Un Omicidio

03. The Old Man…!

It’s a big abandoned building. Somehow it has been left in the early stages of construction, like a painting never finished. Far from the city, it is covered with thick greenish bushes on all the sides.  It has three floors, including an open terrace. You can see the surroundings, standing on the terrace, nothing but a wide outstretched field of bushes. It takes people, at least thirty minutes to reach here from the main road, in any forms of transportation, not that people would want to come here. This place is unattractive, only characters like him would stay there.

He rests with his eyes half open, staring at the horizon, the sun settling for the day. There’s not much of the furniture except an old wooden bench and a cot with some torn cloth on it. He sits with a divine calmness, a sense of realization dancing on his face, which only comes when you have enough number against your age column. Some unknown animal, perhaps a wolf howling in the distance, the wind blowing through the field, night crawling through the entire sky and land, but still it’s all silent. He hardly changes his position and keeps staring. And then came the rain and the mud which was dried up in the day is all wet with water, giving the air fragrance. The old man seems to smile now.

In the muddy hump near to him in the vicinity of his gaze is an old photograph. Its edges are torn out and unless you have seen the picture back in the days it was in its good conditions, there is no way you could identify the person in it. As the rain intensifies old man takes the photo into his hands and he rubs it against his old coat, his expressions relaxing now that the photo was nearer to him. A lightning struck somewhere nearer to the old building he was in and the night had a thing about it. One of those nights in which, if you feel the air around you, you know something is going to happen.

                                                             ***

It was late in the morning next day when I woke up and it turned out I had severe fever. The doctor who lives next door had come in his night pajamas and was sitting at the edge of the bed and Malvika stood looking at me in horror. I had passed out last night and it was in the night that Malvika had realized that I was not asleep, it was unconsciousness. She then ran to the next door and the doctor had come last night also. Once I woke up the doctor spoke first.

“Hey! Boy, wake up. We have been starting to think you are dead”.  The doc had this kind of smooth and warm way every doctor has. I wonder how he says ‘I love you’ to his wife. Wouldn’t she feel she’s been treated like one of his patients, if he uses this tone! I couldn’t think much about it since the moment doc finished Malvika was all over me, hugging.

“Malvika, you might want to slow down a bit, lest he will go into hibernation again” The doc winked at me while speaking to Malvika.

“Oh! Am sorry.” She separated from me and sat near me with her hand resting on my chest tangled in my hand.

“Speak to me doc” I uttered my first word after last night. My mouth tasted bad and I utterly felt like brushing my teeth.

“Well, you fainted yesterday, nothing to worry about although. We will just increase the dosage of medication you have been receiving for your condition.” The moment he said ‘my condition’, I sort of drifted backwards. The faint smile on my face vanished and maybe because of the drugs that I was given, I had forgotten what had happened yesterday. Malvika could make out the difference in my face and she spoke.

“I will walk you out doc then, you must be getting late for your day”

“Oh! Yeah, sweetheart.  I should be get going now. Will come and see you in the evening champ” he patted on my knees and walked out with Malvika.

When she came back, she hurried towards me and placed her cold hands on my forehead.

“Are you alright? I must have never told you that you walked out that day, oops! Why am I telling again, am so stupid” and she did that thing with her nose, tilting it little downwards. Oh! I am so lucky, of all the people she could have married, she decided she will end up being caught in my life for the rest of her life. Amidst all those confusion and pain, I wanted to kiss her nose, tell her how much I owe her for being in my life. Instead, it was something else that came out when I opened my mouth. As I do always I surprised Malvika and myself in the process. She hugged me tighter and I could tell she was petrified from her way of breathing.

“I didn’t kill anyone!”

                                                         ***

 The old man stretched his muscles, in attempt to refill strength, well,whatever was left of it. He will walk till town now. His eyes lit with perfect glow, he walks till the end of the bushes and start of the town. Its 12 o clock in the night now, that’s what the old clock above the humungous building in the town, has to say. He walked till that street. He was shaky, but it was as though some purpose was holding him up. He certainly looked like a man under inspiration and purpose. As though to regain his breath, he stopped and sat on the old stone bench in the footpath adjacent to the big road which had spread across the streets.

He was muttering something under his breath, only if you stood close to him you would get to know it was “Revenge…!”  He had the photo out in his hand now, but put it back since he feared the rain would destroy it. It was the photo of a boy, all his life he never thought any good about anybody around him, but this kid was an exception.

He was one lost kid when he was young, homeless, orphan. He had lost hope in everything and as a last resort he had joined the army. He thought it would help him cease his loneliness. He thought out there in the army everything was justifiable and he would find a solution for everything. He would get to know why he had lost everything in his life. A kid he was and he somehow believed in this theory. Although he didn’t find any answers in the army for his confusions, he had spent his life in peace. He had been part of a few major wars that his country had fought and he thought he’d finally reached the stage of calmness in his life.  But once he was out of the army due to his age, he reached the stage where he had left his life when he joined the army. It was then that he found the kid. Covered in some cheap sheath, the kid was smiling at him when found it stuffed in some corner of a random street that he had no idea about. He at first ignored the kid and went back to his business of wandering and looking for the places where he can get free food. But somehow he came back, took the kid and went on. The boy gave him purpose in his life, something he never had in entire life.

The old man raised a fine young man out of that kid. He would work for daily wages and get money for the kid. The kid never disappointed the old man. He was one last hope for the old man and as though someone above in heaven nodded and sent the kid down, he was one true angel for the old man.

As the cliché goes, good things never last forever. Everything was fine until the kid joined high school, when everything seemed to fade away. At first the old man didn’t know what was wrong with the kid. Finally, he came to know that the kid has been on drugs and as all the other things in life, it was too late when the old man realized that the kid was no longer the boy he raised. He had lost the kid and he was left with nothing. 

When the old man was sitting on the stone bench, he remembered all these things again, as though he was getting ready for a battle. From the corner of his eyes, he could see “Antonio’s Shop” written on an old sheet and hung as a board.