GOING AWAY

R. Rajesh

I wondered if the rock  would walk away if it had a choice. Why suffer the waves crashing against it without respite,  without remorse? `Why do you care? echoed a voice from inside. And rightly so. I should be floating too high to worry about the problems of rocks and waves.

I stood looking across the sea  while on the road behind me and behind that in the sprawling  city of Bombay life still went on. A satisfied smile, a snug feeling about the future that I imagined lay waiting beyond the horizon. Not any more the contradiction of a million realities that is India. Still there was the taste of salt on my lips which I could not explain. The sea  or my eyes ?

A faint voice rose above the roar of the waves. It came closer and clearer. It is not a voice at all; it is a cry. It comes, closer and  clearer. It's not a single cry at all; it's the wail of a child; No, a million childrenall at once. It gathers around me now. I close my ears...but it won't stop. Louder and louder, filling all of me. The veins begin to stand out on my forehead, the eyes bulging. My intestines were near bursting with the suffocating cry of hunger and sorrow.

The waves were not waves at all. It was the children. The children of midnight and all other times of the day filling the sea and horizon. Oh no! They are dashing against the rocks. The blood splattered on my face.

I turned and saw him. The urchin he was tugging on my coat but stopped half way. May be it was the horrified expression he say on my face or may be it was my morning breakfast which was now all over him.

I screamed, he screamed. I ran.

I jumped into a cab.

`Where to Sahib?'

`Anywhere. Anywhere but here.'