RUN

The ruby red kite fluttered above head, contrasted against the aquamarine sky, and it all was picture perfect for a split second, so perfect that it was a spoiler to the fact that something horrible was about to follow, like it did almost always. So, when the string tore soundlessly and the wind gave the kite a piggyback ride further north, it did not come as a surprise, but it sure did disappoint. Panic rose to his throat, bubbling and boiling, his stomach churning like he had a bad case of dyspepsia. When he began running, he discovered that he had legs too short and stamina too less to match the stride of the kite atop the clouds, so he watched the ruby red square become a ruby red dot, but before it could vanish into oblivion, it transformed. The dot stretched and filled till it became a faint silhouette of a person.

Everything looked hazy and blurred in the wrong places – a movie censored by someone with a poor sense of art. He could clearly see his uncle and the hands of some other aunt holding him in place, restraining him from catapulting himself to the woman draped in red.

It was bad luck to cry when someone is about to leave, someone had chided him, did he want to jinx his mother? Like he was not enough bad luck already, but no, he didn't want to jinx her, nor did he want to watch her go.

To keep him and the other young troublemakers at bay, their grandmother would bake up a fresh batch of stories about monsters each night before bedtime. He didn't know how tangible a thing pain could be till he felt the all the monsters form all the stories to have ever been told claw at his chest – swirling and seething, weeping, struggling to break free. The wheels forged out of iron whirred, coughed and rolled, and when they gained acceleration, he could finally feel the arms snaked around him let go. An arrow sent flying from a quiver, he hurled towards the train, running, whizzing, and screaming, wanting to call out for his mother, but only ever managing a strangulated cry.

His face contorted, his tears and mucus converged.

"What an ugly boy!" the onlookers might have thought.

They say one's life flashes before one's eyes right before their death. So, was this it? He knew he were to die someday, because really, who wasn't? But what disappointed him more than the actual event of his death was that he couldn't even have a good flashback, it was all of his failures jammed into one.

"Oh, wonderful!" he thought gloomily before a different set of images swallowed him whole.

It was a lazy spring afternoon, the sky the color of dust, why he remembered this detail so vividly, he didn't know. He stared at the sky, trying to remember if a dust color sky hinted at a forthcoming storm or a drought, as the line for water moved at half the pace of a wounded snail. He hoped, hoped hard that there would still be water by the time he reached the source.

He sighed with relief and filled his broken buckets with water. And then he heard the screaming. It was the cacophony of different pitched voices echoing in unison, it sounded like the end of the world. By the time it had taken him to figure out what was going on, more that half of the houses had turned to ash.

Everyone knew that someone had started the fire, but no one dared speak it out loud, for the feat of maintaining one's status as alive was greater than ensuring justice or whatever, for the dead. The world was for the living, after all.

He had run, of course, but it was clearly no use drenching the charred remnants of objects and beings alike. He stared, watching as his last straw burnt down.

He whimpered in pain as someone kicked his punctured gut. If he were to die, why couldn't it be quick? But he had known for a long time that it would have to be this way, he had been told so the day he took up the dealing of drugs. In this ancient ritual of trading one thing for another, his wreck of a life was the only thing he had to offer, but for so long after yearning for peace, he was pissed off at himself for wanting to live.

Had he run with all his might, would life have been different? He could have run away from the raid last night. He could have run and put out the fire that took his family. He could have run to his mother, she wouldn't have abandoned him. How different could life have been, if he had caught that red kite?

Stripped of the ability to act at will, he stood up as someone steadied him. It took him a moment more to register that they were, in fact talking to him. Telling him he could go, he could be free, if only he ran and didn't look back.

"Run." said someone.

With all the strength he could muster, he set off, clinging to the last sliver of hope of losing his last ever race. He could hear applauses and whistling, he could feel the air buzzing with the excitement of an imaginary audience cheering him on, telling him he could make it.

The familiar metallic clink of a gun sounded behind him, and he took off, determined to outrun the bullet.

Upoma Aziz is a regular contributor of The Daily Star Shout.