and then there were none..

                                                             

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I have no clue so as to where I am. The visions started flashing few hours earlier.  The feeling in my left hand and foot is completely vanished and along with it the excruciating pain which I had when my car skidded and toppled several times before it finally hit the ice-clad rocks. They say you start remembering your loved ones when you face the reaper, did I have any loved ones?? The fact that I was upside down had caused a rush of blood to my head. My seat belt which was supposed to protect me had turned on me and held me captive in that painful position as if it was punishing me for my sins..

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“Niraj, beta listen to me, your dad doesn’t want you to leave home for your own good. We have a good shop running and after your dad you will handle it. Please don’t go.” Pleaded my mom.

“Maa, I am nothing like dad and I don’t want to run some low life shop for the rest of my life. I have big dreams and you people are suffocating me. Let me go or I’ll end my life.”

                 

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I never looked back after leaving home, I don’t know whether my parents are alive or not. My mom, who did not eat without me at dinner table, who fought with my dad to fulfill my dreams, my mom whom I left heartlessly to rot without me. I can see her across the street, through my shattered wind screen. She is still same, she still puts that typical Marathi Chandra-bindi, she still smells of cumin seeds which she used in every dish. Is she for real? I cant tell..earlier I was sure they are hallucinations one experiences before death, not any more..

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The  blood is trickling down my head on to steering wheel, funny it reminds me of the municipal tap right outside our chawl. I never had any sense of humor when I was fine, I guess the proximity to death plays havoc with your brain, I’m  remembering all these funny anecdotes while I was in college..

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“Niraj, you have got to watch the movie, we all are going.pleeeeaaaaseee.” chirped Roli, the love of my life in college.

“Leave him Roli, he probably has to think how to earn money while watching movie.”

“Niraj, if you continue your weird and whacky ways I will leave you and never come back.”

“You can go, when I will have money, I will get anyone I want, even you will come back.” I sneered.

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She never came back, Roli, the only girl in college who didn’t smirk when I went to college on a Avon  bicycle, Roli the only girl who loved me when  I didn’t even have money, Roli, the only girl who loved me ever…last I heard she got married to some middle class nerd. Lucky bastard..he gets to see Roli in morning when she is as fresh as dew, he gets to kiss her tears away, he gets to breathe the lavender talc she was so fond of. It could have been me..oh lord!! Thank you I can see her,there she is wearing her red kurti which I bought her after saving for months. She is smiling…no she is mocking at my helpless state.

“you deserve this Niraj, for abandoning all your loved ones”, she says.

 God why is she whispering like a banshee…or may be my ears have stopped working. The seat belt is cutting through my flesh, the blood is everywhere, I can see bits of my flesh on the floor.  I guess some of the shattered windscreen has pierced my eyes and hence the bloody vision…I wonder when god will grace me with death, because I don’t think I will survive this without a few permanent handicaps and god!! I hate handicaps, they look at you like some demi-god who have the abilities which they don’t. they disgust me I cant be one of them.

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Its said that our whole life flashes in front of our eyes when we are dying. The betting fiasco was flashing again and again. That can’t be where my life started, my criminal life started. But the only person I can recall right now is Anuj, the guy who introduced me to the crime world. He took me under his wings and sneaked me into every kind of crime that ever existed, white collar crimes, corporate frauds, betting world. He considered me his younger brother.

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“Niraj,  I’m gonna find the rat who blew my cover. We have to move to Dubai, shift all our assets to Dubai. You with me?”

“Anuj bhaai, we should not panick. This has happened before, we will survive this too.”

“Niraj, don’t be ridiculous, Niraj why are you pointing your gun at me. Niraj ..it was you.”

The revolver shot was never heard.

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I can feel the pain he had in his eyes when I killed him. He considered me his younger brother but my greed got better of me. Anuj, he died without pain, in a single blow, while I’m suffering my slow and painful death.

The iridescent image is getting clear, everything is clear, none of my ‘loved ones’  are here, not even distantly. The road has been empty for hours, no one is coming to save me. What if I just take nap for few minutes, may be some one will come till morning, its already dark. Just a little nap. its warm inside compared to the outside bone shattering cold, just a few minutes..

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And then there were none of the hallucinations Niraj was having in his last moments. There was deafening silence in the valleys of Kufri, which seemed to be the only witness of his death.

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