Fulfilled
Word Count: 2,493
For reader's discretion
This story contains themes that in author's understanding can be deeply distressing. Please read at your own discretion. If you or someone you know is struggling with the issues that these themes relate to, please seek help from professionals. Please prioritize your well-being over everything else.
Each night, he wandered aimlessly on the roads. A spirit in need of a body, looking for a home, unknowingly seeking for a place to rest; a man in need of a purpose worthy enough to live for. Not wanting to be recognized by anyone, heedless to any attention, he covered each street, took every turn, passed every crossroad. There wasn’t a cigarette shop where he didn’t puff smoke, no dog that was unaware of his footsteps, no streetlight that didn’t birth his shadow. Each night, his presence added silence to the noisy town.
He lived in a quiet rest house on the outskirts of the town. He had been there for so long that the passing travellers sensed him to be permanent. He had no reason to be there; when he arrived, he didn’t know he will end up staying for so long. He spent days at the balcony, gazing at the fields ahead, dreaming to cross them someday, and climb the only hilltop visible from the town. One hill in the midst of never ending plain, towering above everything else, shining in the harsh afternoons like the crown of the visible earth. He never knew why he wanted to go there, but he knew why he couldn’t.
Some people seem to be born in the wrong era; people born with a sense of heroic, who wished not to live, but to die for a worthy cause. People who should have been born during wartime, when the number of men ready to die mattered more than anything. They would’ve entered the war field with the pride of a martyr, already happily dead in their mind, already covered in the flag, already celebrated by their people, ready to rescue someone, ready to win the war, ready to be the Hero they were born to be, and die the death they could be proud about. He was one of those people.
He was born in a middle-class family, raised with the usual intentions to become an asset. He was offered a life of challenges that seemed worthy to everyone, except him. He couldn’t be content with cracking a good college, or snatching a promising job, or finding a worthy partner, or building property. He too found happiness in each of these like everyone else, but couldn’t get satisfied enough to stay along. The struggles of everyday life seemed too petty to engage with and the idea of having a respectable career and a happy household didn’t arouse his interest.
He needed an adventure, a daunting task, a mission only he could accomplish. His life didn’t offer him any—or at least he believed so—and he kept making the banal challenging in attempts to find one among them. He snatched his way out of places, positions, and relationships which a less lucky person would dream of. Though he wasn’t great at anything, it’s not that he wasn’t good or that he left because he failed. Quite the contrary, at times, he left after receiving applause. It was as if he countered the lack of high in life by lowering the averages and plummeting with the lows. He remained a perpetual solitude seeking man, a tragedy magnet, a fine-tuned instrument intentionally landing on the false note before completing a proper set of notes.
The adjoining tea stall was his go-to place every morning. It served him endless cups of tea, strong and abundant enough to pull him out of the hangover, daily newspapers, and a view to the hilltop where he wished to visit one day. He was fond of reading newspapers as they featured the stories of heroes and tragedies. He savoured stories of crimes, floods, droughts, and earthquakes, and scanned the pictures of celebrated rescuers. One such story of a possible drought brought him to this town, and though the drought never arrived, the hilltop never allowed him to move out of the town.
The newspaper that day carried a story of a low-lying slum running at the risk of being swamped due to the sudden diversion of a sewage drain. The slum was located at the deep end of a dry lake and the orders were passed to get the area evacuated, but a dozen of the fifty families decided to stay with the risk. It seemed to him to be the opportunity he was waiting for. He imagined the risk of fatal diseases the event possessed. Within the next hour, he was at the spot.
The noises of rescued people being pushed into trucks filled the stinking air. The place appeared to be a gigantic pothole in making, so huge, it might get misidentified as the Black Sea from the space. There were people swimming—as if they believed the Black Sea joke—and charging others in exchange for pulling out their belongings. The water was spreading and the colony they stood in was at the risk of flooding soon.
He looked around for a place where he could have his moment. At the shallow end, most people were already rescued, and the remaining didn’t need to be. At the rear end, the drain was roaring and telling people the quantity of waste they create every day. The houses near that end had already drowned, and the few with the first floor were soon to be. All the solid waste had assembled near the houses and had formed a gigantic floating garbage dump. There were pieces of furniture waiting to be rescued on the terraces, but even the most fearless of swimmers weren’t daring to venture towards them; the risk of getting caught in the waste was way too high.
On one such terrace, he saw three kittens, huddled on a plastic chair, unwary of any possible danger. They looked so insignificant that no one else noticed them, except the man cautiously seeking the opportunity to be a rescuer. He knew this was his moment, but the poison-like water and the brutal speed at which it was filling the place terrified him. He ran to all the nearby officers, asking them to rescue the kittens, but as one can imagine, they refused to waste effort on such a minimal task.
At that moment, he felt a dire need to jump in, swim across, and rescue those three little lives, even if that came at the cost of risking his own. It wasn’t a noble thought or a possibility he considered; it was a bodily call that each cell of his body made, a higher call that his spirit made. The intensity of the urge terrified him and got countered by a barrage of logical responses. The more his feet pushed him, the more his mind pulled them back. He has had such moments in the past where his heart knew what it’s supposed to do, but his brain refused it; he regretted those moments, and today he wanted to be done with the regret.
He didn’t gather any courage, he had enough of it; he just sidelined the fears, just like a person decisive about embracing the warmth of sun rays pushes the curtains to one side. He started walking into the water. First his ankles, then his knees, then his waist were under water, and soon he was swimming. He felt queasy at first, and disgusting after a while, as the symphony of pungent spells advanced from one movement to another—his attempts at holding breath being the significant pauses.
At one point, he considered going back, but once the water entered his nose, the effect of smells vanished, and the possibility of dying due to poisoning charged him enough to not look back. No one noticed him at first, but when he went past all the other swimmers, and one of them shouted in a remarkable squeaky voice, ‘Aye! Where do you think you are going?’, people started to take notice. One of the swimmers tried chasing him, but soon understood that the guy isn’t to be stopped, and came back, leaving him to his fate.
He kept going regardless of everyone shouting behind him. One of the officers took the microphone and declared judicial action against him if he didn’t come back; he didn’t pay any heed to it. Soon he struck the floating garbage dump. It didn’t just slow his pace, but also forced him to breathe more, adding further to nausea, and placed him at the risk of being entangled in one of the floating wires. He slithered through them with such craft, one could assume him to have a pair of eyes underwater. All these obstacles only added to his morale.
Finally, he reached the house, and as most of it was already drowned, made his way up to the terrace with just one powerful pull. The kittens were still on the chair, slightly aware of the surrounding misfortune. He quickly searched through the terrace and found a torn cushion. He emptied it and placed the kittens inside it. The challenge was to get them across without them touching the water.
Meanwhile, the news of a madman out to rescue kittens from a flooded terrace had already spread like wildfire. He had become the focal point of discussion. There were cameras zoomed in on him, officers abusing his stunt, some people going ‘Awww’ over his bravery, and the slum dwellers attempting to get the attention back on their misery. Soon the event was live streaming and thousands watched as one man risked his life for kittens whom everyone found unworthy of living.
Unwary of these events, he found a long pole and a wire, and tied the cushion cover carrying the kittens to one end of it, and holding the other end firmly, jumped into the water. In a splash, the water entered his mouth and he lost the balance of the pole for a moment. The spectators held their breath as the pole inclined to a side. In the next moment, he gained back control and got the pole straight up again. But keeping it straight didn’t allow him enough space to keep his mouth consistently above water, so as he swam, water kept infiltrating.
Even though he didn’t care for it, others could see the abruptness in his movement and knew he was to collapse. By the time he crossed the floating waste, he was out of energy and swamped with water to the brink. A group of swimmers gathered around him as he crossed the waste, and just when he lost consciousness, they held him and took control of the pole.
He was brought out of the water and sent to the nearby hospital. People gathered around to catch a glimpse of the man mad enough to attempt this risk. He remained unconscious for a day and it took a group of medical professionals to get the water out of his system. His body burned with fever as his system fought the flood of viruses and bacteria.
When he gained consciousness the next day, he received resounding applause from the hospital staff. The District Collector visited him and congratulated him for his act of bravery. Vloggers and reporters huddled at the hospital reception to get a chance to interview him. His clip had gone viral on social media and was widely shared by commoners and celebrities alike. Local newspapers were filled with his pictures and had ‘Hero’ written against them.
He accepted the applause with grace and met everyone who wished to see him. But he requested to not allow any interviewers. He didn’t release any clip thanking the world for the applause. Everyone around him suggested making the best of this moment and launching himself into celebrityhood. Some offered him to present a motivational lecture at their academy and some others offered to hold a function in his honour, but he refused them all. He waited.
After a week, when he was allowed to go home, he requested the hospital staff to help him sneak out. He left the hospital from the back door, hidden inside an ambulance, and got dropped near his rest house, just as he requested. He knew he’ll have to be quick, as once he gets noticed, it will get tough for him to have the moment he waited for.
He looked at the hilltop with an intent gaze, and without any delay, he marched towards it. The hilltop was a butte, with one side slant enough for people to climb, and the other side flat and vertical, a side to die for—literally. It was an hour of walk to the foot of the hilltop and then another hour of climb to the top of it. On top were numerous lush trees, a small temple, along with a few benches, occupied by no one, but giving a sense of lively engagement.
He went directly to one of the benches and rested with exhaustion. The breeze and the lovely isolated view made it easy for him to recover from the fatigue. He spent the next 30 minutes soaking himself with the view, savoring the vastness that surrounded him. He closed his eyes, and for the first time, felt proud of the feat he achieved the other day. With closed eyes, he lifted his head high and laughed with the pride of a Deva.
He stood up, climbed to the top of the bench, and looked down from the hill like the conqueror of all the land in sight. Imaginary militaries moved at his command, cities got built at the snap of his finger, and the skies rained milk when his people cheered for him. People bowed their heads as he lifted his hand and cheered with delight when he referred to them as his people.
‘Our Hero, Our Savior’, they chanted in unison, and he obliged them by dancing gracefully to the beats of their chants. He stepped down from the bench, and still dancing, waved at all sides of the hilltop. His feet moved by themselves, his hands free like weightless feathers. He felt free, victorious, and truly alone, as if no one like him existed on this land.
Dancing with delight, he moved towards the flat vertical end of the hilltop. He opened his eyes and found himself above everything else. He looked at his feet, still at the mercy of the land’s support. With a decisive finality, he went as far back as he could and ran the fastest that he ever had in his life. After a few leaps, he successfully evaded the favour of land, and for the next few moments, became truly free, jubilant and unreachable, like the most glorious Hero he had ever dreamt of.
The next day, newspapers covered the story of the suspicious death of the local hero.
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