This was a creative writing write-up that I wrote for a competition in 2017. The word limit was 1500 and I exceeded it by 150 words I think. The topic was as follows — “HUMANITY has become immortal. People can even be brought back from the dead. Death has now become an adventure for the rich and powerful. You are the doctor who kills and revives them. You are fed up with all those glossy faces and superficial smiles. Now that death is gone, nothing seems absolute to you.”
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Place- outside my office
“Freeze!!”, shouted the masked man.
Right Ho!!! Is that supposed to scare the living merits out of us?
“ I do certainly hope so, sir. It’s all been a bit too grim and gray since the Israelis managed to
bring back Meir”, replied Robin.
“Must be a new gimmick of the alt-rights!!!”
“I do certainly beg to differ, sir, I hear the English mafia is a dying breed, in fact, all of the mafias is a dying industry.”
If ever-alive meant death for these bone-pickers then right ho!! Robin, I’ll take another century to my lifetime with grace and a cute cup of earl gray.
The man approached us. What seemed to be a shiny gleam in his left eye turned out to be a
prosthetic. It did take out some of the color off him. He walked with a martinet poise and yet a
noticeable slouch. He looked as if he had both served and suffered from the seemingly incurable sadness of society.
Pointing the gun at Robin he said, “ You Robin?”
“Aye aye”, replied Robin.
The fanatic tried looking the other way, but the jest was too funny to be ignored.
“Was it the Afghanistan war ?”, I enquired about the eye.
“It was a sporting accident.”
“Which sport?”
“Fencing”
“I believe they have a mask for that purpose — HEADGEAR as the more genteel would say.”
“Well, you see masks are usually Scandinavian, however, I was sold a cheap Chinese one by a blister old chap. The mask is fashionably called sacrifice (in Mandarin).”
“May I have a look, Sir”, Robin interrupted.
“Look at what?”
“The mask”
He took out his I-phone 42 and started scrolling down the screen, at which point, I felt it was imperative to remind him that he was scrolling the rear side of the phone. Realizing his error he sheepishly replied, “ Oh!! I was uhh just uhh !! Blinking.”
Upon the grandiose revelation of the photo my omniscient assistant gracefully told him that he had been conned and the mask did not spell sacrifice at all, it said- Sack of Rice.
In a bid to avoid the egregious digression, I insisted that he follow us to my chamber.
With one look at the scars on his left cheek, burns on the right hand, crimson eye sack, and slouch peaking above the Mt Everest, one could easily say that he had been on the field for a long time.
“Mister eh!! Mister”
“Let’s call me X doctor”
“Very well, Mister X, you perfectly know who I am and if you could ignore my jestful nature, you perfectly know what I do. I gather that you are a soldier, I wouldn’t say too ‘well off’. So it wouldn’t be too inappropriate for me to express my surprise, as wonderful as it might seem, at meeting you. It is not every day that my expensive services are sought by the proletariats. Therefore solve my conundrum when I wonder as to why have you requested this assignation.”
He looked at my window. For a while, I thought he was staring at the new panes or the lake outside. The scenery outside was often the quiet solace for the unassuming client. However, this one was looking at himself.
“These new glasses do not reflect that much”, he remarked.
“Of course the first time I sat in a glass windowed office, I didn’t know that we could use the glass for something other than mirrors. It was a long time ago, you see. I was 18. A high-spirited country lad, vying to fight for the king and his subjects. I had been commissioned to the Warwickshire Yeomanry. It was the proudest day of my life. Of course, it would be a couple of years until everything turned red and bloody blue.”
Robin and I were puzzled. We shrugged and enquired further. “What were you commissioned for?”
He waited for a long breath. Then in a moment of conspicuous gloom, he looked at the cracks of the window and smiled saying, “ SOMME”.
We jumped in horror and to the discernible audience — in disbelief. My second reaction was a little unexpected- flatulence. I sunk in my buck-leathered chair in search of a room deodorant and repeated, “SOMME?”
He asserted, “SOMME”.
Robin needed assurance, “You don’t mean….”
“Yes the very same”, replied the guy.
I motioned Robin to expel this novel client from my office, yet the man persisted, “ I assure you, doctor, I’ll make enough sense by the end of this story for you to write an article on it. So believe me when I say that I was deployed as a clay-kicker, a tunneller in the fields of SOMME…. In the first world war.”
Given that he had not blinked for seventy straight seconds, I could sense the sincerity in his voice.
He continued with his war story. “The Germans are getting closer”, my sergeant-major remarked. Covered with coal, smoke, and tar, his face was barely visible. Slouched with my comrade I kept my gaze fixated at the tunnel end. They were getting closer. With a shovel and a sickle in his hands, coal gas in his lungs, and fire in his eyes, he waited. We could hear the timber walls trembling. The tunnel was supported only by temporary timber walls. This was an important faction of the fight. Some were fighting on water, some on land, and the bravest and the craziest beneath it. A clear footing on no man's land was at stake. Being away from sleep’s stretch was taking its toll. The digging echoed in my ears like warhorns. The wait was eternal. Time stood cupped in my eyes when in an instant everything changed. The Germans razed the tunnel end wall open and attacked. My majors shovel was the first to speak. My other comrade, Bingo , being good with knives marched forward stabbing any and every living thing he could get his hands on. Just at that very moment, a short plump figure put a bullet in his heart. Without a second thought, I hurled my sickle at the figure. It landed on the pointy end. Bingo screamed for me. The bullet had found its way. The little figure was a teenage boy.
I eventually found my way home, but it seems I never left the tunnel. Every night I would dream of that evening. And every single time my mind would venture to the walls and the windows. I can still hear the shovels and sickles when I sleep and a voice reaches my ears keeping me awake, “ They are getting closer.” I secretly hope that I open my eyes to the sunrise before the Germans can push through the tunnel end. Sometimes it is the sun that beats the shovel but mostly it is the shovels that beat the sun.”
He paused, straightened up, and continued, “ I got medals and promotions and the only thing that kept me going was the sullen hope that I wouldn’t have to do it again. Alas!! lightning struck again. So I served again. They called us double whammies for fighting both wars. The emperor of all maladies kept following me. My wife died of consumption in my absence. It was then that I decided to hang up my boots. My mind seemed unable to bear the toll. All I wanted was to sleep again and dream again, and yet every time I closed my eyes, the walls would haunt me and then, they would close on me. There was neither respite nor solace for me in this world. So I took my cyanide and went into the deepest sleep I knew of.
“Did you die?”, Robin asked
“ Yes and no! I was dead… for a while but what followed was unprecedented. The world was divided into two halves by the Iron Curtain. Pushed to extraordinary discoveries, cynical and ungodly in nature, the human race went out of their league. We dared sacrilege. We wanted to wage wars, but not fight them. So we sought the dead. Imagine an infinite supply of flesh and flood at your disposal. Attrition ends up being an obsolete concept.”
I could sense the incoming cliche.
I interrupted him, “ Well la-dee-dah, what are you getting at soldier?”
He cried, “They exhumed my body and brought me back by using your research. They made me fight their battles.”
“ Well, a fighting zombie is better than a stationary corpse.”
“ I understand. However, I have been fighting for them for eighty years . “
So?
“ So it’s about time I was paid. And not just in cash.”
“If you wanted payment you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“ I disagree doctor. I have come to the perfect place. Like I told you I am alone and I can’t sleep.”
I had an inkling of what he wanted.
“So you want me to bring back your wife.”
“Well!!! Not exactly!!! Heavens no!!!. Her younger sister! I should have tapped that when I had the chance, but she died of diarrhea. Water was deadly back in my time.”
That would require quite a hefty sum soldier.
He replied without even a second thought, “ I was wondering if I would be eligible for the exceptional services of loyalty to the crown DISCOUNT.
I was amazed and replied, “ 69% it is soldier.”