sky, I felt a small drop of
rain fallen on my tear-soaked cheek. The people were busy into the
process and the sky was getting ready to pouring rain. Just then, I
heard a thunder roaring like giving a signal of jinx, and within a
minute it started raining. They had to shift the things to other
place and wait for the rain to stop. It continued raining for an
hour and they couldn’t do anything except wait. The rain went heavy
and then heavier. It discouraged them to continue the process in
the open space. Leaving all half-processed, they got busy making
the arrangement at another place. By the time it was morning one
o’clock which is considered night one o’clock for some ignorance.
They decided to wait until the rain stop. I was pushed into another
room and sat on a mat. The girl I was to marry also sat beside me
not realizing my imbalanced state of mind. She tried to open a
conversation, but I couldn’t do anything except crying. She sat
beside me hoping I would be consoled, but I was frozen with the
traumatizing things around that my eyes were gawking in fear. I was
just trying to keep my ears out of the window to hear the sound of
raindrops. It was still raining.
My mind cultivated an idea!
The moment I thought of that, the heart-beat
increased and blood started running faster. I thought of making an
excuse to go to the loo because that was the only possibility that
could draw me a little away from their enclosure. That was the only
time when they would leave me for a second or stand a few steps
behind.
A few steps, I recollected again!
Otherwise, they were keeping themselves so closed to
me that for stretching my hand also I had to ask for their
permission. I realized it was going to be a
never-forget-never-forgive accident of my life, and I had to do
that as a sinking man catches a straw. I looked through the window
and saw the rain was still pouring. Untangling the spiraling web of
vicious lies and well planed deceit, I decided to put my life in
danger in an attempt to escape from there. Perhaps that was the
right moment to do something. I told the girl that I wanted to go
out to pee. They allowed because the place was not too far. She
came behind for a few steps and behind her there were three other
men standing like watchdogs – the real sons of the bitch. I was led
just fifty steps far to a half-open thatched place. I was sure as
the ceremony was already begun, and they had observed me calm and
cool, so they would not be carrying guns at that moment. And I
realized also that the kidnappers were gone to sleep. There was no
possibility of water to be discharged from the body in the fear,
hate and abhorrence. I pulled my innerwear down pretending to have
a leak and turned my head behind to see the four watchmen of hell.
The girl bent her face down and the men were also looking at some
other direction. Feeling exasperated, heaving between devil and
deep sea, I looked at them a second time in a silent fury.
Just then,
The mind signaled the feet to quiver. Within a
friction of a second I pulled my U wear up moved the heel to run. I
took a jump to get away from them in a moment. There was a first
six-foot wall that I jumped over, and then the other two in next
five seconds. And then I started running as blindly as I could.
First noise and then two gun-fires I heard behind but I was safe.
And I was safe until I was breathing. And if I was breathing, I had
to keep running. A few hooligans ran behind, but the darkness with
heavy rain couldn’t help them find the way that I had paced
back.
I was trembling in fear as if fighting brass-monkey
weather in the fright of getting shot down. The bushes, the thorns,
the dogs and the trees, I had to pass on all in a continuous run
for twenty minutes. With the skin torn, head hurt, leg bleeding and
heart crying, I was challenging death with an effort to change the
inevitability. Breathless and bewildered, exasperated and shocked,
angry and upset, I
J. S. Cooper, Helen Cooper