This is my first attempt at writing a short story. I hope you guys enjoy it. Please feel free to give any suggestions.
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It’s wrong what they say about dying. My life did not flash before my eyes, only she did.
***
“I’m ready to work,” I said, catching up to Amir in the street.
“Oh really,” he said distractedly, increasing his pace. Amir had an unusual aura about him today, as if there was some sort of sword hanging over his head. He was sweating a bucket a minute, his tall frame slightly bent, nervously glancing over his back every now and then as if he was afraid of being followed.
Now I had to practically jog to keep up with him.
“Will you, for the love of god, please stop?” I panted
“No. Just stop bugging me kid, alright?” Amir twitched, “I have a job to do right now,”
I followed him to the end of the street, which opened into the marketplace. The market of our town was the most crowded place, always bustling with pedestrians and vehicles alike. Small shops lined both sides of a narrow road which was permanently jammed on account of supply trucks passing through a space barely meant for two adjacent auto rickshaws. Add on to it the hordes of people and the numerous roadside stands and you will get what Amir fondly calls ‘a fish riot in a stagnant river’.
“Here, cover your face,” he said, hurriedly handing me a handkerchief and covering his own with a similar one. I had barely put it on, when I noticed that he had drawn a knife from the pocket of his kurta.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, but Amir ignored me.
A bell chimed as we entered a barber’s shop. The shopkeeper was a middle-aged man whose face turned pale at the sight of the new visitors.
“Wh-what the…” was all he could say before Amir pulled him from behind the counter and threw him down at the floor.
“Seems like you can’t understand a simple thing, eh?” Amir growled at him, his eyes burning with rage.
“I’m s-sorry…” the man whimpered.
“Well, it’s too late you son of a bitch,”
There was a flash of silver, a scream of pain and a splash of blood. The next thing I knew was that the shopkeeper was lying dead on the floor and I was throwing up all over my shoes.
“Everything alright, dad?” came a voice from inside.
Amir turned around, his eyes split with terror. “Run!” he shouted, but I found myself rooted to the spot.
“Run, you dumb-shit!” Amir literally had to pull my arm for me to budge.
Flashes of what just had happened clogged my mind as I ran, not knowing where. After sprinting for what seemed like eternity, Amir finally stopped. He sat down on the side of the street, trying to catch his breath.
“Amir, what the hell was that?” I barely managed to say, a mixture of shock and breathlessness in my voice.
He looked up, sweat glistening on his chiseled face, smiled coolly and said, “So…kid…you wanted some work, eh?”
***
I was afraid. I could say to you that I didn’t fear death, but that would be a downright lie. Come on, I’m just eighteen. People my age are off making plans for college, not getting shot in the abdomen. Well, I had it coming, what with my parents both being dead since I was eight. Amir was the one who had practically raised me. I could hear her shouting, begging people to help me. But no one stopped for her. Everybody was busy saving their own lives. I gasped with pain; she came and sat next to me, her eyes full of tears. She held my hand in her own.
“Everything will be alright,” she squeezed my hand tight. There was something about those big brown eyes that always gave me hope.
***
She was waiting for me in our secret spot in the park. I was thirty minutes late. The big brown eyes looked at me with despair.
“Iqbal, you realize what time it is? I have been waiting here for so long and it’s so hot. You don’t care about me at all do you? I am so-“ I interrupted her by laying a kiss on her lips.
“Alright then…” she blushed after we kissed for what seemed like an entire season. She cleared some of her hair that fell to her face. I loved it every time she did that.
“I got you this,” I said giving her a rose that I had plucked from a nearby bush. I thought about how much I didn’t deserve her.
“When will we get married?” she asked me, her eyes looking deeply into mine.
Suddenly an alarm went off somewhere inside me. “W-What?” I stuttered, “Junnat, we’re just seventeen” I took a step backward, as if in self defence.
“You know that Abbu is going to marry me off as soon as I’m eighteen. Do you want me to get married to some stranger?” She started plucking the petals of the rose one by one.
“I won’t let that happen. I’ll talk to him,” The mere thought of losing her ripped me from inside.
“You know he won’t listen to you. In fact, he might even kill you,” she said casually.
“And why is that so?” I asked watching her play with the rose petals.
“Because, you don’t have a job,”
See, Junnat’s dad was this big shot press reporter with a strong moral fibre and stronger arms.
“But, I’ve got a job. I’m working for Ali bhai now, Amir hooked me up,” I smiled
“What?” she said, the smile vanishing from her face, “You can’t work for him. My dad is totally against that guy. My dad says that Ali bhai is a criminal who is terrorizing the entire town. You know, he was the one who murdered three people in our locality? And someone also killed one of the key witnesses in his trial; some barber named Janaibuddin.”
I thought of Amir.
***
“So, you’re getting busy with that Junnat chick, eh kid?” Amir said with a crooked smile on his face.
“I love her man. You’re not supposed to talk about her that way,” I said defensively.
“Love is nothing but a heartless bitch. Just when you think everything’s jolly, it will come around and bite you in the ass. Anyways, you can’t see her anymore.”
“Why?”
“Coz, if Ali bhai gets to know you’re all mushy over the reporter’s daughter…”
“I don’t think he’ll object.”
“Now you listen to me kid,” Amir grabbed my collar; his expression now stern, “Ali might seem to be a stand-up guy, but he’ll screw you six ways till Sunday if he ever even gets so much as a whiff that you’re getting in way of his business. You understand me?”
“Loud and clear. Now-please-let-go,” I pleaded.
“Anyways, you won’t have to worry about it for long,” Amir said.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you’ll see…”
***
I was in a trance. It was like I had slipped into a world of my own. I could still hear, but only in the distance, the shouts and cries of people, their pleas for help. I saw my hands; red with my own blood. My wound was pouring like a faucet. But surprisingly I didn’t feel the pain anymore. As if the pain and agony had given way to a feeling of acceptance; an odd comfort in my condition. Dying now seemed to be inevitable and somehow my mind was at peace with it.
A few drops of a warm liquid fell on my cheek and trickled down my face. I noticed that she was crying.
“It’s-gonna-be-alright,” I said to her and squeezed her hand.
My mind told me otherwise.
***
One year had passed since I had started working for Ali. I assisted Amir in carrying out Ali’s ‘business’ in the market area. Mainly it included extortion, threatening and collecting protection money from various shopkeepers. The pay was good, so I kept my conscience at bay.
One day Amir called me in the alleyway saying that he wanted to talk urgently.
Amir was waiting for me when I got there. He was looking just short of having a nervous breakdown. His clothes were damp with sweat; his hair was all messed up and he was panting like a dog,
“Amir you look like shit, what happened man?” I teased.
“Look-kid, you gotta take that little girlfriend of yours and skip town, okay?” he said
“What? Why?”
“Because, Ali knows about you too…” he shouted, “I told you to break it off. But you just won’t listen to me, would you?”
“Hey, it can’t be that bad?” I said coolly
Ali pulled out a revolver from the pocket of his kurta and pointed it at me, “He sent me to kill you…”
You watch movies and you think that you’d act just like the hero. But when a revolver is pointed at you, you get the shit scared out of you.
“W-what?” was the only word I could fathom.
“Yeah, that’s right. But don’t worry I’m not gonna kill you,” he said lowering the revolver.
I took a sigh of relief and checked whether I had wet myself. Fortunately, I hadn’t.
“This is not what I signed up for!” he kicked a wall. Amir sounded angrier at himself than me or Ali.
“Now, they have planned to kill that reporter and burn down the entire locality. I don’t give a shit for them, but I know that you do. So, we have to stop them. They have, like, a thirty minute head start,” he said matter-of-factly.
“But how are we supposed to reach there before them?” I enquired.
“Well, they don’t know that it’s a race”
***
I thought of God. I still remembered how my Ammi had to practically drag me to the mosque. God and I had always had relation that worked best if we maintained a safe distance from each other. But now that I was on the brink of death, I thought of whether there really was a god? Whether I would now be Judged for my deeds? Maybe I would be reborn. Was rebirth instantaneous, or would I have to spend some time in heaven? Would I even go to heaven? Considering the things I had done, I was certainly earmarked for hell. Well, I would find out soon.
I looked at her face and realized ‘There could be no heaven for me. I’m leaving it behind.’
***
“They killed Abbu,” she cried. I held her in my arms.
We had lost the race. Her house was on fire, and so was the entire locality. Ali’s men had wrecked havoc. Everyone was running for their lives. Some were trying to put out their houses by throwing buckets of water. In one corner I saw a mother holding her child’s burnt corpse. In other places little children were crying for their mothers.
“We need to get out of here, Romeo,” Amir said. He handed me a revolver, “Just in case.”
We started making our way through the mayhem when there was a bang and a bullet went flying over our heads. We turned around to see Jamad and two of his men. They also worked for Ali bhai and were Amir’s rivals.
“Well well…if it isn’t Amir and his bastard,” he sneered, “Ali bhai- jaan warned me that you might pull a stunt like this. Luckily, now I get to kill you.”
Jamad fired another shot. It missed me by inches. Amir pulled me and Junnat behind the fallen roof of a house.
“Jamad, if you surrender now I might let you walk alive,” Amir shouted loading his revolver.
Jamad laughed. “Amir, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. There’s three of us and only two of you. Do the math,”
In what felt like a millisecond Amir stood up, pointed his gun and shot one of Jamad’s men straight in the chest.
“Well that makes us even,” Amir shouted from behind the cover.
“You’re going to die, you big-mouthed wiseass,” Jamad growled
“Hey kid,” Amir whispered to me, “If I do die today, would you do me just one favor?”
“Huh-?”
“Just bury me face down, so that those who hate me can kiss-my-ass. NOW RUN,” with this, Amir stepped out of the cover and shot the second man.
What happened next was something I could never forget. Time seemed to slow down as Jamad lodged three bullets into Amir’s body. His revolver fell from his hand. Amir fell to his knees, all the time laughing at Jamad. Jamad fired another bullet into his chest. Amir collapsed to the ground and raised his middle fingers up towards the sky as if in salute. I saw the life fade away from his eyes, a smile still etched on his face.
“Nooooo!” In a flurry, I forgot about everything. A hot rage consumed me. I loaded the revolver Amir had given me and planted two bullets into Jamad. Jamad’s smile slowly turned into shock as he saw two bullet holes in his chest.
Jamad raised his pistol. There was a bang.
***
I remembered what Amir used to say about death, “Well, I’m not afraid of dying kid. As for death, that bitch better be ready for me.”
I looked at her face once again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. There was something about those big brown eyes that always gave me hope. I faintly heard the siren of an ambulance.
Well, maybe they are right about death. Your whole life does flash before your eyes. In my case…she was all I had.
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It’s wrong what they say about dying. My life did not flash before my eyes, only she did.
***
“I’m ready to work,” I said, catching up to Amir in the street.
“Oh really,” he said distractedly, increasing his pace. Amir had an unusual aura about him today, as if there was some sort of sword hanging over his head. He was sweating a bucket a minute, his tall frame slightly bent, nervously glancing over his back every now and then as if he was afraid of being followed.
Now I had to practically jog to keep up with him.
“Will you, for the love of god, please stop?” I panted
“No. Just stop bugging me kid, alright?” Amir twitched, “I have a job to do right now,”
I followed him to the end of the street, which opened into the marketplace. The market of our town was the most crowded place, always bustling with pedestrians and vehicles alike. Small shops lined both sides of a narrow road which was permanently jammed on account of supply trucks passing through a space barely meant for two adjacent auto rickshaws. Add on to it the hordes of people and the numerous roadside stands and you will get what Amir fondly calls ‘a fish riot in a stagnant river’.
“Here, cover your face,” he said, hurriedly handing me a handkerchief and covering his own with a similar one. I had barely put it on, when I noticed that he had drawn a knife from the pocket of his kurta.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, but Amir ignored me.
A bell chimed as we entered a barber’s shop. The shopkeeper was a middle-aged man whose face turned pale at the sight of the new visitors.
“Wh-what the…” was all he could say before Amir pulled him from behind the counter and threw him down at the floor.
“Seems like you can’t understand a simple thing, eh?” Amir growled at him, his eyes burning with rage.
“I’m s-sorry…” the man whimpered.
“Well, it’s too late you son of a bitch,”
There was a flash of silver, a scream of pain and a splash of blood. The next thing I knew was that the shopkeeper was lying dead on the floor and I was throwing up all over my shoes.
“Everything alright, dad?” came a voice from inside.
Amir turned around, his eyes split with terror. “Run!” he shouted, but I found myself rooted to the spot.
“Run, you dumb-shit!” Amir literally had to pull my arm for me to budge.
Flashes of what just had happened clogged my mind as I ran, not knowing where. After sprinting for what seemed like eternity, Amir finally stopped. He sat down on the side of the street, trying to catch his breath.
“Amir, what the hell was that?” I barely managed to say, a mixture of shock and breathlessness in my voice.
He looked up, sweat glistening on his chiseled face, smiled coolly and said, “So…kid…you wanted some work, eh?”
***
I was afraid. I could say to you that I didn’t fear death, but that would be a downright lie. Come on, I’m just eighteen. People my age are off making plans for college, not getting shot in the abdomen. Well, I had it coming, what with my parents both being dead since I was eight. Amir was the one who had practically raised me. I could hear her shouting, begging people to help me. But no one stopped for her. Everybody was busy saving their own lives. I gasped with pain; she came and sat next to me, her eyes full of tears. She held my hand in her own.
“Everything will be alright,” she squeezed my hand tight. There was something about those big brown eyes that always gave me hope.
***
She was waiting for me in our secret spot in the park. I was thirty minutes late. The big brown eyes looked at me with despair.
“Iqbal, you realize what time it is? I have been waiting here for so long and it’s so hot. You don’t care about me at all do you? I am so-“ I interrupted her by laying a kiss on her lips.
“Alright then…” she blushed after we kissed for what seemed like an entire season. She cleared some of her hair that fell to her face. I loved it every time she did that.
“I got you this,” I said giving her a rose that I had plucked from a nearby bush. I thought about how much I didn’t deserve her.
“When will we get married?” she asked me, her eyes looking deeply into mine.
Suddenly an alarm went off somewhere inside me. “W-What?” I stuttered, “Junnat, we’re just seventeen” I took a step backward, as if in self defence.
“You know that Abbu is going to marry me off as soon as I’m eighteen. Do you want me to get married to some stranger?” She started plucking the petals of the rose one by one.
“I won’t let that happen. I’ll talk to him,” The mere thought of losing her ripped me from inside.
“You know he won’t listen to you. In fact, he might even kill you,” she said casually.
“And why is that so?” I asked watching her play with the rose petals.
“Because, you don’t have a job,”
See, Junnat’s dad was this big shot press reporter with a strong moral fibre and stronger arms.
“But, I’ve got a job. I’m working for Ali bhai now, Amir hooked me up,” I smiled
“What?” she said, the smile vanishing from her face, “You can’t work for him. My dad is totally against that guy. My dad says that Ali bhai is a criminal who is terrorizing the entire town. You know, he was the one who murdered three people in our locality? And someone also killed one of the key witnesses in his trial; some barber named Janaibuddin.”
I thought of Amir.
***
“So, you’re getting busy with that Junnat chick, eh kid?” Amir said with a crooked smile on his face.
“I love her man. You’re not supposed to talk about her that way,” I said defensively.
“Love is nothing but a heartless bitch. Just when you think everything’s jolly, it will come around and bite you in the ass. Anyways, you can’t see her anymore.”
“Why?”
“Coz, if Ali bhai gets to know you’re all mushy over the reporter’s daughter…”
“I don’t think he’ll object.”
“Now you listen to me kid,” Amir grabbed my collar; his expression now stern, “Ali might seem to be a stand-up guy, but he’ll screw you six ways till Sunday if he ever even gets so much as a whiff that you’re getting in way of his business. You understand me?”
“Loud and clear. Now-please-let-go,” I pleaded.
“Anyways, you won’t have to worry about it for long,” Amir said.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you’ll see…”
***
I was in a trance. It was like I had slipped into a world of my own. I could still hear, but only in the distance, the shouts and cries of people, their pleas for help. I saw my hands; red with my own blood. My wound was pouring like a faucet. But surprisingly I didn’t feel the pain anymore. As if the pain and agony had given way to a feeling of acceptance; an odd comfort in my condition. Dying now seemed to be inevitable and somehow my mind was at peace with it.
A few drops of a warm liquid fell on my cheek and trickled down my face. I noticed that she was crying.
“It’s-gonna-be-alright,” I said to her and squeezed her hand.
My mind told me otherwise.
***
One year had passed since I had started working for Ali. I assisted Amir in carrying out Ali’s ‘business’ in the market area. Mainly it included extortion, threatening and collecting protection money from various shopkeepers. The pay was good, so I kept my conscience at bay.
One day Amir called me in the alleyway saying that he wanted to talk urgently.
Amir was waiting for me when I got there. He was looking just short of having a nervous breakdown. His clothes were damp with sweat; his hair was all messed up and he was panting like a dog,
“Amir you look like shit, what happened man?” I teased.
“Look-kid, you gotta take that little girlfriend of yours and skip town, okay?” he said
“What? Why?”
“Because, Ali knows about you too…” he shouted, “I told you to break it off. But you just won’t listen to me, would you?”
“Hey, it can’t be that bad?” I said coolly
Ali pulled out a revolver from the pocket of his kurta and pointed it at me, “He sent me to kill you…”
You watch movies and you think that you’d act just like the hero. But when a revolver is pointed at you, you get the shit scared out of you.
“W-what?” was the only word I could fathom.
“Yeah, that’s right. But don’t worry I’m not gonna kill you,” he said lowering the revolver.
I took a sigh of relief and checked whether I had wet myself. Fortunately, I hadn’t.
“This is not what I signed up for!” he kicked a wall. Amir sounded angrier at himself than me or Ali.
“Now, they have planned to kill that reporter and burn down the entire locality. I don’t give a shit for them, but I know that you do. So, we have to stop them. They have, like, a thirty minute head start,” he said matter-of-factly.
“But how are we supposed to reach there before them?” I enquired.
“Well, they don’t know that it’s a race”
***
I thought of God. I still remembered how my Ammi had to practically drag me to the mosque. God and I had always had relation that worked best if we maintained a safe distance from each other. But now that I was on the brink of death, I thought of whether there really was a god? Whether I would now be Judged for my deeds? Maybe I would be reborn. Was rebirth instantaneous, or would I have to spend some time in heaven? Would I even go to heaven? Considering the things I had done, I was certainly earmarked for hell. Well, I would find out soon.
I looked at her face and realized ‘There could be no heaven for me. I’m leaving it behind.’
***
“They killed Abbu,” she cried. I held her in my arms.
We had lost the race. Her house was on fire, and so was the entire locality. Ali’s men had wrecked havoc. Everyone was running for their lives. Some were trying to put out their houses by throwing buckets of water. In one corner I saw a mother holding her child’s burnt corpse. In other places little children were crying for their mothers.
“We need to get out of here, Romeo,” Amir said. He handed me a revolver, “Just in case.”
We started making our way through the mayhem when there was a bang and a bullet went flying over our heads. We turned around to see Jamad and two of his men. They also worked for Ali bhai and were Amir’s rivals.
“Well well…if it isn’t Amir and his bastard,” he sneered, “Ali bhai- jaan warned me that you might pull a stunt like this. Luckily, now I get to kill you.”
Jamad fired another shot. It missed me by inches. Amir pulled me and Junnat behind the fallen roof of a house.
“Jamad, if you surrender now I might let you walk alive,” Amir shouted loading his revolver.
Jamad laughed. “Amir, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. There’s three of us and only two of you. Do the math,”
In what felt like a millisecond Amir stood up, pointed his gun and shot one of Jamad’s men straight in the chest.
“Well that makes us even,” Amir shouted from behind the cover.
“You’re going to die, you big-mouthed wiseass,” Jamad growled
“Hey kid,” Amir whispered to me, “If I do die today, would you do me just one favor?”
“Huh-?”
“Just bury me face down, so that those who hate me can kiss-my-ass. NOW RUN,” with this, Amir stepped out of the cover and shot the second man.
What happened next was something I could never forget. Time seemed to slow down as Jamad lodged three bullets into Amir’s body. His revolver fell from his hand. Amir fell to his knees, all the time laughing at Jamad. Jamad fired another bullet into his chest. Amir collapsed to the ground and raised his middle fingers up towards the sky as if in salute. I saw the life fade away from his eyes, a smile still etched on his face.
“Nooooo!” In a flurry, I forgot about everything. A hot rage consumed me. I loaded the revolver Amir had given me and planted two bullets into Jamad. Jamad’s smile slowly turned into shock as he saw two bullet holes in his chest.
Jamad raised his pistol. There was a bang.
***
I remembered what Amir used to say about death, “Well, I’m not afraid of dying kid. As for death, that bitch better be ready for me.”
I looked at her face once again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. There was something about those big brown eyes that always gave me hope. I faintly heard the siren of an ambulance.
Well, maybe they are right about death. Your whole life does flash before your eyes. In my case…she was all I had.
