This might not be what I wanted to be but it is what I have become. Sometimes, life is just too uncomfortable, and bad people might be wanting to hurt you. I come in handy at times like those. Because I am not a hero, I am not a guide. I am a HITMAN and I hurt for money.
The story began when I was 19 years old, returning from college, just going for a round of chat and some cigarettes as usual with some of my friends at our locality, when I saw some bad looking men with rough beards and no style of dressing calling me from a distance. I was scared. Still, I went. Next, these men did the most horrible thing on earth ever possible.
They called me, and when I was there they took out a biscuit and offered it to me with the ugliest of smiles possible by any human in front of a 19-year-old. I looked at them, scared, confused, they took out a Parle G and wanted to give it to me. They had big, red, angry eyes, yet smiling for reasons incomprehensible for a 1st-year college student. (Yes, I was simple).
I was confused as to what to do, how to reject a biscuit that I don’t even like or want to have when they laughed obnoxiously looking at each other and threw it to a dog that was right close to me. For the first time in the whole scenario, I felt relieved. I just wanted Kalu to have the biscuit. That would save me from having it and also feed Kalu, the dog I knew from my locality.
I had this feeling of great joy rising, some emotional sentiments telling me:
“These guys are not that bad! They fed a biscuit to a poor dog!”
This is when the ugliest things happened. One of the men kicked the dog straight with his boots, and the dog ran away crying in pain.
I could hear Kalu scream, pained from the kick. I looked at Kalu running away, and the 19-year-old me was in total shock! I looked up at the men, still laughing, incomprehensibly. I looked down, looked at the biscuit, it was powdered. I knew what I had to do.
I was scared, but more than that, I was angry. Not particularly because of Kalu getting hurt, not even because the men looked bad, but due to calling me, offering me the biscuit that I didn’t want to have, then offering it to Kalu, and then not even letting him eat that! It was such a waste. It didn’t make any sense! Why would someone do that?
I decided to fight, and I did. I gave my everything. I pounded on them with punches, kicks, every move that I knew existed, and after a fierce fight for over a minute or two, the men ran away. It was a feeling of winning. I won. I won the fight. I hurt some bad men and they ran away. I didn’t run. They did. They lost. They lost to the valor of a 19-year-old.
As I made my way back home, circled by my friends, all cheering my name, my mother came out of the veranda and saw me all roughed up and in torn and dirty clothes. She was shocked. But everybody was gleefully cheering about my deeds, saying I was a hero.
My mother was pleased to listen to that. Who would not want her son to do something heroic? She asked:
“What did you do? Why is everyone calling you a hero? Did you save anyone?”
I wanted to tell my mother how I felt, how heroic it made me feel. How I beat the pulp out of some angry men much greater in size. But the last question confused me. What could I answer to whom I saved?
I didn’t save Kalu. He was kicked. I didn’t save the situation, I didn’t even save the biscuit! I just kicked some men and made them run. What does that make me now? A hero? No. A savior. Definitely no. It makes me a bad man. Badder than them, than the ones hurting the poor soul, Kalu. And I loved being bad. I loved the feeling of dominating some big, bad men with fists. I loved that feeling.
I wanted to hurt, and I did that without thinking about what tomorrow would be like. But I didn’t save anyone. I just fought some bad men with wrong intentions. I was bad then, as I am bad now. And that’s what I do for a living. I hurt bad men. I keep bad people away from good ones. I am a HITMAN. I hurt for money.