A Mess of Silence

3

"Oh forget about little art projects boy. Think about what matters in your life. This is the last time I'll be having it!" old Tripti barked, with her narrow half-frame specs on the bridge of her nose, her voice piercing Akshar's ears like razor blades, "failed fourth time in a row Akshar! Gods! Akshar WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO WITH YOUR LIFE I ASK YOU!"

Ravikul stood beside Tripti, his scrutinizing gaze boring into Akshar. He was the senior-students coordinator of the school. If there ever was a hated, hated person in the big, celebrated school of Udhav Singh Verma— it was Ravikul Chandel.

Akshar, seventeen and tall, had his graze down at his shoes. He felt ashamed. He could hear Akriti and her little group's suppressed giggles behind his back. Ashutosh gave out a cruel, insulting comment about Akshar's dark complexion. The teacher paid no heed. Ravikul's eyes shot once at the class for a moment and a dead silence fell.

"Think of your mother stupid boy!" Tripti began again in a razor-sharp voice, "Think of your father's money getting wasted because of your stupid carelessness. Why don't you stop being a DISGRACE and stop these bullshit sort art projects. Is it— " Akshar heard no more. Hot tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn't understand why no one had liked the new art project he had completed the night before. It had taken him three hours of sweaty precise work to complete it, and no more than three seconds for Ashutosh to break it in halves with his big, strong hands. Akshar had tried complaining, and this was where it had gotten him. He did not know how long the teacher spoke. He did not hear. A deafeningly loud bell of shame rang and rang and rang loud, so loud inside his years. He would go home and—

And that was when a slap, sharp and hard, landed on his cheek. A hot pain rang up on the left side of his face as it warmed up. That was when he was pushed at his chest and had tripped over a bench and fell down on his bum. He had heard children sniggering. Chuckling and enjoying the scene. He had seen Ravikul standing over him, speaking something. But the words had gone into a blur.

Shame. Disgrace. Shit. Kooda.

That was all what he was.

***

Ironies. Mere co-incidental ironies, add another level to humour in situations Siddhu would find impossible to laugh at. The cabbie who put Deepak Chaddha to a brainsick end was named Sukhdev.

It was four in the morning. In the middle of those dark cobweb roads where his car was parked, he sat on the road with his back set at the hood of the car. In between his fingers was a rolled up blunt. He took deep puffs of the marijuana as his heart pumped beautiful pleasure into his troubled, disturbed consciousness. The blood flowing into each corner of his body was aflame with happiness. Happiness and pleasure.

Beside, on the right of the car was the body of unfortunate Deepak Chaddha in a puddle of black appearing blood. His eyes open, stared infinitely at the black starless sky. His lips were slightly parted and short portions of the bottoms of his teeth were visible. His unmoving chest and all of his body was soaked in blood and the number of the stabs there were too difficult to count. They were too many, and the blood had blurred the scraggy lips of the stab wounds. Somewhere around the navel the black metal dagger still branched out of his dead stomach.

Sukhdev blew out dense smoke into the air and got up. Hardly five feet five high, he stared down at his prize. The blood-soaked dead-body of Deepak Chaddha. The smirk that had so terrified Deepak reappeared on Sukhdev's face. He knelt beside the corpse and carefully touched the cold cheeks of the dead man. The tips of his fingers, carefully, so carefully touching the surface of his face. His thumb brushed deceased Deepak's lips. Sukhdev loved how his lips erotically changed shape under the mild pressure of his fingers. Sukhdev's fingers went inside the lips. Feeling the dry texture of the inside of Deepak's cheeks. Blood started to pump into his sick manhood and it started to grow inside his pants. Feeling excited as ever, Sukhdev sat down nearby the puddle of blood that had flowed out of Deepak's body and felt the drying blood with calloused palm of his hand. His smile widened.