That night Jackal kept looking at the window for hours before he finally fell asleep. He had started cursing himself for being a friend of Rahul. The kid who passed to his ears the worst secret and left a few days after. No one talked about the secret in open. But whispers were passed from ear to ear.
Rahul was known to every one in the school, but for all the wrong reasons. When he attended the classes he sat in the last bench. From there he made peanut sized balls of paper and "shelled" the guys who sat in the front rows. Then there were pilotless drones, also made of paper, which flew and hit many heads ahead. The brief moments when the teacher turned his eyes away to write some thing on black board were all that Rahul needed to launch his weapons. At times though, his drones lost the navigation and wandered in to the teacher’s air space. The all-knowing teachers promptly walked Rahul out of the class room the next instant.
He would stand there, facing down, his tender face all red and eyes welled. He looked like a bubble ready to burst at the next wind. In the initial days the teachers felt a wave of sympathy and let him back in. He would walk back, still face down, to his seat. It wouldn’t take five minutes for the drones to hit the skies again. Later he was thrown out of the class and never let in.
Then he started bunking the classes. When out of the classes he stayed in the hostel and looted chocolates from other's suitcases. The victims could not complain because they were not supposed to keep snacks with them, in the first place.
And one fine day the same Rahul left the hostel for good!!. Just like that.
It would have been just another night. Rahul woke up in his sleep some time after midnight. This was not unusual and he started towards the rear of the hostel where the hallway ended and the walkway to the restrooms started. Instead of turning right to where the restrooms stood, he turned left. On the left, beyond a three feet wall stretched a mud road. Just across the road, stretching miles in to the dark horizons on both sides, was a thick jungle.
That area was strictly off-limits to students, especially for the purpose of pee. But Rahul being Rahul, jumped up the wall and walked to his left a few yards to his favorite pee spot. A feet or so ahead of him was a tree which rose out of earth and branched in two directions like the letter "Y". From the wall he aimed the water jet across the cone of the Y tree to the other side. He had style in every thing he did. His eyes drifted toward the vast sky and stars in that dream like state. And then he heard the unmistakable ruffle from the forest.
He looked at the fox like thing which emerged from the bushes. He knew there were many of them but never seen one. This one looked more like a dog. Wolf ? He looked closer and saw that the creature had one of its rear legs missing. It was that stray dog which he has seen many times around the hostel. With only three legs it would limp all around the place. He had seen the warden feeding biscuits to it. The dog limped in his direction. If it is fast enough he could arrange a shower for it, he chuckled at the thought.
A crow flew over head.
The dog was still many feets away, but he could see in the moon light that its eyes had a ferocity to them. He wanted to pick some stones and scare the stupid dog away, if only he could finish what ever he was doing. Then he saw the bushes move once again. And he stopped a breath half way. A figure fully clad in black, walked out of the bushes.
The black robe extended from head to toe. The face was hidden. One of the hands held a long stick. There was some thing moving in the other hand. Rahul noted with horror that it was the headless body of a chicken struggling its last struggle. Drops of blood flew in the wind. And then he saw the face. It had ashes on its forehead and red all over the chest like a murderous beast in the middle of a feast. It was hard to recognize in the night. Its eyes now fell on Rahul
Rahul cried out loud. Only a muffled sound came out. The light was low but that was enough for him to recognize the face. It was the warden.
The eyes were red hot and were on him. Rahul didn’t bother to finish the job or do the zipper. He jumped down from the wall and ran towards the room. A crow circled above his head. The earth seemed to move and he didn’t get enough grip to move ahead. It was harder to breath. But he tried. He was a fighter. He struggled towards the hallway and finally got there. He took a few more steps and passed out, feet’s away from his dormitory door.
When he woke up he was on his bed. But he had high fever. He could barely walk. His teacher advised to not attend the classes. But Rahul did not want to stay in the hostel alone. The red eyes kept coming to the mind. He breathed a lot easier when the day got over and his friends came back from school. From them he knew that the secretary of the school's management committee has arrived. The secretary was an all powerful man who visited the school once in a few days.
He would tell the secretary what he saw last night, Rahul thought. Secretary was the only person who had more power than the warden. The other teachers were clowns. The secretary stayed in a building on the other side of a football ground. When every one around was asleep that night, he slowly sneaked out of the room. He had to cross the part of the building where the warden stayed. He hid behind a wall and made sure the lights in the warden's section was out.
He had to some how cross the warden's section. Once he reaches the football ground he could run with all that is left in him.
He walked slowly. He was now in front of warden's door. He wanted to look through the window but was too scared to. He was about to take his next soft step when he heard flap of wings. A crow took to the air from a tree near by and landed a few feet ahead of him. Its eyes were on him. Phew..just a crow he thought. Then some leaves ruffled. From some where in the darkness a dog appeared. The three legged one. The eyes were more ferocious than they were the last night.
It stopped just a feet in front of him and growled. A devilish growl. Rahul froze.
"So you want to tell some secrets to the secretary don’t you?"
The words came from his left made his legs melt. It was the warden. A warmth engulfed Rahul's head. He thought he would pass out again.
" Why don’t you tell me the little secret too" the warden laughed.
Rahul had no courage to speak. His lips were trembling and the legs frozen. The warden's chuckle came closer and closer. He had to move. NOW!
He didn’t know how, but his legs finally moved. With the warden just a few inches away Rahul shot out towards his room. He heard a growl behind. But he had found his speed. In the next instant he was on his bed. He took the photo of a god from his friend's table and kept clutched it to his heart.
The next day Rahul's fever got worse. It worsened the day after. His parents came that evening and took him with them. He would never come back. But he had already told all that happened to his close friend - Jackal. About the blood, the crow, the dog. That the warden some how read his mind.
In the days that followed Jackal tried to keep himself as far away from the warden as possible. But he found that the warden eyes seemed to follow him. It seemed as if the warden was looking for some thing , some reason, to catch Jackal in the wrong foot. May be to punish him in one of the warden's unknown ways. After a few days jackal found it too hard to go on with this. On evening at one corner of the football field, after making sure no crows or the three legged dog was around, he whispered his mind's contents to his close friend. Whispers passed ears.
Now the letter that Jackal wrote waited in the post box for the warden to be picked up.
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