He leaped over the fallen tree and followed his elder brother as they ran swiftly through the forestland in the moonlight. He smiled as he ran. They carried good news back to their besieged camp.
Their town had been peaceful till the enemy attacked. The battle had been raging strong for weeks, with neither side accepting defeat. All able men from his town were sent to battle armed. The brothers had been eager to join. But they were disallowed as they were still young.
Upon their insistence they were assigned reconnaissance duties. They were ideally suited for this mission anyway. They had grown up in these woods and knew it better than anyone in the town. Their efforts had paid off today. They had discovered the enemy’s storage supplies and routes which was vital information.
The enemy appeared out of nowhere. There were thirty heavily armed people. Within seconds the brothers were captured and tied up. His brother was roughly pulled to their leader who demanded they lead them to their hidden base. Otherwise they both were promised a slow and painful death.
He knew his brother very well. He also knew his end had come, thus. There was no way his brother would divulge anything to the enemy. This realization strangely did not affect him. Instead a strange calm descended. He awaited his inevitable death.
But what followed completely shattered this. His brother instantly agreed to lead the enemy voluntarily, if they were both let go after. A deep rage rose in him and for the first time he truly hated his brother. He was aware his brother knew the enemy would not keep their promise. But in his current state, there was nothing he could do.
The enemy realizing that he had no intention to co-operate tied him to the horse which carried additional weaponry. He burrowed his face in the horse’s mane, to hide his tears of his brother’s cowardice and betrayal.
The elder brother led the group through the forest. They were traveling faster than before now. The horse was almost at a full gallop. He vowed to strike down his brother the first chance he got.
It was then he smelled it faintly. It was only the years of exploring this place that he could detect it. He was thankful of his gag for the first time.
He knew that the smell could only be the toxic gas that hung low above the deep marsh.
The enemy was thundering through a poisonous marshland without their knowledge. The horse which was at the end, realized it too late; started thrashing in vain.
He could not hold his breath in any longer. His head was spinning and his sight unfocussed.
Next thing he knew, he was pulled off the horse and hefted onto a very familiar back. He blearily watched his brother also pull a flame thrower from the horse.
The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness were flames.
The man awoke. He could not remember falling asleep. The only vague memories he had were of a fight, a flight of steps, a ledge and drowsiness. Everything else was fuzzy.
He looked around. It was late night. He was on a high ledge in a long, dark tunnel. A naked yellow lamp shed a dim glow of light in the distance.
Somehow he felt different. Good different. Except for a slight numbness in his throat, a few bruises on his limbs, he had never before felt more alive or alert.
He sensed her before she even came into his sight. Her delicate perfume and the smell of her hair filled his nostrils with a heady aroma. He could hear the soft musical sound of her footsteps and quite surely, the rustle of the wind through the folds of her dress.
He was suddenly acutely aware of his own heartbeat.
The light from the lamp caught her. He inhaled sharply. She was exquisite. Her hair softly rose and fell onto her shoulders with her every step. The sight was so mesmerizing that he stared transfixed.
It was only then that he became aware of the other man behind the pillar. The discovery had taken this long as all his senses had been captivated by the vision in front of him. Just as the other man started to move, the light of the lamp caught the hilt of the dagger in his hand.
The glint of light spurred his enthralled body into action. Without any conscious thought, he leapt from the ledge; landed on the ground cat-like and rushed between them before either had moved two feet.
The swiftness of these actions took all of them completely by surprise. The mugger was the first to recover and within the blink of an eye, arched and threw his dagger.
The man, still operating on auto-pilot, ducked instinctively. He closed the distance between them and struck out once. And just like that, the fight was over.
He slowly turned around. On its way past him, the dodged dagger had made a slight graze on the girl’s cheek. They were suffused with a dark pink color now. She stood there motionless, wide-eyed with trembling lips.
His senses went into overdrive. His heart threatened to burst a hole through his chest. He felt a deep heat rise to his head. He eyes saw red. He could no longer breathe. The only thing he knew for sure was that remaining there any longer would make his rescue completely meaningless.
He turned and bolted blindly. A seedy bar was the closest building. He stumbled into the nearest stool. The bartender, dexterously wiping glasses, didn’t even look up when he asked:
‘Blood or wine?’
The man did not reply. He did not need to.
The bartender took one look at the bite marks on the man’s throat, reached for the nearest bottle of blood, and pushed it across.
The label read on the bottle read – ‘For Vampires Only’.
The man climbed the rocky hillock. The air was cool all around him. He had been climbing for a long while now but did not feel the slightest bit tired. His mind felt fresh and clear, as it did every time he walked up this place.
As he climbed, he looked at the picturesque town nestling at the bottom. The lake next to it and the greenery at the distance all looked straight out of a scene from a postcard. He had come to this town a few years ago. And had never regretted the move. The bright and lively town looked quaint and delicate from where he was now. The lake right next to it looked impossibly clear and blue.
He walked slowly taking the whole scene in. There still was some way to the top, but he was in no real hurry. He loved this stretch. He felt more alive here. As if all his senses had been amplified. He felt sure if he concentrated hard enough he could hear the pleasant buzz of the town all the way from the bottom. He could make out the color on each feather of the bird that was flying in lazy circles above him. He breathed the clean mountain air and continued his way to the top.
He felt a cold draft of wind on the back of his neck which made him turn and look up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bird freeze in mid air.
He felt a distant rumble under his feet then. Several things seemed to happen all at once. The leaves of the solitary tree in the distance stopped fluttering in the wind as though they had been turned off. He felt a sudden chill in the air. The bird started to fly away rapidly. Unthinkingly, he turned his head a fraction to follow its movements.
That was when he became aware of the big rock that was hurtling towards him. It was so out of the blue, that he was completely stunned. He stared at the rock transfixed as it generated more momentum and thundered downwards. As it loomed closer, he felt unable to even avert his eyes.
He cringed. At the last moment, the boulder hit a small out cropping, deviated a bit from its original path and crashed loudly just about two feet away from him, carrying a part of the rocky path along, as it rolled further down along the hillock.
The man had never had a near death experience before. The shock was still too much for him to completely appreciate his good fortune. He continued to watch the rapid descent of the rolling boulder almost involuntarily. He watched it wide eyed as it crashed and displaced a group of huge rocks, a short distance below him. And these in turn, gathered more stones and rubble as they tumbled downwards. Horrified, he saw a rocky landslide form right before his eyes.
He remembered the town suddenly. It was directly in the path of the land slide.
The scene that followed was something out of a nightmare. The magnitude of destruction of the town was enormous. The group of rocks which had been displaced caused the most damage. He could very realistically feel the angst and pain of the townspeople. He could almost hear their screams. The din and clamor was deafening in his ears. The scene was just too much to take in.
Within a few seconds, a huge cloud of raised dust blocked his view. There was a lull that followed. He shut his eyes tightly as if to block the scene from his eyes. After what seemed like a long time, he opened his eyes.
He could not believe what he saw.
The scene in front of him was as picturesque as it was before. The town was nestling safely next to the blue lake. The bird was still lazily circling in front of him. He could once again make out all the color on its feathers.
This time, the man laughed out loud in sheer relief. He realized that he had not breathed in a while now. He gulped in large amounts of air and sighed as he slowly felt his nerves calm. He wiped the tears blinding his eyes and gazed at the town with new-found fondness.
After a while, he turned, looked at the unbroken path in front of him and debated whether to continue his climb.
He felt a cold draft of wind at the back of this neck. The bird froze in mid air.
The man rapidly walked forward two feet. And then stopped.
He felt a distant tremor under his feet. He looked up just as he felt a chill in the air. He caught one last glance of the bird before it rapidly flew away. He smiled.
A tall pedestal stands there on the hillock today. The structure has been built entirely by the huge boulder that crashed into the lake. The townspeople call it ‘The Shrine of the Savior’.
The man followed the old geezer. The old man limped, probably from a bullet wound. It was hard to say, as most of his left leg was swathed in old bandages that looked like they hadn't been changed in years. They walked in silence. The path they trod did not seem oft visited. But it seemed that the old timer knew exactly where he was going. They kept good time regardless of his limping.
The man bowed his head and thought. It had been about two years ago that he had taken on this mission. His peers hadn’t wanted him to. They had more or less accepted that his captured partner would have been killed by now. And even if he wasn’t, the chances that he could be found, and if found, that he would still be sane were very slim at best. But the man couldn’t be persuaded against. He and his partner had always worked as a team. They were the best agents the company ever had. If there was any chance of rescuing the captive, he was their only shot.
The man had left no stone unturned. The capturers knew his comrade was very valuable. And his whereabouts had been kept very private. But years of doing what he did, finding people with information, and extracting it came as a second nature to him. But this time around though, it hadn’t been easy at all. He was one of the top in his line of work, and it had taken him this long to find this place.
He had found the old man in the smallish village at the foot of the small dense hillock, they were presently walking through. The old man was the only one who seemed to have some idea of where the building was, which through the fragments of information the man had obtained, was most probably where his friend was being held.
The old man turned sharply to the left and pushed through an overgrowth of vegetation, and in a clearing, hidden from the path, there was a creepy, medium sized building. It appeared self sufficient from the looks of it. There was a water pump, a generator, cut up wood. But it looked deserted and seemed out of use for months now.
Mostly by habit, the man circled the place once slowly. He found no signs of recent human activity anywhere around. He entered the building and quickly scanned all the rooms. It appeared there had been about three people, mostly guards.
This definitely felt like the right place.
He discovered the hidden door behind the wardrobe quite easily. He had noticed the faint scratch marks on the floor the moment he’d walked in. He shoved the wardrobe aside, picked the lock, and walked down the dark staircase that followed.
There was a very heavy iron door with a huge bar keeping it closed at the end. There was a small latched opening at the bottom which he assumed was for passing a tray of food and water.
He lifted the bar and pulled mightily at the door. It creaked and opened slowly. He stepped inside.
It was the gloomiest room he had ever seen. There was no source of light except a very small opening almost close to the ceiling. There were broken pieces of what might have been a table or a chair once. There were a few threadbare rags in a corner. The rough stone walls all around felt creepy and cold.
There were two things that drew his attention though. One was the faint blood stains on the floor and the wall. It seemed it had been hastily cleaned up after, but he knew where to look, and he found them without much difficulty. The other item of intrigue was a strange contraption that was made of pieces of wood and cloth. It was hanging from an out jutting in the stone wall. It looked like a pouch, with some sort of a lid.
He walked a couple of steps and looked inside it. It was empty save for some minute bread crumbs at the bottom. He shut the lid and looked around the stone walls once more, taking in everything. The he closed his eyes. He thought.
The pattern of the faint blood stains indicated a fight. A fight indicated that his partner had escaped, or at least tried to. But this was a perfect locked room mystery. There was only the iron door and no other points of entry or exit. This did not seem like a place of interrogation, and since it appeared that the prisoner was being held here the whole time, there was no need for any guard to enter the room. He opened his eyes. They rested on the pouch which was swinging back and forth gently
And then it hit him. He smiled for the first time in years.
He heard a sound and turned around and saw that the old man had followed him and was peering interestedly into the room.
The man asked the old geezer – ‘So, partner… what did you do for water?’
The old man gaped and stared at him wide eyed for a few seconds. Then he grinned hugely. He stood up straight and stretched his limbs. He took a cloth and rubbed his face clean. He cast his wig aside and ran a hand through his hair, grinning still. The change was astounding. No one would have believed that he had been a septuagenarian seconds ago.
He stared questioningly at the man, and shook his head in resignation when the man pointed in the direction of the faint blood stains.
‘And?’ he said.
‘And… this, here’- the man said, pointing to the pouch –‘There is no way that you would have been given so much bread every day, that you needed something of this sort to store it in. You ate only a part of the bread and stored the rest here for sometime, didn’t you? And when you had sufficient amount stored, you probably started eating less and less each day, and leaving the rest in the tray. And then, probably, you completely stopped eating the bread given to you. The guards then would have had to come in to investigate or throw your dead body out. That’s how you escaped, right?’
The look on his partner’s face confirmed his theory.
The man smiled again. ‘But water would not have lasted all that long. What did you do for that?’
His partner bent down and lifted a piece of broken wood, and went to the far side of the room, speaking as he went. ‘Knew I should have cleaned up the stains better, but I wanted to get out of this place pretty bad by then.’ He pushed the wood between two stones in the wall and slowly water began to flow along the length of the wood. ‘Slightly cracked a water pipe’, he said, cupping the water flowing in his hands. ‘Discovered it within the first month in this hole itself’
He turned around and faced the man- ‘By the way, how did you know it was me? I thought the disguise was perfect. Not one single guy in the whole village had the faintest idea.’
‘You can’t disguise a person’s eyes’, the man said.
‘... and also… you have been limping on the wrong leg ever since I met you, partner.’
The man knew this place like the back of his hand. He probably could sketch each rock, every tree, the anthills present here from memory. He trod the pathway unfeelingly today. Mechanically. Noticing nothing. His legs carried him without any conscious effort on his part.
He swayed a little as he walked. He gripped the bottle in his hand tighter. It had been a long time since he had been to this place. He stopped a moment and took a deep swig of liquor from the bottle.
Random scenes started floating in his memory. He started to walk without realizing again. He had always been lonely in his life. But he had never felt alone. It was only after he got married and had his first child, he had realized that his life had really been empty till then. He was happy for the first time in his life.
The scenes in his head ware clear and the images lifelike. He was holding and feeding his son while the toddler was gazing at the moon. He was holding his kid’s hand as he walked his first steps. He was blowing air into the wheels of the tricycle, as the child impatiently danced around him. He was teaching him the alphabet from a ridiculously huge chart. He was trying to explain division as repeated subtractions. He was correcting the loops in the ‘g’s and the ‘y’s in the boy’s cursive writing book. He was waving his son a bon voyage, as he left with his mother on a ship - a trip on the sea - which had always been the boy’s dream; using all the strength he could muster to keep his tears hidden. He could, as clear as day, hear his son’s choked voice assuring him that he would explain in detail every little thing that occurred on the trip. He could see his wife smiling, as she put an arm across their son’s shoulders. He was watching as the ship drifting away beyond the horizon.
The images became muddled and blurry then. It was like in a tragic movie fast forwarded. Headlines from various papers about the shipwreck. Delays in the search and rescue teams. Body counts. Missing people. His son and his wife among the feared dead list. Mourning and cries. His first drink. His tenth. His hundredth…
The cold sea breeze hit him then. That broke the images and brought him to the present like magic. He stared into the calm sea for a while. His mind was surprisingly clear for the first time from a long time now. He had always loved this beach. He had fallen in love with this place about the same age that his son had. The family used to come here as often as they could. This was a secluded and an unheard of place. It always felt peaceful here. He felt that he belonged again. The raising and falling of the waves calmed him. He stood there for a long time. He slowly began to feel that he could heal. That, at last, he could accept that his family was gone.
By force of habit, he raised the bottle to his mouth. The moment the liquid touched his lips, he felt disgusted with himself. His child would not want to see his father like this. No one would. He had let his sadness ruin his life long enough. He ran a few steps on the sand and threw the bottle as far as he could into the sea.
He felt strangely light. He took a huge breath and exhaled slowly. He could feel the pain of his loss start to ebb away slowly. He sat down on the beach and looked at the reflection of the moon on the waves in the distance transfixed. The waves lapped at his feet every now and then. He felt that he was a part of nature.
After a long time he decided to leave. He would change everything. The beach had done him a world of good. But there were just too many memories here. He decided that he would go to a far off place and start a new and sober life all over again.
He stood up and turned around. The bottle lay in his way again. The sight of it somehow made him angry. He picked it up, all set to throw it into the sea again.
But this bottle felt different. It felt slightly old. He looked at it. It was opaque, dark and corked. It was not the same bottle that he had thrown away. He pulled the cork off, and realized that it had a letter within.
The moonlight was not really bright. But the man didn’t really need anything more. He did not even need to read till the end of the letter.
It started – ‘To Daddy…’.
He could recognize the loop of the letter y in his sleep.
The stick spun and twirled. It fell far for such a simple flick of the hand. The dog was after it in a flash. It picked the stick up and brought it back to its master. The general took the stick from its mouth and looked at it fondly. The dog never failed him. It was the only living thing that he trusted. He kept his distance from everyone else. That was what made him so efficient. So ruthless. So dangerous.
The man, spying at the general from outside, took out a cigarette from his pocket, threw it up and caught it in mouth. He lit the tip with his lighter. He was an assassin hired to kill the general. He felt this assignment was going to be particularly easy. He watched the general get into his car with the dog. A posse of four guards led the car in the front. He looked at his watch needlessly. He could have sworn it was 10: 30 am in the morning. The general was a machine. Everything around him worked like clockwork. That was going to be his downfall. The man took one last drag at the cigarette and flicked the stub away.
The man walked away slowly. Head bent in thought. Replaying the events in his mind. Tomorrow was the day. He was prepared. This certainly was going to be very easy.
He was in his position a little early. He had planned an all out attack. There was no need for him to find a secluded place from where he could choose to snipe unnoticed. Secrecy or delicacy weren’t the issue here at all. The people who’d hired him only wanted his assignment done. He promised results. The methods that were used immaterial.
There were only four guards and he would take them all out. The amount of time it would take for any other back up to arrive for help, was more than enough to make his getaway. With practiced dexterity he replaced the existing magazine in the gun with a new one, patted his overcoat to see if the explosives were still there, patted the other side to check for his knife and extra magazines, and mentally checked that the other gun was still in his right sock. He would not need to use any of the others except the gun in his hand. This was just force of habit.
He still had some time to kill. He lit a cigarette and waited.
And exactly at 10:30 am, as predictable as day, the general got into the car. His dog followed him in. The posse of guards got on their bikes. The man took a deep breath and stepped forward, his weapon already in firing position. The moment all four bikes and the front of the car came into his shooting range, he started to shoot. He reeled off six shots in a matter of three seconds. Every one of them hit home. The four guards fell before knowing what hit them. The chauffeur was slumped over the steering wheel, with a hole in his forehead. The man covered the distance between him and the open rear window of the car within the next two seconds, so that the general could see who his assassin was. That was his trademark. He made sure that the last thing that his victims saw before they died was his face.
He pointed the gun at the general and expressionlessly pulled the trigger. The gun clicked hollowly. Taken aback, he clicked thrice in succession. The gun was completely jammed. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Time slowed to the point of being completely still. The general recovered form the shock remarkably fast. A gun materialized in his hand suddenly, as if by magic. He fired once. The man felt the bullet thud just below his chest. He stepped backward half instinctively, half by the force of the bullet. The general fired again. The man felt the bullet enter his thigh this time. He was now falling backward in slow motion. After what seemed like an infinite time he hit the ground. The man was completely on auto-pilot now. In a daze he tried to reach for the gun in his socks. Bending over that much with a bullet in his stomach felt impossible. Automatically he removed a stick of explosive from his waist, lit the tip with his cigarette lighter, and threw it into the car through the open window – all in one movement.
All this had probably taken less than a few seconds. It felt like hours to the man.
The explosive fell on the seat next to the general. It still hadn’t gone off. Blindly the general picked it up and threw it back out of the window. The man followed the parabolic trajectory of the explosive from the car to where it fell just out of reach of his hands. He vaguely remembered that he should be having sights of his whole life flash before his eyes, at times like these. It seemed slightly ridiculous that the only thing he could think about was how he was watching his own end in slow motion.
The dog jumped out from the open window in a flash. It picked up the explosive stick, jumped back into the car and brought it back to the general.
He hated this place. He had been in the same apartment for longer than he could remember. The living room, the bedroom and the loo. This was his world.
And he was sick of it.
If there was one thing that he was tired of more, it was the people here, who thought they were his closest friends. They came often to the apartment. And these days they hung around longer than they usually did.
From his usual place in the middle of the sofa, he watched as one of them - an aged geezer in evening wear – talk about the pesky kid in his neighborhood to the butcher. The butcher was as usual, wearing his apron around his ample waist, and the apron, as usual looked as it had just been washed off of a lot of blood. The butcher grunted a response. The story felt stale, as if the man had heard it before. Probably he actually had.
He looked around the apartment.
The young man in the suit sat reading the newspaper in the armchair, at the corner of the room. The young man seldom spoke to the group, and if he did, it was usually just pleasantries.
The door opened from outside. The young girl came in. This was his best part of the day. The girl looked beautiful. But then, she always did. The man liked her. She was nice to him. She smiled sweetly at him and said hello. She went into the bedroom, changed the sheets and collected the laundry for tomorrow. She put new groceries into the makeshift refrigerator in the living room. She checked that there was enough water in the apartment, and the room temperature was right. Then she sat next to him on the sofa, and chatted for a couple of minutes. Little nothings. But they felt good all the same. She got up then, smiled again, wished him a good night and left.
Her perfume seemed to linger around the apartment for a long time after she left. He sat there with a small smile on his face.
He got up after sometime and walked to the window. The Sun was already below the horizon. Night seemed to fall quickly these days. He suddenly felt tired. He turned around.
The young man turned over another page in the newspaper. The butcher was animatedly describing something to the old geezer. None of them seemed to be in any hurry to go anywhere.
He sighed. He yawned and stretched his arms. He called aloud that he was going to call it a day. The young man nodded without looking up from the paper. The butcher turned and grunted his assent. The geezer mumbled something that sounded like good night.
The man walked to the bed room and lay down on the freshly laid sheets. There still were faint reminders of the girl here.
He hated this place. The girl was the only one who made this place livable.
The young girl walked out of the building. She went up to the guard in front and turned in her keys to the place. The guard thanked her, wished her all the best and buzzed the gate open. She nodded and stepped out.
The huge gray sign – The Schizophrenic Institute for Terminal Cases - bleared dully back at her. She shivered involuntarily. She fleetingly felt sad for the lonely man who stayed in the apartment in the second floor. He was the only one in the whole building she could talk two words to. The other patients in the institute were too far gone. She shivered again.
She was glad that today was her last day of work here. She hugged the coat tighter to her body. She walked away without a backward glance.
The children always came early to the hanging. And they were usually the loudest. The man could hear them, even though they were out of his sight.
He walked slowly, with his head bowed. He had known it would come down to this some day.
He had no regret for his sins whatsoever. That family had wronged him one too many times. His was an act of rightful revenge. He had been unmerciful in his onslaught.
The trail had been swift and the sentence heavy. But that was expected of a multiple homicide case. He hadn’t uttered a word.
A group of people surrounded him now. There were soldiers in arms, the high priest, the mayor, a few members of loyalty, and a swarthy guy from the family he had taken out, other clergy and a few merchants that walked alongside him.
The thought of that swarthy guy, really angered him. He hadn’t been successful in taking out the entire family. It weighed heavily on his chest now and it hurt deep. Curbing these feelings made him get a bad taste in his mouth.
It started raining softly. It felt fitting somewhat. It helped to calm down his emotions a bit. He resolved himself to go on strong. He wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him break down.
The crowd was within sight now. The children ran towards them. The stones they threw were aimless, and even the ones that hit were ineffectual. Their antics and curses were more like a competition among themselves.
The adults were different though. The jeers and curses were more hurtful and profound. But he shut out all sounds and only looked dead ahead as he walked.
The posse of people reached the gallows. The soldiers split into two groups and stood guard in front of it, armed and ready. It was at times like this something always happened. The crowd was waiting for the man to break down, try to escape at the last moment, for a woman in the crown to swoon, for a rattling old woman to start cursing hysterically.
The man stepped onto the wooden stairs of the gallows. The made a loud creaking sound as he stepped on them. He reached the top and turned to face the booing crowd.
He had always been good at hiding his emotions. His face was like a mask. The jeers turned more hostile as a few soldiers, the swarthy guy, the mayor and the high priest followed the man on to the gallows.
But he still showed no emotion.
The people, angered now, by the lack of response, were only waiting for the mayor’s signal. Chants of ‘hang him’ ‘hang him’ rent out loud. The high priest finished his prayer and closed his book. The mayor then nodded and bowed his head. That was the signal.
The crowd erupted. The children, however, were staring fascinated - too strung out to make any noise.
The man stepped forward and placed the noose on the swarthy guy’s neck, and tightened it expertly. He stepped back and released the lever.
The ground under the swarthy guy gave way. His neck broke with a loud snap.
The man allowed a faint smile on his face now. He had, at last, gotten them all.
The crowd was mostly quiet now. They were watching mesmerized, as the dead body, caught by a breeze, started to swing slowly in a lazy circle.
Even if anyone in the crowd caught his smile, it wouldn’t have mattered in the least.
The hangman always seemed happy after a clean hanging.
The man walked on the beach. The stray dog followed him as usual. It was late in the night. The moon was high and bright. There was a good breeze. He could smell the salt in the wind. It was just as he liked it. He came to the beaches on days he felt were never ending. He felt he had been coming here too often these days. He observed the play of moon light on the turbulent waters of the sea and the sand on the beach. He looked around as he walked. He was could see no other persons nearby. Into the distance, he could see the lights of the city though. They looked hypnotizing. But he preferred the water of the sea. Never having learnt to swim, he always regarded it with some awe and fear. The huge rocks projecting into the sea, the sand on the beach and the sound of the sea, the waves – this was his happy place.
The other man appeared suddenly out of nowhere. By the look of him, he seemed to be having rough days. His clothes were ragged; he had a slight air of poverty around him. But his bright eyes and his seemingly energetic manner bettered the first impression of him. He came forward and they shook hands. The stranger started to talk. He said that he was an actor, and if his well wishers were to be believed, he was really good at it. But right now, he was going through a rough patch and had been without work for days. This introduction didn’t do him much good.
The man, the dog was following, if he hated anyone, hated actors. He always had. He felt that they were untalented people getting fame, fortune and recognition for something very trivial and commonplace. So, on this occasion he felt nothing for the stranger. On the other hand, he felt slightly angry and told him his feelings about the acting business.
The stranger, instead of arguing back, proposed that he would act a bit for him, so the person could see for himself, so he might change his opinion towards actors. He added, if his acting was bad, an honest review by a critic would be welcome, but if the person felt that he had acted really well, he had to reward him with whatever the person saw fit. The person pulled out a hundred rupee note and declared haughtily that even if he is a little touched by the act, he would gladly give that amount away and take back his words about actors and their trade.
The actor agreed without any comments. If he felt any rage, he did nothing to show it. he said that since they were at the beach and the night was bright, , for a much better effect, he would act out a scene in the water. He pointed to the largest rock, a little distance away, which was jutting out way into the water and also quite a distance into the beach, and told that he would go to the top of the rock and dive in from there. The person could remain in the same place and observe the act, as the angle from this place was perfect. The rock and the sea were in front with the lights of the city behind him.
The actor started walking towards the rock. After a few steps, remembering something, he turned around and informed that though he knew swimming, right now it was pretty rusty, so in case of any complications, the person had to call out for Hariram, his friend who sometimes helped out in his acts.
With that, he started walking briskly along the beach, climbed the huge rock deftly, and reached the top. The moon was a halo around his head. The waves in the sea were lit by moonlight. The scene was idyllic. The man raised his arms and dived gracefully into the sea.
The act was brilliant. Out of the world. It starred the actor in two roles. He would dive into the water completely and resurface to switch between the characters. There were no spoken words in the scene. It was acting in the purest form. The scene started with the two people happily swimming around. The antics were funny. A faint smile appeared on the face of the person on the beach. Through the play, a small altercation was enacted, making one of the characters really angry. The anger was really something to watch. The person on the beach was by now, staring transfixed. Then, as the actor resurfaced as the other person, the scene changed. Now, the person was trying to plead with the first one. The helpless look was heart-breaking. The person on the beach had never seen such a thing in his life before. Suddenly, the scene changed again, as if the person in the water was being pulled under and he was trying hard to break free. The look of fear on his face, actually made the person on the beach forget to breathe. He felt the actor’s fear within himself. He continued to watch fascinated, as the scene was excruciatingly prolonged. The fear and helplessness flowed out from the actor in waves. In the end it was replaced by pure resignation. And then the actor went underwater.
The person on the beach realized that he had tears in his eyes and he was breathing heavily. He waited for a moment trying to find words to describe what he felt. He felt that no words can ever be used to describe the act or his present feelings. Then he realized that the actor was nowhere to be seen. He looked around in alarm. He tried his best to remember the name the actor had told him to call out, in case of a complication. This was the mother of all complications. He tried in vain to remember the name. He had never thought about anything this hard. It served no purpose. Waves of guilt and sorrow and humility and helplessness joined all the other raw emotions churning in his body. He tried to shout out for help. But emotions overwhelmed him. He felt a huge tightness in his chest. He couldn’t breathe for real this time. The last thought that entered his mind was that the world had lost its greatest actor and he was the reason for that sacrilege. Then he collapsed in a heap on the beach. The moon went behind a cloud. The night was dark.
The dog had been looking at the scene till now with interest. It came forward and sniffed the prone body. It walked around and sniffed some more. Then, the inactivity made it lose interest. Realizing that it was hungry, it started looking around for scuttling crabs. It followed the footprints of the actor, leaving paw prints alongside on the sand. It walked around the huge rock to the other side. It glanced once at the silhouette of a man, sitting on a smaller rock, staring into the city lights with his back to the sea, a small distance away.
The crabs on the beach caught its attention again.
It hurried after the biggest one.
PS: This is an adaptation based loosely on a similar story written, a long time ago, by the author of BrAiN DuNg !
He thought as he walked. He would change. He had made up his mind.He would go back to what he had once been. He had never had any real complaints in his life.He was a cop. He was good at his job. He would go back to being just that. He would let time heal his present wounds.
He reached the entrance of the pub. The sign on the door said ‘Push’. And so he did.
He stepped inside. He breathed deeply. He loved this place. This would be the last visit here. He would give up drinking. He wanted to celebrate that with this one last night at the pub.
He sat at his usual place. The waitress served him his usual drink. He started to drink. He was still far away, though. Lost in all the memories.
He always thought that he had lived a blessed life. That was until he saw her. Then his world had got even better.
Nothing else in his life till then had such an effect on him. It had been beautiful. He had never believed in fairy tales or love or a soul-mate till that point. It was right here, in this pub, that he had seen her the first time. He could replay every second of that night in his mind. He had taken one look at her in the doorway, the wind managing to blow her hair into a heart-melting disarray; before, behind her, the door slowly closed with a small thump. She had looked at him. He had looked back. They had married within the month.
He had adored her. He still did. More than every thing else in the world. He had often heard whispers saying that was what had driven her away. That he had suffocated her with his love. He could never comprehend that.
He loved her. He knew only that.
But the truth was that she was separated from him. She had moved out of his house. She would not talk to him about it. He tried his best to start a conversation, the rare few occasions when they happened to meet. She always snubbed him. He heard whispered tales about her promiscuity. He chose not to believe any of those.
He had taken up drinking almost from the night she had walked away. But tonight, he decided he had pined enough. He would let her come to him by herself. He somehow felt sure that she would come back.
He realized that his drink was over. He signaled for another. And another.
A gust of wind from the door made him look up. He saw a man enter the pub. He seemed slightly familiar. The sound of a woman’s laughter froze him. He hadn’t heard that sound for a long time now. Then she stepped inside.
It was almost like a deja-vu.
But, the feelings that rushed into him this time were totally different, though. It was overwhelming. He couldn’t remember what he had been thinking till then. He couldn’t put his finger on the emotion he was feeling. It was a red hot mix of anger, betrayal, hate, self disgust and all other similar feelings. He wasn’t sure that he had any control on his own body. Time appeared to have stopped.
From what felt like far away, he watched the couple in the doorway hug and touch each other playfully. Their flirting made his agony worse. He was dimly aware that he had removed his piece from the holster, cocked it and now it was held in his hand, aimed at the couple at the door. The pub had become deathly silent. It didn't register though.
The couple at the doorway suddenly became aware of him. He could see their smiles and laughter freezing on their faces. Their scared appearances did nothing to ease the roar that in his ears. The scene seemed somewhat alien to him. He felt detached. Numb out of his skull. Blank.
The steel felt cold in his hand.
He didn’t want to kill. He had no clue what he wanted to do.
He became aware that the wind was blowing her hair into a heart-melting disarray.
He had to do something about the roar in his ears. He desperately wanted to feel something else except his finger on the cold trigger.
Behind them, the door closed with a small thump. He tore his eyes off from the couple then, for a split second.
The sheriff closed his eyes. The sound was rhythmic. Soothing. But he only felt sadness. The place was not the same as it once had been.
It used to be a lively one. The place where he now sat, was the workshop of the old, blind sculptor. The blind man was the best stone sculptor for miles. His workshop held a lot of space, and on most evenings, men from all over the village, after a hard days work came to relax. It was a jovial place. The old man was wise and sometimes small disputes would be amicably settled. It was also a go-to place for the local news.
The sculptor’s son lived with him in a two storey house, a mile off the workshop. He was a bright, illustrious young man who helped out in the workshop as an apprentice. There was a guest room, next to the son’s room on the top of the house, which would sometimes be occupied by paying tenants, travelers etc.
About two years ago, on the day the top floor raged with fire, there was a new young tenant, a traveler from a far off place staying in the guest room. The blind sculptor, who slept in the ground floor, having roused by the smoke, gathered help as fast as he could. But in spite of all their best efforts, the fire ravaged the entire floor. A body charred beyond recognition was found in the guest bed room. Based on the pieces of cloth adhering to the skin, it was determined as that of the paying guest. It was found out that the fire had been started intentionally. Also, the box containing almost all pieces of the masterpiece that the sculptor was working on had been stolen. It was concluded that the son had run away with the sculptures after setting fire to the house.
The old man and his workshop were never the same after that.
Tap Tip…. Tap Tip…. Tap Tip…
The sheriff opened his eyes and looked around. The sculptor sat a few feet away, tapping a hard stone with his heavy hammer and nail. These days he never sculpted any intricate designs that he was famous for. Most of the times, he just tapped into stones, shaping their edges, as he did now. The only other occupant in the room was a kid sitting idly in the corner of the room. The desultory scene weighed upon him. He sighed, wished the sculptor a good night and left the place.
Not long after that, another man entered the workshop. He looked like he had been on the road for a while. His clothes were dusty. He had a full beard and long matted hair. He walked up to the place recently vacated by the sheriff. He sat there.
The nail slipped from the old man’s hand then. It rolled over to the place where the stranger sat. The man bent down, picked it up, rose and started walking towards the sculptor to return it.
Suddenly, the sculptor rose from his place, and with the agility of a much younger man, covered the small distance between them, raised the iron hammer well above his head, and smashed it down on the head of the stranger in one vicious blow.
The man was dead even before he hit the floor.
The sculptor dropped the heavy iron on the floor, breathed deeply, turned around to the kid and spoke for the first time.
“You the baker’s kid, right?”
“Yes, sir” came the nervous reply.
“Go tell the sheriff that this man killed my son, burnt my house and stole my work. I always knew that he would come back for the last piece, which I was still working on two years ago. The whole set would then be priceless.”
He paused once and continued, as though remembering something from a long time ago.
“I was there half-asleep in my bed that night. The man that left the burning house was not my son.”
He paused again slightly.
“Ya see, I never forget foot falls, kid. As for the rhythm of this man's foot steps”, he said, pointing to the prone figure on the floor, “I have been tapping it into stone, every day, from the last two years. I would recognize his walk in my sleep”.
He looked out into the cloudless night. He took a deep breath and inhaled the pure night air, and felt the oxygen fill up his lungs. He exhaled slowly, savoring every moment. Tomorrow was going to be the day. He had waited for the day for ages. He couldn’t remember the day he wasn’t totally immersed in what tomorrow was going to be all about. Tonight, he had time to reminisce. Although, try as he might, he could not get himself to recollect when he started working on this project. The only thing he was sure of was it was a really long time ago. But he felt sure that the effort would be worth it. It would be worth every moment spent. He felt alive. The moon was exceptionally bright. He had never felt his senses that taut before. He took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. He had done his homework from the very beginning. He had researched a lot. He learnt everything about lock picking, alarms, security systems, underground layout of banks, explosives, getaway tactics, automobiles, electronics etc. He had read several books on crime; he had watched all movies where the protagonists were criminal masterminds who got away with the crime in the end. He even knew exactly how he was going to get all the money out from that bank, and how he would use his money laundering skills to make it seemingly vanish without a trace to everyone who would come looking for it. His strategy was a combination of all the great techniques developed by twisted minds over the years. He had thought and thought about the entire plan making minor and sometimes not-so-minor alternatives, every now and then, till he was completely satisfied with it. It was the perfect plan. The strategy was immaculate. He would need no accomplices. It was his baby and his own. And he was going to show the world a perfect crime. He felt prepared. He looked around his room. There were piles of reading material. There were charts, blue prints, graphs, manuscripts depicting his meticulous work over several years. There were pin ups on the walls, his calendar was filled with vital information, his dairy had essential notes he had jotted down. It was a room of a professional. It was the room of a man with only one thing on his mind. It would all have to go. He would leave no clues behind. Not a whiff. He slowly started pulling everything down, from one corner of the room. It took him more than an hour to shred every last piece of paper that had some relation with his plan. The room was now bare. He had never noticed that the wallpaper was made of purple tulips before. He took another cleansing breath, walked to the nearest garbage bin and threw away everything that had anything to do with tomorrow. That included the shredded paper. Then he walked slowly back to his place. Tomorrow he would be one of the richest in the world. He would start anew with that amount of money. He would start a new life. He would start that new life in a different place. Even this part had been incorporated into the plan. He went to bed then, with a smile on his face for the first time in years. He did not wake up the following morning. Two days later, the police broke down the door after being notified by the neighbors about a foul smell emanating from the apartment. They found a dead man in bed. No foul play was suspected. Autopsy confirmed that the lone inhabitant of the empty house, a male of eighty five years had died due to natural causes.
He had never cried. As far as he could remember. And, at this moment at least, the past was really clear to him. The place he was presently standing in brought the memories back. None of them, that came readily, were happy ones though. He remembered that particular day as if it were yesterday. This place, where he was standing, along with his little brother and his grandmother, had been his house, his home for the first fourteen years of his life. The main door opened into a room with stairs leading to the altar, where he remembered his mother praying every evening. The room to the right of that place was his and his brother’s, and the room to the left was his parent’s. The house had been neither too big nor too small. It had been just right. It was times of war. It had always been most of his childhood. His brother, four years younger to him, and himself had always played in the broken, bullet spattered buildings. But that day was different. The sounds and the screams from the city were louder and more ominous. It was late evening. His mother was praying at the altar as usual. He remembered sitting with his brother on the step at the bottom of the staircase. His brother had fallen asleep on his lap, somewhere through the story he had been reciting. For some reason that made him smile. Then it all happened at once. The locked door was kicked open, and he was staring into the barrels of about five rifles pointed at him. He remembered not even being able to scream. The shock was intense. Natural instincts had made him turn back to seek help from his mother. He looked back wide eyed, soundlessly at his mother. He would never forget what happened next. He could see his mother stare directly at himself and his brother. She looked at the soldiers. Then she ran away from there into the room on the right. Even now he could not believe it. She had betrayed them. That realization was worse than the initial shock. That was when he screamed. That was when his brother woke up. That was when the bomb hit the house and it half collapsed. The rubble instantly buried the soldiers and his mother too. He and his brother had escaped barely. They had run from there then, with his brother clutching their mother’s locket which had somehow fallen in front of them. That was three years today, to the date.They hadn’t discussed about that event after that day. They had stayed at their grandmother’s since then. Only their grandmother’s repeated orders had made him come back to this place after all these years. His brother had the locket on his person at all times. It angered him, but he didn’t complain. He hadn’t told his brother about his mother’s betrayal. He didn’t want to change the impression his brother had of their mother. His grandmother stumbled, as she walked around the place where the house had once stood. His brother hurried over to break her fall. A flailing hand caught the locket and caused it to break open. It had never been opened by his brother earlier, out of respect for his mother. The locket, on the inside, had a picture of his mother holding both him and his brother in a warm hug. The picture was lovely. It had captured true happiness. It was a really heartwarming scene. The locket also, held some small, round, white colored pieces. His grandmother picked one of them up, looked at it closely and remarked it was some medicine for the eye. She said ‘My daughter, your mother suffered from a certain eye disease, but she probably pretended that she could see, so that you guys wouldn’t worry. Come to think of it, she told me that she couldn’t do most anything for her children because of her condition. She must have had a real tough time on the inside, though’. It was then that it stuck him. His mother couldn’t see them sitting on the stairs. She had run into their room to alert them, to rescue him and his brother from the invasion. She had never betrayed them. The realization hit him like a sledgehammer to his stomach. It was then that he cried.
The heavy door groaned. The loud shriek of metal rubbing stone followed. The armored guard stepped inside. He bent and placed the tray on the floor. The loud shriek of metal rubbing the floor again. The heavy door clanged shut.
A bowl of soup. Half a loaf of bread. Another day. Another meal. He came from the corner of the room. He drank a little soup. He ate some bread. Reserved the rest of the food for later. Unconsciously. Mostly by force of habit.
He stood up. He looked around. The cell was large. The cell was dark and empty. A small window high on the wall was the only source of light. A small carpet in the corner where he slept. Bare stone walls. Cold stone floor. The heavy door. Un-oiled hinges. This was his world.
He tried to think back. The memories were blurred. The events were so long ago. He remembered the court vaguely. The charges against him were petty. The verdict was harsh. He remembered that part. All other memories had faded.
He'd had these thoughts before. Today was different. Today, he felt enraged. The charges were very petty. He’d decided that he had been in this place enough. He was breaking out tomorrow. It was years in this place now and he was prepared to do anything.
He thought of a plan. He would break the bowl. He would use the sharpest piece as his weapon. He would stand behind the door. He would kill the guard. Stab him from behind. Then he could leave this place. He wouldn’t think of the repercussions just now.
He didn’t sleep well that night. He tossed and turned on his threadbare carpet, in the corner of the cell. Tomorrow dawned at last.
He broke the bowl as planned. He held the shard tightly in his hand. He walked towards the door. It was about time now. He inhaled deeply. He steeled himself for the task that had to be done. There was no going back now.
The heavy door was within his reach. Time was moving even slower for him now. The only sound was his heavy breathing. He was sure that his heart had never beat that loudly before.
Suddenly, on an impulse, he pulled the handle of the door. The heavy door groaned. The loud shriek of metal rubbing stone inevitably followed. He looked outside. There was no one within view. He stepped outside from the cell. He passed two guards on his way out of the gates. They glanced at him once. They glanced away almost immediately.
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