I had always been a Sunday person. For me the day was about forgetting all the nuisances long weekdays posted on you. Sunday was meant to be enjoyed, relaxed. The clock tower struck six times to announce the sun was fading away. For a dull December evening it wasn’t that cold. I lit a cigarette and allowed the smoke to feed my thoughts.
Last 24 hours had been intense and revealing. The events had left me torn between choices, I was confused. I am not the person someone would relate the state of confusion to , Most of the times I knew what I wanted and I also knew what was right , My morality consisted of bringing my wants as close to as what was right. There was nothing more I cared about.
But I was confused, I needed answers. The evening faded away to glory to be replaced by the dark duskiness of the night. He was still nowhere to be seen. The park which was bustling with activity an hour back was now deserted. I sat there alone embossed in my thoughts when I was startled by the presence of another soul behind me.
I turned around to face the intruder and I found myself looking directly at him. He was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday and he smelled like garbage. The white cloth wrapped on his right hand mocked at my superiority. It was the reason I was here, wasting a Sunday evening.
“Come here, sit down” I asked. “I am not here as your school counselor, the guy doesn’t work on a Sunday. I am here as your friend, consider me your elder brother”. He laughed, I could feel the sarcasm buried deep in his eyes.” Why this sudden change of actions, Why do you want to befriend a hooligan? I am a threat to you, aren’t I?” He inquired.
I put my hand on the back of his head and caressed it. He gave into the affection and stared directly at me. “I am here because, I know. I know what happened with you, I have spent a day looking for you, I spoke to your parents, I spoke to your friends, and I know what you did was circumstantial, it wasn’t your fault, and it just wasn’t”. His eyes moistened, I thought I saw a bead of tear swelling up, but he swallowed it and closed them. “ I am not saying I want to help, you stood up for yourself when it mattered, I just want to listen , I want to be a friend, an elder brother who shares secrets ,both good and the ugly one’s”
He was quiet. I kept caressing his hair, it was a while before he spoke, his first words being “It is strange that when I wanted to be heard, I screamed but no one answered. Now that I want to be left alone, you want to share my guilt”
He spoke very softly “It all started three months back, I had moved with my family into your city, a new place with new faces. I had to leave all my friends behind; I was in a new school, your school. The first few days were easy, they passed without any alarm. I still remember the day it started. It was the first day of a new week, and we had our English class. Attendance rolls were being called out and I raised my right hand to answer mine, ‘Yes, Madam’ I responded, when a voice from the last bench broke the symphony. ‘Look, he has six fingers’ it screamed, suddenly all eyes were on me, on my right hand, on the little extending portion of my little finger, the reason of everyone’s curiosity”
“What followed after, was intense scrutiny, by students who could touch my right hand and by teachers who could stare blatantly at it, making me uneasy. I felt awkward and strange at the same time. That was my first introduction to the trio, the three guys who were to make my life miserable. With one scream from the last bench they corroded my self-belief, my confidence and made me a mannequin in front of everyone, in front of people I wanted to be friends with”
“However, the ordeal had just begun. It was our gym glass and I was pulling up my boxer’s for my first game of basketball. Before I could realize, a gothic shadow and three guys loomed over my shoulder. Being huge and bulky as they are, I found myself being forced to a corner and tied to a chair. ‘Today, we are going to show everyone how to take a penalty’ one of them shouted. I could see my sports teacher fuming away to our cricket team on the other side of the playground. While my shorts were pulled down, tears rolled down my eyes. I was crying helplessly but they did not see it, I was facing the wall. My back faced them and their mutiny, I sobbed, yelled and thwarted to no avail. ‘Now as an expert penalty shooter I always hit one spot on the ball and one spot in the net , The rules for this game are simple. We will give you chocolates , the guy who hits his sixth finger or any part of his palm or the rope that ties them together will get five chocolates , his head is worth two and if you miss, we will tie you to the chair next time, now let me show you how to take the best penalty’ . I cried out in pain as the ball hit my palm, ‘See, that’s the way it’s done, Bingo. I earn a five’. My agony continued for another half an hour as every soul present there took a penalty. And many of them earned five chocolates; a few had to be disappointed with two. No one missed, not a single soul missed.”
“Life was never the same after that, everywhere I went I was mocked and laughed at. I was the only guy in the bright new school who had been kicked with a football with his shorts pulled down. That was funny. My tormenters made sure they made my life more miserable , deflating my cycle tires , dumping my lunch into the garbage , making rude remarks when I spoke in class, they left no stone unturned. I tried to complain but the teacher’s never found any student who supported my claims. I soon turned to be a liar in their eyes too”
“While I was enduring all of this, we had a science project. We had to recreate the nucleus and represent how protons and neutrons existed in the tiny entity of creation. Chemistry had always been my favorite subject, I worked hours, painted table tennis balls and created my model, it was perfection. Before the submission of our project, I went to the bathroom to take a leak. I was proud of my achievement, the past few days had really been tough and I needed this project to lift me up. While I was washing my face I felt a hand grab my neck. My tormentors appeared right in front of me, in the mirror. One of them grabbed my project ‘What the hell is this? You think you can make a project better than us, prick?’ And in a sudden motion he threw my dream into the lavatory and flushed it; I yelled and ran towards him. But there were three of them, they caught me and hit me in the shin. As I saw the water color on my table tennis balls fade away. They opened by school bag and flushed all my belongings too. One of them hit me hard on my face, causing it to swell, leaving a red mark, a stamp of his power. ‘Now this is to remind you that, you should never try and be more intelligent than us, but don’t be dumb too, we hate dumb people’ he laughed and they stormed off shutting the door on my swelled teary face.
Back home my father was angry, angry at me for not retaliating. He never understood that there were three of them, three in number and large in proportion. My mother applied ice pack on my sore face. My father blamed her for making me so weak, ‘You have made him a rat’ he yelled. My mother retaliated with accusations of her own. Soon the fact that I needed a doctor was forgotten as my father hit my mother. My mother responded too, and I cried bitterly with my face in my hands as my parents fought. I didn’t want any survivors in their war, I was tired.
And soon it was our gym class again, this time they wanted to play baseball. I was to be the post, hitting which the strike would lead to maximum score. But when they wanted to tie me down , I escaped , I ran, I was caught , I was beaten , I saw the brick bat in front of me, I grabbed it, I hit them” he said and yelled aloud .
“I defeated them; I fractured their skull open, the third guy was lucky to escape”
He howled and cried like a baby in my arms. I was dumb struck after his story; however there was one piece of the puzzle still missing “Did they cut your finger too?” I inquired, pointing at his cloth covered right hand. He wiped his tears and spoke in a tone I had not heard until now. He narrated the story and I felt a sickening feeling in my stomach. His lips moved slowly and peacefully killing a part of me with his words, piercing my mental peace in the dark qualms of the night. Yes! It was a Sunday, the best day of my long tiring week.
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