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The Living Dead
(© Biswapriya Purkayastha)

Page 2

I leaned across the seat again. "How much longer?"

"I don’t know, saab." The driver indicated the jumble of men, carts and rickshaws in front of us with a wave of his hand. "You can see for yourself. We can’t move."

It was at this time that I had the idea that directly resulted in my getting killed.

"All right," I said. "Stop here and let me out. I’ll go on from here."

In defence of myself I must explain a few things. I was not an inexperienced traveller; I knew well enough how taxi drivers had a well honed sixth sense designed to spot the stranger in town and to fleece him. I did not believe there was any riot; I had seen nothing out of the ordinary. And the taxi was going at a rate that would get us to our destination sometime after the sun burned out.

So, I still maintain, it was – according to the circumstances – a logical decision for me. How was I to know what would happen?

Indeed, how do any of us know what is going to happen to us and to others as a result of the actions we take? Which of us can confidently proclaim, "Today I am doing this, and the result will be that, and perhaps those may happen in the fullness of time, but nothing more"? Can anybody?

So I paid off the driver and made my way through the carts and darting urchins, past noisome open drains and little men with dirty clothes who pulled bulging sacks into dark doorways from which came the odour of stored grains and spices; I turned my body to squeeze between rickshaws so inextricably entangled there was no point in even trying to engage one of them. I walked on until the crowd thinned a little and then suddenly I was relatively free. The people around me fell away, and I was almost alone.

I turned a corner and they were upon me.

I never saw them coming. I don’t know where they sprung from, but I believe they were waiting in one of the little dark alleys alongside the street for those like me. I don’t know who they were or how many, but I was surrounded in an instant. I did not even have the time for fear; and the one in front of me reached out and grabbed my shirt.

"Here’s one," he said. I did not speak his language, but it was close enough to Hindi that I could understand. Then, to me, he said, "Where are you going, hah?"

"Uh?" I was bewildered. What did they want with me? "Who are you?" I asked in Hindi. "What do you want with me?"

"Speaking Hindi!" It seemed to infuriate the man for some reason. "Motherfucker speaks Hindi with us!" He slapped my face, lightly, back and forth, twice. I am not – I was not – a coward, and I would certainly have hit back, instinctively, but my hands were pinioned. I felt other hands drag my briefcase of papers off me. Someone else ripped my mobile off my belt. I noticed that most of them were carrying iron rods and machetes. Still, at this time, I was not seriously alarmed. This was all a stupid mistake. I had come out through worse scrapes in the past, unharmed. I still did not realise what was going to happen, or I did not want to realise.

"Fucking bearded Muslim traitor!" he screamed.

Oh heavens. "I’m not a Muslim," I said.

"Bastard." He shouted so loud he sprayed my face with saliva. "Strip him!"

I felt the hands on my clothes. I felt them grab, and pull, I felt threads part and buttons fly. The tie, caught on its pin, constricted tightly round my neck for an instant, then tore. In another instant my torso was bare. Something slashed around my waist, and my trousers collapsed round my ankles. My underwear followed suit.

"Circumcised! The fucker’s a cut-prick! That proves it! Smash him!"

"You’re wrong. I was…" I got no further. Something smashed me across the face. Almost as in a dream I watched a sharpened iron rod drive at my chest.

The rest happened in less time than it takes to tell of it. Weapons rose and fell, something hit me across the back of my head, and as I collapsed someone kicked me back against a wall so I ended sitting with my back against it. I don’t know if I was still alive at that point.

[ Continue to page 3 ]

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Genre:Living Dead
Type:Short story
Rating:5.85 / 10
Rated By:78 users
Comments: 2 users
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