Spilt

Photo: Medellin, Colombia - by Diego Levy via Padacia

The ground gave way. Rami just stood there, looking out at the body just like the rest of the spectators that had now lined up. Blood started to seep out from under the body, waving through the broken street finding its way rapidly to his own feet. It was saying something to him, that blood. It was saying that I am yours, won't you say something?

It had been warm just minutes ago, now it was cold as November. He had walked out a few steps behind, caught up in tying his shoelaces, a small bag neatly tucked into his pants. It was money for his cousin'sschool fees. She'd gotten into a good school, better than anyone had ever imagined. She would be a doctor in five years. The whole family was pitching in. He had taken out his life savings for her, actually no, he had taken them out for his own brother. He loved her, but his brother loved her more. 106,340 rupees, a life's worth of savings- a gift to his brother and his to-be wife. He would walk away after this, he would leave. Rami got up off the bench, patted his left side at the waist of his jeans, still there, still secure.

He walked out, and immediately smelt something fierce in the air. He must have blinked, becausehe did not see it.All he saw was someone in a white shirt bend down, fish something out of the pants of a fallen man and walk away. The motorycle, which had a driver waiting, whizzed away. Two gunshots still rung in the air.

Rami just stood, his feet melting the ground around him. He felt his hands clam up, he wiped his face off. While men and women shouted, some going upto the body and shaking it to see if there was any sign of life, it seemed to Rami as if all around was still.

The bank's guard, carrying his useless klashnikov walked up and shouted out loud, "Koi jaanta hai is bande ko? Kaun hai yeh?". Rami knew him. But he stayed silent. It didn't matter now. He had blinked when he shouldn't have, when he should have been by his side, he wasn't. There would be enough time to speak later. He would have an eternity to ponder it, this moment seemed fit for silence.

An old woman, racetracks carved into her face, looked at him strangely. Then she looked at the dead man on the street. Her eyes moved along the blood on the street, and came unto him again. She spoke out loud, loud enough for a few people around her to hear, "He has the same face as that guy"; people looked up at him. Rami felt his face pierce open, more people started to notice that the dead man and him looked alike.

Rami took out his phone, he slowly dialled the number he usually called so many times but never spoke on once it connected. This time he spoke. He told his cousin, she would tell the family. He spoke slowly, determined that no one would make him repeat it again. Bystanders next to him listened intently.The sound of rickshaws, and buses and donkey carts slowly faded into the background. Silence enveloped him. A cry, went up from the other end of the phone. Next to Rami, a woman whispered to her friend, that it was a girl on the phone.

Putting the phone back in his pocket, Rami walked towards his brother, blood squishing from under his shoes. That lifeless sound of blood, as it is violated. That sound that stuck by him for a lifetime - the last sound he exchanged with his brother, the brother that had shared his crib, his mother's milk, and his blood.

At dawn the next day, Rami prayed with the men in his neighbourhood for his brother to be welcomed into heaven, namaaz-e-janaza. His mother stood in the doorway of their house, defying custom and weeping uncontrollably in front of the men.

After burying the body, he did as the other men did, he silently recited Surah-e-Fatiha, and slipped quietly through the side streets, jumped onto a passing donkey cart filled with uncut stone.

It passed by the train station, where he got off. He boarded the train, knowing not where it would go. As the engine chugged away from his home, Karachi lifted her veil of smoke for one last fleetinglook. He took off his shoes and looked at the caked blood that had housed itself in the grooves of the sole.

A little girl, sitting across from him on the train, looked at him strangely, wondering what he found so fascinating at the bottom of his shoes. Rami just cried, his tears mixing with the dirt and blood until one point when diluted red drops fell onto the train's floor marking even that spot as one where his own blood had been spilt. This time it just trickled away from him, knowing that he would not say anything.

(This piece was inspired by the above photograph. Parts of it are true.)