The other day when I was in the Toilet Shack, I met the guy with an alien accent. Better still, I had a meaningful conversation with him, if you go by the rhetoric.
It was a Monday Morning. Monday mornings are always rush hours, if you know what I mean. It’s so exhausting working as a Volunteer (Volunteer, it may be euphemism!!) in the Nuclear Ship-off Organization on weekends, that you, inspite of all the alarm clocks in the world, tend to wake up late. This Monday was no different. There I was, at the community Toilet Shack, depositing my so-called ‘golden manure- the driver of tomorrow’ (that was of course one of the very few things sans radioactivity), when I heard a loud boom of a fart from beside my toilet. It was quickly followed by a nose-crinkling smell.
But it was my bad luck. The Air Refreshers were not working yesterday. I was already fretting about getting late to work (I could get laid off; depression was already killing half of the human population). So in the heat of the moment, I yelled at the guy whose fart fumes so pervaded my nose.
‘Control your gut, asshole!!’
I think that he did not understand the hidden nuances in my statement or maybe there was something wrong in his head. Whatever it may be, he completely misinterpreted it.
‘Black Hole? I know a thing or two about it, son.’
To say the least, I was shocked. I almost lost the grip over my Tablet. It had been indeed a long time, since I last heard that accent.
I knew in my gut that he was from the War. Shock gave way to understanding & understanding to resentment and I cursed myself for turning on the octogenarian on his favourite subject. You may ask how I knew his age. I myself am fifty-six, and I was the youngest of the four sons of my father, hardly eight years old then, when he got the letter with the stamp of U.N. that said ‘Your Planet needs you’. After two months training he was shipped of to Korta Galaxy. That was the end of it. All we received were his charred remains. The insurgents had killed him brutally.
But how was I able to identify the accent?
My three elder brothers reeked of it. Whenever they came home from war for some family-time (Then, the Earth Government was able to afford such outrageously long trips), they carried with them innumerable harmful micro-organisms that no amount of isolation would be able to brush it off, a permanent stink in their mouth of the noxious nectar they had so filled their belly with and that God Awful accent. Did I ever enjoy talking to them in plain English? No, I did not. They never talked plain English. Their voice-boxes were irrevocably lost on the Earthian accent, that uncouth alien accent had hooked onto them like a leech. I never once enjoyed their conversation, which mostly involved bragging about who had killed more, or what were the innovative techniques to torture the indigenous tribe. My mom had been worried sick about them, and here they were talking about how they killed some other mom’s younger ones. I was sickened by them. Now, two of them were long dead, one in the war and other from cancer. My third brother is a nut case. This ‘Puritan War’ had brought no good.
I seriously wanted to put a latch on that old fart’s mouth but I knew I would be helpless due to his deafness.
“21, yup, that was my age when I was first shipped off to that awful planet…”
I tried to ignore him first. But like all war stories, this one was hard not wanting to listen it. This one, though lacking in originality, did manage to get me drooling over his words in no time.
Well, I am mostly keeping the conversation that we had, in plain English, as I won’t be able to get that accent right in this Word file. But you must know one thing, there were lot of whistles and clicks involved while he was talking, and though for some words, he only whistled sans the words, I was able to decipher them due to my brothers’ slurry talks.
“…I literally held my heart in my hands. I was totally freaking out. This was of course my first time out in the open space. And I was afraid of dying as I didn’t think that we had training enough to last a day in front of those buggers. I still remembered that day- I think it was 12-03-2021. I don’t exactly remember whether it was a Tuesday or Thursday. Ah, that feeling…Young Man, you listening?”
Inspite of myself, I replied in affirmation. You see, though I found the War murky, in a way I was fascinated by it. I had been extremely jealous of my elder brothers, when they got to wear that sexy uniform and exaggerate about their escapades and bravados. Though I now know that most of the tales were concocted just to derive the pleasure of teasing me, in those days I aspired to be the Superman who finished off the bad guys in a jiffy and end the war. I daydreamt of the accolades that I would receive due to my act of extreme courage. I wished to go and really fight on the alien battleground. But my mom would hear no word. She just didn’t want me to go in that stupid war that had took my father’s life. My brothers jeered and taunted me. They even called me a sissy and a momma’s boy. But really, one look in her sad eyes, made me forget all the so-called glory that I might receive in the war. That probably saved my ass. But my fascination still lingered on.
“That feeling was indescribable. Though of course, I vomited and almost had my gut in the throat, all I remember apart from that is a feeling of trepidation. I was extremely afraid of going out in the rough in the line of fire- I have been more of a weakling in my family, and the only thing I had ever been good at was a little bit of math. I always lost in one-to-one combat, my shooting was lousy, but apparently the government considered it ample enough to ship me aboard Vengeance and prove my salt. My fear mounted once we passed through that freak passage across the universes. Of course, there is uncertainty involved that the black hole or more specifically the worm hole may close any time soon. Once we were through, I sighed with relief, though of course I now had to fight a battle.
So at 5:07 Earth Time, our shuttle whirred past closest to our guerilla base, and we parachute-jumped in that thick atmosphere of Hootun. Yah, inspite of the huge influx of humans in the war, we were reduced to gorilla warfare on a planet which we previously had a colony on!! Those bastards were extremely ruthless, and all the more due to their unique physiology and the military training we have so given them out of our stupid open-heartedness, had cost us quite a rich land that we had so painstakingly captured.”
I heard the sound of flushing. I realized that I was losing track of time. But my stomach was still heavy.
“Youuuk… Sorry about that,” he said in his somewhat sickly sweet melodious cackling. “On the very first day, I got the taste of the fierce Kootrs. They had attacked our make-shift camp. It was kind of hazy and fast, I no longer had control over my life. It was, as if, my soul had separated from the body and someone else was guiding it to perform actions- I think that’s what you may call the subconscious. I was handed a laser guns and couple of those sticky bombs that stuck to their high metal body like a magnet.”
He cleared his throat. By this time I was totally hooked.
“There was this guy named Suresh, with whom I had stricken friendship during our training on Lunar Base. As soon as I got a clear opening and fired my first shot that day, I found a 10 feet long spear wedged deep inside his head. Immediately he hit ground, his body as tout as a stick. I bent over his face, my thinking capabilities shrunk to a near-nil. There he was, his body shaking to violent convulsions and spewing blood from his mouth, and I was unable to tear my eyes from his pain-stricken face. I saw death in his eyes. That broke the spell. I was no longer a remote controlled robotan. Fire sizzled in my heart, I took his gun and I open fired on those assholes through their thick armor plates, unheeding primitive bullets, spears and their deafening whistles. That day my hands were painted purple with their blood. And I tell you, I did not feel a single emotion of shame. I enjoyed killing those suckers- whether you call it blood lust or a feeling of reprisal, I simply wanted them dead. That day I killed 25 of them. For the first few nights I was able to sleep peacefully due to utter exhaustion, but after that, those alien faces that I had had killed haunted the rest of my life and they do so even today.”
I was silent for few minutes. It seemed to be indeed a poignant story.
“It’s good to listen to you old fella,” I said. “But it’s getting late for work. I would hear you out some other time.”
He did not reply.
I do not think he liked it one bit. But anyways, I was running short of time. I wrapped myself up and strode out of the shack hurriedly. So that was my first conversation with that guy. We indeed met a few times after that….
But you see- I am no high profile writer; I am getting tired writing this. So I will continue this the next time…..
Till then, have a soot free day…
Alienman 