Short Story on Social Issue – THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRISONER
Photo credit: Melodi2 from morguefile.com
Today is the last day of mine in this prison. From tomorrow, I will be free——free of all anxieties, pain, embarrassment, and harassment and physical and mental torture that I have suffered here,
———— because————–tomorrow is my death day. The court has ordered that tomorrow I will be hanged till death. When I think of the happy days of life, I feel sad because those days will never return to me and when I think of all the pain and anxieties that I got here in this prison I feel relaxed because from tomorrow I will be free of all those pains as I will move towards oblivion. Confused and rattled with the memories of life, I cannot help myself stop thinking about that dark night that changed the direction of my life———–forever.
I, after completing my office work was returning home. That was a Tuesday. My house was on the village side. So at first I had to go to the main road and then take a narrow solitary lane and then walk straight for approximately 30 to 35 minutes through the lane. That day, the crowd was a bit less as it had rained early evening . I was walking through the narrow lane when I suddenly heard the cry of a lady.
Following that sound I went to another lane( this was the extension of the same lane in which I was walking). Whatever I saw there was just shocking. I saw that two muscular men were holding a lady tight with their hands and another man was standing in front of her who was trying to take out her saree. She was shouting and crying for help but no one was coming to help her(even though all the nearby houses were lightened). May be the people in the houses were thinking that why should they go and save some outsider. Instead they would like to have some snacks and watch a cricket match with their family. Some might be thinking that the lady is neither their mother, wife or daughter—so why should they save her. Let her solve her own problem.
On the other hand, another man was holding tight a 4 to 5 year old boy. The boy was crying and shouting saying, “Mom, Mom”.
I understood that the lady was his mother whom the other men were trying to rape. By this time , the man already took out the lady’s saree and now he was trying to remove her blouse. I just can’t be a silent audience of this nasty show. I just went there and gave a big punch in the nose of that man who took out the saree of the lady. As soon as I punched, the man fell down but one of the other men who were holding the lady tightly in his hands took out a gun from his pocket and pointed to me. I then acted like as if somebody was standing behind him. As he looked behind, I then giving a tight bite in his hand took the gun in my hand and asked all of them to leave the lady and the child.
I even fired in the air and told them that if they do not listen to my words then the next shot will not be in air———-it will be on somebody. They just obeyed to my words. The lady came and stood behind me and the man who was holding the child also left him and the child also came and stood beside me holding his mother’s hand. In the mean time the man whom I punched in the nose and who fall down was lying in the ground, gave a strong kick in my leg and I just lost my body balance and he by taking advantage of that situation took the gun from my hand and pointed at me.
I also jumped over him in order to take the gun. We were fighting in order to take the gun out of each other’s hand when suddenly the gun fired the bullet. All of the people present there got a bit scared at that moment including me. But surprisingly the bullet neither hurt me nor did it hurt the other person. There was a pin drop silence for a moment. I just turned back and saw that the bullet had passed out from my side and hit the lady’s head who was standing right behind me. She died instantly in front of my eyes.
I then without waiting for a single moment of time took the child in my arms and started running towards the main road where from I can go to the police station to seek help. I reached the main road and then started running towards the police station shouting at my highest voice————HELP HELP.
They were also chasing me. In the mean time the child got fainted. Fortunately I saw a police van was coming towards me. It came and I stopped right before me.
The police asked me suspiciously, “What happened?”
I was about to tell when the criminals, who were still chasing me, also came there and before I could say something they started saying. They said that I was trying to kidnap the kid and when her mother tried to stop me then I killed her by shooting her with a gun. After that when they came I even tried to shoot them but they somehow took the gun out of my hand. After that I started running taking the child in my arms.
I tried to prove my innocence but the explanations of those four men, the fainted child in my arms, my finger prints on the gun( the finger prints came when I giving the bite in the man’s hand took the gun out of his hand in my hand) and the two missing bullets in the gun (One bullet which I fired in the air in order to scare them so that they obey my words and the other bullet which the man shot and the lady died) made me guilty. So the police arrested me and took me into the court. I tried to prove my innocence in various ways, but I failed.
Even in the court no one from the lady’s family came to save me—–not even the 5 year old child who saw the entire incident with his own eyes. May be they did not want to get into all those police matters. Finally the court ordered that a criminal like me do not deserve to be in this world and so I should be hanged till death for the dangerous crime of attempt to rape, murder and attempt to kidnap for which I was accused of.
As soon as the court passed my judgement, everybody present there in the court room started clapping, everyone except my mother who was crying silently and who was also thinking that all the accusations against me are correct. When I was being taken into the prison by the police authority, the public spit at me and one or two persons even threw stones at me. The rest of the public were cursing me. I still remember a voice from the crowd stating——-Bloody murderer, and rapist. Your mother should also be raped and hanged in the middle of the street who gave birth to a criminal like you. You are a disgrace and black spot to our society.
After that I closed my eyes and I did not remember anything and I was taken into the prison by the police authority who threw me inside the prison. My life stopped at that moment. After a few days, I came to know that my mother’s dead body was recovered from the nearby dustbin. Someone had murdered her and threw her body inside the dustbin and vultures were eating her flesh when the matter came to the limelight. Investigation is still pending.
Now I am waiting for the sunrise. The sunrise of tomorrow will mark the sunset of my life. Only one thought comes now———-What if I had not helped her and be a silent watcher of the nasty show?
DO WE SHOULD THINK A BIT BEFORE HELPING SOMEONE?
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