Member-only story
Ever faced a raging mob?
They come as one, angry, furious, crazy, full of hatred and loathing, fuelled by some anger, raising slogans of some jumbled ideology, they are enraged and joined like a pack of dynamite, its short fuse ignited, ready to blow up, they move like a swarm of locusts devouring everything on its way.
I was a witness to it once, it was enough for a lifetime.
Some people live long lives, but I lived it and reached my youth, since then I have been comatose, walking, talking, eating but nothing else is there of me.
Whenever I recount that day, that fateful day of spring, a day that had started with a mother’s blessing and had continued even to this day, imagining the day in self-talk, I can hear myself, this is what had transpired, I can hear myself saying:
My leg hurts, it is the shrapnel from the shards of glass. Why the pain is so excruciating? I need to move away from here, the smoke is choking me, and burning metal gives out thick black smoke, maybe it is the paint that ignites not the metal. I had to get my mind off the situation if I had to survive, although the mob was still hovering around, desecrating, and destroying everything they could get their hands on. I could recognize a few of them, we went to school together, we played in the neighbourhood as well, but then someone told us that our Gods weren’t the same, that we couldn’t talk or visit each other’s homes. We became holy and unholy from one day to another and then the taunts started.
“Here’s one, bash his head, make sure no one’s breathing by the time we go”, they were calling out to complete the job.
“Look what I have found, a Safe with money in there, I love it man, there’s a lot of money and some gold as well, we should spend some more time here, its two for one, revenge and loot”, he sounded really excited pocketing the money, he was also discarding pieces of paper from the safe.
These papers could have been memories, a generation of scribbles on crumbling pieces of paper hidden away from plain sight only to emerge by an accident, bringing forgotten smiles of a dusted event. To the owner, it is a treasure to cherish, to an animal it means nothing, a man in rage, a man in a mob is no different than a wild animal…
