Naya Chooran or Bust!

Chapter 3 | People are Strange

"RUN, FOOLS," KUBBA yelled, right before the earth shook. Afi bawled or did Councilor Ikhlaq? Hysteria sounds so similar, ya know? 

Chacha Kakakhel's scratchy voice cut through the cacophony. Twice he shouted "remember, Kalia" and then his voice faded. I remember fearing for my life. The geezer may as well have broadcast my alleged involvement on national radio, and they weren't kind to traitors round these parts.

It was a live one alright, but not in the way anyone expected. With supernatural accuracy, the missile crashed into the rift whence Chacha had uprooted its forebear. But it didn't go kaboom and flatten the street into a blood-and-guts chapati. Instead, it sizzled for some minutes as a firecracker whiffing rings of smoke and then went cold. For me, those minutes slowed to the mother-of-all-crawls that would drive a snail to suicide. 

Flat on my back and peeking through my fingers, every morsel of my being benumbed. Even if I binge-watched horror movies for a year, my frights wouldn't approach a fraction of the terror gripping me as the missile arced down into the asphalt. In that sliver of time, neither my basket, nor my mother, nor my future concerned me.

Wild, wild anarchy. Legions of feet scurrying for safety soon turned the sandy lane into a biblical dust storm. Visibility dropped to the ends of my toes, which in hindsight was a blessing. I didn't need more gruesome images to add to my memory. The thing about life as a street urchin is you effortlessly amass a catalog of miserable experiences.

After the missile fizzed out, I concluded the enemy was a complete moron. Or perhaps toying with us as a sadistic cat does a trapped cockroach? I thanked Allah profusely for leaving me whole, but the gratitude didn't last long.

Disembodied hands reached through the powdery dust and yanked me upright. Resistance in my state was futile. I couldn't see straight with my waterlogged eyes or coax my parched throat to croak, much less holler for help. And so I reeled along, a limp puppet, as the men who'd blindfolded and gagged me shoved me into a van.

An hour passed before I understood they'd tossed me into a dank cell that reeked of mothballs and sour milk. Another hour before I stopped shrieking and rattling the iron bars. Police station? Where was everyone? Before me, a chalked blackboard nailed to a flaking wall above a cluster of empty office desks. And beside the cheeping and hustling of shadowy rats, the place was a graveyard. A dusky graveyard that resounded as a cavern.

I slumped onto the cold, coarse floor, tucked my knees and hung my head. Even if she knew, I doubted mother would undertake the trip to free me. Given her stable of street sellers, would you blame her? I'd always been the unreliable, whimsical one. She was probably glad someone else would feed me for a few days. Or months. There'd surely be more sleeping space for the useful brood. But that was okay. I was a man.

And that's when he mumbled and scared the daymares out of me; a puny kid, about my age, huddled up as an empty mailbag in the far corner. I'd slipped off my cracked scissor slipper and held it as a sword before I met his dewy gaze.

Though he too wore a ratty salwar kameez, his clear-skinned, cheery-faced demeanor somehow belied his plight. Well, they'd jailed me without fault too. God bless Naya Chooran.

He sat up, busily dabbed down his mussy hair, and grinned at me; that sweet, eyes-set-to-slits grin you see in cartoons.

I suspired and lowered myself to the floor. His company wasn't so bad given my predicament. "What're you doing here?"

He merely nodded and let loose a flurry of hand signs that startled me. Not because he was mute; hell, a street urchin's seen enough mangled limbs to fill a medical encyclopedia. What struck me was the fluid artistry of his movements; a hobo Bruce Lee.

I shook my head. "Can't understand your signs. What's your name? Can you trace it on the floor?"

Good thing I'd gone to school long enough to learn the alphabet. Had a real facility for language too, my teachers said. Pity it didn't help me sell more candy.

Twice his finger drew letters over the concrete.

"Muji?" 

He nodded and gestured for mine.

"They call me Kalia," I said, slouching against the cell wall. "That's more an insult, but I got no clue about my birth name."

His unceasing stare creeped me and I looked away. How to escape and locate the geezer? He landed me in this mess and only he could clear my name. And tell me what it was, he'd hinted as much. I wearied of introducing myself as Kalia. It wasn't a man's name.

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