The New Place

“Just go and get him!” commanded Salim, crisscrossing the oncoming pee train. “Uh! Can’t hold it anymore.” His feet already shoed in filthy goop.

He turned around and hammered the sodden wooden planks balancing a haystack partition loosely guarding the modesty of a disgruntled individual who groaned at every plop.

What was it? ‘Rsihte’.. Pushti.. Salim slapped his head.

Abid was only three years old, he must pick up his stuffed monkey – Bandu, before another lightning strike. The last strike had claimed Abid’s uncle fixing wires up on the village’s only utility pole. Bandu was tucked in his backpack which had dropped soon after. Salim had heard ‘lightning always strikes the same place twice.’

It would take time to reach the new place and Bandu was Abid’s only real friend – as squishy as him. Their village was small and usually charred, and Salim knew mosquito laden cesspools marked the end of territory but last week’s incessant rainfall had mashed up the ground into a never-ending sludge.

“I back,” Abid shouted, peering through the gaps in the planks. Bandu nestled snug on his chest.

“Almost done,” Salim replied. The stress of gathering his friends and their important stuff had summoned the third poop of the morning; a phenomenon he didn’t expect but it came as a relief.

Kashtey.. Maritey...Argghh!!

When Salim finished washing his hands in the muck before wiping them off with two withered leaves, Saqib, Abid’s older brother had joined them too.

“Look! You and I must gather all the kids as the adults will be too busy packing,” Salim declared holding Saqib by the shoulders.

“Well, I bring my bat, but hat is break,” Saqib replied.

“But that is your favorite hat!”

“Yes, yes but new place we get more.” Saqib scratched his head. “you tell me last night..”

The hat was a gift from the kind lady who had rescued the orphans from the city streets and brought them back to their village. It was not her fault last week’s deluge had destroyed almost everything. Saqib, also eight years old, was way too immature. He needed to learn how to value gifts.

Darkness seeped as the clouds blanketed the sky in a roar. Abid squirmed and clenched Bandu but Salim lugged him on his lap. They tiptoed through the muck, contorting through cattle poop and rotten fruit smudges to the only unbent Banyan tree in the village. On the thickest root stood Mukhiya, the village head, caressing his skull cap and quivering to the villagers in front. Raindrops pattered intermittently.

“.. We will be rewarded. The biggest reward there is..” The sky roared and everyone winced. “Be patie..” Another roar had all ears cupped. “Thank the Lord..” Mukhiya raised his hands in prayer and the villagers followed with one of their pair. “Amen.”

“But, when are we going?” Salim shouted through the noise as an adult grabbed him by his free arm. Rain battered his lanky body as he was pulled away from a hazy Banyan tree dissolving away in the distance.

“He no say,” screamed Saqib, who was being dragged by some adult too.

“This new place has big golden castles, maybe he doesn’t know the address.” Salim screamed back.

“And pearly gates,” Abid croaked, hanging onto Salim’s arm, awkwardly perched on his hip.

“He said something will come for us, I couldn’t hear it properly. What can come here in all this rain?” Salim huffed, “Argh! It is so high.” Salim craned his neck, trying to breathe through the steep ascension to the hill they were being dragged to. He was balancing both Abid and Bandu now that the little boy had almost passed out because of the downpour.

The adults gathered the boys and other children at the highest point on the hill. They bunched tight and were all ears to Salim’s instructions as the rain retracted a bit.

“Mukhiya wrote it down. I saw it myself. He has never had a wrong calculation.” Salim declared.

“Yeah, last year’s famine came on the exact date he had calculated.” Raju, another village boy confirmed.

“But this time, he said we are all going to this new place, a better place, where all our wishes and dreams will come true.” Salim widened his eyes.

 “..have pearly gates..,” interrupted Abid. Salim continued, “The ministers cried happy tears listening to him.”

“No way, they always call him a bogey behind his back.” Raju retorted.

“I swear they did. Mukhiya also said not to worry about our possessions as we will get much more in this new place.” Salim paused. “We should take our gifts with us though, those are priceless you see.”

The children looked at each other and nodded.

“So why are we sitting on this hill? When are we leaving? I am feeling sick.” Raju said wringing a corner of his torn white shirt.

“Hold on! Rain stop, then go.” Saqib said.

“Well, he said, it will be a tough journey to get there.” Salim said.

“Yeah, long climb hill. Very very tired. Very tough.”

“I want a nice piece of bread with a big tomato and onion with it. Will the new place have that?” Maya rubbed her grumbling belly that made everyone chuckle.

“Look what I got?” Leena smiled as she pulled out a brown, dehydrated tomato from her dress pocket and handed it over to Maya “Its my gift to you.”

“Mmm, yummy gift.” Maya gobbled it up and grinned in satisfaction.

The children laughed in unison, coinciding with a roaring sky.

“Oh! And I want a mattress for my bed. My back is chipped from the pointy rocks on the floor.” Leena said, rubbing her hands off the tomato slime which had already mixed with dirty raindrops.

An escalating thump made the children duck into one another. A thick, muddy stream shifted the soil under their bare feet, and they puddled over each other.

“Chocolate pudding,” laughed Maya as she licked the soil off Leena’s cheek.

She pulled Leena up and the girls slung slimy mud balls at each other.

A barrage of mudslides approached the crowd. It carried the adjoining village along. There were broken slats, rusty buckets, and even broken glass panes.

‘Rickshey! Yes, It was Rickshey.. Mukhiya said Rickshey, you know, many Rickshaw..” Salim yelled, pointing at a silver wheel with bent spikes poking around its edges. “There must be a proper one coming, I am sure.”

He grabbed as many little hands as he could and ran against the muddy onslaught, onto a higher hill. The children stretched out inconspicuous, helpless arms towards adults toppling in the stream, some screaming, some in a zen like state.

They kept their eyes peeled for a rickshaw or many Rickshey in the mudslide. They would ride these Rickshey to the new place with pearly gates and golden castles and have lots of food to eat. They wouldn’t even have to queue up for water; there would be plenty of it. Salim was fortunate enough to overhear Mukhiya’s meeting with the ministers after last week’s flood otherwise everyone would be so scared of the rain. He was immensely grateful for Mukhiya, such a great leader who always had a plan for his people. Salim wanted to grow up to be just like Mukhiya.

Their ground shifted, enveloping the rest of the adults. Salim pinched a tight grip at little fingers, but they kept slipping one by one. He waddled through waist length sludge, propping Abid on his shoulder, then detoured to grab Bandu’s tail plummeting from the narrower side of their hill.

Cloudburst. Rain pounded. Sludge covered Salim’s head and Abid convoluted. Salim felt a poke on his arm and grabbed the metal to emerge from the gunk. It was a wheel, a rickshaw wheel. Salim squinted. There were three Rickshey, backed up together, dwindling on the whirlwind currents. Salim smiled through grit in his teeth as he spat out his fears.

“Wake up, Abid, wake up!” Salim slapped the little boy into consciousness.

Their ride to the new place was here. The boys clung to the rickshaw wheel and climbed inside. It shook violently but they held onto each other with Bandu’s softness comforting Abid’s sore arm.

It was bittersweet. There was no one else left to ride on the Rickshaw. Mukhiya was smart at predicting the weather, but he could not predict if there would be enough villagers to ride the Rickshey. He was only human, after all.

A lightning strike lit up their village’s electric pole and Salim locked eyes with Mukhiya, clinging to one of its wooden arms. The rickshaw somersaulted towards the pole, settling at its wide base under the violent waves of the sludge.

“The Rickshey are here, Mukhiya!” Salim hung half his body out of their ride.

“Go to pearly gates!” sobbed Abid, wiping his mouth with Bandu’s tail.

“You said Rickshey will come to get us to the new place but everyone is gone! The mudslide took everyone. How will they get to the new place?”

Mukhiya frowned and then took a deep breath.

“Oh, my dear son,” he beamed, “The Farishtey. The angels. They will come to get us.” Mukhiya looked up at the angry dark cloud. “Our place is up in the heavens above. No more empty stomachs, no more disease, no more bleeding bodies. We will have everything we ever wished for.”

Mukhiya raised his arm at the cloud. “I see them.. The Farishtey are coming towards me.” His voice echoed through the thunderstorm, and he closed his eyes.

The dark cloud parted its lips, and a blinding beam of lightning struck the pole. Salim blinked and Mukhiya was gone.

“Are we going to the pearly gates?”

Salim squeezed Abid.

“Yes, we are. The Farishtey are coming to get us. We will ride the lightning bolt to get to the new place.”