It creates tension repulsion, money loss. It's okay to drink when you have millions to spend and a family to give company on a weekend but it's not okay when the family is struggling and you earn only to drink alcohol.
Half Broken Bottle
“Does the accused have anything to say?” the emollient voice of the judge reflected over the polished walls of the court hall to the rushing corridor space outside.
A mild, bowed head-nodding confirmed the denouement of the non-pragmatic verdict from the eminent dais. It was either those flickering lights in the hall or his despair guilt that made his head bow down like a gloomy wilted lily.” As the accused is found guilty of the charge, he is charged with, and the prosecution has failed in providing evidence to prove not guilty, the court verdicts the accused with...” the stream of that scripted adjudication was cut off by a blaring shriek that emerged amongst the crowd.
The judge paused asking the police to control the crowd and continued with his judgment amidst the shrill cries and terminated the proceedings with a couple of strokes of the mallet. He stepped down the dock, and the police cleared his way to the corridors. He slowly limped through the narrow aisle to the ground, where the crowd was rushing through the unsettling dust.
Somewhere at a distance, he noticed something peculiar lying in the dust, a broken bottle. For a moment he resided into memory, to that day, to that life, that decision. He closed his eyes gently into the breeze.
Wrinkles of mold occupied the majority of the wall within the house. He had to do something about it, he thought to himself when the splattering noise of the leaking droplets through the ceiling cracks, falling into the rusty steel mug kept right under the leak, disturbed his train of thoughts. He rested his head on a part of the wall which was dry enough, distilling the well of thoughts he gathered by then.
Bundling fumes of smoke from the kitchen danced its way into the chimney, eluding into the mysteries of darkness. His muddled stampede of thoughts precepted its movement and followed its path. He called out to his busy mother in the kitchen, and his unanswered long pause made him shout louder. A wave of clanking sounds reported back to him along with his mother’s inquiry. He smiled, closing one eye like a small child who peed in his trouser for the fifth time in that day.
However, he gasped and continued “Do you think this smoke going up and up, the last molecule of it, will reach space one day, I mean like, what is its end state, its destiny?” and he sharpened his ears towards the door expecting his queries to be answered with a weave of paragraphs. The smile on his face still stayed in its circumference, his happiness, and curiosity too.
She was not sure whether it was the heat from the burning coal under her face or the inadequate knowledge on the subject that halted her from giving an answer. Her knowledge had been bounded with fences ever after her marriage because the idea of working women was not a concept favored in her husband’s home nor her family. She could have been a teacher and correcting exam papers, instead, she is correcting the amount of salt in the curry.
“Maybe it deteriorates into its last atom and gets mixed with the air, I don’t know for sure but I do know everything has its own destiny, a purpose, everything has” she replied in a calm and soothing voice. He smiled back at her through those opaque walls and somehow, she smiled back at him.
Suddenly ear-splitting thuds were heard on the front door, along with the rattling sound of the locks swaying in the incoming assault. He sat there still as a rock, as his mother rushed from the kitchen with a towel, which she picked up from a broken chair resting at the room corner. She opened the door handing over the towel to her husband, partly drenched in the light shower and fully drenched in alcohol aura.
The big sturdy man was swaying his body finding it hard to land the footing, and crawled his way, slithering through the walls to reach the dining table. His dark red eyes caught sight of a chair in front and he struggled to get a hold of that, and as he fumbled with the chair, almost falling down, his wife ran over to aid him. He shook her off his shoulder and sat in the chair like a melted candle on a lifeless night.
She ran back to the kitchen to get some dinner for her lousy husband. The young one stood still at a corner staring at his father, with an air of disgust and repulsion around him. He smirked off the aura of alcohol around his nostrils again and again. Noticing his distress, the old man called onto the young lad, who rejected the offer at once. Already red eyes turned darker and vile.
The lady came back with a slightly hot dish and placed it in front of the furious looking man. There was a brisk of silence in the living room for a moment and the dining table was rattling to his noisy taps.
Deafening thunder railed over the leaking rooftop and the sound reverberated inside those blunt walls. The tension around rose gradually, while the two men still stood staring at each other until the hot dish crashed onto the rough floor.
He was taken aback at the sudden charge towards him from his father, who found immense strength to land a kick on the young man, right on the ribs. His mother came running down in panic only to get the same result. She fell onto the wall hitting her head and crying in agonizing pain. The worn-out son shouted a roar crouching over to his injured mother.
Alcohol had blinded his intuitions, thoughts, actions as he became uncontrollable like a raging bull thrashing whatever that stood in front of him. The streaming rush of adrenaline clouded his power of judgment at that time. He went charging towards his family again, but this time the son managed to push him away and he fell over his back.
A shattering sound followed his fall, for the bottle of rum he had kept in his waistline was broken apart into just fragments of an empty bottle. He stared at the broken bottle and then at his panting son. With a prominent shout, he charged against him with a piece of a broken bottle, swinging it hardly at him. He dodged the blows, crouching all over the tiny living room.
Maddened senses of the man turned his gaze towards the fallen lady, who was still sobbing indefinitely through the pain. He lashed at her with his arms fully-fledged and suddenly his son grabbed his arm with all his might. The push and pull struggle continued until the big man slipped on the rum on the floor and fell down in a monstrous thud. There was a resting silence amidst the deafening rain.
On seeing that fall, the son rushed towards his bleeding mother and gently pulled her up and leaned her onto the wall. She slowly gained consciousness as she gulped down a tumbler of water and looked around confused as to what happened. She moved to her husband lying down and tried to wake him up.
In the meantime, the son went inside the kitchen, to turn off the stove, and was taken aback by a shrill cry from the hall. He rushed into the hall. His mother was crying heavily. There was blood on her hand and the man’s lousy still head on her lap.
He kneeled in front of them, confused as to what happened and what instilled death-like fear in her eyes. He reached out to lift him up, pulling harder and harder and sat him up. He lost his grip and jumped away when he saw the half-broken bottle stuck to the back and a red stream on the other side.
He started to shiver, become restless and sweat heavily, dragging himself to a corner clenching his fists tight, and closing his eyes tighter. He opened his eyes, gradually into the light. The court corridor and ground were less crowded now. He descended slowly through the stoned steps along with his mother’s cry that resonated in the hall and in his heart too.
‘Everything in the world has a destiny’ his mother’s voice echoed in his head again and again.
He smirked over that thought and once the first tear broke its chain, there was no stopping the unbroken stream of agony. With the partly hindered vision, he again peeped into the ground. There lay a piece of his destiny, a half-broken bottle.
The End.
Pwoli saanam
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