By Mushtaque B Barq
“Why are you looking perplexed”, I asked my better half. She only turned her head and paid no attention to me. I stood but her ignorance before splitting the log of my ego like a merciless axe, I left, but, there was a grave silence on those otherwise quivering lips, I was fond of. She had something mysterious in her thoughtful eyes which were moving occasionally to monitor the proceeding around her, but I was out of her focus. The rustle of the leaves down the lawn lured her attention as our beloved son was gaily moving his limbs. He was like a fawn ravishing the edges of lawn.
Her face lit up and I moved off the window.
He came and joined her at the window. She smiled and rolled her hand on his head. He reacted sharply. “Why on earth people are jealous of my silky mass”, he muttered.
She encouraged him to gaze at the sky and predict something. He raised his brow like the clouds hide the azure bowl of heaven. He wanted to move off, but she dragged him to gaze. In opposition to his willpower, he stationed himself at the window, but struggled. His mysterious gazing at the sky was just another tale, unusual and unpredicted.
She stroked his head, put on the hood and pulled him close to her bosom, infused all the warmth she had. Love is such a medicine that cures all ails save death and he was the worst victim.
“What do you want me to predict?” he asked.
“My boss is a bit of hard nut, I want to show him down, tell me about him”, she expressed her grief.
“But I don’t know him”, the boy simply asked.
All of a sudden the crimson of her cheeks marked its agitation on her eyes and she pulled him closer and whispered into his ears. Those words must have been merciless, he drew himself off the window and pushed the other one and raised his head.
Slowly his eyes appeared bigger; his face like a sheet of ice was feelingless. He hung his arms as if live were squeezed out of them. His head moved to and fro and then it appeared as if raised on the steel rod, unmoved and lifeless. He seemed to absorb the entire cosmos in his pupils. She was watching him, eager to get a note which she would cash to get the grip over her boss.
He wanted to shake his head which hardly allowed his instincts to express; his eyes were almost out of his sockets, his tongue stuck between his fangs. His half dead screams were struggling to ease his heart. Tossing his head against the sill of the window, thousand tulips were vomited out of his leaked jaws. She was just watching woefully. He drew her off and fell down like a limb of a tree on the ground. He was on for a forced practice, but perhaps those whispers had snared him badly and he acted much against those mysterious experiences.
He was on the floor like a log. I rushed to rescue him, took his head in my lap and shouted at my wife. She sensed my upcoming verbal venom and left nervously.
He screamed, his jaw bones moved. He raised his fallen head and shut those horrible eyes. I was sure that he would soon give up the ghost.
But my prediction turned only my vague guess.
He tossed his head and opened slowly his eyes and called her mother, she came hesitantly to attend him.
“Your boss will soon receive a message of her seven year old crippled daughter’s death”, he finally announced.
She relaxed and left him where he was. To my surprise he got up and eased himself in armchair. His chin and cheeks were painted red. He cleaned his face with the sleeves of his shirt and examined minutely the smears of his own blood. His limbs were knocked down like dry leaves. He rested his neck on the support of his armchair, exposing his throat like a lamb ready to satisfy the butcher.
“What happened dear?” I asked.
He only held my hand and placed it on his chest, it was palpitation severely. He was lonely in the world of his own suffering, I was just a spectator, yes, only a wooden sculpture. I pulled his hood immediately and his heart regained its natural rhythm. He opened his eyes and the sea drained out of his sockets.
While I was nursing him, she was passing the secret freshly unfolded to her on telephone. With authority and arrogance as her weapons, she was dictating the terms like she was never accustomed to.
“Yes, tell him be ready for the worst”, she was repeatedly shouting at someone on the line.
Hardly knowing that she had the worst of her before her own revenging eyes, but hatred had pulled down the shutters of kindness and she was a living monstrous conveying the message of death to someone whom she disliked. The message of death, as she believed was a word from horse’s mouth, sure and safe. She passed her last verdict when I pulled my son to a better place to ease him.
“Leave him, he will be ok soon”, she suggested.
“Now that his hood is my property, he has to put it on only at my will”, she directed.
I was shocked when after a few silent moments in the room, the telephone barked and I received the news “Boss’s crippled daughter has give up the ghost”
She dialed and forced her bogus compassion through the narrow nerve that connected her with the one who was in need of condolence to violate the rules of humanity.
“I am sorry, she was a noble soul, may she Rest in Peace.”
The tired out lesser mortal from a corner just raised his pale face and whispered…..
It was just another communiqué between creature and the Creator, hard to decipher.
Mushtaq B.Barq is a Columnist, Poet and Fiction Writer. He is the author of “Feeble prisoner, “ Wings of Love” and many translation works are credited to the author like “ Verses Of Wahab Khar” and “ Songs Of Sochkral”
