Drawers Part - III
Fiction
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Ekon realized it’d be time for the mess soon. A swing of light revealed the tabletop to be a mess with papers. He clumsily wiped them off to the drawer with no try to maintain any decency for later.
He was thirsty and felt agony as he found his water bottle empty getting back to his room. “Can you refill it?” Ekon asked his roommate.
“Okay. The warden was lookin’ for ’u all day. Where you have been, man?”
“Nowhere serious. I was researching for my film.”
“Cool… And what’s up with that boy?”
“Who?”
“That boy… the one who killed himself. Rit? Yeah, Rit.”
“He committed suicide like people do. Nothing to think ‘bout that. Anand did a few weeks back; that’s the fate of choosing this institute.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you bring me some water please?”
“Sure,” he paused then repeated the word.
The next day, Ekon returned and soon after Natasha arrived.
Natasha fiddled with the other drawers when Ekon found the last note he read. “How could the police miss these?” asked Natasha.
“They were probably thinking about the mark on Rit’s neck and the hole in Anand’s head. They found similar holes on other bodies in the town.”
“Other bodies? There were more suicides in town?”
“Five apparently. Can’t tell if they were suicides or murders.”
Note 11 (Distinct Script)
I heard glass shatter and attempted to find its source. Raj had entered breaking the window and was now on the floor. An infection had grown from the hole in his head. His face was eaten and all the flesh from his legs gone. I scraped the pus and carried him to his office through the back door. I looped a rope through the ceiling fan and hanged his body. He betrayed, but it was, more or less, a silent job.
Natasha discovered two notebooks in the other drawers. They were wrapped in pink-painted leather. She told Ekon and opening it made it apparent one was a personal diary and the other was a journal.
“We shouldn’t open the diary,” Ekon remarked and continued to see the journal as he snatched it from her.
“Well, we should tell the police about them. I’m pretty sure Rit was behind the suicide”
“They have probably looked at them. It’d be ridiculous to assume otherwise.” Ekon answered her.
[Dates weren’t mentioned in the journal. There were only three entries with many pages left blank between them.]
Journal
I.
Pink turned blue and pigmented until yellow neon lights were glaring fog balls in my eyes. Slanted roads led me deeper, closer to the signs. I was in North Fill last night.
“Sir, you seem to be drinking alone. May I take the seat next to you?” A man in a red suit asked — somehow that reassured me of his intentions. He guessed my age correctly, then drifted off to his past cruciverbalist career.
The bar was loosely lit. The few lights made the dust particles sparkle and there was a special shimmer in the bartender’s eyes. Everyone’s skin was teal and the decoration purple. The girl two tables away was looking directly at me, disgracing the one she was waiting for, in the ticks of the clock behind me.
That man was deemed to be forgotten. He walked to his destiny as he left. I managed to slip a blade on his leg. It got red but not enough to make it glimmer. I let it dry and curl up. Brown’s good sometimes.
II.
I saw Raj when I came to meet Iman. At least a thousand bugs were following that man. In the mazy streets, his eyes peeked at every corner between the light, which was tinted blue and diffused by ten-storey buildings. I followed him diagonally a turn away. His head hole let out reddish slime that overflowed his face, ran into his eyes which then turned into fog balls, and his tongue licked it. Slowly one of the bugs landed on his head; a second later bugs covered the whole of his face.
Now the man walked with no eyes. I lurked behind. Decreased the distance between us. Iman came like a boat crashing into the coast, his eyes turned red and he hit Raj. I pushed myself away as Raj and Iman fell and the bugs flew up. Iman started eating Raj’s face — the already decomposing face fell apart easy.
My neck itched and a silhouette moved at the corner. I got my knife out and carved his legs; Iman kept himself up. I never knew why Raj came to the 47th block. Maybe to meet me.
Iman died two days later near the butcher shop. I hung his body that night for obvious reasons. I believe Raj is still alive.
III.
I was running low on morphine but had asked Ekon — he frequently went to drug dealers for his film and bought some for me.
On Saturday, I took Anand with me to Sweeper’s land. She was ready for the ritual — of course, I promised her son back to her. Honestly, I felt bad but she spoke too much and her child was waiting for her.
Anand held red water and I lit a fire. We encircled it a few times occasionally throwing rice and wheat into it. We had made a bed out of bamboo and covered it with leaves. Dina lay there. I took a screwdriver to make the hold on her head. She was still until the first stab when she let out a fading scream. Anand ran away.
Oh, Anand, if you could listen, you were extroverted. Not weak, that’s on me. You just didn’t hold yourself to yourself. You were an asshole. I’m sorry, your “not-this-and-yous” weren’t enough, and I had to let you go today. I’m extremely sorry.
Ekon nervously went through the drawers again. He shot a video, took a whitener and whited out a few of the journal pages. Tore some and took them to the window. He held a lighter and burned the pages with shaky hands – in such haste that he managed to imprint a burn mark on his left hand when the paper was ash.
Natasha took a pen from the desk while Ekon burned the pages. She crept beside him, but Ekon saw a reflection on the offset window glass. He turned, without meaning harm, and Natasha stabbed the pen into his neck – perfectly aligning between the bones and the voice box. He tried pushing her away, painting her t-shirt ash black. She resisted and screwed the pen further in. When she pulled it out, blood shot out of the hole, and splatted her face. She breathed heavily and smelled blood that flowed down the crevice of her cheek and nose to just above her lips.
Natasha got arrested and later held the diary for her defense. Eldridge took her case.
.
THE END
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