~~THE Saturday~~

I woke up, the sunlight in my eyes. I was so, so, so happy! It was Saturday! I had been working hard the whole week to finish off my school work so I can relax on the Saturday. The day was here at last. I sat there in my bed planning all the things I will do, play video-games, catch up on my favorite series, go play with my best friend Rohit and maybe even finish reading that book I had been putting off the whole week. That’s when it started. The downfall of my Saturday.

My mom was dressed in business clothes and she was bringing my younger brother, Laxman, who was in orange overalls, his t-shirt having the picture of Thomas the train. My mom explained how she had a really important business meeting and how my dad was in office because he had some work and how she really needed me to keep care of my brother. Now was the moment I knew universe was taking some kind of revenge from me. I worked so hard to somehow secure one day to relax and I have to keep care of my brother. You may ask, “hey what about Sunday?” Well, the simple thing is that Sunday is not enough. I have to sleep early because of school on Monday and my parents anyway had some picnic plans for the family. You may also ask, “but hey! Picnics are fun and relaxing. Your Sunday will be a blast!" Yeah… well no. Picnics for our family mean they will be dancing and singing and doing all sorts of things with my younger brother that I have no interest in. It will be better to study then to go. But my mom made is very clear, I had to go. Now you may also ask, “he is your younger brother, just put something on the television and he will be occupied the whole time” well let’s say my brother is the first person in the world who hates TV. Whenever he sees it on, he starts screaming and crying. Why? Because the first time he ever saw the TV was when he was one year old (he was too young before that to understand anything) and a horror movie was playing. And somehow precisely at the moment he looked at the screen, a monster humped at the screen. He has hated the TV ever since. Talk about coincidence huh.

Anyway, having no choice I got ready, ate breakfast and then my mother left me and my brother alone. For the first 10 minutes after my mother left, he kept crying. One minute he went into the kitchen I thought with relief “The tantrum is over! Thank god.” I thought he went to get some water for himself. Instead, he came back with a spoon and a bowl and started beating it together. More noise. Great. I tried to take the bowl and spoon from him but he started hitting me. So, I let him do his thing. When he got tired, he kept the spoon and bowl away and now looked for something new. So, seizing the moment I got some trains for him and let him play with those. I felt happy that now I could spend some “Me” time. So, I picked up my ongoing book and started reading as that was the only thing I could do now. I was so interested in the book that I did not notice my brother was gone! His trains were lying on the floor and I quickly rushed from room to room to find him when suddenly I heard a humongous CRASH!

I quickly rushed to the lobby and saw my mom’s most favorite lamp broken on the floor.

I could almost see my grave being dug and me being lowered in it. He was now fiddling with my mom’s favorite painting on the wall. Like a real slow lion tamer, I advanced towards my brother holding one of his trains to try and bribe him saying “no, Laxman, stop, come here, take this train. Play with this. Please Laxman I AM ALREADY GOING TO DIE” and then he lost interest in my talk and pushed the painting on the wall. Time slowed down. I saw the painting falling down slowly. I could do nothing about it. The moment it touched the floor its frame broke and the painting in it tore. Worst of all a very small piece of glass from the lamp stubbed my brother as he advanced towards me to get his train. He was bleeding slightly in the foot and started crying. I quickly got him away from the mess and carefully removed the glass piece from his foot. But the damage was done. A lamp and a painting were broken and my brother was bleeding, crying and punching me in the chest as if to say “this is all your fault.” Come on! All I wanted was one day to relax and that too was destroyed. I quickly got some anti-septic and some bandages and started tending to his foot when my mom entered the house.

She saw the broken lamp and painting and saw my brother hurt and rushed towards us. After making sure the bandaging for his foot was done, she turned towards me and started scolding me. Then it turns out she said it’s all my fault that I couldn’t even take care of my brother for 2 hours (it was just 2 hours? It felt like an eternity that my mother was gone). So, I started arguing how she ruined my Saturday but she didn’t want to hear it. She said for the next month I am not allowed to play games or go to play with my friend. I was also not allowed to read my favorite books. This was when I woke up.

It was Saturday morning and my mom was not screaming at me. I breathed a big sigh of relief and started planning my day when suddenly my mom wearing the same suit as in the dream came with my brother wearing the exact same orange Thomas the train overalls. Before she could start talking, I shouted “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” and ran out of the room and away from them before my weekends to come could be destroyed.