Loathsome
Teasa was getting ready for school. English teacher had given them an assignment, in which each one of them had to collect the history of a poet and present in front of the class. But, before the presentation, the teacher wanted to have a look at the names of the poets that each one of them was to submit to eliminate redundant names. Cris was pretty much confused about the assignment. So, he asked Teasa for suggesting him for a topic. Teasa was also trying to find one for herself. So, she suggested a name to Cris too. Cris was so confused that he asked about the possible sources from where he could get the information about that poet. Teasa helped him to some extent. And, they discussed the history of that poet for some days in school during the lunch break. There was a fear of redundancy among students. If one’s topic of assignment had been taken by any other, one of them had to sacrifice and take another topic. That could be tedious and arduous for one to change the topic for the assignment at that moment. There were two sections of that class. The presentation was about to be conducted in a combined class of the two. Students from one section hardly knew at most two or three students from the other. Teasa and Cris were of the same category, they were from different sections. Students were keeping their topics secret.
The next day Teasa dreamed. In her dream, as far as she had remembered, she was lying on her bed and there was a big white piece of paper in front of her eyes. Some names were printed on that paper with some photographs. All of the photographs seemed to behave satirically. The photographs were like telling something to her. The words were pretty evanescent and after some moment they were out of her memory. It was her recapitulatory statement after waking up. The thing that she remembered was that she had seen Lizzie, from the other section, on that piece of paper. Then, beside the name “Lizzie” on that piece of paper, there was written something in bold. Then, she noticed the name of that very poet was written near the name “Lizzie” which she had suggested Cris for the assignment. And, she heard a voice too asking about that poet.
The next day, Teasa narrated her dream to Cris. They both laughed at it because Lizzie was a friend of Cris, but not Teasa’s and she hardly knew her. Then, they began to discuss the topic again. After collecting some basic contents for the topics, all students were to report the teacher the next day. One by one each one of them entered the class to put forward the topics. Lizzie came out and told that her topic had been rejected as the topic was too critical and huge, rather she was advised to take a part of the topic to discuss, only the poetic career. When Cris asked her the topic, he was surprised to get his own one in return. Now the teacher informed all of them that she would be evaluating further topics after the break. Cris was in trouble because a part of his topic had been already given to someone else. He was fraught with the gruesome hours he had to spend for a new topic. He was pretty conscious and not willing to talk to anybody. He had just forgot to remember the morbid connection of her prior cortical response with that dream.
During the break, he met Teasa and told about what happened earlier that day. All on a sudden Teasa remembered her dream. Being a connoisseur of dreams, she started relating it to her dream. Cris came out of his weary thoughts and paid some attention to Teasa’s astonishment. They both were confused and started some discussion which lasted for a few minutes. Then, Cris went in the classroom after the break and the teacher surprisingly accepted his topic and told him to collect as much as he could about the history of that poet. Cris was too happy with the teacher’s response to his topic and he informed it to Teasa after school. Teasa was also happy with what happened and her topic had also been selected for the assignment.
That evening Teasa was thinking about the dream. What made the topic so exigent that Lizzie also came up with the same one. And, she hardly knew Lizzie. Why did she turn up in the dream? And, what could be the possible explanation for the unusual and morbid connection of her dream to the reality. Was it something to do with the frequent mentions of Lizzie from Cris? Or it was just the fear for the topic not getting accepted! It was pretty confusing and that very thought deranged her conscious state. She thought she could be able to thrive on the connection between her dream and the reality, but this was completely weird; not like the previous ones. The dream was too short, but was related to so many unconnected events in the reality. She figured out her reminiscences of her past activities and reckoned that the dream was an image of her fear and subconscious. Still it remained a mystery to her.