I was running, blood flooding from my head. Dark greenness seemed to be spreading over the night sky. The moon was at the top of sky. I could hear crickets and the footsteps of the people who were chasing me.
“Henry, you can run but can’t hide” some one called, “you have to repay each and every penny or you will die like this, running”
I fell down on some leaves. I tried to be silent.
“You don’t understand…dam…I will ruin you, I will kill your family” he shouted. Fear flooded me. A snake was just in front. It crawled over me. It felt like death was coming nearer and nearer. It had almost reached my face, when I screamed and somehow threw the snake on someone of that group.
I heard someone rushing towards me. I tried to run and all of a sudden the night’s silence was broken. The snake bit a man. I saw him felling unconscious through bushes. The group no more followed me, when I stood their thunderstruck.
I heard someone saying, “he is no more” and I rushed from the very moment.
I would have run almost a mile nonstop. I was nearly at the end of the hill where I could see the black beauty. I took a sigh of heave. “I have murdered” I muttered to myself. My heart and inside was burning. I wasn’t in my sense. I slapped myself, hard twice. I was just roaming on the edge of the hill abusing myself when my foot slipped, and then I remember no more…
I opened my eyes, I was lying on grass. Huge blue sky was shining a bright sun, as if it had just been polished. I could see could fruits hanging. I got up to my feet, I had no memories of my past night. I took one, it was an apple. There were thousands of apples here like stars scattered in the night sky. I could see crops of grapes, millions of them. There was I think wheat, maize may be rice crops.
I took a bite of the apple. The taste was strange. I looked at the apple, blood! Blood! Coming from it! I found blood spread on my mouth. I threw the apple scared and split that blood. I wiped my face with my shirt.
All apples were turning into skulls! The grapes were melting into blood. The wheat and maize were forming fibers. Rice forming tissues. Everything seemed to combine. Blood, skull, fibers, tissues…
And within no time these formed seedlings and after that babies. Millions of small babies were formed and once again everything became normal. Memories of past flew from my head. The voice of men were screaming, I rushed and I rushed, no matter how much I ran but those words were echoing my entire soul. It was as if I was running away from my own shadow.
I saw some people working on the field. I ran, didn’t took breath and said to one “what’s…that…where” and my sentence never made any sense.
“Take a heave gentleman” he paused, “yes, now. What is your problem?” he asked. I explained him everything I saw.
“You didn’t understand it yet?” he questioned.
I was about to answer when I saw the same thing again. The apples turned into skull, grapes into blood, wheat and maize into fibers and rice into tissues. All combined and a million babies were formed. I saw the man eyes turning to dark red. I don’t know what happened but I again rushed. I found stairs and climbed them.
I was about at the top of hill from where I had fallen last night. I began to think about it, about what is happening. I thought how had I survived. I thought about the field and farm and those men. And all of a sudden a cold wind blow past me and I was shocked thinking, “Am I dead?”
I was scared about the very thought. I looked up and down. Everything was similar. The sky was same and the sun was that only. An old woman was passing from there.
“Any problems, Mr.?” she asked sympathetically.
“…I…Can you please tell me where I am? What’s happening here?” I asked her, almost frozen tears coming from my eye.
“You don’t yet understand do you?” she asked with a grin on her face. “Well, the fact is that you are dead”
The last three words were the last words I want to hear. I exclaimed, “no!” in disbelief.
“You don’t believe it Mr.? Well let me prove.” She said taking an axe kept nearby. She took the axe and drove it into her skull!
Nothing came out! No blood! No cries!
And then she took it out. “You, see Mr. Will you like to try it yourself?” she asked me.
I didn’t reply. She all of a sudden drove the axe into my left leg. It was such that I never felt anything. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to run again. “Stop Mr. How much will you run? Wait I can do you a favor.” She said and asked me to follow her.
About ten minutes later, we reached a cottage. She knocked the door. An old came out.
“Father!” I said. He was my father. I nestled him tightly.
“Come in, my son,” he said. I looked back and noticed that the woman was no more.
“Glad you came to meet me” my father said.
“Father, I am feeling very nervous. Please father, explain me what’s happening here.” I asked my father impatiently.
“Son, it is a fact that you are no more.” He said offering me a cup of blood. I saw it, and threw it away. The cup broke into pieces and the blood scattered. I vomited on the floor.
“You need that, son” he said and muttered some words. The pieces became the complete cup, the scattered blood collected in it ad the floor was cleaned.
“See son, living a dead life is different from the Earth’s life. On Earth, you earn to survive. But, here you earn to die. Its true that the life here isn’t without hardship, but, it is a lot different.” He said and drank a cup of blood, poured some more blood in the glass.
“But, I don’t understand why we have to earn to die?” I asked.
“Son, its simple. At Earth you earn to survive, considering the survival your biggest goal. But, life is a punishment and here you come when punishment is no more. Here you are dead and to remain dead you need to drink blood. And blood isn’t available on the planet. It’s borrowed from Earth and that is costly. And for that you need to earn to die.” He explained.
“But, I saw blood in the apples in the farm.” I replied.
“No…no… that isn’t the one we require. You don’t want to kill people. See that’s confusing. I try to explain. Once you die you come here. You need to earn various things in order to remain here. But, one you cannot earn to minimum survival, then you are forcibly sent back to earn in one or another form. That blood in apple is fresh blood and once you took that apple you gave someone a bigger punishment like handicap etc.,” he told me.
“But, who is keeping us here and sending us there?” I asked.
“No one knows. May be god. See, on Earth also you know facts and here also. Every minute there are millions who can’t pay and hence they become blood, fiber, and tissue etc. from that new life’s are formed maybe a baby or you know any eatable or anything. Every thing is life, even the non-living..” He informed me.
I fell of from my seat. Guilt flooded me. I was feeling inferior.
“What happen, my child?” he asked.
“I bit an apple at the farm.” I told him.
It seemed as if my father were thunderstruck at those words. He was looking cold, so cold.
“YOU BIT OFF AN APPLE?” he asked with the world’s coldest voice.
“Yes, but what’s the matter” I replied.
Before my father could say any word, someone knocked at the door. My father drew me from my hand to door.
Some young man stood there. He asked, “Mr. Your son have committed a crime. It’s our orders to punish him, he has been sentenced life for 78 years”
“Mr. My son is new to this world. Please forgive him. Please, I beg you” my father begged.
“I am sorry, but it is orders from majesty.” He said.
Frozen tears came from eyes of my father. “Okay…take him” he said closing the door.
I was walking with that man. “What’s happening?” I enquired.
“Nothing Mr. You are going back to Earth.” He said.
“But, I have died today only. Is this the life span in this world?” I questioned.
“No. Life as much you want to. You will have to go to the Earth if you can’t buy blood or you took justice in your hand. And you took justice. You punished a delivery and so the majesty punishes you.” He said.
Meanwhile, we reached somewhere like a railway station. There was a train over there and a platform. A voice was dictating from behind a curtain.
A man approached near me and said, “Welcome to jail sir, you are punished 78 years of life as human and I am your agent who will be guiding you through the entire process.”
I stood there watching the things wordless.
The voice dictated, “dig a hole in your mind and you will find a memory chip. Remove it and you will forget everything about this world”
I saw agents helping people taking the memory chip out, I asked my agent to what to do but he didn’t answer. He boarded me towards the train, I asked him who’s behind the curtain and he replied, “No one knows and no one dares to. Because we have seen miracles which you haven’t.”
I was in train when I tried him to ask quickly, “what about that chip…”
But it was too late.
I found myself inside a mother’s womb. I could hear her screams. I had suffered most, since I remembered everything of my past and the dead world, that agent was a bastard.
I had always questions beacause the thing behind the curtain never gave me time to get them answered. It was like a one day journey from world to world.
I grew up into a boy and my parents often wondered why I am so fearful and irritable to everything, especially apples, grapes, wheat, maize and rice.1
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