The strangers

Like all opium addicts, I really wish to quit, but am unable to.

I usually decide to quit when some money comes my way. Then I would buy a good amount of the best opium pedaled in our city, tell myself that this is the last trip you had, and eat the whole of it. I usually indulge in these ‘last trips’ all alone in deserted places like the litter zones or graveyards. Graveyards, I like the most. They are the strongest reminders of the transience of life, the permanence of death, and the unreasonable tyranny of fate over man. I enjoy my trips the most in the somber solemnity of a graveyard.

This time, I had enough opium to stone a horse. Never before, have I ever had enough money to buy this much of the dope; and of this good quality. I chose to sit on a tombstone that stood a bit apart from the others. A soul lonely in death too, as it might have been in life!

My deft hands quickly flew over the sachet, undoing it in the flash of a moment. The dope was strong and it hit hard—instantly. I finished the whole of it in two shots and was, before long, lost in a mysterious magic world of fantastic dreams and bizarre flights of imagination. I don’t remember when I fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was dark in the graveyard.

Now there was not even a grain of opium left with me and the withdrawals had started. The withdrawals of opium are veritable hell... so painful that an addict would stick at nothing for the next dose. Yet, a graveyard is the last place where you can find opium; that too in the night. So there was nothing I could do, but lie on the cold tombstone writhing and sighing in pain.

Suddenly, I saw a man approaching me, walking quite fast through the labyrinth of tombstones. He, in fact, came straight to me. He was a powerfully built middle-aged man of good height and a serious, no-nonsense demeanor. I sat up and greeted the stranger. He grinned—a sudden, spontaneous, boyish grin.

“Turking?” he asked cheerfully, “Well, I too am. I am hunting for a pinch of paste. Want to join me?”

I sprang up—relieved that I had met someone in my own plight and was, soon, walking beside the stranger in silence. The man seemed to be quite familiar with the place. We jumped over a wall and then walked down the road, which was dimly-lit and deserted. Before long, we saw another man coming against us.

Seeing this, the stranger exclaimed “Hey, look who is coming! John, of all! We are saved, thank God.”

When he reached us, the stranger greeted him loudly while John smiled back…a quaint, wistful smile.

“Come on, Johnny dear…give us a grain. We need it like hell! My friend over here and I.”

John smiled at me coyly and I smiled back.

“Thank you Johnny!” the stranger remarked as John handed him over what looked like a fairly big sachet of the narcotic. John nodded his head and left quietly.

“Now, let’s hit this at once”, said the stranger.

We sat on a culvert by the road and the stranger started opening the sachet, humming to himself. I though it was time I broke the ice.

‘This John,” I ventured to ask, “Is he your friend? He seems to be a good man.”

The stranger gave me a puzzled look.

“Friend he is,” he replied guardedly, kneading the dope, “But good man…well, I don’t know. For, the scoundrel was hanged for murdering me.”

“Hanged? Murdered?” I almost shouted back in shock.

This made the stranger grin… his sudden boyish grin.

“Everyone has this confusion in the beginning,” he said heartily. “Do you know who you are? You had croaked yesterday, lying on that tombstone—probably from an overdose of opium.”

V K Rajan