It Was A Mundane Friday!
The mundane Friday that made me realise how the actions we do in life directly affect the way we perceive it.
It was a mundane Friday, which was the same as all the other days of the week until three other friends and I decided to have a sleepover after school got over. Now, we were desperately waiting for the last period to get over so that we could enjoy the rest of the day at my house where we were having the sleepover.
After the completion of the last period, my friends went to their respective houses to take permission from their parents, and get their essentials with them. We were heading towards my house with excitement, looking forward to the enjoyment we were going to have during the rest of the day. We reached home and first got comfortable by changing from our school uniforms into cosy clothes. Then we had mug cakes as snacks that we had prepared by ourselves, as it was a quick and easy option. Since there was still time left before sunset, we went to a nearby lake to play football.
After coming home, we were tired and wanted to sit down, relax and watch a movie. We first had an intense argument for about fifteen minutes regarding which genre of film we wanted to watch. I stuck to Action whereas Raghav and Ritvik wanted Thriller and Karan wanted to watch adventure. After an intense discussion, we somehow decided that we were going to watch a horror movie as it had the thrill, action, adventure we all wanted. Therefore, we decided to watch it on the pretext that it was a combination of all the three categories.
Another reason was that watching a horror movie alone was much more spine chilling than watching it with a bunch of friends. The film continued from eight to eleven in the night. It was about a murderer who was neither human nor animal, would break into the houses of people, and would kill them by eating them alive and how a group of people managed to kill it. We had now watched the petrifying movie and, we were all scared to death.
We still did not want to go to sleep yet as we rarely had sleepovers and wanted to take full advantage it. We thought for a few minutes as to what we were going to do next, after which Raghav suggested that we play a game in which a person would have to steal a fake jewel hidden anywhere in the house. The rules were simple- in the beginning, a group of people would hide the gem and put on an act of sleeping for five minutes. In those five minutes, the robber could roam freely to find the jewel. After five minutes they would get up; with the robber having to find the gem without getting noticed.
We praised Raghav for his suggestion and started to play. No one was able to find the gem within the first five minutes because it was pretty hard to search the entire place in just five minutes. Raghav, Karan and I had found the gem eventually. Now it was Ritvik’s turn; we were desperate to come up with a new plan so that Ritvik could not find the jewel in the same way we had found it. I suggested that we hide it in the pocket of our pants so that Ritvik would never manage to find it. We all chuckled and got back to the game.
Ritvik searched every nook and corner in vain. Finally, he gave up and asked us where it was. When we took it out of our pockets and showed it to him; he was infuriated and accused us of cheating. We started laughing loudly and told him that this was not cheating at all as in the first five minutes he could even inspect us because we were not allowed to catch him. Ritvik agreed, by the time the game was over it was two hours past midnight. After the long game, we were tired and decided to sleep.
We went to the bedroom and jumped on the bed, feeling extremely lazy. In an instant, we all dozed off to deep sleep and silence spread across the house. After a few hours, I woke up from my sleep to a sound of clattering coming from the living room. I sat up on the bed with a lot of effort and bent forward to look at the living room, which was diagonally-right across the bedroom in which I was sleeping. I could only see a green light coming from the Wi-Fi router popping out from the darkness in front of me. The clattering sound continued coming from the living room- I could also see the light disappear and reappear as if someone was moving in front of it because of which, the light was not reaching my eyes.
Suddenly the worst thought flashed across my mind that someone had just broken into our house. I was shivering with fear thinking it was either a thief or a murderer. I shook Raghav and told him in an almost inaudible voice, “Raghav, I think someone has entered the house.” Raghav was too deep asleep to wake up and realise the intensity of the situation. He replied in a half-asleep tone, “There is no one there”, without even looking! I was now angry and scared at the same time.
I first thought that I should lie motionless on the bed so that the person would not cause any harm to me and leave after what he wanted to do. Therefore, I just laid on my bed and waited for the person to leave. I continued to hear the clattering and thought that I would not be able to forgive myself if he harmed someone else. It suddenly came across my mind that I had to stop this person. I took a photo frame- which was right next to my bed- in my hand. I planned to strike his head hard with the photo frame, as this was the only plan I could come up with while I was panicking.
I gathered the courage I needed and got up. Thoughts of the robber standing in front of me with a sharp knife frightened me further. Without further thinking, I started walking towards the door on my toes to make as minimal noise as possible. As soon as I reached the bedroom door, I bolted towards the light switch, which was right in front. I switched the light on, and to my surprise, there was no one in the living room. I went to all the other rooms, the kitchen and the storeroom to make sure the person was not hiding at these places either. Finally, I realised that no one had entered the house at all.
I asked myself then, what was the noise? I went to the living room window and saw a pigeon pecking its beak against the window, which was making the clattering noise. I also noticed my bedroom door move back and forth, due to a breeze, which was blowing in from the open glass door of the garden. This movement had given me the impression that somebody was moving in front of the light.
I had now understood why I perceived the situation as if someone had entered our house. I saw the clock, which told me to sleep, as it was five in the morning. In the morning during breakfast, I told my friends the entire story, after which they started laughing loudly and making fun of me. They did not understand how horrifying the situation was for me. They said that there was another reason why I believed that someone had entered our house. On me asking what it was, the reason they put forward was that it was because during the night we watched a horror movie and played a game, which was both related to thieves or murderers entering houses. These both affected my brain. The pigeon pecking on the window and the wind blowing were everyday experiences but were perceived by my brain as unusual.
From this experience, I had learnt an important lesson that the actions we do, define and affect the way we perceive things in life.
