NO MAN’S LAND
By Neel Anil Panicker
It is a couple of hours after midnight, that still born hour when the entire world and its backyard have taken a sabbatical; that pregnant pause, that briefest of brief interludes before the deluge begins all over again, before the rambunctious merry go round wheels of life start all over again, spinning forth in a furious abandon__ entrapping man, woman, and all manner of being in its wondrous cosmic cycle.
From the edges, Robin stares at the never ending carpet of blue that spreads out all around him. He cranes his neck and bores his eyes at the waters below. His face has come alive in a flotilla of little concentric rings ala a young girl’s floral dress as it swings and sways around in gay abandon.
For an interminably long time Abdul stands there, his frail body transfixed to terra firma, his dog eared mind in limbo.
Soon after, the memories came hurtling by much like a not so welcome guest that’s long overstayed one’s hospitality.
An oft repeated scene, albeit in painful slow motion, plays out in his mindscape. There he is, a young boy, rail-thin, the bones jutting out like broken down bamboo shoots from around his waists, an apology of a khaki half pant wrapped around them, his hands, equally frail and trembling, desperately holding on to his mother’s fingers as the two, along with his father and his two elders brothers and a sister and a host of others, all relatives and cousins and people from his village run forth, ducking and dipping as all around them ring the thunderous blast of gun shots. A scream and a thud follow. Someone’s fallen, the ground under his feet turns a carpet of red. The last words he hears before he blanks out are, ”Kill them all, bloody immigrants”.
©neelanilpanciker2018 #fiction #ThursdayPhotoPrompt #shortstory
neelwritesblog 
A tragic tale, Neel.
This one is a little late, but I’ll add it to the round up for this photo.
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