'RINSE OFF, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!'

 

Uday stared down at the man lying on the bed. He slept soundly, as if he was relieved of all worries. He was indeed, for he had just been shot through the heart with an army rifle about two hours ago. 

And just thirty minutes after that, stabbed five times with a kitchen knife.

Uday lit a cigarette. As he gave off two smoke rings off it, he began to smirk at the lifeless body of Murshid Aggarwal. Yep, he had definitely taught a nice lesson to that old scoundrel. The old man was getting too much on his nerves. The everyday insults, everyday harassing his wife now began overflowing within him.

‘Son of a dog.’ he silently said, as he moved slowly around the dark room. It was one o’clock in the morning, and the streets of Calcutta looked deserted. But it was over here – just a couple of hours ago – those numerous city men and city women were dancing drunkenly and the lights were shrieking with joy on the occasion of Diwali. It was the month of November, yet it felt as if the city had entered into a hot sauna…

Or so it felt to Uday, whose blood-stained hands were glistening in the faint light coming from the streets. His face was covered with salt, yet he didn’t feel it. He felt as if he was let free out of prison. God knew what terror it was to work as a driver in this household. He could still hear the voices floating by…voices insulting him for no reason…voices telling him to feel bad about his status…voices..

Voices which did nothing other than to invite anger within him.

It was with a great pleasure that he had put an end to this man’s life. He had been not getting his payment for over five months now. He was there for this ‘payment’. His wife has been bedridden for six years now. The son had ran away somewhere, and the daughter-

No, this was not the time to think about all this. Taking a deep breath, he moved over to the window. The panes were slightly open, but it should not be. There should be no trace whatsoever about how that son of a scoundrel Aggarwal had been shot. Was it from behind? Was it from the front? The police would be dumbfounded about it. It would never come across their minds that shooting a rifle from the third floor of the neighboring house can do the same job a lot faster. Oh, what fools!

Upon closing the window, the room plunged into total darkness, save for the faint light which was entering from the streets. Uday could feel a prick occurring in his neck – as if a pin was scratching him. But these things did occur – occur when a heinous crime like murder or theft was going on…

‘Son of a dog. Scoundrel! Devil! Calling me a slum-face, huh you swine?’ he muttered, as he couldn’t resist but gave three slaps across the face of Aggarwal. He felt relieved.

(son of a swine. Son of a scum. A slum-faced dog, huh?)

Now it was time for him to go. He looked around the room for the last time – who knows there might be some evidence still left which might raise questions…

That was when he nearly tripped over a thing. ‘Heyuh!’ Uday gave off a groan as he fell down. Oh God! What the devil-

Uday picked up the thing. It was a very small cylinder made of copper. It’s tip was sharpened. Even a layman like Uday could tell what it was.

It was a bullet. A bullet from a rifle. A bullet from a rifle which had been thrown just a couple hours ago from the third floor of a-

He immediately picked it up and then, opening up the window again, he threw it down. The cylinder made a very thin pin-dropping sound, before rolling into the morning darkness…

Woah, sighed Uday, as he closed the windows back again. That was a close one. Thank God he tripped over that thing, or else…

He stopped again. He had left something else.

The kitchen knife! The one with which he stabbed right into Aggarwal’s heart! His symbol of hatred towards him! How could leave that behind?

It was upon picking up the knife – kept on the table beside the bed – that he noticed his blood-stained hands, which were glistening in the very faint light piercing the darkness.

Blood. That old dog’s blood. He had to rinse it off. Or else…

He slowly went towards the bathroom adjoining the bed and flipped open the light. The small warm orange light filled in the small quarter at once. It also shone a bit into the bedroom, but did it matter? After all, he was dead.

Dead!

(dead dead the scoundrel’s dead dead dead the scoundrel’s dead dead dead)

Opening up the tap of the greenish-coloured sink, he washed his face up – which was covered with sweat and salt and of course, dirty blood.

He then began to wash his hands. As he applied the handwash on both of them, Uday suddenly stopped. A chill suddenly ran down his spine.

His hands were still red – covered by the blood of the body now sleeping forever.

He washed his hands again, vigorously rinsing it with water – he cleaned the fingers, the palm, the flesh crevices – everything which had the slightest trace of red.

But it still didn’t go. The blood remained as it was.

‘Goddamit!’ muttered Uday, who was now overcome with a new feeling: ‘fear’. He had been doing it so beautifully, the murder would turn out to be a cold case, the police would be bluffed by him, the murder weapons were out of sight, so why was his hands not getting rid of the blood?

‘Rinse off, goddamit, rinse off!’ he began muttering under his breath. His face was now attacked by a new layer of sweat. Although it was November, yet Uday felt the room temperature to be boiling hot.

Christ, why wasn’t the blood rinsing off? He had washed nearly eight times now, and still-

(come on come on)

Out of utter terror at what would happen, he suddenly shrieked out

‘RINSE OFF, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE! RINSE OFF!!’

And then he stopped. Oh no, what had he done? Why did he scream out like a fool? Uday now looked around in fear. If there was only Aggarwal alone then it would have been no thinking matter, but there was the security guard he had knocked out unconscious and his Great Den. He should have got up from being in the cold now. And if he does, then God knew what would happen. The guard was an idiot of the first order - he assumed everyone to be a thief after nightfall...

And if the Great Den was casted upon him-

Uday couldn’t think of anything else. He flipped down the bathroom switch and got out of the bedroom – the rifle bullet and the kitchen knife kept securely in his pocket. The room was plunged into sudden darkness again, but Uday had already been making his way out of the second floor. – the floor where Murshid Aggarwal lived. Uday lived on the first floor, whose footsteps were now coming down fast, yet silently down the stairs. He could hear the low barks of the dog as he reached his room’s door.

Very gently, he pushed open the door, and Uday was surprised for the second time that night – the door wasn’t opening!

‘Who’s there?’ a voice came behind him. Christ, it was the watchman!

Uday tried pushing the door – but it simply won’t budge. That was when he realized that he had locked it before going out to write Aggarwal’s death certificate. Shakily, he pulled up the keys, turned it violently into the lock. The door opened up at once. He then moved into his room – padlocking the damn wooden door – and then sat down on his bed. He was so out of breath that he looked as if he needed…

What was that sound coming?

Uday sat upright as he heard scratching on his door. No, he prayed, please no.

It was the Great Den, and he was accompanied by the watchman who was now knocking on the door. Oh God, no-

‘Who is there? Open up! Open up!’ the watchman called out from outside.

Uday tried to got up, but his body suddenly fell forward and he hit face-to-face with the floor. As he groaned from the sudden pain, he heard to his horror, that a key was being turned.

And that was when he realized that there was key mark on the wooden front of the door.

With breath nearly stopping within him, he saw with his nearly blacking out eyes that the door was being opened, and-

***

‘AEUGHHHH!’

Uday Misra sat upright. He was drenched with sweat from the head to his legs. What a terrible dream it was!

Uday looked at the clock. It was eight-thirty in the morning. The twenty-one year old gave off a yawn, and chuckled a bit. Jeez, he had ate a lot at his brother Rupesh’s house-warming yesterday! He was so drunk that he couldn’t remember where he was…

As he moved into his bathroom to freshen up, he noticed that today was a bot quieter than usual. Mr.Aggarwal usually would get angry if he came in late two minutes after seven in the morning.

And today?

As he hummed a familiar filmy tune while opening the tap of his sink, he suddenly stopped dead. A look of terror had suddenly appeared on his face.

His hands were coloured red – looking as if it had been stained by…by blood!

Uday threw himself back down. How was it possible? He could swear that it was bad dream – a dream where he imagined killing that old Aggarwal simply because he wasn’t giving him his payments…

A loud knock on his door suddenly aroused him. Outside someone was calling,

‘Is anyone there? This is the Kolkata police speaking!’

Uday now got up and began washing his hands – he had to rinse off the blood, or else…or else

(GODDAMIT RINSE OFF RINSE OFF)

But it simply wouldn’t. It lay over there, as if devilishly smiling at its owner, who had now come out into the bedroom, and whose eyes now froze.

There was a kitchen knife and a used rifle bullet kept on the bed as if they were on display. The door now suddenly burst open, and it was over here that Uday fell down, his eyes blacking out, his ears ringing with the loud explosion of a rifle, and the stabbing of human flesh…

***

M.Macabre

19.10.2021