There was a time when I enjoyed sitting around and discussing people around me and what their life revolved around. I would still enjoy such things today if I could bring myself not to think of the one thing that usually plagued my mind.

I used to enjoy talking about politics, revolutions, and the history of all the people who had need not have existed but who made the world a more interesting place. Everything that had been, is and will be was interesting.

And, I loved talking about it. I honestly loved discussing the changes that brought my residence to its state and how often I still think that I want to know everything. I want to know about every person who ever had existed and what they thought and how crazy they might’ve considered themselves for thinking that way. I wanted to know what people thought of the great leaders who ruled them, in detail. I wanted to know how they perceived everything that happened. Were the kisses like fire and the world alight with the beauty that they never had thought existed? Was I the only one who, at times of distress, and when I felt absolutely lonely needed a hug that enveloped me within the other person?

Did anyone feel as lonely as I did? Did they feel like everyone spoke but every word they said was a blur? Did they feel like they were lonely but accompanied by endless thoughts that provoked within themselves curses and disdain against themselves? Would they stay awake at night assessing how they would live to be an almost nothing just like everyone else?

I thought about it often. I thought about how I was going to be just another person. I thought about how the people of the world would never remember me and how I would become this small little blip lost in the dimension of time that would never return. I wondered why I was living if it was so irrelevant. I wondered what difference it would make whether I died today or thirty years from now.

I would often consider it an existential crisis of a fame hungry teenager but fame didn’t guarantee remembrance. How many of even remotely remembered legends like Whitney Houston or Amy Winehouse? How many of us even remotely remembered the political leaders of communist Bengal who deserved as much love and respect as leaders such as Gandhi? How many of us think of Subhash Chandra Bose and remember his greatness? How many of us remember the time, not even twenty years ago, when people didn’t dislike Muslims?

Then, how do we expect to be even remotely remembered?

So, I often looked at myself and smiled ruefully, for I knew that I needed to look at my face everyday so that I remembered that that’s how I looked. Perhaps, it’s narcissistic to want to be remembered or think that I’m worth remembering.

“You’re not crazy, you know?” I heard someone whisper.

“That’s not comforting at all,” I whispered back. “I’d quite prefer being called crazy than sane. Because sanity is a robot who can only understand orders.”

“Wonder why we think alike! I quite loved your words.”

“They hated me.”

“They’re fools.”

“No… they’re just sane.”

He chuckled and I turned around to see NamJoon. “You do know that you’re going to get good grades for that, right? They do reward innovative thoughts in creative writing.”

“I couldn’t give a damn even if I was sane.”

“Do turn back around before we get reprimanded.”

“And, resting your chin on my shoulder won’t get us reprimanded?”

“No, they think that we’re paying attention while be