The software engineer had his intense, intelligent eyes fixated on a leaf which was being propelled around helplessly and aimlessly by the wind. He reveled in this simple sight by comparing his life to the course of this simple leaf – directionless, controlled by external factors, drifting without a sign into the nothingness…
‘Token number: Five, Zero.’
‘Token number: two, seven, eight.’
‘Token number: four, number: eight six … ‘
The metallic voices in the food court irked him like his ears were being torn apart by hot spikes. Droning on and on in his head, he detested these voices as they were inhuman, they were tormenting, monotonous and ruthless – how much ever you shouted they would never stop or they could never be outshouted, they could not be drowned. You HAD to submit to the power of the voice coming from the loudspeaker. In short, the whole thing reminded him of encounters with his boss.
He sat in front of the machine that had come to mean more than half his life. His PC. This is where the pointlessness of life began to raise its ugly head and entangle him within it. What was his life beyond the sickening lines of endless code? Meaningless mails which promised employees a great working experience and which fooled them into believing that they were living a great life flooded his inbox. He shift deleted every mail, and opened the forwards. Hahaha, the forwards. Now that was some fresh lease of life… By the way, how could life be so sad ass that forwards meant salvation?
What had he ever wanted in life? He didn’t know. He never did. He had been a wet sponge full of energy, ready to get into a literary career right after barely scraping out of school. Four years of engineering had squeezed this sponge dry; life’s juices, life’s essence had been squeezed out of him.
Lunch. The wind was still blowing hard, and the leaves were still flying around. Then his eyes fell on the tree. The tree which stood its ground irrespective of how much the wind howled. That was when he decided – he would be the tree. He would cease being the leaf.
‘Token number: four, one, six’
‘Token, two,:number, nine.’
‘Number: Token, six, … ‘
That was it. He could take it no longer. In front of him stood a bespectacled young chap, waiting for his token number to flash on the screen. He tapped the guy on the shoulder and when he turned, Rudran laid a resounding punch right on the bridge of that unsuspecting guy’s nose.
“AAaaaoouuu!” Wailed the guy in pain. Blood sprouted from his nose and by the time anything else could happen, shocked people moved away from the counter and kept watching what was happening. This gave ample time for Rudran to get the hell out of there without second thoughts.
He was panting and his lungs, greedy for air, kept him gasping till he regained composure. He was thrilled. Adrenaline pumped through him and gave him a powerful feeling, like he was the Lord of the world. That was how it all started.
The next day. Around 8 pm. The Food Court was deserted save for few. Even though the people were few, the token machines droned on. . .
‘Token number: eight, four,
‘Token,number seven,three, number.’
‘Token Nambarrr, eight, five, six, … ‘
The Psychoware had been booted in his head. His face acquired a contorted glow. His whole presence filled up with malicious satisfaction. He needed a place to perform his operations... Aha! He had spotted it. The broom closet which was conveniently pocketed away in a remote corner– you wouldn’t notice it if you were just walking by. This was the venue where he would take them.
“Err.. I would like to show you something really interesting!” Rudran was addressing a gullible looking guy.
The guy looked at him from head to toe, unyielding.
“I have to catch the last shuttle…”
Rudran placed a hand on this guy’s shoulder in an aggressive fashion.
“No no, shuttle doesn’t matter anymore. You HAVE to see this interesting thing.” He said, clamping his hand on the guy’s shoulder and applying pressure.
“Ok, ok I’ll come!” The other guy cowered.
Hahaha, just the typical kind of guy – eats like a pig, looks like a huge bull, and still scared of me because I intimidate him, though I am smaller than him. What a sucker.
“It’s just in here man, come on in!” Called Rudran pleasantly. A broom and bucket happened to mark their presence in that closet.
Ah, the tools of the trade!
“See, this broom… It has qualities which you can never imagine. It’s usually used to wipe the floor, but I’ve ascertained that your head would function better than this mop. And I’m not going to waste phenyl on this. I’m going to use blood which oozes out. You pathetic fuck! “
THWACK!
A resounding sound echoed against the walls of the small broom closet. A totally unwary and unprotected skull came into contact with the thick, heavy plastic of a rather sturdy broom, resulting in the cracking of the former.
Hahaha! Take this you over- eating, ass-glued-to-seat, eyes-glued-to-system bastard! You deserve every blow from this thick plastic. Yessssss …
The plastic cracked, and this was when Rudran ceased the pounding.
Rudran announced in general -
“Victim number : Zero, Two… “
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Zephyr
It was another one of those dark and rainy nights.
Water droplets born from the clouds started kissing the Earth gently at first, and then more passionately, and finally the force was so much that the kiss morphed into a tormenting, piercing pounding.
In the eeriness and the sepulchral silence of the graveyard where soulless corpses took refuge, stood a man, the rain bouncing savagely off his black umbrella. Cold lines cut across his face, hardening his visage; but the coldness of his heart far surpassed the coldness on his face.
He looked grimly at a singular line of graves, all identical save for the numbers engraved on them. They bore no epitaphs or announcements like ‘Here lies…’ On the tombstones were just engraved a number, and a date. There will be just one more tombstone, and after that I’m done, Zephyr told himself.
He looked at the long line of identical tombstones – the people he had killed. He never cared who they were, what they did, if they had kids; it was his job to kill, and it was something within him which told him to bury them; No names, no status, no discrimination; all those meaningless entities perish with the person and they were all buried together in the same soil, subject to the same maggots, and ultimately crumbled to the same dust. Death was the inevitable unison which bridged everyone irrespective of anything.
Zephyr had only one person left to kill, and it only made things easier that he hated that person. All his deaths had been for the living, for the job; his last kill was for himself, because hate was consuming him and he could bear with it no longer. He had tried to relate to this person throughout his meaningless existence, to seek refuge, to understand what he was all about, but he could never figure out. Whenever this person stood in the graveyard of soulless corpses, Zephyr always thought that this person didn’t have a soul either and that the only difference was that this person was a walking corpse.
There had never been another side to this guy except the killer side; there was only cold calculation, colder feelings and of course, the coldest heart.
The rain was now ceasing its relentlessness; Zephyr shook the raindrops off his umbrella and with haste in his strides, reached the undertaker who had been doing the business of engraving the tombstones of Zephyr’s victims.
“This is your 110th, Mr. Z” Stated the Undertaker.
“The next one will be my last one.”
The undertaker was not precisely happy to hear this, because the business of burying murdered people and keeping the whole thing under wraps was an extremely productive business. But the whole foundation on which he had been given the contract was the usual ‘no questions asked, none answered’ one, but now since the contract was going to terminate, the undertaker could take it no longer.
“Who were all those people you killed?” He queried.
Zephyr too, had no obligations anymore as this was going to be his ultimate assignment. He took off his coat, pulled up a rusted chair, and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. The undertaker looked at the cold angles on Zephyr’s face and shuddered. The whole room was dimly lit by a few dull bulbs; Zephyr wondered - was this because the nature of the undertaker’s job was like that or was it because he didn’t want to see how weepy or ugly his clients were when they were grieving someone who died; but then, you can’t exactly expect freaking colorful neon lights on the display at an undertaker’s.
“I killed them because I was asked to, and the dough was good. I am as clueless as you are about their identities. It was just look at this picture, go kill him, take your money, shut your fucking mouth and get the fuck outta here.”
“Why did you do it? You would’ve annihilated so many families and you would’ve destroyed a large number of people who could’ve made a great difference.”
“What’s done is done” stated Zephyr, taking a contemplative puff at his burning cigarette.
“Now how come you’re stopping?”
“Well, you’ve been my only friend and you’ll soon find out.” And with an air of enigma about him, Zephyr turned to leave. As he shut the door behind him, the undertaker wondered- I didn’t even know him and he says I’m his only friend. What a sad ass life he must lead.
Perspiration drenched his palm as he clutched his faithful GP-100 Ruger Magnum pistol. For the first time, his heart was throbbing and adrenaline was pumping as he cocked his gun. He could see his last victim in front of him; Hate bubbled up inside him and threatened to cause an unprecedented internal explosion. This had been the advantage of not knowing any of his other victims. They were just meaningless faces and there were no connecting roots. Here the roots ran so deep; they were welded together and nearly indistinguishable.
His last victim- Victim Number 111. A nice note to end it on, he thought. He messaged his undertaker – Collect it at the usual place.
Zephyr saw his last victim for the last time, and pulled the trigger.
The undertaker went to the usual place and saw the victim; in front of him was a mirror.
The undertaker buried the last victim in that sepulchral row of graves. The only difference was, this tombstone read differently –
Here lies Zephyr, the man responsible for this entire row of graves including his own.
Water droplets born from the clouds started kissing the Earth gently at first, and then more passionately, and finally the force was so much that the kiss morphed into a tormenting, piercing pounding.
In the eeriness and the sepulchral silence of the graveyard where soulless corpses took refuge, stood a man, the rain bouncing savagely off his black umbrella. Cold lines cut across his face, hardening his visage; but the coldness of his heart far surpassed the coldness on his face.
He looked grimly at a singular line of graves, all identical save for the numbers engraved on them. They bore no epitaphs or announcements like ‘Here lies…’ On the tombstones were just engraved a number, and a date. There will be just one more tombstone, and after that I’m done, Zephyr told himself.
He looked at the long line of identical tombstones – the people he had killed. He never cared who they were, what they did, if they had kids; it was his job to kill, and it was something within him which told him to bury them; No names, no status, no discrimination; all those meaningless entities perish with the person and they were all buried together in the same soil, subject to the same maggots, and ultimately crumbled to the same dust. Death was the inevitable unison which bridged everyone irrespective of anything.
Zephyr had only one person left to kill, and it only made things easier that he hated that person. All his deaths had been for the living, for the job; his last kill was for himself, because hate was consuming him and he could bear with it no longer. He had tried to relate to this person throughout his meaningless existence, to seek refuge, to understand what he was all about, but he could never figure out. Whenever this person stood in the graveyard of soulless corpses, Zephyr always thought that this person didn’t have a soul either and that the only difference was that this person was a walking corpse.
There had never been another side to this guy except the killer side; there was only cold calculation, colder feelings and of course, the coldest heart.
The rain was now ceasing its relentlessness; Zephyr shook the raindrops off his umbrella and with haste in his strides, reached the undertaker who had been doing the business of engraving the tombstones of Zephyr’s victims.
“This is your 110th, Mr. Z” Stated the Undertaker.
“The next one will be my last one.”
The undertaker was not precisely happy to hear this, because the business of burying murdered people and keeping the whole thing under wraps was an extremely productive business. But the whole foundation on which he had been given the contract was the usual ‘no questions asked, none answered’ one, but now since the contract was going to terminate, the undertaker could take it no longer.
“Who were all those people you killed?” He queried.
Zephyr too, had no obligations anymore as this was going to be his ultimate assignment. He took off his coat, pulled up a rusted chair, and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. The undertaker looked at the cold angles on Zephyr’s face and shuddered. The whole room was dimly lit by a few dull bulbs; Zephyr wondered - was this because the nature of the undertaker’s job was like that or was it because he didn’t want to see how weepy or ugly his clients were when they were grieving someone who died; but then, you can’t exactly expect freaking colorful neon lights on the display at an undertaker’s.
“I killed them because I was asked to, and the dough was good. I am as clueless as you are about their identities. It was just look at this picture, go kill him, take your money, shut your fucking mouth and get the fuck outta here.”
“Why did you do it? You would’ve annihilated so many families and you would’ve destroyed a large number of people who could’ve made a great difference.”
“What’s done is done” stated Zephyr, taking a contemplative puff at his burning cigarette.
“Now how come you’re stopping?”
“Well, you’ve been my only friend and you’ll soon find out.” And with an air of enigma about him, Zephyr turned to leave. As he shut the door behind him, the undertaker wondered- I didn’t even know him and he says I’m his only friend. What a sad ass life he must lead.
Perspiration drenched his palm as he clutched his faithful GP-100 Ruger Magnum pistol. For the first time, his heart was throbbing and adrenaline was pumping as he cocked his gun. He could see his last victim in front of him; Hate bubbled up inside him and threatened to cause an unprecedented internal explosion. This had been the advantage of not knowing any of his other victims. They were just meaningless faces and there were no connecting roots. Here the roots ran so deep; they were welded together and nearly indistinguishable.
His last victim- Victim Number 111. A nice note to end it on, he thought. He messaged his undertaker – Collect it at the usual place.
Zephyr saw his last victim for the last time, and pulled the trigger.
The undertaker went to the usual place and saw the victim; in front of him was a mirror.
The undertaker buried the last victim in that sepulchral row of graves. The only difference was, this tombstone read differently –
Here lies Zephyr, the man responsible for this entire row of graves including his own.
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