yelled “Are you mad?” I claimed that my stable job enabled me to pay for her. Others joined in, someone said “Money is self-worth”, and in the scuffle for her phone, a whiskey got tipped over. I let go and went to the loo and called my mom to tell at least someone the truth about my impending joblessness. But when she picked up, I could only slur out how an untethered life was difficult to cope with sometimes. She told me not to worry and to keep faith in god. I knew she would never bring this up like she hadn’t any of my drunken calls in the past; the trauma of losing her father to the drink never allowed her to address drunkenness. The gymming guy later found me in the loo crying over the money that had disappeared from my pockets. He shoulder-hugged me out and paid for a rickshaw which dropped me in front of my building. I crawled into my apartment. I woke up two hours later in my pajamas and ate leftover dosa from the fridge.
Possibility No.4:
After 7 whiskeys and 3 beers, I knocked over someone’s human-length test tube Long Island Iced Tea on my way to the loo and was escorted out of the bar by servers; no one from the book club even looked in my direction. Under the streetlight outside, I spotted a cat being chased by a famously non-nocturnal giant mongoose. I followed them and ended up at the steps of a temple of the round-eyed god, who belonged to a different faction from the god whose estate I managed. But all gods are avatars of one another, so they had to be related. The temple steps were marble-smooth and I lay down to rest. Soon a chariot that was to carry the round-eyed god to his in-laws the next day rolled in from the main road and its two charioteers laughed at me and said, “If our lord won’t shelter the wasted and the hopeless, who will?” They took all the money out of my pockets and shoved it into the temple donation box. Then they hauled me up into the chariot’s petal-strewn wooden embrace and played a cymbals track out loud on their phones as they rolled me to the front of my building. Having tasted the seat of divine benediction, I floated into my apartment. I woke up an hour later in my pajamas and ate leftover dosa from the fridge.
Possibility No.5:
After 8 whiskeys and 2 beers, I put my head down at the table to shut out the sounds and the darkness. I then mumbled something about empty stomachs and none of the book club members responded. I said goodbye, left the bar, and caught a rickshaw outside. It dropped me in front of my building and, while paying the driver, my leftover money must have slipped out. I strode into my apartment. I woke up five hours later in my pajamas and chewed through possibilities, trying to make them easier to swallow.
Volume 15.1, Winter 25
Subhravanu Das
