There was a time when he had been open for influence. Open to be touched. Gentle. Accessible. Bendable. Now he resisted. I ran my finger down his spine. But It was hard to trace his source code. He was distant and raw. Callous. Dangerous. Muted. Feral.

I wasn't used to this. There was a time when you could smooth out a smile from him with a gentle caress. I knew. It didn't take a lot. We were childhood friends. Invite him out for dinner with a polite sincere gesture and he would respond. He had a cute open mouth smile that I found endearing.
When did he become so resistant? So unresponsive?
Now, even the gentlest caress over his back felt like icy spikes. It gave me goose bumps. I wasn't sure what I was feeling. But I know that it wasn't the same person I knew. The facial gestures were the same, but not the person. I could only guess that he had become rough from the unkindness of life. Tough. I was tempted to say macho. But it wasn't so much muscle that I felt more than toughened knots. Knots that had tightened as life had hardened around him squeezing his being in place. 
It is amazing how a person changes under pressure. Even the gentlest of souls--or perhaps I should say--mostly the gentlest of souls, under the right amount of pressure, turn into glazing diamonds. Apply enough heat and pressure over time and the sharpness and hardness that can generate is almost numbing.  It was this that I felt and I didn't like it. It was a hardness appropriate for a beast of burden, like a pack horse, but not for a human. 

How had Nirmal become this from who he was? I took pride in studying human nature. And even I remained baffled by the transformation. He came from a good family. His parents were accomplished, educated and travelled. And he had become a brute. He was one step above an animal that you could harness and chain with whips. The darkness in his eyes, muted, like a trapped animal bound by ropes. Something chaining his soul to tethers of rocks inside him, begging to be free.
I sought to chop that chain. But I knew that there was no way to cut it without losing him. It was all so tightly bound within him. Even I who studied human nature so close knew my limits. I had no experience with performing surgery at that level. I sought to let it go. And yet something else in me gripped on. Held on. I could not let him go without losing a small part of myself. I felt afraid for myself in that knowledge that I couldn't let him go for I knew that he was a liability.
Intellectually I understood that there are some people who are damaged goods. Lost. It is easier to cut them off than to try to repair and reach them. Who was I to play God? I was a mere mortal. Who was I to be arrogant enough to try to be more than a mere human? 
It was my knowledge that he hadn't always been the way he was now that held on to me. The kinship we had shared in childhood that still reached to me. I still felt the bond of friendship of playing in the same neighborhood as kids.