Scared as Hell

I had never killed anyone. In fact not even ‘anything’. But it changed today. I killed someone. Now i am at my house and I am really scared. It’s already midnight and I had been cleaning the front of my car because there was blood all over. After hitting the person, I had got in the house and I got out of the car, looked at the front. I couldn't see a thing because I had closed my headlight before hitting the person because I was stupid to think that I knew the road so well that I didn't need light. I went inside the car and turned the head light on. But to my surprise and misfortune, only one headlight glowed. I couldn't imagine how it would look when people found a man dead there and a broken headlight here. I got out immediately and to my horror I saw something that I had thought that could happen only in movies. My car’s left headlight was covered in blood and it had stopped the light to pass. Thank god it was not broken. The blood had started clotting and had started getting darker. Soon it would get yellow too. I joined the pipe used to water the flowers into the tap and opened it. Water flowed in jet speed and I started cleaning the blood.

I didn't do it on purpose I swear but it just happened. It all happened because I hate the dog at the first turning of the way from my house to my office. I always use the same road and it always happens with me. I always go there in a slow pace because of the narrow road. My red Toyota moves as if it is gliding. I feel proud when I ride my car through the way as heads turn seeing my car. Everyone sees it as if it was a red ripe apple that anyone will die to have. It passes through the barber shop where the barber looks at it and smiles always. I smile back. Then comes the lousy shop because the shopkeeper is very lousy. I don’t like his face at all. His crippled face and the ever half-closed eyes. I hate it so much. And i hate that shop for one more reason, because that evil dog is fed by that shop only. Others too hate that dog. This dog in particular always scares me when I head to the office. In fact it scares everyone. But I think it scares me with a bit more hatred. As soon as I reach the lousy shop, it jumps to my car window and barks so loudly that it scares me every time I get there. To tell you the truth I had turned my headlight off to prevent myself from waking that lousy dog. And comes the ever closed shutter. it was always closed ever since I came there to settle. People believe that a young girl had committed suicide there 10 years ago. But the house owner, a big fat man with a mustache like that of Charlie Chaplin claims that it’s all rumor and he had kept it closed for storing goods.

As I was cleaning the blood, I felt that someone was watching me from the gate. My heart started to pump very fast. It was pumping at an incredible speed. I looked at the gate but saw nothing. But still my super fast heart didn't slow down.

I slowly took out the main door key from under the carpet, unlocked the door without making a sound.

 "Creek!"

 I felt my heart come out by that sudden sound. I turned back to face the main gate but no one was there. I went quietly upstairs not waking my already asleep wife and my two little kids. I went to bed after changing to a nightgown. I sat trembling on the side of the bed and waited for the sleep to come. But it was determined not to. I had just killed someone. This sentence was ringing like a never-stopping bell in my head. I tried to name the feeling and yes it was guilt. I was guilty for killing someone.Even though I didn't do it on propose, a life was lost and it all

I heard a distant croak of a frog. It was continuous. I didn't want to sleep I decided. I rose from the bed. Got outside the room and headed for the room below with the TV. As I was descending the stairs, I thought someone was looking at me. No it can’t be, I thought. It’s probably nothing again. But there was someone watching me! I turned left to find a white face with black painted all around his face grinning at me showing an evil smile. My ears caught the sound of my heart beats. My ears got hot, I felt sweat flowing from all over my body. Goose bumps started appearing like needles. I was scared to death. But soon I realized that I had seen it earlier. It was the photo of the joker, a villain from the Batman world. My son was a comic maniac and he had hung that poster there. I was furious at first but had to grin for my foolishness.

The short moment was humorous but I quickly realized that I had killed someone. I imagined the moment when I would be taken by the police handcuffed. My head down and my family crying at my back. I couldn't imagine my wife crying and my children weeping seeing their mother cry. Then i would be taken out and I would get in the back of the police van. The van would go slowly and people would be looking at me with a look of pity and hatred. I literally ran down the stairs and turned on the TV. I sat on the couch trembling my eyes open wide. I didn't know when those eyes went to sleep.

In the morning my wife woke me up with a smile and a cup of warn coffee. She had a confused look on her face and I knew why because any wife would be amazed when her husband sleeps on the couch with the TV on instead of cuddling with his wife after a long day work.

“Are you okay honey ‘cos you look like hell?”

“Yes” I simply said taking a sip.

“What’s the sound outside? I’ll go take a look.” I almost chocked as the coffee spilled out of my hand. She had already headed out. I sat there trembling.

After about 15 minutes, my wife returned. I was expecting the worst. She came smiling and said-

“Honey, do you remember the dog at the shop at the corner of the street, its dead!!??”

BROKEN STRINGS

  

Broken Strings

 It was dark and cold outside as the September wind hit the window pane. He took his guitar and started playing. He closed his eyes, lifted his head a bit higher and a smooth, tender sound escaped his throat. The guitar gave sweet sound as his fingers directed its strings. The continuous ticking of the clock on the wall provided background music. The air felt a bit warmer and the loneliness a lot less suffocating. He paused for a moment, took a sip of vodka from one of the glass that lay in the table and resumed his solo. He drifted in his thoughts about his past as he let the music flow through him. This time he wanted to play whatever the guitar wanted him to play. He sang happy and sad songs. He sang long and short songs. But whatever he did, he didn’t stop singing even though his throat ached. She had always told him that she loved to see him sing and hear him sing. She had said that he looked the most beautiful when he sang. So he wanted to look the most beautiful tonight. She had chosen someone else over him. He was ALONE!

He sang the sonnets he had written for her. He didn’t even have to read them; his memory had them clearly in it. He sang old songs and he made new ones. His finger bled but he didn’t care. What had happened had happened. So there was nothing to gain by grieving. So he played for accepting what was. He played for himself. He played for her and he played for them. After the strings broke off, he quietly took the gun from the table in his hand, put the nozzle to his temple and squeezed the trigger. His brains scattered all over the place as his body fell motionless.

             The next day, the police discovered two bodies in an apartment, one of a female with her heart punctured with a bullet and a guy with his brains all over the place, holding a guitar with broken strings.

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A grave-yard silence

No one was able to know what was going on. How this all happened. How it had been a nightmare. Everyone had thought that this could happen only in the movies. The line of the furious men was moving towards Ranipokhari. Everyone was showing body movements that completely showed that they were not happy. A body was being carried away from the Bir hospital. Police officers with long, thick sticks stood there watching in a blue dress as they couldn’t do anything to stop the angry crowd. I stood there without knowledge about what had gone wrong that had made the city crazy.

“Where is the secu……?” I heard only the fragments of what people were saying. The song in my mobile said- ‘Coz I’m TNT I’m Dynamite’ I could hear only the small parts of what was going on, only when the loud music slowed for a few seconds. I was not interested as this kind of situation had been there so many times. I had just come out of a DVD store at Jamal. I had bought the film “The Hurt Locker” from a store I knew and saw the raging mass in front of me. I usually carried the umbrella since the sky poured in unexpectedly any time of the day. I felt like the sky was mourning the deaths of the passengers of the plane the day before. I started feeling little weary as I saw lots and lots of Muslim people pouring in into the street. I could know perfectly that they were Muslims as their dresses revealed it. They were not caring about the rain.

I was there standing numbly without a sensible clue of what was going on. My black umbrella was being hit by other umbrellas as people rushed from all over the place. One woman of about my mother’s age (i.e. 40) was talking to this other woman. I knew that they were scared. Even if it was not an expression as if someone had pointed a gun at their face but I could see that they were scared for themselves. They were scared for their family. They looked as if they had just seen a ghost and were talking about it.

With much confusion than knowledge, I went near them to eavesdrop. The first lady in her sari said-

“What the hell were the police looking at?”

“Yeah! Totally.” The other replied.

“Someone gets killed in broad day light and the police just stand there watching?”

“ Yes! But I think the police is not to blame totally for this.”

“Why not? They were just meters away from the crime scene and the killers walked away.. Yeah… can you believe it? They just walked away. Didn’t even run.”

“Yes. They have become very confident. Now the Muslims will be furious at us.”

“What do you mean by furious at us? It may not be the Hindus who did it. How can you even conclude that,?”

“I mean they will probably think it was us. Won’t they?’

“Well maybe. But let’s not lose the point here. Now how can we and our family be safe when people are being killed in one of the most secure place in the city..i mean as they say it to be.”

“Yeah that also in broad day light.”

I was distracted from hearing them as I heard a little girl crying just behind me. She was saying to her mother-

“Mama, will they kill us also?” I was totally shocked by that question.

“No honey. They won’t the police will catch the bad guys.” I didn’t think that she totally believed that herself. The girl was still crying as her mom took her away from where the crowd was going. I returned to hearing the conversation between the two women.

“Now who the hell told that poor little girl that there has been a murder?”

“Who has to say nowadays? Every kid in the neighborhood knows that the city is not safe anymore.” The serious humor was not logical but had its meaning.

“I would just love to get away from this place and go to someplace else.”

“I would just want to get home and have a decent meal and a sound sleep that’s all.” I was surprised by how fast the people had digested the death and planned to go home. I too was worried about how to get home as soon as possible as the sound got smaller. The city was again being quieter. But it was not a fine silent I felt. It was the silence that one feels at a graveyard. A grave-yard silence, I decided and made my way to Jamal to wait for the micro bus to arrive and take me home.