The painting

Me and my friends cycled through the roads all across the city to go to the outskirts of the beautiful town of Rupsi. The roads were surrounded by trees on both sides, and the pollution level was always controlled. The roads had much more pedestrians than vehicles- well except for the rush hour. But the outskirts of the city was always quite. The main reason behind it was the lack of buildings. This area does not has a single building, it has few bungalows with huge gardens attached to them, there is a temple of the Hindu god Shiva, an orphanage and most of its children attend the government school. Not to forget the huge empty plots with lush green grasses which appeared as lakes during the heavy monsoon of India and otherwise serve as a cricket ground.

Anyways, I never liked to come to this area for it was always awfully quiet. No houses were attached to each other like the central part of the town where I live. All the houses are far away and it always looks like a ghost town. The orphanage and school were next to each other but it was at the very end so the chirping of the kids was never heard. Honestly if I were to live here I would go crazy. I followed the lead of her friends as they arrived near the government school. We parked our cycles and locked them carefully attaching two of them together since there was a high risk of theft.

"Children actually come here?" Isha huffed.

"this barely qualifies for a school, no gates, no playgrounds, no security?" Seema exclaimed.

"This is a government school after all... what to expect." Tina stated flatly. We ventured near the building and went across it and walked for a while searching for any building or any remains of a building. But there was nothing. Since the school was at the end of the town all we could see was small dry bushes sprawled till the trees cover the view. Probably a railway track lies behind them.

"I knew it! it's been freaking 40 years." Isha said once they were came near the school again.

"Either they demolished the building completely or they extended and merged it into the school." Seema said looking around. "let's go now, no point in staying here." She said as we started moving.

But all of a sudden there was a restless feeling rising inside me, like she was missing on something important, something that my heart has always chased. which was odd. Even if I failed to locate the museum I should not be like this, I was not that interested anyways. But somehow I could not bring myself to move even a step away.

"Parul! what happened? come." Tina called me.

I clearly registered her voice but was not able to react to it. It felt as if the world was spinning around my head.

"Parul!" I flinched when suddenly I felt a hand on her shoulder. I looked over to see my friends standing in front of me. "you okay?" Isha asked.

I noticed a white butterfly from the corner of my eyes, it started flying away from the flower and there was a flash of memory.

-- "Butterflies are such beautiful creatures right?" He said fondly "it's so strange as if god specially took time to carve each one."

she was listening to him patiently, just enjoying sitting with him and the light breeze.

He continued "maybe because they are this special to god is the reason they have to go back within fourteen days?"--

My friends were standing there waiting for me to respond but somehow it was as if they were not even present. Instead of answering them I dumbly followed the white insect.

"Parul, wait!" someone called but I couldn't pinpoint who. I didn't even care anymore. I probably was going towards the school

"now she doesn't care about trespassing." Isha said as they followed me. Between the two sections of the school building Probably there was a small gap, I probably went through it and my friends followed. It was dark but short path. As soon as I crossed the path and went into light again I was forced to stop, for the light was too bright. Bright enough that I finally came back into her senses. she looked ahead of her and froze up. She heard some footsteps and shortly after her friends were there with her. Just as surprised as her.

So let me tell you how things actually were from my perspective. The building suddenly appeared after a flash. It seemed like magic and it shocked me immensely.

"This is the museum." a whisper left from Tina. I was still shocked having no Idea how I ended up here, all my memories a haze.

"yay! finally we did it" a joyous scream from Tina woke me up from my thoughts.

"have you ever known about this place?" Seema asked.

"uh.. no. I just thought it would be better to see what's here." I answered. Obviously I can't tell them the truth about the flashback and all. The last thing that I wanted was my friends to think I was insane.

"then let's go, shall we?" Isha asked them.

"Oh god.. the doors are locked." Tina whined when she found out.

"what to do?" Seema said.

Once again I felt a weird attraction, I looked to her left and saw something around the corner. "there!" I said before I started walking, but this time I gathered my thoughts. "I mean let's check there." I said as everyone followed.

And indeed there was a broken wall, well not completely broken but enough so that we could slip through. "woah..tell the truth. Have you really never been here?" Isha asked again.

"of course not, just an archaeologist intuition." I said faking a laugh. so anyways, they went inside to explore. There was the smell of dust, the smell of time in here. The one thing that everyone understood seeing the interior was that this was someone's mansion. Some wealthy nawab's (viceroy)or zamindar's ( landlord). which has been converted into a museum. Then why was it in ruins? There were old artifacts and things of daily use of the historical people kept behind a glass box. There was a letter framed and hanged which had signature of queen Victoria. There were swords and shields decorated on the wall. Even a gun! and a statue with armour! Just like any other museum. Just as refined, except the gorgeous Jhoomar wasn't lit, the floor was dirty, there were spider webs everywhere and on everything. We had our flashlights on and in these places there was high probability of spotting a snake So we were subtle about our movements. But I continuously thought about What had happened that even these precious items were abandoned here.

"look for someone's portrait. This may provide us a hint about the owner." Isha commanded. I went up the stairs and at the junction where the stairs divided into two directions, there was usually a painted portrait. I flashed my torch over the wall. There was a frame, I almost called my friends before I realised that it was a landscape, not a portrait. A landscape of a traditional town it seemed. "so familiar." I automatically thought, so I quickly clicked it's photo on my phone.

"Parul, did you find something?" Tina's voice startled me. Tina was standing at the end of the stairs.

"it's not someone's portrait just a landscape." I replied and Tina nodded and went away.

Suddenly someone screamed drawing everyone's attention. We all hurriedly gathered. "who screamed?" I asked worried.

"There- I think there is a snake over there." Seema said pointing at a random place in the darkness.

"okay, it's okay. let's go for now." Isha said as Tina rubbed her back. We went out of the museum and rode of our cycles. But the only thought on my mind was revolving around was the painting she captured.