Because I was bored

Because I was bored(Utkarsh Dwivedi) I began my journey by grabbing the rod on the side of the door and pulling myself in. A rank smell lingered the passageway that connected the two adjacent compartments, one that would have surely overpowered my senses had I not made it to my seat in time. The chair car was a dull, humdrum sight.
To my left sat a peculiar man, in a peculiar way, with a peculiar expression on his face. To my right was a lady, young and cheerful, with a phone stuck between her shoulder and ear, swearing at her boyfriend for not having secured two seats in the same compartment. A heated up conversation, it seemed. Four seats ahead of me was a child, crying hysterically for some unknown (and malodorous) reason. I still think I had seen a pint of brown below him. A man lay in his seat on the two tier row of seats on my left (I was in the three tier row), browsing his laptop, totally attentive to the pings of some Facebook friend. Right behind him was a complete family-a wife, her husband, and their baby-in deep sleep as if under the spell of some family lullaby. Behind me was an old man, white hair and no teeth, and his granddaughter, humming and nodding her head to the tune of her earphones. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Nothing interesting. Everybody had his own routine; someone was on a business trip, someone on a visit to his relatives, and someone on a honeymoon. As for me, let’s just say I didn’t know what the future had in store-absolutely nothing.
The siren blared and I chanced one final look at the railway station. Another dull sight: book sellers and vendors; passengers-all busy and totally uninteresting-who waited for their respective transport; cute irritating toddlers running away from their parents who in response ran after them yelling safety measures and “you’ll definitely get hurt if you keep running like that;” affected family members, all too keen to get a sleep but presently in the formal show of “hey! I missed you so much!” As I told you, boring. It was as if I had been transferred from one mundane dimension to another, like I had been plucked out of one irritating frame of boredom only to be put into another one, of the exact same level, the only change being mobility-a gift of science, and wheels. And all I did? Grant absolute acquiesce to the immortal force that did this to me. ‘Argh!’ I swore to myself.
I felt a jerk, and a rumble, which gradually faded into a constant vibration beneath my feet as the train picked up motion. And then, all I heard was a boring cacophonic combination of metal wheels on metal tracks, mouse clicks and key taps, whining babies, swearing girlfriends and snoring granddads.
I do not know exactly for how long I had slept before it happened.
The peculiar man (I told you he was peculiar) lunged out of his seat, swore some holy-cum-acrid verse, stumbled over a suitcase, farted-I’m not sure, it could have been the sound of him colliding with something in the ground-and dived out of the chair car. I thought I heard a bump on the pavement outside the window. Had the man lunged out for some reason?
“THIS ISN’T THE KIND OF BOREDOM RELEIF I EXPECTED!” I shouted in my mind.
No one seemed to care. And I’m definitely not a caring adult yet. I glanced around myself to make sure there wasn’t another lunatic lining up for some crazy boom stunt. Nope, the status had been restored to “monotonous fragrant peace.”
I went through all the possible things to do in my mind. And the best one, I gathered, was to sleep. So once again, I made myself comfortable. I thought about something, anything, that I could dream about to escape this abysmal torture of “nothing interesting” at least in my sleep-science fiction novels, video games, my favourite Japanese anime Naruto, Sherlock Holmes, anything that would keep me from drifting away from my sanity and would help me drift into sleep. And yet before the comforting siesta would have taken me into its embrace, thanks to my insightful acumen, I noticed something through the corner of my half open left eye.
A suitcase.
The peculiar man’s suitcase. This was the situation as I perceived it: So now we have a potential threat ticking towards our annihilation. Congratulations. Dying in what, 3-2-1?
Back to the danger, I told myself and craned my eyes toward the suitcase. There was a crack, no, the suitcase was open, both its lids almost abut. Jutting out from between them was something red. Nope. It was something inside the suitcase. NOPE! It was something adhering to the bottom of the upper lid. I was having trouble seeing clearly-perhaps I had dozed off for a few minutes and was imagining things, or perhaps trepidation had obliterated my eyesight.
I rubbed my eyes, and once again glued them to the opening in the suitcase. The red object was there. It was a disk; I could see clearly now and thanked heavens for restoring my vision-I can’t game without a good eyesight. Half of the disk protruded out from the opening, and the other half lay inside. I could feel curiosity welling up in me. I’ve read enough science fiction; I’ve played more than enough bomb diffusing roles in video games. And the only thought that struck me at that time: please don’t turn out to be the red alert of a bomb, please don’t.
I was getting more and more restless as time passed, and the fact that the peculiar man had jumped out of the train was all the more troubling. I looked around; everything was as it was a moment ago. Everyone was busy in his own work or lost in unwary dreams.
I realised I was holding the armrests too tightly, and when I removed my hands I sensed moisture on my palms. I could feel my feet trembling even in the persistent vibration of the train floor. Curiosity was driving me insane, choking me with fear. I had to check out the suitcase. I had to. “No dying today, dude,” I said to myself, and made the final decision to open the suitcase.
Then a thought stifled me with apprehension: What if opening the suitcase triggers the bomb?
Another one: What if the red object isn’t an alert, but a button, a trigger?
Another: And if the button is attached in this particular way intentionally? For someone like me to do the needful himself?
Yet another: This could be mass murder. So many innocent people could die.
Millions of intuitions swarmed me; millions of thoughts came crashing one after the other into my mind. But the central thought that kept revolving in my head was, I’ll die. And I definitely don’t plan to do something idiotic and moronic and unintelligent and... GOD HELP ME!
I pictured myself heading for the disk and pressing it by mistake, which was followed by a massive explosion (I should thank my video game obsession for this). I pictured the orange-yellow cloud of raging inferno swallowing me and everything in its wrath; then I pictured a black cloud of dust and smoke as it settled. I pictured myself in third person, lying motionless like burnt, dead meat; and same was the case with the train and everyone inside it: skin slashed and burnt, hair turned to ashes, bones protruding out of places where skin was supposed to be present, limbs bent at weird angles. I imagined puddles not of transparent water but of crimson blood, I imagined bodies without noses and ears and limbs, I imagined broken windows smudged with blood. The man who was working on the laptop? My sci-fi imagination had sliced him in equal halves, legs lying apart from his torso region. The family that was sleeping? The mother and father were dead, and shards of glass and shrapnel had found refuge in their flesh. Their baby was alive, although with the exception of a burnt leg and a pierced eye; he was crying over the body of his mother, urging her to wake up, pleading her to show some emotion. A hand that belonged to the old man with no teeth was visible: the rest of him was buried under debris. His granddaughter was burned from head to toe, like steamed fish, all her organs fried except for her ears-they were gone, and blood gushed out from the newly formed cavities. Her earphone’s wires had melted, and as molten as they were, they had clung to her face, roasting it. The smartphone of the swearing girlfriend had exploded, creating a see through hole in the girl’s head; her brain had been scorched and even her blood seemed brown and baked. Some people died on the occasion, some whined in agony, some flailed their secure limbs, and some crawled without proper functional legs.
I saw death everywhere. I had created in my mind an apocalyptic scenario-limited, though. The destruction phenomenon exceeded only as far as the ends of the train.
“BLOODY STOP THINKING NONSENSE!” I shouted, and everyone stared at me, shocked and amused. I guess their hunger for craziness wasn’t fulfilled by the peculiar man’s dive, so now they wanted me to entertain them. And I was doing just that. The more I stared at the disk, the more I drifted away from the reality.
So I tried to calm down. I told myself the red object was nothing but a disk of some... thing? I obviously didn’t know what it was; I’m not a superhuman with hypertech eyes. I closed my eyes, this time thinking of something beautiful and cute and not so horrific and terrifying. I breathed slowly. I rubbed my sweaty hands and sighed.
A moment later I heard the door of the chair car slide open and close again. I didn’t open my eyes. A few footsteps, and I felt a hand on me. “Excuse me,” said someone-I recognised that voice-and I opened my eyes to look at him. It was the peculiar man.
I let him sit back in his seat, and inquired where he had been.
“Washroom,” he replied. Now I knew the reason for his insane stunts: he was in urgent need of a toilet. Great.
“And what’s that red circular thingy there, on your suitcase?” I asked.
“Chewing gum; silly me, I keep sticking those things in my suitcase. Bad habit, you see,” he replied.
And at that very moment, I decided to never trust my gaming instincts again.