RedemptionA Story by Usman Muhammad This is a story which revolves around three characters. It is their conquest against God. REDEMPTION
27th May, 2006 JOSEPH My mom tells me that I am
very lucky to have a twin brother. She says we both are special and a blessing
for her and that she loves us. We both are lucky to have such mom who cares for
us so much. I love my brother more than
anything else in this world. He is elder than me in terms of seconds only. He
is like a silent guardian to me. I learned this word today in my English
classroom. I like how I used it for my brother, he will be glad to see it. He
is very caring and keeps my secrets “Secret” Mother wants us to study hard
to become doctors but we have other plans. We have decided to become cops.
Actually it was his idea and I chose it because I can’t leave my brother. He
says it is the only way we will live together. While playing in house we
both pretend to be cops and neither of us agrees to act like a thief. I tried
to change his role but he is a genius and he found a real good solution to this
problem. Now we both help each other in catching this imaginary Mr. Wrong. I
feel good to act as his assistant because it helps me to understand my
mistakes.
28TH May, 2006 JOSEPH I hate everyone. I don’t want
to live anymore. Isaac died today in a road accident. We were coming back from a local store when this happened. I don’t remember what exactly happened but I
saw a lot of his blood on the road. My brother is no longer with me now. I want to die, just like my brother died. Mom used to tell me that we
both, he and I, together make one. I am very sad and I don’t know what to do now with my
life. All I can think now is to kill myself.
29TH May, 2006 JOSEPH I don’t know what to do with
my life. My mother has been admitted to hospital. Doctors tell me that she is
in Coma. I don’t know what “coma” is? I guess it’s bad. I can’t kill myself
because it will be unfair to mom after everything she has done for us. She
needs me, and I need her even more.
30TH May, 2006 JOSEPH I saw a dream last night. It
was about Isaac. I don’t remember the details but I remember him asking me for
help. When I woke up, I was sweating. I was frightened because I have never felt
anything like that. For once I thought Isaac was
back and everything was going to be good again but something woke me up….it was
fear, I don’t know what is happening to me. I am scared.
31ST May, 2006 JOSEPH My dreams are getting worse.
My life is not anymore mine; it’s like I am just passing it away. There is no
one I can talk to. My mother’s condition is very bad. It seems to me like she
has died too with Isaac and is now looking at me from above…from stars.
Whenever I see her in the emergency room, I see her motionless. When I was
young, I used to ask mother what death is, and she would tell me that when your
heart stops breathing and your body stops moving, that is when you die. Doctors think
I don’t know she is dead, but I do know that. I heard doctors telling nurses that her
chances are very low. They are pretending that my mother is alive. I hope they
are not pretending and that my mother is alive. Last night, I asked God why He
did that to me, to my brother and my mother. No reply came back. I guess He
doesn’t care for us anymore. Maybe He has left us when we wanted Him the most. I remember how much I used to
play with my brother and when I would get tired he would call me a coward. Many
times a day, I call him by his name, thinking he might be hiding behind the wall
or below his bed but he never shows up. I miss him very much. While crossing a street today, I read a word “Revenge”; I asked an old man what it means, he said “To hurt
someone for what he did to you.” So this is what I am going to do, I will take
revenge of my brother.
28TH May, 2006 SAMUEL Birth of a child is the most
wonderful gift for parents. It brings hope, love and a reason to live for. I am
very happy today. My son David has got admission to Harvard University in the
department of Biomedical Engineering. I am very proud of him. He worked hard
throughout his life to achieve his goal. I am happy to have him. Sometimes I wonder how
everything changes. Time is something which is beyond my understanding. When
you are living in it, you wish to live it quickly and when you look back, you
hope you could have stayed a bit more. I wish I could control time. If I could,
I would go back in time to tell my wife how proud I am of our son. I know what
she will say, “I knew my Davey was special.” But then the time…. Our days of poverty will be
over soon. His hard work is paying off. Yesterday, when he came to house, he
hugged me and said “This will be soon over, father…..You have done more than
enough for me. You are the best father in the world.” He was crying and I was
too. I wish my wife could have been here with us. I had never experienced anything like that in
my whole life. I would usually cry when I am alone but when he hugged me it
wasn’t me whom he hugged; he hugged a child, because I couldn’t stop myself
from crying. I believe this is what we call Happiness and today I have felt its
enormous power. After losing so much in life when someone sees anything like
that, he comes to understand the value of his hardships. Now I believe in God….that He
exists. He listens to our prayers. I regret saying bad things about Him when I
lost my wife. I think He has forgiven me. Life is too uncertain. It is
what you would expect least in the most unexpected moment. Life is always
trying to surprise you, sometimes with happiness and sometimes by taking away
happiness. And that’s why I blame life, for it is unexpected in its existence.
8TH November, 2010 Samuel Just when things are about to
move in a good direction and when your hard work starts to pay off, things
happen which are beyond justification. Last weekend, I was thinking
how things will change when David got a job and here I am now, trying to
understand how badly things have changed. I used to believe that
everything happens for a reason but I see no reason in what happened to me and
my only family. It is me against God now. The
only difference is, I have no power. First He took my wife and then my only
son. He thought I would move on just like I did when my wife died but how could He expect the same after taking my son’s life. David died four days ago.
That day he called me in the morning telling me to be ready in evening as he
would take me to dinner in a nearby restaurant. I thanked God for helping me out through thick
and thin. I told Him that without His help nothing would have been possible. David took me from home. We
went to Al Fresco. When he was parking his bike in the parking stand, a car crashed
into motorcycle. I don’t know what happened when that car hit us. I was taken
to a hospital and when I came back to my senses, doctors told me something for
which I was not ready. I knew from their expression what they wanted to tell
me. I wanted to stop them. Hope was there, urging me to stop them from telling
me the unbearable truth. But I couldn’t do anything. A female doctor said “Sir,
we are sorry to inform you that your son has died because of a head injury.
Police has told us that they have got a lead on the suspect. His name is Joseph
and they are trying their best to catch him.” And just like that she finished
everything I created. My life was over and so was
I. I don’t know for how many days, I lay there, motionless. I wanted them to
end my life but they were trying their best to save me. Maybe, they were also a
part of God’s scheme in which everything was written against my will. They
wanted me to feel the pain…the pain of losing a son. They kept me alive because
they wanted me to become a monster so they can prove that it was all my fault.
That I was the only reason for what happened to my Beloved Ones.
3RD November, 2014 SAMUEL It has been four years since
the death of David. Since that I have been looking for death, but it is nowhere
to be found. I have started to look at things with a different perspective. A
perspective in which I have diffused my thoughts with hatred. I have come to
this understanding that this “GOD” uses death to play with us. He makes our
lives miserable by hiding death. People think I am mad. I have
told them to leave me but they keep asking me questions about my past. Most of
the times, I remain silent but, sometimes, I can’t control myself and when I am
done with answering their questions, they call me a Heretic. Some go too far to
even spit at me but I don’t mind….I don’t care. I like how God plays with us. He uses people
as an element of torture, the worst degree of torture. It leeches to your soul
for the rest of your life and keeps adding on pain. God thinks He has planned everything, and for me He
has planned the worst. But after playing with God for so many years I think I
might have found a solution….an obvious one.
4TH November, 2014 PATRICK I am writing this letter to
state the guilt I have been suffering for almost eight years when I killed an
innocent boy because of my drinking habits. It was an accident, a horrible one.
I wish I could have saved him but it was his time. Everything is written as our
fate. We can’t ignore it. At the same
time you can’t escape pretending that it was written, you have to realize what
made you do it. I have been going to the same
place for many days where I killed him, with revolver in my pocket. I want to
end this all. Every time I try to do so, some invisible force stops me from
doing it. I believe this force is my life, even though I can’t live that life
anymore. It keeps stopping me. It’s not that I don’t want to
live anymore, it’s just this guilt which is urging me to give away my soul.
Some people would think after reading this letter that I should be thankful to
God for living so many years after what I did in the past but I want to tell
them I would be happy only if I could break away from this cage of my life. I am here, left with a
revolver, few bullets to take my own life. And I will end this all tomorrow.
5TH November, 2014 PATRICK God has many ways of
protecting us. He even protects us from ourselves. I think He manipulates our
lives in such a way that we think whatever is happening to us, it’s unfair. But
when time comes, He opens new doors to us and gives us everything we have
desired for. He forgives our sins which we did in the past and gives us a clean
slate to start again. I was ready to kill myself
today. I went to a nearby dumping site which has been sealed for many months. A
perfect place to execute myself. When I got there I saw an old man sitting on a
bench, looking at me curiously. I was hoping that he would go away but he kept
sitting there. Things were not going as planned. After few minutes of this
silence, he stood up and started coming towards me. I got afraid and went for my
revolver in my pocket. He gestured me to calm down and asked my name. I said it
was Patrick. He said “So, Patrick, I wonder what you are doing here. And by the
way, my name is Samuel, I am pleased to meet you.” I was getting this feeling
that he might be a cop and was here to arrest me. “I am here just breathing in air, sir,” I said in a hesitating tone. He smiled “Breathing?
..... In this dump kid?” he replied waving his hands towards the site. “Yes
sir” and with that I knew I was in trouble. He was an old man around his fifties or sixties. He was tall, had brown long hair and a scar below his lower lip. He was wearing a leather jacket and looked poor to me. I broke the silence, “I don’t know what you are talking about, believe me, I just came here to refresh myself. I am not feeling well these days.” “Neither am I, young boy.
Neither am I,” he said. Air was getting heavier and heavier and we both knew things
were coming to an end. He put his hand on my shoulder and said “I am too old
for these games. Don’t waste my time as I already have suffered a lot. Me and
you…..” He pointed the finger of his other hand towards me, “We both know why we are
here, those who come here….they come here to set themselves free.” He showed me
his gun, “I have already suffered a lot and you will help me to end this all.” I
realized he was right; he knew why I was there. He was like me…broken,
unsatisfied and was tired of his life. “So what do you want me to
do?” I asked him. “Nothing, just take out your gun and point it at my forehead
and I will point mine at you and here take these letters,” he put his hand in
his pocket and handed me few letters. “What for?” I asked. While checking bullets in his gun he
answered “I don’t want to die with any burden on my chest. I want to fly like a
bird, without any burden.” I took my revolver out, I could feel the metal
surface of my revolver. I cocked the pistol and aimed it. “Remember son, from
now on, there is no chance of any mistake. If you missed, I will beat you to
hell so nobody can recognize your face. We both want peaceful death. Don’t
we?” Then he asked me if I was ready and
I nodded in yes. He shouted “One, two and three” Bullets made their way through
the gun. I remember hearing two gunshots, I remember watching him falling on the ground and looking at his smile with which he was looking at the sky although
he was dead. He was smiling at the fragility of this world and had every right
to smile. But he broke his last
promise….a liar, he missed his shot. I saw God when I saw him dying. I saw
death making its way through his body to capture his soul. He missed his shot
intentionally. But why? I wish he could have told me the reason.
6TH November, 2014 PATRICK Everything in this world remains constant or they
follow a constant pattern. I mean God, His creation….everything. But there are
few things which are not constant. These are our emotions, feelings and
observations. If we look at our lives, we are always under the influence of our
emotions. We depend on them to live our lives because they keep us moving and
changing. Changes in these factors are very unrealistic and that is what makes
us different from others. Our observations about someone changes every moment
based on the facts we are given. We always are in need of some different
perspective to look at things and with that our observations change. Today, in news it was told
that during police raid, two boys were killed. One of them was Joseph, who
killed the son of that old man whom I killed yesterday. I was happy that the
old man got justice. I hope, now, he will rest in peace. With every passing day, my
believe in God is strengthening. With each day He is showing me signs of His
infinite wisdom. I have realized that His justice is eternal. I wish this
incident could have happened a day before when Samuel gave his life. I wish I
could have saved him. He was a nice old man.
7TH November, 2014 PATRICK I read the letters Samuel
gave me. He gave me those letters on purpose. He wanted me to understand the
reality about God. After reading his letters I have come to this conclusion
that God created us just to play with us. From Samuel’s letters I have come to
know that he worked throughout his life to help his son get good education. And
just when things were about to turn in his favor, his son was killed. In the letters, old man said
that he believes God is his enemy. He is right; cruelty and injustice are little words to describe what happened to him. I wonder how he survived all
this. Now, I am feeling the pain of
own guilt too. It’s becoming too strong. Flashes of that incident are making me
mad. I have never felt such tormenting pain. I have to stop writing now.
8TH November, 2014 PATRICK This will be my last letter.
These few days have been very painful for me. Each and every incident which
occurred these days, it went back to the incident in which I accidentally killed
that boy. I imagine all these incidents connecting themselves to a web I
created. I created this web and God fabricated it; He played with it. I never
created this web; it just happened, but God used it as a reason to take others
life. He fabricated this web in such a way that I was made responsible for
everything. whereas He was just catching His preys and for that, I admire His
wisdom. I know you might be thinking
I am talking nonsense. But let me conclude everything and then, it will be up to
you to decide who was wrong, me or God. That whether He plays with us, with our
emotions or not. In news bulletin it was told
that a letter was found from Joseph’s pocket. What he wrote in the letter was
something like this: “Mother, Isaac, I miss you. I
know you are angry at me. I know you don’t even want to hear me, but let me
tell you Isaac, I died that day with you. I prayed to God to take me to you but
He deceived me and kept me alive. What was I supposed to do without you? Do you remember our dream of
becoming cops? I know that’s why you are angry at me that I have involved in
drugs but what I was supposed to do alone. I can see you up there, shining in
the sky. When you don’t show up I cry because my past becomes my present. I
miss you Isaac….I miss you. I am looking for that b*****d
who killed you. No matter what happens I will find him and there will be no
mercy that day. I would never forget his face, his jeep and his cowardice. Isaac, never ever think that I
have forgotten you. Sometimes, I see your face in a crowd and I run after you
but you always outrun me. That’s not fair. You used to tell me that you will
always protect me but I don’t see you anywhere and when I do, you run away. I remember when mother told
me that you and I together, make one, which is not anymore. I still ask God
questions but He never answers back. I never speak ill of him; otherwise mom
would get angry on me but I want to know if He exists. I want to know that He
was watching everything when my brother was killed. I want to know that after
watching everything He refused to help us and deprived us of justice. I just want someone to tell me that He exists. Your Twin brother Joseph” Now it’s up to you to decide
who was at fault. I am going to countryside to live rest of my life in peace
and harmony. Unlike God I will help others. I will do what is right and will
not fear God anymore. I wish I could have saved
everyone but it was not in my power. When I am gone to the countryside, you
will get these letters. I hope you will not make a bias decision because of the
fear of God. I hope you will do justice. © 2016 Usman MuhammadAuthor's Note
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