Calm............Calm……………………
It was all calm. Lying flat I counted the stars in the sky.1, 2, 3...7. The moon was shining the same way it does in my village. I turned my head by 870. My eyes travelled hundred of meters but registered nothing of interest. It was all deserted. I looked on the other side, but the result remained the same. No one was there, no one. Nothing …….. I was all alone.
I tried to move but my legs were no more mine. I could not feel my legs. I tried, tried and again tried but the result was zero. Damn it, how the hell I ended up here. Finally I gave up and let my body ease. I saw the moon again. I felt light. I consoled myself buddy you are not all alone. Whenever I find myself at a new place and feel lonely I see moon in the sky and say to myself this is the same moon your parents and friends back home would be seeing and thus I connect myself to my family through this moon. Moon has always worked liked a connector for me. I send a signal through neurons to my fingers. They responded. Thank God the hands were not accompanying the legs. Disasters could have happened. I touched the sand. It felt so cold. The wind was making the condition harsher for me.
My eyes recorded some decibels of sound. It kept increasing. I thought who the hell was out of his mind travelling through this hell at midnight. The sound kept increasing. And soon I saw a gigantic hound. The bastard was making that cruel some sound and I, like a roasted chicken was lying there waiting for the attacker to come. God you could have given me the opportunity to have a death of dignity, not like this. So this was me Sumit Kumar Rai, born in gopalganj, in a remote area in Bihar, was going to die in Africa. All the sweet memories of my life, those golden days with friends in garden flashed before my eyes. They will never know what the hell happened with me. I had never imagined myself in such a condition, dying like this. My story deserved a better ending. But the destiny had something else stored in for me. I made the last attempt to save myself. But what I could do was to detach my back from the surface to see a much better view of my death. My eyes meet with that of hound. I could sense the feeling “your ass belongs to me" in his eyes.
I was ready to leave the world. The hound started the journey, took the final steps, made that cruel noise and took a long jump. I closed my eyes to embrace the death...........
The bypassing train made the shrieking noise. I opened my eyes and gathered all my senses. S1, 35, Upper berth, Maurya express, 10:30 am,Jan 17th,2010,I boarded at Siwan station. It was 3:40 pm the train was somewhere between Sonpur and Hajipur. In just 5 hours I had happened to travel thousands of kilometers all the way to Sahara in Africa and had made a return journey too. I thought now I was perfectly alright, but it was not so at all. I was endangered when the eyes were closed. I was still facing trouble when the eyes were open………………….. (to be continued)
