Traffic Light

Chapter 8: Yellow Light

It was the biggest car-park I’d ever seen. I had never really ventured into the basement levels of Goliath Inc’s management offices before. They probably didn’t want the whole world to see all our equipment being unloaded from the truck. We were their dirty little secret so to speak. The less questions were asked about us, the better. That much I understood.

Still, even after all these years, I had never really gotten used to how big everything was in this country. Their cars, their car-parks and their buildings were reminiscent of the giant worlds in the fairytales your parents told you about when you were younger. Even their people towered over the average Bangladeshi back home. Then again, we were a short-statured race to begin with.

I stood on the back of the large four-wheeler, letting my mind wander while I passed each box down to Syed where he sluggishly made his way to the basement entrance. Our jackal friend had gone up to the lift lobby and had just come back down with a giant trolley to use for bringing up to the storage facility. We began mounting the items on top the silver trolley one by one. It took a couple of rounds to get everything into the building.

Syed and I kneeled down on the basement pavement, panting slightly after all the bags and crates had been sent up. We looked at each other and laughed, amused by how exhausted we were after handling a couple of boxes. We used to be able to lift bricks off from high-rise platforms for five hours straight. Guess the change in work made us soft over the past couple of months.

Our jackal friend finally made his last round back down to the lift lobby and out into the basement. The trolley was gone, so it must have meant we were done here. Just then, he held his hand up to us.

“Wait here please.”

He pulled out a large yet thin smartphone from his pocket and held it against his ear for a moment.

“Yes sir, all done. Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.”

He went on and one like that. It was hilarious to hear on our end. We held our laughter as best we could behind his back. For some reason, we were feeling rather light-hearted today. It’s probably the same sensation after you walk out of an exam and know for sure you flunked. Everything else doesn’t matter anymore, somehow there’s a certain kind of peace in knowing you’re completely screwed.

He finally put his phone down and turned towards us.

“Management would like to see you, please make your way up to the top. I have to take care of this truck here.”

Our faces turned from gleeful to serious in less than a second. What the hell did they want with us this time? We looked at each other and slowly made our way to the lift lobby. We somewhat knew our way around by now. So we entered the open elevator and pressed the highest button on the panel.

-

The large silver doors slid open to reveal the same colossal lobby area that we remember. We stepped out and glanced around. The reception counter was empty, with the lady nowhere to be seen. We stood in the center of the large, gleaming beacon of corporate wonder, looking once more like a group of lost tribesmen.

Far off in the distance, close to the two big smooth wooden doors of the meeting room, we noticed a faint sound of people exchanging niceties. We took slow steps towards the direction of the sound. As we got closer, we noticed that the doors had not been completely closed and we could hear the familiar yet annoying laughter of Boss number one along with the soft voices of a couple of others. As we made our way towards the doors, I peered through the crack to see our receptionist who should have been outside at her desk. Instead she was in there, pouring a tiny cup of tea from a large china jug for someone in front of her.

Boss number one instantly caught me peeking through the half opened doors.

“Ah! There you are, come in! Come in! Don’t just stand there like a bunch of creepy pervs.”

He let out an ear-piercing howl as Syed and I slowly pushed our way into the meeting room. Standing right beside the large projector screen was Boss number one, holding a large jug in one hand and a fat cigar in the other. Next to him, sitting slacked against the wall on one of the large office chairs, legs up and arms folded, was Boss number two. The moustache man from the previous meeting we had here was present as well. He had his back turned towards us and twisted his head around to raise his cup to us as a sort of greeting.

Right on the far end of the other side, sitting calmly in a relaxed position with the receptionist standing beside him, was an elderly man of Asian appearance, particularly of the Eastern kind. He donned a neat and clean gray suit and held a long walking stick in his left hand. The wrinkles on his face may have been much more than I expected and the colour of his hair was more silver than the last picture I saw of him, but that was him alright, in the flesh.

Boss number one raised his cigar holding hand towards us.

“Now boys, this here is Mr Genzo. He’s a very good friend of mine and an even better friend to our humble corporation. He insisted that the two of you come up here so he could meet y’all folks who came up with that impressive community app for us.”

I was trying my very best to hide the sense of euphoria that came over me. Syed was too, but he was doing an even worst job of it. I nodded back at Mr Genzo and he tilted his head in an ever so slight yet gracious bowing gesture.

The old gray suited man shifted his glance towards Boss number one, who immediately walked over to his brown fancy coat hanging in the corner of the room.

“Mr Genzo here is a very important man, but he is also very good at sticking his nose in other people’s business.”

He let out a snicker, slipping on his coat while biting on to his smoking cigar.

“There are a couple of things we’d like to go over with you boys, but the rest of us have a plane to catch for the Colorado Expo this Saturday, so Mr Genzo here will be briefing you all on the important stuff.”

As we stood still by the door, Boss number one strutted by us with a fat finger on his cigar, puffing a cloud as he announced “Adios Amigos! Get the lights on your way out.”

Moustache man got up and followed suit, passing through with a strange grin on his face. Boss number two slowly lifted himself up from the large chair and casually made his way towards us. He stopped right beside me and stared me down for a silent moment, he looked down and up at me condescendingly, then left the room.

All the while, we stood at the exact same spot as we entered. The room was clear now, apart from the two of us and the VIP sitting across the other end of the table, walking stick still in hand. Finally, he sat up and put an arm out towards the vacant spots in front of him.

“Please. Sit.”

We staggered like two punch-drunk bar-dwellers towards the two chairs closest to us and took a load off. Close up, I noticed that the left side of his cheek looked a little dislodged kind of like he had been in a fist fight and a large set of knuckles landed straight on that spot, permanently leaving a dent in the older gentlemen’s head. He slowly reached for his cup of tea and lifted it towards his thin white moustache, taking a whiff of the strong aroma.

“It’s funny what life throws at you isn’t it?”

He looked up at our bewildered expressions, mouths gaped open.

“Don’t worry, nothing’s been disclosed just yet. Everything is going smoothly, just act natural.”

He whispered these words, then went back to talking at normal tone.

“Now, as our mutual friend had mentioned earlier, there are certain things I’d like to run by you gentlemen. I was indeed impressed with the demo of the community app that management had showed me earlier today. I had just flown in from Tokyo and was meaning to drop by sooner. As you can imagine, I am a busy man. In light of this it is a twist of good timing that allowed us to meet today.”

I leaned forward to contribute to the conversation.

“We hope we didn’t trouble you too much Mr Genzo sir.”

He let out a soft, closed mouth chuckle.

“Yeah, right.”

He then reached into a black suitcase he kept under the desk and pulled out a couple of documents, handing it over to us.

“Anyway, considering that you all have proven yourselves to be somewhat proficient in the way of systems, I have a proposition for you. You see, BlueSeed is in the midst of finalising an entry point into the software security market. We have done a lot of research and we are planning to remain invisible during our initial phases for as long as possible. This way, our potential competitors don’t get a sniff of our scent on their territory and we’ll have the upper hand in rising up the ladder very quickly, hopefully.”

I glanced over at the documents handed to me. Sheets filled with long lists of numbers and stats comprised most of what was in the pages.

“Basically, I need a small and agile team of talented specialists. The most important criteria to fill this vacancy is that these individuals must be critical out-of-the-box thinkers. Creativity is key. I want to be able to infiltrate the industry in a way that no one would expect a giant multi-national to. Now you lads might just be the inconspicuous bunch of soldiers I need to execute this plan. Your bosses tell me that you two are currently on downtime. Would you like to come work for me?”

There was a long pause, probably a pause that carried on for a little too long. The moment I understood what was happening, I jolted from my seat to respond. “Yes sir.”

Mr Genzo enthusiastically thumped his cane on the ground.

“Good! Now the first step would be a six month evaluation process. I would like to know the strengths and weaknesses that we’ll be focusing on for you two. If everything is fine and dandy, then we’ll expand further on the following tactics. You two can ride with me, I have a couple of things to show you before we get started. We’ll discuss payment details on the way there.”

He slowly rose up from his seat and picked up his suitcase to place on the table as he pushed the giant chair back against the wall.

“Oh! I almost forgot. I imagine these may come in handy.”

He reached into his suitcase and slapped two plastic covered passports against the hard surface before us.

I won’t lie, there may have been a barely noticeable tear in my eye.

-

We sat quietly against soft leather back seats, in a large chrome sedan that sped like a bullet train but hummed as softly as a purring kitten. The interior was ridiculously large and Mr Genzo sat right across us as our seats faced each other. He busily tinkered with his tiny smartphone, sharp bleeping and clicking sounds emanating from the device.

I looked over at Syed, who was busy admiring the retractable meal trays and extra big cup-holders beside him, then I turned over to Mr Genzo and leaned forward slightly to say something.

“Sir, if I may ask, what exactly transpired between you and our bosses before our meeting back there?”

He kept his gaze on his phone, not bothering to glance up at me.

“Well my boy, I simply shared with them my disdain for wasting a perfectly functional human resource. They wanted to send you guys back to the gutter. They always were a bunch of ignorant idiots. Still, they are my loyal clients and loyalty means a lot when you’re this high up on the mountain. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

I blinked a couple of times to wet the dry tips of my eyes from the blaring air-conditioner.

“But sir, what do they know about our connection with you? How do they think you know about us?”

He finished texting whoever he was texting and snappily put the phone into his shirt pocket, looking out from his window.

“For now here’s what they know. They know that I, as their casual former consultant, dropped by on my way back from Tokyo to check up on their expansion progress. They know that I like to prod into other people’s business and I stumbled upon your briefing session the other day while strolling around their office. They know that what was on the projector that day peaked my interest which led me to inquire about what little project they had going on. They were obliged to show me a demo of what had been developed so far which led me to then inquire further about the ones responsible for it.”

Syed stopped fiddling with the assortment of features built into the car’s interior and began to listen in on our conversation. Mr Genzo continued to explain.

“As far as what they know, I snooped around and found that the presenters in the briefing room that day were in fact the developers themselves. What they don’t know is that these same developers sent me a very cheeky email way back when. What they do know is that I was willing to provide more incentive for two foreigners than what they were ever worth to begin with. Of course, being the bunch of greedy money hogs that they are, it was an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

Syed budged in with a direct question.

“Why did you decide to help us at the very last minute?”

Mr Genzo finally turned his face towards us and smirked, his crushed left cheek casting an odd shadow against his face.

“Because you’re desperate, nothing moves faster than a couple of desperate men. Because you’re hungry and you hold strong conviction towards problem solving. Because now you owe me. Nothing is more powerful than an army of talented soldiers that are indebted to you.

Those are three reasons I counted for the price of two.

This is an investment. An investment on the value that I can bring forth from you two kids.”

We stare at him intently, while he carries on his speech.

“The human spirit is a terrible thing to waste. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as big of an asshole than you’re former bosses ever were, why do you think we get along so well? I just don’t hold the same slave master ideologies that they do. Now shut the hell up while I make this call.”

He pulled out his phone and answered in Japanese, resuming to respond in a quick string of words too difficult to even pronounce. Syed and me leaned back and looked out the window, pondering deeply on everything Mr Genzo just shared with us. Throughout the whole ride, our passports never left the tight grips of our hands.

-

“The two of you will live where you work, since you’re no stranger to that arrangement and it cuts my costs profoundly.”

It was an entire floor just for us, though rather barren and dusty, a majority of the sections had been semi-furnished, with a large sofa and a long desk in the lobby that had two small stools tucked underneath, as well as two separate, medium-sized beds in a cozy and clean backroom complete with a toilet. Apart from that, the office was empty.

Two large boxes sat in the center of the lobby. Mr Genzo made his way toward them and using his cane, double tapped the covers.

“These are the machines that you’ll be working with. I trust you know how to set up your own servers and configure your own hardware. If you all need anything else pertaining to work, give me a buzz and I’ll accommodate as long as it doesn’t span outside the project’s budget. For now, I’ll be giving you gentlemen the same level of salary that a fresh graduate from a local college of this country will be earning.”

He slowly approached the large leather sofa and steadied himself down on it.

“Now bear in mind, I want this to look like a completely separate business at the moment. I want to disassociate this initiative from BlueSeed as much as possible. Capital is provided by me, additional funds are provided by me, assets are provided by me, but eventually I need you to bring in the revenue through external business. Essentially this will be a covert operation in the form of you two building a legitimate company from scratch, to throw off any enemies that I have in the industry and trust me, I have a ton of enemies. Some of them are ruthless. So distance from your principal investor is imperative. For now. Of course, granted all this begins once you complete your six month evaluation. I still don’t hundred percent trust your capabilities just yet.”

Mr Genzo laid back into the seemingly comfy leather sofa and put his walking stick at the back of his silver haired head.

“If any of you have questions now’s your chance. I’m all ears.”

I looked over at Syed as he shrugged back at me. Then I walked over to the center of the lobby and took a seat on one of the unopened boxes.

“Mr Genzo, I have a request to make if I may. Neither of us have heard back from our folks back home. Conditions at the compound were much worse than anything we’ve experienced and we haven’t had a chance to establish proper connections or make a proper income for us to support them. This is increasingly difficult due to the fact that we are originally from very inaccessible slum areas that have no way of direct communication and we’ve been trying to avoid mainstream authorities to avoid getting deported.”

I looked down on the wooden tiled floor while Mr Genzo listened on.

“So in light of this sir, we’d like to request a quick visit back home before we begin whatever is in store. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve a great service and be a part of something quite remarkable, but we need to know what has become of our families after all these years. We’ll be sure to hurry back as soon as possible as soon as we’re done with what’s needed to be done back at Bangladesh.”

Mr Genzo pondered for a brief second, nodding his head in an agreeing fashion and then responded, almost as if he knew this was coming.

“Tell you what son. I’m a reasonable man, but I am still running a business here. So you two complete your six month evaluation first, that way I know where I stand on carrying on with you. Only then are you free to head back home and sort out your personal obligations before coming back here to start work. Now I’m not a sicko, so you two can hold on to your passports. You may choose to leave right now if you want to, but I’m not taking you back if you do. The choice is yours.”

He double tapped the cane against the wooden tiles and rose up to head for the door.

“I’ll give you the rest of today to sleep on it. There’s some money on the table if you want to order takeout. See you on the other side.

And just like that, our savior Mr Genzo was gone.

I quickly marched towards the boxes in the middle of the lobby and began unpacking. Syed stared at me as I violently rummaged through the packaged machines.

“Woah, slow down there cowboy. You heard the man. He told us to sleep on it.”

I pulled out strips of cardboard paper and rubbery foam, scavenging for the CPU and monitor that was buried underneath.

“Are you forgetting about the bomb I hid in the Community App? We need to disable that thing as soon as we can, I don’t want any more surprises. I’m going to access the system back end from this machine and turn the virus off before anything funny happens.”

Syed paused for a moment, then scurried over to me, helping me unpack whatever remnants were left.

-

The warm dusty air hit my nostrils and eyes the moment I stepped foot on the mud coloured ground of my home country. Was it different from how I remember it, or was I just gone for too long? The hot wind ran through my face, blowing into the now thick, scruffy square-shaped beard that once formed the tight stubble hugging my jawline from cheek to cheek. Dark blue eye bags almost touching the furry labyrinth right below it, I squinted and turned my head from side to side, taking in my surroundings slowly. Each step I took added more and more distance from the terminal behind me.

I walked the streets like a lost child for the first few hours, wandering out from the airport into the unfamiliar wonderland of deafening exhaust pipes and colourful droves of busy Bangladeshis all going about their day. The traditional attires, the native-tongued screams of food sellers across the market from one end to the other. It was all coming back to me, gradually but surely. The sights and sounds were triggering a response, a flurry of memories. Flashes of a past life long ago, far away, repeated in the back of my head. I remembered the narrative clearly, I just couldn’t pick up on the feelings or sensations of how things used to be.

I struggled with my own thoughts as I made my way back to the slums I grew up in, the only way I knew how; on foot.

As I walked through the thriving Dhaka markets and the noisy Dhaka highways, the memories of passing by certain stalls or specific locations began to shuffle themselves back into place. I could almost feel the overwhelming weight of cracker bags on my shoulders, remembering the way I’d shift my waist to align with the slanted fashion my body tried to balance all of the products on my head and back.

I found myself with my arms up against the top of my shoulder, tightly gripping an imaginary thing and looking like a complete madman in the process. I remembered the cooling sensation of the night air blowing against my face as I rode in my father’s rickshaw. I remembered the stream where we’d place our paper boats and watch them dash across the strong pull of the water.

My phone vibrated and I pulled it out to see who it was.

“Brother, have you landed safely? I’m here in my village right now. I will catch up with you soon.”

Syed’s message seemed to arrive late, seeing that the text had been sent in the morning but only showed up on my screen in the afternoon. I guess it was just a bad line, seeing that he was out in the middle of nowhere I’m surprised that he even managed to find coverage that far away from town.

Syed and I had taken different planes. Funnily enough, I required a few extra days for my evaluation’s final submissions. I’m not sure if it was because I was the only one attempting to succeed among the two of us or if it was because he simply was faster than me. In any case, the tests that were thrown at us were intriguing if not vicious and I had trouble getting over the final stretch.

I finally reached the outer network of streets that led me to the final row of alleyways that I remember from my childhood days. Now though, it was a confusing and extended labyrinth of even more sub-sections. City development and shops had pushed the slum folk further into the dark corners of the city. Still, I was determined to find my home.

Numerous lefts and rights brought me to the end of my search after a grueling couple of hours. I slowly ventured down into the alleyway, keeping the majority of my focus on the right side of the rowed houses.

How many years had it been? How many series of torturous nightmares had it been since I last saw my cozy abode? Too long.

I stood in front of the makeshift porch of the unit which I was sure was my home. It looked almost the same since the day I left, except that a long string of unfamiliar clothes hung out to dry on the right side of the entrance. Slowly, a shadow began to emerge from behind the darkness inside. A large woman peered out with a puffed up head, her cheeks bigger than the size of her face. After a while of staring at each other, I realised that I did not recognise this woman.

“Karkun?”

I heard a faint squeal come from behind me. I turned slowly to see another woman, her back slouched over slightly and her face shriveled up from age and tough living. I slowly began to recognise this person. It was my neighbour, the same one whose husband had helped during the nights that we needed to rush over to the hospital.

“Hello aunty.”

I shook my head slightly, expressionless and exhausted to greet the familiar face.

Her eyes widened in shock.

“Where have you been all these years son? We searched far and wide for you.”

I started to move slightly closer to her, seeing that she was rather old and needed help hearing.

“I was kidnapped aunty. Held hostage, like a slave. Forced to work for no money.”

Upon hearing this, her mouth opened wide and her hand slowly rose up to her chest, her eyes frozen from what she just heard. I continued with my question. A question I had wrapped up in tough leather and hid in the back of my warping mind, kept away from the light of day for years up to this point.

“Aunty, where is my mother?”

My neighbour’s mouth switched to a stretched curve, bent downwards past her sunken cheeks. Her eyes fixed on mine, she seemed to be at a loss for words but her expression spoke for her. I looked at her for a moment, then I closed my eyes for a moment more. I didn’t want to open them. I was too afraid of the reality that had just sunken in.

-

Hers was a small wooden tombstone lodged messily into the ground among a myriad of others. Her name was blurry but readable, bless whoever decided to mark it for anyone who’d come looking for her one day.

I knew it deep inside, I just didn’t want to admit it. Of course a woman with stage four cancer and barely enough for treatment to last her a couple of months, isn’t going to make it very far before succumbing to illness. Of course this happened. I was in denial, given the past couple of years, when things were really hopeless. Denial is the best medicine for an inescapable circumstance. I never had any excuses for my mother, only desires for her and for the life we were leading. I desired too much, that may have been my single unfolding mistake that would unleash this never ending chaos.

Least of all she didn’t deserve a piece of s**t son like me. She may not have deserved many of the things that she had to go through, but dying alone in a cold muddy slum without a person in the world who loved her was something she could’ve definitely done without. I could not grant her that final peace.

My mother was a good woman. She would wrap me up and sing to me while my father left for work in the mornings. I would sit up at night and read to her while she slowly dozed off with her head on my shoulder, waiting for the medicine to take effect.

-

On foot, I marched over across the highways and the little stalls that were set up under the bridges. I paced pass the marketplaces and the business districts. I walked over the steep hills, the narrow streets, the red, green and yellow Krishnachura flower trees growing wildly in the beautiful sub-urban neighbourhood that I wanted more than anything to burn to the ground. Until finally, I was standing there, right where I met him years ago. The thief, Jake. The snake. Coiling around his unsuspecting victims like the slimy fork tongued serpent that he is.

He was gone, the spot where his car used to sit was now an empty space, even his house had transformed into an entirely different building. The tenants didn’t know anything about the previous owner of the property. He had disappeared. Then again, he probably disappeared for a living. It was part of what he does. I looked around me once more, mentally snapping shots of the scene in my head in case I needed to remember anything more about this moment, before leaving on foot, the same way I came.

There was nothing left for me here.

-

Toushif’s face was covered almost completely by a thick jagged beard, with only the white of his eyes visible under the dim streetlight. He grabbed on to me and squeezed tight, enveloping me in his tall, lanky figure. I struggled to lift my arm up to his upper back and patted him comfortingly, my muffled voice murmuring through his thick bomber jacket.

“Hello old friend, good to see you again.”

We sat in the darkness, on top of a narrow pavement that segregated a dusty land clearing from a large endless highway, watching the occasional car zoom by and talking softly about our past lives. Behind us, a small yet glaring white light from a tiny tea shop propped up against a large fence, reflected off our dirt covered backs.

As he took large gulps from a tall glass bottle consisting of some sugary beverage, he told me about what I had missed over the course of my absence. To be honest, it didn’t sound like all that much. His father, Mr Arif, had passed away a few months ago from a severe stroke while working. Carrying bags of crackers, he collapsed on the side of one of the usual roads that we used to pass by.

The ironic part is that forensics declared he died from the fall, not the stroke. Meaning to say that he would have most probably survived that stroke, albeit paralyzed from the entire left side of his body. His head hit a crooked edge on the side of the steel blockers that guarded cars from swerving off the roads. The edge was sharp enough to pierce his skull and deal fatal damage. If it wasn’t for that, he would’ve survived that stroke. He was a tough old bastard.

He told me my mother had passed quite a few years back. Since I disappeared, the neighbours had been checking up on her from time to time, including Toushif himself. She never disclosed exactly what she was suffering from. She put on quite a front, seeming rather well whenever others came to visit, up until the day that she simply gave way, behind the mud coloured shack that was our home while she was hanging her clothes up to dry. We found her there not too long after. It was too late by the time anyone noticed.

There was a long silence, as my head hung low beneath the night lights, only a shadow casted on my forehead. Toushif hesitated to speak for a moment, then continued.

“I swear man, when we found out you had up and left, she gathered a bunch of us on a week-long witch hunt. Authorities told us that since you had left apparently on your own accord, we couldn’t file you as a missing person and because you didn’t leave any details about how to contact you, we couldn’t track down where you were or what sort of work you had gotten into.”

Toushif stood up and dusted the dirt off from the bottom of his jeans.

“I swear if I had known such a thing was happening to young men like us, I would have liked to have broken every bone in the bodies of the culprits responsible. I’m sure you feel the same way Karkun. This life, there is no justice in this life. It’s all just a long series of hurdles we need to survive, one jump at a time.”

A man had walked up to the tea stall behind us, looking around for the drink maker. He whistled towards us from a distance. Toushif turned his head back and lifted his bottle to acknowledge the man, then started walking back towards his stall.

“Hold on bro there’s a customer, I’ll be right back.”

-

“Happy Stay Inn”

The words flickered above me, nylon lights flashing violently in the night sky. The lodge was squeezed tightly between gritty office lots and convenient stores to form a long row of headache-inducing colours. I pushed the front glass door open and was greeted with a smile by a little old lady, donning a shawl so thick it covered most of what looked like her squashed-up face.

I purchased one room for a night that was situated on the third floor, my number was fifty five. “Three, five-five”

Coincidences like these mean very little but say a lot about life don’t they? Where the realm of possibilities are concerned, each of us seem to realise the patterns in our individual journeys quite often.

I unlocked the door with my set of keys given to me by the reception. The room was small, cozy and much cleaner than I anticipated. A small white sheeted bed engulfed most of the area, with a small television in front of it. I slowly walked over to the pillow and set my sling bag on the soft fluff, taking off my jacket and jeans. I peered through the window, moving closer to it as my reflection revealed itself in the darkness of the night from the outside world.

I stared at myself for a moment, a small-framed figure with a face that I almost didn’t recognise, then I shut the blinds abruptly. The bathroom was a tiny closet sized space, equipped with nothing but a sink, a toilet bowl and a small mirror. I turned the handle of the tap and cupped my hands together, splashing the water on my face a couple of times before looking up at myself.

The mirror had a long continuous crack that led from one corner to the next, perfectly slicing between my face. I stared at the thing in front of me, a skewed image of something so familiar yet barely recognisable at the same time. A monstrous depiction of someone who thought he was a victim all this while, when really he was the trigger to the gun, he was the destroyer of his own world.

I patted my face down with the wipes provided and staggered over back to my bed. The cocktail of exhaustion from the long-distance walking and the jet lag from the flight had me seeing double. I sat on the edge that faced the closed window and listened to the silence that filled the atmosphere. An occasional dog barking off somewhere in the distance, or the faint honking of a vehicle on one of the far off roads, or a barely audible shattering of glass from somewhere around the ground floor could be heard now and then. I just sat there, staring intently at the carpeted edges of the room.

What a strange feeling it was, to have come full circle from a chapter in my life that I never thought would be over. To have made it from the depths of hell, only to return to an empty hotel room and the deafening silence that accompanied it, robbed of everyone I ever loved.

I slowly turned my head over to the light green sling bag that sat titled on the white pillow and reached in to pull out my tiny, disheveled nutcracker. The small toy soldier fit in the palm of hand, its face barely visible from the severely worn out colours that once made up its intricate details.

I brought it close to me, feeling the indented lines that made up its tall, black hat and multi-buttoned coat, a combination of red and gold embedded onto the micro-sized masterpiece. Then without warning, drops of tears began to roll off my cheek and onto the miniature man’s smothered face as I put one hand over my mouth to muffle the quite sobs. Quiet sobs that fused together with the clashes of distant noises around me.

-

I’m swaying back and forth, it’s the same sensation you get from laying on a hammock by the beach. My body is heavy, my vision is blurred. I can barely move let alone think of moving. The whole world is swaying back and forth. My vision begins to improve, before me I see an endless dark spiral with dim lit colours of red towards the end. It’s all still very blurry, I’m trying to make sense of whatever is closing in from the other end of the spiral. There’s a silhouette of a figure, he either has a very large head or is wearing something that amplifies its size. The figure moves too slowly forward. Eventually, the swaying begins to reduce in intensity and the dark figure reveals itself, gliding lifelessly into the dim brightness. It is the nutcracker.

With streams of red running down his gaping mouth, eyes fixed in a wide open stare. Its cavernous jaws begin to click closed and open again, the sound of chattering gets faster and louder as it stares at me with large unflinching eyes. The red liquid begins to run by the gallons out of its moving mouth and the dim red light slowly begins to brighten, casting a crimson tone on the nutcracker’s face. The blood is oozing down onto the iron covered ground, lazily making its way towards me. Inches away from my feet, the overwhelming stream of blood is about to touch me. As hard as I try, I can’t move a muscle. All I can do is observe the thick red lines slowly engulfing my legs, making its way upwards past my knees. Wrapping around my waist like a shapeless serpent. My eyes open wide and I let out a loud gasp. I’m back in the hotel, curled in a fetal position on the ground right beside my bed.

-

Beams of light pierced through the window blinds, casting lines of yellow on my face. Noises from the outside world were amplified with series of honks and incomprehensible shouting from the shops across the street. I wiped the sweat off my brow and tilted my head up.

The nutcracker laid right before me, its tiny head leaned over to one side. I stared at it for a moment then lifted myself up, grabbing the little toy and placing it on the side table beside my bed. I sat back on the edge and rubbed my eyes for a moment, then reached for my phone that hadn’t yet been removed from my jeans pocket. There was still some battery left and a single unread message panned across the bright screen. It was from Syed.

“Brother, where are you? You didn’t respond to my last message. How’re things on your side? Let me know about your plans from here on. I might be sticking around for a little while more. I’ve still got a lot of catching up to do with the rest of my family. Reply as soon as possible.”

I placed the phone in my lap and turned my attention back towards the little nutcracker that stood on the clear surface of the chic side table, then I turned back towards my phone. I pressed a couple of keys and put it to my ear.

It rang a couple of times before a loud click on the other end was followed by Mr Genzo’s deep voice.

“Karkun?”

I cleared my throat and sat up straight.

“Mr Genzo. I’m ready to work.”