Half Truth

Chapter 1 Half Truth

THE HALF TRUTH

By

SHRI

CHAPTER 1

John was lying in his creaking bed and was staring at the patchy ceiling, which had not been painted for a long time. He could not have complained to the owner of this shanty, after all, he had not paid the rent for the last three months. He was hardly left with any money having lost his job. He tried to recollect as to how many days had passed since he had one good square meal. Last night he had counted that his wallet contained only one buck note and a few coins. He murmured to himself that he should go back to his last employer and once more he should plead his innocence that he had not stolen the fifty buck note for which his services had been terminated. And that he was falsely implicated by a clever colleague of his. But on second thought he gave up the idea of going back to his employer to plead his innocence. After all his employer was unable to see the truth and had dishonorably dismissed him from the job. John could not appreciate any reason as to why should the employer change his views now, after a lapse of four months.

John pitied his predicament that he was a school dropout without any special skills and now is also being counted as a petty thief, the precise reason why he was not able to find another job. His chain of thoughts was broken by a lizard that was gradually creeping towards quite a big insect and then with a sudden leap, it caught the insect and swallowed it in a moment. The insect might have sensed the danger, but before it could react, the enemy trapped it.

Having witnessed this game of lizard and insect, a realization came to John. That all along I have been an insect and the world has been a lizard for me. I have already wasted twenty two years of my life and during this span I have been swallowed by different lizards, whether during my school days or even afterwards in my jobs. This world consists of two types of people, the suckers and the smart ones. I have been a sucker so far and would now like to join the gang of smart ones.

There were a lot of school dropouts, personally known to him who had amassed lot of money and were having bungalows to live in and cars to roam about. They were the gang of smart ones, just contrary to what he himself had been. Suddenly he sat up in the bed and tried to answer the simple question - Can he join the group of such smart guys rolling in money and having a luxurious life?

He answered to himself - Yes, why not? Today is a different day altogether. All that is required is a little effort on his part. He should do a little planning and follow the techniques adopted by the lizard to qualify being counted as a smart guy.

He got up, saw his face in the mirror and realized he should remove the four days old stubs from his chin. He should give the appearance of a gentleman from his looks and clothes. He dressed accordingly and used a generous spray of deo, ready to go out for his hunting spree. He thought his first victory would be if he was able to get some drinks and food for free, as he was feeling very grubby. He walked up to a decent looking pub in search of his prey. At the entrance of the gate, he slowed down to get a feel of the things and to make a quick assessment of the prevailing situation in and around the pub.

"You see the guy with black open shirt sitting on the last table on left hand side," whispered one tough looking six feet tall man to his companion.

"I think you are right, he is the one, for whom, Peter has sent us," whispered the companion.

"But we cannot get him inside the pub, we will have to wait till he comes out," added the tall man.

John on overhearing the whispers knew that this was his chance to take advantage of the situation. He walked straight to the left hand side last table and pointing towards the empty chair facing the man wearing the black shirt said, "May I?"