Rohit Kishan Ray

Cold, he felt the cold. As the skinny fingers of death started crawling up his spine, trying to clutch his life and sneer it away from him, he felt cold. With straining eyes, he observed the darkness engulfing him, forcing him to succumb to the eternity of the inevitable. He felt the numbness of his limbs. He could sense his despair as his brain kept sending jolts of electricity through his nerves to his muscles, and those fatigued fibres were not responding; rather, they were protesting. He registered the protest as all-immersing pain. He noticed the sprain and the cuts and the bruises. Ignoring all of these, he made an ultimate effort to shift. He reached into his pocket, as he had trained himself over the years, found the familiar flat metal box, opened it with trembling fingers, only to notice the thumb on his right hand was missing, a mass of black clot reminding him of his loss. He flinched. Panic rolled down his temple as sweat beaded, as he realised that he was helpless and had no memory of any sort left. With great effort he finally managed to pull out a cigarette, using the index and forefinger as a set of tweezers. He reached out to his lighter. The silver metal was gleaming in the starlight, or maybe he imagined it to be doing so. He tried to light his cigarette with his left hand; after a couple of efforts he finally managed to get a flame, and a familiar red glow appeared in front of his lips. As he smoked with all his remaining life force, the tip of the cigarette glowing with glee and releasing the exhaled white swirl of fear, he started sensing his environment.

It was night, and he found himself at the edge of a swamp. He wasn’t sitting; he was in a rather queer position. His waist was covered in mud, and it was senseless. His torso was bent in a semi-seated position, as if he was in some sort of sheesha bar. His clothes were—well—missing. His skin was darkened by dried-up blood. Besides the missing thumb, he felt a piercing pain in his abdomen; a hole had appeared on his well-curved body, blood and pus oozing out of the crack in the scab. He took a puff and tried to lie back, and a sudden tsunami of pain took him over. He reached behind, found a hilt sticking out of his spine, tried to take it out, but he had been weakened too much. He tried to notice the things surrounding him; he could see an outline of a jungle, standing like a massive giant ready to prey on him. The smell of the swamp had flooded his olfactory senses. He looked left and saw his chopper— his baby, lying lifeless. He tried to look right, but was restrained by the pain emanating from his back. He tried to remember how he had reached there. It seemed like a lifetime of effort to him, but still, he was a fighter, and he fought to recall.

It was some bar or pub or something like that. His perfect memory seemed to have left him at the first sniff of death. He could remember flashes of neon, the red light—or was it blue? It all seemed blurry; his brain was clinging to the last bit of leftover energy in his body; he had to remember. He took another drag of a Marlboro; this wasn’t his usual brand—yes, this was Samar’s. Samar was there with him in that bar. Sweet Fantasy, or Sweet Fetish, whatever the name of the place was. They had just met this beautiful blonde, bony lass, and they had plans for the night. The counter didn’t have his usual brand, Yellow Camel; Samar used to tease him about that. That’s why he was smoking Marlboro. His thought process had lost its coherence, yet he still carried on. At last, some sense started finding its way into his rationality. He recalled ordering a scotch on the rocks. He also remembered Samar boasting about this new stuff that he had cooked, and they smoked it. Then all he could remember was that the blonde had started feeling his crotch.

His hand was acting on its own now; the cigarette was finished; he had already lit another one. He noticed the shape of the swirling smoke dissolving into the darkness. He remembered nothing more; bits of images were flying about on the canvas of his mind, taking him back to the memories of his childhood, when he used to play with his sister. He had a very beautiful sister, innocent as the first bloom of long grass, humble, yet serene. All of a sudden, a rush of blood came to his head. He remembered all the injustice he had witnessed, and that he had done. A bitter taste came into his mouth; the smoke had burnt his lungs; he coughed up a mouthful of blood. He remembered the kicks and the torture in that dark room, where he was tied to a chair, and the smell of blood and sweat had numbed his senses. His training aided him, but the pain had numbed his senses; he felt nothing. All he remembered was his maniacal laughter and the look on their faces. He closed his eyes. He was feeling sleepy. Sometimes, remembering can also be taxing, indeed.

It was dark indeed; the moon hadn’t come out that night. Lubin was sitting on a fallen tree trunk. The surface was moist and mushy; she didn’t care. She ignored her golden locks incessantly caressing her face, tickling at odd moments and disrupting her concentration—competing with the wet wood that's soaking her torn jeans. She was intently focused in a particular direction; her tense structure would have given an impression of a cat waiting to jump over her prey. The trees nearby mimicked her stance to mock her seriousness, as if they were in on a secret joke. She had been waiting for an hour. She was shivering inside from staying motionless like that. Her body was protesting, but she couldn’t allow that; the shadow that she was shadowing was much more important. She had to be sure. She had followed those hired guns just to do that. At first it all seemed too easy, but then, as she was about to leave the swamp, she noticed a flicker of flame on his face. His chiselled jaw, now outlined with blood and mud, portrayed his pain quite easily; even from this far away, she could sense the pain in his eyes. She was beaming with a fierce sense of satisfaction. Lubin was extremely happy, but she was cautious as well; if half of what she had heard about him was true, she couldn’t escape. No, she couldn’t lose focus now; it was almost done now. Finally, she saw the red dot stop breathing. And then she heard the soft thud. The deed was done. She moved with caution; the tension was gone. Her revenge was over; she could now face herself in the mirror and live a life free of the burden she had been carrying since she was 17; she couldn’t believe that it had been ten years since then. Anyway, she smoothly hopped over the branches, as swift and silent as a wildcat. She reached the edge of the forest, the howling wind drying the sweat on her body; she let out a deep, sharp, barbaric yawp. Her violet leather jacket now lying on her arm, a Glock 9mm peeking from the holster of her black spaghetti top, she put on the jacket, started her Harley, and drove into the darkness.