The boy groggily unstuck one gummy eye and peered through the frozen 6 AM darkness.  He had been flapping around with his free hand trying to hit ‘snooze’ for the third time when his fingers made contact with the contraption perched precariously at the edge of his study table/doodle counter. He heard it bounce twice, thump against the wall and come to rest after a few cartwheels. Sighing, he turned over on his side to assess the damage done to the blood-red alarm clock, which now lay facedown on the black-granite floor. Bits of red plastic had chipped, and were strewn around it. A little dying soldier. He slid under his cozy quilt, and winced as his toes touched the frigid floor.

Break a watch, get the torch. A bad omen, that’s what it was. An omen of death, that’s what they said it was. What a way to start his first day of college after the winter break; terribly late and a death omen to boot. Death, he could deal with, he grinned. Stooping over he examined the ill-fated clock. Surprisingly it still ticked away happily, albeit with a clean crack running down the length of its face. He stared at it for a few moments longer, and replaced it on his study, placing it as far back as possible. He had about five minutes to get dressed, attempt to smell good and rumble down the one kilometer stretch of road, in one of those impossible-to-get rickshaws, to the railway station.

Might as well sway to the beat of my own drum now, he thought.

Story of my life.

Closing the door to his room behind him, he ambled down the corridor to the bathroom down the end. Patrick would’ve been up by now, spending his early morning hours lost in prayer. He shuffled over to the door on his right and placed an ear against the cool surface. A low voice, uttering gibberish. Passionate, emotion-heavy gibberish. This had been Patrick’s routine for as long as he could remember. At least this was his routine from the time he had adopted Patrick as his foster father. Patrick was a devout Christian, leader of a local church and a man with an enormous reserve of patience. The chanting that floated from under the door was him ‘praying in tongues’. He had never known him to ever lose his calm or even raise his voice against anyone.

Yawning widely, he continued on his brief journey towards the bathroom. How different would his story be if Patrick hadn’t shown him a little mercy and taken him under his wings?

There would BE no story, he thought grimly.

Orphaned at the tender age of ten, he had spent the next two years living with an aunt who only reluctantly took him in. Extremely insecure and prone to bouts of depression, he had soon taken to alcohol which escalated to pot, and then acid. He had never trusted or confided in anyone and so had no friends to speak of. The only people who he considered to be friends were the local peddlers. When his allowance failed to fund his vices, he had taken up to stealing.

Two suicide attempts later, one which consisted of a rusty shaving blade and the other, half a can of weed-killer, he was chucked into rehab.

After a stint in rehab, his aunt had been gracious enough to enroll him into school again. Six months into his new education, he was expelled for ‘possession’; a fact that he could not possibly hide from his guardian. Rather than go back to his aunt who had grudgingly funded his attempt at education and had tolerated his suicidal behavior, he fled.

With nowhere to go, he had resorted to living off scraps in the streets of Mumbai. Dysentery assailed him frequently and so did his idea of his life’s futility. One night he managed to break into, what he thought to be, a well-stocked home. He had scouted around that neighborhood, and knew that its sole occupant was an elderly man, an easy target. Removing the latch off an unguarded window he had managed to slip his dysentery-ravaged frame in.

He remembered the events as if it had taken place yesterday. He had managed to tiptoe across a couple of rooms and had not found anything except for a handful of loose change. Entering the kitchen, he dove for refrigerator. After days of living off rotting food, and the occasional vada-pav, this was a feast to him. He had managed to stuff his pockets with all the pork sausages, chicken salami and Kit-Kat bars that he could muster. As he turned to leave, a figure reared up on him. Frightened, and taken by surprise, he had lashed out with the first object that his flailing hands touched, which happened to be a kitchen knife. He felt the blade make contact with flesh. He felt the warm, sticky gush of blood on his hands. Horrified he had turned and fled, ignoring the anguished cry behind him. But the combination of shock and his starving, fatigued body took its toll, and he slumped unconscious before he could make his getaway.

When he came to his senses, he found an elderly gentleman smiling over him, his arm heavily bandaged. It turned out that the person who he attacked, had tended over his delirious, unconscious self for a whole two days; covering all his expenses. He had remembered being overcome with shame, and with tears in his eyes he had asked his savior, “Why?”

“Because Jesus would have done so”, came the reply.

“And also because good domestic help is so hard to come by nowadays”

He peered hesitantly at the age-lined face, before it cracked into laughter. Loud uproarious laughter, which reached out and embraced his soul. Laughter which stroked his face, which ran a gentle hand through his hair and told him that everything, would be alright.

From that moment began the happiest period in his short, miserable life. He vowed never to go back to his old ways again. He took up Christianity, although never coaxed into it by his mentor.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”, said 2 Corinthians 5:17. This he quoted whenever he felt his old insecurities whisper to him.

Patrick had been the father to him that he never had. For the first time he believed in himself, venturing out and trying out new things. Patrick never discouraged him. On the other hand he did all that he could to egg him onwards. He convinced him to continue his education for a third time. Armed with a new-found optimism, this time he excelled in his studies, especially Clinical Psychology, which he took utmost pleasure in studying.

Today he began the last lap of his final year after which he would graduate. As the steaming water washed over him, prying away every hint of fatigue, he felt free. He would make Patrick proud of him. He would repay him for everything that he’d done for him.

Throwing his backpack on, he listened to the sounds of dawn. He heard the sparrows chirping away in the wee hours. He heard the city bustling into life. He heard the shrill bells of the milkman and the newspaper boy on their daily routine. He heard the morning crackle into life.

But what he did not hear was the crack of the gunshot that went off in Patrick’s room. What he did not hear was the splatter of brain matter, as it splashed itself on the canary-yellow paint. What he did not hear was the thump of a corpse as it hit the floor. What he didn’t hear was the muted anguish borne by an elderly gentleman, who wore a mask of joy-filled eyes and veiled his emotions around his adopted child, while rejection and pain tore at him on the inside.

Life on earth is no science fiction!  But, in this short fiction story, life does makes an exception.