The Walker

By Vasudev Patel

As he walked down the empty road Aman was almost glad for the darkness. The dark tentacles spreading through the places the small patches of light under the street lights couldn't reach. Aman had walked many times down this part of the road between his house and the small playground with patchy growth of grass during his daily nighttime strolls. Aman was chronic insomniac. He had tried to outrun his condition but it didn't last very long. So, now he just walks around. He has walked around the old mill, the small allegedly haunted lake of his town, and many other places, but he always seems to come back to this seemingly uneventful, as most places are at night, part of the road. The part starts almost from the front door of his house. From there it comes down towards a canal. Some people use it to irrigate their fields. The houses stop a few meters before the canal. He knew almost every one on his side of the road. He had seen them come down to his house many times. There is a small bridge connecting the two sides of the canal, it is part of the road Aman always seems to end up on. Aman crosses the bridge. It would have been a great sunrise, if seen from that bridge but it was still a few hours away. He would see it on his way back. On the other side of the bridge are fields. The fields look like a painting in the moonlight and in their stillness. If there was something Aman liked about his condition, it was the quiet of the night. The quiet that seemed like it would go on forever. The quiet that only ever comes alive at night. There is another kind of quiet during the day, when there was the lowest amount of noise there could be but during the night, it was serene in all its stillness. The night seemed to stop time. Nothing moves, nothing makes a single sound. Some nights there is a slow breeze but that has its own beauty. Tonight, was one of the nights blessed with the completeness of the quiet. As he crossed the bridge, he could see the only structure made by bricks on this side of the canal. It was an old shed. Noone remembers who it belonged to or why it was for, it was just there. It had a name among the local natives of this small town, Chirghar. It had many stories associated with it. The most popular among the old people and the children being that it belongs to a witch who eats bad children, children who do not behave properly, who do not do their homework on time, who didn't eat their vegetables and many other things which are a kind of torture in the childhood. The true story however was much more grounded. The local police had used the shed for the red dyed affair of post mortem examination. Since there was no morgue in the hospital, a small shed outside of town seemed like the place for it. Aman crossed the bridge and descended down the road towards the Chirghar. It wasn't that big of a problem for him. He was fairly well adjusted tu the fact of mortality and such. As he crossed the Chirghar, he still felt a chill on the back of his neck. It wasn't because he thought that there could be ghosts around that place. It was just the kind of chill anyone would have when confronted with a dead body or at least the smell of one. The whole place reeked of rotting flesh. That smell has disturbed the quiet, only for a few second s though. Once Aman was out of the area infested with the smell the quiet settled in again. He was walking towards the playground beyond the Chirghar when he felt a chill run down his spine. Something cold and dry slithered just above the skin on the back of his neck. He turned around the moment, whatever it was, had made the first hair stand on his neck. There was nothing. He felt relieved and a little, just a little, disappointed. It was not like he wanted something to be there it was just that it would have been more.... something. He just couldn't put a finger on what it was that he wanted to feel. Maybe he just wanted to see a ghost or a monster, like the kids in a horror movie who must have known better than to have gone into the abandoned house said to be haunted, or like the people who hide inside a closet to save themselves from a deranged maniac hacking people up with an axe but open the doors just a little to look if the killer has gone away and get caught. They could not just have waited till help arrived. They had to look. His eyes drifted off to the shed where dead people are carved up to find the cause of there, as in most cases, untimely demise. Aman had always wondered what kind of people were they who made a living out of jamming a knife into the deceased of their own kind. As his eyes drifted off to the little green door on the side of the shed, he was filled with a curiosity. A curiosity to see inside, to explore, as any boy of eighteen would feel. He wanted to know just for the reason of knowing. Humans are the only creatures who do something just for the reason alone of doing it. Aman was no less human than anyone else he had met in his life. But he could not share this curiosity with them. This was a weight he had to bear all alone. Not just because of the utter inhumanity of it, but because of the quiet. The quiet does not just accept anyone. It chooses the ones it wants. The misgivings of his condition had made him worthy. Worthy to embrace the quiet, the night, and all its dark bounties. He didn't ask for; it was given to him. He can freely explore the world as it was intended to be, devoid of the parasite, the filth. The things that walk and litter around of the skin of this beautiful world. The world which comes alive only when it cannot be seen. The world which hides itself from the filth as they walk around making and breaking things. That world had chosen him all that time ago when his condition first showed itself and he had understood his purpose for the first time when he took the first of his night walks. He had gone into this shed many times to do what the quiet had told him. The quiet talks, not in the words the filth would understand, but it talks. It talks to him. It has told him that before this world, before the filth, before everything, it was here. It was here first. Everything came into being by slowly killing it piece by piece. But it still could not be ended. It still is. It still hides in the corners where the light does not reach, in the places where the filth has not fully spread. The quiet had told him that it would return but he had to prepare for its return. The filth needs to be cleared for the quiet to return. It is this return he was preparing for, as he started walking towards the shed. Not in hurry but not lagging either. Just the right pace, just the right amount of waiting for the filth inside the shed to be prepared. Prepared for his untimely demise. As he took his steps one by one towards the green door. The door standing between him and his purpose. Thoughts of the quiet passed through his mind. He wanted to be able to embrace the quiet when it will arrive. This was the way of doing it. He didn't know if it was right or not but he knew that it was at only this moment when he was doing what it told him to do, that he felt something. His dull existence fades away like light when night comes. He has never been more sure of anything else. He knew what he had to do as he slowly opened the door. It creaked on the rusted hinges as it swinged slowly like leaves in a slow breeze. The smell was still there but it did not matter anymore. Aman never liked that smell but his purpose was bigger than some disgusting smell of rotting flesh. He can work in that smell as he has done for many nights. The shed itself was not much. The half-torn roof, the breaking walls, the dirt covered floor, but all of this was covered with the remains of the deceased who are brought here. Aman was proud of the fact that he didn't disrespect the dead. No, it was the work of the filth to disturb the restful sleep. Aman was not one of the filths. He is a chosen one. He would never stoop so low as to disturb the dead. They have done their work of dying and ridding the world of filth. No Aman does not work on the breathless. He works on those who breathe. One of them is squirming right now on the floor. As any filth should. This particular one, Aman met the night before on his walk. His name is Satish. Satish was up at night because he could not sleep. He was out taking a walk when he had the misfortune of meeting Aman. Aman had told him about his condition and asked if he had the same but he didn't. He was out disrespecting the night acting like he was one of the chosen. Aman hated his kind of filth the most. He wanted to gut him right there but the quiet stopped him. The quiet told him to take him to his special place, Chirghar, and he did, then he knocked him out and tied him, gagged him and left him locked up in that shed so he could repent, just like the quiet told him to do. Satish never repented, because he never knew what he has to repent for or that he had to repent, if he had, the quiet would have freed him. Aman was hoping he didn't, now he can fulfil his purpose to the quiet. Aman walked to the far wall and started digging up the dirt near the bottom of the wall as he had many times before. He liked how blood-soaked dirt felt on his skin, under his nails, between his fingers. If Aman had to describe the feeling, he would have described it as how melted chocolate feels on the skin. It made Aman feel the joy a child would feel eating melted chocolate. It was not about the feel of the dirt it was about the things it conjured up inside him. But he was not here to feel that joy. He kept digging until the hole was about a couple of feet deep. There at the bottom of the fresh dug up old hole was what he was digging for, what he has dug for many times, what he has put there many times, his knife. It was dirty and blood painted both its sides like the waves on an ocean, but he liked his knife. That might have been the only thing he felt he truly owned. It was an old knife he had found lying somewhere he could not remember anymore. But the place he had found it hardly matters, the place it is in now is more important than the place it first appeared in. If that knife could talk it would tell you of all the things that Aman had done with it, it had been there for all his kills, it had been there that first time when Aman's amateurish technique had caused his first victim to almost runaway, it was there when Aman was first perfected and it will be there when Aman would eventually meet what is intended for him but for now that knife is here. Aman took the knife out of the hole and felt the rubber grip in his palm. It is soothingly comfortable in his hand, its blood covered grip felt right to Aman. If he could he would never part with it but he will have to but not for a few hours yet. His knife induced trans was at an end when he heard the whimpers from under the gag. Satish was waking up. He slowly went to him, placed the knife on his neck and said, "Scream and you take away my choice", in a voice so calm that Satish almost froze. Satish nodded and Aman removed the gag from his mouth. The moment the gag was removed Satish started begging as all the filth that Aman had brought to the shed did. Some offered him money; some threatened him and something or the other. Satish was no different, at first it his life he begged for appealing to Aman's humanity. Little did he know that Aman had casted away that filthy facade long ago, now he just pretended like he was one of them when he had to. Then it was to his sense of justice, how Aman would get caught. Satish didn't seem to realize that this was not the first time this has happened and he was not the first one to be sacrificed for the quiet. Aman was projected to the same pathetic drivel every time, one way or the other. He never wanted to kill them but he had to, if not for the quiet then for the sole purpose of shutting them up. Aman purpose left him no choice, he had to do it. It was his duty to serve the quiet. As satish was going on and on about why Aman should just let him go, Aman had stepped away from Satish and was now sitting in front of him. Aman intently listened to Satish. Then he slowly got up and said to Satish, "If I told you why this was happening, you wouldn't understand", in the same calm voice, but this time it froze Satish, “Do you know the best way to kill someone", Aman asked but Satish was too shaken up to answer and without waiting Aman continued, “The quick way is better for the killed that the killer, but the slow way lets the killer enjoy his work", then he looked Satish in his eyes and said, “You are dying for a great cause, for its return, you should be happy". With this he put the knife back on his neck right under his right ear, “The key to slitting someone's throat is, it has to be done ear to ear", as the cold blade pierced his skin Satish started to scream, the blade didn't stop it slowly went from his right ear to his left ear, “And that is because when the throat is slit this way you would choke and drown in your blood all at the same time", Aman said as he finished. The blood gushed out of the gapping opening in Satish's neck and spread onto the ground which drank the blood like desert drinks water. The blood-soaked soil seemed to come to life and slowly devoured the shell that had been Satish. The quiet has accepted this sacrifice as it had accepted the ones before. Aman was glad that he was able to fulfil his purpose. He was the chosen one. He was chosen to rid this world of the filth so it could return. As he was burying his knife again the first lights of the sun came down from the parts of the roof that were not roof anymore. He knew it was time to go back to pretending. He felt the blood-soaked dirt on his skin as his twig like fingers shrunk back to the shape they were when he first felt the knife in his grip. It has been many years since. He had been called so many names that he had forgotten what his real name was. Aman had been the name of the first boy he had sacrificed since coming to this town. He needed a human name so he took the first name he had found here. He faintly remembered that somewhere he was called the beast, but he didn't remember where or even when. Now, in this town he was called by a different name, maybe because someone has seen him on this small stretch of road many times, he didn't know and he didn't need to know.

By Vasudev Patel