Roll Over Mystery -2
They were made to sit down on the road, in two neat rows. Rahab was in the back, between the boy and Mars. Around them stood thirty silent adolescents.They parted way for an older man, bald, with a round middle. He was dressed in a tight black shirt, bright green denim coat and trousers. He carried no weapons but an air of authority. There was a broad smile on his face that was warm and friendly. He stood facing Gahib and the rest, while his hoard surrounded them in a tight circle. He spoke in a quiet, clear voice.
“Our life takes us in roads that we sometimes do not intend it to take. This is one such road for you. We have blocked this road for three days now and we have allowed none to pass it. We will of course, one day, when our voice is heard and peace sets in again in our Great Land. Your humble lives will join the gushing torrent of history and your contribution will not be forgotten.”
His eyes rested on each of them as he went through his speech. It sounded rehearsed. His eyes lingered on Mars’ bosom and settled on Rahab's head. He recognized him.
“We have a star amidst us” he said. “We have poetry and skill and talent unwanted in our time of hope. We have Rahab Gahib”
There was a quiet hum of recognition that died immediately. The bald man laughed out loud.
“What providence! This must be what they call Divine Intervention. Our Revolution is blessed!” There was delight on the man’s face. “Now our little execution gains significance. It transforms from press article to cover page news. The voice that started a revolution lays its life for a greater cause”
He was hamming. He was acting up to a two-way audience comprising of his own zealous non starters and the cowering eleven from the bus, squatting uncomfortably on the burning road.
“Rise up, man of our moment. Music’s lost hope!”
Mars clung to him with bony fingers and dragged the back of his shirt, as he stood up. All guns now pointed at him. She whimpered and let go, for death to carry him away.
“Come here”, he said, gun still pointed towards his chest, with a finger beckoning him lazily. “Come here and kneel at the altar of the revolution.”
It was an odd gang of the wasted and unwanted armed with frightening steel and guns.
“They call me The Riddler, these young rascals, whippersnappers. You know why? They named me after your epic song of revolution.”
His mind blank seemed to fill up with the chords that made the chorus.
“You thought no one would get through the static to figure out what you were mumbling there. You thought the chorus would sell the song for you to all the tone deaf, swarming little dribblers, who you thought were your fans. That’s a line from your song isn’t it? Swarming dribblers…the greatest rock song ever and it was a slap in our faces.”
The Riddler snatched a semi automatic from a girl standing behind him and pointed it at Rahab’s head. Rahab clutched at the newspaper he had been carrying along all the while, uselessly.
“What’s that in your hands? A newspaper? How interesting! Let me see that! I never thought a Star read the newspapers. Do the sordid details of the dribblers’ lives even interest such great souls? Or were you looking for your name there? Do you miss it these days? Do you see that no one cares about you any more?”
He gave him the crumpled mass of paper.
“You have been solving a cross word puzzle. How apt. How full of significance. How stimulating…How did he know?” He turned around to his gun wielding audience to add effect to the rhetoric. Some of them smiled back.
“J here is our executioner. We also have Vee, Gee and RK. They will now be given the wonderful task of being judge, jury and executors of the Law.”
Three white boys with blond hair, shirtless, stepped in from the back and walked up slowly. Each trained his gun at a different target- the mother, the driver and an Indian.
“So the rules are simple. I live up to my name and you to yours. We solve the crossword together. I give you the clue and you, Master of the Rock Word, will answer. You answer wrong we shoot the victim and move on. You answer right we spare the life. Let’s start. This looks like a good one- Dilemma in the paths of anger. Five Five. I count till ten. Solve it song writer extraordinaire else Vee gets this lady here…”
“Cross roads” He had solved this one already. Hope stilled his quaking body. He was sweating profusely. He was burning up. He kept imagining a bullet ripping through his head.
“That was easy wasn’t it? Cross roads- the story of our lives and of the revolution, if you ask me. Run away lady. You life is spared. Oh! She won’t go anywhere without this boy? So mama and boy at stake now, Gahib! Classic Stone Centre piece in Evil Circle’s Menu …Five Four Four."
His mind raced. He threw out the self pity and the fear and resolved to play along, desperately. The clue meant nothing. He wondered if it could be something to do with menhirs or Solstice. The menu hinted at food. He was sure it was an anagram of menu or of evil. An anagram of evil could be Live.Druid was a five letter word…
“Three, two, one and out”
They fell without a sound- mother and child.The bus driver’s cries were incoherent.
“Not into Classic rock are we? Here let me draw the answer for you.”
He dipped his gun in the blood and drew a circle and a five pointed star within.
“Centre piece, in evil circle, my friend is the goat head!”
He should have solved that one, no matter how badly constructed the clue was. The Stones music was dead and gone. Two lives were lost and he could never go back.
“Let me go!” he pleaded aloud.
“No…next one… A small family of the atom heart mother . Seven letters. What is this a rock crossword he asks? My clues, henceforth my friend. After all am puzzling a rock quisling. So who’s next? Ah! The bus diver. Your time ends now…ten, nine”
He turned to look at Mars. She was staring at him in blank fear. She was hoping he would take her through it all. He could see no end but death. He did not want to give up on it. He trusted life to find a way over.
“Nuclear?” It was a clever compact clue, but perhaps he could see this through.
“Well done! You are not just a pretty face are you? Run away little bus driver. Leave your bus and run.”
The driver rolled, crawled, stumbled and ran panting away into the highway’s distance.
“You saved a life Gahib! Your first greatest truest achievement in your life this can be. Now that we have you warmed up, let’s increase the stakes. You solve the next one, I release two. Else I shoot three. These two Indian creeps and this old man here. Gahib…what kind of a name is that? You are an Indian too aren’t you?”
He kept his head down. He would do better if he thought of nothing else.
“Here goes nothing. A wise word in these commercial times. Five letters”
“Adage”
“Great! Am I getting worse or are you really good. We let go of the old man and one dirty Indian boy. Shoot the other one for luck”
They shot one boy and the other screamed his life out. The old man plunged at Vee’s gun. Gee butted the old man on the head and shot the other Indian boy in the face. Mars sat there unmoved amidst all this, frozen, still.
“What a waste? Here I was ready to spare two lives and they all die! A wise word in these commercial times, my friend- take nothing for granted! So what have we now? An old woman, two pretty women and a black man. Who do we go for now? I think the old woman is feeling lonely, don’t you? We might as well get it over and done with her then. Shoot her. Good. Now we play for something real. The father and daughter, I presume? You good sir and your daughter should join our forces. This is after all your revolution. If we spare your lives that is and that depends on our friend here…ready? Something inspired by his pretty daughter- Slaves say, like the thousand launched for her beauty? Seven letters”;
He was thinking of Mars now. He couldn’t really be bothered about any one else. He was certain they would kill her. If they did would he find another one like her ever again, he wondered. He had heard people say they would give their lives for the ones they loved. Was this what they meant? He could see her holding his hand in bed and loving him, like no one had ever in his life.
“Vessels” he said aloud, unthinking.
“Too late! Slip of the tongue can cost lives. Bang! Bang! Pity! I liked that girl. So we come to the two of you little lovers. Oh yes don’t think I couldn’t find out….you love this one don’t you? And she thinks of you as a hero, whose intelligence is beginning to amaze her. She wishes she could be with you there and protect you. Let’s make things interesting though. I will give you a choice. You can have a difficult one and if you don’t get it I kill the two of you. Or you can have an easy one and you can choose which one dies. I spare the other. What would you want?”
It was not a decision to make. He took no time to reply. “The easy one”, he said.
He caught Mars’ eyes. They were cold.
“Great”, said the Riddler, “The eccentric unloved is Ophelia’s end. Five letters”
They were made to sit down on the road, in two neat rows. Rahab was in the back, between the boy and Mars. Around them stood thirty silent adolescents.They parted way for an older man, bald, with a round middle. He was dressed in a tight black shirt, bright green denim coat and trousers. He carried no weapons but an air of authority. There was a broad smile on his face that was warm and friendly. He stood facing Gahib and the rest, while his hoard surrounded them in a tight circle. He spoke in a quiet, clear voice.
“Our life takes us in roads that we sometimes do not intend it to take. This is one such road for you. We have blocked this road for three days now and we have allowed none to pass it. We will of course, one day, when our voice is heard and peace sets in again in our Great Land. Your humble lives will join the gushing torrent of history and your contribution will not be forgotten.”
His eyes rested on each of them as he went through his speech. It sounded rehearsed. His eyes lingered on Mars’ bosom and settled on Rahab's head. He recognized him.
“We have a star amidst us” he said. “We have poetry and skill and talent unwanted in our time of hope. We have Rahab Gahib”
There was a quiet hum of recognition that died immediately. The bald man laughed out loud.
“What providence! This must be what they call Divine Intervention. Our Revolution is blessed!” There was delight on the man’s face. “Now our little execution gains significance. It transforms from press article to cover page news. The voice that started a revolution lays its life for a greater cause”
He was hamming. He was acting up to a two-way audience comprising of his own zealous non starters and the cowering eleven from the bus, squatting uncomfortably on the burning road.
“Rise up, man of our moment. Music’s lost hope!”
Mars clung to him with bony fingers and dragged the back of his shirt, as he stood up. All guns now pointed at him. She whimpered and let go, for death to carry him away.
“Come here”, he said, gun still pointed towards his chest, with a finger beckoning him lazily. “Come here and kneel at the altar of the revolution.”
It was an odd gang of the wasted and unwanted armed with frightening steel and guns.
“They call me The Riddler, these young rascals, whippersnappers. You know why? They named me after your epic song of revolution.”
His mind blank seemed to fill up with the chords that made the chorus.
“You thought no one would get through the static to figure out what you were mumbling there. You thought the chorus would sell the song for you to all the tone deaf, swarming little dribblers, who you thought were your fans. That’s a line from your song isn’t it? Swarming dribblers…the greatest rock song ever and it was a slap in our faces.”
The Riddler snatched a semi automatic from a girl standing behind him and pointed it at Rahab’s head. Rahab clutched at the newspaper he had been carrying along all the while, uselessly.
“What’s that in your hands? A newspaper? How interesting! Let me see that! I never thought a Star read the newspapers. Do the sordid details of the dribblers’ lives even interest such great souls? Or were you looking for your name there? Do you miss it these days? Do you see that no one cares about you any more?”
He gave him the crumpled mass of paper.
“You have been solving a cross word puzzle. How apt. How full of significance. How stimulating…How did he know?” He turned around to his gun wielding audience to add effect to the rhetoric. Some of them smiled back.
“J here is our executioner. We also have Vee, Gee and RK. They will now be given the wonderful task of being judge, jury and executors of the Law.”
Three white boys with blond hair, shirtless, stepped in from the back and walked up slowly. Each trained his gun at a different target- the mother, the driver and an Indian.
“So the rules are simple. I live up to my name and you to yours. We solve the crossword together. I give you the clue and you, Master of the Rock Word, will answer. You answer wrong we shoot the victim and move on. You answer right we spare the life. Let’s start. This looks like a good one- Dilemma in the paths of anger. Five Five. I count till ten. Solve it song writer extraordinaire else Vee gets this lady here…”
“Cross roads” He had solved this one already. Hope stilled his quaking body. He was sweating profusely. He was burning up. He kept imagining a bullet ripping through his head.
“That was easy wasn’t it? Cross roads- the story of our lives and of the revolution, if you ask me. Run away lady. You life is spared. Oh! She won’t go anywhere without this boy? So mama and boy at stake now, Gahib! Classic Stone Centre piece in Evil Circle’s Menu …Five Four Four."
His mind raced. He threw out the self pity and the fear and resolved to play along, desperately. The clue meant nothing. He wondered if it could be something to do with menhirs or Solstice. The menu hinted at food. He was sure it was an anagram of menu or of evil. An anagram of evil could be Live.Druid was a five letter word…
“Three, two, one and out”
They fell without a sound- mother and child.The bus driver’s cries were incoherent.
“Not into Classic rock are we? Here let me draw the answer for you.”
He dipped his gun in the blood and drew a circle and a five pointed star within.
“Centre piece, in evil circle, my friend is the goat head!”
He should have solved that one, no matter how badly constructed the clue was. The Stones music was dead and gone. Two lives were lost and he could never go back.
“Let me go!” he pleaded aloud.
“No…next one… A small family of the atom heart mother . Seven letters. What is this a rock crossword he asks? My clues, henceforth my friend. After all am puzzling a rock quisling. So who’s next? Ah! The bus diver. Your time ends now…ten, nine”
He turned to look at Mars. She was staring at him in blank fear. She was hoping he would take her through it all. He could see no end but death. He did not want to give up on it. He trusted life to find a way over.
“Nuclear?” It was a clever compact clue, but perhaps he could see this through.
“Well done! You are not just a pretty face are you? Run away little bus driver. Leave your bus and run.”
The driver rolled, crawled, stumbled and ran panting away into the highway’s distance.
“You saved a life Gahib! Your first greatest truest achievement in your life this can be. Now that we have you warmed up, let’s increase the stakes. You solve the next one, I release two. Else I shoot three. These two Indian creeps and this old man here. Gahib…what kind of a name is that? You are an Indian too aren’t you?”
He kept his head down. He would do better if he thought of nothing else.
“Here goes nothing. A wise word in these commercial times. Five letters”
“Adage”
“Great! Am I getting worse or are you really good. We let go of the old man and one dirty Indian boy. Shoot the other one for luck”
They shot one boy and the other screamed his life out. The old man plunged at Vee’s gun. Gee butted the old man on the head and shot the other Indian boy in the face. Mars sat there unmoved amidst all this, frozen, still.
“What a waste? Here I was ready to spare two lives and they all die! A wise word in these commercial times, my friend- take nothing for granted! So what have we now? An old woman, two pretty women and a black man. Who do we go for now? I think the old woman is feeling lonely, don’t you? We might as well get it over and done with her then. Shoot her. Good. Now we play for something real. The father and daughter, I presume? You good sir and your daughter should join our forces. This is after all your revolution. If we spare your lives that is and that depends on our friend here…ready? Something inspired by his pretty daughter- Slaves say, like the thousand launched for her beauty? Seven letters”;
He was thinking of Mars now. He couldn’t really be bothered about any one else. He was certain they would kill her. If they did would he find another one like her ever again, he wondered. He had heard people say they would give their lives for the ones they loved. Was this what they meant? He could see her holding his hand in bed and loving him, like no one had ever in his life.
“Vessels” he said aloud, unthinking.
“Too late! Slip of the tongue can cost lives. Bang! Bang! Pity! I liked that girl. So we come to the two of you little lovers. Oh yes don’t think I couldn’t find out….you love this one don’t you? And she thinks of you as a hero, whose intelligence is beginning to amaze her. She wishes she could be with you there and protect you. Let’s make things interesting though. I will give you a choice. You can have a difficult one and if you don’t get it I kill the two of you. Or you can have an easy one and you can choose which one dies. I spare the other. What would you want?”
It was not a decision to make. He took no time to reply. “The easy one”, he said.
He caught Mars’ eyes. They were cold.
“Great”, said the Riddler, “The eccentric unloved is Ophelia’s end. Five letters”
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