He stood on the edge of the bluff. All he required was a push. A psychological push. The water beneath looked blue. Completely clear. He correctly calculated the distance to the stones beneath. In the event that he would have been in his chic office complex now, he would most likely have been remaining on the overhang of the third floor. The lone distinction was that this was not his office and there was no overhang here. He advised himself that he had left his place of employment at some point prior. He had a modest occupation working at his desk for some customer whose solitary reasons of employing individuals in India were that work and land were modest. He was paid, yet very little. He thought carefully while working, yet very little. More or less, his life resembled a large portion of the white caught, instructed, salaried work class that this nation has some expertise in creating. No, his work life was not the issue. The issue was something different. Something more significant. Something whose roots lay further. His life seemed inconsequential. His cash seemed useless. His garments, his shoes, his watch and all his material assets appeared to be lamentable. His life was not so a few months prior. The drive to his office was generally dreary. He needed to bear the run of the mill sights and hints of the dungeon called the "public vehicle in India" each day. Each flawlessly pressed shirt got pitifully folded inside the initial ten minutes of the commute. Abnormal smelling hair oils on arbitrary heads chocked his noses ordinary. Also, the shoes. He had the habit of cleaning his shoes regularly before resuming work. The drive to his office changed all that. On typical days, the quantity of feet that may have left their blemish on his shoes could be somewhere near ten. On certain days, it went up to twenty. Pitifully, he had quit any pretense of cleaning before he left for his work falling back on utilizing the services of the helpless kid close to his office who worked in an improvised tent where he polished shoes as well as cleaned and shined them. He was an individual he met day by day. He had messy hair and presumably two set of worn out garments which he wore on substitute days. His lips were dry and his finger nails were filthy. He appeared to be no different from any cloth picker that anybody from outside India loves to snap a picture of and show it to his wife back home. He had dark brown doe eyes which sparkled and conveyed innocence.
Their underlying association remained rigorously business related. The kid cleaned his shoes and he paid him. Not a word was traded for the first two or three months. Slowly, their meetings became casual. It involved an occasional grin and light chitchat. The span of their relationship did not exceed five minutes out of every day due to his habit of resuming at his office before his shift began.
Fourteen days ago, interestingly, the kid needed a favor from him. At this point, they have graduated from being casual acquaintance to becoming close friends who now speak freely. At first his request were strange. This particular request was unique. It was cash related.
The kid had requested that he loaned him some cash with a promise to return it very soon "For what reason do you need the cash?" He asked the kid.
To which the kid didn’t answer immediately as tears formed at the edge of his eyes and trailed down his cheeks.
"I think I need to go see the specialist.", the kid had said.
"I have been coughing a great deal lately and I cough up a lot of blood. I'm frightened.", the kid continued, letting the tears flow freely this time.
He had remained there unmoved not knowing what to make of the kid's request. He had heard similar requests from the street urchins in his neighborhood and did not attach importance to the kid’s request so he somewhat changed the topic. "Bulls**t", he thought inwardly.
"I shudder around evening time as well. I have nobody in this world who I can call my own. I'm alone and frightened. Kindly assist me sir. I have no cash.", the kid pleaded.
“Yeah right, as though this was the first occasion when I am hearing something of this sort from somebody of your social standing.", he thought internally. "Gimme some time to figure out a way of how I can help you. Try not to stress. Everything will be just fine. I will take you to the specialist tomorrow.", he assured the kid delicately touching his hair. His words seemed to quiet the kid. He thought he had dealt with the matter. He had everything sorted out. He would not split the kid's heart immediately by showing that he didn't have confidence in his story yet it was basically impossible that that he was falling into his snare and allowing him to pull off what he thought was barefaced blackmail. From that day he began taking a different route to his office so as not to see the boy
He had begun an act of putting his flawlessly cleaned pair of shoes in a plastic sack and taking them to work with him them while he endured wearing a different pair and then changing afterwards before he entered his work environment. He kept away from the main gate even toward the end of his shift, despite the fact that he was almost certain that the kid would not be there at the time , just to be certain that the kid would never see him again. He imagined that he had done quite well in his efforts to stay away from the kid.
Today had been an unexpected day in comparison to every other day. He was going to enter his office through the main gate. He was in a slight rush since he needed to change into his shoes before entering the workplace and he was using up all available time. It was then that he saw the group close to the main entryway which was unusual There was the presence of some police officers and what resembled a rescue vehicle from the pre – independence period. He strolled towards the group completely clueless and unable to resist the fact that an unseen force was pulling him towards the scene. What he saw, froze him. There was the kid on the ground, soaked in blood. There was blood everywhere on his worn out shirt, around his lips and on his jaw. There were open injuries in his body. Blood oozed out of them and had coagulated. He seemed skinnier than when he had last seen him fourteen days earlier . He looked pale and dead. He left, as though in a daze. He quit his place of employment that evening and hopped from the edge of the bluff that evening.