The Pawnee

He was anxiously waiting in front of the ruined factory. His forehead was smeared with red dust that took off on the wings of the gust from the bumpy village road. The road seemed fully deserted as the sun inflicted maximum heat on the dusty path making it hard to tread at that hour of the day. The hunger that charred his empty stomach equaled to the heat of the day. The ravenous hunger had already numbed his conscience, and he planned to look for an opportunity to grab his luck. His eyes strained further to scan beyond his possible vision, for the famishing hunger pushed him to do so. He was waiting for his prey.

While traveling towards the town, she was cursing her fate. The bus driver seemed to be annoyed with the uneven road, for he was almost being crazy while driving along the zigzag village roads as the bus headed to the nearby town. Every curve on the road twisted her away from her thought, but gradually fell back to the same with much more intensity. She never wanted to marry, however the society wanted her to do so. Once she was married to a man totally unknown to her, she resolved to stick on to her commitment, though he never minded doing so. She was gifted with three kids, all boys, and the neighbors envied her luck for having all boy children. Though not very contented, she too did take pride on her luck. Her partner kept proving himself by molding oneself to be a fine drunkard, often attesting his ineptness by beating her up. She endured them all silently, like a scapegoat taken for slaughter. On a fine twilight his shrill body was brought to their thatched house, one said from the crowd, “Poor guy, never had one single peaceful day in his life.” She embraced the pillar, peeping at his inert body….and he is in memories today.

The bus came to a sudden halt with a shrieking noise, coming out of the driving seat the driver announced with crossness, “Sorry…the bus is punctured. Get out and walk, the town is just a kilometer away. You will not be refunded though”. Except her all other co-passengers had money with them, so they managed to board another bus which came that way after a while. She had no money left with her…so she began walking towards the town. Gaining some courage, she enquired a strange pedestrian with a feeble voice,

“How far is the town from here?”

“It’s pretty close”, the man replied quickly and walked away.

The mirage seen in a distance almost hallucinated her, but her desperate need to reach the town as soon as possible accelerated her feet. Thoughts about her children starving back at home made her restless. The sun was too harsh that day almost tuning her dehydrated soon. Casting her eyes towards the town, with strong determination she continued her journey.

He could feel his heartbeats growing high, as expected there afar a vague body of a pedestrian approaching him closer. He readied himself like a tiger bidding to pounce on its prey. As the stranger approached closer, he realized it was a woman. He swooped on her with a quick move, while snatching her gold chain away. Before she could retaliate the unexpected attack, he had disappeared from her vicinity. She wanted to cry aloud, but an insensate feeling had already engulfed her. After a while, she realized she had lost all that was left with her to pawn to feed her starving children. Eventually, she collapsed and fell to the dusty ground. She remained there unconscious, caressed by the lethal rays of the sun.

Someone in the crowd who stood around his lifeless body shouted aloud, “It was an accident, poor guy, he had a gold chain in his hand, must have been headed to the bank to pawn it there”.

The sun rays continued to stroke both the woman and the man, not showing any partiality though.