Shoot

We were in a basement, in Kashmir or maybe some downtrodden area of Nagaland or it might have been Delhi. I really wish it was Delhi. Being in the capital feels safe, it minimises all the horror that I was about to face that day. I hope it was a day. I cannot recall even a tiny bit of daylight coming from the top corners of the basement wall so it might as well have been not less than 6 in the evening. 

So anyway; Day! Delhi! Yeah it feels better now.

We were four of us in that basement. I was not given their identities so I had named them myself. 

The instructor who had trained me for the past six months and who was standing at the entrance of this huge basement was called A. Mr B, who was much older than A, seemed more experienced but more impatient than A. He was basically here to check how well A has trained me. So Mr B, as it looked like, was A’s boss. 

Third one was me, holding a pistol in my hand. I had been trained well by A. Everyone knew that I was among the best back at the academy. Give me a spot and I’ll shoot right there! 

Then there was the fourth person, C. He was sitting on a chair right in front of me. He looked a little weak. He was all sweaty around the ropes from which he had been tied to the chair and his eyes meandered through Mr B, A and me so confidently that I understood that he was not afraid. Confused, but not afraid. 

I had to shoot C.

I’m not good at naming people. 

“Shoot him”, this was the third time from Mr. B’s mouth. A had already tried seven times and had given up on me by now. 

I was quiet. I was not even pointing my pistol at C. My hands were firm but my mind was trembling. It was bones and flesh this time, not steel plates on which I had been practising my shooting skills for the past six months. A live human! Breathing! Confident! His eyes gazing at mine every 10 seconds or so. 

“Point your gun at him” A shouted from behind. In no time, my pistol was pointing on C’s head. C smiled and looked at me. This time it was a gaze that didn’t turn anywhere else. It were just me and him now. Two humans looking at each other, one with the power of ending the other, yet troubled, not knowing how to execute the enormous power granted recently; other, confident and smiling on the hope of the other’s failure.

Now Mr B stepped towards C and started untying him. This was going too far. I was failing.

“Why are you laughing? You’d die anyway. It’s just a matter of who pulls the trigger. It’s me or him” I said.

“Ugh?” C said, still eyeing me while Mr B was removing the ropes. 

“It’s me or him” I said again, pointing the pistol first at me and then towards Mr B.

“If that’s a question, then Yes”, C said and smiled again.

I couldn’t understand a word of what he said but his smile was enough for me to readjust my pistol towards him again. 

Once Mr B had untied him, he went further away from C. C was still looking at me.

“Wait, stay close, please!” I wanted to say this to Mr B but I didn’t utter a single word. I had a task to finish. C could get up any time now and turn the tables. I didn’t want to be dead that day. 

“Shoot, you filthy kid”, Mr B shouted this time.

I readjusted my pistol again. 

“I’m gonna shoot this time.

I’m gonna shoot this time.

I’m gonna shoot this time.

3

2

1”

Nothing!

I was sweating more than C by now. Suddenly, I saw a pistol in the air going towards C. Mr B had thrown a pistol to C. He was passing a loaded pistol to C! 

This was it.

Just when C started to get up to catch the flying pistol, I shot him in the head.

The breathing. The confidence. The gaze. All gone.

“You’re so bad at naming people! But that’s one dramatic first kill! I love the way you narrate your stories, Suhani. You should write a novel once you finish with your job”

I smiled at him.

“So how many kills as yet?” he asked.

I took a sip of my whiskey, looked at Mr D and shot him right at his stomach, where my pistol was aiming from down the table all the while I was narrating my memory. He suddenly lost control of his posture. Half of his body was lying on the table now. I bent down a little, he was still breathing so I replied, “We don’t count.”