The Crow Fear

When I opened my eyes, I saw my wife and son, helping me to be seated in the car. Right now, I have started to fear the evenings of the city. But, I was thinking, are the ripples of the fear only my illusion? When I look outside, yes, even in the half-conscious state, I can see the same fear on everyone's face.

I tried to touch the wound of my head, again the severe pain ...... I am a common man in this city. First, they beat me, and then they apologized. Again, I say to you, I am neither a gang leader nor a local politician. I am a reputed schoolmaster. Somewhere in this city, there is someone with my face... Sometimes, he may be a criminal or an innocent man.

My throat was dry. I felt the bitterness, I don't know how to say it to you. In the city, there is a narrow line between life and death, it's the only reality. You may say, that its a lie. But that's not at all a lie, but that is my hard experience.

Now, I am trying to forget those terrible moments of the last night. Who is the man they are searching for? He has a family there? His family, maybe waiting for his body in the mortuary of the city medical college...Now I want to sleep. But sleep has distanced me from the last night like a mirage.

Please, will you stop the song? I screamed. The driver has stopped the song. Shameema looked at me with fear. My son suddenly turned and looked at me with his half-sleeping eyes.

Now the phone is switched off. I almost reached him, but I was trapped. Anyway, I will find him. But now, my wife diverts me to home. yesterday, today or tomorrow, someone like me would be murdered in the dark corner of the city. Sometimes he may be an innocent person, or for solving a fault again doing that same fault. Is it correct? This new tragedy in my life is not an unexpected one, it was clouding somewhere already a few years ago and has now started to move against me, like a poisonous serpent.

The car is almost speeding. When I looked outside, I felt, the city has been transformed into a dense forest, and all buildings are changing like wild animals. I put my head in Shameema's lap, and when my face has touched her abdomen, I felt like I found my real roots.

She kissed on my forehead, "No one from my family has gone to the police station or court yet, you have a family and a child, do you remember that?

Shameema murmured.

'My dear Shameema, I am not a criminal. I am just a victim, please don't speak like this'.

'Are you still following him? Oh! I can't imagine that moment. You were lying on the street with major wounds.' 'Right now, you should forget your friend, that wretched fellow. Even now, are you in reverie? Please, do not allow his memories overrule your life.' 'If you do all as you wish, you must forget me.'

When she told this, there was a painful request in her eyes.

Don't you know? He is my friend, since my childhood.' I can't avoid the green memories of him. Without those memories, my life is incomplete.

'Are you still being like a flying kite? Anytime you must come back to the earth. I hate schoolmasters and writers'.

Sometimes, she speaks like a philosopher beyond my calculations. Sometimes I think, I didn't try to understand her likes and dislikes. I saw, the reddish color alloying her face. There were beautiful small earrings on her ears. That added beauty to her face. I like this, that was my present for our first wedding anniversary. 'I am a writer and school Master. I can't win the hearts of my students, without any motivating words. Such words can create courage in the wings of their expectations.'

'However, if you don't come back from your imaginary world, I will refuse your food. I say to you as a wife, you don't forget that.' Shameema again murmured.

'Yes, you are my wife and he is my son. Why are you angry with me, what happened here now. Please, please we must stop the arguments'.

'Yes, that's good for us.'

I tried to get some sleep, and as I wished, I was falling into sleep. But there, my inner fears, they pulled me to the bad dreams.

I looked at my village. The junction of our village entirely changed within two days. The works for the road to linking for the new seaport.

I can't see any tree on both sides of the road. I wondered, just within two days, all the trees had vanished from both side of the road.  Due to the dust, I couldn't get a clear vision. But I heard the commotion of more than hundreds of crows in the banyan tree near the desolate house for making their nest. I got down from the car.

'Shameema I want an umbrella!!!'

'An umbrella! Why now?'

'My dear, what are you talking about. This is not a rainy season. Don't worry, these are the delusions due to the mental shock. I think you need at least two weeks to overcome your complexities. I tried to walk holding her hand for entering our home. I was walking with her like a child who obeyed the parents. I was expecting a kiss from her. Sometimes, when I have a fever, she used to kiss me on my forehead to help me recover from my illness. But now, her face was red with anger. I know about her anger, that is the anger towards my helpful nature for others.

I lay down to the armchair and tried to, slowly, close my eyes. The sleep, Oh! I wish it had come to me like drizzling!!!

' Please take a rest, I will quickly cook your food.'

I can't sleep now, I am afraid of the crow cries are becoming a riot? I was scared always about one crow. He noticed me, I panic when he is flying towards me. He has been trying to make a major wound on my head more than seven times. I looked through the window. Is he there even now, that crow, who targeted me? I can identify his sound. I even changed my waiting place of the bus three times just because of that crow. But he recognized my efforts for escaping from him. When I was discussing with my colleagues about this subject, they created more confusion in my mind. First, I am not scared of that. But, did I sometimes expect his arrival?. Yes! Today I need to be courageous. Courage should be like lightning, that will always be more powerful. But today I have seen in his eyes the strongest flame.

When the disappointment had left me, I walked slowly to my reading room. I have brought my mind under my control. A desperate man invites sudden death. Why should I be desperate? After all, he is just a crow. But he is throwing towards me a mysterious fear from his dark world. Darkness, the darkness of fear creeps over my consciousness. His eyes are always a harpoon. The poisoned words are always a strong weapon to neutralize a person. That is creating a new political form to the new world. Yesterday, I was a different person, today I am more different, tomorrow I will be the most different person. Simply, until today, I didn't kneel before any obstacles of superstitions.

This is not a rainy season, but sudden rain brings a lot of uncomfortable feelings. Now I hear a massive crow's commotion from our attic. It rains incessantly. I opened my room. That sight scared me a lot. Now I am standing alone, without a weapon for preventing that. In the corner of the room, there sits a crow as a security guard on a half rusted old box. In the trunk box were old books, abandoned by my ancestors. I could see the crows coming one by one in the room through the net covered window. They first sat on the box and formed a few little groups.

They ate and drank, and created a lot of noise, and then they slept. I was noticing the faces, some of them, yes, they wore artificial dresses. I saw on their faces the egotistical sweat. In these roles, they were acting, according to the advice of the drama director they haven't yet seen. They were going into the box through the dilapidated gap like cavemen. After that, they brought flags from there and then made riot against secularism. That was really threatening me. They were holding black flags. All groups together burnt my library. It took several weeks to end the fire.

All flags created more and more communities only for death harvesting. I withdrew my concentration from their discourse and ran away from that danger zone.

Trotsky was killed using the hatchet. Ernest Hemingway committed suicide. DharaShikoh was brutally killed in the street. There was a big planned massacre against the Sufis. That was destroyed their dance and songs. I would like to fly like a golden falcon in the imaginary world for creating the new ideas, but why do our system and customs make a nest and waiting to imprison me?

'Why are you awake now in the midnight? You must try to forget all the damn memories. Will you please come to bed?'

'Nothing, I didn't think anything, you please go to the bed. I will come.'

All freedom thoughts arise, from the pain of losing freedom. Sometimes those words can cure the inner wounds, or that is to be continued as a mystery in our life.

The fog, it's not foggy. This is the smoky dawn. I am trying to go to school, through the pathway that filled the corpses of crows. Yesterday I heard the sound of the suicide bomb blast. These crows, these scattered lips may have kissed their children the last night, these broken wings might have hugged their spouses yesterday. They have gone before knowing their pains. Because all blasts are handling these subjects very well. The ambulance came.

If life and the world are a choultry, then why are we killing others?

I know, now, these questions are irrelevant. But, we should ask these questions, at least to ourselves. Does a person's freedom suffer now among the religious competitions and does it remain as a distant dream? The bus has stopped beside the crows, who lost the heads. I walked carefully to avoid touching my feet to the blood. I checked my dress and confirmed, no, the blood hadn't touched my cloth. I boarded the bus with the hope of escaping from there.

In an unexpected wind, the dry leaves fell down into the school's cleaned corridor. Now I don't hear any crow's commotion. But this silence is dangerous. This silence, isn't this a warning prior to the cyclone? I could see some young crows behind the lab. They are busy deciding something. I know they don't discuss the film, music or Art Fest. I remembered and feared, about the occurrence of the commotion among our students, four months ago.

The Blackboard, I thought, is a black flag. A crow's head was marked with damp chalk. But I am sure, these pictures will be reincarnated at that place.

At that time, when the flowers of love blossomed, I taught the lessons of compassion and humanity. But it remained only for a short time. They again started the same riots after going out of the school.

What's the difference between a writer and other professionals?

A professional, when he is living in a dream and wandering in the world of imagination, his feelings turn to typical events. But, for a writer, his typical events are very crucial and sometimes painful and he writes that. Otherwise, that is very painful and disturbing about him. Reading and creative writing are not the processes like the water coming through the pipeline, that is a creative acrobatic game over the words.

'Stay there!

You know what my intention is. Right now, you should be free from your baffled thoughts. You should accept my word for our family; otherwise, I won't allow you to come inside. I fear your unwanted thoughts about contemporary politics.'

I was stunned for a moment, and I stood alone in the courtyard. I glanced inside the house through the window. I could see my son sitting in the drawing-room studying. I called my son to open the door. He saw me, but he didn't obey me due to his mother's strong instruction.

I threw away the newspaper to the verandah and sat down on the steps. I saw the moon through the banyan trees. But I was more scared when I looked at the trembling leaves. That was my answer.

I ask you again, from where did you, obtain this authority to terrorize me!!!!