The Talking Pen: 100 Mosquito Nets

100 MOSQUITO NETS

The town of Ranchi is blessed with many unique qualities. In the early morning, when you get up – though that’s rare for me, of course – and go for a walk, it gives you a divine feeling to witness the calm of nature. The second thing can be seen in the afternoon; no matter it is June or it is January, never mind the official weather of the month, the sun would always shine above you with same intensity in the afternoon. And in the night, it’s the mosquitoes who rule. That’s the third unique quality. As the sun goes down and darkness spreads over the town, the little demons come out from their resting places to rule over us. I don’t know how many litres of blood are sucked up from living humans each night by mosquitoes.

Image Source: wickedhorror

The incident that I am going to tell you about took place just after a month or so of my shifting here. My name is Salman Ansari and I live in a house which is quite at a distance from the main road. And the condition at night is probably worst here—especially in the rainy season.

I have been working on a novel for quite a few months back, and I was almost about to write the climax that night. I was sitting in my room, on my table, with a pen in my hand and a bulk of A4 sized sheets – my months of hard work – trying not to focus on the howling of the dogs outside. I looked at the clock as it struck 2. The last time I had seen it, it was only 12. So, the horrible fact was, I had been sitting before a blank page for two hours without penning down a single word. This had never happened with me before. ‘There is something so wrong tonight,’ I thought and stood out from the chair. Just at the moment I got up to head for the washroom, electricity went off. I had not yet fixed an inverter in my house. So, I had to light a candle.

With a candle in my right hand, I moved about in the house almost as a protagonist of some horror movie. In the dim light of the candle, I saw something flying about—a mosquito. They were so quick and there were so many. I realised at the moment that it was because of them that I was not able to write anything since two hours, and not because of the howling of the dogs. In no way I was letting them get away with what they had done to me. “You have no idea what you have got yourselves into,” I spoke, looking at a particular mosquito which flew away and another took its place and then some other one did the same. As I said this, my words reverberated and came back to me, “You have no idea what you have got yourselves into.”

I fixed the candle on a table and hopped around the room, clapping them out to death. I counted as I killed the mosquitoes. I counted them to fifty-five. That was before I had taken a break to drink water which included a journey to my kitchen and back. After the break I hunted another thirty. The mosquitoes, they just don’t get away. I had already shown eighty-five of them the highway to hell and they were still after my back. It was not because I was too angry for they had not let me complete my novel that night. It was fun clapping them to death and I had begun enjoying killing the mosquitoes more than I liked playing cricket in school days. I was doing this devilish thing just because I could do it, unaware of the things to come, having no assumption of any consequence. After the elimination of those eighty-five – to score a century – I caught fifteen more and burned them alive in the pious flame of the candle. It gave me unique sadistic pleasure. I was even paranoid, afraid that I may get caught in the act, as if I were killing human beings. I slept without any stress that night, though there were still mosquitoes sucking me up from all sides.

That night, I had a strange dream. In the dream, I was in a cave with a holy man. The man was wearing a white robe and had long white hair. He was quite fat and his face was emitting light. He had a staff in his hand. I was almost drawn towards the holy man.

“Come here, Salman,” he spoke, and the voice echoed with a soothing effect.

I went to him. It was only when I was just a foot or two away from him that I realised that his face was covered under a white hood. “Salman,” he spoke again, from under his hood, “it is not appropriate of you to do such a heinous thing. It is not human to burn someone alive.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Who are you?” I managed to speak.

He raised his staff high in the air and landed it with all his might on my left shoulder. It hit me hard and I landed on the ground with a shriek. “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted.

“No, Salman,” he spoke soft. And then roared like a hungry lion, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Me?” I was perplexed. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

He squatted and kept his staff on the ground and began crying like a mother whose son has been martyred.

“What’s wrong?” I got up, and went to him.

He had downed his head further and I had not seen his face so far. He raised his hand up in the air, without raising his head, and something began pouring out from inside the sleeves of his robe. I took some steps back and realised that coming out from his sleeves were waves of mosquitoes. The man raised his hood up and I saw his face. It was not a human face but a cluster of thousands of mosquitoes. Perhaps the man had owned a face once upon a time, which was now the size of a tennis ball under the pack of mosquitoes. “Go away!” he shouted at me. He was perhaps a victim himself.

Without saying anything I ran backwards, not looking back for even once. But I know thousands of mosquitoes were following me with full speed as I ran.

“You have no idea what you have got yourselves into,” I hear a voice saying. It was not a human voice, but I heard it under the humming of a mosquito. I turned back and saw the biggest mosquito in the pack. It was all red, bulging out with human blood inside him.

I got up with a loud and stretched scream, “Help!” I sat up dried mouthed and found that the room was still dark with no electricity. I went to the kitchen and returned after drinking some water. I even got an excellent climax for my novel which I wrote down immediately. The nightmare had helped me with it, to tell you the truth. I decided to never kill any mosquito again and also to get a mosquito net in the morning.

###

After taking a light breakfast of bread and omelette, I headed to the cloth market to get a mosquito net. Walking down the road which was filled with cloth shops on either side, I was looking for a less crowded shop. And, I saw one. At the very end of the market, an alleyway led towards left side. I went inside and found a shop loaded with mosquito nets hanging in display. I moved towards the shop to find an old man sitting at the counter. All the other nearby shops had their shutters down.

“I want a mosquito net,” I spoke to the old man.

“Of course you do, Salman,” the man said.

“How do you know?” I popped out.

“It is obvious, Salman,” the man said, smiling. “If you are coming to a shop which sells mosquito nets, you’d want the same.”

“No, no. I mean, how do you know my name?” I asked.

“Ah, that’s not important,” he said and ushered me in.

I looked at the nets and found that most of them had large holes in them. I made an unpleasant face. The man noticed my reaction. “I know you don’t like these ones,” he said.

I looked at him. It was only then that I realised that the man was wearing the same robe as the man in my dream last night was wearing. Only that it was not having a hood.

“Come with me,” he said and led me through a door on the interior of the shop. I thought that it would be a godown where he was taking me to choose from the store of nets there. And I was quite right.

He took me to a godown, but it was twenty-seven floor below the surface of the earth. I was taken to almost three hundred feet below, and on the way several well built men had joined and had tied my hands. They took me down to something like a mining facility by an open elevator. I struggled all the way to free myself, but couldn’t. They took me down to a cave-like area which was lit by flaming torches installed in the wall. It was a pathway that led somewhere deep. Leaving me there, all the men went back up by the elevator. I was abandoned there, and I had no choice but to explore what led ahead in the cave.

Image: Richard Weir

I staggered, trying to untie my hands. After a lot of rubbing and twisting of hands, I finally got my hands free and walked ahead. After, I don’t know how many minutes or hours, I saw mosquito nets, so many of them, standing erect as cuboids on either side of the way. They were made of metal. This was not the most awkward part; they contained mosquitoes inside them. The metallic nets contained one mosquito in each. There was not enough space to fit two in any of them. Not the size of nets was responsible for this, but the size of mosquitoes. They were as high as me and gigantic. I shuddered and walked to the end of the mine.

There were a hundred nets in total. There, in the last net, was caged the biggest of the mosquitoes. Its whole body was deep red, just like the one I had seen in the dream. And, to my horror, the red mosquito – the head mosquito – spoke up, “You have no idea what you have got yourselves into.” Then the cage was lifted, and it came for me.

My vision blurred.

###

When I opened my eyes, I was still in the cave. For the man standing before me, it was a strange dream. For me, it was happening in reality. In his dream, I was a holy man. I was wearing a white robe and had long white hair. I was quite fat and my face was emitting light. I had a staff in my hand. The other man was almost drawn towards me. “Come here, Ranbir,” I spoke, and my voice echoed with a soothing effect. He came to me. It was only when he was just a foot or two away from me that he realised that my face was covered under a white hood. “Ranbir,” I spoke again, from under my hood, “it is not appropriate of you to do such a heinous thing. It is not human to burn someone alive.”

He didn’t know what to say. “Who are you?” he managed to speak.

I raised my staff high in the air and landed it with all my might on his left shoulder. It hit him hard and he landed on the ground with a shriek.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

“No, Ranbir,” I spoke soft. And then roared like a hungry lion, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Me?” he was perplexed. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

I squatted and kept my staff on the ground and began crying like a mother whose son has been martyred. I don’t know why I was sympathising with the mosquitoes that the guy, Ranbir, had burnt alive in a candle.

“What’s wrong?” he got up, and came to me.

I had downed my head further and he had not seen my face so far. I raised my hand up in the air, without raising my head, and something began pouring out from inside the sleeves of my robe. He took some steps back and realised that coming out from my sleeves were waves of mosquitoes. I raised my hood up and he saw my face. It was not my face anymore, but a cluster of thousands of mosquitoes. I used to have a face once upon a time, which was now the size of a tennis ball under the pack of mosquitoes. “Go away!” I shouted to the man and mosquitoes chased him.

THE END

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