The Night-IV

T R Mist


Continuation of Night-I, Night-II, Night-III

The Game of Shadows II

The story so far: The protagonist is leaving to meet his friends at the Sunshine Cafe when suddenly he is called out for from a dark alley. The man is an old acquaintance whom the protagonist had named Corto. Corto cryptically mentions about his involvement in the failure of the light globs of the city, which stuns the protagonist.

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“You with me?” I was too stunned to reply.

“You look like those frozen stumps of trees in the jungle”, he added. “Don’t look so confounded I have not even begun telling you what I have come to tell you.”

“You mean to say there is more. More of your dare-devilry and machoism, of which I need to be enlightened about?” I asked. Corto laughed. It was the first time I had ever heard him do it. But as the man’s nature, it was brief.

“Don’t you think I am here to boast about things that we have been doing, I came with a completely different purpose. I hardly venture out so openly, but today I have done it as the situation demanded it,” Corto said.

“Okay,” There was palpable incredulousness in my voice, which Corto latched on to immediately. “I am not here to tell you fairy tales,” he said talking straight, “and you can trust me when I tell you that you are under surveillance by the municipality agents and not just you but even you friends K and Bro,” he said finally. My feet quaked. “Corto you are not making that up right?” I asked.

“I don’t joke when matters are as grave as these. That is the precise reason I ventured out myself to tell you about it, because I knew you will not believe it if anybody else got you the same message,” he replied calmly. “But…but, I don’t seem to remember doing anything out of the place, which will engender surveillance,” I said. You have not? Really? That is interesting. So you have never been overzealous in your praise of the municipality? You have never called ‘the suns’ light globs? You are not staying on the fringes under the pretext of a fictitious medical condition and you don’t really keep pulling down the municipality in your chatter with K and Bro? Are all these things made up?” Corto asked.

“I…I …” “Yeah YOU have done all these and so the surveillance. And ask any taxi driver on the street or a shop girl, everybody knows that the fringes are a hub of municipality non-conformists. The most foolish thing a person like us can do is to imagine that we are dealing with a bunch of idiots, who cannot look through what we are up to?” he said.

“What do you think, even your cellphone is tapped and your mail is under watch.” “Now don’t tell me, they have gone to this level.” “Worse. Your house is always under watch so is K’s and Bro’s and..,” he held back. “And what, tell me what, damn it,” I almost shouted. “Shhh, not so loud”. And they are planning to break into your house tomorrow precisely at 5:15 pm. I came to inform you just that,” he said. 

I felt a cold dagger slowly plunging itself into my heart. I stood speechless. After a while finding my voice back, I asked, “Anything I can do about it?” “Lots,” came the reply.

“Go back home, no, not now, now it is 5:40 pm, start walking at 6:00 pm so that when you reach home, they will think that you have returned from Bro’s place. Go in and remove any small reference you find in your home, which might speak against municipality. Your mails have been checked and they found you mentioning ‘light globs’ on several occasions in your conversations with K and Bro, which could have been totally avoided. From now on please start referring them to as the suns and no overzealousness, you never know the colleague sitting next to you might be an agent” he said.

“You mean to say that buck-toothed lazy bum is an agent”. “He is not a lazy bum, he is doing his job, pretty well, keeping you and likes of you under watch,” Corto said. “I don’t know whom to believe,” I said in anguish. “Nobody apart from K, Bro and me”, he said simply and then he handed me a book. I instinctively knew what it was. It was the bible of the conformists. “The Road ahead in the Brilliance of Infinite Earthly Suns.” My hands cringed and the book slipped to the ground.

“That is a dangerous thing to do,” Corto said. “First not having this book in your home and then letting it fall to the ground.”  Saying that, he handed over a few more conformist books. “Please put them up on the main shelf you have on the left of your room,” he said.

I knitted my brows. “Where did you say the shelf was?” I asked.

“It is to the left, is it not?” he asked.

“Exactly, but how do you know?”

I heard him smirk. “Okay, you don’t need to remove anything non-conformist from your house. I have personally cleaned it,” he told me finally.

“WHAT??? YOU BROKE INTO MY HOUSE?

“Softly, softly, not so loud,” Corto said.

“I mean, how could you?” I whispered.

“I told you I take care of my friends. Thank me.”

“And you knowing about K had visited me recently?”

“You are under surveillance from my people also. Only difference being, the municipality is out to catch you and my people are out to protect you,” he said.

“For God’s sake, stop all this nonsense. What is going on? I don’t want the so called your people snooping on me. I don’t require your protection. I know this much Corto, you may like it or not, I know that whatever happens I am protected by God. He will let nobody harm me.”

“I agree with you 100 per cent,” Corto replied. “But let me do my bit, towards the mission in which we are together,” he said.

“Sorry Corto, I want none of this, please leave me alone,” I said firmly.

“Ok if you insist, but then you won’t mind me meeting you sometimes like this?”

“Are you not putting me in danger by doing this?”

“Please don’t doubt my planning,” he said with authority. “The beat constable is on leave for a day. And the replacement will not be here till 6:30 pm,” he said.

“And I can guess that the reason for the beat constable to be on leave is you,” I said

“You are good,” came the reply. 

“Hmm…But tell me Corto, what is the need to do all this. Why can you not just wait? When the Sun appears, all these things will by themselves disappear. Why unnecessarily put your life at peril, for something so unnecessary,” I asked.

There was a long silence.

“You have chosen a path, I have chosen a different path, but we both know that our goal is the same. But in the meanwhile let me have some fun,” he said. “You call all this fun. Something that puts your life in danger?” I asked. “Oh come on, don’t you think the same God is protecting me also?

I had to remain quiet.

“So I was saying, I am having fun with the municipality. I don’t want them to think that they have been able to brainwash every tom, dick and harry of the city.”

“Municipality brainwashing people? Now come on Corto, give me a break. Don’t you think the municipality is brainwashing anybody. The people have brainwashed themselves into believing that whatever they are doing is right. Rather, whatever they ever wanted to do, but could not, has now become a new way of life and this can be justified in many ways unheard of before,” I said.

“The guidance from ‘the suns’, you mean,” he asked. “Of course as if you don’t know”, I said.

“It is funny business,” Corto said, “the inner city people in all their ignorance have given ‘the suns’ the pedestal of being supernatural, nay, Sun Himself, which is preposterous. ” he said.    “And that is the reason, those ‘the suns’, went out that day at mid-day, when they should have been shining in all their glory. I pulled the plug on them just to show how stupidly fallible, they were, how simplistically human, how artificial.”

“So it was emperor’s new clothes all over again,” I said. “But you don’t believe that you doing that will ever change the inner city people right?” I asked.

“Of course not. Because it serves their agenda well, of being able to do whatever they want, which was not possible earlier under the purifying gaze of the Sun. The light from ‘the suns’ is anything but purifying. It is suffocating, nauseating and base.”

“So the human base instincts are having a field day?”  I asked. Corto smirked and continued.  “The Sun’s purifying rays may have been a hindrance to some, who wanted to enjoy the base life, so once the Sun disappeared, the hindrance was gone. Rays are still there, it does not matter to them whether they are from the Sun or ‘the suns’. These people prefer it more if they from the artificial suns. Come on it serves their purpose,” he said trying to explain.

We both understood each other perfectly. “It is 6:00 pm and you should be on your way,” Corto said handing me a bag of Sunshine cafe. “Put the books into this and go home straight, nowhere else,” he cautioned. I shook his hand, turned around and walked. A question bothered me. I turned around, he was still there.

“Now what?” he asked. “I did not go to Sunshine café, so if the agent there tells the municipality that I never reached the café after leaving home, then?” “Sharp,” Corto replied and added, “relax the municipality agent posted there is one of ours.”

To be continued…