Arrows

Abontee Ahmed

(Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Arrow and the Song)

The time was dusk. The play of colours was not less captivating than any other day. The reddish tint in the sky did not catch Ahsan’s attention, nor did the purple hue. Cotton like cloud      graced with painted beams of setting sun did not seem capable of abolishing the agony that engulfed Ahsan slowly. The city charmed with golden light appeared gloomier than clouds to him. He stood motionless as graphite. He felt as if he was swallowing needles. Wearing melancholy, creasing his forehead, he uttered subconsciously, “He must’ve felt the same then”.

A bunch of children are playing ‘catch’ with a book; among them, one noticeably young child with hardly groomed hair and a lost expression, is running to whoever has the book in hand: “Please return it, give it to me. Please!”

A boy in Ahsan’s class, Ahsan cannot recall his name, was a lot younger than Ahsan, or anyone else in the class. On his first day of class , everyone knew he  had low  self-esteem. The boy was timid, too scared to talk to others. After a week, he gathered prowess to introduce himself to one of Ahsan’s mates, Rayan. Rayan listened to his introduction, but behaved as if he did not exist. His face turned red in ignominy, but he didn’t pronounce a word. His behavior, that was meant to retain peace, appeared not only cowardly but also comical to others. And perhaps, the conduct he received made him feel insignificant, helpless.

Ahsan spoke to himself, “We pinched him, joked about him and embarrassed him in every possible way. Just as the first time, he did not have the resolution to protest. He cried, shook in fear, but never raised his voice. Then, we mocked him for crying and he remained the faint-hearted silent boy, until we grew up and didn’t enjoy teasing him anymore. I remember he treasured a book, carried it everywhere. We didn’t know what it was. So, to discover the content, we took it. But to our utter disappointment, it wasn’t a picture book, nor was it a comic. We didn’t get its specialty; to us, it was a boring book with complex things written in black. That day, when he was searching for the book like he was insane, we laughed among ourselves and later, showed him, we had taken the book. He requested us to return the book, he even went to the lengths of pleading on his knees. But we decided to have a bit of ‘amusement’. For the next whole month, he did everything we asked for. He did all our homework, carried our textbooks  and ‘danced’ the way we wanted him to. He endured all the humiliation and carried out whatever we imposed on him, just to get the book back. Slowly, we started to increase his ‘tasks’ and one day, he couldn’t continue anymore. This failure enraged us. He begged and cried repeatedly; he said it was something his deceased grandmother had left for him. We tore the book in pieces and flushed it in the toilet. His feeble face turned into a devastated one; as if his world had been shattered. His indignant eyes didn’t make us feel guilty, or didn’t even make us aware of our inhuman wrong doings. Later that day, he suddenly got a fever. But that didn’t matter to us, we had had our entertainment (?).

Quite unbelievably, it was in our first grade. When we grew up a bit, like in 9^th or 10^th, we once told him, a first grader possibly didn’t know to distinguish between good and evil, possibly couldn’t understand what would make one’s heart ache. He smiled calmly, calmer than the autumn sky. A smile, that disclosed our iniquitous instincts before ourselves, silently criticizing our trifling excuses.

No. We did understand it hurt him, but his sufferings gave us joy; a kind of devilish joy!” Ahsan remembered, the boy had become a person with tall talks, trying to impress others. Ahsan remembered how they had ignored, when he really tried to prove his worth, and then criticized when he became boastful. “It was us! We pushed him there! He was a classmate, but he never became one of ‘us’, we never let him be!” Ahsan spoke as if he understood a piece of strenuous philosophy after years of endeavor. “We enjoyed his pain”.

 

Ahsan is now a prosperous man with an enviable social status. He does not have many things he holds dear, but Meerab, his only son, is the apple of his eyes. He is the most cherished, most adored one to Ahsan for whom he       can turn the world upside down. More appropriately, he means the world to Ahsan. Today, Ahsan received a call from Meerab’s school. Meerab could not have been more devastated, but that is not what hews Ahsan apart. Meerab’s condition reminded Ahsan of actions of his childhood, that were ever forsaken, that remained vague in his memories. He thought to himself, looking back at his childhood, sunken in guilt, knowing he had sinned, “these kids do not know; an arrow shot with a vile whim, returns right to the archer, with the force multiplied a thousand times!”

The nurse had handed Ahsan Meerab’s medical reports. Ahsan’s head started appearing heavy to himself, his sleepless eyes widened in terror, his hands shook in disbelief as if he had been thrown in the flames of hell. Meerab has a few fractured ribs.