The bus to school came late each day.  So my sister was still getting ready at the time the bus was supposed to come and I had left for the bus stop just in time to make it to the bus that came on an earlier time that day.  We, the few guys that had made it on time, got into the bus.

The bus had been coming at two in the afternoon, but that day we–the boys–had planned to come to the bus stop at twelve and leave before two when the bus would actually come.  My sister was going to come at two.  But the bus came at twelve and she missed the bus.

“Why did the bus come at twelve today?” I wondered out loud.

“I remembered you said you were going to all come at twelve and miss the bus,” the weird bus driver responded.

“Oh!” We said in unison.

The bus dropped us off at school and left.  Next to the bus area on the left side looking from outside the school or the right side from inside was the cafeteria.  After walking into the hall I noticed for the first time the water fountains and the restrooms on the left side of the hall–the same side as the cafeteria.  A small diagonal piece of hall connected the compartmented cafeteria to the wide hall I was in.  This wide hall as I walked in more had a staircase downwards.  The left hand side of this wide hall simply had a railing from where one could stand and look down.  On the right hand side wall of the hall on the upper floor were huge glass doors giving a peak of the outside and bringing some outer light into the darker cave-like place.  After going down the stairs, I stood in a lobby.  I will come back here later.  For then, I continued straight after coming down the stairs into the infinitely long hall where all of the classrooms were.  I found my classroom and went and sat down.

The classroom was completely underground with no windows, only fluorescent light, and there were two teachers/instructors.  An old fat guy who sat in front of the class in a chair, and a slimmer taller guy that stood right in front of me.  I sat in the front right corner of the room, next to the door.  There was something about everything in the room that made me dizzy and wish to leave the room.  I don’t remember exactly what I said to the teacher standing in front of me but I made an excuse and left for the lobby where I heard an announcement.

“DO NOT USE THE LOBBY EXIT TO LEAVE SCHOOL OR YOU WILL BE KILLED” the announcement repeatedly said.

“The lobby exit, I don’t see any exit in this lobby,” I thought.  Behind me was the hall of classrooms, on my left was a large stone wall and in front I could see the stairs leading up, and the glass doors, and the right hand side wall simply had water fountains on it.  It wasn’t the message that bothered me, it was the fact that there was no visible exit.

I went to the fountains to drink a sip of water.  Everything was normal, but the large space between this wall and the end of the stairs was an unusually dark place.  It was hollow, but gave the look of a wall.  How spooky!  At a closer look it seemed as if one could go right behind this wall of fountains by walking around it in that dark opening.  It must be the lobby exit I figured, but wanting to take no chances yet, I left and went upstairs.   

I had another drink of water at the fountains upstairs where I met this other kid who had also been on the bus with me.  He was dark in color, almost brown with a bluish effect and not very tall.  He was also very slim.  He seemed to know everything.  I felt as if he  was omnipresent–he had been there on the bus right next to me–I had only ignored his presence.  I got the feeling that I was completely new to the school and he wasn’t although I had thought it had been a school I had gone to for years, but I didn’t seem to remember anything and he did.  He showed me around into the compartmentalized cafeteria.  He then showed me how to buy a snack sitting in a compartment.  I don’t recall what he bought but I bought some hard candy shaped like a donut.  The candy was transparent and I remember most of them being red or green, although I imagine they were more than those two colors.

We walked back out of the cafeteria into the hall again.  He then took me outside the glass doors on the upper floor.  There was an elephant in the distance.  Funny, I didn’t remember any elephant, I only recalled gardens being there.  Suddenly, I realized the elephant was running toward us at great speed.  I didn’t know elephants ran that fast and with that much force (mass X acceleration, hehe).  The elephant quickly approached the wall on our right.  Behind this wall, I imagine was where the bus left us, or maybe a room whose other wall would mark where the bus left us.  To the left there had been nothing except the longest extension of the wall in which the door we stood in resided.  And the elephant had been running right at the wall to our right from this great open field on the left.  On this wall at which the elephant ran was a huge rubbery bulge in the middle.  Immediately it was obvious that the elephant would squeeze it hard into the wall running into it head first.  That is exactly what happened.  The elephant ran into this shiny dark black rubbery bulge.  I imagine the shine was because the bulge was wet.  The kid who stood next to me explained that it was how they pumped water through the school.  Again, I felt as if I was so new to this prehistoric school of some sort.  I had thought the school had better ways of pumping water than making an elephant run back and forth.

Anyway, we walked back down the stairs.  I had a friend that was showing me the way around.  Thank god for that I thought, otherwise, I would have no clue to my way around.  Then he suggested we go outside through the lobby.  I was immediately scared, but more astonished about why he would say that.  Yet, I was curious enough or he had enough control over my mind that I went out with him.  Indeed, the way out was through the darkness that had looked like a black wall.  On the other side of the wall were a large grass field and a plateau-topped hill.  Apparently, the upper floor of the school had been built the way it was due to the hill.  We stood in sort of a ditch between the hill and the grass field.  We walked in the ditch along the hill, and there they were.  They attacked us with slingshots at great speeds–they could kill instantly I imagine.  The depth of the ditch was just enough to save us both and their shots went right over our heads.  We quickly advanced our way to behind a tree in the field right next to the ditch.  If we had stayed in the ditch, they would soon come close enough to shoot into it.  Now they were able to shoot right at us.  They had begun shooting boomerangs that could chop our heads off instead.  He was behind the tree enough to not get hit, while I kept bending back and forth just enough to dodge them.  I felt astonishingly capable of continuously dodging them or my luck was just going to well.  “My turn to get behind the tree, I am tired of dodging these things” I finally said out of arrogance thinking he would be unable to dodge them so well and then I would give him the back of the tree back anyway but he would be my in the red.  Yet, to my surprise he too dodged them completely just like me.  My pride broke but I was also amazed at him–this smaller kid I had assumed to be so much more vulnerable than myself.  At this time he revealed that he was Lord Krishna, and I was Arjuna and had it not been for him, I would not have been able to dodge any of the boomerangs.

My dream broke and my head was heavy for a long time. My ego and arrogance are futile and the Lord is always on my side. Several years later I realized the school, the boomerangs, the dream and real life are the Lord's Maya - they never were meant to harm me.

©2002 Aditya Mittal.  All rights reserved on this work of non-fiction.  It may not be copied for distribution in whole or in part by anyone.  Plagiarizing this work can result in fines and prison through the court of law.