Chapter 5 – The Flashback of Perfume

📖 Chapter 5 – The Flashback of Perfume

Tom’s voice broke through the silence, heavy with chains and despair. His eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“Andrew… who did this to you? Who made you like this?”

The words struck like a bell in the dark. Andrew froze, his breath rattling. For a moment, he was silent, trembling. Then tears welled in his ruined eyes, spilling down scarred cheeks. They hissed as they touched his skin, little plumes of smoke curling upward.

“It wasn’t just them, Tom,” Andrew whispered. His hand gripped the edge of the table, burning through the wood. “It was the world. But before the fire… before the virus… there was you. Always you.”

His body swayed, eyes rolling back as if memory itself dragged him into another time. The dim room faded, and in its place bloomed a vision from years ago.

🌑 Flashback Begins

The slum in Kolkata was alive with smoke and spice. Narrow alleys ran like veins through a body of tin shacks and broken bricks. Clotheslines sagged overhead, dripping water from washed saris. Children played barefoot in puddles blackened with coal dust.

And at the edge of the chaos stood a dhaba—small, yet proud. Its walls were painted once-white, now stained with turmeric and smoke. Inside, the clatter of steel plates and the smell of frying onions filled the air.

A boy of Twenty nine moved swiftly behind the counter, his hands quick, his eyes bright. He wore a faded apron, patched a dozen times, but his movements had grace, almost artistry. He chopped coriander with precision, kneaded dough with strength, stirred curries as though each pot was a canvas.

This was Andrew.

The dhaba was his life. He had inherited it from his father, a man who died too young, leaving debts and a hungry family. Andrew worked from dawn to midnight, serving truck drivers, porters, students with empty pockets. They loved his food—parathas stuffed with spiced potatoes, chicken curry rich with cardamom, tea that soothed aching throats.

But when the shutters closed at night, Andrew was not the same.

In his one-room hut above the dhaba, he lit a single candle and pulled out his treasures. Posters.

Posters of Tom.

The first he found by accident—a crumpled magazine page lying in the street. A perfume ad. A young man smiling, holding a bottle like it was magic. That smile—bright, careless, unbroken—pierced Andrew’s chest like a knife. He smoothed the page, hung it above his bed, and stared at it until sleep claimed him.

Soon there were more.

From newspapers, from hoardings, from film magazines left behind by customers. Tom modeling watches, jackets, even in bold shoots for the LGBT series that people gossiped about but never ignored.

Every night, Andrew added to his collection. His hut became a shrine. The walls vanished beneath Tom’s face. The candlelight flickered against dozens of eyes, dozens of smiles.

He cooked for strangers by day. By night, he worshipped someone who would never know his name.

🌑 The Madness Grows

Neighbors whispered he was obsessed. They laughed when they saw him cutting out posters from garbage. Some boys mocked him—“Eh, dhaba-chef, are you in love with that pretty boy on the board?”

Andrew didn’t answer. His love was a wound, deep and secret.

Sometimes, when he was alone, he spoke to the posters.

“Today I made butter chicken. You would have liked it, Tom. Spicy, but soft.”

“I saw you on the billboard in Esplanade. They all stared, but I stared longer.”

“One day, you’ll know me. Not as the world sees me… but as I see you.”

Cruel love. Mad love. A love fed by hunger and loneliness.

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