Oh my God! No….No….watch out…I screamed from where I was standing. By that time it had happened. The fellow was already dead I believe. A pool of blood surrounded his head and started expanding in all directions. This fellow was on a motor bike. It was a bike I always liked and owned as well. An Enfield bullet.
The bus that came behind him was in such a hurry that it knocked him off while overtaking and he was thrown out landing with his head. I could see lot of people rushing to look at him and many calling police and ambulance. Some lifted him to pull him to the side of the road. His head hung. I was sure he has died already.
It was a shocker for me. I was speechless and motionless. My mind had slipped completely. I was dazed and stuck inside. Did not expect this when I just came to buy some food items my wife had asked me to buy. I started walking towards the crowd. I could manage to go near him and looked at him. He was probably of my age. His face was still clearly visible. I was thinking to myself. What if it was me?
****
I don't know when I woke up. Was it all a dream? The sun hit my bed room window not so gently. How do I reconcile what I dreamt of? How do I make sense of that dream with what I am going to do whole day? It was so vivid. The blood looked so real. His face is still crystal clear in my head. Now I need to run for the supposedly real thing. Office, traffic, breakfast, bath, brush in reverse order. But why is this suffering? I could have easily brushed it off as a dream and continued like any other day. But here I was unable to do that. I could not take my mind off it. I was fully consumed by that.
*****
Hey man, why are you so late today?
yeah. . .don't know , probably I was driving a bit slow…I mumbled
Driving a bit slow? Today was the best day to come on road with the bandh. How come you drove slow? You OK?
No. Not all that OK. A bit of head ache … so kind of doing things a bit slow…
OK come, let's go for a cup of coffee..
The cafeteria was wide and open. So many options to breakfast and drink about. We chose a corner table.
He was my closest pal for a long time in this office. We have had innumerable breakfasts and lunches together. But today was a bit different. He looked a bit shabby and I was curious. Normally he is impeccable in his dressing.
I have to tell you some thing … morning when I left my house, I happened to see this nasty accident on the road. Man, it was brutal and shocking. I tried to pull over my bike and help this guy who was on his bike hit by a bus which overtook him from behind.
Oh no…I was trying to forget it and here he was reminding everything. And man…aren't you telling the exact thing I saw yesterday? What is going on here…I was thinking to myself..
He continued. I was in the middle of this crowd trying to help out…my clothes got soiled a bit. But the traffic police came, pulled him over to the side and eased the traffic. Then I came to office.
How did he look ? I asked…
Man…. no now I remember it was not just one person. It was two of them…One was sitting behind.. And both were dead on the spot I guess…
Slowly we ended up going into the details of these accidents …and it kind of ended.
I do not know how long it was when I told him that we need to go back to our cubes to start working for that day. We walked back.
And then he asked me , how come there are blood stains on my shirt. ..
I was perplexed…You are joking I said…
No man, come to the toilet and see in the mirror….
We walked in to the toilet and we both were looking into the mirror….it was quite blank!
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