by Lahari Mahalanabish
Raj had bought the car just two days ago. He sank into the cushioned seat, tapped on the smooth buttons and twiddled with the gleaming knobs. He lovingly stroked the leather coated steering wheel and then started the engine.
The car took off with a gravelly hum which sounded like music to his ears. He rolled down the windows to let in the spring breeze, which ruffled his curls and rippled through his shirt.
As Raj turned on the FM, a grating film song burst upon him. He flicked through the channels. Overenthusiastic jingles. Crass jokes from a comedy act. His hand shot to the button and a deep voice was saying something sombre. He had tuned into the popular program called Friday Fright.
Battle cries. Brandishing swords. Bursts of hot wind billowing the silk drapery of the high-ranked generals, stirring up the blinding dust and carrying forth the neighs of agitated horses. An arrow comes whooshing towards the king but pierces through the chariot driver’s chest instead. The unmanned horses go bounding over the sloping ground before coming to a halt in front of a horde of decked-up elephants. The king, barely seventeen, jumps down from his seat, sprints to the wounded man and wrenches out the arrow from his bleeding breast.
‘Water,’ the chariot driver mutters.
The enemy elephants are closing in. The king dives into his chariot and pulls out the cask of water. As he hastens towards the chariot driver, an arrow whistles past his ear. Another one misses his eye by less than an inch. The cask slips from his hands and rolls away to the dusty wheels of a rival chariot, spilling water on the dry battlefield. The opponent ruler grabs this moment to pounce upon the teenage king. Left with no option, the boy raises his sword too, casting a regretful glance at the chariot driver, who is writhing in pain, his eyes closed and mouth hanging open. The thirsty man concludes the king has forsaken him. Overcome by anguish, he summons the spirit of the fire, water and wind, chants a spell and curses the king – that he and his descendants will die gruesome, mysterious deaths. Yet, before the last breath quivers out of him, he mutters that the curse will dissipate if any of the king’s descendants saves a dying human being.
In the story, the king survived the battle but died in the next one, leaving behind a pregnant queen. The curse continued down the bloodline from the era of chariots to the age of fast cars. Not only did it affect the direct male descendants, but also their wives. Raj lapped up the details of the deaths and disasters. He had a strange appetite for horror. And liked that he could be guilt free while relishing the misfortune, given the victims were fictional.
The story went on to mention a wealthy scion who had turned to filmmaking and died mysteriously on the sets of a movie. Raj’s hands slackened from the steering wheel. He steered his car away in the nick of time from a truck.
His widow, a doctor, had recently exposed a powerful colleague who indulged in medical malpractice. As her son is returning from his office in his new car, a hired goon is skulking towards his house, concealed by the shadows of sparsely populated apartments.
The boundary wall is spiked with glass shards. But the assailant scales a tree and crawls along a stout branch looking into the garden. He leaps, the thud of his landing muffled by the soft grass. He creeps towards the kitchen window, masked by the trees.
The steering wheel spun in Raj’s shaky hands. His car zigzagged, inviting an angry glare from a four-wheeler he was about to graze. Raj clenched the gear handle with such force it would have been throttled if it were living.
The assailant brought out the window-cutter from his bag and struck upon the grille. He had purposely chosen the time when the elderly doctor listened to hymns.
The car careened off the road, almost toppling into a sludgy canal.
She is reclining on a canvas sofa and swaying her head to the soothing music. The assailant tip-toes to the back of the sofa and flips open his knife.
Raj slammed on the brakes in front of his home’s fenced garden, flung open the gate and ran in. A ray of hope flickered through him as his eyes fell on the kitchen window, which appeared undamaged. Still uncertain, he ran faster and faster, trampling on the tender saplings he had planted. He reached the front door and pressed the bell. Minutes passed. Yet the door did not open. His heart was thudding again. He rolled a smooth pebble under his right shoe. From under his toe to under his heel. Again from under his heel to under his toe.
His over-strained ears caught the clink of a bolt. Was it his mother or wife or someone else?
The door slowly swung open. The slim frame, the curve of a grey bun, the droop of the gold-rimmed spectacles became gradually perceptible through the widening, light-filled gap. Raj heaved a sigh of relief as she looked unhurt. He stepped into the house and scrutinised his mother, still wary that some lacerations might show up.
As he rinsed his hands at the sink and poured himself a glass of water, she pottered about, rattling off everything she had done that day. Raj’s nerves calmed down as he listened to her soothing voice.
But his wife was yet to return from work. Dialling her number yielded only missed calls. An old memory seeped into him, fanned his fears and messed around with his clarity of thought.
Meenakshi strode into the house just as he was about to set out in search of her. A glow spread on her face as she saw Raj overjoyed.
***
Raj put the newspaper down, his brow furrowed in thought, his eyes full of worry. A man had been arrested yesterday from the lane where Raj lived and a butcher knife had been found in his bag.
Before leaving for work, Raj paused in front of his mother’s room. The doctor sat on her bed, administering medicines to a regular patient over the phone. His father’s photo covered the portion of the wall between the window and the antique dressing table.
Raj drove down to his office, his mind wrought with questions. Was he really the descendant of a king? How did the makers of Friday Fright know all this? Or were the similarities mere coincidences? Or a ploy by the powers unseen to test his nerves? He wished he had listened to the story till the end, but he had been too anxious to know whether his loved ones were safe. Did it matter, now that the criminal had been nabbed before he could kill anyone?
He then remembered another part of the charioteer’s curse from the story. Perhaps the curse in Raj’s life had dissipated because years ago, he had saved a life.
***
It was a maze of dark lanes. The groans had stopped. The chafed lips seemed sealed forever. But a rush of breath warmed Raj’s fingers as he brought them close to her nose. Her swollen fingers twitched when his hand brushed against her wrist. Though repelled, he could not tear his eyes away from the splotches of blood over all her body. It was likely she had been raped and her attackers had tried to kill her too, to bury evidence. She would die if not taken to a hospital immediately. His fished out his mobile phone from his pocket. His mother, who was on duty in a private nursing home, sprang into action to facilitate the woman’s admission. But no ambulance was free. Gathering the semi-conscious woman in his arms, he trudged out of the lane to look for a taxi.
It began to rain as he stepped into a wider lane. The raindrops pattered on the asbestos roofs. Drops beaded her bruised face. Meenakshi opened her eyes and saw Raj for the first time.
Very well written, congratulations! Great imagination.