Witness Diary!

An admirer comes to see his favorite author and have a shake hand at a Hotel inauguration and becomes a witness the situation happens there.

Date: 26-06-1997


This day is very important to me. My whole life has changed on this date. All the things around me, all the luxuries I’m enjoying now are just because of that day.
              
                 Every secret is a truth and every truth has a witness. And the witness has a huge value to protect it as a secret.

    It was 9 in the morning. People were slowly gathering like ants around a sweet. It was an opening ceremony of a hotel, the first five star hotel in that small town. The crowd was not because of the event, it was about guest attending it. Mr. Alasdair, the legend British philosophical writer was going to be there.

        Alasdair was born in a poor family and he hadn’t studied
even graduation but he was one of the finest writers in philosophy.
I read all his 13 books (novels and books). They were like a teacher for me. They taught me everything about this world.

        People have the habit of comparing with the successful people. I always looked at the similarities between us, I felt happy for them. My birth was also like Alasdair. I too born in a poor family and I did not complete my schooling (Even though we were a not graduates that was common).

           I liked him very much. The one and only thing I didn’t like in him was he spent some days in jail. How this had happened? Nobody knew. Might be no one had asked him or he did not tell anyone. A common hearsay was he went to jail on a murder case which failed to prove that he was a killer. But no one agreed that he could kill a person because he was so popular for his kind-hearted. Even I didn’t agree that one. Anyone could easily tell that he was so nice man with his way of treating his fans and people around him.

           I was usually not a good reader. Hardly I used to read just the weekly magazines and daily news papers. But one day my friend John gave me a book that would change my life. It was Alasdair’s third novel. Later I lend all Alasdair books to that friend. I bought them in a book shop which was so near to my place. They made a great impact on my life. Later I started reading so many other authors’ books but they did not make me their fan. I was a fan of only one author that was Alasdair. And I was completely crazy about him. I had decided, one day in my whole life I wanted to meet Alasdair and would shake his hand. That was my dream. And I had been waiting for that moment from many years. That day it was going to happen.

           The people were still gathering that would be because of the publicity made by the hotel owners. It gives the full attention of the city towards the hotel. All the rich people in the country know about it through the advertisements and whenever they come to that city they would board in that. And generally Alasdair would not come in public but he was arriving to that event that made a sort of surprise sensation. It was definitely unusual.

 I revised my plan.”1) Stand near the door as it is the entrance into the hotel. Everyone has to go through it even Alasdair.2) Make an impression to Alasdair that you are his fan and there is no trouble in having a shake hand with you.3) Shake his hand, do not do that rudely” I remembered the algorithm. All I would have to do in seconds.

           People were running towards the gate I knew he was coming. He was coming in his Flint vintage car I didn’t know the model. He had hardly 6 security guards. Usually he didn’t need to have them but he had been in news from last 2 years in a legal crime. It was about a land dispute the media stated him “REAL MAN BEHIND BOOKS”. His fans condemned the case, even I did. Later he got life threat warnings from unknown people so he had asked government for protection and they given those 6 guards. There was a crowd of around thousand people most of them were his readers.

           He stepped down his car. He was an old man, with a white hair and white beard. That was the first time I had seen him. I could see my dream transforming into reality. I had spent so much of money and time for that day. If I did not do that I could not pay it back. It was huge for me it was like a life time. I should do.

     He was so old, age would be around 70. He was walking with a help of cane. He waved his hand to the fans with a warm smile. Everyone was shouting his name. I felt so proud of that moment; I was a fan of great man. He was slowly walking towards entrance where I was. My heart was throbbing. Yes, he was coming nearer to me. I looked at his right hand, probably that would make my dream true( No problem even with the left hand).

 

     Heart-attack is one of the dangerous things in this world like terrorism. We don’t know when they attack. They have the power to make laughs into screams. Within minutes they turn the name of a thing from ‘human’ to ‘corpse’. And this man had a heart-attack once might be his heart was so strong. It was like all his fans were in ICU. They worried about him more than his family. Because they felt more supportive and confident about their life when they read his books, if he would die they might lose their acquired hopes. The reason for their worry would be his future books not his life. People are always selfish. For sure I was one of them. I borrowed huge money to meet Alasdair and to had a shake-hand just for the sake of my happiness.  If I failed to achieve what I wanted to, then I might not get another chance in my life because he was old enough and the way he was walking explains that he had very less time on this earth and he was not able to write another book. Without the hope of another book he was just like an ordinary person for his fans and also for me. Present means proud of past and hope on future, if there is no hope you are dead.

           As Alasdair was a heart patient he could not bear heavy explosive sounds or heavy metallic sounds. And the hotel management strictly warned the fans not to use fire crackers. But I was sure there should be some celebrations with crackers. People define celebration as announcing the world that they are very happy through invitations to the near ones and through crackers to the streets by making lot of noise. Seeing Alasdair was obviously a great time to celebrate.

          He walked around 20-feet from his car and it took around 2 minutes and he was now nearly more 25-feet away from me. For me it was like my dream walking with a nice suit holding a polished cane.      My heart pounding heavily. I revised the plan I stood near the door,  I achieved my first objective. I was looking at his eyes. He glanced into my eyes. We had an eye contact. I looked into his eyes tenderly and waved my hand. He looked at my dress with a lovely surprising look. That was what I had been waiting for. I wore a dress which looks like Arab sheiks salwar kamiz but less in length on which all cover pages of Alasdair books were printed. He looked at me so affectionately. He was heading towards me. I thought he trusted me. Felt happy for achieving second objective too. And I was left with only one and the final, after that my dream would no more be a dream.

 

 

    

           Alasdair was in between his guards, guards formed in a hexagonal shape with almost a radius of 1 meter.     He was heading towards me. Meanwhile he was waving his hands and giving shake-hands to the fans around his ring. His bodyguards were stopping the people who tried to grab at Alasdair. A big explosion occurred on the left side of me I did not change my eye sight, I was looking into the eyes of Alasdair. A bodyguard shouted towards the side where the explosion occurred. It would be M-80 I thought. Suddenly one of those bodyguards fell down. Must be because of a hard core fan. The guard was rolling on the floor. Now it was a broken hexagon, a broken circuit. Crowd ran towards him. Alasdair taken his eye from me and looked at the crowd, fainted by the situation. I was scared; it was like my dream shattering before me.

“I should do something” I thought.

I remembered the phrase in one of the Alasdair’s book “When you are in between your goal and your life, choose life. No one has a single goal but everyone has a single life”.

I chose life. I did not help him; even I did not save him I just had killed my dream.

He laid on the ground. Guards shouted at the crowd. Hotel manager called the ambulance; it was already there at gate of the hotel. There was no moment in his hand which had waving at his fans with a love and affection before. The entire crowd was shocked. Some of them understood the situation and running to get out of the hotel.

     I was blackout. My eyes were wet. The guards were catching the people nearby them. I predicted the situation and I had run as fast as I could. I reached the bus station in fifteen minutes and rushed into the bus which was started. I wept my tears and sat.

     After continuous travelling of 15 hours I reached my home. All the country media announced “Alasdair was died with heart-attack during the opening ceremony of a hotel in a small town. He got stroke because of the noise made by the crowd and died on the spot”. I remembered the days, when I was studying his books and keeping the aim of meeting him and getting a shake-hand. My dream would be a dream. I tried to avoid thinking about it.

     Next day afternoon, I closed my eyes sitting in my new comfortable costly sofa. Phone rang. I knew who was on the other side. I got up and answered the call  looking at the knife beside the phone which was on my salwar kamiz.

“Great job, you did what you have said”.

“I don’t make fake promises. It’s not a feature of professional”

“That’s why we hired you to keep this murder as secret. But in that heavy crowd how did you do that?”.

“It was a part of the plan”.

“What was that?”

“You no need to know about it”

“I will give more half of your amount if you tell me what was the plan?”

“I used a pistol. It works like normal one but the bullet is not metallic. It was gaseous”.

“Gaseous bullet?”

“Yes, it’s just like petrol engine. The weapon has a chassis and the dangerous gas comes into the chassis of gun where the gas undergoes into a great pressure and when we press the trigger the bullet goes with a high speed towards the aim. And it is purely invisible.”

“So you aimed Alasdair nose”.

“Smart”.”But we should be careful when we are firing because sometimes we may smell it”.

“okay.”

“Anything else to know”.

“Nothing. We will transfer the money in an hour”.

“Don’t forget the money about gas bullet”.

“Sure. And don’t tell anything about this”.

“ I told you. It’s not a feature of professional”.

I kept the receiver on the cradle.

All the world believed in what had happened actually, except the one who called me. He would hurt if he knew the truth that he gave more than half of land value which he got from Alasdair for doing nothing.

MY DREAM HAD SO MUCH VALUE..  AND IM NOT A KILLER IM A WITNESS..

I was celebrating silently…                                     

                                           

Author's Note

Please let me know if there are any grammatical errors or any kind of mistakes. And also please be frank in your feedback as it will be helpful to me :)

Reviews

[Craig2591]

I like the story and I think it's well told with a surprising twist at the end.

You asked for frankness... I'm afraid there are quite a few grammatical errors. It is apparent to me that English is not your primary language. Please don't take offense. Your English is quite good, but not perfect. Aside from the errors there are wordings and phrasings that are a little odd.

I do think it's a good story, though.

[Lucien Maier]

There are some spots that don't read very smoothly. but you can polish it out for sure. The story is solid and would be a good set up for a series of stories. Nicely done

[Sndp]

Thank you very much Lucien Maier. English is not my primary language. I am trying to improve it. Thank you very much for the review :)

[Lucien Maier]

anytime, you have the bane of a story teller don't give up!

[Sndp]

Thanks to both of you. I reckon you forgot to rate it. Please rate it . Thank you :)

[Monica-Antoinetta-Magda..]

I like this, it’s clearly a well thought out story with a fantastically developed twist. However, there are a few minor grammatical errors, nothing that a quick read through wouldn’t pick-up on. All in all, it was good. (: