He had known that he could punch through walls since he was in kindergarden and his best friend had blamed him for stealing his brand new pencil. He had punched through the playground boundary wall when he ran out with indignant tears spilling out behind him. His face was a testimony of his surprise when he realized that if he had punched his best friend as he wanted to in his mind it would have caused a lot of pain. He wasn't sure how to deal with this strength and being a kind child he blamed himself and felt god would punish him for such bad deeds and he stopped giving into his impulses since then.
As a teenager he was as maladjusted as so many others grappling with self confidence and growing up that he didn't stand out. he was ignored for most of his teens, his quiet manner intimidated people; adults didn't know how to deal with him and other kids just pegged him 'weird' and no one bothered him because he was huge and while no one had ever seen him being violent, most teenagers have grand imaginations and can imagine pretty much whatever. This meant that growing up he didn't have friends, he closed in with each passing year to an extent that most people didn't even know what his voice sounded like.
He wasn't even sure what his voice sounded like. The last time he had heard his voice was the night he had gained consciousness and seen his mother, father lying in a mangled heap some distance from him. He was strapped to the back seat of their hatchback and he couldn't run to them. There was fire all around him, the burning smell of metal and flesh made him nauseous but it was the despair clutching at his thumping heart that gave direction to his hands and he ripped the seat belt from its groove in the chair and ran towards his mother.
As he slid to her side and put out the fire which had caught her clothes he saw that her eyes were frozen and even in death she looked worried about him. His father was still in the driver's seat attached to the burnt car and his back was bent in an unnatural fashion and the steering wheel seemed to be lost inside his chest. He was still alive. He looked at his father and saw him smiling at him, with his last breathe he tried to say something to him but he lost his words in a cough, spitting blood. He walked closer to his fathers tattered body and saw life seep out of him as he smiled at him. He had screamed that night. It was a scream which cut through the night sky and in a melodramatic the fire around him was put out by heavy rain. He was rescued from the accident site. He was eight years old and the people who rescued him realized him to a NGO which took him to several sessions of therapy and it was then that he realized that he didn't have anything to say.
His father was a smart man, some newspapers called him a genius. He missed out on all the drama post the accident but he caught up to all the drama when he was thirteen and when for the first time he was addressed as an orphan by a new kid who wanted to establish himself as the class 'Toughie' by taking on the freakishly tall and silent kid, needless to say, the new kid learnt that he like everyone else in the class would be ignored. But the new kid hadn't altogether been ignored, that one remark had wanted him to learn about the kind of a person his father was, who is mother was and he had then devoted every waking hour about finding everything thing about himself. He had also discovered the reason why he wasn't with a foster family or with other relatives. His father had made sure that he would continue to live in their family house in his will, he was taken care of by the staff at the house and he never did think how over the years things remained the same at the house like they had when his father and mother were alive. It made him curious why his father would think that he would have to be alone at that age but he never could figure it out. And this question frustrated him to continuously punch holes in walls around him. No one ever found out about his punching because after that incident in the kindergarden he made sure that he ran a great distance before he could find a solitary wall and then he let his frustration and wrath lose on the concrete and bricks.
But after he was done and the wall was just a pile of rubble behind him he still didn't feel the agitation ebb from him, he felt like an addict.
One evening when he was returning from a field after crumbling yet another wall he found a pup following him. As always he decided to ignore the pup and continue to wallow in his unresolved agitation. He reached home late and found his dinner waiting on the table like everyday. He shoveled it quickly and carried the plate to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink, it was then that he heard the patter of small paws in the dark corridor connecting the kitchen to the hall, alarmed he turned around to detect the source of the sound and heard the whimpering fur ball staring at him. While, they were both eyeballing each other, the pup got bored and decided to follow his nose and get something to eat in the kitchen. He was surprised even shocked at the impertinence of the puppy but he guessed it didn't know any better. He pulled out a chair and sat down to observe the antics of the puppy, scampering all over the floor. He broke out into laughter when he saw the puppy bemused after bringing the trash can down with a crash. It had been ten years since he had last laughed and his laughter echoed through the dark house and the pup joined in with his barks.
The laughter and barking was heard by another person keeping a watch outside the dark sprawling mansion.
To be continued...
As a teenager he was as maladjusted as so many others grappling with self confidence and growing up that he didn't stand out. he was ignored for most of his teens, his quiet manner intimidated people; adults didn't know how to deal with him and other kids just pegged him 'weird' and no one bothered him because he was huge and while no one had ever seen him being violent, most teenagers have grand imaginations and can imagine pretty much whatever. This meant that growing up he didn't have friends, he closed in with each passing year to an extent that most people didn't even know what his voice sounded like.
He wasn't even sure what his voice sounded like. The last time he had heard his voice was the night he had gained consciousness and seen his mother, father lying in a mangled heap some distance from him. He was strapped to the back seat of their hatchback and he couldn't run to them. There was fire all around him, the burning smell of metal and flesh made him nauseous but it was the despair clutching at his thumping heart that gave direction to his hands and he ripped the seat belt from its groove in the chair and ran towards his mother.
As he slid to her side and put out the fire which had caught her clothes he saw that her eyes were frozen and even in death she looked worried about him. His father was still in the driver's seat attached to the burnt car and his back was bent in an unnatural fashion and the steering wheel seemed to be lost inside his chest. He was still alive. He looked at his father and saw him smiling at him, with his last breathe he tried to say something to him but he lost his words in a cough, spitting blood. He walked closer to his fathers tattered body and saw life seep out of him as he smiled at him. He had screamed that night. It was a scream which cut through the night sky and in a melodramatic the fire around him was put out by heavy rain. He was rescued from the accident site. He was eight years old and the people who rescued him realized him to a NGO which took him to several sessions of therapy and it was then that he realized that he didn't have anything to say.
His father was a smart man, some newspapers called him a genius. He missed out on all the drama post the accident but he caught up to all the drama when he was thirteen and when for the first time he was addressed as an orphan by a new kid who wanted to establish himself as the class 'Toughie' by taking on the freakishly tall and silent kid, needless to say, the new kid learnt that he like everyone else in the class would be ignored. But the new kid hadn't altogether been ignored, that one remark had wanted him to learn about the kind of a person his father was, who is mother was and he had then devoted every waking hour about finding everything thing about himself. He had also discovered the reason why he wasn't with a foster family or with other relatives. His father had made sure that he would continue to live in their family house in his will, he was taken care of by the staff at the house and he never did think how over the years things remained the same at the house like they had when his father and mother were alive. It made him curious why his father would think that he would have to be alone at that age but he never could figure it out. And this question frustrated him to continuously punch holes in walls around him. No one ever found out about his punching because after that incident in the kindergarden he made sure that he ran a great distance before he could find a solitary wall and then he let his frustration and wrath lose on the concrete and bricks.
But after he was done and the wall was just a pile of rubble behind him he still didn't feel the agitation ebb from him, he felt like an addict.
One evening when he was returning from a field after crumbling yet another wall he found a pup following him. As always he decided to ignore the pup and continue to wallow in his unresolved agitation. He reached home late and found his dinner waiting on the table like everyday. He shoveled it quickly and carried the plate to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink, it was then that he heard the patter of small paws in the dark corridor connecting the kitchen to the hall, alarmed he turned around to detect the source of the sound and heard the whimpering fur ball staring at him. While, they were both eyeballing each other, the pup got bored and decided to follow his nose and get something to eat in the kitchen. He was surprised even shocked at the impertinence of the puppy but he guessed it didn't know any better. He pulled out a chair and sat down to observe the antics of the puppy, scampering all over the floor. He broke out into laughter when he saw the puppy bemused after bringing the trash can down with a crash. It had been ten years since he had last laughed and his laughter echoed through the dark house and the pup joined in with his barks.
The laughter and barking was heard by another person keeping a watch outside the dark sprawling mansion.
To be continued...
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