Off The Edge

by Rahul Sharma

The getaway van screeched loudly and burnt tire marks onto the road as it careened into one of the cars next to it. The police car ploughed into the back of the van. The helicopter shot off by itself, continuing forward. It abruptly twisted it face the van and flew back over the van, the two cables hanging uselessly below it.

  Bob smiled. He had created the effect he desired. Resting his bleeding head in his hands, Bob sat still, waiting for death through blood loss. Within minutes, he was dead, a slight smile on his face.

  **********

  With a loud screech and a violent lurch, 6 was thrown off his feet and slammed into the wall of the van with a dull thunk, his left shoulder burning like crazy. Jerry, too was hurled bodily into a wall with a grunt and a thud. The police car’s bonnet was now halfway through the floor of the rear hold of the van. The officer crouched on the bonnet tumbled into the van’s hold, disoriented, but alive.

  The young driver, was slumped awkwardly on the driver’s seat, his head bleeding copiously. After a few seconds, his low moans stopped, so did his breath. Frost mumbled something under his breath, shaking his head sadly. With a loud groan, he hoisted himself to his feet, absorbing the scene around him.

  Glass was scattered in a thin layer across the three lane highway in front of the three large cars. The getaway van had ploughed right into the SUV that was blocking its right hand side. The SUV that had been on the left was a few metres away, its tire marks and position indicated a frantic halt. The helicopter thundered above them like some omnipresent bird, facing the way they had come from. The backup cars were now easily audible-the sirens wailing loudly through the cold, dark air.

  Frost focused on the two men lying in a huddle at the back of the van. He cocked his gun and held it in one hand, drawing out a pair of handcuffs in the other. One of the men, the large blonde, moved slowly, groaning as he did so. He looked up, saw the pistol pointing at him and paled. His friend- the one who had caused all the trouble at the Gates plaza, stood up in one fluid motion- without any apparent pain. His left hand was at an awkward angle, Frost proudly noticed this.

  “You are under arrest for orchestrating and operating the Gates Plaza tragedy. You have the right to remain silent” Frost said smugly, pointing his gun at the young terrorist’s heart, he had waited years to utter this line. The terrorist gazed at frost’s gun, a grim expression playing on his face. He said nothing.

  Frost moved forward, gun in his right hand, handcuffs in his left. He extended his hand forward to bind the young man’s hands.

  That was when the colossal explosion occurred.

  **********

  From the time the pile up had occurred on the highway below, Pilot Singh had been warbling desperately into his mike. He got no response from either of his team mates. He watched with mounting dismay as the events unfolded below on the highway. He also kept an expertly trained eye on the four approaching vehicles- three police cars and one van. It was the van which he was the most wary of, because of the gun turret mounted on its top. Which was presently manned.

  “What’s going on?” came a soft voice at Pilot’s shoulder. He turned around to see Antony standing behind the one man cockpit, drinking in the scene below.

  “Uh-oh”

  “Yes. Definitely. And look at that.” Pilot pointed out the gun turret atop the police van, which was currently trained on the helicopter. Antony swore profusely. Pilot tried yet again to contact his two grounded colleagues, but instead caught a faint voice in his earphone saying the words, “…arrest for orchestrating………Plaza tragedy….”

  That was enough for Pilot to know what was happening. He knew that 6 and Jerry were about to get arrested. So he did the only thing he could to save them- cause a distraction. With expert skills, he flicked a switch and jammed a button, sending a missile zooming towards the van, the second vehicle in the convoy of police force.

  The missile hit its mark, and the van transformed into a ball of flame, sending the surrounding cars veering away. Pilot finally heard 6’s voice in his ear. It was a single word- “Retreat!”

  Pilot didn’t need to be told twice. With a twitch of the control stick, the helicopter zoomed away, its mounted boosters aflame yet again.

  **********

  The blast was all 6 needed. As fast as light, he whipped out a pistol and fired three shots at Officer Frost, none of which hit its target. But it made the policeman duck. 6 rapidly vaulted over the policeman, Jerry following suit, scrambling out of the half wrecked vehicle, towards the undamaged SUV. As he ran, 6 pulled up his collar mike. He spat a single word into it, “Retreat!”. Heaving a sigh of relief, 6, followed by Jerry, bounded into the back of the waiting vehicle, which, in a squealing of tyres, was gone.

  Stephen Frost uttered an inarticulate roar of rage as he tried to follow the two crooks. He pulled out his pistol and took several pot shots at the two fleeing youths. Three out of five bullets pierced into Jerry’s back, hurling him onto the ground. His distraught team mate hefted him onto his shoulders and continued his run towards the car. Hopefully that would take him down for good…

  Frost watched the SUV shoot away from him, picking up speed every second, and knew that there was no chance of catching that vehicle, even with backup. He shook his head warily. “I’m retiring today.” he muttered to himself, making a mental note to send in his resignation letter, for his young rival had thwarted him again.

  **********

  The steady “beep….beep” of the electrocardiogram was the only prominent sound in the room. The old lady lay on the bed, in a peaceful sleep, her grey hair spread across the pillow. A single youth sat in the visitor’s chair, his head in his hands, in deep thought.

  There was a soft creak as the door opened and a doctor entered. “So Mr Jackson? What have you decided?”

  The youth looked up weakly. “The surgery will be successful? Definitely?” he asked quietly. The doctor adopted a neutral expression. “We can never tell. There is always that small chance of a failure.”

  Alfred stood up. “I’ll opt for the surgery. I assume there’s some paperwork involved?”

  The doctor nodded solemnly, “If you would just come with me to the office, we could finish it up in about half an hour…”

  Alfred nodded and stood up shakily. As he followed the doctor towards the door, he heard a feeble voice behind him.

  “Alfred?”

  Al turned around, his aunt had woken up. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, and her hands clenched the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed.

  “Alfred?” she repeated softly.

  “Yes Aunt Mabel?” came Alfred’s reply, slightly faltering.

  “Are they going to do the surgery?” she heard Alfred’s reply and asked him to come next to her. She sensed his presence next to her and, with a great effort, reached out to grasp his hand. She felt the smooth, hard skin of his palm.

  “Alfred, who is going to pay for it? Do you have so much money?” Alfred took a deep breath, squeezed his aunt’s hand and confidently said that he had the money.

  “I am not going to ask you how you got the money Alfred,” Aunt Mabel said softly, taking great pains to look her nephew in the eye, “But I just want to ask you one thing, have you EARNED it?”

  Alfred thought for a moment, gazing deep into his aunt’s blue eyes. His mind drifted to the four guards he had killed, and their families. His mind drifted to Anthony who had taken a day off his busy rock star schedule and was now dead tired. His thoughts finally went to Jerry, lying in the intensive care unit of a not so luxurious hospital, recovering from three bullet wounds in the back. He firmly looked his aunt in the eye and confidently declared, “Yes. I have earned it.”

  ~~~

  The little narration that doesn’t deserve a title

  He fell.

  The wind roared in his ears. The roar of the wind was all he heard, saw, smelled, tasted and felt. It was as though the wind was trying to kill him before he hit the ground. To him, it di
dn’t matter how he died, he was going to die anyway.

  His vision cleared up enough for him to see the grey cement ground. He made a mental note that it was going to be quite messy. He tried to open his mouth to scream, but it was over.

  Colour. Bright pink. The sound of flowing water. A low hubbub of voices. But he didn’t have a body.

  He imbibed his surroundings, becoming a part of them. He seemed to be some sort of gaseous substance that could occupy the entire atmosphere at once if he wanted to. He tried it. The sheer vastness of his senses overwhelmed him. He got a headache. A few seconds later, he realized, that he couldn’t have a headache as he didn’t have a head. After several minutes of debate, he came to the conclusion that headaches are actually mindaches.

  He drew himself together, literally, and tried to take in his surroundings. The sky was baby pink, several gaseous bodies such as him were floating around. The ground was liquid, a sloshy orange fluid with several colourful platforms rising up from it. People stood on these platforms, in little groups clutching wine glasses in their hands. The sound of conversation drifted through the air along with the sloshing of the liquid below.

  After taking a few minutes to figure out how to move(which involved stretching and contracting various parts, like a worm), he made his way to a platform and compacted himself into a body. He stepped on the platform and walked to the nearest group of men and women, who were in the middle of a song.

  The men wore flowing robes of deep maroon and the women wore flowing dresses of deep maroon. They welcomed him with warm smiles and pressed a glass of red liquid into his hand. He took a sip of the red liquid and felt better than he was already feeling- which was already better than ever before. They insisted that he sing along with them, but he didn’t know the song, so he just hummed smiled and waved his hands around a bit before breaking off from the group and moving on.

  The platform was large and spacious, and had nothing on it other than people and desks. Behind the desks sat blue men in white coats, tapping their fingers importantly on the desks. People were queuing up in front of these desks to talk to the blue men, who replied succinctly and continued to tap their fingers importantly on their desks.

  Further inquiry proved that the lines were to make bookings on the next flight to the world. When he asked people what the world was, they just stared at him with looks of pity. He shrugged and joined the nearest line.

  The line moved with excruciating slowness. People seemed to have long conversations with the blue men who spoke curtly. Finally, just as he reached the front of the line, the blue man stood up, placed a large “CLOSED” sign on his desk and dove off the edge of the platform for a refreshing swim. Well, wherever he was, it was quite similar to where he was from.

  He noticed that everybody was crowding around the edge of the platform, looking down at the liquid below. Before he could go over to investigate, an enormous rocket ship emerged from below the surface, spraying all observers with the sweet, sticky liquid. With a roar that drowned out everything else, the ship launched off into the pink sky. Until the roar became a din and was soon so soft that it was drowned out by the voices of the people.

  He was now confused. Totally confused. With a worried expression, he walked up to one of the robed men and asked him where they were. The man smiled- a broad smile that turned his entire face into a series of wrinkles. He then began to laugh- a full, wholesome, carefree laugh.

  “We are, young child, only in the lobby. The real deal, is nothing like this. Or so I’ve heard….” He broke off, mumbling to himself. The young child tried yet again to figure out where the ship was heading to and how to board it.

  In his second attempt, he asked a robed woman. She smiled a broad smile and laughed a carefree laugh.

  “They just go where they think is a better place, but they end up coming back here. Trust me. This is the end of the line……How do you get on to a ship? Well you book a ticket at one of the desks and then you just dive in and find a seat. But trust me, it’s the same as down here.”

  She gave him a maternal smile and ambled away, enthusiastically joining in to the song of the nearest group, leaving him more confused than ever before.

  He swore under his breath. Actually, he didn’t quite swear. He uttered the words “god dammit” Unfortunately, when one is in a place that one reached after one’s death, it is quite unwise for one to utter any phrases regarding gods as it may result in strange consequences.

  The moment he uttered those two and a half words, the entire area fell silent. Every single being on every platform in sight turned to look at him. Thousands upon thousands of eyes turned to look at him.

  Blue eyes, green eyes, black eyes, brown eyes, lazy eyes, blind eyes, eyes on stalks(there was one creature on a platform far far away, which had an eye on a stalk), bloodshot eyes, drugged eyes and some closed eyes. All turned to look at him.

  Naturally, he did feel a little conscious. He smiled nervously at the nearest group of robed men and women, who began to back away quite vigorously. The orange liquid began to churn; tall waves began crashing against the base of the platform. The previously clear pink sky began to slowly darken to a shade of orange, mirroring the “sea” below, and darkening further to a deep shade of red. As one, all the men and women began to chant strange long incantation like song. Its words were not English(their previous songs were popular numbers from the twentieth century) and it had a ghastly air about it.

  He began to panic. The crowd of men and women, who looked quite hostile now, began moving towards him. He started moving away from them. He looked behind him, he was getting close to the edge, he began to fear for his afterlife. If he fell, he wasn’t sure what was going to happen to him, but he didn’t want to fall anyway.

  He reached the edge. He was now panicking. The crowd of men and women drew closer, grinning maniacal grins and chanting with great intensity. One more step and he would fall of the edge. One woman stretched out, reaching to grab his throat. He was terrified. He was either going to fall or be throttled. He held his breath.

  And then everything changed.

  With a loud ‘ping’, the woman reaching for him disappeared. This was followed by several loud ‘pings’ with which everybody disappeared. There was a loud swooshing sound and the sky changed from deep red to a bright acid green. He covered his eyes to protect them from the brightness of the green sky. He now stood alone on a platform in the middle of an orange ocean.

  The sound of his breathing was the only thing he could hear. Even the orange waves that lapped against the base of the pillars made no sound. For an infinite amount of time, he stood alone, looking out at the orange sea with an expression of confusion. He tried shouting a few phrases in every language he knew. Nothing happened. The deafening silence continued to overwhelm him.

  After a while, he sat down, dangling his legs off the platform, contemplating jumping off. Anyway he was dead, that was for sure, why not see what happens? He couldn’t swim very well and was quite sure he would drown within minutes. He had just stood up on his two feet, stretching before jumping, when a voice spoke out from behind him and nearly made him fall into the water.

  “Hello there, son”

  He whirled around, expecting to see another maroon robed murderer. Instead he saw nobody. He shook his head, assuming that he was hearing things and was about turn back when the voice spoke again.

  “Look again boy.”

  He looked again. And he realized that the voice was coming from a white, bespectacled duck, which was about a foot tall. The duck looked up at him and calmly spoke, in a clear, androgynous voice. The voice was gentle and caring, but nevertheless, had a firm tone.

  “I believe you asked me to damn something?”

  What the hell? THIS was God? GOD WAS A DUCK? He stared at the little white bird with disbelief, his eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. He was somehow unable to utter a coherent sentence. The sheer surprise and unexpectedness of the situation managed to s
hut his voice into his throat. So he began to shake his head wildly, swinging it from side to side. Finally, after several head shakes(all being watched by the God-Duck) he managed to splutter out a sentence.

  The duck heard him and looked at itself for a moment. And then spoke in a rather surprised voiced “Oh dear! Am I still like this? Give me a moment and I’ll be with you in a non freaky form yeah?”

  With those words, the bird launched itself up into the air. With frantically beating wings, the duck flew off the platform and plunged into the sea below. A moment later, he heard a splash and a very wet man flew onto the platform from below.

  He was not very old, he was not very young. About forty-ish. He wore baggy pants and a loose orange tie and dye shirt. Several rings adorned his fingers and a pair of shades was propped on his forehead. Wet brown curls fell over these shades almost covering his green-blue eyes. He gave the young man a warm smile and beckoned him to stand besides him.

  “So……” said god, as he sat with the dead boy on the edge of a platform. “So….whats up?”

  Our young hero was flabbergasted. A few hours ago, he was falling from a tall building. Now he was being “supped” by a hippie who claimed to be god. His life/death had probably reached the epitome of its weirdness.

  “Can we have all the people back?” he requested, “Its getting a bit quiet and eerie.”

  With a nod of assent, the god-guy snapped his fingers and everything resumed to normal- Robed men and women appeared and immediately began singing a popular Beatles number. Blue men popped into existence and began impatiently tapping their fingers on the counter. The hubbub grew and everybody began going about their business completely indifferent about the fact that they were missing for a few minutes.

  ”Okay” the boy said, now that some amount of normality had been returned to the so-called-world around him, “WHERE the hel-” He cut himself off before he used another meaningful word, “WHERE on eart-” Nope. That wouldn’t work either. “Where am I?”

  ”Hmmmmm” He looked out over the vast expanse of fluid. “Hmmmmm”