tantrayaan

  The ctter of dice, the rustle of fake money, and the escating screeches of four dangerously competitive college men echoed through Sarah’s modest living room like a stock exchange run by raccoons on Red Bull.

  “DOUBLE SIXES, BABY!” Ravi roared, unching to his feet like he’d just won the showcase on The Price is Right. His tiny top hat token rocketed across the board with the conviction of a man who thought Monopoly was legally binding. “BOARDWALK, HERE I COME!”

  “You don’t own Boardwalk, hermano,” Jorge muttered, chewing aggressively on a Twizzler. “That’s my property. Hand over the rent.”

  Ravi froze mid-celebration. “Wait-what? Since when?”

  “Since you were busy telling Cami how Gandhi was basically the first minimalist,” Jorge replied, deadpan.

  “Ay Dios mío! You’re still on about that?” Cami groaned from the couch.

  Bharath sighed, massaging his temples. His pn to quietly build an orange monopoly had been completely derailed by Tyrel’s economic delusions and Jorge’s capitalist vengeance. “I miss pying civilized games like Carrom,” he muttered under his breath.

  On the other side of the room, the girls were having a very different night.

  Sarah lounged across her beloved old brown couch, legs curled beneath her, nursing a Diet Dr Pepper. Cami sat cross-legged, picking lint off her tights, while Marisol was perched upside down, head dangling off the armrest, recounting the drama of her Calculus TA’s failed marriage like it was a soap finale.

  “...and then she goes, ‘I’m not crying over him, I’m crying because my cat died and he never liked her anyway!’” Marisol said, eyes wide.

  “Dios,” Cami said, shaking her head. “The cat deserved better.”

  And then, it happened.

  CREEEAAAAAK.

  Sarah blinked. “Was that—?”

  CRACK.

  The couch gave a sound like a haunted accordion and pitched violently to the left with the theatrical fir of a dying soap opera vilin. One of the legs gave out like a teenager faking an ankle sprain in gym css.

  The world tilted.

  Sarah shrieked as she slid downward like a sack of undry, legs filing in the air. Cami screamed something in Spanish that may have summoned three saints and an exorcist. Marisol, still upside down, did a full somersault and nded on the carpet like a disoriented gymnast who forgot which pnet she was on.

  “MIERDA!” Cami yelled.

  “Oh shit!” Ravi yelped, unching from the game like a Bollywood hero in a climax scene. “Don’t worry! I’m coming, fair Sarah!”

  “GET OFF HER, SHE’S FALLING!” Tyrel bellowed, already halfway across the room like he was storming the beaches of Normandy.

  “No, I’m saving her!” Ravi countered, sprinting with the righteous conviction of someone who had never lifted furniture in his life.

  They both dove at the same time-like synchronized idiots.

  What followed was less “rescue” and more “chaotic midair collision straight out of Looney Tunes.” Their foreheads smacked with the thud of empty coconuts. Tyrel’s elbow nailed Ravi in the ribs. Ravi’s knee went somewhere it legally shouldn’t. And then the combined force of ego, testosterone, and poorly-executed chivalry body-smmed Sarah like she was the st piece of cake at a recovery session for Food Addicts.

  Sarah's air left her lungs like a punched accordion.

  “OW. GET OFF. GET OFF!” she screeched, filing beneath what now resembled a meat sandwich of denim, fnnel, and tragic testosterone.

  “I’ve got you!” Ravi wheezed, rolling slightly and then somehow elbowing her in the eye.

  Tyrel grunted, chest still squashing Sarah’s legs. “Don’t listen to him. You’re safe now.”

  “I WASN’T IN DANGER,” Sarah screamed, now kicking furiously. “I WAS SITTING ON A COUCH.”

  Bharath stood over them, arms folded, watching the pile of filing limbs with the calm detachment of someone witnessing karmic justice.

  “Should I call 911 or Animal Control?” he asked ftly.

  Jorge, still at the Monopoly board, didn’t even look up. “Nobody move. I’m about to build a hotel on Illinois Avenue, and if someone knocks this over, I swear to God I’ll kill all of you.”

  Eventually—after more groans, curses, and at least one shouted demand for “personal space!”—Ravi and Tyrel rolled off Sarah like dejected NFL linebackers.

  “I got there first,” Ravi muttered, holding up his scuffed elbow like it was a war medal.

  Tyrel snorted. “You got there and nded on my spine, dawg. She’d be dead if it ain’t for my lightning reflexes.”

  “I took a hit to the jaw!” Ravi protested.

  “I took a hit to my soul,” Sarah snarled, sitting up, hair a disaster zone, shirt half-tucked, fury in her eyes. “My soul and my dignity. All gone.”

  Marisol was still giggling upside down on the carpet, one sock flung halfway across the room. “You two really said, ‘Let’s save her… by body-smming her like Wrestlemania!’”

  Cami rubbed her ankle and gred. “This is how telenove wsuits start.”

  And then, as if it had been holding its breath this whole time, the couch let out one final groan—a long, splintering sigh of surrender—and colpsed fully, sinking like the Titanic after it hit the third violin solo.

  A long silence followed as they all stared at the corpse of the couch.

  Then Sarah stood, brushing dust from her jeans, her voice calm. Too calm.

  “Well,” she said. “This one sted longer than my high school boyfriend.”

  She turned to the room like a general at the start of a doomed campaign.

  “Who wants to go curb hunting?”

  “Wait. Hold up. Curb hunting? Like looking for things on the curb? Like peasants?” Jorge said, blinking like she’d just suggested they go pan for gold in a sewer.

  Sarah nodded solemnly, brushing couch fluff off her jeans. “Yeah. People throw out furniture all the time. Perfectly good stuff. You just drive around the neighborhood, look for what’s been put out by the curb, and-boom. Free couch.”

  “FREE?!” Tyrel grinned, eyes lighting up like a kid hearing Santa was real again. “Let’s GOOOO. We got a truck, we got muscles-hell, we got destiny!”

  “Girl, I’m in,” Marisol chimed, already tying her curls up in a scrunchie. “This is the best part of the semester. Like a treasure hunt, but with tetanus.”

  “Are you people hearing yourselves?” Cami stood frozen, looking at them like they’d announced pns to join a cult. “That’s not a treasure hunt. That’s a biohazard safari.”

  “You Americans really do this?” Bharath asked, scandalized. He gnced at the ruined couch, then back at Sarah. “You pick up garbage… sit on it… and invite people over to admire it?”

  Sarah shrugged. “It’s not garbage. It’s pre-loved.”

  “Pre-loved by what, raccoons?” Ravi muttered, still rubbing his elbow from the heroic tackle gone wrong. “You all mocked me for buying discount razors. But this? This is what you do instead of fixing things?”

  Jorge pointed to the colpsed couch leg, still half-attached. “In Bolivia, my uncle would’ve fixed that with a spoon, duct tape, and two prayers to San Martín.”

  Tyrel scoffed. “Y’all just don’t get it. This is America. We throw things out before they’re broke. That’s called freedom.”

  Bharath blinked. “That’s called insanity. Where I’m from, a broken fan becomes a mp. A cracked table becomes a bookshelf. A dead television becomes a shoe rack!”

  Marisol cackled. “Okay, but do any of those things have cup holders or reclining backs? Because this couch did. Briefly.”

  Cami shook her head, stepping away from the group like their bad financial decisions might be contagious. “This feels like something my abue warned me about. 'Mija, don’t sit on strange furniture. That’s how you get haunted.'”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “You people act like I said I eat floor crumbs.”

  “You just admitted your couch came from the streets!” Ravi cried. “Do you even know who owned this stuff before you?”

  “Does it matter?” Sarah shot back. “It’s functional! And cheap! Besides, everything in this house is second-hand-TV stand, bookshelf, even the toaster.”

  “The toaster?!” Bharath nearly gagged. “What if it has memories?! What if it misses someone else's bread?!”

  “Bhai,” Ravi muttered, rubbing his arms, “I can feel the fleas crawling up my ancestry.”

  Tyrel cpped his hands. “Y’all are soft. It’s 9 AM on a Saturday. That’s curb hunting prime time, baby. Friday night is when folks get dumped, evicted, or upgraded. That’s when the real treasures hit the pavement.”

  Bharath looked genuinely unwell. “You have… a schedule for this? Like it’s a sport?!”

  Tyrel grinned wide. “Damn right. Couchball. It’s real, baby. Only in the USA. U! S! A! U! S! A!”

  Without warning, the Americans snapped into formation like sleeper agents triggered by patriotism.

  “USA! USA! USA!”

  Jorge flinched so hard he dropped his Twizzler. Ravi stared like he was witnessing a cult summit. Bharath backed up a step. “Why are you chanting?! Why are you all chanting?!”

  The chant kept going. Louder. Weirder. Marisol was cpping her hands like a drum. Sarah had climbed onto the broken couch leg like it was a podium. Cami had one hand over her heart and the other in the air like she was swearing into office.

  “USA! USA! USA!”

  Nobody wanted to be the first to stop. It became a test of national endurance. A showdown of vocal stamina. A patriotic standoff.

  Finally, they ran out of steam, gasping and wheezing.

  “Are you done?” Bharath asked, eyes wide. “Was that… a ritual?”

  Tyrel, still panting, beamed. “That was forepy dawg. Now lesgo find us some freedom furniture.”

  Sarah turned, grabbing her jacket. “We’re taking Tyrel’s truck. Let’s find me a new couch, boys.”

  “I am not sitting in the back of a vehicle filled with dumpster upholstery,” Cami said, arms crossed.

  Marisol tossed her a can of body spray. “That’s why God invented Bath & Body Works.”

  Ravi crossed himself dramatically. “If I die from couch cooties, I want it in writing that I was against this.”

  “You’re coming,” Sarah said, dragging him by the sleeve. “I might need someone to fight off raccoons.”

  “Why me?!”

  “You said you do martial arts!”

  “Taekwondo videos on VHS! That’s not the same!”

  Jorge grabbed a bag of Cheetos. “Screw it. If I’m going to die tonight, I’m doing it with fvor.”

  Bharath groaned, already following them toward the door. “This country makes no sense. None at all.”

  Cami looked at the sky as if searching for divine intervention, then muttered, “God help me. We are actually going to search for thrash,” and followed.

  And with that, the team assembled like the most dysfunctional furniture rescue unit in Atnta-seven college students, one busted couch, and absolutely zero good ideas.