But, in the room there was total darkness.
Where are all the prisoners?
Where is the future me??
They all must be nearby, ambuscading and ready to attack me?
They must be standing with hand in hand making a circle around me.
That means they want to kill me?
Was the knock of police on the door a delusion created by these people in the room?
Am I in a dream?
Is some paranormal power acting against me?
Are they framing me up?
Conspiracy?
And I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Someone said, "Friend! In this world, someone is always doing a conspiracy against another one. This vast universe is also conspiring against all of us. This is not the time to think on that."
The voice was very much familiar. It was my voice. It was me only.
"What are you trying to say?"
"What you just heard is your future. If you want to avoid that, I can give you a chance to go back in past to correct some of your actions to change the future! So if time can do conspiracy with us, we will conspire against time!"
"Oh? I still can't believe that this is happening in reality. Is it true?"
"Don't think too much, don't ask too many questions. We have very little time. Please decide quickly where in the timeline of your life you want to go in past?"
I started thinking fast. I quickly reminded recent events. I never killed anyone in past, though I cheated many people. I wanted to remove the stigma on me as a killer. The only thing of past I wanted to correct was to change the event happened with me on the foot over bridge.
"So what have you decided? Be quick. We don't have much time. In next one minute you have to decide otherwise I will vanish from here!"
In hurried voice I said, "Yes, yes! I have decided. Send me on the foot over bridge again..!"
In the next moment, I was standing on the foot over bridge once again! The thoughts of another me in the dark room were now controlling the me on the bridge.
It was 2 o'clock in the night.
First thing first which I did was this:
I removed the locket around my neck and kept it in my pocket. I recalled the future events.
The masked man will come soon...
He will check the money with torch...
I didn't get much time to remember more in details as I saw someone climbing the stairs. The shadow grew bigger and finally I saw the masked man. He waved at me. I did the same and he started coming to me.
This time before giving him the bag, I gathered courage and asked him, "Please remove your mask!"
He didn't remove it but started staring at me more fiercely and said, "Oh. Now you will command me? You will tell me what to do? Give me the bag and leave!"
His voice was not like Shirish. I was sure. That means someone else was posing as Shirish? He might have harmed Shirish, stolen his belongings?
"Before giving you the bag, show me the proof that you are Shirish!"
With my insistence, he got very angry and snatched both the bags from me and pushed me with great force. I fell down.
I got up and ran after him. We started fighting and he punched me with his leg so hard that I lost my balance and started falling down from the foot over bridge on the railway tracks...
Now everything was happening in slow motion. I was aware that I was falling down. I was halfway near ground and saw a train approaching.
I quickly thought, "No, no. This was not what I expected. If I allow me to fall down then I will die. No...!!!"
The me in dark room called the me back. Suddenly in the middle of me falling down, my body moved within seconds back to the dark room.
The another me was not there.
He was gone! where?
To the future or in the past?
No. He went inside me. Permanently.
I felt it.
I was again standing in the dark room. I came back to main lodge room and closed the door of the prohibited room.
I looked at the wall clock. It was still 3:45 am. Police were still knocking on the lodge main door.
So whatever happened in that room, happened in zero time?
After this everything happened so quickly. I went to the door and opened it and allowed Police to arrest me. While they were taking me in their van to police station, I was very happy. Police were not able to find the reason why I am happy? Because they didn't know that by letting me arrest myself, I have saved myself from death.
In lock-up, I was beaten up badly even if I confessed my crime easily.
My crime was easily proved in court. I got convicted. There was no one who could come to save me or defend me.
I was sent in prison.
There a bald giant fellow prisoner came to me and asked one of his fellow prisoner, "Which crime did he commit?"
"Crime? He pushed a man to railway tracks from a foot over bridge of a railway station. The man's body was cut by the speedy train entering the station!", another one answered him.
"Is it?"
"Yes, and the person whom he pushed down was his friend whom he owed huge amount! and he killed that person. Scoundrel. And he got in the same train which killed that person. Shirish. Then he went to a lodge for hiding. I got all these details from the jailer. He is my friend."
Same, same conversations which I heard behind the door were now happening in front of me, with me.
"Whoever comes with us in this prison for the first time, we welcome him by breaking few of his bones!"
"Please, please! Don't beat me. I am not born criminal. Circumstance made me commit crime. Already police have beated me up much in the lock up and now you all will beat me? No. I can't bear more beating now!"
"Oh oh! You are not born criminal? And all of us. Are we criminal since our childhood with a stamp of criminal on our forehead?"
"No, I don't mean to say like that but.."
I went mad by thinking the recent events with me.
The room and the another me in that room cheated me. Yes...? No!
He didn't cheat me. In fact, he gave me chance to change my past. But I failed to do it....
Everything is over now?
Suddenly I got an idea.
No...
Everything is not over yet!!
I have to find the door in the prison which can save me. The another me sitting on chair at the another end of the door will definitely help me and open the door.
Then I will go back to the lodge...
Yes!!!
And with this thought, I started knocking on the stony walls of the prison madly and shouted, "Please open the door otherwise these guys will beat me! I know you are there sitting on chair!"
All the prisoners were laughing at me due to my insane babbling, abnormal movements, consistent knocks on the walls which caused me injuries on my hands. And still the prisoners were beating me.
Days passed.
Occasionally I feel an urge to knock on the walls in attempt to find the door and all of my fellow prisoners laugh at me.
On some day, the another me in the lodge room will definitely hear my knock and open the door for me.
Nimish Sonar, Pune
sonar.nimish@gmail.com
