He never entered an empty lift because the fear of it freely falling to the ground with him alone was dreadful. He would rather walk down the staircase which seemed a little less dangerous. He would constantly keep a watch on the speedometer when he was driven to work by his driver, constantly whispering in his ear to drive slowly. The fear of death in him had reached a height where everything around him pushed his mind to the idea of something coming for him, to end his life.
He was a successful entrepreneur, married to a beautiful woman and blessed with two little girls who meant the world to him. He had worked hard to own the luxury he lived in, from walking door to door to sell cosmetics to working 24 hours a day, and now he headed a company which had its shares soaring high each day. He was compassionate and full of life, a party animal, and a need-no-invitation guest at every party in the town, and may be that was the reason he had the fear of it all ending. He did not wish to live for decades together or the immortality, but the fear in him was of how cruel death would be to him. His subconscious was overflowing with the thoughts of how uncertain life is and how everything could end like a dream when death would wake him up in another world.
He was different when he was a kid, cheerful and fun loving, the most loved kid in the neighborhood, until the accident that took his parents away from him. He saw it happen as he walked out of his school gate towards the car his parents were waiting in, excited about his first day at school. It was a drunk truck-driver who saw him on the road at the last minute and steered right into the car his parents waited in. He was too small to understand the turn of events at that time but as he grew up, he started blaming himself for the death of his parents. His parents had paid with their lives for him to escape death once but he knew it would come again, in search of him, like it comes, for everyone.
Saturday morning, the roads were not much crowded like they are every morning, with office cabs, motorbikes and autorikshaws zooming on the roads as the working class rushed to their condensed office cubicles. He jogged along the footpath, feeling the wind on his face, and dodging potholes and electric poles, a regime he had started to keep himself fit and healthy. He stopped at a bus stop to take a two minute rest, sitting in a corner seat beside few school kids, debating on which superhero is the best. As he brushed his t-shirt to wipe away the sweat on his face he observed a kid, dressed shabbily, crossing the road and walking towards the bus stop, holding a white cane in his hand. The kid carried a bag on his back which had the books poking out from it, at one end, a striking symbol of his status.
He jumped to his feet as he saw a car speed at a distance, possibly to make it before the signal turned red which had the green light 'blinking' with the screen above it on a countdown, ' 0 5'. He raced towards the road, to save the kid who by now was in the middle of the road, struggling with his cane to find the way. The sound was loud as the car screeched away from him, leaving him on the ground in a state where he felt no pain but he couldn't feel most of his body. He slightly turned his head to see that he had pushed the kid back in time who now moved his hands on the tarmac to find his cane, which parted from him during the fall.
His vision was clouded, and his senses, numb. He felt immense pain as the blood gushed out of his body but he couldn't scream. All of his life flashed in front of him, his parents,wife, daughters, failures, success, and his fear, of death. Amidst the voices of the crowd that slowly started gathering around him, his own heartbeat was louder than his screams. With eyes staring at the sky, and a vision blurred by tears, he wondered how he could gather so much courage, such that he could actually think of opposing a speeding car. He knew he was a different person few minutes back or was he? The questions that he asked himself all this while, of how it would end for him, were being answered. He looked at the kid who touched his hand to feel his presence and sat down right next him, unaware of what has happened. The whole meaning of life and death changed for him as he thought of how worse the things could have been had he not rushed to this kid, who couldn't see with his eyes. He could feel his life being sucked out, drop by drop, breath by breath as his heart trembled under his chest to keep him alive for a little while more. He wasn't afraid of it anymore, the end, because he knew it couldn't have been any better for he got a chance to do what his parents did for him; to give life after death. His heart was on the verge of giving up but he forced a smile, at his thoughts and all those times when he tried to be overly conscious as if death was following him everywhere.
"Are you fine, sir? ", the kid asked in a whimpering voice, with his head bowed down and his eyes, closed.
" I very much am", he struggled to answer, brushing the kid's hair with his fingers, which fell lifelessly to the ground, minutes later.
- Azad Hussain @smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in
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