A pale white sling hung from my left shoulder underpinning my left arm wrapped up in hard plaster, allowing a limited motion. Last week a fight broke out while playing football in the nearby playground. Ranjan, the most notorious and annoying juvenile, two years younger than me used to play football with us. That day, while we were playing, there was an offside in which he scored a goal on our side. Not only did he refuse to accept it but he also argued with the referee, who was one of our friends.
He bellowed, “Huh! I don’t care what referee says. This is not offside. You guys are a bunch of newbies to me … don't you dare argue with me!”
I started to argue and quarrel with him but his team members kept quiet, indirectly supporting him because he was the captain and they knew that going against him was like digging one’s own grave. Last month we had remembered what he did to that poor boy for not passing the ball. He ripped off his clothes and made him walk home half-naked. Although later that night the boy’s family thrashed him for such an activity but in vain. I was the captain of my team and to my surprise none of my teammates neither supported me nor they spoke against him. Because they knew that the next day they might have to play on his side. Few of his teammates were happy for scoring a goal and they enjoyed watching this chaos.
While I quarreled with him, few elderly men who were watching the match from their terraces came down and said, “Young man! We have been watching this game for some time and we believe that it was indeed an offside…you should comply with the referee’s decision without arguing further.”
Although Ranjan argued with them, when they thrashed him for making chaos, giving warning that he would be compelled out of this ground for not obeying the right rules, he accepted his fault. Those elderly men were members of the club near my house. The playground was owned and maintained by the club.
He then jostled me and gave me a look, shouting, “Brainless idiot!”
I controlled myself at that time but later when the match was over I flew into a temper and thought of giving that scumbag a lesson. So I picked up a stone and threw it at him. The stone hit his head and he started bleeding. Running amok, Ranjan picked up an iron rod from the alley and wafted it on my left forearm. A grinding noise and I yelled in pain. For the next moment, I felt like my arm was frozen and incapacitated. I was then rushed to a nearby hospital where my forearm was plastered.
It has been a week since that incident had happened. The doctor said that it would take up to ten weeks for the arm to get recovered. Gazing up towards the wall fan, I wiped the sweat on my top lip. It was 11:30 in the morning and the air heavy with moisture. The scorching heat had made my hair greasy, due to sweat and I was constantly scratching them a minute after two. The reflected light from the tin asbestos of the house next door peeked through the peach-colored goblet pleat curtains propelling a long rectangular-cut reflected light to fall on my bed, narrowing down to its origin.
I started to write some stuff on my old wooden table, and it joggled because of the right leg whose rectangular corners had been smudged to rounded corners. A huge pile of books on my left, enveloped with dust, lurched on the right taking support of the white plaster while I wrote. On my right were a few printed notes. Some of which have turned into light black indicating the heavy usage of hand to hand transactions. I was disconsolate and feeling forlorn. The buzzing sound of the wall fan made me dizzy and not willing to work at all. I wish I could sit inside the freezer and hibernate. This time there was no sign of rain until previous years, where within a week of the summer, rain comes. Last summer I had visited my Uncle’s and in the mornings we used to swim half a mile, enjoying the lukewarm and the ambient atmosphere. Then we’d sit at the lakeside watching local football players playing chaotic 20-a-side games on the soft mud with a fleecy ball.
By evening there was a little respite from the heat. But everyday surviving till evening was like going through an apocalypse.
How can those daily labors work all day under the scorching heat without losing their senses? Is that true that during summers they are paid a little more? I thought
I looked down at the paper and started to work again. A little tiny figure lurked on my right, blurred due to the faculty of sight on paper. Just as my eyes caught the glimpse of this figure, I flung out from my ladder-back chair, hurting my knees, hurtling to the other room.
A puny oval-shaped creature has made its way through the curtain. Its brown bands on the oval-shaped abdomen mixed with a pinch of a black and yellow, run-up to the round-shaped golden-yellow hairy thorax, gliding down with a bean-shaped head having jaws and two slender horns projecting out like that of a bull’s horn. Two diaphanous forewings in unison with hind wings bulge out from the thorax having attenuated veins like leaves, running in all directions. Four diminutive sausage-like legs, each carved out with a Waisted parting tool twice, dividing it into three halves, dangled down from the body. The oval black button-shaped eyes with a tiny black protruding mass like pedicel on the back of the abdomen make it look like that of an old long-handled cruiser bike.
I peeped into my room to see the creature.
Oh! God…why there is a honey bee in my room?
The bee padded towards the pile of books stayed still for a few minutes and then flew over near to the closed curtain. Confused with the bee’s action, I thought of killing it. I was petrified because I had never tried killing a bee and my left arm was useless. I cannot miss my first shot else I am going to be dead, living with a broken arm and a swollen muscle. I collected an old heavy leather shoe, and a newspaper rolled up and flattened in the front, then planned to stun the bee by bludgeoning it with the shoe.
It might kill him directly if my aim is perfect else I would have to batter with the newspaper resulting in the death of the bee.
I have to be quick in educing the newspaper after throwing the shoe because the whole operation would be done single-handedly.
I ambled inside my room and drew bread on the bee; flung the shoe and to my utter surprise, it whizzed past the bee, missing him by an inch, hitting straight to the white plaster. Before I could educe the newspaper the bee spring up towards me. My nerve failed and everything slowed down. I can see the bee moving towards me like a demon chasing its prey. The wind-blown look of the bee made me horrified. He buzzed passed me and sat near the closed window. I stood still for a moment, completely mystified by the bee’s bizarre activity. I averted towards the bee, admiring him for a moment, just as he admired me. The bee stands still near the window ruminating about something. The ambiance of the room changed from bright yellow to blackish blue and I heard the bee speaking to me.
He said, “Wondering? Why I didn’t sting you?”
Umm…y…ea..h?
“Sm-haha… The reason behind you wanted to kill me?” he asked.
…I was agitated by your sudden annoying appearance and…Bees are always known for stinging.
He asked, “And that’s what you do to escape?”
I don’t know…you people are always hot under the collar, so…
“We stung those who disturb our living, but if you let us pass there won’t be any problem,” he said.
But I was in a quandary … didn’t know how to tackle it rather I became aggravated and to get it over, the only way came to my mind was to kill you.
“And that was the reason you have got a sling on your left arm. Just because of that day you flew into a temper and hit him, you got hurt back…the situation was already over but you didn’t let him pass peacefully,” he said.
What? Why should I? It was his daily theatrics of shaming people and commanding them according to his motive.
“Do you know why didn’t I sting you? Because stinging you will do no good to me rather I will die after a few minutes and you will just suffer for a time being. You could have done the same to him and let him pass rather than hurting him. You hurt him and got hurt back,” he said.
But he won’t learn the lesson if I had not done that.
“Do you think he has learned any? You, people, kill bees, Is that we have stopped buzzing around? Sometimes bees sting humans, is that the human has stopped disturbing and killing bees?” he asked.
No…
“Many things could have been surpassed easily, but we have chosen the path of vengeance and hatred. Today you kill me, the next day some bee will sting you and again you will do the same. But today I didn’t sting you and you will remember this every time you will think of killing bees. It’s not just us but every time you forgive someone and let them pass it’s for your good as well as for him. If you had let him go away after that fuss, you wouldn’t have got the hurt neither he would have. He might have been rude to everyone but every day you could have found out ways to surpass them until he loses and changes. An act of vengeance is never an option and fighting back to surpass it is not an act of vengeance,” he said.
Hmm…Forgive me for what I have done… and… Thank you.
The ambiance changed and everything became normal. The bee is still ruminating near the closed window. I heaved a sigh and padded towards the closed window to open it. The bee flies away. I kept on looking outside towards the mango tree.
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