Lonesome Valley; Chapter 2

The Imprisonator

You work in the city police force, prowl the streets filled with vicious muggers, dope peddlers, crazy weirdos for 10 years and you expect a quiet desk job to while away your days in peace. You are 32 years old after all. Its time they let you relax. You apply to your pseudo-intellectual boss to shift you to a more peaceful job. The sanctimonious prick who loves to say " subtle" every 2-3 minutes, ignores it and puts you into the security cordon of an anal retentive politician who has been threatened by yet another psycho. Appears they both studied together at some big shot ivy league college or the other, your boss had some brotherly love to spare and also a few men from the force.

It appears the senator Johansen was told by somebody called "the emancipator" to mercy kill his only child suffering from cerebral palsy otherwise the crazy will have to assassinate him on moral and philosophical grounds. Slippery grounds, those. You never play there.

They have also given you an ivy league humanities graduate for a partner who is on a "being a good Samaritan" mission. Eloquence personified and apparelled in a Van Huesen suit. The bastard even quotes Shakespeare. Name's Edward Devereaux. Fancy pansy.

The threat came by the phone. Wonders of science are innumerable and unfathomable. No chance of catching the perp even after tracing the call but it was done anyway by the bright boys from communications. So here you are staking out a suburban villa of Godzillic proportions with manicured lawns and pedicured ladies. The matter is being splashed about in the news paper like beer in a bachelor party. There is always a small mob of T.V. reporters in front of the gate. You feel like a red assed monkey at a historical site, stared at, jeered at and being asked things you don't know.

He is coming out of his villa in his bullet proof luxury car that lets him ride out any storm inside watching porno and sipping beer ensconced in fragrant leather seats. You are not so lucky, you have to pave the way for his majesty's departure to the hospital to see his son.

Its not even been 40 minutes since his departure, you have just settled down to have your coffee and cigarette and Edward 'Eddie' deveraaux comes huffing and puffing, spills the coffee and starts coughing with a hanky on his mouth with his initials stencilled on it. This is supposed to be your signal to stop smoking as Mr. eloquent doesn't feel terribly comfortable in cigarette smoke. You promptly blow a cloud on his face and tell him to cough the fuck up.

"Ah...I have the misfortune to report, a terrible loss". Hems and Haws he.
"Go on".
Uh...This might come as a shock but it is my duty to report the truth as I know it to my superiors.
You clench your teeth and press on "I am very much interested in knowing the information you bring Lieutenant".
Well...The gentleman we have been put in security charge of has been found dead in his son's hospital ward. Reasons are heretofore unknown.

You feel two spots growing on you.
1. The coffee spot where the Dumb ass has spilled it
2. The spot of dread that starts from your gut and soon reaches your jockeys and twists them in a knot.

You knew it was a bad job. But your old man was adamant for you to take some job, any job. An MBA was too boring. You were too lazy to become a scientist, engineer or a lawyer though you had a sharp mind (or so the cute female professor told you), so you became a cop. Getting in was easy enough but the folly of your ways was clearly apparent sitting on the hard wooden chair in the supercilious superintendent's otherwise plush office, the next day. He deliberately put that hard chair for you to make you uncomfortable.

"Sloppy. Your feedback report told me. I was a fool to send you on such an important duty. I disregarded the subtle insinuations of your senior officers and trusted your rough talent and what do I get?" The ranting had just started and the old man was wheezing with effort.

"Sir according to the forensics report, the poison was mixed in the beer which came from the local wholesale liquor dealer. One of the cans had been tampered with. He drank it in the car. The delayed effect of the poison started to show up in the hospital when he went to see his son. Just the other day he had given a statement to " The Post" that there is no chance he would do such a thing as killing his own son. Its the emancipator business. I was only on the guard duty." You wish there was a diplomacy class for dupes like you.

"How subtly you have shirked your duty captain. Truly admirable. When the car was inside the garage wasn't it your duty to check it when, as you put it so eloquently YOU were on the guard duty?" Just listen to the asshole. Were you supposed to sip all the beers to check whether they were doctored or not? But you bite your lip and keep quiet.

"Now the National Agency of Investigation has taken the case from us and we're expected to co-operate with them. Your duty will now be to co-ordinate with them and please do not give me any chance to complain this time, I must tell you in no subtle terms."

After two days of the big scene the NAI people interrogate you for four hours about your one week stay at the politicians house. Their condescension is visible. They smirk at your answers, you take it silently.

You take the squad car and make a stop at the liquor wholesaler. He's been visited by the NIA and is visibly distraught. He repeats his statement. He had taken a new delivery boy for the northern end of the city. The lad was late thirtyish,said he was a student and needed a job to supplement his allowance, chiseled features, broad chest, bearded, intelligent looking, and no he didn't give his documents. He was seen studyning heavy books sitting on a box in the warehouse.

Whatever, none of your business, now that the NIA is here, you swear never to get involved in high voltage stuff, that is for the high fliers. You decide to drop by home on your way to headquarter. The old man has paralysis of the lower body. Though there is a nurse who comes thrice a week, he still needs all the attention he can get, and then some more. To be very frank he is a pain the "you know what", but the problem is you love him too much. To be a little more frank, you had a call from the army and to be most frank that was your heart's desire. But after your mother ran away with the milk delivery man, you didn't have the heart to leave him alone. So you never told him, had you had he would have packed and Fedexed you to fort honor. He thinks you are a worthless no brainer nincompoop, but that is a small price to pay to stay near him and take care of him in his old days. Sometimes you think he knows it all, the old shoe box where you have kept your army call letter looks a little askew sometimes.

His gruff abusive language is what you come back home to hear. Though it irritates the hell out of you, you chew your nails out if you don't find the same voice fighting a verbal battle right through the thin walls with the neighbouring joneses.

You scan the police frequencies on the car radio; the usual chit chat about murder on east street, car crash on Tall Elks, burglary on Link Road. You twirl the dial and you get news a channel. Its abuzz; "The recent johansen murder case has yielded a new clue, or we might say a new puzzle considering the state of the police investigation. Among the beer bottles of senator johansen police have found a bottle of a prescription anesthetic called ketamine. Why has the killer left a ketamine bottle at the crime scene? lets ask our crime expert Dr....."
Bloody hounds, and whats with these psychos? Why cant they just do their thing and walk away? Why do they have to create such a furore about everything. Even criminals are publicity hounds nowadays. Where are the good old days when the killings were done in the cover of the night without seeking attention? Nowadays the bastards deliberately leave clues behind to challenge the detectives.
You have reached home, you divert your mind from policing(as if it really was a concern), and send it straight to oblivion to save it from the barrage that is about to hit you as soon as you make the front door creak. You open the door, no sound; he must be sleeping, you consider it a blessing. You take a peek in the old man's room. he sleeps so peacefully, nothing moves. Wait, something is moving inside the sheet near his legs. You slowly edge up to it, fearing the old fox's wrath if he is awakened. You uncover the leg and there it is, hissing and crawling, green and venomous, sleek and dangerous, satisfied after biting and killing your father. The leg is blue with the venom that has already spread throughout the body. You fling the sheet away to reveal a bloated, blue dead father. The man you loved more than your life is dead because you were too busy saving a senator. And you know what, you suck even at that. You are so ashamed you feel like smashing all the mirrors in the world. You check his pulse with more optimism than the your brain permits, the results make a worse wreck out of you. There is a phone on the bedside, you want a doctor, a big knowledgeable man, who can just touch him with a magic wand and make him alive again. You reach for the receiver, you notice something unfamiliar through stinging tears in your eyes. You scrunch up your face to read the label of the bottle, the new bottle that you have never seen on his table. Its reads; KETAMINE- medical purpose only.
......................................................................................................................................................................
You are on extended compassionate leave from the police force. The numbness has gone. A seething anger has taken its place. You have become "The Imprisonator"

Lonesome Valley; Chapter 1

The Emancipator

He sat there at the top of the cliff dangling his legs. He had the familiar sense of being out of his body that people generally have after a heavy dose of ketamine. His schedule rarely allowed him to be in contact with his higher self. Being a philosophy professor isn't as fool proof a way of avoiding useless labour as he had thought. He loved being high on ketamine. He liked to ruminate about the imminent, indelible truth of human life - as he half dangled from the cliff, not caring if he fell or not - Death. He had some more of it in his pocket and today he planned to have a near death experience with it. Body paralysed he lay there thinking. With a mind like his (an IQ of 200) and effects of ketamine he was getting riddled with umpteen revelations and insights every minute.

He remembered the house in the prairies, he sitting with his mama and dad, eating from his special toddler sized crockery and cute plastic cutlery.

Mama saying to dad 'Mrs. Johnson passed away'.
Dad said 'How very lucky of her. She has met her higher destiny at the age of 35. I wish I could die in peace right now.'
"Yes dear but we have little Jeremy to think about, how I would love to sleep in eternal peace forever" mama gave a wistful expression that suggested that dying was way better than getting a personal visit from Santa Claus.
He chirps to his mother "I want to die too mama, will you take me when you die?"

There is a small crowd near the stream that the villagers used to fish for eels. His classmates say his mother is floating on the lake and she is not moving. He goes there and the air of tragedy, excitement, diffidence, apprehension, tells him that mama is done moving. Is this how people look when they die? The expression on her face doesn't look peaceful, in fact its not much of an expression at all. Her face is bitten all over by fish. His dad hoists him from the ground and embraces his little body and tells him that she is at peace now, she just couldn't wait for me though. How very lucky of her. How very like her.

They're walking back home after a short and private funeral service for mama. Dad holds his hands and says 'Jerry, I have to talk to you, I have to tell you something you should know.' He had thought it will be about the thing he had seen the high school boys and girls do behind the trees in the park when it got dark. He found it gross. 'Jerry all of us have to go where mama has gone one day or the other. Everyone goes when life forces them to go but your mama forced life to let her go. People will tell you that your mama was a pusillanimous woman but I think she had the grit to know the value of death." He had no clue what "poozillanimuz"" meant but afterwards he always remembered thinking that he will never grow up to be that.

The day he caught the city bound train to join his college to get a degree in philosophy he peered out of the window into his father's proud face and saw an extremely relieved man. He knew that he will not see him again.

Its time for another dose. He took out the bottle of medical purpose ketamine prescribed by Dr.Chaddha, his reluctant friend at the university.He took a spoonful out of the bottle and heated it on the cigarette lighter's flame. The liquid transmogrified into a crystalline powder which he crushed and scattered on the hard cover "hamlet". The Swiss army knife cut lines into the powder to make it easy to snort small doses, but then he destroyed the drain works and made one small hill of narcotic heaven. He gingerly positioned the cut off straw at the top of the mound and put one of his nostrils on the other end and gave one animal like pull to the air. The narcotic hit him almost instantly and he was paralyzed. His brain went eons ahead of him. Things suddenly startled making sense. The feeling of having figured out his aim of life enveloped him in powerful gushing waves. He saw a light making headway to his eyes. In a few moments that light was a tunnel. Peace reigned. He was happy, no he was ecstatic. Mama came to him, her smile beckoned him. But then dad appeared, he was not smiling. He was saying something. "Go, teach people the value of death, make them meet their higher destiny. You are yet not ready for your higher destiny."

He started crying uncontrollably, but the sound of his voice was muffled as if with ballasts. The tunnel swept away. The light turned itself off. It was clear he was not in the vicinity of the comforting emptiness of eternal sleep but now again in the middle of the living bustle of wakeful tribulations. The ketamine hadn't worn off totally and the plan came to him almost automatically.

After about three quarters of an hour he was ready to to go and test his plan. He had completed his graduation at an early age of 19 years "summa cum laude" and was offered a fellowship at the university as recognition for his superb albeit sometimes against the grain talent. He had come to detest the squalor of the big city. The tenements, the garbage dumps, the unfortunate souls living on them, devoid of any human decency, shame or self respect. He pitied them, but he knew anything he did to help them will surely make matters worse. Some people just drown. He had never understood this insistence upon living. Why do people go on living even when there is nothing to live for? Why do we go on trying to find meaning in a life full of garbage dumps and sewer rats and die a consumptive death trying?

Dr. Chaddha will say because of a "will to live". What does it serve for? Do we really need it? What solutions does it pose in front of us if not more problems? Why shouldn't a terminally ill patient end all the problems with one quick slash of a sharp knife? Will that also be called " A permanent solution for a temporary problem?"

Well its time to test the hypothesis and his will to execute it. A wino was sleeping on the side of the road, curled up under the dubious warmth of the wooden bench and streetlight. Why does this person want to live? Why is he wallowing in the verminous life of this hellhole when he has a chance to end this and find out whether there is a higher destiny or not? Sometimes he even doubted his father's theory about higher destiny. He sometimes thought that all things are equally meaningless in this universe, death included. He suddenly felt guilty. He felt like he has hurt his father somewhere in his nth dimension.

He took out his swiss army knife. Opened up the biggest blade and stood over the sleeping hulk of a human equivalent of a rudderless boat bent on floating on without a direction. Not that any direction was preferable to any other. Was he planning to kill that man? Is that an immoral act? May be but morality is also a set of rules devised for better living of a society that made a taboo out of death. That is why we recognize many levels of sins Venal and mortal, forgivable and unforgivable, okay and grave. Why is stealing more forgivable than killing? Because human race is more afraid of getting killed than getting ripped off. That is why we devise punishments for killing not only at a legal level but also at a psychological level. Morals are just another legal code, only ingrained deeper in the psyche. And he was just freeing this piece of vermin feces from the squalor of his sorry life.

Before anymore question could trouble him as questioning everything was his way he brought the knife down straight toward the heart of the sleeping wino. The wino yawned and shifted his position while sleeping and by the time the knife blade traversed the distance to his body his neck had come in the way. Steel struck flesh. A gash opened and sprinkled hot metal flavoured blood on his face. He briefly remembered a piece of trivia read somewhere among his massive store of books about the iron content of blood . He concentrated on the job at hand. The wino had lost his vocal chords as the only sound he made was a primeval gurgling sound, but the strength of a dying man even though he is a street wino can astonish the strongest of the well fed prairie boys. He thrashed under him. He had to pin him down with both his legs and and it took 5 more slashes on the neck and the stomach when he at last stopped writhing.

He stood up feeling confused.. Has he done it well? Why did he protest so much? No harm was meant. But of course he was feeling pain. He will have to take care of the pain from the next time. The deserted roadside enveloped him in the murky mix of of dirty light and stinking shade. The only ones who had seen him were the sewer rats he so despised. He had taken the first step. There was no turning back. He was the emancipator.

The Singleton Set

The freshman year had brought many joys in my life, loss of virginity not being one of them. Yes I was 18 and still a virgin. That was a black mark on my otherwise popular life in college. I solved a particularly hard B-8 problem in the first month in the college and had the intellectual alpha male image but girls had the effect of a big wide clamp on my mouth. I have always thought that girls are the best aphrodisiac but also the best paralysers.

I was having lunch at johnny's with mates from the computers Olympiad team. A gaggle of football jocks entered with one and in certain cases two admiring nymphs in their arms. I felt the same old feeling of impotent rage when I saw those beauties getting wasted on these guys for whom the greatest intellectual feat would be to solve a jigsaw puzzle.

Today there was a couples party at "The Catatonia". I was not invited for obvious reasons. "Asshole" Arnie managed to get invited at the last moment by luring a school girl into his trap. He actually bribed her with a large pack of Hershey's bars.


Today she looked at me in the class. I found out her name by asking Arnie the asshole...Larissa.


She had been stuck on a particularly arcane term in mathematics which the the lecturer had asked her to humiliate her because she was inspecting her nails with more interest than the lecturer who had worn a new suit. I whispered the answer...singleton set... so deftly, CIA would have been proud of me. At least I was so proud of my achievement I couldn't suppress an ecstatic smile which looked pretty demented and of course very noticeable to the lecturer. She blurted out the answer and the lecturer gave me a dirty look that said he plans to dance on my grave before the next academic session.



She gave me a brilliant 7.34 inch smile before going away with a hockey jock. I stood rooted to the spot till my mates practically carried me to the mess.



I met her again in the chemistry lab. This time she came to me to ask me something about carbonic acid, not that I heard it, Its just that I felt something stinging my ungloved hand and later investigation revealed It was H2CO3.




Arnie the asshole told me she is a heir to a great hotel chain, lives in the custody of her uncle and aunt, will get the money only when she gets married to a suitably intelligent boy that her professor uncle approves(The hockey jock was found badmouthing her as a slut in the late hours at johnny's bar).



She has asked me out! God! is this happening or Am I programming? I have borrowed a suit from Arnie and no! he is not an asshole. Its a damn classy joint we're going to. She met me in the gym where she was doing God knows what. If you ask me she doesn't need to do any gymming with that body of hers. Not that I am a pro at gymming, its just that Arnie the erstwhile asshole dragged me there to watch his Adonis like six packs move like fish in water while he did his crunches.

I found her waiting at the table. Isn't that suppose to be a male territory..waiting? Anyways I was shivering like a rag doll on live wire. She gave that thousand watt smile of hers and I was blinded by the flash. Shit I could see my reflection on her perfect white, shiny teeth. She was talking about her interests. Yeah, Arnie said this is when I should listen to her with wide eyes to appear...what? yeah sensitive. I didn't need to act. I was rapt by default.



I didn't talk much about myself, not that I was in a state to. Then we took a walk to her uncle's house which was in the college premises because he was a professor in here. When we reached the door, I knew I don't have it me to do what Arnie had told me to do. The asshole didn't tell me it will be this difficult just to move a muscle. Then I felt a softness on my throat, by the time I realized it was her hand my lips had been enveloped by her soft wet mouth. I closed my eyes and let her explore. After a very short eternity of time, the pressure was released and she looked dreamily into my eyes. "See you tomorrow in your room."

She lay breathing heavily beside me. Arnie the asshole had lately started grumbling about the room always being occupied by two noisy monsters. She said as I kept eating her face with my eyes "Uncle Harry wants to meet you."



Wow! Uncle Harry is looking at me as a potential husband for Larissa! Gawd! stone the crows!


I entered the house diffidently. No company interviews had scared me as much as this. I had actually sat in the library to learn quotes and jokes to make my conversation witty and interesting. I had browsed the mall for the best shampoo and deodorant. I was going to meet moneyed people after all. I rang the bell. It took about 5 minutes for Larissa to open the door. She must have been busy in make-up. Uncle Harry sat on the sofa in front of the T.V. She introduced me to him. 'Uncle, this is Mustafa, Mustafa, uncle Harry'. He gave me an absent minded smile and a nod acknowledging my presence. It was a bit of a bummer if you ask me. I had thought of him as a grand, incisive, terrifying old man. I had been battle ready and all I found there was a common old man. Anyways it was time to meet auntie Ruth. 'Nice to meet you, young man' she said as i shook hands with her. Young man, huh! I could do with some respect for my new french beard.

The dinner was an elaborate four course affair. Anybody who cooks that much food for three people had to be stinking rich. Am I going to get married the most beautiful and one of the richest girl in this city? Yes...If I do this dinner good. As was preparing to eat my soup auntie Ruth interjected with the severity of a viper trodden upon "Mustafa, we have a tradition of saying grace before starting any meal". Flustered I put my spoon down and lip-synced with Larissa.


The soup course went without any further casualties. Uncle Harry kept looking furtively at me. Should I win him over with my sparkling newly acquired wit? Or does auntie Ruth wears the pants in this family?



Uncle Harry spoke up for the first time in the whole evening. 'Darling, Mustafa is a computer genius I'm told, he has won the computer Olympiad gold medal recently'.

An icy cold "congratulation" followed which sounded more like "strangulation". 'So mustafa do you plan to become a computer professional in future?'

Here it starts, I started answering 'yes ma'am there's a huge demand of good computer professionals all over the...'
'but that's simply not possible! Larissa's business will need a good, sharp mind to manage it. Her future husband will have to manage it' interjected the awful aunt.
'But darling why shouldn't he pursue his own career? And we have you to manage the whole business and I too.'
'You keep out out of this Harry, This is my sister's company and it will not let it go to waste because of your sentimentality. You have never been any help to me in managing the business, though that was what my father had in mind when he agreed for our marriage. Now my sister's daughter is ready for marriage and I will have to think about her future also. '
What? is that what she is looking for? she needs a manager for her business? OK don't panic, her concerns are right in their place. I'm sure we can sort it out like civilized, reasonable people.
'Do you have any offers Mustafa?' The aggressive interlocutor demanded.
Yes ma'am, I have one from IBM, I'll be posted in Egypt as a Programme developer.
'Egypt? we don't have any hotels there." Am I supposed to care?
'Where do you reside Mustafa?'
"Reside"! The hoity-toity bitch. 'I live with my parents in Florida'.
'Hmm with your parents. Would you consider living with us? here?'
'Uh...I will have have to think about it ma'am'. Why wasn't Larissa saying anything?
'Auntie is right Mustafa, we can be a lot happier here with everything we would like to ever have.' she spoke for the first time.
Ah...so this is what it is.
'And what about my freedom?' I was hurt and didn't care if this offended them or not.
'Well, love sets you free' said The Bitch Woman.
'But it doesn't let you go anywhere.' I thought bitterly.
The dinner was over as far as I was concerned.

Uncle Harry offered me some dessert, I promptly refused. I saw the lines of emotional fatigue on his face. Now I understood why that man looked so haggard and dejected. Do I really want to get into this? I will have to think. Second thoughts are wiser after all.


The door closed behind me. Larissa was waving at me from her room upstairs. I turned and caught her pleading to me with her eyes.



I passed the math department garden full with freshmen preparing for the coming exams. One bespectacled guy with pimple marked face murmured as he plodded through a dangerous looking math book. 'Singleton set is a non empty set that contains only one element.'



'Yeah, single but not empty' I felt light. Arnie my good friend, my best buddy must be waiting for me. Lets have a proper hog dinner tonight. Amen.