Saturday, March 31, 2012

That Last Night

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 26; the 26th Edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The topic for this month is 'That Last Night'.
Does it happen with everyone sometimes, that you know you have to do something but your mind just doesn’t allow your body to do that? I know my work here is done; I should just get off this bridge and wait. But I am unable even to get up. No, I am not physically hurt. I am perfectly fine, but instead of getting off the bridge, I am narrating this stuff. I have been having nightmares from past few months. I am not even sure of the reason for this. Everything is going good in my life. By the lords grace I have been doing the righteous things all throughout my life. I have always been sure of my destiny and my beliefs. That is the reason for what I am today, that is the reason for the love I am getting from my people. That is the reason for my existence. This wretched sense of doom, I am not sure why my lord is making me go through this, but who has the power to understand his will completely. I have lived by the book and have been as virtuous and as righteous as any human can possibly be. I have become so revered by the people, for my courage and efforts to protect the righteous from the hideous that I have children all over the world named after me.  It is not that I am attached to any kind of fame.  It is my duty to protect the weak and fight against the corrupt evil forces.  I have been fairly successful in my efforts and am loved so much because of it, but I am not attached to any of this. For the past eight years I have never worried even of death because death would just send me to heaven, the abode of the lord.

When I was young, I loved the warmth of the morning sun. The rays fell softly inside my room. Whenever I was on bed and the bright sunlight woke me, I knew I was moments away from my mom pushing me out of bed to get ready for school. I never thought about it then, but it was one of the most pleasurable things in the world, my mom waking me up for school. Though I didn’t much like school, I liked my mom cajoling and waking me up. 

The river beneath the bridge is gleaming and shining under the beautiful full moon. It is wide, deep and doesn’t seem to end on both sides of the bridge. I don’t much like being alone with nature, I feel unsure and maybe scared. I would have loved to talk to my mom and get reassurances from her, but she is no more with me to comfort my uneasiness. Though I would say she has shown me the direction out of which I have paved my way of life and could reach the juncture on which I am now. I would not have reached these heights and gained so much of acclaim in the community if she hadn’t instilled the right belief structure in me.

I remember sitting on the beach with my uncle one day and being overwhelmed by nature. My uncle used to say, if the whole universe was as big as the beach, then relatively we are as insignificant and equal to a speck of sand. No, actually he had said earth was a speck of sand in the beach and he had asked me to think of how small and insignificant humans are in the nature’s plan of things. I didn’t show any emotion in front of him, but on hearing it I think I got scared. I was very young then. I couldn’t sleep properly that night. I am not sure why but I hated what he told, it made me very much unsure of things.

Later I went to my mom’s room and wriggled in beside her. She had not slept yet. I was scared and I asked her about us being so insignificant in nature. Then I had the best conversation of my life. She told how wrong my uncle was and how he is going to hell for spreading all these lies. She told me how the earth was made and how we were center of the universe, of how we had pre-determined destiny and how we would go to hell and heaven, about what these heaven and hell are, what they do to people in hell and about the path to heaven by living righteously as per the book. From what all I heard that day, I knew I had control on things, I was in control and there was a plan for each and every human. I was not as insignificant as my uncle told. I knew how to live; I also knew how I will be judged. I was reassured in the meaning of life. I slept well. I should say it gave me beliefs and made me stronger. It just removed the weight of uncertainty off my shoulders. Now I was certain, I was certain of reaching heaven. When the path is shown so clearly, achieving it just becomes a question of character and perseverance of the individual.

That conversation feels like a long back now. I have lived a virtuous and pious life. Still this incident which took place few months back, though I know I did the right thing and I don’t have an iota of remorse for what I did, It is giving me a horrible feeling of doom.

I remember as if it was yesterday, I was visiting this place on one of my work related trips. I was staying in a popular tourist hotel. In the evening while taking a stroll, I came across a stand-up act in the banquet hall of the same hotel. I went in hoping for few good laughs. But that wretched soul was just talking corrupt things polluting the minds of the people sitting in the hall for some cheap laughs. I saw them laughing at his jokes whether they agreed or not, they just didn’t want to be left out is what I think. I was about to leave with a bad feeling in my heart for what the world was turning into, that is the time he started to talk about my beliefs.

That evil wretched animal didn’t have anything sacred in his life. He made fun of everything that I believed to be sacred, around which my life, death and each of my breath revolved. The profane creature compared the grossest of the things to the pure and sacred holy things which I and all my people believed in. I was outraged, I could not contain myself. After his show, I followed him to his room. I slid into his room before the door closed behind him. He was surprised to see me inside and was about to ask me something, but I couldn’t contain the building rage in me and hit him hard on his face. He rolled onto the ground. Before he could collect himself again, I hit him hard again and shoved the half conscious piece of shit onto the armchair. I was going berserk with anger and was muttering how wretched and horrible his soul has become, how if he could not spread virtue or righteousness among the people, he had no right to pollute them and how he had no right to live. 

In my rage, I must have been muttering loudly on how the beliefs and faith has built people, gave them reason to live and performed miracles, of how sacred it is and how it needs to be protected against profane creatures like him. How could he dare insult the sanctity and sacredness of my faith. My rage hadn’t had subdued and the bleeding shit hearing my angry words turned his lips into a smirk and asked me, “You think your beliefs and your faith is true, you possibly can’t know it for sure and the world has so many people with so many different beliefs. All of it can’t be true. If yours is true you are lucky, if theirs is true, you are fucked my friend, you are badly fucked and that too for an eternity”. He didn’t know when to shut up, he must have been thinking he still is on the stage and was being funny. I couldn’t take more of his shit. The rage just took over me and I slit his throat with the knife lying on the table and I did that in a flash. I couldn’t stay there for long. I had to abort my work plans; I called my contacts and got out of that country and back. 

This incident has remained with me throughout. It is not that I am remorseful. I am pretty sure I am not. I don’t think his last words also have much effect, but there is a sensation of doom which has slowly sunk in to me and I am not motivated for our cause anymore. I am not able to be as motivated as before. My work in the past eight years was so glorious that I was too precious for my leaders and I have been the chief planner for our various achievements.  I have been off the field for two years now. I was too important to be risked in an on field job. But today I wanted to be here and I am here against my leaders will. I have done everything as per the plan. I have planted enough explosives to take down the bridge. I have wired it perfectly. I just have to wait for the train to come close enough so that there is no way the driver can stop the train before the fall. Now I just have to get off the bridge and wait for the train. I can detonate the bombs using the wireless remote as far as a kilometer. But it looks like I don’t have control over my body anymore. I am sitting motionless on the track and I am unable to move out to safety. I can hear the noise of the approaching train. I have just given up trying to move. Now I think I will wait for the train right here and blow up the bridge when the train is near enough. The approaching train is close enough now. It has entered the point of no return zone. I have to just press this button. The time has come. May the powerful almighty take me in his abode.

Next day in Newspapers: Terrorist’s plan to blow the bridge foiled. The dead terrorist remains unidentified. Explosives laden around the tracks have been taken into custody by the police. The investigation is ongoing and the police are unsure why the bombs didn’t explode. The police suspect that the plan failed as the train hit the terrorist before he could press the button on the remote.
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30 comments:

  1. A story interestingly narrated from a terrorist's point of view.

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    1. Thanks "The Fool", Glad you found it interesting and nice to have your comment on my post :).

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  2. I like how the character is so clear and determined. You have brought out his conviction perfectly...

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  3. A very interesting story, loved it.. keep it going...

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  4. what a plot, really engrossing. This is a well planned piece of penmanship. These beliefs cause terrorism to thrive, the stauncher the belief, the better it is exploitable. I regret when we will be humans first. There are plenty schemers hawk eyed to mislead any young mind into terrorism.
    Really liked your style.

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    1. Thanks "Maun Vision". Really felt so very happy reading your comment cos you understood exactly what I wanted to convey. Completely agree with what you said. And thanks again for the complement :)

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  5. Could not get the connection between << That conversation feels like a long back now. I have lived a virtuous and pious life.>> and the man actually being a terrorist. I think after the murder incidence the story took a kind of turn which was totally unexpected. Except for this, I found the narration very impressive.

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    1. The whole narration is done by the terrorist (in the perspective of people outside his community, he is a terrorist). But for himself and his community people he is a hero, a savior. Its the skewed vision of the narrator which thinks of himself as a hero and cant understand he himself being a terrorist. He was a terrorist for a long time and the murder just happened around few months back which shows how he can't even understand difference of opinions and how intolerant he is to the freedom of speech. But it just gives him a different perspective which he cant shake off. The narrator is a villain here.

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  6. The narration was a bit confusing, but I should appreciate you for coming up with a good story, a terrorist's story

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    1. The idea was not to be very clear to the reader and for the reader to derive his opinion regarding the narrator. Anyways, thanks for the complement.

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  7. Very detailed character sketch. This can make for some really good content for a novel!
    I loved the philosophies included. Poignant!

    All the best for BAT!

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    1. Thanks Enchanta for the encouraging words. Glad you liked the content and philosophies. :)

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  8. I like the way of putting across the idea. Keep it up!

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  9. A very good account of the dilemma faced by the terrorist... A very good read..

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  10. I really liked the way your post started. The first paragraph really provokes the readers interest and we want to see where this might be go. It leaves the door open to a lot of possibilities. But it felt like you chose the populist twist to the story. An interesting experiment might be to keep the first 3 paras the same and come up with a different twist assuming you can name the story anything. What do you think?

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    1. Thanks Sunjoo Krishna for your inputs. But for me while writing it, the twist was not the highlight and did not mean much to me. I wanted to put more focus on how skewed beliefs of people though popular among many of the friends and the community, though might be the populist belief might not be the correct one. How tolerance of other beliefs is important. Here the focus for me is, always use reasoning. In the climax it seemed the terrorist could reason and though he doesnt agree, but he could not push away the proper reasoning away from his heart.

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    2. Terrific job! I just loved it. The moment I realized what was happening, the post became even better. Lots of respect to you for thinking like this man.

      The characters you drew (even of the man that got killed) were excellent.

      The plot was great. I think we could have extended the end part a bit more - to continue giving the readers an exposure to what they just realized. Maybe that's me wanting more :)

      But, a v good job. Very impressive.

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    3. Thanks Kshitij, your positive words are a lot of encouragement. About the end part being extended for giving the readers an exposure, maybe I could have or should have, but somewhere while writing it felt I should leave it to the imagination of the readers to realize, understand and derive what I wanted to say, in their respective opinions.

      Thanks again for your kind comments.

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  11. wowie :D
    the thoughts , the beliefs :) nice

    all the best :)

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  12. the whole narration stole my heart.. I love this post a lot for its character sketch too... :-)

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    1. Glad you loved it SIS. Thanks for the kind words !!!

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  13. Excellent characterization with a perfect plot. The dilemmas, the philosophies so familiar with common man and daily life...a very realistic conception of thoughts...loved reading it. All the best.

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    1. Thanks Cherry Blossom. Happy that you loved reading it. Thanks for your encouraging words, meant a lot !!!

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  14. Very realistic and I do wonder a lot about the thoughts of these people. They are generally heavily brain washed and coerced into their way of life but sometimes, when they hear other people talk about them and it actually makes a little sense, I guess they feel a little more human.
    Excellent narration. And I like the fact that because the narrator was so convoluted in his final days, he couldn't ultimately carry out his final act of terror. Fitting.

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    1. Thanks D2, Happy you told the exact things which I wanted to express through this story. Your encouraging words meant a lot.

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