Chapter 9 — The Things It Had Taken

WhatsApp. Tanvi to Poorvi. November 3rd.She sent it at eleven PM from Mrs. Rane's sofa, where she had been sleeping for four days.Tanvi: Poorvi I need to tell you something.Poorvi: I'm hereTanvi: It's going to sound insanePoorvi: OkayTanvi: I need you to tell me what I'm like. What I'm normally like. How I usually talk and what I say and how I move.Poorvi: ???Tanvi: Please. I need an inventory. A description of me from someone who knows me.Poorvi: Okay. Okay. You call people by their full name when you're annoyed. You drink your chai with exactly two sugars and you refuse to admit you have a sweet tooth. You chew your pen when you're thinking but you don't notice you're doing it. You laugh before you tell a joke — you start laughing at your own joke before you finish it. You cry at advertisements with old people in them. You eat dessert first when no one is looking.Poorvi: Is this helping?Tanvi: Keep going.Poorvi: You can't sleep if there's any light at all except you leave the bathroom light on and think it doesn't count. You have opinions about font choices that would surprise people. You are the person who actually reads the menu at a new restaurant instead of getting the thing you always get — you always try the thing you've never had. You get homesick for places before you've even left them. You hold your breath when something important is about to happen as if the breath somehow affects the outcome.Poorvi: Tanvi what is happeningTanvi: I'm trying to remember who I am. Specifically and completely. Because some of it is gone.Poorvi: What do you mean goneTanvi: I can't tell jokes anymore. I keep starting them and the structure is wrong. And I haven't — I don't think I've laughed before one in weeks.Tanvi: I ordered the vada pav at the canteen yesterday. It's what I always used to get. I was going to try the new sandwich.Tanvi: I'm sleeping in a pitch dark room with no light and it doesn't bother me.Tanvi: I forgot to read the menu at a new restaurant last week. I ordered what I always order.Poorvi: TanviPoorvi: Are you okayTanvi: Something has been taking the small things. All the things that are me specifically. The habits, the patterns, the specific Tanvi things that only I do. And replacing them with—nothing. With default. With what you'd get if you trained a model on people in general and not on me.Poorvi: You need to leave that flat.Tanvi: I already left it. Four days ago. I'm at my neighbour's.Poorvi: GOOD. Stay there.