tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-149993312024-03-23T11:25:37.180-07:00The Story awaiting a namePhitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122876948561578122005-07-31T23:13:00.000-07:002005-08-04T08:25:57.636-07:00INDEX<a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/1-strands.html">1. Strands</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/2-good-captain.html">2.The Good Captain</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/3-in-middle-of-million-questions.html">3. In the middle of a million questions...</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/4-sahil.html">4.Sahil</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/5-abandon_31.html">5.Abandon</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/6-spawning-hatred.html">6.Spawning hatred</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/7-281005.html">7.28/10/05</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/8-dates.html">8.Dates</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/9-nida.html">9.Nida</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/10-good-major.html">10.The Good Major</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/11-seven.html">11. Seven</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/12-slut-from-lahore.html">12. The 'Slut' From Lahore</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/13-rida.html">13. Rida</a><br /><a href="http://unnamedstory.blogspot.com/2005/07/14-gambit-pawn-and-one-lost-god.html">14. Gambit, Pawn and a Lost God</a><br />15. Respite<br />16. Contingency<br />17. What once was lost...<br />18. Ayaz<br />19. ...Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122874778371395592005-07-31T22:37:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:40:56.186-07:001. Strands<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was her favorite spot on the little hill station. The sheer drop off was almost exhilarating. Made her feel, humbled, mortal. The beautiful blue flowers native to the region, flanking the edge of the cliff, the raging river some 1000 feet below, the absolute silence in the twilight of the rising dawn. It was serene beyond belief. . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I feel human again, when I come here.” She had written to her husband in one of her letters. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Saving so many lives every day can make one feel like god, whenever I suffer such blasphemous pomposity I come here, with my thermos full of coffee, sit at the edge with my legs dangling, as if off the very brim of the earth itself and let nature set me straight. You can feel God here. You know. It almost feels like he’s right here, sitting next to me, with his own cup, gently reminding me of my place in the world. I love it here. I miss you so much, Aamir. I wish you were here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">God wasn’t there next to her when she jumped off the cliff. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They searched all day. The army regiment assigned to maintain order in the notoriously volatile and breathtakingly beautiful frontier hill station, left no inch of the raging river Sawat un-touched. But no dead bodies had ever been recovered from these ruthless white waters. And alas, she would be no exception. They say a body is turned to debris in a matter of hours in the vicious current and the brutal rocky terrain that the river flows over. They say that it hits a rock once every second at speeds that would crush a 6 foot thick log. They say that once you fall into the river Sawaat, you leave no remains. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">All they ever found of her was the metal thermos full of coffee that she had left up on the cliff. Her parents had to seek religious guidance about what to bury. They settled for the few strands of hair she had left lying on her pillow. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">After the funeral procession, Aamir cried. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He hadn’t been able to understand that his beautiful, majestic wife had killed herself. He blamed himself, everyone blamed him. He had just arrived the night before. But she had always sounded so happy in the letters. So satisfied. She was getting such great work done for the children and women here. He kept hoping it was all a bad dream and any moment now he would wake up screaming, see her lying next to him and hug her and kiss her and tell her what a horrible dream he had had. But when they started shoveling the sand into the six foot deep hole that contained nothing but a few locks of golden brown hair he finally understood.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“They blame you.” Nida whimpered. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I know.” Aamir responded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The tears had long since stopped falling as he sat smoking with his sister-in-law on the steps of the little cottage his wife had occupied for the last 4 months. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I know and I do too. Just can’t believe she’s gone. Rida’s gone.” And the tears returned. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. She had always been so strong. Always the anchor. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“They want her stuff.” She said softly, almost apologetically. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Everything?” he said wiping away at the tears. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Everything… They don’t understand. They need someone to blame… they’re choosing you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t… I don’t blame them, Nida. I think… I feel like I killed her… I just got here the night before and and… its okay… you can take everything I don’t really… except those little moccasins of hers, she loved those. And and that one shawl that we bought from <st1:country-region><st1:place>Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> on our honeymoon. And ummh, I… the lingerie, would freak uncle auntie out…” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He couldn’t speak anymore. The knot in the back of his throat had constricted so that even breathing seemed impossible. He took one long puff before continuing,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But she cut him off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Take your time Aamir, keep whatever you want. Keep everything; they just want to feel like they’ve avenged her somehow. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you, but it was hard enough keeping dad from coming here and tearing the place upside down. But just… I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wiped her eyes, gave him a hug and was gone. He was left sitting with nothing but redemption on his mind. He knew there was only one thing left to do now. The only chance he had at forgiving himself. He decided that sorting through her things would be the last thing he would ever do. <i style="">When they come tomorrow to take her things, they’ll find me lying dead. Then maybe they can forgive me, maybe I can forgive myself. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When you love someone so much that life without them seems like an empty bottomless pit of despair and grief, its easy to choose to die. So he did. Without so much as a second thought, or any misgivings and went about emptying the closets and the drawers and the suitcases she had been too lazy too open looking for the few select items that he wanted to rub against his skin one last time before following her to wherever she had gone. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It took longer than he had expected. Every thing he touched seemed to have some of her left in it. Clothes held her fragrance, jewelry, her brilliance. The littlest things like half remaining lipsticks and empty tubes of mascara made him cry the most. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He would sit for hours at a stretch holding something utterly insignificant in his hand like a shoe with a broken heel and bawl like a child who’s been hurt for the first time. Then he would gather himself up and get back to sorting, putting in separate boxes what he was willing for them to have and what he wanted to keep for himself. Remembering then, his plan of killing himself in the morning he found himself overcome by fits of laughter at the stupidity of segregating her remains until he would start crying and would cry until he couldn’t breathe anymore. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was almost twilight when he got to her vanity case. He pried it open expecting to find row upon row of make up that would never be used anymore and found instead an ornate leather bound notebook. Her journal. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The only thing she had never shared. He had no intention of opening it or reading it, he knew she liked her privacy. But after he had kissed the cover and was putting it aside it slipped from his hands and flipped open. The only words he accidentally read, took his breath away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Written somewhat half way through the book, in her beautiful sacred-heart hand writing in the middle of a page were just three words:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Tomorrow, I die.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He felt bile rise to his throat, felt his breath surrender to shock. The life drained out of him and he could almost feel like what he thought a corpse would feel like. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He picked the book up and read the words again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:date year="2005" day="11" month="4">4/11/05</st1:date>. The date on top of the page. The day he had arrived here. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Heart sinking, almost afraid to know what he couldn’t help but want to know, he flipped backwards into the life his wife had kept hidden from him. What he read, what he discovered wouldn’t allow him to kill himself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Not just yet. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122874964417647602005-07-31T22:30:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:42:44.423-07:002. The good Captain.<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>He was built like a Greek god. <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">!0 years of commando training will do that to you. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Also enforce levels of discipline no man should ever be subjected to. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But he pulled it off. As if this was exactly the role he was crafted for. Not many people get to say that about their lives… Careers, lovers, families. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But Captain Ayaz was truly a blessed man. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A shrewd mind and a heart of gold, he could charm a stone into doing his bidding. He had one of those smiles that leave women ravenous for more and men sullen and defeated. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Add to all these divine awards the work this young man had accomplished in very little time, if only to aide the plagued citizenry of a small mountain settlement, was an achievement that earned him well deserved praise from friend and foe alike. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was all due to his efforts that a restless but brilliant young doctor from <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City> managed to find her way to where she was needed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He had managed to convince the local Jirga that their women and children needed medical attention the likes of which their usual witch doctors and fake hakeems could not provide. Then he had convinced the government of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> to depute to this region the most ambitious of all their fresh graduates from the biggest medical schools as if on mandatory internship, a tour of duty even. Surviving which, he had said, would not only add to their own personal skills but also provide an invaluable service to the people of their country who need their help desperately. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So moved were they by his impassioned rhetoric that not more than 3 months after his presentation the first group of women <i style="">health care practitioners</i> was dispatched to aid his noble cause. They came with high hopes and ambitions and achieved magnanimous amounts of victories over diseases that had so far been playing havoc with the lives of the local residents. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Such unprecedented success of course, fuels greater confidence and so the movement gathered momentum and being deputed to the HCP service became one of the most sought after deputations amongst the fresh graduates. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Rida, was one such graduate. She had become uneasy off late, having married for love much sooner than she had wished; she felt complacent and useless. An honors degree in a field she couldn’t even practice because she had taken off for her honeymoon while her classmates were going through their residencies. When she was offered the chance to come back into the folds of what she had once so desired, she did not hesitate. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Finding someone as kind and as charming as Captain Ayaz to help her through the grueling demands of curing children on the verge of dying from skin decay and blood diseases proved the greatest blessing of them all. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They were so alike, in so many ways. Ambitious, determined… cultured. They would sit and talk about literature into the early hours of the morning sometimes, so excited by what they had achieved during the day and so engrossed in each other’s company that time just seemed to slip out of their fingers. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It wasn’t until she would go to the vantage point she had discovered one night by accident that she would immerse herself into the memories of what she had left behind. That is where she would sit sipping at her coffee, writing to her husband, telling him of all that she had gotten done in that particular week. Heralding her triumphs, noting how important she finally felt. As if somehow she had managed to acquire her dreams. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I never though that I would ever be thanked for saving a life. It’s the most surreal thing ever Aamir, I mean, now I know why Abu always insisted that I follow his footsteps. He knew how rewarding all of this is. The insanity of medical school, the never ending studying, the blood curdling frog autopsies. All worth it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Or when she lost her first patient, the little girl with the unbelievable jade eyes, poisoned by the water, brought too late to her care to make a difference…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What’s the point? What’s the point of being here when these people still would rather trust chants and powders over proper allopathic care. I can’t believe we lost the girl. She was so… innocent. She died in my arms. I have never cried so much Aamir. Her mother couldn’t believe that her little angel was gone. She just sat there looking at me crying, with some sort of hope in her eyes, as if when I stopped, her daughter would jump up from my lap and run into her arms. I didn’t even know what to tell her.” She would tell him everything, even often the gruesome details about the conditions of her patients. Even about the things she bought. The wonderful way they cured lamb’s meat in the mountains, promising him that when she got back she would make him a meal he would never forget. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Somehow, however, she failed to mention that, when she cried, she did so upon the shoulder <span style=""> </span>of a certain Captain in the armed forces of Pakistan, who was also the only person she allowed herself to laugh in front of. Somehow, she neglected to mention that she had come to depend on that very Captain in the absence of her husband for companionship and guidance during what was easily the most trying time of her life.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Somehow, in all the hum drum details of a separated life from her husband, the good Captain never warranted a mention. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875029264922022005-07-31T22:25:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:43:49.276-07:003. In the middle of a million questions…<b style=""><i style=""><o:p></o:p></i></b><st1:date year="2005" day="11" month="3"><i style="">3/11/05</i></st1:date><i style=""><o:p></o:p></i> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">This has to end. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I’m so sorry Aamir. I love you so much. I’m so fucking sorry. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was almost hard to make these words out; her usually immaculate script was as haphazardly strewn across this page as if she was trying to hide her words more than to record them. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir read them over and over. A million and one questions popping into his head<i style="">. What are you sorry for Rida, what can’t you do, I love you Baby, why why why why why why why why.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The cacophony of whys reverberating in his head, he turns another page over, hoping that perhaps the answers to his question, to his wife’s sudden decision to kill herself would finally be revealed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But the mystery only deepens and the pages unfurl. Recorded on the second of November, in almost just as illegible a hand, he finds the following:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I can’t. How can I tell him? He won’t. He might. But he will be so hurt. I can’t. I can’t hurt him. I can’t tell him. He can never know. Never ever know. Never ever never never never. There’s nothing he can do. Nothing at all. Only I can do anything about this now. About us. I can’t tell him. I just can’t. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Tell me what?</i> Aamir asks out loud. Almost exasperated now as he turns back over a week’s worth of entries and finds nothing but a record of this same inner battle that Rida seems to be waging. The battle that led her off the edge of a cliff. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He’s more desperate than mournful now. More angry than guilty. He can tell something went wrong.<span style=""> </span>Terribly wrong. Rida was strong, she would never ever give in unless… unless she really didn’t know what else to do. But kill herself? God… God?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And then it struck him. She had always been so strong in her faith. So ritualistic about her beliefs… she always wrote one of Allah’s names somewhere in her letters. In her term papers. In everything she ever wrote. Sometime she would settle for the common place 786 people often use. But always there would be some sign of her trying to communicate with the Almighty. As if seeking his permission, his blessing for her words. But nowhere could he find any sign of God in any of these angst ridden entries about the last week of her life. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Did she forget? How could she just forget god? No she left it out. She left him out… because?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Shame?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Anger?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Desperation?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Distrust?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">What the hell happened Rida? <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He flipped back a dozen or so pages just to confirm his theory. The nagging doubt that maybe, just maybe she had never even let god in on her secret diaries. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But the first page he stopped at, right by the date, in big black flowing Arabic she had penned <i style="">Ar-Rahim (the merciful)<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And he knew then that she had abandoned God. Whatever led her to kill herself had even stripped her off her faith. In the last few days of her life, in the last one week that she breathed, she was more alone than she ever had been. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He started crying again. He could see her face, smell her skin… she lived within him. Inside his senses. And now, face to face with so much fear, so much trepidation in the women he had sworn he’d never allow to be hurt, inflicted upon him a pain that nothing in his life had prepared him for. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Slowly the crying turned into dry sobs. Into hiccups. Into a now familiar emptiness inside that follows on the heels of too much pain being registered again and again on a heart quickly breaking into pieces. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He began to read. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:date year="2005" day="13" month="9"><i style="">13/9/05</i></st1:date><i style=""><span style=""> </span>Ar-rahim<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Sahil. I don’t know why but that seems like the most beautiful name ever. I know now what we will name our son. Sahil is such a beautiful boy too. It’s almost unbelievable. He’s almost translucent of skin. With eyes so blue it’s hard to imagine a truer shade of blue after you have seen his eyes. And his smile, oh god. He will grow up to be such a heart breaker. Once he’s cured, I will try to have him sent to </i><st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Lahore</i></st1:place></st1:City><i style="">, enroll him at Aitchison. I’m sure Abu will be happy about that. He never got over not being able to send anyone to his old </i><st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Alma</i></st1:place></st1:City><i style=""> matter. Aamir helped a little, being from there but I just know he’s dying to go to that stupid founder’s day thing again. But Sahil’s in such bad shape. His legs are almost paralyzed. He can’t even stand without support. And yet he’s always smiling. I could almost swear he made me blush with the way he looked at me, head bent, eyes bright and eager, and that devilish smile. He’s worse even than Captain Ayaz… prettier then him too. But that’s another of the species that I’m in complete awe of. What a man. I never thought men could be this caring, this giving, this… considerate. Not to say that Aamir isn’t. But Ayaz is like a different breed all together. He’s just so, compassionate. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Anyway I don’t know why I always end up comparing Aamir and Ayaz. If it has anything to do with attraction, I should be comparing Sahil and Aamir. Uff that boy is something else. That’s so wrong. I’m so desperate I’m fawning over a 16 year old. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Where’s that bloody husband when you need him. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He remembers Sahil, she had mentioned him so often in her letters. Her favorite patient, how she had went on and on about how brilliant he was, how beautiful. He had liked the name too. And the boy. It was hard for him to not like anything or anyone Rida liked. But this Captain Ayaz, came out of nowhere. She had never mentioned him in her letters. Never even alluded to the presence of a man that she thought so highly off. Maybe, he could shed some light on her. Was it a patient she lost that just destroyed her? Captain Ayaz would know. He made a mental note of asking for him at the army base as soon as he could. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There’s a knock on the door. He knows its Nida. She has come to collect the pieces of her sister’s life her parents don’t want him to have. He shoves the book into a drawer and walks towards the door. Opens it and finds a haggard old man, still reeking of surrendered dignity leaning on a metal cane at the steps. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Uncle?” Rida’s father? He’s taken aback. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Aamir.” He says in a tone that is more strained than hostile. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>Aamir ushers him in. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m sorry about this, son.” He says settling down into a chair. “But you know your auntie; she is convinced that you’re responsible.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“And you are not?” There’s hostility in his voice that he himself finds surprising. It’s not borne of resentment for how he knows the old man feels, but for being disturbed now of all times that he had finally found something that could unravel the mystery surrounding the tragedy that is equally brutal for both men. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Did you love her?” The old man asks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You know the answer to that question, Sir.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t anymore… I don’t even know if she loved you. She got everything she wanted. The education, the man, the job… and still something like this happens and a man all set to dive into his own grave is left questioning everything he has ever done. It’s just not right for a father to bury his child. It’s just not right.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Or for a husband to bury his wife. I was supposed to go first.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I wish you had. Bring her things out to the car” He stands up and limps his way out the door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir grabs the box he has filled of things he thinks her parents would cherish the most and walks behind the old man. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">At the car, he carefully places the box into the trunk, lowers the cover and is suddenly reminded of the sand being shoveled into a grave with nothing but a few strands of hair in it. His heart constricts and he knows the tears will come flooding again. But he clenches his fists and keeps himself from crying as his father in law without uttering a word gets into the car and drives off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Stops. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Rolls down the window.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I never want to see you again. You owe us that much.” He shouts and without waiting for a reply drives off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir watches the car grow smaller and smaller in the distance. He thinks of a time when this man’s approval was the one thing that mattered to him more than anything else. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It doesn’t anymore. The only things that matter now are one leather bound journal inside a dresser drawer and a certain Captain Ayaz who might be able to explain what had happened to make his wife take her own life. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And his. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875100101433302005-07-31T22:16:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:45:00.106-07:004. Sahil<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She had received the call just before she left for her morning coffee by the edge of the world. Sahil was terminal. She had run the 3 miles down to the infirmary having been unable to rouse her driver from his hash induced sleep. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she got there it was already too late. The insulin they had been giving him to numb the pain of the diuretic induced cramps in his now almost completely useless legs had reacted badly with some concoction his father had brought from a Hakeem. He had been vomiting all night and having purged all the food and drink inside was now puking blood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He lay in a pool of bile and blood thrashed by spasms that contorted his lithe body into impossible shapes, he managed to smile when he saw her enter the curtained off block they had reserved for him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But it was already too late. She asked the nurses on duty for details but by the time they were done recounting the horrors this beloved boy had suffered through the night, Sahil was dead. They tried to revive him With CPR and electric shock but it was all too late. Too futile. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She collapsed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wanted to cry, but vomited instead. Her own bile pouring on top of his as she fainted on the bed beside him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she came to, Ayaz stood over her, gently stroking her hair. She sat up. Looked around. They had removed the boy’s body, she was lying on his bed. She looked up at Ayaz and finally began to cry. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He kissed her forehead. Held her close. Whispered consolations in her ear. And all the while she shook uncontrollably from anger and remorse in his arms. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wasn’t the only one crying. Everyone at the little hospital mourned the loss of the boy who hardly ever spoke but by his sheer will and tenacity had woven a place for himself in every heart. But everyone knew that no one’s pain was greater than Rida’s. Not even his mother’s. Not even the father’s who every one knew was responsible for his death. He had snuck the yellow-brown powder in his meager meal for the night hoping for his beliefs to prevail over modern medicine. He hadn’t wanted him to die, he loved his son. But he had killed him. The next morning they would find his dead body in a ravine near Kalaam and there the saga of Sahil would be concluded. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But no degree of poetic justice could alleviate the pain in Rida’s heart. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She cried all the way to her cottage sitting in the army jeep besides Ayaz, who never stopped trying to console her. He stayed with her till she fell asleep, exhausted from the agony.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she awoke finally sometime in the afternoon, she found a note from him lying on the bed-side table beside her alarm clock. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><i style="">“To infinite, ever present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death.”<br />- Mary Baker<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Let’s embrace the infinite love invoked in our jaded hearts by the innocence of the young boy who died with a smile on his face you alone could have brought him. You’ve mourned enough my dear, dear Rida. I need to see you smile. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Dinner, my house. Be ready by 7. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">It would cause my heart a great deal of relief from the pain it has suffered today if you can take the time out to dress up for <span style=""> </span>the celebration of Sahil’s life. And perhaps, seeing yourself resplendent and beautiful will help you realize what you will always mean to Sahil. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">And me. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She read the note, and almost began to smile. Sahil’s ashen face was still too much a part of her sub-conscious to be able to focus on anything with pleasure. And that is what helped her decide that taking Ayaz up on his offer would perhaps be the best possible course of action. Her other option was sitting in her empty house, with nothing to do but bleed her heart into her journal and be haunted by a set of brilliant blue eyes that she would never see again.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Yes, she would go. She would enjoy his company. After all, he was all she had. He was the only one who would understand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She looks at the clock. <st1:time minute="0" hour="16">4 pm</st1:time>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">3 hours to go. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Plenty of time she thinks. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">To look resplendent and beautiful for Sahil. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And Ayaz. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And herself. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875177317864172005-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:46:17.326-07:005. Abandon.<o:p></o:p>“Yes, I…umm, is there a Captain <i style="">Ayaz</i> on base?” Aamir asked the man sitting by the check post at the entrance of the army encampment at the foot of the hill where the Hospital was situated. <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The sergeant behind the counter looked up with a gaze that can only be termed condescending. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">:”Civilian?” He sneered</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes… I..”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He is not available.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Captain Ayaz? I really must see him… it’s… it’s important.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Zaroor Jinaab. You will wish to see him and he will materialize from inside my pants. Kaha na, he is not here” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Look it’s about a crime… a death that took place… I really must speak to him he is in charge here I believe?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Dekho… whatever it’s about, it will have to wait. He’s been in <st1:city><st1:place>Islamabad</st1:place></st1:City> since the 30<sup>th</sup>, he’s being promoted to Major. If it’s about the Doctor who killed herself you need to speak with the new captain. But he isn’t here either. So just come back tomorrow. Okay?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He’s not here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What did I say?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Okay when will he be back?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Come back tomorrow.” He turned his back to Aamir concluding the conversation. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Thank-Thankyou.” Aamir got back in his car and drove back towards the cottage of silenced screams. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Crossing through the bazaar, shining like a beacon amongst the weary and sullied riff raff of the mountains, he saw Nida. Sitting on a charpai, drinking tea from a little flower-laden, chipped cup, dressed in clothes flaunting her uber-hip lahori sensibilities, she looked remarkable enough to draw the attention of a monk. It would be hard to miss someone with her unbridled grace and sensuality in a café full of women clad in tight jeans and halter tops. Here, sporting low cut khakis and a t-shirt two sizes too small with a shawl casually draped over one shoulder, amidst the horde of women suffocating beneath burkas or chaddars and men wearing tell-tale turbans with tattered and soiled shalwar kameez, she stood out like a ray of light slicing through a star less night. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In a society governed by misogynists and mullahs, it was hardly advisable for a teenage girl to be out by herself. Add to that the fact that her appearance was no less than a slap in the face of convention and Islamic fundamentalism that was supposedly the rule of law in these parts. And yet she sat resolute and almost aloof from the glaring stares that she received form every passer by. Left in peace, partly due to the recent influx of tourists in these parts from all over the world, partly because she looked like she belonged to one of the more powerful families of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. But mostly it was the utter sadness on her face, plastered like a warning to all who dared as much as look at her that any undue comment would invite fury of such unequivocal magnitude that it was a far better option simply to ignore her existence and stifle their lewd comments meant to shame her into recognizing her role in a man’s world.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir stopped the car across the street form where she sat, looked at her and smiled at knowing that if there ever was a teen-ager who could hold an entire civilization at bay with the sheer force of her presence, it was her. So much like her sister, in appearance and demeanor and nature and temperament. <span style=""> </span>In everything, except faith. The only thing she hadn’t acquired from her older sister was the love for God. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He looked her over from head to toe, almost seeing Rida in every well accentuated curve of her body, shook his head with proud disdain and a smile that spelt respect. He went and sat down on the charpai next to her, signaled the little girl watching Nida’s every move with an enchanted gaze from behind the counter and asked for another cup of tea. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You guy’s are still here?” He asked smiling. It was always a pleasure to see her, now more than ever since every breath she drew mimicked Rida.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No, This is a Hologram here to haunt your mind with memories of your dead wife” She said licking the froth from the tea sticking to her lips.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t need a hologram to remember her Nida, why are you guys still here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Because of you” She said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You know that will require elaboration.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Abu dear is convinced that you are up to something. Seems like when he left you earlier you seemed too out of sorts to have simply been mourning.” She paused for another sip </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Besides…” Pause for another swipe of tongue across uncharacteristically unpainted lips, “There’s something fishy here. We all feel it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Like what?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You really wanna play dumb, Bro-in-law or are you really too dumb struck to notice?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Notice what?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“That there wasn’t anyone from the army there at the funeral. That it was a surprisingly low-brow affair for someone who by all means was rather special to the community. What with being the only lady doctor on hand. You save so many children, you expect their parents to care enough to offer a prayer at your grave… but it was just us and the hospital staff. Don’t you think that’s a little out of the ordinary?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“She committed suicide, Nida. You may not believe in it but this is a very religious society, suicide is a sin. As for the army not showing up, yes it worried me… I went to see the captain…” pause to receive his own cup of simmering tea…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“But he’s not available” She finished the sentence for him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Don’t look at me like that, she was my sister. I went over to the base. They don’t want to talk about it Aamir… what the hell is going on? I would’ve expected condolences galore, you know. People coming to us with blood shot eyes and nazranaas for the soul of the women who served them like an angel sent from above. And all the hoopla surrounding the HCPs and no one cares to notice when one kills herself? I know I sound paranoid but you have to admit it is all confusing.” She had put the cup down and was looking straight at him. Eyes tinged red from bleeding tears all night. Lovely face drawn and strained with trepidation and sorrow. All of a sudden Aamir felt pity gnaw at his insides. He had been so consumed by his own loss that he hadn’t even stopped long enough to see that the person who needed the most support was Nida. The little girl who had lost her mentor. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He reached out and placed his arm across her shoulder, drew her closer and placed her head on his chest. And as if the gesture was what her tears had been waiting for, she began to sob silently. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They sat like that for a few minutes until the staring public began to stop and murmur and point. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Come on, I’ll drop you off.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ami, Abu… they don’t…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“At the door, I won’t see them, they won’t see me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“This is so wrong, Aamir… they should love you… but they can’t. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m working on it sweetie, I will not abandon you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Like she did? I hate her. Aamir. I hate her so much…I miss her so much” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They walked to his car with tears streaming down her face. His eyes however, were empty. Just like his heart. There was no emotion left now. Just hollowness. Just a void that he knew only the answers he sought could fill. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He held her in his grasp and walked to the car. The little girl from the dhabba never took her eyes off of Nida. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They never knew that in Nida she saw the reflections of the women who had saved her life. And countless others. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When they left, she slumped down behind the counter and began to cry… waiting in anticipation for the beating that would come from her father, the owner of the dhabba. She couldn’t bring herself to ask them to pay for the tea. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875245583872192005-07-31T21:50:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:47:25.593-07:006. Spawning Hatred.<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:date month="10" day="21" year="2005"><i style="">21/10/05</i></st1:date><i style=""><span style=""> </span>AR-RAHMAN (The benefiecient)<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Ayaz has got to be the nicest man on the face of this earth.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><span style=""> </span>Suraiya, one of our nurses, has been in love with a guy from a near by village since childhood. She told me her story once and my god I just couldn’t stop crying. It turns out, that they were caught doing something or the other together when she was 15 and all hell broke loose. Her brothers beat the boy up so violently that he landed in a coma. She hasn’t heard from him since. It’s been 10 years almost and she still doesn’t know whether the love of her life is alive or dead. And she is still in love with him. Poor girl, so pretty and so bright… her brothers beat her with sticks almost every week as punishment for her ‘sin’. She showed me the welts on her back. I can’t believe that one human being can inflict such scars on another, let alone one’s own sister. They hate her because ever since that whole episode took place a decade ago she has been marked as a sinner and no one will marry her now. She is considered a burden on the family even when her brothers don’t do anything except smoke hash and beat her up and she is the one who earns for them as well as her parents. Sometimes our people can be so barbaric it’s unbelievable. Women are treated like so much garbage here, they are either sold off as teen-agers to horny old coots or if they dare to express a personality they are beaten and stifled to the point where suicide really does seem like the only answer. All I could do was comfort her. BUT… I told her story to Ayaz once, I don’t remember when exactly, but today, he comes and tells her that his people (ISI no doubt) have managed to locate her lover in </i><st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Dubai</i></st1:place></st1:City><i style=""> somewhere. Or some other Middle Eastern country, I keep confusing them all the time… but anyway, not only did he manage to find him, he also arranged for her to be sent to </i><st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Dubai</i></st1:place></st1:City><i style=""> or where ever on a GOVERNMENT DEPUTATION!!!! <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">OH MY GOD! I’m just ecstatic!!! <span style=""> </span>I mean… we’re always blaming the people with the power for being ignorant selfish assholes and here’s this guy, who no doubt as punishment for his self righteousness has been condemned to this shitty little corner of the country even though someone so brilliant should be running the freaking country… he still managed to pull whatever strings he could to bring two lost lovers together. I mean, my god. I had lost faith in the existence of such people. People who care just for the sake of caring.<span style=""> </span>Out of the utter goodness of their hearts. When she told me, I hugged her and I wish I could’ve hugged him because she had tears running down her cheeks. She was almost afraid of leaving, she was trembling when she told me. But she must be so happy, after all this time, not only does she get to be free of her brutish brothers, but she gets to be with the guy she loves. I just hope he still remembers her. I hope they work it out. I must say a prayer for Ayaz. What a man. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Wow. What a human being. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Sahil is doing so well, he can eat now. Swallow and digest. The diuretic is working wonderfully against the poisoning. He just keeps getting stronger and stronger, soon enough he will be walking again. I can’t wait to see him run! I think he’s in love with me, he blushes when I touch him. He won’t let anyone else feed him. He’s such a lovely boy. There is nothing I want more than for him to get better. Not even Aamir. Okay fine, maybe I want Aamir more, but next up is to see Sahil conquer the world.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He had done nothing but read the journal ever since he got back after dropping Nida off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Page after page after page, he read her life unfold. Her trials and tribulations and triumphs. And in between the people she had met and grown to care for. Her patients, her nurses, fellow doctors… even some of the hakeems who initially had shunned the whole HCP program but had now grown to praise her tenderness towards her patients that almost always managed to make them feel better. She had always had a certain aura around her. Of gentleness and of love. When Aamir had seen her for the first time he had thought this is what Aphrodite would be like. It was hard not to be affected by her, he knew this. And knowing this made him question her death more and more. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She couldn’t have just killed herself. Not for just any reason. She had mentioned losing patients in the journal. She had seemed distraught and disillusioned, but one life lost had been replaced by a dozen saved the next day and she was back on top of the world, quickly coming to terms with both life and death and constantly growing into a stronger, smarter much more powerful person then she already had been all her life. He could see it in her words. Just like the letters she wrote to him. He had always felt such pride for her every time she had mentioned defeating impending death for a starry-eyed child and had wept for her desperation when death had won. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her entries in the journal were really not much different than the letters. Mostly her letters had been summarized accounts of the daily events she recorded here. Except for one glaring discrepancy. She had never mentioned Ayaz. Or anything even remotely related to him in the letters. Reading now this report of the forlorn Suraiya struck him as something that she would have been dying to share with him. But she hadn’t mentioned it. Not a word about it. Nor of Ayaz and his magnificent acts of kindness which found some kind of mention in almost each one of her journal entries. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He couldn’t even begin to grasp the reasons for this. He knew her too well, loved her too much to expect that she was hiding anything from him. Besides there was nothing outwardly romantic about her relationship with the man anyway. It seemed like they had found moral support with each other in a place where it was desperately sought. She couldn’t have thought he would be jealous. She couldn’t have thought he would mind. <i style="">Or maybe she would have</i>. <i style="">I am jealous right now</i>. If it wasn’t for the emptiness inside him and the desperate need to uncover the truth, the reality, he probably would have been jealous first and foremost. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He sat back with the book lying in his lap staring up at the roof, mulling over what he had so far come to understand about his wife’s life without him. He wasn’t even really sad anymore. He wasn’t in mourning. She had died and taken his capacity to feel along with her. Accept for anger. He was angry, he realized. More than anything else, he was angry. At her for ever coming here, at himself for ever letting her come, at god for letting her loose her faith and die… at all the people she had healed for their betrayal of her memory. But most of all, he realized he was angry at Captain Ayaz… this phantom who seemingly existed only in his wife’s journal. And existed in an air of majesty. It almost felt like she worshipped him, that she felt that he encompassed all the qualities that Aamir himself lacked. Sometimes, it seemed even that she was blatantly regretting her decision to marry him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">No <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">NO. I mustn’t think like that. This is just me being stupidly jealous. This is why she didn’t tell me about him in the letters I would have made her come back. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But… whatever her reasons. Whatever her justifications, the obvious fact through all of this was that Captain Ayaz had gotten to know his wife very well in the last 4 months. They had become friends… possibly more. <i style="">But unlikely</i>, he frantically hoped. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In any event, friend or lover, the closest Aamir could get to knowing what really happened was through him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Yet…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And he sat up as soon as this thought hit him. He had left 6 days before she killed herself. <i style="">Was he leaving her? Did he tell her that he could not possibly live in sin with a married woman? </i>The idea was so absurd that he burst out laughing. Louder than he should have perhaps. Loud enough to drown out the frightened whimpers of his soul. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He did not want to believe that she could cheat on him. He knew for a fact that she couldn’t. But the surprise was no less profound when she had killed herself. He had first to come to terms with the fact that his wife had changed while she had been here. But changed how much<i style="">? Enough to cheat on me? Enough to kill herself?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Try as he might, he could not decide which assumption would have been more absurd just 3 days ago. Now, everything was possible. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Head swirling with doubt riding doubt to the apex of quickly spawning hatred, he started reading again. <o:p></o:p></p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875291550102182005-07-31T21:41:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:48:11.563-07:007. 28/10/05<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /><st1:date month="28" day="10" year="2005"><i style=""><b style=""></b></i></st1:date><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She chooses white. It somehow seems just the right shade to reflect her mood. Resolute, Spartan. Almost unwilling yet… able. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Putting on make-up is a chore she is unwilling to undertake in any great detail, so settles for a light bronze lipstick and a dash of mascara to match. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Ayaz was so right</i>, she thinks looking at herself in the mirror. <i style="">Nothing like a little vanity to remind you that life has got to go on. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She looked ravishing. Subtle but ravishing. Her beauty magnified by the simplicity of her appearance. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She had learnt long ago that she had a face that was better off without too much make up and a body that could add sensuality to anything she wore. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She smiled at herself and for an instant could almost feel Aamir standing behind her. His arms folded around her waist, leaving love bites on her neck. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She shuddered for an instant. The passion she had been suppressing for so long rose in a spasm, rending her body in tremors. She could feel his skin warm against hers, his hands exploring the softness of her flesh. She closes her eyes, unable to keep herself tuned into reality. The memories come gushing at her. Memories of lust and passion. Animal, hedonistic, exasperating passion. Visions of his body entwined with hers. Writhing on top of each other, gasping, moaning, screaming his name. Feeling him tear through to her soul. She loved the look in his eyes when he came inside her. Like a little boy who can’t believe his luck. She would smile every time she would see that look and collapse on top of him. They would lay silent, breathing hard for a few moments and then the fire would find itself rekindled and they would go at it again with renewed vigor extracted from never ending lust for each other. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She remembers… and finds herself aroused. Traces the outlines of her nipples pushing against the soft chiffon of her dress, she remembers how he loved playing with her breasts… how he never wanted to let off the grip of his mouth on them. Feverishly moving from one to the other, never satisfied, never getting enough. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She feels her knees grow week and slowly glides towards the bed. Slides onto it and lies face down. Guides her hands over her body, pretending to be him. He knew exactly what she liked done and she knows exactly what he liked to do. Soon enough, she falls into erotic reveries that make her feel almost as if he really was lying beneath her, with his tongue swiping across her eager flesh and his hands firmly guiding her rise and fall on top of him. Her hand finds a hold right where she needs it to be and slowly begins to maneuver her fingers in the motions that will bring her as close to satisfaction as possible without him really being there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>Finally, on the verge of climax, she imagines him release himself inside her. She erupts in moans and envisions herself opening her eyes, as always, to catch a glimpse of his eyes at their most vulnerable. And sees instead Ayaz lying beneath her. His hands ravaging her body, his tongue slithering across her flesh. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She sees him smile. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The shock is such that she screams out loud. Jumps up off the bed, shivering. Trembling. Not from ecstasy but fear. She didn’t want to see this. She didn’t want to know this.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Heart racing, nerves throbbing, breath finds itself restricted. She backs away from the bed. eyes wide open. Afraid to see his face again, afraid to feel that moment again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She tries to laugh it off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Giggles. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Frowns</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Giggles</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Frowns. And settles for it. The guilt enveloping her soul is tenacious. She can feel her heart sinking. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined this. But she just had. Wide awake, she had conjured him up while thinking of her husband. She couldn’t even begin to understand the implications of this. All she knew was that she felt like a slut. Like she had betrayed the only man she loved. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I love Aamir. I love Aamir. I love Aamir. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She says it again and again and again inside her head trying to drown out the impression of Ayaz’s smiling face burnt on her sub conscious. Waiting simply for her to close her eyes to resurface and reclaim. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Oh god <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Oh my god</i>. She whispers. Leans against a wall, looks down on the floor and sees her vanity case at her feet. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Hurriedly, she opens it and extracts the journal and a pen. Feverishly she flips to the first blank page and begins to write. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Hardly has she rendered two lines about Sahil’s death that a horn blares from outside. Fear now commanding her actions, she drops the journal. Hands trembling, slowly gathers herself up. And stands before the mirror. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She stares at herself, glares at her reflection as if trying to frighten away the lechery inside her mind. Until the horn blares again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I love Aamir</i>. She murmurs, combs her fingers through her hair, touches up the lipstick, puckers her lips, plasters a smile on her face and heads out the door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He awaits her at the door to his house. One of the few brick buildings in the vicinity, it lies nestled in the shadow of snow peaked mountains. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She steps out of the car and sees his beaming face. He’s dressed in a grey suit with a pink shirt and a black tie. He hops down the steps towards her and gently takes her hand in his. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You look positively ravishing” he says with an ever broadening smile. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Thank you.” She responds looking down at her feet. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He leads her inside to a dining hall with a few couches placed before a blazing fire place and a table set for two.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I-I thought this was a celebration… Ayaz. Where is everyone else?” She stammers suddenly aware of the painstakingly prepared mood for the evening. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“It’s just us tonight, my dear. Celebrating the life that lies before us.” He replies tightening his grip on her hand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She knows it’s too late to walk out. She knows it’s too dangerous to go through the night. But she knows there’s no way in hell any man can take her away from Aamir. The mere thought of his name brings a smile to her face and peace to her heart. <i style="">I love Aamir</i> she intones once again inside her head and snatches her hand out of his grasp. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She places herself in the couch lying before the fireplace and starts talking about Sahil. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">About how much he meant to her and how big a loss she felt his death was for the entire community. She goes on and on about him, trying to bring herself to tears and re-invoke the misery of his death inside her heart so that she can rid herself of the lust coursing through her body. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz sits down besides her, nodding his head and trying to use words of consolation. Words of motivation. Words basically meant to drive her towards what lay ahead instead of what needs to be left behind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The butler comes bearing refreshments. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She sips at hers and relishes the crispy coolness of the juice slice its way down her throat. It’s almost a welcome relief from the constant blabbering she has been indulging in to try and suppress her whims. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Dinner is laid out and like the perfect gentleman; Ayaz offers her his arm to walk her to the table. She gets up and almost falls. Her legs give way under her, as if asleep after sitting for too long. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wonder how long it’s been, and glances over at the grand father clock gingerly tick tock-ing away in the corner. It’s too dark to make out the positions of the hands. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He leads her over to the table, sits her down and they begin to eat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Talk of classical music, and surrealist art and cynicism in literature ensues. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">With every passing moment she feels less and less like taxing her brain with unpleasant thoughts. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The food is scrumptious. Roast lamb done so perfectly that it melts in her mouth like chocolate. And the home made juice is the perfect accompaniment to the whole meal.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Done with dessert, a marvelous soufflé, he takes her out to the patio for coffee under the stars. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The further the night progresses, the more she finds herself at ease. Laughing without a care in the world, making pubescent jokes about his pink shirt. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The coffee is the best she’s ever had. Its just the perfect blend of beans and cream, home ground he tells her, the armed forces are connoisseurs of good food she remembers saying. Tripping over the pronunciation of connoisseurs, laughing till her jaw hurt. Watching his eyes twinkle in the moon light as he laughed. It was so easy to be around him. Just like always. He’s a kindred spirit she decides and finds herself overwhelmed by the naiveté of her reaction to her earlier vision about him.<span style=""> </span>She begins to blush just thinking about finding him instead of Aamir making love to her in her fantasy. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She shrugs it off as just a freudian slip of the sub-conscious, and looses herself in his talk of the beauty of the Taj<span style=""> </span>Mahal under the brilliant light of a full moon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">He’s a good man</i>. She catches herself thinking. <i style="">A good honest man</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Leans closer to him and tugs at his tie</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Captain Sahib: she begins, almost giddy with pleasure and excitement. “You’re a good man” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“My dear” Ayaz begins, pulling her gently towards himself “you deserve only the best”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And when he jerks her into his embrace, she gasps</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And when he placed his mouth over hers, she could not resist his tongue from sliding in. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Eyes closed, senses surrendered, she tastes Aamir instead. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I Love you Aamir</i>, she murmurs under his breath. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875348384524272005-07-31T21:30:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:49:08.396-07:008. Dates<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:date month="10" day="28" year="2005"><i style="">28/10/05</i></st1:date><i style=""><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Sahil is dead. He died today. Some mix-up with the medication. I’m going crazy. I can’t believe I just dreamt what I did. But Sahil is dead and I don’t know how to get out of the dinner with Ayaz tonight. Maybe that’s what I need. Maybe it was just the shock of watching Sahil die that is making me a mess. I wish I didn’t have to go there’s no way I can get through the night without it being awkward now but I don’t<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Dinner? The night Sahil dies?</i> It confuses Aamir as he reads about it. As confused as Rida seemed to have been as she left it unfinished. <i style="">Dinner? What the hell?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">His suspicions are quickly turning into belief. As much as he wants to deny it he can’t shake the sickening feeling that Rida’s relationship with Ayaz was a lot less platonic or atleast a lot more romantic than her journal so far has led him to believe. It seems almost as if she herself had been trying to remind herself that what she was feeling was the wrong way to feel and the only way to stifle it was to cover it up with reverence for the man. But to Aamir the glaring inconsistency in the feelings expressed and the actions followed are obvious. <i style="">Maybe,</i> he wonders, <i style="">maybe its just a husband worrying about his wife’s developing friendship with another man. Maybe I would’ve taken her out too. To make her feel better, cheer her up. We would go to her favorite place and have the finest dinner and talk about the future and come home and make love</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He notices that on this one, there is no mention of god either. His heart sinks. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Make love… we would make love… <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">She would make love… with him?</i> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Its staring him right in the face now. It has shape, this ugly thought. It has shape and mass and a presence, it’s almost like a palpable entity. It’s no longer in his head but standing before him in the shape of two naked bodies pleasing each other to drive out the sorrow and the desperation through moans and gasps. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He feels surprisingly calm. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There is no blood rushing to his head, no trembling limbs from uncontrolled fury. He watches the shadowy vision of his wife lying in the arms of another man and it’s almost cathartic. He has understood almost, and forgiven her. What he can’t grasp is her death. Even this assumption, even believing that it was guilt that had killed her, did not satisfy what he knew of his wife. She wouldn’t have killed herself. He knows this. <i style="">She would’ve told me. She would’ve cried bloody murder on my shoulder and she would have begged for forgiveness and she would have made me love her again</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">No. It wasn’t that. It couldn’t have been… unless… she was in love with him?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">But</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He can’t think anymore. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He can’t bring himself to face the impending inevitability that she had fallen in love again. Because that could justify her choice. What he knew of her, what he loved her for was her unshakable faith in the sovereignty of love. And this, her own betrayal of not only her husband but her own convictions… that could drive her to kill herself. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But Aamir didn’t want to know this. He didn’t want to accept it. He wanted instead to hold her in his arms and wipe the tears off her cheeks and kiss her eyes and tell her he loves her. He wanted to feel her, hear her call his name. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So he opens the book and flips back to the beginning.. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:date month="4" day="7" year="2005"><i style="">4/7/05</i></st1:date><i style=""><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">So, I’m here. It’s scary. It’s really scary. I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. They briefed me on the way in the bus from </i><st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Peshawar</i></st1:place></st1:City><i style="">, and my god! They make this place sound like a prison. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Don’t wear flashy clothes, don’t play loud music. Don’t open the windows. Don’t talk to the men unless they are dying. Bloody hell. I mean I’m a doctor, hello? I’m not some psycho being sent to prison. But I don’t know maybe they are right. I don’t know, I guess there will be no occasion to put on that white chiffon number that Aamir likes so much. I was hoping to throw it on for the inaugural dinner. But no inaugural dinner. And they make me feel like if the people here see bear arms they will burn me at the stake. Let alone shoulders. Oh well. But I brought mostly pants and stuff, I hope they can suck it up if its just western and not provocative. We’ll see. There’s so much unpacking to do, they’ve given me this really nice cottage here. It’s all so quaint. Even has a wood burning fireplace in the lounge type thingy. No Tv though. Just an old school Radio, I hope Nida remembers to record all the soaps I’m going to miss. I miss her, I wish she was here with me. She loves the mountains and this place is so breathtakingly beautiful. The people too, I mean the eyes these people have. Wow. Its just mind boggling, makes me wish my mother was a pahari aurat… then I would have had some exotic blend of blues and grays and greens instead of this plain jane brown. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">I’m too tired to write much more so in conclusion… The place is beautiful, the task at hand: scary. The local populace is as if it’s been extracted from the past but the army dudes around provide comic relief. Mostly this dashing young captain who greeted me at the base, can’t recall his name. But he sort of took my breath away. Looks like Aamir a little, similar Jaw line and face cut, but he’s a commando, and that shows. What was surprising was how nice he was. Not at all like the army people we are used to. Stuck up and obstinate. He was courteous. Charming even. I’m glad I have someone who knows Tolstoy around to keep me company for the next one year. Otherwise I’m afraid I would’ve turned into a pahari aurat… sans the magnetic eyes of course</i>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He can almost see it now. The fantasy as it unfolded. <i style="">He greets her at the gates of emotional hell and leaves an impression more with his manners than with his name. They get closer and closer as life gets harder and harder. And it becomes easier and easier for her to be in love with what is there when she needs it to be than a man linked to her now only by a vow of commitment. It reeks of a story book romance Mills and boons even She found the love of her life in a far away mountain retreat and he saved her life and sanity without her even knowing it. It all makes sense to an extent. Who wouldn’t be seduced by the romance of the situation after all? It all makes sense. Except the ending. The heroine never kills herself. Even if she tries, the hero comes running out of the horizon and snatches her from the jaws of death and they make made passionate love at the edge of a cliff. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her hero, however, had left the building. The story. The fantasy. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And her husband lay sleeping in her bed while she walked off the edge and down to her death. He can’t believe he didn’t see it coming. She had seemed distraught as soon as he had surprised her with his arrival. But the way she had run into his arms… and held him so tight she almost took his breath away. As if he had risen from the dead to come and claim her. There was no mistaking that she loved him in that moment when she saw him after 4 months. There was no mistaking that she was dead. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The only doubts remaining were about what had actually happened between Rida and the Captain. And he knew that whatever it was, guilt or anger or desperation. It had as much to do with the Captain as with him. And no matter how much pain awaited him in the answers to the questions corroding his sanity, he knew he had to know. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He gets himself a glass of water. Lights a cigarette and walks outside to see the sun rise. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">His mind a muddled mess of what he knows and what he needs to know, all he can think about is all that he has read. Trying to make sense of it all. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">She got here, she saved lives she fell in love. She died. All in the matter of four months. She died the day I got here. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">No the day after I got here. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">On the 5<sup>th</sup> of November… and Sahil died when? The day she went to dinner with Ayaz…<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">And in between the dinner and her death Ayaz left?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Sahil dies, Ayaz leaves….something is missing.</i> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He walks back inside, and opens the journal again. Flips to the page that records the confused acceptance of Sahil’s death reads it again and flips the page </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Finds the beginning of the senseless, god less, tumultuous series of page after page of one or two line attempts by her to convince herself to tell him of whatever happened. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There’s no mention of the dinner. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">None at all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He flips back and forth between the last one week. Starting from the 28<sup>th</sup> and leading to the 4<sup>th</sup> .</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Suddenly he stops. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The cigarette falls from his mouth and the book from his hands. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There is no mention of the date because… it’s been torn out. Neatly, with precision so as not to leave any torn remnants behind. But to whoever looked with enough care, it was obvious. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The two pages reserved for recording the events of the 29<sup>th</sup> of October are gone. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He knows what they held. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He can make a pretty good guess. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That is where the secret lies. She tore them out because it hurt so much to write them in the first place. She was hiding from herself, not only from him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">All of a sudden, it was all a lot more complicated. All of a sudden there was a lot more that had been lost than just a life and love. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He knew he had to find the missing pages. There would be no point in trying to find the impressions of whatever was said because the pages were too thick to allow for any secrets to be spilled where they were not desired. This book was built to hide and it did its job well. But unless she had taken the pages down into the river sawaat with her, he would find them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">First though, he had to find Captain Ayaz. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Tomorrow had come. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875399872509032005-07-31T21:28:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:49:59.883-07:009. Nida<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida decided to ritualize her mornings for as long as she would be waking up amidst the snow covered peaks colored red in her sister’s blood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She would come to the same little dhabba she had run into Aaamir at yesterday and have the tea that was too sweet and too milky to possibly add to the bitterness already swirling inside. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She tried to talk to the little girl who kept staring at her for as long as she was there but would never speak. But she was too afraid to speak to the whore from <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City> who didn’t know an exposed mid-riff would lead her straight to hell. No, she was warned by her father. You will not talk to her, you will not look at her, you will not so much as consider her human. But you will take her money. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And so she would serve her, grateful for the respite from having to stare at ashen and sullen faces always spewing anger and religious propaganda that never made any sense, even to her 12 year old mind. She would just bring Nida her tea, touch her fingers as she takes the cup and back away, never wavering her gaze from her face, her hair, her mesmerizing clothes, her flawless grace, her soothing gaze. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida liked her too. It was more for her than for any particular need to add discipline or dimension to her painfully empty days of waiting for nothing that she had decided to visit here again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She could almost forget Rida here. Almost believe that she had never existed. That nothing she had known ever had. In the hustle bustle of every day life, the people coming and going, buying and selling, staring and pointing… here life seemed to go on irrespective of what anyone had suffered. She liked being away from her parents for a little while every day, what with her mother’s incessant crying and succumbing to fits of irrevocable misery every time Nida did anything even remotely reminiscent of her older sister. And her father always reading the news papers from all over the country, always hoping to find something, some mention of the only HCP doctor who had committed suicide and losing his temper at never finding anything. Yelling at her then, unable to figure out where to channel his anger, poking fingers at everything she did until he himself would break down into tears and steal away to his room until mom would go screaming at him to ‘act like a man, if for nothing else than for the one that is still alive’. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So she sat here, exposed mid-riff and all, nursing a hot cup of tea between her freezing hands, basking in the rich aroma rising with the steam from the cup. She tried to think of what lay ahead. Beyond Rida. Beyond loss. Beyond forgiveness. She tried to think of her future, her life but every time it all came back to the childhood days spent in trying to be more and more like Rida. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She had crafted herself into the mould Rida was made of. Speech, style, mannerisms… everything.<span style=""> </span>But try as she might, she could never come to understand what god was for. She had seen too much black to believe that God was white. Too many villains to believe in heroes. To much sin to believe in good. And if he was evil, allowing all hell to break loose in everyone’s life, every day, over and over just to see what makes them tick, what sends them over the edge, why bother believe in him? The fights she would have with Rida when trying to defend her agonistic point of view. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And now Rida was gone, and somehow so was god from her life. All of a sudden in the absence of the only sign of the purported inherent goodness of a god she had ever really known ,she was ready to surrender the lingering<span style=""> </span>doubts and believe unconditionally in the absolute absence of anyone out there looking after her. <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It had gotten cold over night. The locals said it would snow soon. She draped her shawl around her body and sat sipping her tea when somewhere behind her a jeep came to a halt. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You look way too sad for someone so pretty:” she heard a husky male voice say from beside her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Don’t bother” She replied without looking at the source of the voice. “Its way to cold, I’m way too jaded, and I’ve heard that line way too many times before.” And took another sip. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well..” The voice responded,”Have you ever known it to be this accurate before?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Now she looked up. Moved more by the promise of at least trying to understand in the voice than the words it spoke. And saw standing beside her with a standard issue army beret in his hands, a tall handsome man with a killer smile, looking at her with such blatant sincerity that she had to gulp. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t mean to intrude” he said sliding onto the charpai resting across the table from her. “You’re just a little… out of your element. And as I said, way too sad to be alone in an environment that seems as foreign for you as a desert for a fish.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m not a tourist.” She said looking away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“And I’m not a guide.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They sat there in silence. She, looking away at the crowds in the streets. And he, looking at her looking away. He ordered a cup of tea for himself and waited patiently for her to initiate the next part of the conversation. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“They say it’s going to snow tonight.” She finally said, looking up into the sky. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Probably. It’s long over due.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You been here long?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Do I look like I have?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Do I?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Do you always make it hard to get a straight answer out of you?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Only when I’m looking for an answer that doesn’t seem forthcoming”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What answer?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Why are you sad?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Why the hell would I tell you that?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Because no one else is going to ask.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She looked at him long and hard, just to see if his gaze would waver. But it didn’t. And she couldn’t help but deny the truth in his words. No one else would ask. No one else even seemed to care. Her family was too caught up in their own grief to deal with hers, her friends were too far away to make a difference. Aamir needed more help then she did. And the locals… he was really her only shot at release. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I lost God” She replied</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Now it was his turn to be silent. He had handled women confused about religion before, but this… this was just too stark, too barefaced to be handled in any of the usual ways. It would be a challenge fixing her, he thought and smiled.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Did I scare you?” She went on “It’s easier to ask then to help, isn’t it?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Are you scared?” he replied dismissing her comment. “I mean of losing God. It’s too precious a thing to loose”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I never really had him… as such. Just the idea, just the false sense of security that… that he’s there… anyway… forget it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No no, I would like to know more… it’s frightful…almost… “</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Forget it”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You see that’s kind of like how I feel… as in, not knowing whether he is there or not… its..”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Forget it!” She said getting up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No please, I didn’t mean to offend you, Its just that, you don’t expect to have a conversation this drenched in profundity with a stranger every day and I can’t help but find myself helplessly interested in what has led you to abandon whatever little belief you had been holding on to.” He blabbered on while she paid the little girl for the tea and made to walk away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Forget it.: She repeated again, but stopped to look at him half sitting half standing, looking desperate. She couldn’t tell whether the desperation was really to know what she had to say or just to make her stay. She decided to leave either way. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Wait… there’s a party… an army thing. Tonight. It’s basically for army personnel, but civilians here for vacations and such are invited too… will you come?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">All set to say no, she stops in mid-sentence. Army personnel she thinks… the captain in charge will be there. She could corner him and ask him what they have been trying so hard not to answer. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“When is it?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Tonight…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Where?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Nearby, at my house… you can ask anyone for directions when you’re on your way.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ahan, I’ll think about it”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Thank you… I hope to see you there.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Sure…Bye” She says and begins to walk away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Dress up… it’s a black tie sort of thing.” He calls out to her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She nods her head “What’s the party for?” </p> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Me.</span></st1:place></st1:State><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Promotion. I’m now a Major.” He replies, beaming. </span>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1122875462096308452005-07-31T21:10:00.000-07:002005-07-31T22:51:02.116-07:0010. The Good Major<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He made his way down towards the Army Base on foot. He wanted to mull over the questions in his mind. Had a feeling he would finally meet the man who had charmed his wife into abandoning him. It was hard for Aamir to blame him yet, hard to hate him. A part of him was thankful even, for the support he seemed to have been for her, a part of him owed him a debt of gratitude. But jealousy was running rampant through his head. He hated Rida more, was angrier at her. Couldn’t have accepted some man to respect the sanctity of his marriage. But his wife… She loved him. She had loved him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The more he thought about how much she loved him, how much he knew she did, the whole scenario, the explanation seemed less and less probable. Acceptance still came grudgingly that Rida, his Rida could’ve been seduced into cheating on him. After all they themselves had gone through to earn their union, it seemed almost impossible that she would even ever look at another man with any kind of romantic inclination. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But he could not ignore the signs. It was all written in black and white, somewhat hidden between the lines. But he knew his wife. He knew her enough to guess at her heart. And so, reluctantly he had to accept what made sense. Event though he wrapped it up in doubt and hoped against hope that maybe just maybe there was something very different afoot. <i style="">A global conspiracy perhaps, that she had uncovered some dark evil plot and had been shoved off the cliff</i>, but such reprieve is offered to the hopeless only in day dreams and fantasies. His life was cut and dry. Brutally so. Even when the pain of losing his wife to death was still searing his soul, he had to confront the pain of her betrayal. It sometimes got hard to tell which cut deeper. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It had gotten colder over-night. Cold enough to numb the world. Cold enough to numb the senses. The nip of ethereal sadness which palpitates inside the soul of a winter breeze cut through him and settled upon his heart, as if divine accompaniment for his own sorrow. As if God himself had sent the winter rushing in on him to help numb the angst. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But as he placed one step after another on his way down to see his nemesis; no divine accompaniment could help ease his torment. The winter blues would rage on, sewing depression into happy hearts and calm into anxious ones. While his heart and his soul would continue to be haunted by the lingering demons of loss and betrayal, unimpeded by the weather. His sorrow, nested deeper than the winter could seep. His agony rang truer than god’s decree. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He turned a bend in the precarious mountain road and almost got run over by an army jeep.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A slew of curses arose from the driver’s mouth as he sped away up the incline leaving him flustered by the side of the road. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">On a different day he may have felt his heart beat a little faster after the close encounter with death, but today he felt almost disappointed at having survived the collision that for the world would have spelt his death, but for him would have meant respite. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He stumbled onwards into the market that lay ahead. And once again, felt his soul calm a little at the sight of a lithe young figure walking with a stern determination towards him. She came, head held high, draped in a shawl over corduroy trousers, almost too lost in her own turmoil to notice him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But there eyes met and they both broke out in simultaneous smiles. Steps quickened as they bisected the road towards each other. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Hey you” Aamir said in greeting, glowing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“We must stop meeting like this” Nida replied with a smile on her face just as big as the one on his. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Heading back?” He asked placing a hand at her back to lead her off the road</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Unfortunately… and you without a car to give me a lift.” She said leaning against him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Were you at the base?” He continued, trying hard to focus on the pain instead of the pleasure stemming from somewhere deep inside at the mere sight of this younger but almost identical apparition of his wife. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No. Just came to get away.” She responded a little disappointed at having to remember all that she was finally relieved to have been able to set aside at the sight of the man she had always looked at with stifled adulation. “You haven’t slept much have you?” She asked looking at the hollowness of his eyes and the deep black circles beneath. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I…no… I haven’t.” He wanted in that instant to tell her everything he thought he knew. Share his fear. But he decided that she was better off not knowing. Ever. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yeah well it’s only been three days. I feel like a bitch for having dozed off last night. Ami still hasn’t slept a wink. Abu wouldn’t have either if it wasn’t for the Valiums. How long do you suppose we keep mourning Aamir, I mean she was a ‘sinner’ after all. How long will you mourn for her?” She said pushing herself away from him and turning away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“As long as I have to. You’re right. It’s just been three days. It’s not wrong to miss her, Nida. Don’t hold it against yourself. Or your parents.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“That’s not what I hold against them. She’s not the one I’m missing.” She mumbled almost absent mindedly looking in to the ravine below. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He almost asked her what she meant, before he understood. He longed to hug her, but didn’t. The chasm of the relationship between them had suddenly closed. But another one had propped up in its place. One haunted by ghosts and memories and lingering feelings. One that no amount of sorrow could be allowed to conquer. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Don’t bother, going to the base.” She continued with a sigh. She had this way of sorting through her emotions quickly to make up for them with stark logic that would render the way she felt inconsequential. “They still don’t want to talk. Pretend as if nothing happened. As if she didn’t matter anyway.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>“I have to try.” He picked up her cue to return to the melancholy of the tragedy afflicting them instead of the one that was hers alone to bear. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’ll have better luck at the party tonight.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What party?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“The new major… or the man newly made Major… he’s throwing a party in honor of his promotion. Army folk will be there, civilians are invited.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">So he’s back? And throwing a party? Doesn’t he know? How could he not know? He has to know… and he’s throwing a party three days after she kills herself? Sahil dies, he asks her out? She dies he throws a party? What the hell kind of a man is he? He didn’t love her… he couldn’t have loved her. There would be no glory for him today if he had. But she did. And since he didn’t she killed herself? This is not making any sense anymore again. I have got to meet this man… he must have cared a little for her… he…<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Hello?” Nida shook him to break his train of thought. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Sorry… I … where, when did you say the party was?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh for god’s sake Aamir, wake up. This forlorn loser persona doesn’t suit you.” She couldn’t conceal the exasperation in her soul from being reflected in her voice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He didn’t respond, just kept looking straight at her. A little hurt, but mostly, waiting for the answer to his question. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m sorry. It isn’t easy, you know, to see you like this. I just… oh fuck it. Its tonight, at his house. Supposedly everyone can point you to it once the sun sets. Will you come? I don’t want to go alone.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not going.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Is that a question, Aamir, or are you trying to assert some kind of command over what I choose to do?” She had never liked being told what to do. Except from her sister. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m just telling you that you’re not going. There’s not attempt in trying to stifle you in this, it’s just the smart thing to do.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Fine. Are you going?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ofcourse!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well, wear a suit then. It’s a black tie affair. Tell me what you find out. Bye” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He watches her walk away. He wants to focus on what this conversation implies about the feelings he has felt her harbor towards him for a very long time. He wants to think back to the beginning of their relationship. Where they instantly formed a bond because they were both in love with the same woman. She was the thread that brought them together and now in her absence a teenage heart was trying desperately to find something else to bind them with. She cared for him, he knew that. But love? Maybe she was just trying to mean more to him than his wife’s sister, a friend. Maybe she was trying to fill the void left in her soul. Maybe she did love him. Maybe she always had. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But all of this took second place to what the conversation had explicitly disclosed. That the Major was back in town. And he was throwing a party. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The soil still sat wet on his wife’s grave, and the man who she may as well have died for is celebrating. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He feels fury rip through every other emotion bubbling inside him. Turns around, and runs back up to his cabin. <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Night falls, and brings the snow along with the darkness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir fixes the knot of his tie before the very mirror Rida had stood in front of, fantasizing about him, not more than a little over a week ago. He looks at himself and finds himself missing her standing before him, putting the finishing touches on her make up before they head out to whatever social event the happiest couple in <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City> had been invited to. He wonders if something like this is as hard on an unhappy couple. Maybe he would be relieved now instead of torn apart. Maybe it would have been better that way.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But no time to wonder about what could’ve happened and what never did. He has to face someone he never though he’d have to see. And for that he needed to be more in command of his faculties than he’s ever had to be. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He had hoped to find comfort with him. Some kind of release from his own consternation. He had hoped that they would sit down and he would tell her what a wonderful human being his wife had been and how sad he was that she was no more but he was happy to have known someone as magnificent as her. How his life and the lives of so many children here had been changed for the better just by her presence and although she had suffered so much sorrow that she had taken her own life, her aura, her love, her presence would linger on in their hearts to their own graves. He had hoped he would tell him that Sahil was what did her in, that failing to save him is what she couldn’t stand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But it had become more than obvious that Ayaz himself had a greater hand in her demise that Sahil’s death. Even more obvious that what Ayaz would have to say couldn’t possibly hold any comfort for him. Salvation maybe, release from the wondering and the needless hoping and the suspecting and the irrepressible need for understanding. But not comfort. Nothing close to it. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He was throwing a party.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He didn’t care. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He got to the house in the shadow of the snow covered peaks at 8. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The party was already in full swing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There was a strange splendor in the way the beaded lights strewn along the parapets lit up the snow flakes dancing down incessantly. The ground was already sunk beneath a sheet of white but the armed guards lining the drive way leading up to the steps at the entrance were doing a good job of keeping the pathway free of snow. They found him dressed appropriately enough for the festivities, smiled and urged him on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He could hear the music blaring from inside behind the closed door. Mingled with booming laughter and the buzzing of too many conversations. He stood at the door motionless. Afraid to enter, to confront Ayaz and find out what he needed to know. Wonders if he should turn back and leave the grave in his heart uncovered for as long as he chooses to live, never knowing, always wondering. Assuming the worst and feeding his emptiness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The vision of Rida standing at the edge of the cliff in the twilight, deciding to end her life, wouldn’t let him surrender. Not now. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He takes one final glance at the serenity of the winter night behind him. The snow softly falling like the silent tears of grieving angels and opens the door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And runs into a uniformed figure walking out. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Sorry” they both utter simultaneously. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Go right ahead, the festivities are in full swing.” The man in uniform says with blatant sarcasm in his tone. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not… Captain… Major Ayaz are you?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“That would be a compliment, If I didn’t know better.” He said smiling. “No I’m not, he’s inside regaling the crowd with obnoxious stories everyone seems to lap up just because he’s the one telling them.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You don’t seem to like him much. “ Aamir said walking down the steps beside him</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes and I maybe the only one. So be careful, it doesn’t pay to not like the Good Major”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m…I’ve never met him…but I was told that he is a good man. A helpful man.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh sure… very helpful. You were sent I suppose by some uncle general of yours in <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City> or <st1:city><st1:place>Islamabad</st1:place></st1:City> or wherever. You’re not a <i style="">paraya</i> then. Feed your vices, Sir by all means.” He continued hurrying away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What do you mean?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Look I’ve been kind even when the last thing I feel like being is kind. Just go in and get what you came for and suffer the burden of your own sins.” The man said hurrying away, leaving Aaamir more confused than ever. The last thing he had expected was to find someone so full of venom towards the man he had come to hate himself. He ran after him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Excuse me. Please, I – I don’t know what you think I’m here for but it’s not for any vices… who <i style="">are</i> you? I..I…I need help:”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Leave me alone” He mumbled almost running down the path leading out to the road beyond the premises. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir felt the eyes of the guards standing around on him, running after one of their kin who’s seemingly trying to avoid him and realized that any minute now someone would come up to him and offer to usher him out. So he turned around and headed back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Who was that man?” He stopped to ask one of the guards</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Captain Shahnawaz. He’s new here; they all take time to get used to the way things are here. You go on, I’m sure Major Saab awaits your arrival.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Do you know me?” Aamir asked suddenly afraid of being known as Rida’s husband. He didn’t know why. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What’s the difference, Sir, every one who comes here alone comes for the same reason.” He replied smiling. “Go on in”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Inside, he sees more people than he had expected to see. Row upon row of men in uniform and in immaculate suits. Women clad in dresses straight out of fashion shows. Always trying to outdo each other with flashier jewelry and more skin on display. Some stood around a blazing fire place, same sat on the few couches lying before the hearth. A grand father clock standing proudly in a corner by the bar. Everyone with a drink in their hands and smiles on their lips, chattering away like long lost friends. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Whoever he saw nodded at him with a welcoming smile. Trying to make him feel at home, feeding his paranoia instead. A waiter in a white tuxedo brings him a tray full of drinks which he declines, but seeing the almost awestruck shock in his eyes quickly fixes his mistake and grabs for a flute of imported champagne. He scans the crowd trying to see who the Major could be. He looks at the men in uniform but they all look too pedestrian to be someone his wife could have fallen for. Takes a sip of his drink, and realizes that no expense has been spared for this little gala. It’s <st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Crystal</i></st1:place></st1:City>. He licks his lips to savor the taste of the infamous nectar he had only tasted once before… at his graduation… and hears a voice rise above all the others. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He turns around and sees a tall handsome man, flanked by women, laughing uproariously. Clad in a grey suit. With a pink shirt and a black tie. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He doesn’t have to ask anyone, he knows it’s him. His charisma transcends the crowd and he can feel everyone basking in the aura of his presence. He can sense that those who know him know what a privilege it is to be standing in his house toasting to yet another success. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Rida’s words keep ringing in her head: <i style="">here’s this guy, who no doubt for his self righteousness has been condemned to this shitty little corner of the country even though someone so brilliant should be running the freaking country. </i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The only thing he can think is that no self righteous man can ever be this popular.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He walks towards the small circle of the people surrounding him. Over hears him telling them about the majesty of the Taj Mahal under a full moon’s light. Hears them gasp in awe, more of him then the picture he’s painting with his words</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He breaks through the crowd just as Ayaz pauses to take a sip from his tumbler full of something much stronger than champagne. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Heartiest Congratulations, Major Sahib.” Aamir says extending his hand towards him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh Thankyou, Thankyou jee” Ayaz says smiling broad, shaking the offered hand vigorously. “Enjoying the party I hope?” He says, playing the good host. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh Very much so, you’re definitely a savvy host.” Aamir says trying to conceal the excitement in his voice. He can just feel he’s on to something here. This cannot be what his wife fell for. She had made him quit drinking. And this guy’s breath reeked of too much alcohol, and he seemed barely drunk. He had the demeanor of a man who knew how to handle his liquor well enough to know how to hide it when need be. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t think I recognize you, have we met before?” Ayaz asks as politely as possible. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I… yes.. once in <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City>… we met at my uncle’s house. General… Bhatti” He lies, using the name of the only general he had ever met when he had ran in to his car. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ah Bhatti Uncle?” Ayaz says nodding “Such a nice man, how is he? Haven’t seen him in a while.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well, I wouldn’t know, you see I have been away… to the Philippines” He’s making it all up as he goes, gaining confidence now at having established credibility with this man “for a few years now, just got back a few days ago. Was speaking to him about… you know… how I missed the good life and he said to take a vacation here, and see you about…. You know” he gave a sheepish grin “Feeding my vices” He held his breath. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz stared at him for an extended moment. Lengthened more by the anticipation in Aamir’s own heart than by design and broke out into laughter</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Leave it to Uncle Bhatti to give me a bad impression” He replied with a wink </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir winked back, trying desperately to conceal his shaking legs. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well any friend of a friend is a friend. What’s your name friend?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Aamir… Aamir Khan.” He blurted out unable to think of a less conspicuous moniker to support his lies with</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Another burst of laughter ensued, this time Aamir joined in. “You know you almost look like him too, much taller though”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes, I… I get that often” Aamir replied giggling. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You know, whenever he comes here, it is I he looks up to… as you said… feed his vices.” Ayaz said leaning closer, in a hushed tone, winking and nodding his head. “I like how you put it… feeding your vices. Yes. I like it very much” pause for another sip. “Tell you what, see me, after mid night… by the time all the <i style="">parayas</i> would have left and<span style=""> </span>then we can delve into our respective vices with greater aplomb.” He patted him on the back and started off towards the bar, his drink having been drained. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir watched him for a few seconds. Trying to figure out what exactly had he stumbled on to. The mention of the <i style="">parayas</i>, just like by the captain he had met out side. And this consistent talk of vices that had seemingly ushered him into the domain of the <i style="">apnaas…</i>How could Rida not have known this man for the kind of man he really was? She had known people like him all her life, through college and school… these party mongers… these social animals who saw everything through eyes blurred by too much intoxication and not enough moral strength. He knew him instantly… he knew him for the man he had always been. A raucous teenager, popular with the girls, charming, alluring. The one who could roll the best joint, and could take the longest swig. One who had joined the army on the basis of his father’s status more than for patriotic fervor. He wasn’t here as punishment for his high moral fiber, he wanted to be here. Being here was easy… safe… conducive to whatever vices he liked to explore. He wasn’t anything what Rida had depicted him as in her journal… charming, yes… considerate? No.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">No Rida, either you were wrong, or you lied to yourself, no self-righteous man could ever be this popular<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“By the way…” Aamir heard him yell from across a group of dazed guests indulging in small talk they themselves didn’t understand. He looked up and smiled at him “Loved you work in <i style="">Earth. </i>Inspiring” And broke out into another fit of gleeful laughter. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Laughs at his own jokes, pompous bastard</i>… Aamir thought and feigned his own mirthless laughter</p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123012650242852042005-07-31T20:56:00.000-07:002005-08-02T12:57:30.263-07:0011. Seven<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He stood by the ba, waiting for mid-night; watching people come and leave. Getting drunk, spewing nonsense. He overheard their talks of sexual escapades and fraudulent business deals with disdain. His opinion about the good major had been all but confirmed. Then the door opened to admit the young Captain he had run into earlier. He looked calmer now. Much more at ease, with himself and the people around him. He shook hands with some of the people while his eyes scanned the crowd for someone.<br />Aamir watched him with rising interest. There was something about him that had struck him as being tumultuous. Almost as tumultuous as he himself felt. He watched him move quickly through the crowds always searching with his eyes, smiling and frowning at random. Then his eyes came to rest on Aamir. He lingered for a second, gave the hall one last probing glance and came towards him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Did you find him?” Shahnawaz asked stopping in front of him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Found who?” Aaamir replied leaning back against the counter. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ayaaz… Major Ayaz”. He seemed a little agitated now. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh yes I did, thanks to you, even befriended him” He felt that the smile on his face was the cause of the agitation on the captain’s. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Very well. Where is he?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You look like you want to kill him.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You don’t know anything, where is he… now?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Like you said, I don’t know anything.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Shahnazwaz looked at him top to bottom ,with a look of such disgust that Aaamir felt himself repulsed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Just as he made to leave, Aamir grabbed his arm “Look, I…could use your help. Can we talk?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Do you know where the Major is?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No… I don’t but…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Then get your fucking hands off my arm.” He shrugged free of Aamir’s grasp and stormed off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir never took his eyes off him. Just like Ayaz made him feel nauseated, Shahnawaz made him feel hopeful. He couldn’t help shake the feeling that his anger at the captain had something to do with Rida. He knew he could just be projecting. But he didn’t care. He had never been one to discount the integrity of his instincts and decided now was no time to start. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So when he saw the captain heading out the door leading out to the patio, he followed him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He stood leaning against the railing. Aamir walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He turned around slowly, wiping the tears from his eyes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What’s going on, Captain? What’s your problem with Ayaz?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What’s yours?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t know yet…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I can’t tell you anything. Okay. I can’t. I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone. This whole fucking place is his play ground. The entire country. And for all I know you are one of his playthings too. So go and squeal in his ear that there is someone who doesn’t like him and send him after me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I don’t know him, Captain. I don’t know you. I don’t know this place… all I know is that you know something about this man that can help me close a chapter in my life and maybe let me move in. I’m not here for drinks or shady business ventures. I’m not here for anything besides some information, anything, about my wife.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Shahnawaz froze. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Stiff like a dead body, he stared at Aaamir with horror in his eyes. Inexplicable unexplainable horror.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Your…Your wife?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes I… but… what is it? Oh my god. Was she murdered… did he…kill her? But he wasn’t even here… I know he wasn’t, <i style="">I</i> was here… did he have her killed? Speak for god’s sake” he couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice, the fear, the anger… there was no need anymore he was on the verge of finding the answer… he knew… Shahnawaz knew.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">His fingers trembling, he slowly stepped away, turned around to gaze into the void beyond the railing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“She was <i style="">married</i>?” He murmured… and collapsed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir’s heart sank again as he saw the man slump down to the wooden floor. He hadn’t heard what he’d spoken as he fainted. But he understood that it was his questions…his disclosure that had somehow been the final straw that broke the captain’s resolve. He watched him lying motionless on the floor. Didn’t try to revive him. He was suddenly afraid. Very very afraid. All of a sudden he didn’t want to know. What ever was amiss here was so monumental that a man trained to stand up to a barrage of bullets without so much as blinking, lay defenseless at his feet. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He staggered back inside, leaving the captain out in the snow. Somehow managed to inform a waiter that a guest lay passed out on the patio. He looked for Ayaz… he was desperate now, he would threaten him, attack him, do whatever it would take to know what had happened. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The crowd had been cut in half. The clock came close to mid-night as more and more people began to wrap up the evening and leave.<br />Ayaz stood by the main door. He had taken of his jacket and loosened his tie. Finally he had had enough alcohol to defy the cold. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir stopped at the bar, got a drink to sort out his nerves. He knew it would take cunning to get what he wanted from Ayaz. He knew that a part of why Shahnawaz had fainted was fear. He swallowed the glass full of scotch in one gulp and immediately felt better. More in control. At least of his emotions. The fiery liquid burnt its way down to his stomach and brought his mind out of its jumbled confusion. He focused on his target, and strode forward, resolute. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not leaving” Ayaz said as soon as Aamir came into hearing distance. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Of course not, we have a date”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“To which we shall attend shortly.” He said burping, forgetting all pretense of etiquette with the intoxication playing havoc with his senses. He staggered as he stood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir stood with him, watching the people leave… everyone uttering drunken congratulations, laughing needlessly, winking at the host, thumping him on the back. Until Ayaz slammed the door on the backs of the last group to leave. He placed an arm around Aamir’s shoulders; half out of scotch induced camaraderie, half for support and lead him towards a door leading out of the hall. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A very small number of people were still left standing there. Mostly men in uniform. And some women that they stood talking to, handing them drink after drink after drink. Aamir knew the ritual… he was just surprised that it existed this far away from civilization.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They went into a smaller room. Artfully decorated with antique furniture. A few paintings hanging on the walls. A book shelf in one corner and a smaller bar-like cabinet in another. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He poured drinks for the two of them and slumped into a chair. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“So, back to business?.” He said between consecutive sips. “What’s your poison then?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Scotch” Aamir responded, confused since ayaz himself had poured the drink for him</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No No” He shook his head, seeming agitated. “What Bhatti sent you for, what you came looking for?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well… vices… you know.” He could feel himself losing grip on whatever hold he had managed with his earlier lies.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Don’t be shy, brother… you’re in like company. What will it be then… booze? Drugs? Or pussy?” He replied smirking</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It took a while for it to sink in. With one sentence everything sort of made sense. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He knew what he had to say to get the answers he wanted</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Pussy” he replied. Staring straight into Ayaz’s eyes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ah.. ofcourse… had enough of the Philipino juices I see?” he winked</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir had forgotten almost what he had told him earlier, but drunk almost half out of his mind, Ayaz still remembered. He was a shrewd man, you don’t let any details slip by and you never forget. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yeah… you know… nothing like the… Desi stuff” Aamir replied, settling into the role he knew he had to play. He had known people like him enough to know well how they acted, how they talked…. He leaned back into the chair he was sitting in. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yeah… that’s what I always say… nothing like the Desi stuff. So then… what are you in the mood for? How much dough are you looking to spend?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well… what are my options?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“hmmm… there’s the local stuff… cheap… easy come, easy go… nothing ventured, nothing gained… just like jacking off…only you get someone to talk to.” He paused to laugh in a loud guffaw, snorting and sobbing with self invoked joy. “Or you can go for the educated few here… the nurses and such… still cheap… but a better fuck. They know how to fake an orgasm.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir didn’t feel shock… yet. He just felt like he had been proven right. <i style="">So Captain Ayaz is a glorified pimp… yes.. Falling for such a man would definitely have driven Rida to kill herself.</i> He felt like he knew the answer. He felt almost relieved. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But Ayaz continued. “Or, if you have the big money, I can hook you up… with what I like to call… High Caliber Pussy” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He didn’t have to be a genius to know who he meant by that. It was obvious. HCP. The term Captain Ayaz had coined for the brave young women rendering their services for the benefit of the local populace. Now the shock set in. Along with dread. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What... what do you mean?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh that’s right you haven’t been around. Well it’s a long story… just know this, that it doesn’t get better than an HCP. Fresh meat out of the big cities. Well versed in the art of pleasing a man. Willing or made willing by any means necessary… not a thing to worry about just enjoy the best fuck you’ll ever have.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He was careful in choosing his words. He could feel the blood coursing through his body. He could feel the bile rising up to his throat but he knew he had to dig deeper. He had to know. He had to hear him say… her name. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“How… made willing?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ah you know, the usual stuff… some get knocked off with a lot of booze, but those are sluts anyway… I even charge less for those. Why cheat the customer right?” another burst of laughter that made Aamir want to rip out his own ears.<span style=""> </span>“The others, the spic and span, mama’s girls, the oh-I-wanna-save-the-world-with-my-ideas-and-my-tender-touch… are the ones who make the whole shebang worthwhile. They usually require rohypnol. But don’t worry, we get plenty thanks to the hospital farce we got going on here…one dose, and they don’t know day from night…but there aren’t any of those here yet… the last one stepped out unexpectedly” Laughter again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir left his senses then. He became what he was pretending to be. It was easier that way. Easier to listen and understand the fate his wife had suffered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Really? That’s a shame… what happened to her?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Man… don’t ask… you know most of the time, after they get the love they cry a lot and ask me stupid question like why I did it and what they were supposed to do now, but I ignore them for a while and then promise them a cut of the shares… they make so much money giving it up to sheikhs and other dignitaries that they shut up… then they go back home and then who knows what happens. They never say a word because hey, who wants to marry a used cunt right? Those who make too much noise, I ship off to some rich friends in the <st1:place>Middle East</st1:place>. And that’s the end of it.” Takes a sip from his glass, his throat dry from talking and laughing “This bitch though, got laid up once and broke. I guess if I had been around to explain things she might have decided to get rich instead of dead… but I had to leave and… well it hurts kinda you know… she was one hell of a good fuck. Even with the kicking and the screaming and the cussing and the scratching she was the best I’ve had in a long long time. Damn man its turning me on just thinking about it. She was feisty. Had to tie her up with duct tape; even then she tried to bite my nuts off. But you know what the drug can’t do, duct tape can, it crushes the spirit… by the end of it she just lay there, exhausted from trying to break free letting me have my fill. I almost miss her… wouldn’t have put her on the market even, you know? She was that good! Except for you of course. You’re the friend of a friend.” He finished with a friendly slap on Aamir’s thigh. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He cringed at his touch. The only thing he could think of was ripping this man’s head off his shoulders but instead he laughed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He laughed so hard that tears started rolling from his eyes. And Ayaz joined him. They both laughed till their jaws hurt and then they slumped back into their chairs and sat in silence for a while. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir couldn’t move, he felt paralyzed. Broken. He could feel pieces of himself flying out of his mouth with the laughter. He sat stunned. Unable to grasp what he had just heard. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz spoke again: “So you know, no HCP for now, but if you stick around for a week or so… we’ll have a new one delivered ready to be discovered… I usually take a little time in cultivating them, but hey it makes no difference. Sooner or later, they end up getting stuffed. In the meanwhile, feel free to explore whatever we have on display here… local stuff, nurses, tourists… you know anything goes. Just the matter of how much you willing to pay and a little rohypnol.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir slowly got up, unsure of his feet’s ability to hold him up. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He couldn’t look at the man lying slumped in this ornate wooden chair. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Right… I’ll be on the look out t…will let you know” He said heading for the door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Hey, come by tomorrow… I don’t get many people who understand me you know… these army pricks are no fun to talk to.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yeah... I’ll be seeing you.” He replied stepping out into the hall. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He found the hall empty. Every one had either left or retired to which ever room they had found available to practice their perversion in. He ran out the main door, down the steps and to his car parked outside the boundary wall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As he ran the reality struck him and the bile he had been keeping trapped inside rushed up to his mouth. He clenched his teeth and ran as fast as he could in the snow. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Once by his car, he let go. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">First vomit poured out. Yellow and slimy, spaying all over the snow covered ground. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Then the tears.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He got in. Shivering. Trembling so hard that he felt he would shake to pieces. His voice broke as he wept and began to vomit again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz’s drunken confession still reverberating in his mind. <i style="">Rohypnol. Duct tape</i>. He didn’t want to see it, but he couldn’t stop the image from forming and invading his senses. Rida lying motionless on some obscure bed tied to the bed-post, half dazed from the drug, feeding a monster’s lust unable to defend herself. He saw her bleeding. He knew she had bled. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He sat in the car, his head resting against the steering wheel. Too stunned to cry, to shocked to react in any way. He was numb. Trembling with the chill seeping into the car through the glass. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Vomit in his lap, on his mouth… but all he could taste was Rida’s skin. And now he knew that another man knew what she tasted like. There was no point in putting himself through the agony of reliving the horror in his imagination. So he sat motionless in the car, trying to force his mind to think instead of the past he himself had shared with her. Of happy day, cheerful moments… nights of mutual passion. Memories coated in her laughter instead of her screams. He lost himself in the past, remembering the way she looked when she smiled… when she cried… anything and everything he had ever known about her. The strength of her character, the passion of her soul. All the things he loved about her. Even the things he hated… and through it all his head throbbed. An incessant knocking in the back somewhere. As if some one trying to drive a nail into a coffin. But he couldn’t be bothered about allegorical musings of his tortured mind and continued traveling backwards through his memories, recalling the college days spent in trying to convince her father. When a voice joined the knocking, calling out to him…<i style="">Hello</i> it went <i style="">wake up</i>… and the god forsaken knocking. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He finally lifted his head from the steering to see a silhouette in the dark standing outside his door, peering in on him. He had no idea how long he had been sitting out there. Still dazed and confused, he opened the door and fell out into the arms of the captain he had left lying on the patio earlier. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He carried Aamir to the passenger side, stuffed him through the door, got behind the wheel dripping wet with his vomit and drove away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Shahnawaz carried Aamir inside his cabin, lit a fire in the hearth casting their shadows on the wall behind. Sat him down in front of the fire, brought him some water and a clean shirt. Wiped the vomit of his face, and sat down beside him. He couldn’t look him in the eyes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not drunk, are you?” Sahahnazwaz asked finally, playing with his shoe laces like a remorseful child.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No” Aamir croaked, his throat aching from throwing up so much. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’ve been crying” He continued, more acknowledging his state than inquiring about it. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes” He replied clearing his throat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You know.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Everything?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m sorry”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“So am I”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You can kill me if you want…. I won’t resist.” He finally looked up at him from his shoes and met his gaze, as if to assure him of his sincerity. And found confusion staring back at him</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Kill you? Why would I…you?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh… he didn’t tell you… everything?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What? There’s more? More than my wife being drugged and tied up and fucked till she couldn’t even fight back anymore? What more could there possibly be?” He shouted, standing up. Letting the anger come in spasms, fueling the inferno blazing inside him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He’s a sick man... Major Ayaz. He’s a monster, a demon. He’s evil. He …. He… I tried to say no. I swear I tried. But he threatened me. He said that it would cost me my job, that he would have me court-martialed, that he would blame the rape on me… he… he is too powerful… you know… knows too many people, too many tricks… I know, he’s done it before… blamed his sins on other people, ruined lives… I swear I tried to say no.... he said he’d strip me of my rank… humiliate my family. I didn’t know what I could do. I just didn’t know. I’m so sorry… Please. I swear, you can kill me right now… and and I won’t stop you… just do it… set me on fire, shoot me, I have a gun in the car. Just please. I don’t know what else to do.” He broke out into sobs and sweat. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir looked down on him, unable to comprehend what he was blabbering on about. His first thought was that Ayaz had made him record the whole thing on film. His second, snatched the floor from beneath his feet. He slumped back down. Grabbed Shahnawaz by his shoulder and asked:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What did you do? What did he make you do?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He wouldn’t reply, he just sat there sobbing, helpless, listless. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Kill me please. End this. I can’t live with the guilt anymore”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir shook him harder “What did you do. WHAT DID YOU DO?” He screamed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He made me fuck her.” Shahnawaz replied in a monotone whisper…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir let go off him. This was more than he could bear. He had hardly come to terms with what Ayaz had told him he had done, and now this. Multiple assaults. On his Rida. His fragile sweet Rida. He tried to block it out, the insanity of it all. The brutal reality. He had read of such things in papers, gang rapes… date rapes… but it had never struck him as a reality. Something that someone else suffered. <i style="">It doesn’t happen in our reality</i> he had thought. And now it had. And it felt like someone else’s life. A story in a news paper. A sad story that ruined his appetite. Invoked a heated debate about the inherently evil nature of human beings. And Rida saying, there are always good people too. And him always saying you are a naïve little girl, darling. I hope that never changes. And now she was dead Date rape, gang rape… with Rida as the victim, his precious Rida. He had never stopped to think how the people who cared about the victim had felt. He knew now that they felt nothing at all. Just like they had been ripped open and hollowed out. Like a desecrated corpse. Like an empty grave.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Why…” He finally managed to say, realizing that Shahnawaz was still sitting there. He couldn’t understand what could drive a man to be this cruel, this perverted… “Wasn’t it enough? What he did to her? Wasn’t he enough…. He had to get his spineless pet dog to have a go too? Why the fuck would he do that?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He’s a monster” Shahnawaz began, his voice hollow and cryptic, as if coming from a tomb somewhere deep inside his bowels,”He likes to watch”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">His head swimming in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, Aamir collapsed. Writhing on the floor before the fire a new fear grasped his heart. And as if more damage could be done, he went looking for it…<span style=""> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“How many others?” he exhaled. Almost afraid to know the answer. Testing the extent of one man’s dementia and one woman’s suffering. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Seven” Shahanwaz whimpered. .</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The twilight of the dawn seeped through the windows and wiped their shadows off the wall. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123012757984042282005-07-31T20:50:00.000-07:002005-08-02T12:59:17.996-07:0012. The ‘slut’ from Lahore<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /><st1:city><st1:place><b style=""></b></st1:place></st1:City><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Once again, as the sun rose behind the clouds spread across the November sky, its cloaked light cascading down to the valley sheathed in snow found Nida making her way down to the little tea shop in the market. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was quieter today. Less people out on the streets. The first snow of the season had a way of sapping the desperation for waking up into empty lives. Some shop keepers had been lonely enough to find greater comfort in the cold recesses of their shops than the warm embraces of their spouse under woven quilts. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She walked on past the grocery merchant, leering at her from his door way. She came clad in her mother’s over coat… 4 sizes too big, and yet unable to keep contained her magnetic allure for the opposite sex.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The little girl came running to her as she saw her approaching, almost afraid that she might forget and move to some one else’s dhabba. She stopped a few feet ahead of her, smiled, tilted her head, and turned around to lead her towards her usual charpoy. Nida patted her head as she sat down with a smile, hands tucked inside her pockets, shivering slightly from the icy breeze caressing her face with stinging cold. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She missed <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City>. It never got this cold there. It never snowed. It never hurt. She could trust <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City>, the city of a billion people who all seemed to know each other somehow. She knew the roads, the streets, the monuments and the restaurants, the people and the intentions. Here, nothing really made sense. It was a confused jigsaw puzzle of breathtaking beauty and heart breaking sorrow. Of beautiful blue flowers and ugly secrets. Of uncaring strangers and a dead sister. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She longed for Aamir. For his friendship… more than anything else. She had classified her feelings for him as a senseless teenage infatuation. Ever since she had seen him, always in the capacity of her older sister’s beloved, she had carried her own torch for him. Even when she helped Rida plan her escapades into the musty summer nights of <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City> with him, even when she lied to their parents for her, she did it more for Aamir’s approval than Rida’s. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She loved her sister, there was no denying that. She had loved her and respected her more than any one else that she was related to by blood. And then there was Aamir… infatuation, perhaps… but one that had lasted well over six years now. And with her on the verge of leaving teenage behind, she was still infatuated. She knew nothing could ever come of it, he loved her sister too much, and her none at all. She had no reason to hope for him to ever see her as anything other than Rida’s younger, precocious sister and yet there was nothing she could do about seeing him, now more than ever, as everything but her sister’s husband. It was a strange melancholy of spirit. Circumstances had come to abet her intentions but her guilt wouldn’t allow for her to even conceive of having what she desired. And so. torn between pursuing her own love and honoring her sister’s she decided to drown herself in the mystery surrounding Rida’s death. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She sat sipping at the tea, watching the steam rising from it mingle with the frosty breath emanating from her mouth, forcing her mind to focus away from how Aamir alone was still the one who could calm her soul. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She saw the jeep come to a stop at the edge of her field of vision. As soon as the man stepped out, she recognized him. She knew he was perhaps her only chance at getting any kind of closure. She knew what he was after. She smiled to herself, and began to unbutton her over coat. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Just as he strode languidly in front of her and sat down, Nida slipped the coat off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When Ayaz looked up after settling himself in the charpoy amidst the creaks of protests from the taut maze of rope spread across a wooden frame, he saw her stretched before him, leaning back on her arms, breasts pushing against fitted white cotton, two buttons undone to hint seductively at the dark recess between two perfectly round breasts rising with a firmness endowed by unadulterated youth. The cold stroking the nipples to erection, pressing lovingly against the fabric stretched snug across them, and a thick over coat lying in a puddle of rejected modesty around plump thighs covered by jeans that fit as if sown over skin instead of adorned. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He found himself unable to speak. For an instant he thought he saw Rida. The resemblance was remarkable. From the thickness of the chestnut hair to nature’s precision in granting equally gracious endowment of sensuality, the two sisters were astonishingly similar. And astonishingly attractive. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She knew he couldn’t get his eyes past the inviting swell beneath her shirt and sneered at the predictability of his kind. She knew she had him cornered. Hook line and sinker, an inch of cleavage and he couldn’t help strip her naked in his mind. <i style="">Some men need even less,</i> she thought. <i style="">But they all want the same thing. And they all pay for it whether they know it or not</i>. All he would have to give, was information.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Hey” She breathed, turning the sneer on her lips into a tantalizing smile.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He looked up at her face flustered, to say the least. She could almost see the drool forming behind his slightly parted lips. He swallowed, and focused on her eyes. The same pale brown he had witnessed expressing every emotion ranging from unbridled joy to unimaginable horror. Even the shape of her eyes was just like Rida’s. Only tilting upwards a little more at the outer edges, making them seem more seductive and her more willing. He didn’t know whether it was this girl seducing the animal inside him or Rida come back from the dead to haunt his longing, but he knew he wanted her as desperately as he had wanted her sister. Even more so, knowing how her body was capable of satiating his hunger. He couldn’t believe his luck. Just last night he had pleasured himself with the remembered visions of his feeding on Rida’s flesh, and fallen asleep unfulfilled, almost in tears at having lost the woman who had brought him the most gratification of all his conquests. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her screams, her cries, her pleading and begging, never registered on his deluded mind. All he remembered was the taste of her tongue in his mouth and the warmth of her breasts in his hands. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Then he remembered that composure in the face of distress is what wins battles. Thus he wiped the lust of his face and replaced it with the smile that no woman he had ever come across had been able to resist. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida realizing what he wanted to accomplish, saw the smile, and lowered her eyes feigning bashfulness and broadened her smile. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Neither one of them knew exactly what they were up against, but they soldiered on for victory. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You never came last night” he began, fighting hard to keep his eyes on her face. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I wish I could have… but” She began, sitting up, allowing the neck-line of her shirt to dip lower, just to see if he was weak enough to abandon his act for one quick gaze at further exposed cleavage. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He did. In a flash, she saw his pupils dart downwards, linger, and shoot back up to her face to find her smiling with excitement. Or what he thought was excitement, but was actually pity. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I really“ He stammered “was looking forward to continuing our discussion from the morning..”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Really? What discussion?” She knew what discussion it was, but she had to test his caliber. Seduction was easy, but it had to be done right to achieve the desired benefits. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Aah,… Umm… . “ He stalled racking his brain for any memory of what had been said. “God!” He exclaimed, finding traces of memory fleeing his brain at the onslaught of lust. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">So he remembered. But not soon enough to fool me</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You were saying how you had lost God… and and I just found it remarkable how I sometimes feel that way… and I was wondering how you felt about it… but you never came, and I must admit, that left the night a little empty for me.” He went on with the fervor of a soldier who has finally found his weapon. “All my guests kept wondering why… I was such… sullen company. But what could I tell them? A beautiful young girl had reached into her own soul and found the fear in mine?” He waited for the effect of his words… Nida complied with a look of bamboozled sympathy in her eyes, biting her lower lip as if in a silent apology. “They would’ve laughed… and said Ayaz, life is not a fairytale. People don’t expect that life can be a fairy tale at times and when it is, we must accept it and thank God for his gift and reaffirm our belief in his kindness.” There was some truth in this; it <i style="">was</i> god he thanked for bringing to him the closest possible facsimile of his last victim, as soon as he had started to long for. No, Major Ayaz really had no reason to doubt God’s kindness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“But I agree with the people, na” She replied, pouting, letting her hands fall helplessly in her lap causing a tremor to ring through her body that only worked towards further fueling the lust she had already triggered in the Major “Life isn’t a fairy tale… not right now anyway.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He was almost disappointed. But had to pursue remembering his old school motto: Perseverance Commands Success… the school he had only managed to get into when it itself had sunk into perversion in the hands of a money hungry administration and could be bought into. He reached across the table and grabbed her hands in his.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Tell me what it is.” He said looking into her eyes. “What is it that can bring such sadness on such a pretty face? What is it that can steal the love for fantasy from a young girl’s heart.. .that blinds you to the feelings you have invoked in <i style="">my</i> heart just by knowing what I feel without even knowing me?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She almost rolled her eyes, but resisted. She slowly, pulled her hands out of his grasp. Making the movement seem reluctant. Combed a hand through her fingers, pretended to just realize what her careless shirt had laid exposed to him all this while, buttoned it up to the top. Looked up with tears bubbling in her eyes, stared at him for a second, smiled, and looked away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He waited for her to answer, utilizing the precious moments of her divided attention to stare hungrily at her breasts still tantalizing him, even without the added benefit of cleavage, pushing as if in protest against the scarce modesty enforced by the tight fitting shirt. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She looked back at him and he was just a breath of a second late in raising his eyes from where they fed on visions of her naked flesh. The delay drew an unwitting sigh from Nida, exasperated by the uniformity in lechery she found to exist in almost every man she had ever come to know. But the sigh worked well to prep him for what was to follow, indicating her helplessness in the presence of his charm. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“My sister… she killed herself… here a few days back. “ She began. Keeping her gaze fixed on the cup lying on the table before her. Looking so distraught that Ayaz although somewhat shocked at having the miracle of their resemblance explained in one sentence felt the need to hold her in his arms. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So she went on to relate as much of the story as she thought was necessary to earn his interest. Keeping, thankfully for Aamir, any mention of Rida’s husband securely to herself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz however, through her gut wrenching tirade of the loss of a sibling, had been formulating a plan.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she was finished, he lowered his head. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I…I knew your sister.” He began. “Rida wasn’t it?” He managed to infuse such sorrow in his voice that Nida was taken aback, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He then went to recount stories of Rida’s kindness and over all brilliance. Bringing himself nearly to tears with accounts of her heroic battles against death on behalf of her patients. And then he darkened his tone. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m sorry…I can’t tell you more. I’ve already said so much.” He concluded still keeping his head held low. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida, so piqued with interest now with finding someone who not only knew her sister but also respected her, decided to abandon all pretense of seduction and hurtled back into her real self. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No please you must, what happened? It’s been gnawing at my mind, at all of our minds… I can’t believe I actually ran into someone who can help uncover the details… I swear, I promise I will… no one else will ever know. But you must tell me… for my peace of mind… please; don’t you care about my peace of mind, about Rida’s peace of soul?” She couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voce, she felt on the verge of breaking apart… there was no way she was going to let him go now without telling her what she needed to know. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Look... I… I do care. I swear I do. More about you somehow, than even the danger that lies in disclosing the secrets surrounding her death… but… I can’t. I… its not safe here...” And he sprung the trap. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida saw it, she knew what he was getting at… but she had to take a chance on him being sincere… at least in knowing what he claimed to know. He had described her so well… he did know her… maybe… maybe…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Where then?” She asked dropping the volume of her voice to indicate her understanding of the peril he was putting himself in. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Can you come by yourself? Can you get a car? It’s a little out of the way… but the only place that is safe from the prying eyes and ears of the fucking army spies.” Even his anger seemed genuine to Nida now. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No… I don’t have a car.” She said almost disappointed. Wondering if he could get Aamir to lend her his…. Wondering if he would let her go alone. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz breathed a sigh of relief… a girl gone missing would be much harder to find than a car…It was working out well.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“That’s okay… here’s my card, use the fax number, ring once and hang up. When you ring back I will pick it up. It’s the only line that isn’t tapped by the ISI” He almost smiled at how well he could lie. ISI indeed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Okay” Nida went, taking the card from his hand, every minute finding herself more and more excited about her suspicions being true and being on the verge of unraveling the mystery. She knew what he would ask of her, and for the first time in her life, she felt like it wasn’t too high a price to pay. He would have earned something after all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’ll try though to get my own car… when should I call you?” She said now totally unwilling and unable to muster guile into her words. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Hmmm… give me a call around 4 in the evening, we will discuss then how to get where I want you to come if you get your own car… or else you can tell me where to pick you up from.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Okay… where… will we be going, waisay?” She said letting a little bit of fear creep into her voice suddenly aware of the danger she was putting herself in. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“The Postal rest house… off the road to Kalaam.. It’s not too far from here, but is closed during the winter months. It will be deserted, safe… no one thinks to snoop there during the winters” He said in almost an inaudible whisper. “We will be safe there… I hope” He added, indicating his own misgivings about the hazard that lay ahead. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“At 4 then?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“At 4” He replied getting up. He slipped a hand under her chin and lifted her face up. Peered straight into her eyes and said “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This time, when she shied away, she wasn’t pretending. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz climbed into his jeep, gave the girl sitting on a charpoy, sliding on her over coat one last look and a smile, and drove away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida sat stock still, absent mindedly pulling the over coat back on, her lips almost blue form the cold she had braved for the last fifteen minutes. Stood up and took off for Aamir’s cabin. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The little girl slumped behind the counter, trembling with terror, tears trickling down her eyes without as much as a whimper from her mouth. This time she cried not for the torment she would suffer at the hands of her father for forgetting to ask the <i style="">slut from </i><st1:city><st1:place><i style="">Lahore</i></st1:place></st1:City> to pay for the tea again, but for the fate she knew the slut from <st1:city><st1:place>Lahore</st1:place></st1:City> had condemned herself to at the hands of the Major. <span style=""> </span></p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123012852656470052005-07-31T20:30:00.000-07:002005-08-02T13:00:52.666-07:0013. Rida<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wakes up, naked. As if from a nightmare, relieved finally to know that the terror in her heart belongs only to her sub-conscious. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She tries to sit up, but there is a searing pain in her limbs. She wonders why it hurts so much to breathe. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Head throbbing violently, she rolls her self to the edge of the bed and slides her legs off seeking the help of gravity. They fall to the floor with a soft thud. She places her hands under her breasts to push herself off and crumples to the floor on her knees. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her mind is a mess.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Full of the taste of roast lamb, and berry juice. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Horrific screams and boisterous laughter. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Somewhere underneath it she can sense Aamir. But he’s drowned by the pain tearing through her being. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She’s never been so helpless in her life. It’s an effort just to breathe. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There’s a flash of vague faces looking down on her… all laughing with wicked pleasure. They are all different, some bearded, some clean shaven. But the eyes are all the same… full of hunger, ravenous. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Suddenly she feels fear grip her heart as one of the faces begins to cross the threshold from obscure fantasy into recognition. She sees Ayaz and her body convulsing with fear, purges whatever is left inside her. She sees blood mingle with the vomit on the floor. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The vomit gives her strength. Not much, but enough to stagger onto her feet and sway listlessly like a barren branch. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She can smell sweat. Not hers though, no, it’s too cold to sweat… too cold to be naked. It’s a pungent sweat, the sweat of a man dripping on her like toxic rain. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She stumbles towards her wardrobe. Desperate to shield herself from the cold mountain air ripping through her skin to her veins. She can feel her blood freezing. Begins to tremble and can’t keep her teeth from chattering. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She takes one step too fast and her desperately weakened body loses its balance and comes crashing down on the floor. She can’t figure out what has happened. She wonders if Sahil’s malady was contagious. The symptoms are the same… but no, <i style="">he was poisoned. Did Ayaz poison me?</i> The thought pops into her head uninvited. She begins to recall the dinner last night. <i style="">Was it last night</i>?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She can remember a clock ticking in the distance but it won’t show the time. <i style="">It’s like it has no hands to tell how late it is. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But she remembers Ayaz now, in his ugly pink shirt and the cheap grey suit. And that horrendous tie, all black… <i style="">who the hell where’s a black tie these days?</i>…she finds herself wondering. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Then slowly the dinner comes into her mind. The luscious meat. She can taste it again… mixed with sweat and smelling putrid. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts and tries the strength in her legs again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Slowly she clambers up to her feet once more and finds her self reflected in the mirror before her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">It’s too cold to be naked</i> she thinks again looking at her self standing like a zombie, looking like one. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She notices the thick silver bands around her wrists and suddenly sees her arms tethered to a bed-post, her hands hanging life-less, jerking again and again but not of their own volition.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She shakes her head again to focus. <i style="">FOCUS</i> she screams inside her head and finds herself staring back in the mirror. It takes a second to tell reality from dream… but she sees herself clearly now. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Bruised and battered. Black marks on her arms, her shoulders, her forehead… and her heart begins to throb. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her eyes dart from wound to wound remembering the pain that each one had caused when inflicted. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Finally, she sees the blood dried on her thighs, too close to her vagina to have come from anywhere else, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The memories return in staccato bursts of agony. She feels the pain rise from her womb and envelop her body. She sees Ayaz on top of her, yelling, laughing, spewing obscenities. She can’t move, she keeps looking from his face to the duct tape on her wrists rendering her motionless, defenseless. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She knows she is screaming but he seems to be deaf to her pleas. She knows she is crying but he has a huge smile on his face. She can feel him thrust himself inside her again and again while she begs for him to stop. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">He didn’t stop</i>. She remembers. <i style="">He never stopped</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Then the tears fall as the whole night restores itself in her mind. From the moment she stepped through his door to the moment she passed out from pain under her fifth assailant. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She falls to the floor, tears streaming from her eyes but unable to scream. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wonders how she got back home. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wonders why she is still naked. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wakes up again at the sound of someone knocking at the main door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Bibi?” a voice yells from outside.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Bibi again and again, accentuating the knocking, giving birth to a desperate song. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">It’s the maid</i>…she remembers her voice… <i style="">does she know?</i> She wonders.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And knows the answer immediately. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Everyone knows. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It becomes clear to her then. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Everything falls into place and she can’t believe how stupid she had been. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She knows the weakness in her own legs last night wasn’t from sitting too long, it was from the rohypnol in the drink she had been served. She knows that Suraiya wasn’t being sent off abroad to re-unite with her lover…her trembling had not been from excitement but from fear. Just like hers now.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And then Aamir pops into her head to aggravate the pain to a whole new apex. She can’t even begin to fathom what to tell him. She had never mentioned Ayaz to him She had never even hinted at his existence… and now everything he would have warned her against had come true and she couldn’t even turn to him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That more than anything else, more than the horror of being gang raped, more than the inerasable sense of repulsion for herself, more than the utter helplessness and the constant disgust, it was the feeling of having betrayed him somehow, of having become too unclean, too violated… too vile… for him, that drove her off the cliff.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She couldn’t go back to the hospital… she knew everyone knew. She couldn’t even think of facing Ayaz again, the mere thought of him made her faint from fear and revulsion. So she stayed in her house, shunning the maid till she stopped showing up, avoiding the driver until he stopped coming to work. She knew he had brought her back to her cabin, stripped off her tattered dress and satiated him self on her barely conscious body. She remembered now, as the days went by, she remembered everything. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Sitting closeted inside the cocoon of her wooden cabin, she suffered alone, unconcerned by the world unraveling beyond her door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There was no one left to turn to. No one left to trust. No one she could tell and no one who would care. They would laugh at her, point fingers. She with her high ideals and warped sense of reality had never even entertained the though of being the one to suffer. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Hate filled her soul. It filled everything. It overcame her capacity to care, to love, to be human the way she once knew. She hated everyone. From Ayaz to Sahil. Except Aamir. Him she couldn’t hate; him she only pitied… and hated herself instead. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she saw him enter the cabin as she sat contemplating how to kill herself, her instincts led her to joy. Relief so great that for an instant she forgot all that she had come to hate in herself and rushed into his arms. Hugging him so tight that he couldn’t breathe. She was truly happy in that moment, in her husbands embrace, just like always, she felt safe. Loved. Pure. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But then he kissed her. And with the kiss the truth of her existence came back. In his lips she tasted Ayaz. She tasted him and hated him with all the passion that was left inside her. She wanted to cry now, knowing that the only man she had ever loved was forever condemned to being a stranger. She couldn’t tell him anything. And she couldn’t reciprocate his love. There was only one thing left to do, the one thing she had been contemplating all along anyway. His being here, her inability to love him back, just liberated her off all apprehensions. .</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So when they slept together that night, she edged away from him. The thought of their bodies touching terrified her. Silently she wept as he slept, longing to feel his skin, too scarred to even dare. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And while he slept she made her way to the vanity case </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Opened the book and ripped out two pages, grabbed the note from Ayaz, inviting her to her own destruction, tucked them in her hand, grabbed the thermos from the kitchen and headed out to the edge of the world. . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As she stood at the edge watching the river rage far below, all she remembered was Aamir. She closed her eyes, keeping his face in her mind and surrendered herself to the wind. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Unable to breath on her way down to the water, she passed away in mid-air. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Right before her body slammed against the jagged rocks jutting out of the water to receive her. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123013274306242532005-07-31T20:07:00.000-07:002005-08-02T13:07:54.316-07:0014. A gambit, a pawn and one lost god.<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><br /></b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As Nida approached Aamir’s cabin, sweating from the exertion of running all the way up the hill from the market she found him sitting outside on the steps. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He was calm now. Calmer, at any rate. Crying all through the night had left him bereft or tears or remorse. Only anger raged inside.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He saw her running up. Breathing heavy, she stopped right before him, hands on knees she took a moment to regain her breath. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He looked at her standing before him, looking more like a child now then she had ever before. Sweat dripping down her face, clad in a big. burly over-coat, she seemed almost innocent. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You were supposed to tell me what you found out” She said without raising her head to look at him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When he didn’t reply she finally looked up. He just sat there, looking straight at her, smiling a crooked smile that looked almost obscene on his face, exhaling the smoke from the cigarette out of his nostrils. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’ve really lost it you know” She said, reaching out to snatch the cigarette from his mouth to take a puff herself “You look like a demon” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Shahnawaz’s words rang through his head. <i style="">Demon… Monster… likes to watch. Seven. Seven. Seven. </i>It hadn’t even hurt that much. <i style="">Is seven any worse then two</i>? he now wondered… would she still be alive if it had just been Ayaz? <i style="">She’s dead. Seven or one, he’s the one who’s going to pay. </i>There was no room in his mind for anything other than vengeance now. He heard Nida’s voice fighting for a place in his head, but he couldn’t focus on her words. He just looked at her remembering what his wife had looked like when he had first met her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not going to tell me are you Aamir?” Nida said exhaling, putting the cigarette back in Aamir’s mouth and reaching for one from his pack lying on the floor next to him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She lit it up, and sat down beside him. Close enough to press her shoulder into his. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He didn’t budge, just kept looking straight ahead in a daze.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Kuch to bolo Aamir. What’s wrong with you, you’re getting worse by the day.” She wrapped her arm around his shoulder gently stroking his bicep with her hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Did you see anyone? Did you find anything out?” She purred in his ear, trying to sound comforting. Anyone else in the world and she would be screaming her head off, she saw Aamir, knew his pain and so all she could muster was concerned curiosity.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No” he murmured. Deciding that he couldn’t say anything until he had done all he could to make Ayaz suffer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re lying.” She replied looking away, blowing the smoke out of her mouth. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She began to speak again when the door behind them opened and Shahnawaz walked out. Still in his uniform from last night, looking pale as a ghost.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida turned around to find a stranger with a face contorting in a look of such horror that her own heart sank. She kept staring at him, and he kept standing there in rapt terror. Frozen, unable to move, unable to breathe, he kept looking at his victim come back from the dead to haunt him. But when Nida exhaled her last puff through her nose, Shahnawaz in his guilt ridden vision, saw instead a ghost with smoke issuing out of its face. Suddenly he screamed, turned around and disappeared behind the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Confused, she looked from the door slamming shut, to Aamir sitting almost as if dead beside her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What the heck was his problem?” she said quietly puffing away at borrowed poison. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir burst out laughing. The morbid humor of the situation finally breaking through the haze of hatred enveloping his mind. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida watches him till he stops</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“So you went to the party and got yourself a man in uniform… you’re an inspiration to all women. Are you going tell me who that weirdo is or is that another mystery you’d rather keep to yourself?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He couldn’t tell her, so he laughed some more. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not being fair Aamir , I need to know what you know… please this isn’t funny.” She looked away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir stood up, smiling. Stretched his arms with a yawn. “I’m sorry Nida, I don’t know anything for sure. This is… just some guy.” <i style="">Who raped your sister for the viewing pleasures of her best friend.</i> He caught himself thinking. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re lying Aamir, I know it, you know it.” She began, getting up to walk up to him “I don’t know why you won’t tell me what you know, but fuck you. Okay. Fuck you. You’re making some silly game out of this while I turn insane wondering what the fuck happened to my sister. I don’t even care about what you may have to say, I just thought you would help make this easy for me. I’ll find out on my own.” Her voice breaking apart, she began to walk away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“It can’t be easy, either way Nida.” Aamir called out to her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“It could’ve been. But you just don’t understand what anyone else is going through, you think she didn’t belong to us anymore, that you are the only one who has any right to know what happened and the rest of us can just burn in our personal hells of wonder and speculation.” She walked back towards him. “Fine then, you’ve made your choice. And I’ve made mine. I need your car tonight.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What for?” there was nothing he could do to put her mind at ease, not yet. He just didn’t know how to tell her what had happened. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I found someone, someone who might care enough to tell me something.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He knew the answer even before he asked the question. Somehow it seemed inevitable that he would find her. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Who?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“The Major in charge here, Ayaz… or something.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He didn’t allow the sudden throbbing pain in his heart to show on his face. He stood stock still, as if he had no idea who she was talking about. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You can walk to the army base, he replied.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Its too cold… I don’t wanna walk.” She replied without any great conviction in her lie. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You never would’ve come here if you needed to go to the base Nida… I know just as well when you’re lying. Where are you going?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Why should I tell you?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You came here to tell me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“That was before you were being an asshole.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Because you’re afraid then?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She wondered for a second if it were that obvious but decided to relent anyway. “I’m not afraid. Have I ever <i style="">been</i> afraid?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Then tell me because I want to know where my car is going.” He couldn’t be bothered with niceties… he could smell the danger she was all set to walk into.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You know, if you were just my sister’s husband to me, I would’ve walked away by now.” She said realizing that she wanted him to know… wanted him to realize how much she cared, how much she was willing to put at stake just to get the answers</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He told me he knew her. He said things that convinced me… and he hinted at there being some kind of conspiracy here which frankly seeing how you are acting seems a lot more plausible now. Anyway he asked me to come to some rest house off the highway that is deserted in the winters. He said we’d be safe there.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Alone you mean.” He replied seeing Nida tied up against a bedpost being ravaged by a maniac. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Safe… from prying eyes and such.” She stated in a defensive tone. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not that naïve, why would you even consider this Nida? You know what he could do to you, what he will do to you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He won’t do anything.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh for heaven’s sake… a random stranger asks you out to a deserted motel and you think he is out to help restore your sanity? Who the fuck are you trying to fool here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Okay fine, I know what he wants. He’ll want to fuck me, worst come to worst and I will let him. But at least I’ll know what happened to her.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’ll LET him?” He said, almost amused at how human she thought this guy was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Yes Aamir, I will let him.” She was shocked to realize that she wasn’t lying.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What for?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What the fuck do you think for? I need to know… what am I supposed to do just sit and wait for you to NOT tell me anything? I’m sick of being treated like some dumb kid who needs to be sheltered. My sister is DEAD. She KILLED herself. And you’re trying to tell me that she went crazy and jumped off a cliff? I need to know why… what drove her crazy. And you Aamir, I thought you knew me better… respected me a little more than everybody else in the world. Keep you fucking car, I’m sure he can drive me there and then I will be even more at his mercy, and you can be content that you didn’t have to satisfy me in anyway.” Nida tried, but couldn’t stop the tears from falling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir knew what she had implied but his mind had now taken another turn. He had begun to realize that no matter what happened Nida was in danger now, Ayaz had seen her, he wanted her, he knew she was Rida’s sister and that itself was reason enough for him to come after her. He had to get her away from here… but he couldn’t tell her why. So he had to stop just musing about revenge and attain it; before Ayaz could claim Nida. <i style="">Tonight </i>he though as the first traces of an idea began to form in his mind. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not going” He finally said just as Nida turned away from him to walk away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You can’t stop me”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’ll tell you parents”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“That’s very mature of you, well done.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’ll tie you up and lock you in Nida, but there’s no fucking way you’re going there tonight.” It was the calm in his voice more than the authority with which he said the words that grabbed her attention. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She stopped dead in her tracks, too frightened suddenly to be offended. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What?” Was all she could manage to utter in a quivering voice as she turned around to face him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You won’t go tonight, you won’t see him. You won’t call him. You will do nothing. You will go to your parents and….”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She would be amused if she wasn’t so startled, there was something alien about him just then. His eyes shone with anger. She had seen her father once with that look in his eyes… when he had found out about Rida and Aamir’s affair. Now seeing that anger in Aamir’s eyes hurtled her head-long into the dread of impending disaster she has felt then. . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“And…And what?” she stammered</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“And pray.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Pray?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Pray”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“To who?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“God, Nida… who else is there?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Aamir, if he ever was there, here, or anywhere, where he could make a difference, where he could make me believe, he isn’t anymore. Not after Rida. I can’t pray to what I don’t believe in.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You have to. We need him… You have to remember, you have to believe.” He said in the same tone of impenetrable conviction and unshakeable resolve.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“How?” She said shaking her head, then remembering the words that had left Ayaz speechless she added: “I’ve lost God.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Without skipping a beat, or missing a second he said:<span style=""> </span>“He hasn’t lost you”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And it was Nida’s turn to be speechless. She looked awestruck now. Suddenly made aware of what set him apart from Ayaz. It was merely a choice of who to trust between the two men… it wasn’t a question at all, really. She just hoped that whatever happened God would care enough to help. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I – I’ll try…” She managed after a few moments, the fear in her heart reflected on her face. She knew it was pointless to ask him what he had in mind. There was nothing left to say, she stood staring at him for a minute then turned around and walked away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir stood peering into nothing.. His mind alive with thoughts and actions. Moves and counter moves. Considering eventualities, all that could go wrong. But he had no option. He knew what needed to be done, and he was the one who had to do it. Everything that happened had happened to make this possible. He had clarity suddenly, it was exhilarating. From the teenage desire to emulate the vengeful hero in a movie to the mature realization that life is much more complacent than fiction, to being thrust into this nightmare even his sub-conscious had been too afraid to ever conjure up; he traced the choices he had made in his life that had led him here. Trying to find something, some heroic, extraordinary, fantastic feat of unprecedented bravado in his past that could convince him now that he could do what he had to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>Blood rushing through his veins, half with apprehension half with the promise of vengeance, he decided that nothing mattered. Not what he was, not the man he had been, not the man he wanted to be. In the here and now, life had placed him before a cross roads either side of which lead to insanity. One conclusive, on never-ending. It didn’t matter what he thought he was capable of, he had been left no choice. Ayaz had to die. And he had to kill him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He headed back for the door to look for Shahnawaz inside, the pawn his gambit depended on. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He was standing right behind the door. Listening to everything that Rida and Aamir had said. They looked at each other and saw the same conviction they both felt inside themselves reflected on each other’s faces. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I have a plan” They both said together. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123013393592907122005-07-31T20:00:00.000-07:002005-08-02T13:09:53.596-07:0015. Respite<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""> <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her mother was startled. She couldn’t believe her ears, but without waiting to wonder, she sat down cross legged and gently laid Nida’s head in her lap. She stroked her hair in silence, feeling her baby’s trembling body soothe at the loving caress of her fingers. She had given up all hope of ever playing the crutch a mother deserves to be for her daughters; knowing how independent her’s had been brought up to be. And all of a sudden, Nida had walked in breathing heavy and hugged her as if she would fall to pieces without her mother’s embrace.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>She had dreamt of this so often it almost seemed like a distant memory. And now it was real, Nida needed her and she’d be damned to hell before she would let the moment slip by amongst questions and curiosity. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida, for her part was equally confused when the sight of her mother standing in the kitchen, weeping silently over the simmering cooking pot had suddenly seemed like the only person in the world who could bring her any degree of calm from the fear coursing through her heart. She looked at her mother, a little broken, a little weakened but still standing firm like the pillar of strength she had always been for the family and realized for the first time that she herself was everything she was so proud to be because her mother had been the kind of woman to let her be all that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>It was a strange epiphany, the woman she had resented so often for being weak and un-ambitious and too docile to ever amount to anything worthy of her daughter’s admiration, had always been so much more than Nida had ever been capable of realizing before. But now in the absence of the sister she had chosen to emulate, the never ending love her mother had always harbored towards her seemed like the greatest gift she had ever had. Suddenly, devoid of anything other than guilt for the years of<span style=""> </span>misjudging a mother’s love, feeling unworthy yet desperately in need of her mother’s embrace she went up to her and hugged her. She asked her mother to let her sleep in her lap like she had always been reminded that she used to as an infant. And mom had complied without as much as a raised eyebrow at this sudden change in her personality. So she put her head in the safest place on earth and closed her eyes and felt her mother’s hands gently untangle her hair. Smiling, unable to imagine why she had been missing out on this taste of heaven all her life, she fell into the perfect, peaceful, dream less sleep of angels. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The father walked in to find his haggard yet graceful wife of 30 years, smiling year to year with their last remaining daughter sleeping quietly in her lap. Taken aback at this vision of domestic harmony in the middle of his world falling to pieces he stood staring at them stunned. It was too soon to be happy… too soon to relax, to breathe without a whimper, to be satisfied with what was left behind. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Rida had always been his favorite and he made no bones about it. He wanted Nida to be like her older sister and she had done her damndest to be as much like her as she could have been. But neither of them had ever been like all the other little girls, They had been brilliant and charming and proud. But there were no hugs in their family, no tear filled good byes, no mornings filled with affectionate laughter. He had brought his daughters up to be strong, and he was proud of that, but he couldn’t stop regretting never having hugged Rida. Never knowing the warmth of his daughter’s tears drying on his fingers. Never knowing what she looked like when she felt defeated. He saw Nida now, sleeping calmly in her mother’s lap, and the smile on his wife’s face and he couldn’t help but let the joy seep into his heart. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He walked over to the two, kissed his daughter on the cheek, his wife on the head and sat down at her feet, gazing through eyes blurry with tears. His heart still ached for Rida, but the tears he shed now were of satisfaction with what fate had left him. <o:p></o:p></p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123170499804132322005-07-31T19:55:00.000-07:002005-08-04T08:48:19.820-07:0016. Contingency<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="">16</b>. <b style="">Contingency</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The plan was simple. Too simple perhaps or maybe too complicated, Aamir had no way of knowing. <i style="">I am a financial analyst</i>; he kept telling himself, <i style="">not an assassin</i>. He had no way of knowing what the contingency planning was when you wanted to lure someone to their own death. Shahnawaz however was a bit more articulate in the art of plotting deception. Or at least seemed so compared to Aamir. In any event, everything hinged on the captain. Shahnawaz was the wild card here, both the contingency and the insurance against all other contingencies. The plan depended heavily on how well in command of his wits he could stay when the time came. Aamir had no reason to trust him, but he had no option but to count on him. There was no way that he could do it alone. He needed Shahnawaz. He had to hope that Shahnawaz needed him to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They went up to the rest house to get an idea of the lay of the land. It lay nestled between a small forest of pine and birch trees with a dirt track leading to it from the main road. It was isolated all right, no other building for miles around. Not even any nomads pitching camp in the vicinity. <i style="">She could scream till the end of the world and no one would hear her,</i> Aamir thought, adding further fuel to the rage inside him thinking of what Nida would have had to suffer. He had to remind himself that if they failed, there would be nothing stopping Ayaz from going after her… exacting his own revenge. He had no idea of the extent of the major’s lunacy but was unwilling to put any act beyond him. This wasn’t just vengeance any more… Nida’s life hung in the balance. . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They got back to Aamir’s cabin in the afternoon. Both men solemn, finely freed of the ghosts of the past haunting their minds, they were now occupied by what lay ahead. For all they knew, they could be the ones to die tonight. But neither one of them seemed to care too much about it. Their focus was solely on one man. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The parted at the door just as it began to snow again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Darkness fell. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The lights came on in the Major’s house. He sat in the little room where he had made his drunken confession. He sat nursing another glass full of scotch wondering why the girl from the market hadn’t called. He was angry now. Fuming. So when Shahnawaz entered the room he almost ran back out. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But he had made up his mind when he had gone over their plan outside the rest house. He knew what he had to do. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I need to talk to you, Sir” He began, trying desperately to hide the nervousness in his voice. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“So talk.” Ayaz responded still unable to erase Nida’s body spread before him from his mind. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“It’s about… the girl…” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What girl?” He sat up hoping that he was here to tell him that she was outside waiting to see him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Rida.” He almost choked on her name. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">☼</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir strode up to the brick house of horrors, bathed in the snow that had been falling all evening. It was almost ten and he had had enough of the misgivings about the plan eating at his resolve. There was no turning back. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He rang the bell and was almost surprised to see Shahnawaz answer. They looked at each other for a fleeting second, weary of seeming familiar, gave a curt nod to each other and went their ways. Aamir inside to see Ayaz, Shahnawaz outside to follow his latest instructions. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir was ushered into the same room where he had uncovered the truth. The beautiful furniture was forever soaked in her blood as far as he was concerned, but he braved his neurosis and greeted Ayaz with a smile. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ah.. Mr Aamir Khan, I was wondering when you would show up.” Ayaz began, slurring from all the alcohol in his system. “So tell me, did you manage to find anyone worthy of your libido in our little valley?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This was the moment of truth, he had to lie with as much conviction as he could muster or else he would be dead and no one would know and Nida would be jumping off a cliff tomorrow. He braced himself, went back into the spirit of the man he had portrayed himself as the night before and began to laugh. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Major Sahib… I have found not only the girl of my dreams but also that your reputation is by no means undeserved.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well well, so the locals have been spilling the beans again? You just tell me who said what and I will see to it that they never say another word to another soul again..” The anger in his voice almost set Aamir vacillating. But he relented and continued. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“No no, the locals are as much under your power as the women under your charms. It’s not the locals but this nubile young girl that I found my self unable to resist who attested to your omnipresence and omniscience in these parts of the world.” He wondered if he had gone overboard with the flattery, but the frown turned into a smile on his enemy’s face and Aamir breathed a little easier knowing for certain now how well he had gauged the ego maniacal mad man. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You bring high praise, my friend of a friend. Who pray tell may this beauty be?” He asked suddenly seeming animated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh just this girl I ran into at the market. Barely out of her teens…so luscious that I would just as soon drink her as fuck her.” He began trying desperately to sound like someone as perverted as Ayaz himself. “But in my attempts to woo my way into her pants, I instead ended up playing messenger from her to you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz set up and the sudden burst of excitement in his eyes told Aamir that he had his attention. He went on…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“She mentioned you, the great Major and I admitted my friendship with you hoping to put her at ease, but it became painfully apparent that after seeing you, she couldn’t bring herself to be interested in anyone else.” He got up to make himself a drink, hoping to irritate Ayaz a little with the delay. Came back, took a sip, and began to tell the rest of his lie “Turns out, she had been wondering if getting in touch with you at the base would be prudent… she was worried about what the people would think,” He laughed here for effect, and Ayaz joined in. Aamir sat back and began sipping at his drink as if there was nothing more to tell. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well? Go on then?” Ayaz said getting up, clearly agitated. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“There is a price… for the information, you know.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz smiled, a smile that Aamir couldn’t understand. He sat back down, leaned over, placed a hand on his knee and said,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You are in no position to be negotiating here… I can get her whenever I want her.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Unperturbed, convinced that he had Ayaz eating out of his hand, Aamir pushed his hand away</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You can, but tonight… you will still be jacking off”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz burst out laughing, slapped Aamir on the thigh, clearly entertained.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You’re not as stupid as you look, Aamir Khan” Laughter getting louder. “Very well then what’s your price?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Serious as a statue, Aamir looked him straight in the eyes “I want in.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz, rasied an eye brow prompting Aamir to explain. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“ I want her. I want in. Tonight. I want her.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ayaz sat still for a few moments, took a sip, and pursed his lips as if considering surrender.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“After me… if there’s anything left” He replied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Done” Aamir replied quickly as if unwilling to bargain over Nida anymore. With every sentence he spoke, his hatred for the Major rose. He became more and more at peace with what he was going to do. It took all his efforts just to keep the disgust from showing on his face. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Done… what’s the message?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“She said to tell you that she will make it to the rest house… by mid-night” He replied looking at his watch… 10.30, 40 minutes to get there… it was too soon. Too soon to tell him. He had to buy more time. So before Ayaz could reply, he started off again. “She said she will be alone but will be guided by some local she befriended here. She said to stay by the main road and wait for her to signal from the main porch “</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“She told you all this?” Ayaz said narrowing his eyes as if suspicious</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Well she figured I was the only way of getting to you, I tell you, she looks primed for a good night. She probably won’t even complain when you do her, but we should take some booze at least to numb her for my turn.” He replied quickly, trying to get Ayaz’s mind back to the sex. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Of course. Of course, booze and some rohypnol… it’s more fun when they don’t know what hit them” He said grinning. “We should get going… it’s a long way from here. Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting” He got up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Wait!’ Aamir nearly yelled. He couldn’t tell him that he knew how long it would take to get to the rest house, but he had to make sure that Shahnawaz had had enough time to get there. But he was running out of ideas. “Let me… finish my drink first.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“AAh you can drink on the way, let’s go.” Ayaz said, grabbing a couple of bottles from his liquor cabinet.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He had no option now, he had to go. He would have to hope that he could tackle Ayaz on his own, or at least be able to wait till Shahnawaz got there. Apprehension sneaking its way past illusive bravado, Aamir got up and followed Ayaz out the door. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The got there in an hour. Driving slow, on account of the snow fall allowed only a 20 minute extension. Still at least 15 minutes before Shahnawaz was supposed to get there according to their plan. They had a small bar resting on the back seat… along with a roll of duct tape and bottle of rohypnol and a pair of binoculars. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“What do we tell her… why am I here?” Aamir began trying to take his mind off the vision of his wife popping into his mind… Duct tape and rohypnol… the instruments of his evil lying casually on his back seat waiting to claim another victim.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I go alone. You come in after 20 odd minutes… you like to watch?” He said peering through the darkness to see any signs of life around the dark building standing 20 yards away. “If you don’t, come in after an hour. I should be done with round one by then… then you can have a go…I like to watch.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir found it hard to believe that any man could be this depraved. All of a sudden he didn’t care about Shahnawaz being there, he just wanted him dead. No, not dead. He wanted him in pain. As much pain as he could possibly bear without dying so he would know what his wife had gone through in feeding his insanity. He couldn’t pretend anymore. The anger over took fear and there was nothing left within him besides the need for atonement. He handed him the binoculars, indicating his own perverted hope of the victim having arrived early… </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oh yeah… this will be easier on the eyes.” Ayaz said focusing out the window at the door to the rest house turning his back to Aamir. “You know, she looks just like the last one” He began, swept away again by scotch fueled memories. “The same face, the same boobs… only the eyes are a little different. It will be like fucking her all over again. And you know how I feel about her.“ He licked his lips and nudged Aamir with his elbow. “You’re my good luck charm man… I tell you about my favorite fuck who went and offed herself, and like a miracle, her sister walks into my life. I though this kinda stuff only happened in the movies you know. But you come in and bring her back from the dead. Waah. WAAH!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir couldn’t believe his ears. His mind abuzz with Rida’s screams he almost didn’t catch the madness in his words. He went on all the while keeping his eyes on the rest house. “I can’t just imagine what I’m gonna do to her, its turning me on just thinking about it. It’s like getting to make love to a six odd years younger Rida….”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>Aamir lost it then. Her name mentioned in his voice acted like the catalyst to the fury bubbling inside him. He lost all comprehension of the odds stacked up against him and a logical course of action, and reached in the side pocket of his door for the gun Shahnawaz had stashed there. He grabbed it in his hand by the barrel and in one wild swing turned around to smash the metal handle into Ayaz’s Skull. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">If only he hadn’t said her name. If only Aamir’s restrained anger hadn’t contorted into blind rage which led him to abandon all resolve, he might have been alarmed. He might have noticed that once Ayaz said her name, he stopped talking. As If in waiting for a reaction… as if waiting for an opportunity to make his move. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He parried Aamir’s strike with one hand, and with the other brought the binoculars crashing down on his face. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The last thing Aamir saw before passing out was his own blood pouring past his eyes. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123170565282573792005-07-31T19:49:00.000-07:002005-08-04T09:04:03.943-07:0017. What once was lost…<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="">17. <span style=""> </span>What once was lost…<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she came out clad in her mother’s dress, her parents burst out laughing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It felt like she was wearing Shalwar Kameez for the first time in her life, it had been a while. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She remembered going to weddings in them. But even that she had given up almost half a decade ago. Besides her mother’s choice was vastly different than the current fashion trends which seemed to focus more on flaunting than hiding. It hung loose around her, the duppatta wrapped around her head making her look like an entirely different person. She looked at herself in the mirror and couldn’t help but laugh at the reflection staring back at her. She felt different as well. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She found a strange comfort in the modesty provided by yard upon yard of cloth. There wasn’t any compromise in bending down, none in stretching. No matter what she put her body through, she would retain her modesty. It was liberating in a whole new way. She wondered why some women found this constricting. She wondered why she had all those years. It seemed that as time went on it became harder and harder to hang on to the tradition and values which she saw as stifling and archaic. But today it felt like that certain things held merit after all. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When she asked her mother to remind her how to pray, she had burst into tears. All those years ago when Nida had turned 10, she had been subjected to a rigorous training in the rituals. So rigorous that she had come to hate the worship rather than see it as the show of affection for Allah that it is meant to be. But her mother told herself that it was better to be happy that she had asked to return rather than be angry at her forgetting the way<i style=""> </i>in the first place, laid down a prayer mat and walked her through the prayers emphasizing on the physical manifestation of the symbolic reverence that the movements reflected. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was awkward for Nida. She learnt the words and had her mother write down what she couldn’t, but every word she chanted seemed foreign and useless. Communicating with nothing in a language that she didn’t know. It seemed futile, a waste of time. But the effect of Aamir’s words lay heavier on her heart than the personal lack of faith. And she sat memorizing the proper inflections of the Arabic verses through dinner. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Her parents went to sleep a little happier than they had been for the last few days. Each in turn patting her head and assuring her how happy they were that she had chosen to find peace with the almighty and return to the fold of the religion. Her father hugged her for the first time in as much of her life as she could remember and for an instant she felt as if that feeling alone was worth the seemingly futile effort of ablution and prayer for an invisible and ruthless overlord.. She never let on to the real reason behind her sudden change of religious inclination and kept her fear hidden away in a shadowy corner of her heart wondering if the omniscient deity she was praying to could find it. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>After Isha, she began to offer prayer specifically to aide Aamir in whatever he was up against. Until her legs began aching from all the exercise and her resolve began to dwindle in the absence of any clear indication that even If there was any one up there, he was actually paying attention. Her heart was still uneasy, but a little more at peace somehow. She hadn’t felt any different while going through the monotonous rituals of prayer, but as she stood up and folded the prayer mat, she couldn’t help but feel as if she had been touched by the tender loving grasp of her creator. It wasn’t really a welcome feeling, for a moment she thought it was just all the tales she had heard people tell of how returning to prayer makes a momin feel. But there was no mistaking the withering of the shadows of fear borne of hopeless isolation, of being adrift without an anchor amidst the sea of unpredictable, un reliable, un loving and unlovable humanity. Doubt still lingered, she was unwilling to abandon what she had believed for so long… yet all of a sudden she found the existence of an almighty a lot more plausible. <i style="">For what its worth</i>, she mused, <i style="">I’m at least back to believing.</i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In the pantry on her way to the kitchen, lay the carton full of Rida’s after effects. She saw a muffler with the Christmas trees printed on it peeking out of the top and couldn’t resist being pulled back into memories of her sister running through the rolling hills of Nathia Gali as a teen anger, giggling, skipping, being followed by her little sister who wanted to wear her scarf. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She reached over and held the frayed edge of the muffler in her hands and felt her sister come alive within her senses. She rubbed it across her cheek and could almost feel Rida’s tender touch gently admonishing her for being careless in some exam. Tears welling up in her eyes, she threw back the flaps on top of the carton to dig deeper into the artifacts of the woman she would never forget. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The silver metal thermos now drained and washed lay on top of the pile. She looked at it with no discernable emotion, unable to decide how she should feel about the last thing Rida had ever touched. Pulling at the muffler to wrap herself in its entire length she found it to be stuck beneath the burden of too many mementos piled atop it. She pulled harder and didn’t relent till it broke free of its burden sending her off balance and upsetting the carelessly collected debris in the box. In the commotion the thermos found its way out of the box and crashed to the floor behind the box with a loud clatter. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nida hurried over to pick up the fallen souvenir, hoping that the racket hadn’t disturbed her mother’s fitful sleep. She found the thermos lying in pieces. The lower portion that served as a flat base for the curved bottom of the flask had come undone with the impact and rested a few feet away from the rest of the assembly, she gathered the two parts wishing to see if she could put them back together, when she saw tucked inside the bottom piece some crumpled sheets of paper. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She placed the flask back on top in the box and slowly drew the pages out of the severed base. The first thing she saw was the invitation from Ayaz. Below it were the two lost pages from Rida’s Journal She had no way of knowing what she was about to discover. Nothing had prepared her for the stark brutal truth written in her sister’s hand on those pages. Her eyes darted across the lines and her heart sank deeper and deeper with every word. Until she couldn’t breathe anymore. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:date month="10" day="29" year="2005">29/10/05</st1:date></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">And finally, I remember it all. Every face, every rippling muscle. Nothing at all is any longer shrouded in the merciful haze of denial. There is no peace anymore. No sadness. Just this helplessness at being unclean on the inside no matter how many times I wash my flesh. I can still feel their semen inside me. I don’t know how to reach deep enough to wash it out. I have gone through every emotion from fear to anger to repulsion and still they all linger in my mind. Conscious, sub-conscious, it is all tainted by the sweat and the spit of those who mutilated me. This is me trying to rationalize my thoughts, my options. Just like I was taught by my teachers and my parents before making a decision. And there is only one decision that makes any sense.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Aamir is my husband and I love him very much. Too much to subject him to have to come to terms with living with a woman who was too foolish to protect herself from what had become inevitable a long time ago. I cannot face him with this guilt of allowing myself to be used in the way I was, let alone living the rest of my life with him. I can not lie. I can not hide this; not because of scruples, no, none of those remain now. They were all stripped away with my clothes. I cannot lie because I cannot hide what this has done to me. I look at myself in the mirror and I cringe. I close my eyes and all I see every time are different faces all with the same leering gaze, all I hear are my own screams. It was impossible for me to understand how someone contemplating suicide feels until now, and I understand that sometimes our circumstances leave us devoid of any other options. Not because we are afraid of the world or the challenges it holds but because we are sick of hurting constantly from a wound that is rooted so deep inside our souls that no amount of time can possibly heal it. But even more so because of the pain we know we will inevitably cause to those who love us and who we truly love more than life itself. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">The disgust I feel for myself is not half as distressing as the disgust I fear seeing in Aamir’s eyes. In Abu’s eyes and Ami’s. And Nida’s… she would never have succumbed and she would never understand how I could be this weak. And she will be right because I never saw it coming. In my naiveté and my idiotic belief in god and the goodness of mankind. I never saw it coming. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">God has abandoned me. I asked him why. I asked him what I did so wrong that he couldn’t even protect me after year upon year of believing in him without any reason to. He left me to the mercy of soul stealing vultures who left nothing inside me except impressions of their own evil. Evil so utter and complete that in its presence God cannot exist. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">Nida was right all along. God is just a fantasy fools cooked up to make them believe that someone is always out there watching out for us. That there is always someone up in the clouds who cares enough to keep us safe. We would look at other people who have suffered and assume that it were their own sins that had led them out of the bubble of god’s protection, that they had shunned his love and therefore had been eaten up by the evil that feeds on the souls of unbelievers. But what did I do? Did I save a sinner, did I fail to save a life he wanted me to save? Did I not try hard enough? Did I not care enough?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">But that is all inconsequential. That is me trying to seek the false comfort in a being that is better than us. But there is nothing better. There is no being. It’s just us against the darkness always sulking right behind the shiny veneer of rainbows and moon light. I did nothing wrong and yet this is what I have been reduced to. A </i><st1:time minute="0" hour="0"><i style="">midnight</i></st1:time><i style=""> snack for rapists. I would question why me if I didn’t know how often this happens, If I didn’t know how long this has been going on. So many before have been condemned to this fate and I can’t even begin to imagine how many after will still be victimized. And there’s nothing I can do about it without dragging along with me into the abyss of ridicule and degradation those who I love more than myself. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">There is no escape for me from what I have wrought upon myself. There is no god who can forgive me for my folly. All I can do, all I choose to do is spare Aamir from the insufferable pain of bearing the burden of my torment. If I can find it in myself to tell him what happened, if I can find god again… I will allow myself to live, maybe even heal… maybe even forget. That is me giving myself another chance at sanity, at existence. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="">But if I can’t, and I know I can’t, I will do the one thing that has been ringing truer in my head than my sobs and wails, than No and Stop. I will kill myself. That will be me repenting. <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style=""><o:p> </o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She felt as if someone had cut a hole in her chest and was slowly sucking the blood out. A vacuum quickly expanding as the words she had read sunk in. She would cry if she could escape the horror engulfing her spirit. She felt crushed beneath so much weight that breaking free seemed impossible. Unable to breath, failing to think, she fell to the floor with the pages stained with her sister’s sorrow clutched in her hands. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Leaning against the wall, trembling with fear her mind gently began to see the truth beneath the lines. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Hidden in her sister’s testimony of having lost god, she had found him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She understood than what Aamir had meant about needing god. She needed him now, desperately. In the absence of everything else she found faith to be the only anchor. Desperate to seek the help she now understood that Aamir needed, she knew the one thing she could do to pacify the rage and the hatred and the terror taking hold of her soul.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Un aware of what else to do, too afraid to lose whatever faith this horrific tragedy had restored in her, unsure of her own deductions but sure of her convictions all the same, she placed the pages on the floor, spread the prayer mat over them and shivering with more fear than she had ever known, bowed her head in prayer. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123171404074339472005-07-31T09:02:00.000-07:002005-08-04T10:11:53.606-07:0018. Ayaz<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Dragging Aamir out of the car he broke into song. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Some obscure ditty that he had heard as a child. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Something about falling snow and a long way to go. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He pulled him towards the rest house, dragging him by the hair. Half way to the main door, tired from the exertion of trudging through the snow with an unconscious carcass in tow, he stopped. Kicked his burden a couple of times in the stomach and marched back towards the car for the bottle of J&B he knew he had brought along. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He came back taking swigs from the bottle, singing in hushed tones, swaggering from the alcohol corroding his blood. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Oye” He calls to Aamir. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“OYE” he yells louder. Takes a long sip and spits it out on Aamir’s face. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He stirs, and slowly opens his eyes. Closes them immediately as the blood on his face mixed with the alcoholic spit stings his retinas. He raises a hand to wipe the grime off his face and feels the wind blow out of his lungs as Ayaz’s army boot clad foot lands squarely on his chest. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Good morning, friend.” Ayaz sings out. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“How does it feel to be fucked over?” he continues laughing. It’s too dark to see his face, but Aamir can see the moon’s light reflecting off the snow on the ground shine in the madman’s eyes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He tries to get away from under his foot but can’t, he has hardly any strength left in him. His body already subjected to abuse while his mind was too unconscious to register pain refuses to move when he wants it to. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“You know, you almost pulled it off.” Ayaz continues. “Fuck, that was the best piece of acting I’ve seen in a long time… “ he takes another swig. “But then you came along with that unbelievably dumb ass story about the girl in the market and DUDE. I was pissed off. Like how freaking dumb do you think I am?”<span style=""> </span>Another kick, another swig, another satisfied gasp. “I mean, okay fine… I had a feeling I knew who you were last night, yeah Rida showed me your picture… but I figured hey maybe just maybe, this guy is someone else. Just fucking coincidence you know… then your whole story about Bhatti… that was a gem. I mean Credit is given where it’s due, right? That was one good move, my friend of a friend.” He steps off of Aamir and turns his back, silent. The only sound is the snow falling through the still night and the whiskey rippling in the bottle. Aamir still unable to move, lies waiting helplessly for Shahnawaz to show up sooner than planned. He hopes a miracle is on its way. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“And you know… what really won me over?” He waited as if Aamir really would follow up on his prompt. “It was the way you sat stone faced when I told you about your wife. That was class man… pure class. I mean whoa! I had respect bro. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.’ He nudges him in the shoulder with a foot. “You had me then… you had me. But you fucked it UP. “ His voice getting hostile and loude,r he leans over Aamir’s bloodied face. “You fucked it up. Even if Shahnawaz hadn’t come and squealed in my ear about your plan, your plan itself was a dead give away. I mean, seriously you thought you could fool me? And with that lame ass story? YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD BEAT ME?” This time he kicks him in the head. “You don’t make Major by being fooled. You don’t make millions by being fooled. And you thought you could come here, make an ass out of me, and avenge your whore for getting what she had been begging for. Did you know she smiled when I kissed her? Yeah mother fucker, she loved it. She loved it when I tied her up and she loved it when I turned her over. What were you gonna do? What the hell did you think you would do huh? Drag me out here and put a bullet through my head? You stupid fuck. Now this is what I’m gonna do to you…” he began to pour the whiskey on Aamir. “I’m gonna bathe you in booze… then I’m gonna light up my cigarette and then I’m gonna throw the match on you and then I’m gonna watch you burn. Pacino style” He placed a cigarette in his mouth and dragged a match box from his pocket. “And while you burn the night bright, I’m gonna sit back and watch you scream… just like your wife did when I stuck it up…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The sharp crack of metal on skull shut him up. As his body fell beside Aamir, he saw Shahnawaz standing there with the gun from the car in his hand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Where the fuck have you been?” Aamir wheezed propping himself up on his elbows looking at Ayaz lying face down in the snow with blood coursing from under his hair and the unopened match box in his hand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’m right on time, you were early.” Shahnawaz said helping Aamir to his feet.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Just like a soldier, never use your own fucking brain. You talked to him, you saw me come in. Couldn’t you have <i style="">guessed</i> we would be early?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Hey, the plan worked, all right? I’m here now. He’s out cold. So you took a few hits, just like a fucking civilian, always pin it on the soldier.” Shahnawaz said grabbing hold of Ayaz’a feet</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“He almost set me on fire, you brainless… appliance. You’re like a toaster, all of you fucking soldiers… can’t think for yourselves, once the timer is set, come hell or a fucking slap in the face, you still don’t know what to do but wait for further orders.” He knew he had a right to be angry and he knew he had a right to take it out. He felt like a Molotov cocktail just waiting for a match. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Ayaz could think for himself, would you rather I be like him?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir reached over to grab the arms. “No. But you didn’t do yourself any favors by following his orders either, did you? Didn’t make any difference.” The anger suddenly absent from his voice as his focus resets on the twist of fate that had him dragging a body through the snow in the middle of the night to an abandoned building where he could exact a revenge that he deemed fitting for the pain the women he had never thought he would loose had suffered. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They dragged Ayaz’s body inside the rest house in silence, careful not to spill any blood on the snow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Propping him up in a chair, they bound him with the duct tape Ayaz had thought was destined for Nida’s wrists. Aamir poured whiskey in a paper cup and dropped one pill of rohypnol in it. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Leave” Aamir told Shahnawaz as Ayaz began to stir back into consciousness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I have a score to settle with him too” He replied, defiant. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I have one to settle with you too.” Aamir reminded him ending the argument before it began leaving Shahnawaz no option but to follow his command. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“I’ll be outside…in case something goes wrong.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Stay by the car… not an inch closer.” Aamir said picking up the glass of spiked whiskey and walked towards Ayaz.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He wakes up just as a door slam shut behind him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Unable to move, he struggles to free his hands tied behind his back while Aamir places the brim of the glass and kicks him in the groin. His mouth opens in a scream. But it’s drowned under the rush of liquid flowing hungrily down his throat. He almost chokes and coughs till his eyes water.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As the drug starts to take effect, he begins to drift out of lucidity. His legs go numb as he feels the strength drain out of him. Ten years of the most extensive survival training in the world and he sits helpless, unwilling to move, at the mercy of the man in whose eyes he sees a dementia much more chaotic than his own. For the first time in his life, Major Ayaz faints out of fear. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He stumbles back into consciousness at the sound of a snap. His vision blurred by the drug and the alcohol reveals a distorted figure before him putting on what look like transparent surgical gloves. Slowly his mind clears and he sees Aamir Khan standing before him with a butcher’s knife in his hand. He shakes his head to clear his mind of the absurd vision before him. It’s no longer the actor that he sees, but the knife is still there, in the gloved hands of a man whose picture he had seen in the hands of the last woman he remembers making love to. He knows what the gloves are for, to keep the blood from staining the skin. So he knows what the knife is for, to make him bleed. He gasps trying to imagine which part of his body is going to be subjected to the blade first as the man with blood shot eyes and a familiar face devoid of any feeling whatsoever closes in on him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He mouths a no, as he sees the man bend down. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He yells stop as he feels his powerless legs being spread. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He screams in anguish as he feels the knife hack away at his penis. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He passes out from the pain as blood gushes out from his groin. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It’s raining. He thinks as the whiskey is splashed on his face to bring him back to unwilling consciousness. His eyes open bringing his mind back to reality. And the searing pain rising from the emptiness in his groin sends tremors through his body. He screams, realizing all of a sudden what has happened to him, seeing his penis lying on the floor next to his feet and a pair of blood stained rubber gloves resting on his bare thighs. His own blood pooled on the floor and the seat of the chair he is sitting in. He feels colder than he ever has. As if winter has come inside him this time. It rises from within, like dread, like fear. He tries to get up but even if his muscular legs had the strength to support his weight, his arms lack the force to break free from the duct tape binding him to the chair.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He looks up to see a man standing against the wall before him, puffing away at a cigarette with a psychotic smile on his lips. He comes closer, Ayaz looks into his eyes and for an instant feels like this is exactly what he deserves. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He opens his mouth to speak, to apologize, to reason with this man, to tell him that he had done enough. That he had not only avenged his wife but every other woman he had ever abused. That he had already saved so many more that would have suffered from his perversion. But even as he thinks these thoughts he knows he’s lying. He knows it was never the act itself but the ability to get away with it that had him intoxicated. The power he had felt, the ability to choose a life to destroy and getting it done without fear of repercussion that had made it impossible for him to even recognize what he was doing as wrong. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He sits there speechless; mouth ajar in a silent scream, a silent apology, a silent appeal. His eyes open wide with terror and pain, he can’t look away from the face of the man standing before him, looking down on him with a hatred so utterly complete that there is no room for negotiations, or forgiveness. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Blood drips from his open mouth as the internal bleeding from the slip shod surgery rises up his throat. He finds it harder and harder to breathe. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The man comes closer and without uttering a word puts on another pair of gloves. Just before Ayaz can even begin to wonder what he has in store for him now, the man picks up the bloodied gloves off his thighs and one by one shoves them into his nostrils. Already suffocating, Ayaz finally let’s himself scream and beg for mercy. But no mercy is forth coming as he sees the man bend down and grab his severed member of the floor. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">He clenches his mouth shut as soon as he realizes what fate his murderer has in mind for him. But his resolve is no match for the pain that the kick in the groin induces and his mouth blows open to yell. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The most blood curdling scream he has ever heard, worse than any of the women he had raped had ever been able to manage, comes from his own throat. But it is stifled by the bloody mess of flesh and throbbing vein and crippled muscle being stuffed into his mouth. Before he can even contemplate shoving it out with his tongue, the murderer seals it in with duct tape. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As he chokes on his own penis, unable to breathe through his nostrils clogged by rubber stoppers soaked in his own blood, he sees the man who has killed him relax. He lights up another cigarette, watching Ayaz’s face drain of blood. His body convulsing until it stops and settles into the restless calm of the dead. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Just as his eyes begin to loose vision, surrendering him to infinite darkness, he sees the man with the cigarette in his mouth flick a burning match towards him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The last thing he feels before passing away into the depthless void of death is his creased but immaculately starched army shirt catch fire. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14999331.post-1123171890380081162005-07-31T08:10:00.000-07:002005-08-04T10:13:01.490-07:0019. The good Captain<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="">19. The good Captain <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">She had prayed through the night. For Aamir and for Rida. Until she fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. She had begged god for the salvation of her sister’s damaged soul and her own burdened heart. She dreamt of lying in Aamir’s arms. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />Two days later her father sat reading one of his many news papers. Still looking for any mention of his daughter’s death. When he came across the article about the charred remains discovered in the burnt down ruins of the Postal Rest House. The body had been positively identified; the cause of death cited was suffocation. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The new man placed in charge of the army regiment was a certain Captain Shahnawaz, who had been selected by his seniors owing to the efficiency with which he had managed to cover up the sordid tale the Major had left in his wake, that some of the locals and army personnel had threatened to uncover. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aamir was never heard from again. His car was found parked outside the cabin his wife had once occupied and he had been living in for the past few days. But he had vanished without a trace. Some speculated that he had followed his wife down into the raging river Sawaat. There was a certain romantic tragedy in this assumption that seemed to soothe aching hearts and had therefore become the most readily accepted tale. Except to Nida who cried and complained to god until her tears stopped falling. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The day they finally left the valley, it snowed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">After Shahnawaz had seen them drive off down the road that lead to Peshawar, he drove to the ashen remains of the rest house where just 3 nights ago, he had stood waiting for one man’s vengeance to be satisfied, while he discovered his own capacity for concocting evil. Where he had finally decided that whatever he had decided to do was still a lot less evil than what the man burning to death in the building in front of him had wrought. Where he had put out a cigarette just as Aamir had walked out of the rest house, surprisingly calm for someone who had just tortured a man to death. Where he had raised the gun from behind his back and shot Aamir in the head. Where the report of the gun shot had been lost in the crackle of the building burning down. Where he had dragged the lifeless body of the man who had for a night been his comrade in arms and had led him to the success he so desperately craved. The success to attain which he had unwittingly been partt to a heinous act on a woman he respected more than any he had ever met. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Why he killed Aamir, he didn’t know. Maybe it was the fear that he was the only man he couldn’t control no matter how much power he attained, maybe it was the fear that Aamir having purged the hatred for the chief instigator in his wife’s brutal rape would turn on him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Whatever it was, the new voice of ruthless determination in his head had clearly told him that Aamir had to die.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So he had pulled the trigger, with tears in his eyes and a raging torrent of possibilities in his heart</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And now he came to say a silent prayer for the soul of a man who he knew had deserved better. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But now, he was free. Free of risk and danger. Free of all contingencies. There was no one left who could drag him down. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Prayer said, remorseful tears shed; he got back into his jeep and drove away; Planning in his mind how to feed his newly discovered vices. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The tempest of vengeance sated, the maelstrom of greed unleashed. </p>Phitaymaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468252619386695293noreply@blogger.com4