Short Stories

Written by Rizwan ud Dean

He peered into the darkness and couldn’t make out how far it was from him but he knew that he would need to get off the tracks quickly. He was trying to get Farad’s off the track but it was heavy and Farad was badly hurt. He could hear him groaning in pain but through the mumbles he knew Farad was pleading with him to get him off the track before the train hit them. The driver would not be able to see them until the very last minute because there was a curve and by the time the lights beamed on them, the emergency brakes would not be able to engage in time to slow the momentum of the train down. They would both be crushed under the steel wheels of the hot oily beast and their limbs would be scattered throughout the tunnel and the passengers would see the blood from their bodies plaster the windows and walls of the tunnel.

He kept on trying and as he was finally getting Farad to his feet, the noise from the horn became louder and they saw the bright yellow lights illuminating the tunnel and reflecting off the white tiles. He knew they had little time because the vibrations under his feet were turning into huge momentous shakes and he was having difficulty keeping his feet on the tracks. Around the corner roared the black goliath and both men could feel the heat from the train well before it turned the corner. The wind it brought in its wake roared around them and they saw the calm yet concentrated look on the face of the train operator change to one of shock and then panic as his training was replaced by sheer determination to stop the train from crushing both men. Just as the train neared them, he felt the heat from the breath of the monster. Silence. Darkness.

He awoke with a gasp in his bed and looked around him. His mattress was soaked with sweat as was his body. The clothes he wore clung to him as if he had just come out of a shower and his mouth felt as dry as if all the water from his body had been taken from him somehow. He looked across his bed and saw his reflection in the dirty mirror and there were dark circles under his eyes. The dream had been as bad as the others on previous nights and he knew that there was little he would be able to do to take away the nightmares. He had tried taking sleeping pills in the hopes that it would cure him but that only made it worse because he slept longer and the dreams were far worse. The stubble on his face made look like someone who had aged overnight and his hair was hanging in clumps over his damp forehead. He felt a little light headed as his mind began to accept that it was only a dream. There was a faint clicking sound to the right and a radio began playing. He sighed. What use was a clock radio when you woke up before the alarm went off? He looked up at the white ceiling with light grey dust lines running in random directions and reflected on his life for a minute. He felt like his world was exactly like the dust – random. That was until he had met Yaseen.

He had met Yaseen on his way out of a bar one evening. He hadn’t even really noticed him walking by with his friends and when he did, he had turned his heads away in disgust. Yaseen was wearing jeans like the rest of his mates but his shirt was the traditional type of clothing worn by most men in Pakistan and India. It was a kameez top over blue jeans and the face had a beard which was kept in order but grew to his chest. (more…)