mobile,
and
swiped
his
finger
to
the
right
of screen as soon as he saw the caller’s name. My love.
‘WHERE ARE YOU?’ she screamed blue murder as the call was picked up. ‘WHERE
THE HELL ARE YOU?’
Raman was frowned. He gulped his nervousness inside, and asked, ‘I was…..
sleeping. What happened.’ He had sensed a calamity.
‘Ipsa...they took her,’ she burst out in crying at her loudest. Raman was frozen so
deep that a thousand stones pelted on him would go waste.
‘Where are you?’ he asked. His tone had grown authoritative now, and rageous.
‘I am at Akanksha's house,’ Namrata shrieked, still sobbing. Raman didn't know the
friends she made in past four years, but Akanksha was not among those.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yes. My daughter is kidnapped, my home has been
burnt.
And
i almost
died
a
dozen
times in past 24 hours. I see no reason to be worried,’ she was howling.
I am sorry you have to go through this ruin because of me.
‘Meet me at Great India Place...at 11,’ Raman said, and she disconnected the call.
Raman dropped the phone on the bed and glanced around his home. The sofa had
been turned upside down, and the books had been dropped off the shelves. The
telescreen had a hole in it, and every glass made artefact was broken into pieces.
Even the bathroom and the kitchen was not spared.
He saw his hands. The circular black marks on his palm had swollen, and a design
had appeared over its surface, of a maze with
many
wrong
ways
to
reach
the
centre,
but just one correct path. Hs hands had patches of dried blood,including the rest of
his body.
The dream was real. And the memory of the blue glowing stone struck his mind. In
another instant, he was searching for them.
The diary was where he had left it last night, on the table in front o
f h
is b
ed. It a mazed h
im
to see how everything else had been messed up except the diary. It hadn’t been moved an
inch. He lifted it up, blowed the dust and ran his fingers over t he b
rown c over. C
reases h
ad
appeared on its spongy leather, and the ‘W’ at front was battered. On the back right c orner
of the diary were the letters H G in an old serif typeface. And he found it heavier than the
last time. Something is hiding inside the diary.
He put the diary back on the table, and opened it slowly from the middle. And blue light
discharged from the cracks between the pages. He opened it further, and the light w
ent o
n
intensifying a s h
e p
ul ed a part t he two f aces o
f t he n
otebook. The v ivid b
lue l ight p
enetrated
through his eyes and a series of scenes flashed in his mind.
The mark on his palm had appeared on the surface of stone- he adjoined the marks on his p alms w
ith
those on the stone a nd curled his fingers a round i t- the stone s plendored w
ith flame a nd h
e maneuvered
it inside a mechanical hole- the stone sent a beam and it hit a football shaped ball with o nly e dges. A
buckminster ful er. The ful er charged up, and its nodes began glowing like stars t hat found li
ght. The
current flew from a w
ire that e merged f rom a circuit at the c entre of the fuller, a nd h
e turned h
is h
ead t o
face the dead screen on the wall. And the screen lit up. A terminal appeared on t he b lack s creen w
ith a
prompt. His machine was working.
He closed the diary, and stepped back. Freakin’ Impossible.
-----*-----
19
Raman was in a dilemma. After al the events, it w
as i mpossible t o k
eep h
is f aith s turdy a nd
shal ow. The power was real, he had felt it himself. And the power was with him. The dead
hope revived, and he set out to wash al the blames he had taken, and al the failures he
endured. The anger for his master was gone, and he found himself weeping in the shower.
The world was in a dilemma too, as it always has been. The dilemma of freedom from self,
the dilemma of having abundance o
f t ime. B
ut t hat d
ay, i t w
as d
ifferent. T
hey were s tunned
by the behavior of weather from past evening. The clouds were stiff black, as if made of
paint, and the rain w
as s traight a nd u
niform. A
nd i t w
as just o
ver a c ity, l eaving t he weather
forecasters scratching their heads. And in the morning, the clouds were melting. Now, the
Sun was boiling water fil ed in New Delhi, and extreme humidity took over. The domestic
electricity supply had been cut off, and each person’s sweat could fil a bucket in an hour.
Amidst al flaming chaos, he set out for Noida. The metros were on, helping people reach
their destinations, as it always has been. Perhaps, they were built for that day.
*
Namrata was seated in a corner on the top floor of Grand India Place, the heart of
Noida. The vast stretched mall was once the biggest mall in India, and it was a
complete different world in itself. And she was thinking about life and death. Her
eyes were swollen, and burning
red.
Her
face
was
an
eroded
ground.
She
was
seated
with her back facing the entry points, and kept an
eye
around
to
protect
herself
from
any goon.
Raman walked up to her from behind and
patted
her
back.
She
sensed
her
hand,
and
her eyes closed themselves. He got up and wrapped herself around his chest. He
blanketed his hands as well, and she immersed her head in his chest.
‘My family….I want my family,’ she said, sobbing.
Raman kissed her forehead, and the nostalgia gripped both of them. The smell of
dove fused with a familiar aroma of body lotion pulled back the memories they had
locked in the deepest corners of the hearts. He put his brown leather bag on the
table and they sat beside each other.
‘Please give them whatever they need.’
‘I do not have it,’ he shrieked.
‘You are a terrible liar,’ she looked at him. ‘You do not love us?’
‘Yes I do. You are my world. But if i give it to them, they’ll destroy the world.’
She jerked her shoulders. Do not tell me stories.
‘They are after the gemstone. And they won’t stop after acquiring it. They’ll kill us,
and they’ll kill millions of innocent others.’
His words struck her like a bullet. They
made her re-think
of the dreams that recurring
for some time. ‘This can’t be real.’
‘My feeling was mutual, until i saw them myself.’
Namrata thought for a moment, and something clicked her mind. This was
spontaneous, because the same idea struck him as well. There is telepathy between
hearts. The light can save us.
He pulled out the diary from his bag, and handed it over to her. Do. Not. open. It.
‘This diary….I recovered it from Guha’s home,’ he explained, ‘it is that cursed diary
that haunts its owner in their dreams.’
‘Did it affect you?’
‘Not much. But it almost killed me.’
She didn’t say a word. Neither did he. ‘You don't believe me?’
‘I believed you once. And once more. And again once more. And you shattered my
faith every single time.’
She knew it was impossible to forget the past. Nothing
could
do
that,
no
matter
how
much someone else loved her, a part of her heart would
always
burn.
She
knew
how
to respond to situations like these, which were a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.
Neeta’s phone
began
to
ring
and
the
name
that
flashed
on
the
screen
straightened
all
the lines on her forehead. She got off the chair and rushed to
a
corner,
not
willing
to
miss it by any chance.
When she returned back, she was sweating. ‘They’re here.’
It was noon
and
the
heat
was
at
its
peak.
Raman
and
Namrata
walked
out
of
the
east
gate of the mall and found hundreds of men waiting for them, lead by their boss.
‘Here you are, two old birds flocking together again.’
-----*-----
20
‘I feel closer to our maker when i see pain, and tragedy. He puts us through pain,
because he enjoys watching us suffer. It certainly makes him feel superior over us,
over all of us.’ Qadri was preaching his prisoners, who were on their knees with two
men holding guns at their back. It certainly made him feel superior over them. Over
all of them.
‘Search him,’ he commanded, and his loyal ones snatched away his bag while the
others began scavenging him.
The goon holding the bag was a young, new lad who was flooding in loyalty for his
new boss. The amateur ones, they have always been the most dangerous. He tore
apart the flap cover of bag, opened all the zips, turned it upside down and shook the
bag as turbulently as he could. Raman’s eyes were fixed on his bag, and his heart
skipped a beat as the diary fell out of it.
‘What is that?’ asked Qadri,
with
his
eyes
fixed
on
the
object
that
wasn't
behaving
like
all the other lifeless things in the world. Only he didn't know, man made things are
more alive than man himself now a days.
The diary closed itself as soon as it touched the ground, and smoke began rising
from the pages inside. It was shivering, its four edges vibrating violently like a
drowning man withers for air.
The goon picked up the diary, without a wave of fear in his eyes, and handed it over
to his boss. He was standing with his back facing the sun, and as he held the spine
of the diary, its vibrations dulled down. The pages were still sending out smokes
though.
‘Amazing,’ he said, and flipped it over to see
the
back.
He
rubbed
his
fingers
over
the
letters HG, and opened the diary in a shot.
Just a simple diary. He smirked, and tossed the diary at Raman. It fell close to
Raman, who was still on his knees, his hands at his back. The notebook was
smoldering, and tiny streams of smoke were erupting out from inside. Bubbles had
appeared on the leather of its cover, as if it were baked in an oven.
‘I need them….right now.’ Qadri walked closer to R
aman, a nd w
hispered i n h
is e ars. ‘ Or, s he
dies. .right now.’
And upon his naked words, the goons behind the two captives p
ul ed o
ut a m
auser f rom h
is
inner pocket and pointed the gun’s barrel at her head.
Namrata’s heart was bumping like a car on a rocky path, struggling to maintain her calm
while a beast was reluctant to sprout her skul with a bul et. One bul et could be a lifetime
supply, one time payment of al her sufferings.
Her eyes were wet when he saw them, but fearless. The wilful woman was not afraid of
dying, but the mother inside her was on edge for her child’s life.
‘I do not have them,’ Raman yel ed after a motionless glare into her eyes.
‘You are a liar. And you wil burn in hel for your sins,’ Qadri cried.
‘Wil I? And what about your sins,’ Namrata screamed at her loudest. ‘You wil burn 100
times and stil your deeds won't wash away.’
‘Let's put it this way: I have my place reserved in paradise already.’
‘You need a revision, a psychiatrist and a spiritual guru’ Raman said in a n unusual s arcastic
tone, fil ed with disgust.
Though everything Qadri didn't want to hear offended him, but the one that most hurt his
pride was the underestimation of his wisdom, and beliefs.
‘Where is the fucking stone?’ he screamed at his loudest score, and his terrifying voice got
everyone’s attention around. His eyes were fuming r ed, f il ed w
ith f rustration, a nd h
is teeth
were grinding. He stood silent for a moment, then screamed again, and k
icked t he d
iary a s
hard he could.
Nobody was attending to the weird events happening to the cursed notebook. Flames were
erupting out o
f i ts sides, a nd it w
as t rembling l ike a f ish p
ul ed o
ut o
f w
ater. A
s h
e k
icked t he
burning notebook, it swung in air and fel open. And what happened n
ext s hook e veryone’s
beliefs about reality and myths, about the contemporary and the timeless.
Dazzling blue light sprinkled out of i t, and i t w
as so b
lue t hat t he s unlight f aded dul a gainst
it. Every eyebal w
as directed t o t he s ource o
f a bu
ndant b
lue l ight. I t w
as indeed, d
ivine. A
nd
people, as expected, began clicking pictures and recording videos of the light that was
brighter than the brightest they had ever known.
‘YOU ARE A LIAR, RAMAN,’ Qadri cried in rejoice. ‘Bring the kit,’ he commanded his men
the other moment and rushed toward his precious.
He knew what the blue light was. He had heard stories from his departed companion, of a
light that could the sun, a light that could open doors of infinite power for them. A goon
fetched a metal ic silver suitcase and Qadri pul ed out a pair of leather gloves out of it. The
gloves that could hold any object with touching were a g
ift t o h
im, a s ign o
f their f riendship
from his pal. A gift on a purpose.
Raman saw the gloves with bleeding eyes. It was his invention, an innovative approach to
When I Tell You A Story: Book 1 (Black River Trilogy) Page 13