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Sometimes silence is indeed the loudest sound of all. He almost wants to cup his ears with his hands, close his eyes and wish himself to a far away place. Just like he did when he was a kid. Things were different then, it always worked. He is another person now. His innocence long lost, the boy dead and forgotten as if he never had existed at all.
"I know we look like beggars. Or worse. But still," he states angrily, the hand already on its way to his waist to grab the knife I gave him before sending them away. But one look at his silent companion and he lets it be.
They had reached the small pictoresque town moments before the night was ready to cast its dark veil over the streets. Too exhausted to notice the beauty of the place he leans against a wall allowing the cold bricks to cool down his skin through the fabric of his clothes. He had almost forgotten how it felt to be looked down at. Being treated like trash by strangers who wrinkle their noses at the mere sight of him. He is
Dutta Shriram Patil after all. Treated like a king at home. And like a stray dog here.
"Why don't you talk?" He asks suddenly needing her voice badly to calm down. "That is not you."
She finally stops staring at the moon to look at him. Straight into his eyes, not afraid. "How do you know that? You don't know me at all."
I am almost as surprised as he is hearing this. It's not the first time she leaves him speechless revealing the strong personality hidden behind the petite facade to him. He slowly rubs his forehead to get rid of the dull pain her words caused him.
"Are you two lost? I have never seen you before and we don't see many strangers here."
He needs some seconds to realize the voice talking to him is real. Thankful for the interruption, saving him from thinking too much about what he just heard, he turns his head and is torn between relief and desperation. The old woman and the girl, eight, maybe nine years old, don't look like they could do anything to get them out of this place.
"We are," he admits. "Could you tell us where we ..."
"Poor things, you look terrible," she cuts him off taking his hand. "You must be hungry and exhausted. Have something to eat first, we can talk later."
"Actually ..."
"Come," she insists and he takes a deep breath before he motions Naku to follow them with him.
I killed an old woman once.
She was badly injured when I found her and begged me to finish what others had started. Begged me to deliver her from the pain and suffer. I put the gun against her head, but couldn't pull the trigger. She kept on begging me and with the last of her strength she cupped my hand with hers.
"You can't leave me here like this," she whispered. "To die."
I closed my eyes and turned my head before fulfilling her desire. And fell back crying after doing it. The noise of the shoot still hanging in the air above my head, crawling through my skin into the last corner of my mind, almost downing my thoughts.
It was the last time I killed somebody until the night I died. It was the moment I decided to kill the man I was and become someone else.
Sometimes I wonder what her heaven looks like. Wonder if we can cross the borders and I get scared thinking of all the people I sent here waiting since a long time for me. Fearing they might cross their borders one day to drag me to my hell.
I dip my hand into the water reaching out for his face while he looks at the place the old lady and her granddaughter had brought them. It is not about love alone, it is about finding a way out before the darkness can swallow him completely, dragging him into his own hell. He is not a bad person. Years back he was just a lost and sad boy trying to cope with his pain, with nobody at his side to help him find his way back to the right path. If only I could somehow.
"Don't be shy," the woman says as she notices him looking at her. She shoves the blanket to one side making a small entry for her guests. Her place is something like a small tent built of some boxes and blankets. "Come in. We had to leave our house after the girl's parents died. But I can't complain, the people living here let us stay and give us some leftovers from time to time."
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