Merchant of hate

"Don't worry we'll make it in time."

Aavish tries to console his wife Veena while gently speeding up the car.

"We would have if you weren't on your phone for such a long time." Veena sounds mad. She doesn't even tilt her face to look at Aavish who's sitting beside in the driving seat. 

She keeps on staring at the road ahead while Aavish keeps driving. 

" You don't need to accelerate now. We have to make to the program alive for God sake." Veena shouts after a moment of silence.

" My God, can you please relax?. You sound like none of this matters to me." Aavish shouts back and looks at Veena for a moment. 

"Does it? Or are you just too satisfied with your little mayhem project? " Veena mocks.

"Here we go again huh? Same shit, over and over again. I leave all my work undone to attend my son's stage program, try to finally spend some family time and you, just like everyday start bragging." Aavish starts screaming at his wife. She just keeps looking away from him.

"Yeah my associates called me and I agree that caused us some time but I'm saying I'll get you there in time." He waits for the response. Veena doesn't even cares.

She puts on a jacket and slides down the seat and tilts her head towards the window."Only that you and your associates kill people." 

Aavish feels the heat inside him. After hearing that from his wife, he wants to tear her flesh. He can see the anger conquering his thoughts. He controls himself and stays silent without any expression.

World surely used to be a better place. People used to see each other as people at least. The bar slid far below before a decade. Zebenua was a free, democratic country. A country with the civilian population of more than a billion. The country was known for its huge cultural background and religious harmony. At least before the decade. Zebenua was classified as one of the best nation for all types of cultural people to find in. People were happy. Many moments passed where the civilian population fought and stood together against during necessary times. The diversity and harmony of Te nation had many of it's internal flaws and anti forces dying in itself. Since the republic of Zebenua, all of it's citizens were given equal rights and duties. This always had the extremist side of the nation raging. They found the offer of equality a dishonor as they believed their tribe deserved more rights than the others. The extremists belonged to tell tribe called Gabrians. In Zebenua's history, the whole nation was filled with Gabrian tribes. Later, other clans invaded the nation for it's wealth. Clans like Zarin who invaded the nation had different intentions. They converted a big chunk of the people of Zebenua into their religion who were initially Gabrians. This religious number war was pretty significant in those days. Centuries passed. Zebenua declared republic. People accepted solidarity and brotherhood. But, a group of Gabrians always had a little fire hiding in their heart of coal. Most of the Gabrians didn't care initially. The republic of the nation was so exciting that every citizen was eager to contribute to their nation. The rogue Gabrians grouped together to make a group of extremists. Their agenda was simple. To gain power of the Zebenua and to destroy the Zarin tribe. They knew that the Zarins left in the nation are the successors of thier own people who were once forced to be converted. Still the agenda sticked on because the extremists knew that without dividing, they can never conquer Zebenua. 

Zebenua grew out to be a democratic country. Years rolled and extremists did their best in manipulating Gabrians against Zarins. The eighty percent of the nation's population was Gabrians. This huge majority looked like a great tool for the extremists. They successfully manged to manipulate vast number of Gabrians with injecting hatred in their minds. Some didn't follow, so they were silenced. 

Extremists won the elections and elevated to the parliament. They didn't care much about the agenda now. All they were concerned about now was to keep themselves in the power and they already had their best tool for it. The eighty percent of the majority population against the twenty percent minority. They didn't wanna start a war because they knew that if all Zarins are gone, extremists wouldn't last long on the throne. So they just made enaugh room to burn the fire contagiously. They surely wanted the nation to burn, but slowly. So they created numerous small teams. To cause chaos, massacre, riots.  

They had already filled the people's mind in hatred. All they had to do was provide them a weapon and the licence to kill. Extremists did it without any hesitation. The minority was traumatized. They had two options. Either to surrender and get killed or to retaliate for their lives. Obviously, they chose the second. The rivalry was so intense and there was chaos everywhere. Aavish was Gabrian and now he was part of the extremist group. He was sucked in during his young age. In his early times, he didn't really understood what it was all about but later, his mind was totally programmed with extremist thoughts.

He was appointed as a 'Quadom' which would be something like a police officer but the one who punishes certain people only. His main job was to create riots and find and execute the Zarins. His wife Veena on the other hand didn't believe in extremist's ideology even though she was also a Gabrian. They both used to argue a lot about each others view but everytime they used to end up fighting.

Aavish was very different than his young times. Now he was proud about the fact that he was killing Zarins. The extremist ideology had taken over his mind. 

"Alright. Here we are finally. Looks like the show's not started yet right?" Aavish questions Veena while parking the car. 

As the car stops, Veena get off without talking anything and heads straight towards the crowded auditorium. 

Aavish understands she's mad. He bangs his hand on the steering wheel and gets off the car. He walks towards the auditorium. He sees Veena going inside the auditorium alone. He tries to catch-up but his phone starts ringing. He stops and takes his phone out of his pocket. It's his associate.

"Yeah, how's it going?" Aavish askes. 

"Pretty well actually. We managed to get many people this time."

"How many?"

"Forty adults. Twenty-nine male, eleven female."

"And...?" Aavish drags for a precise answer.

"And six kids."

"You shot kids?" Aavish says in a shocked tone. It leaves his associate on the other side of the call speechless.

"I mean yeah. You did give orders to kill every piece of that garbage here right?"

Aavish is struck. He doesn't know what to say. This is the first time in years he felt like some like this. Something that would make him regret.

" Just clear the area and wipe it clean by the morning" He hangs up the call.

Aavish puts the phone back in his packet and raises his ear towards the sky. He looks at the stars as it would tell him something. He felt like the universe would give him the answer he's been looking for the whole time but he couldn't access it. He lowered his head in disappointment. He started walking towards the auditorium again.

He goes through the wide door. The auditorium is full of crowd. He sees Veena sitting next to her friend Nerina. She has a seat reserved beside her for Aavish. He gently passes trough the crowd and gets to tell place.

"Miss Nerina. Good to see you." Aavish greets.

"Nice to see you too Mr. Aavish. You seem late."

"Well, I was supposed to be on duty. I took a day off to see my boy on the stage." He replies. "How is he doing in Te classes?"

Nareena was also the teacher of Aavish's son. 

"He's doing well. Veena has been attending all the meeting herself this year. I'm really surprised you made it today" Nareena mocks. 

Aavish doesn't say anything. He just takes a seat beside his wife and starts staring at the state. As Te program as already started, a girl is giving an introductory speech for the crowd about the college. Aavish finds it totally boring but he decides to stay quiet in order to keep his wife not going crazy on him. His brain was hollering with his own thoughts. In all these years he had developed an extreme rival mentality against Zarins but the kids, he wasn't really comfortable with his decision. 

The long speech of the girl never seem to end. The simultaneous processing of words made Aavish's mind fluctuate even more.

"How long till the program starts?" He asked Nareena.

"I believe the program has already started."

"Yeah, but I mean the drama." He looks at her with wide eyes.

"It's up next." Nareena answers and cuts the conversation.

Aavish sighs and leans back on his seat. 

"What's the matter?" Veena asks looking at him. she could sense his uneasiness.

Aavish looks at her. He wantsed to tell her everything but he won't. He knew she already hated him because of his work, so he didn't want her to know about this. Also, he didn't want to ruin her evening as she was looking forward to this for a long time.

"It's nothing." He shifts his look from her towards the stage. 

Finally the girl finishes the speech. She exits the stage and a lady enters walking towards the microphone.

She gives a brief introduction about the drama to the audience. Aavish understands none of it but he is really exited to see his eight year old boy on the stage.

The lady gets off the stage. The curtains fall. Aavish couldn't control his excitement. 

"Hey, what's the play about?" he asks Nareena.

 Nareena looks at Veena all confused.

"Well, that's what the lady just spoke about right?"

"Yeah..yeah." Aavish tries to hide his mistake.

Nareena understands.

" It's a play about the bazaar of Venice."

"Oh! What's my boy playing? "

"He's playing the role of a merchant."

"Nice." Aavish smiles and gazes towards the stage. He eagerly waits the curtain to rise. Nareena and Veena starts talking to each other. 

The curtains finally starts raising up.

Aavish can't control his excitement. He's been waiting for this a long time. 

The curtain is fully raised. There's a bazaar built on the stage using cardboard. Theres a light behind the back curtain of the stage which gives out the shadow of a small merchant entering the stage. By the height of the boy, Aavish could say it was his son.

The boy gets in the shop and the bright light in the background starts fading, unleashing the colors and taking away the shadow of the bazaar.

The stage has a wide setup of a bazaar with a lots of shops and two kids dressed up as camel. A boy comes out of the shop and enters the middle of the stage spotlight. 

Aavish is shocked. It is his son but something was unexpected. He stands up in shock. He stares at his son with wide eyes. 

His son was dressed up in plain white cloth with had a muffler and a cotton cap. The cultural costume of Zarin tribe. 

Aavish's eyes went fire red with anger. He looked at his wife. 

"Did you know about this?" he shouts.

"About what?" she answers terrified.

He looks back at his son on the stage. This is the first time Aavish has been scared. He tries to move away from Te seat but his wife holds his hand.

She could see him frightening like hell. The look he had in his eyes was unexplainable.

"Where are you going? " she asks while holding his hand.

"I.. I need to save him." Aavish replies stutteringly.

"What?"

"Don't you see? He's..He's dressed up like a Zarin. People will kill him."

Veena looks at him dead serious. He's sweating. She could feel his heart pounding off his chest. She tries to calm him.

"Aavish it's just a drama. Look the people are enjoying it."

Aavish looks around him. He sees people reacting normally. He's still out of his breath from the shock. He takes his hand out of Verna's grasp and exits the auditorium. Veena knew something was strange but she didn't react much. She didn't want to ruin her son's play. 

Aavish went straight to the car and lighted a cigarette. As the flame embraces the nicotine filled cancer stick, he feels calm. He tries to forget what he just saw but it keeps hurting him. 

"What if I was a Zarin? What would happen to my boy?" he asks himself.

He asks himself several times that what would happen if the audience were all like him? 

The people killed today haven't caused any harm to him but still they were killed. He thought what would have happened if Te same thing repeated right in front of his eyes with his family. 

"What kind of world am I leaving to my son?" He falls down sobbing. He finally realizes how blind he was. His mind recovers from all the hatred the extremists had filled in for all those years. He just keeps on crying in the parking lot. 

Veena comes out of the auditorium. She sees her husband on the ground. she runs towards him.

"What happened?" She asks terrified.

Aavish looks at her with tears running in his eyes.

"I've been so blind for all these years. I don't know how many have suffered because of me. Now that I see it, I'm afraid how my son's gonna see me when he grows up."

Veena understands. She sits beside him.

"The first step towards correction is accepting the wrong. I'm just happy you've started with that." 

" I can see what I've done now.( sobbing) 

Do I deserve to live? " He looks at his wife's face. 

Veena doesn't know what to say. She thinks for a moment.

"No, not if you aren't gonna fix the dents you've created. Think of the people who are still out there."

Aavish stays silent for a moment. 

"You think one man can fix it? "

"No, but I think one man can make the difference."

They both stay silent. Their son comes out of the auditorium running towards them. The play is over. Aavish sees his son. He runs at him and embraces him with his arms. 

His wife looks how he has hugged his son in Zarin costume. She now knows that her husband is a changed man. A tear rolls down her cheeks while she watches the view.