Artists look up to Leonardo da
Vinci. Writers look up to Shakespeare. But a teenager who lives in Ram Nagar,
looks up to a fictional character, Hercule Poirot. Agatha Christie had
succeeded at inspiring Zia with her most famous detective character. But not just that, Agatha also presented Zia with an unusual fear. As pages of creative
murder turn, the curtains of her bedroom are drawn aside in fear of finding
hidden murderers. Zia didn’t even leave a dusty corner. The first ritual taken
care of by Zia was checking behind curtains and under the beds, every time she
entered a room. Wow! That sure is a weird habit and a wonderful target for a
murderer. Something very queer in her life began with a wonderful sunset. Zia,
having unloaded the burden of her heavy homework, sat down in a cozy corner
with an Agatha Christie book. Plunged into the mysterious world, little did she
take notice of her life-changing happenings in the cruel world. A creaking door
snapped the bridge to her imagination in half, leading her to fall back to
reality. Did she check behind the curtains? Did she she look behind the doors
and under the bed? The loneliness surely didn’t brighten up the situation. She
froze all of a sudden, having just been struck by a thunderous thought.
“Manu!” she called out frantically. Where was her brother? There, her mother was going to
yell at her head off at Zia for not taking good care of him. There was a
serious rush to her brother’s room. The gaming console and his Marvel figurines
were scattered on the floor. Zia felt her heart hammering rapidly. Then echoed
through the house, a shriek overflowing with agony. Zia ran back to her reading
spot and found her book neatly placed on the bookshelf.
“Manu?”
she stuttered, “Are you playing a prank?” She walked towards the couch and
quickly looked behind. In the tremendous shock of finding someone crouched
behind the couch, she whipped out a razor, that she had always carried with
her, and slashed, whoever it was, blindly. Zia opened her eyes reluctantly and
looked at the terrible sight, with horror.
It was
Manu.
What
had she done? Her reflexes were the culprit of an irreversible mistake. But as
she looked closer, Zia came upon a strange knife, driven straight into Manu’s
stomach. No, something wasn’t right! Who had done that to her brother? Zia
jumped startled, as something wet trickled her feet. Blood. Her brother was a
bloody mess. Pale-faced, she couldn’t bring herself to shed even a few tears.
Suddenly,
someone tried to cover her mouth and bind her hands. Remember the razor she
held tightly in her hand? Without a second thought, she pushed it into the
stranger’s chest. With a loud thud, the stranger fell back.
As Zia
watched in horror, the intruder stumbled out of the house.
She sat
down to weep, but she sneezed unexpectedly. Her phone beeped and displayed a
message.
“God
bless you!” ©
-Bhavana
No comments:
Post a Comment