A Quarter Life

Falling Hands

He felt dizzy, very dizzy. The surrounding was still dark, faded.

Mike couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t see anything, but darkness. The dense shade of darkness. It was quite strange. Mike had seen darkness all along his life, yet he never saw this dense, this inevitable. He could see the fringes, straight, bright, long. He could touch the fringes, it was cold, it was dead. But he couldn’t hear the fringes. Could they talk.

He whispered to them, 'Could you talk?'

They whisper back, 'Wanna hear?'

He put his ears to them. They said, 'Dying while denying failure is cowardly.'

He asked, 'Am I dead? I don’t wanna.'

They said, 'Living with failure is disgraceful.'

He couldn’t say anything.

They continued, 'But, being a failure, it’s sarcastic. You can even laugh at yourself, laugh for lifetime.'

A splash of water woke him up. He couldn’t recognize the surrounding initially. He could feel a pain, quite a pain on the back of his head. The pain was deep, yet funny.

He slowly recognized the surrounding, it was Jenny's home.

He eventually remembered everything. He was here, to pick up Jenny's things. But he got struck in his head. He remembered nothing.

He was sitting on a chair, or forced to sit. His hands and legs were tied to the chair. He could just breath, nothing else.

He hands, his legs were hurting, but he couldn’t do anything.

He looked around. There were men. How many? Five? Six? Maybe.

A man was sitting in front of him. He looked at him. Muscular, more than usual, good with etiquette, sitting on the chair, holding a half empty water bottle. He got the point, this guy woke him up, with splash. But why did he tie him up?

The guy started the talking, 'Hey, do you remember who you are?'

He said nothing. Words were coming slow in his mouth. The blood droplets was on his neck, the pain was in his whole body.

The guy was quite impatient. He shouted, 'I am asking you one last time, lad. Who are you? What were you doing here?'

He said slowly, 'I know who I am.'

The guy felt relieved, 'Glad you are not deaf. Now tell me, who are you? Why were you here?'

He couldn’t say anything else. He was silent, silent in pain.

The guy went nuts. He shouted, 'Okay, you wanna play the game dirty? Fine by me.'

He took a big breath. He tightened his arms and blew a big punch on his jaws.

Mike could feel an enormous pain in his jaws. It was like his jaws fell apart. He could feel the blood rush up his lips. Did he look like a cannibal. Could cannibals drink their own blood?

The guy sat on the chair again. He was exhausted.

He asked, 'Let's start with small inquiries. What is your name?'

He said slowly, 'Mi...Michael.'

Suddenly the guy got a phone call. He received it, 'Hello Sir, Robert reporting....Yes sir, we came to her house. But she isn’t here.....Yes sir, on it. But I found a guy, injured, lying here. And her bedroom was messy, everything was fallen on floor, on bed....Yes sir, he is in our custody....Sir he is a stubborn lad, but we got his name, it’s Michael.....Sir, it’s Michael....Si-Sir, one minute, sir.'

He looked at Mike and asked, 'Are you Michael Ronald?'

He nodded, with pain.

The guy became pale. He took the phone close to his ears again, 'Yes Sir, it’s Michael Ronald....I am so sorry Sir, I didn’t know....Yes sir, right away.'

He told another guy to untie him. He got released from the chair. He slowly moved his hands. The wrist joint was hurting pretty much.

The guy said, 'Sir wants to talk to you.'

The guy held the phone up his hears. The voice came, 'Hello, Mike?'

He knew, it was Bruno.

He said slowly, 'Bruno?'

The voice was in relief, 'Gosh! It’s you? Did they hurt you so bad? Where is Janet?'

He sighed, 'I took her to the hospital.'

The voice said, 'Ah, thank god. Sorry, really sorry for this inconvenience. I owe you one. Very sorry again. Give the phone to Robert.'

He gave the phone back. Maybe Robert got some earful.

They apologized to him over & over again. They noted down the description.

Robert took a puff, 'So, you didn’t see his face?'

He denied, 'I was hit behind you know.'

Robert wrote down, 'Okay, that will be all. Once again I am sorry, about the misunderstanding. I really am sorry.'

He said, 'Never mind. I know. But officer, why were they here?'

Robert said, 'Well, there's a group of misled people, whenever any information regarding army goes downtown, they try to gather that info. Sir sent some information in this location. So he was worried about his sister's safety.'

He couldn’t understand. Why were people after this information?

Robert said, 'Okay Sir, we'll take a leave. Again apology. Do let us know about anything regarding this information.'

He nodded. Would he give the book? It was a big source of information.

“The firing wasn’t usual. I could feel that.

Reeve felt that. Sergeant felt that. Ruth felt that.

We all ran to the quarter underground.

Everyone ran as fast as they could. We couldn’t understand anything. We were confused.

We quickly entered the quarter garage, and shut the door. We weren't totally safe there, but yes, we were safe for a while.

Sergeant counted us, for safety. One person was missing.

Well, no wonder I felt something missing. Reeve wasn't there.

I told Sergeant. Everyone was more confused.

How could Reeve be so careless? Was he careless? I didn’t know. He didn’t seem careless to me.

Was he in trouble? Was he stepped over? Maybe he was. Maybe he was underneath so many desperate feet. Maybe he was craving to see a helping hand amidst those feet, like I found a long time ago. I couldn’t be that helping hand. I was selfish. He owed me one, and I was selfish.

I went to Sergeant, 'Sergeant, we have to go out, at least have to save Reeve.'

He was confused, 'I know. I know we have to save Reeve, but I can't endanger my whole troop just for one life?'

I was surprised, 'Doesn’t that one life mean anything to you? You know what? I am gonna head out. You all stay here.'

He shouted, 'Shut the f**k up, you asshole. Let me think.'

He thought for a while, 'Ruth, do you have any map here?'

Ruth nodded. He pulled out a map under the cupboard.

Sergeant took a look at the map, 'So, the breaching initiated from the east side, right?'

We all agreed. The firing was heading from the east part.

Sergeant looked at the map, 'But there's no gate there, inside the barrier, there's tank garage, and the kitchen. Where's the loophole?'

We all were confused.

Sergeant said, 'At least we needed arms.'

Ruth said, 'Behold, though it was Reeve's idea.'

He opened the cupboard. There were many rifles and shotguns, with magazines.

Sergeant was surprised, 'But, but I gave them to Reeve to keep them somewhere safe.'

I knew, Reeve was a mastermind. He knew that when breached, the troop would first take shelter in this garage.

We took the guns, followed Sergeant. We slowly opened the garage door, and swiftly came to the ground.

We couldn’t find Reeve, neither his body. But we saw the enemy army.

There were plenty of army there, enemy army. Maybe Japanese, I don’t know. We starter a sudden fire attack on them. They stumbled, but they were trained.

They captured us in no time. They assembled us in the center ground, we were there, unarmed.

They had men, holding rifles to each of our heads. And we, we were praying.

I can swear to Mother Mary, I didn’t want it to end this way.”