This is not a “Rags to Riches” story. This is not about how he turned his life from being an orphaned beggar boy on the streets to becoming a millionaire. This is not about his outlook towards his or anyone else’s life. This is not a discussion on whether he was a sociopath or whether he just knew never to cry. This is not about the soft man beneath the invisible flaming shield he created around him to protect himself from anyone that could potentially break his heart or touch his weak spot. Nor is this story about how he learned to stay strong and emotionless. This story is about that one fateful night when a glitched dream changed his entire perception of his own life. This story is about a dream that traveled quickly through the minds of a few people with a glitch. This story is an account of a very small and simple dream that caught him off guard from within his own shield while he was asleep and disintegrated his simulated impassivity towards others. Below is the account of that glitched dream.

I must be the most blessed boy on Earth. I thought I would die in the scorching heat. Of course, I don’t have slippers to protect my feet from the dry thorny land. But I am lucky enough that my torn vest is cotton and not polyester. I found a thorny bush which had some shade where I could sit down and count my earnings for the day. Who could get luckier than that? People today didn’t feel especially generous. Perhaps they must have been mad about the sun too. Heat does something to people, you know? You have no idea how hot it was that day. Well, one arrogant woman pushed me down so hard that I landed on my face and belly. I lay down on the boiling cement with my face down and could see a watery vision of other people’s feet. That’s how it always is when you get pushed on a sunny day, and of course, a rainy day. But today, I have faith that I have collected more than the others. It isn’t a race or game. The winner gets no trophy but the loser gets permanent scar. No time to waste, I need to count the coins I earned for the day before my “mother” comes and slaps me. One, two, three, four. Wow! This one is shiny. Perhaps a new one. I always have difficulty handing over the shiny ones. Once I tried hiding it in my pocket and I got the hot rod on my back. My first scar. As if my nickname wasn’t doing justice till then. They already started calling me Scar-face as I had a scar on my left cheek. Must be a birth mark. Or someone I don’t remember must have punished me for something I did which I don’t remember either. Coming back to the shiny coin. I didn’t even know what to do with it. All I wanted was to have it in my pocket. My “mother” and my master were too obsessed with those coins. Wonder what they use it for. Sometimes, we get lucky and get dirty pieces of paper rather than coins. I have no interest in those papers. They are dirty, ugly, sometimes sweaty and smelly, sometimes scribbled. But “mother” and master loved those papers and would buy us a candy if we get papers. Personally, if someone lent me a green paper and a shiny coin and asked me to choose, I would go for the shiny coin. But what was the use, if papers can get me candy, Paper it is! So, yes, now I had a scar on my back and my face. Scar on my back, I knew how it came. The one on my face, I didn’t. Five, six, seven, eight. What’s that smell? Ahhh! Fresh dog poop.

In another ten minutes, it will dry up. I don’t know if you felt this before, poop or no poop, something so fresh and moist in the scorching heat is always relaxing to look at. Well, eight coins and ouch! A thorn! Aaargghh. I have plastic covers given by my “mother” to cover my feet but we don’t use that often. I especially don’t use it during the peak summer. I use it during the rainy season when the drainage is freed by the rains and when we are asked to step in and search for anything that MIGHT seem valuable to the masters and the “mothers”. Sometimes we find broken, dirty toys and the generous master asks us to keep them for ourselves. We fight over it though. I am too small to keep my own findings and always they get taken away from me.

I found 5 toys and I have none. Well, as for today, I didn’t get to the best part yet. Yes! You guessed it. I got a dirty paper today. Ha ha. That’s why I felt like the most blessed boy on Earth today. I get to have a candy. Wait. What is he doing? Looking through the window like that. Is he trying to climb over the window? It seems to be closed. Boy, has he found something really interesting.

***************GLITCH****************

Oooooh! Is she going to remove it? What is she looking at and smiling? She has been in the room for almost ten minutes. God, let this be my lucky day. Let me see her naked today. Please God! But what is she smiling at? Perhaps she already knows that I am peeking through the window and teasing me. Yes. That’s what she is doing. She is teasing me. She wants me to wait,

then tantalize me and then she will slowly start removing her dress, one by one until she is completely naked. Oh! I wish I had access to her bathroom. Aahh, I am sure she is alone. What if I just barge in through the window and seize her? No. I just need to see her. Just once. God please! The way she keeps smiling is killing me. I can see lust in her eyes. I have no clue what made her horny right now but she is horny and her smile says it all. Good lord, if I wait for a few more minutes she will take it all off. That’s what I am gonna do. I am gonna wait for a few more minutes and I will be gifted for my patience. There she smiles again. This is my lucky day. Look at her biting her lips. Oooooh Yes.

************************************GLITCH************************************

Oh! Look at my little girl! The love of my life and the apple of her daddy’s eye. He he. Look at her sleeping so peacefully. You naughty girl. When you sleep next to momma, you need pin drop silence and now look at you, sleeping peacefully against the white noise of your daddy’s thunderous snore. And you, Mister, you made me fall for you with that loud snore and a big belly like that? How on earth did you manage to do that. Ha ha. Oooh! I cannot contain my smile. I just hope we stay the same way forever. Happy and peaceful. I remember how I used to run around the house when I was a small girl. People told my mother that I should have been a boy. Mom would run behind me with a broomstick. “A girl should be a girl” is what she always told me. He he. Looking at them both is bringing back happy memories. Oh, how I wish I could go and see mom now. Wonder what she is doing right now. What else? She would be fighting with dad over his adamant need to go out with “The Greybeards.” That’s what the group of old men called themselves proudly. He he. I think I will give them a call right now. Wonder what she might brag about my childhood this time. Whatever I say about my daughter, she interrupts and says “Just like you. I pray to God that she grows up to be as naughty as you and then you will realize how much I went through” He he. Yes, let me call mother right now.

************************************GLITCH************************************

My knees. Good Lord! I have been coming to see you every day, climbing those stairs. Why don’t you come once and take away my knee pain. Look at those trees. They have been here since I was child. Just come down once and take the knee pain away. I need to run and climb those trees just like the good old times. Just once. I promise, just once and I will come back and sit on my wooden chair. Will count to three with my eyes closed and then when I finish saying three, you take away the pain. I won’t open my eyes. Mother promise. I know it’s a sin to see you. If I do see you, then take away my eyes along with my knee pain. But not before I climb those trees. Thank God, I said that. Need to be very careful when praying a wish. Don’t think I am unaware of people who wished the wrong words and got the wish. My mother told me the story of the wish an ant made to Lord Ganesha. Ha ha. Since then, I have been very careful with what I wish for.

OK! Let me count now. At three! OK? I am going to start counting now. One, two three. Yes, yes, yes! It’s gone. Let me get up right now. I am opening my eyes now. Hope you have vanished again. OK! Am opening my eyes now and am going to get up. And. Shit! The pain is still there. Ooohh! My knees. Good Lord. Look at those trees. Older than me and yet don’t have to worry about their knees. Oh, what’s that? Another plane. Wonder where those people would be going now. Look at me sitting in this chair dying to go to a nearby tree while those people are flying at great speeds. How blessed are they? I wonder how happy they must be feeling right now. Wish I knew. Oh, What’s that? Phone’s ringing. Wonder where the old man is right now. “Can’t you hear the phone ringing?” No reply. If I find out that he is out again with those Greyhounds, I am hiding his walking stick for sure this time. Got to get up and get to the phone before it stops. Oohhh. My back, my knees.

************************************GLITCH************************************

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign, and you may now move around the cabin. However, we always recommend keeping your seat belt fastened while you’re seated. In a few moments, the flight attendants will be …” Finally. I already feel like I have my life tied around my neck waiting to strangle me at any moment. And now these bloody seat belts. My life is going down the drain. I know that I am doing nothing about it and I don’t want to do anything. I feel like I am at peace with everything that is happening with me but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. The fear of having a dark future haunts me effortlessly but I am also willing to overlook that by enjoying the small things of the present. At the same time, secretly hoping that there is a magical twist awaiting my future which might save me but at the same time scared that I might be too lazy to not do anything when the opportunity comes. Ohhh! I am so fucked up. Or am I? I don’t even know what my thoughts are any more. I feel like I don’t want to change things but am still feeling a strong urge to change my life upside down. So where do I start? Do I speak to the psychiatrist inside me? Do I need to start having regular sessions with my inner psychiatrist? But what if he is depressed. What if he suggests a depressing solution. Yup. I am officially fucked. Should I start doing things that makes me happy until I can turn that into my job? Because what pays my bills at present is only doing that because it doesn’t even know that I exist. Nobody even knows what I do, or whether I do anything at all. I am like a glitch in the payroll. To move towards my passion means jumping into an unexplored path. So how do I pay my bills in an unknown territory? Should I stay in my current path while I slowly carve my new path and then when the time is right I can steer into the new path and live happily, ever after. Yes. Yes. But what if my current path finds me futile and decides to throw me out even before I finish carving my new path? Ohh! Good Lord. Guess I will have to stay where I am right now and do whatever they ask me to do. I can at least travel in planes now and then. But who knows, I might be happier looking up at an air plane I can’t afford to ride while I have the perfect job. Wow. That’s a huge truck. Look how shiny it is. Even at this height I can see that truck. Wonder how many wheels it has.

************************************GLITCH************************************

Fuck the sun. They say its millions of km away from earth. Kiss my ass. It’s much closer if you ask me. And how wretched must my life be that I need to drive this big ass truck on such a day. I still have my boxer shorts on only because I don’t want to be naked on the highways. Aaghh! Its sweating all over. Bathing in my own sweat. No wind. Actually, Thank you for that. Better than burning air blowing on my face the entire time. What’s that? An Audi? Yeah. Fuck you. You want me to change lanes for you? You got to wait the entire day. You ready for that? No? Then fuck off. And the best joke of them all. God. Where is God now? I have no clue but I sure as hell know that he ain’t with me in the truck. He’d be burning his ass riding with me. God or no God, I need to be riding this monster for two more days of hell and one more night of a “somewhat heaven.” Ah my belly is burning. Wonder what snowy pleasures my master would be enjoying right now. What would he have lost by tinting the wind shield? What was he going to buy saving that money? If he can’t treat his labours like human, what is the motive of his life. If God is beautiful, what idea did God have, giving that wretched soul all the money to buy trucks and people and treat them like shit. That fucker doesn’t give a damn if I cleaned my ass after taking a dump but wants me to have the truck squeaky clean. What does it take for a man to know that this life, this world and everyone are raw by nature. That there is no good. If Karma works, then it surely is late by generations cause I have no clue what I did to deserve this wretched life. Who’s that? Poor boy. No place to even hide himself from the sun. Sitting amidst those thorny bushes and counting his coins for the day. I wish I knew where my son was. All I can remember is the scar on his cheek when the floods took him away.Being a motherless child is the greatest punishment that one can get. Nobody cared to comfort when my son was lost. They all said that he was the unlucky child who killed my wife during birth. They all said that I had to give him away. He was my everything. Oh! How I wished to grow old with him. My whole life was taken from me in four months. Who’s that women? At least he has a mother. My poor boy! I wonder if he is still alive.

************************************GLITCH************************************

Aha! “Mother” is here. Wait till she sees this paper I got today. Today is candy day. Ohhh! Shiny truck. That’s a huge one. Let me wave my hand. “Bye Bye Shiny truck. Today is candy day.”

***********************************WAKE UP***********************************

The billionaire jumped out of his bed startled. And for the first time in his life, wept like a baby.