The man who can’t be moved
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
It probably wasn’t a good idea to follow him. I looked around. There was a hint of orange in the sky. It’s going to be dark soon. The building seemed to be in ruins; old, isolated and quiet. I could hear the rustle of the autumn leaves and along with it, the abnormal flutter in my heart. I could feel the fear creeping its way in, accompanied however, with a strange sense of excitement. Then he took out his knife. Yeah, it was probably not a good idea to follow him.
***
“Art boils down to one thing. Imagination. Or atleast that’s what I’ve always thought. Perception, history or even technique is all relative to how YOU imagine it could be.” That was the introduction offered by my favourite English teacher. As most students, I wasn’t really interested in the ‘gift of education’, as they called it. But to be fair, everything I liked was created because of all that science and education. I was just content to be, you know, an appreciative audience. But Art, that interested me. Any form of art. Anything open to speculation and interpretation. So when my teacher asked us to draw inspiration from real life and write something, I was more than happy to do it.
I was skipping my way back from school when I realized that I don’t actually have anything to take inspiration from. Crap. I looked about everywhere, hoping that genius would strike me and I would run out crying Eureka. Wonder of wonders, it didn’t! I conveniently blamed it on the old I-can’t-perform-under-pressure excuse and went outside to play basketball. That’s when Ronny pointed out the man himself. The man who can’t be moved. Eureka.
Three months back, a man started to come by our locality. He sat on the far end of park, evening till dusk and he wouldn’t move. We once threw the ball at him to see how he would react, nothing. The authorities asked him to go but he didn’t even look up. They forced him out but he kept coming back. Eventually they realized that he was harmless and didn’t say or do anything but sit there. So they gave up and let him be. No one knew who he was or what he did. He was just known as the man who can’t be moved. Admittedly, the dramatic flair to his name was my touch. But the whole point was I was going to solve his mystery.
***
Seeing the knife, my fear was beginning to overpower my excitement. All that kept coming to my mind was that I was no Nancy Drew and there was no way I could survive if he attacked me. All ready to head back, I saw him dig out this stone and take out a bunch of files. Then he kept the knife back in his bag. Now that I stopped hyperventilating, I saw that it was a tiny knife. Day to day use. Phew. Nonetheless, curious, I followed him and tried to peep through a window.
He took out a pair of spectacles, smoothed out his shirt and knocked on the door. A woman opened it and hugged him warmly. From the looks of it, she appeared to be his wife. “How was work? It’s good to see you coming home on time these days”, she said with a huge smile on her face.
He headed into the kitchen and said,” It was good. It’s less hectic these days but it will soon pick up. Here, I got grocery.”
The woman looked at it in dismay and said,” This won’t last long. You‘ll have to go to the market again!”.
“No no, it will. I’ve started eating dinner there and I’m not hungry. The boss insists I eat with him. In fact I just ate dinner with him, half an hour back while discussing the project. I’m full. You eat”, he replied with a smile.
“Are you sure? Lately you’ve not been eating and look how thin you’ve become! Are you afraid I’ll leave you for another man if you become fat?”, she asked with a mischievous smile.
“Hahaha. I’m not worried, No one can love you more than I do”, he said. The woman nodded, kissed him warmly and went to keep the grocery.
The smile died on his face. He tried to smile again but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. My gaze followed the woman. Her smile didn’t last long either. She was trying to figure out what was amiss in her house.
***
I had seen enough. I walked back with a slow sinking feeling. The man clearly was lying about his job. That’s when it all dawned upon me. The blank gaze was the look of a depressed man. Every day he would get up from the park at the same time and go back to pretend to his wife that he just came back from work. Maybe he lost his job and was too ashamed or scared to admit it to his wife. Whatever the explanation was, he wasn’t simply a creepy guy who sat at the edge of the park anymore.
Things are rarely what they seem. I didn’t like the ending to my mystery but I saw what ails us and how we’d react to it. He chose to hide it, someone else would have chosen to fight it. Both options are human, both are real and valid. In the end, it’s all subjective on how you’d imagine it to be.
