It was only about 7.30 in the evening but the the sky was pitch black and the infamous Nepalese power cuts(aka ‘load-shedding’) meant even the street lights were out. Nabin lived a very short distance from his office in New Baneshwor. He worked as assistant editor in a weekly magazine called “Aawaj”. He turned up his collar to shield himself from the cold breeze and started the ten minutes walk towards his room.
He was already 39 and had worked extremely hard during his heydays to get the magazine established as a reputed weekly issue amidst the flurry of other newspapers and magazines. The magazine had never shied away from a story of public importance. Even in the best days, the subscriber base of the magazine was a fraction of the major news outlets, but the editorial team, consisting of Mr. Kiran, Mr. Binod and the editor Mr. Aashish, was proud of their work and they knew that their brand was unblemished and that if they printed something, the public would know that was something credible. While Aashish was undoubtedly the better journalist, Kiran and Binod thrived in the office environment. So, the workload was unofficially official in that Nabin would remain in the board but not have a major say in the day to day operations. He enjoyed the freedom of his role and would sometimes remain absent for days until the last day for submitting his articles.
Nabin reached the gate to his building and saw that it was already locked. “Shit! It’s only 7.45.”, He muttered, “Why the fuck do they have to lock the door now?” He had been asking the landlord to not lock it so early but the old lady never listened. He turned around with the cellphone in his hand looking for the landlady’s number. A van suddenly screeched to a halt in front of him and even before he could react, a sack was pulled over his head and he was bundled inside by a couple of burly men. He tried to struggle and scream but a blow to the head knocked him right out.
He came to his senses, still a bit groggy from the hit and realized that he was tied to a chair with a scotch tape covering his mouth. He started twitching in the chair, trying to make sense of what was happening and where he was. “Well, well! Welcome back Mr. Nabin”, said someone and he instinctively turned right, towards the source of the sound. A bright concentrated light switched on behind the man rendering him almost indiscernible. “I hear you’ve been poking your nose where it don’t belong”, said the man he twirled a chair backwards and sat on it with his arms folded on top of the back rest. “What are you talking about?, I think there’s been some kind of a mistake here” Nabin said while the journalist in him was trying to observe as much as he could in an effort to put a face on that voice. All he could notice was that the man was well built and about 6 feet in height and his voice had a certain ring to it, kind of like the ones you hear over the radio.
“Oh, stop you,” said the man feigning a blush, “I know you’ve been looking into my ‘business ventures’ for quite a while now and I’d like to know what you know and who else you might have shared it with.” Nabin flinched ever so slightly, realizing that the man in front of him was the elusive crime lord he had been investigating for a few months now and who was only known in the criminal underworld ‘the boss’.
“There it is! I can see it in your eyes!”, ‘The boss’ gave a manic laughter exclaiming, “So, you do know me”. As Nabin kept professing his innocence, ‘the boss’ was losing his patience. “Boys, keep working on this guy”, the boss called out and left abruptly. Two of the goons came up to him and he could sense their malevolent intent. He knew he was in big trouble and that this was probably gonna be the end of him even if he gave up everything he had.
Suddenly, there was a sharp pain on the side of his head. His adrenaline kicked in and he managed to free his hands and stand up but the bright light almost blinded him. As he adjusted to the light, his world came crashing down.
His heart sank as he woke up to find that he was on his bed, sweating profusely with a light red mark on his cheek where his wife had slapped him. “Go and get milk and groceries, you useless little piece of shit!”, She shouted. As he got up and got dressed, he could still hear her venting about how a journalist was not a real job, about little money he made and about how he never helped in the household chores.
As he left for the store, silently contemplating on his life and choices, he actually longed to be back in the dream even though he knew that, towards the end, he was probably not gonna make it. That thrill, it seemed, was worth more than this tedious life of making ends meet.
