Chapter 1

I am a dead man

I am a dead man. Perhaps I am still lying unconsciously where I last fell, or perhaps they had me taken to the hospital and I died there. Did they inform my parents that their son had died? Well how must I know from where I am now? From the other world, from that world from where no man returns to tell any tales. But here I am telling a tale. I don’t know if those there can hear me. They used to close that debate by saying “Dead men tell no tales.” But here I am telling a tale. It’s another thing that they cannot hear me. Can you hear me? All of you? All whom I loved and all who loved me and all you who hated me and yes even you who killed me? How am I to know, but anyways let me do my duty, to tell you the truth about my death. Even in this state I am bound by this duty. By my actions which are still defining me even at this very moment. There is no escaping this defining and I wouldn’t like to think I am a liar. So ill tell you the truth. Whether you choose to listen or not is a different issue altogether. I hope someone will.

Well, yes of course I had been murdered. I wasn’t so depressed anyways to commit suicide and if I had looked a little depressed at times, well I had been just faking it. You see despair came a lot too easily to me there. I hadn’t given much respect to the word there. How could I? My first encounter with the word was when I had conned that word as a synonym for sad at school. From then onwards, I threw it carelessly here and there sometimes when I actually meant misery or gloom or just boredom. Anyways, let’s move on, one can’t waste so much energy in such meaningless prattle. I hope that my death is at least a settled matter there. After all I know the men there are smart enough not to conclude otherwise. I am sure they see the crack in my skull. That’s enough proof. No one commits suicide my cracking his skull and even if anyone did it would be such a foolish and clumsy way to do it. Now to tell you what had happened.

Well, it was them again. They had come again. Again, even though I had repeatedly told them I had no money to repay that loan. But they would not listen, especially my murderer. He hit me hard with the butt of his revolver. I could see madness in his eyes. I had tried to fend but he was too precise for me, too potent. Precision is a thing that comes with practice. My murderer made his living recovering dues from unfortunate men like me and he was good at it. He was regular at practice unlike me who had hardly ever fended for himself. Especially when everyone had been so nice to me upto then. Oh how I now miss all of you. Especially you my parents. But its not for me to be too emotional. Its something I just cannot contain within myself. I have no outlet here as I had there. There I could smile and be smiled back upon. Here if I smiled I would have no choice but see its death too.

Anyways I am hopeful they will soon find out who my murderer was. I hate to be here with the thought of him being alive. Its not just that I want revenge as in a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life but its just that every time I think that he is alive I have to live with the thought that it was after all just brute force that crushed me. Brute force that ripped me apart. I thought I saw him sneer, nothing short of a spit, an insult to the very essence of my upbringing, with all that privileged schooling and all those lessons in what was right and what was wrong. All of that crushed so mercilessly, I would not be surprised if he got a high at seeing me collapse. Where is he now? Perhaps he is in some pub or some bar drinking and dancing away in the company of beautiful ladies celebrating his triumph. I just hope someone will testify and he will get convicted. Well atleast my neighbours could have when the police arrived having found me dead. My neighbours? Who were they? I don’t even remember seeing their faces anytime, although they stayed just opposite me at 64. I only remember hearing them unlocking the locks to their flat very late just about the time I usually slept. I think they lived busy lives, the two or was it three of them. I hadn’t even seen their faces and it had been three years. Well, so I really can’t expect much from them. It would be unfair to them to expect anything since perhaps they never noticed me too. Worse perhaps the police made enquiries with them and even put them at unease. Perhaps just like my murderer before he killed me, they too now desperately want to get rid of me. That’s why perhaps I feel a little unwanted at times. Perhaps it’s their curse.