It was Sunday. He had spent 200 rupees to reach the nearest Subway outlet just to have his favourite sandwich only to find out that the jalapenos and black olives, which he loved and part of the reason why he loved that sandwich, along with six other sauces were finished. He was disheartened. The guy at the counter had shamelessly offered to make the sandwich with whatever is left but it would be like having your favourite cheese pizza without any cheese. This made him angry and furious but all he could do was turn around and walk away with the blank face and his tightly clenched fist as his only expression. His anger made him decide to not have dinner at all.
Call it bad luck or co-incidence but things became worse. The auto he took to reach his hotel broke down on the way and he was stranded on a highway with not a single soul walking on the road, only the heavy traffic moving past him. He looked at his watch. It was 11:50 pm. Standing alone on a highway in the middle of the night scared the shit out of him. He had seen it on TV and News channels that it was a particularly notorious area which was quite popular among goons. He had listened to that bearded guy on that news channel talking about all types of crimes committed in the area. He wondered if his name will be the next to appear on his show. He started imagining things. He wondered if some drunken men will come in their SUV and rob him of his belongings, strip him naked and beat the fucking shit out of him. He could see the headline flashing on TV, “Ghaziabad ke ek shaant ilaake mein sansani fail gayi jab chaar Gundon ne beech sadak mein ek naujawaan ko nangaaa karke loota”. He rubbished the thought and gave in to a more erotic one wherein a couple of sex obsessed chicks would kidnap him in their Mercedes and rape him of his virginity. He had kept himself safe and untouched for that special girl whom he would give his everything. But he had been single all his life and now the idea of being raped by hot chicks seemed like not a nightmare but as his only hope at ever living that pleasure. But when everything is going absurdly wrong then an occurrence of this event would contradict all his sufferings so far. Somehow he knew that the worst was yet to come. So he discarded all the vivid and graphic images that his mind had been busy creating for him.
He found himself a place to sit alongside the road and started waiting for some kind of conveyance to take him back to the safety and comfort of his hotel room and deliver him from the tortures of the day. He was all alone there with the traffic as his only disturbance and his only friend. Without knowing he lifted his head to relax but his eyes fixated themselves at the sky. He saw the various shades of grey clouds violently mixing and melting into each other only to change from one undefined, unbound, unclear entity to another and a more mysterious one. He realised how it was a reflection of his own state of mind, confused, uncertain and full of doubts about himself. His eyes moved and found themselves a place to rest unfocussed at some distant unidentifiable shape and his troubled mind started playing with him.
Well, there was a time when he used to be full of confidence. He was quite a hard working guy. He wouldn’t let small misfortunes set him back. He would stubbornly face the so called bad luck and deal with it like any real hardworking man would. He never let the uncontrollable incidences get the better of him. But the past two years had been really tough on him. You see, it’s hard for most people to respond to the truly fucked up events in their life in a proper dignified manner. And there were times when he wanted to scream and cry. Well, he didn’t because he was a guy who faced all his issues like a man. But lately he had been tired and exhausted from his constant fight with the hurdles that life had presented to him without any respite. His endurance was giving away and the fatigue had crawled in but his hardships kept piling and so did his anger and frustrations. His emotions were looking for a release and tonight was the perfect setup of events with all the props, sets and lights in place. The final scene, where he was the central character, ready to deliver his monologue, his emotions ready to explode, waiting only for the trigger.
Sitting on the highway, his imagination took the front seat and transported him to an altogether different realm of consciousness. He started talking to himself as if he was looking into a mirror and talking to that persona on the other side of the glass. But somehow he couldn’t see that face in the mirror. He had always known that guy separated from him only by that thin sheet of glass. He could feel the agonizing pain of that figure in the mirror growing with each passing second, almost as if it was his own suffering. But he was unable to recall his name. He shuddered with pain.
Then suddenly, a sharp horn of a vehicle came approaching towards him and pierced through his sub conscious like a bullet has gone through his head and he saw the image in the mirror breaking into pieces. He closed his ears in reaction as if to stop that mirror from breaking but it shattered into pieces and vanished. Now it was just him in the middle of that road, all alone. He realised that the image in the mirror was his own and how lonely he has always been.
He screamed, “What the Fuck”. And that was all he could say. He wanted to shout and complain as if someone would listen and answer. He wanted to ask, “What is wrong today...Why everything is going wrong...What is wrong with me...What is wrong with everyone...Why am I so angry and irritable these days...Why am I so hateful all the time...Where is my share of happiness...And why am I stuck here in the middle of nothing...I should have been in a nightclub boozing and dancing with hot chicks around me and yet I’m here, single and waiting for a fucking rickshaw in the middle of the night...Isn’t it enough already...Is there a better way to screw me up or is this the best you can do?”. But all his frustrations, his rage, his innocent and honest incertitude, found release in that single elegant yet eloquent outcry for deliverance “What the Fuck”.
But no one was listening. He felt lonely. He felt abandoned.
He stood up and started running on the road in the direction of the traffic. He ran and he ran as fast as he could. He ran as if he was running away to escape from his loneliness and that fucked up life of his. But the faster he ran the lonelier he grew. He became numb. He could no more hear the sound of the traffic. He could only feel the drift of the vehicles brushing past his skin. Each passing vehicle tore a page from his safely locked away album of miseries and presented it in front of him, staring at him in its stark reality, reminding him how hard he had fought only to lose each time. It was a race between him and his accumulated miseries. And he wanted to win it this time.
He didn’t know what fearless power took over his body or when did he decide to swing his body in front of that fast approaching car, but its glaring bright lights blinded his eyes and all he could see now was his true self emerging from the depths of an unknown abyss. He could feel the blood rushing throughout his body. He could feel the adrenalin kick in. He could feel his heart beat. His senses heightened. He became conscious of the existence of his whole body the sum of which is called life. For once in a long time, he felt alive. He lifted his hands as if to feel and embrace the moment. He felt himself rise in air. He was rid of all his frustrations, his miseries, his uncertainties. They were no longer a concern for him anymore for he could see the truth about himself, the simple truth that he loved life. That he had always loved the challenges, that he had always faced the gravest conditions with his full strength and that he had always been truthful to that rule which he lived by, the will to never give up.
And in its reality came the realisation that he wanted to live. He felt guilty of abandoning his greatest strength tonight. He wondered if it was too late for him to take his steps back to life. But even if it’s late he couldn’t give up now. Not when he had realised his greatest virtue, his will to never give up no matter what. There was no time left to think. He gathered his consciousness to perform that one act, which as well might be his last but will absolve him of his guilt and will prove his true love for life. He opened his eyes and made his last attempt at living life in all its glory. He could feel his body become light and weightless. All his exhaustion disappeared and he felt a new source of energy growing within him which comes from sheer stubbornness to live. He could feel the smile returning on his face and it had a quality which only the guiltless and honest can enjoy.
He took a breath and felt his heart beat for a last time as he went into action. In the lightning motion of his body he moved sideways in an attempt to avoid the collision. His heart stopped and time slowed down when he saw that car swing out of his way in a sharp curve. His eyes followed the car as he heard the sound of the brakes and the screeching of the tyres. The smile of his face was still transforming to that expression of shock and sorry. He realised that when he had decided to end his life, he had put another life in danger sitting in that car. His body was still in motion, still adjusting and turning to follow the car but the car had already stopped after making a 180 degree turn on the road without any damage.
He didn’t know when his heart started beating again but he could hear his heart beating faster than the speed at which he ran. He could see through the windshield the white inflated airbag at the driver’s seat. He reached the car and tried to open the door of the driver’s seat. But it was locked. The girl inside was unconscious. He went to the front door on the other side and flung his elbow at its window. He didn’t have time to feel the pain or look at his bleeding elbow but the window shattered at its blow. He opened the door and carefully and slowly dragged the girl out of the car and laid her on the sideways of the road. By this time the traffic had stopped and a good amount of people had already gathered around them. His safety and first aid lessons came to his aid.
He asked the people around to call for an ambulance. And in the meanwhile, he checked her carefully for any vital injury but found none. Her pulse was alive. But she wasn’t breathing. He knew how to administer rescue breathing. He tilted her head and lifted her chin. And with careful precision he opened her mouth, pressed his lips onto hers and started giving her mouth to mouth breathing. As he tried to recover her he could taste her strawberry flavoured lipstick on his own lips. He could sense the sweet perfume on her neck working overtime to remove that bad alcoholic smell coming from her mouth. Then it occurred to him that his lips were onto the lips of a girl. He was taken aback. He lifted his head to see her face under the street light. He couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. For a second there, his heart skipped a beat because he knew that he had fallen for her and that it was he who was responsible for this condition of hers. He kept trying to recover her and then at that moment he felt her body move. He moved himself back. He saw her gasping for breath and her body move in reaction. He was looking at her with the guilt and an honesty of a little boy. She came back to life. He didn’t know who she was. He didn’t know what to do now. But he didn’t stop himself from grabbing her in his arms. He hugged her and kept on saying sorry. She loosened herself from his grip and as if in full knowledge of herself, she slapped him. And then he heard her whisper to him. She said, “Thanks”. With this she fainted in his arms. He didn’t understand the reason for the thanks. And he said, “What the Fuck”.
