Today constituted another gray day for Imran when Reza and his underlings left him at the back of the school’s block. There, only black tar coating the empty space which became the intermediary of that block with the school’s wall. He always became the bully victim, the target of their punches and kicks.
He woke up with difficulty when the pain hammered continuously his thighs where they had stepped on, urging him to stop his movement and lie down instead. He shut his eyes tight as an effort to bear with it. His hand pressed his swollen stomach. His back leaned against the wall and he stayed in that posture for a minute or so to familiarize himself with the pain.
Everyday he was like this. Because of his appearance - wearing a pair of laughable huge rims and having a harmless thin body frame, not to mention he had the tendency to always look down to avoid making eye contact with anyone - they picked on him. On the first day they bullied him, which was after a week he entered the school as a new student, they told him not to tell the teachers.
It had been three months, and he had figured out how students were like here. There were many categories of them and those bullies had their own category. They always strolled the school compound in groups of three and four. Among the students, they were involved in extortion, blackmailing, and unhealthy habit like smoking. Their favourite activity, however, was bullying, and their favourite target was him.
He let out a heavy sigh and looked up to the sky. The cloud vapour filled in every space of the sky, spreading its gloomy dark gray, and blending with the sky’s pale blue. Rumble of thunders reached his ears and he sat slowly on the floor when raindrops fell down like bullets. The corridor’s thin layer above provided him some sort of shelter, which still let the splatter of rain sprinkling him.
He sat there with his knees folded on his chest, his arms surrounded them in a tight hug. His sight became blurry as a few raindrops wet his spectacle’s glasses. He took it off and wiped it with his tainted white shirt. He looked at his shirt. He had just washed it yesterday. The bullies caused him enough pain for him to lie on the road in a fetal position. Because of that, the road tar tainted his shirt, making it an ugly gray.
He closed his eyes and took a rest while waiting for the rain to subdue. Before he entered the dream world, he heard a faint murmur at his left. He looked at the direction and saw nothing but a wooden table standing against the wall with a plastic chair on top of it. The view was nothing unusual except something was glowing under the table.
He heard the murmur again. It was not clear before when the sound of rain interrupted it but it was now. “Do you need my help?” it breathed in a feminine voice. He was sure it came from the table.
He stood up slowly, ignoring the stabbing pain that disturbed him. He frowned at the table and stayed still, not letting any sound coming from him. He heard it again from the same direction, and he moved forward, nearing the table. A spherical gray light as big as a coconut was under it, glowing and dimming for every five seconds.
He was next to the light now, sitting beside it. “Were you the one whispering just now?” he asked.
There was silence for a few seconds. “Yes, I was the one whispering just now,” it whispered. It came from the spherical light, floating without moving.
It was curiosity that kept him stay there as he did not expect a light could talk. This thing in front of him proved it could.
“What are you? Why are you whispering to me?” he asked.
“Obviously I am talking spherical light. You need my help. It is the only reason I am here,” it whispered. “I saw the bullies attacked you. I saw you got hurt. You need my help to stop it from happening again.”
He considered the explanation. “If what you said is true, why didn’t we see you?” he said.
“Only you can see me.”
“Why me?”
“I am your talking spherical light,” it said. “Now, I need to be sure. Do you need my help or not?”
He tilted his head. The question was simple and yet he could not help but wonder if this light really could help him. Although it defied the law of physics, it did not look like a powerful being that could give him the help he needed. In fact, it looked harmless and unique species.
However, he was sure he needed to stop the bullies from hurting him again. He could bear the pain but he preferred it gone. It was an unpleasant experience to have your body being the punching bag and even a punching bag would not get hurt for the punches and kicks it got. He was hurt and the bullies need to know that. No, the bullies need to feel that.
He brushed off the blood on his lower lip with his thumb. “Yes, I need your help,” he said. “But how can you help me?”
“By granting you a wish, of course,” it said, brightening from deep to light gray.
***
After the school session ended, Imran walked through the road again, the place to which those bullies had dragged him yesterday. His hands held tightly the straps of his bag. This road was a forbidden place. No students could stay here for whatever reason they had. That was the official rule but the school did not enforce it to the maximum. There were still students lingering around this kind of place. It was not just here.
He saw the bullies - three of them - standing beside the road, waiting for him. The one with the size of a sumo wrestler was their leader, Reza, who always beat him the worst. They were bare-handed - there was no need for a weapon after all, given how they could handle him with mere punches and kicks.
He felt a breeze brushing on his face. He was sure Reza and his delinquents felt the same.
As he approached them, Reza yelled, “Come here quick, Imran! We can’t hold it any longer, we need to do some beating!”
Hearing that, the others - the tall and short boys, Hazim and Syafiq - shouted in agreement. They gestured for Imran to walk faster but he ignored that and maintained his steady walk. As he passed by them, Reza grabbed his arm and turned him around.
“Where are you going?” he asked in a cordial tone. He released his hold and the others grabbed Imran at both sides - Hazim on the left, Syafiq on the right.
He looked up and down, inspecting Imran from head to toe.
“I’m pretty sure your lip was bloody yesterday. It can’t be healed in just one night. And you should’ve bruises on your arms. And the shirt... You could wash and dry it to wear it now, I guess. But I’m seriously confused about your wounds,” he said, scratching his head. He chuckled. “Oh well, it doesn't matter. You know the routine. We beat you here and there, leave new bruises and then let you go. It’s an easy routine and I hope you’d keep the bruises,” Reza said.
“I don't like it,” Imran uttered. “I have to stop you.”
Reza laughed. “You have to stop me?” he asked and shook his head, still laughing. “You can’t stop me. You should know that by now after those beatings you got.”
Imran raised his head and stared at Reza. “I can,” he said, “and I will.” He wanted to stop them from bullying him. That was all he wanted.
Before any of them could hurt him, Imran grabbed Syafiq’s hand and twisted it around, hoping to cause him a considerable pain only. Syafiq, unable to stop Imran, shrieked. With Imran’s other arm, he elbowed Hazim’s lower stomach, the spot he was easy to aim at from a tall guy. He was careful not to give Hazim a critical damage. Hazim let out a low moan and stepped back. He rubbed his hand on his stomach to ease the pain.
“What the hell have you done to them?” Reza asked him angrily.
Imran thought the question was stupid and noticed Reza’s face was getting red. Reza rushed towards Imran and raised his fist, preparing a striking blow on Imran’s head. Fortunately, Imran was not only using his hands to protect himself. He kicked Reza below the stomach with calculated care as he knew aiming higher than that would deal severe damage to Reza. Hugging his lower stomach, Reza retreated.
Hazim tried a pathetic uppercut on Imran with his untwisted hand but Imran blocked it with ease by using his palm. From behind, Imran heard Hazim’s high-pitch scream and knew Hazim was approaching. He counted for a few seconds and landed a painful back fist on Hazim’s shoulder, causing Hazim to fall back to the ground with a thud. He threw his bag to the ground and glanced to Syafiq who was staring at him with wide eyes.
After all of them recovered from their pain, they started to assault Imran again only to have him block and dodge and break their attacks with succes. The fiery gleam in their eyes had gone when they had failed to hurt him. They did not give up and continued to land blows and kicks on him, which became another set of failed attacks.
“You should give up,” he said. “There’s no reason for you to attack me.”
“Why are you this strong?” Reza asked in frustration. “You were this - this weakling when we met you. You were an easy target. Now you're - you're formidable. It doesn't make any sense.”
Imran frowned. “Your bullying me doesn't make any sense, either,” he said. “Why do you bully me? I can’t find the reason for it.”
Reza did not reply and kept his eyes straight on Imran. Unlike him, Hazim and Syafiq looked away and pretended to care about the light bruises they got.
Maybe Imran needed to do the same to them to understand what motivated them to bully him. He was always the victim, the one who surrendered to the way of fate without any protest. He was the one who always did not mind. Perhaps his ignorance blinded him from knowing the answer. Whatever it was, he was not going to get any of it by asking questions. He stepped forward, his hand folded into a fist.
Noticing Imran’s approach, Reza whispered the same word Imran had said to them. “Stop.”
They had not listen to him. Imran did the same and continued nearing them. He raised his fist, preparing a blow he knew would arrive straight at Reza’s chubby cheek.
“S-stop,” Reza stuttered. He raised his hands to shield his face and closed his eyes tight.
Imran stopped. He realized Reza was scared. He did not understand why. Fear was never the feeling he experienced when Reza beat him. He just could not handle the pain Reza inflicted to him as it was too much. Here he had inflicted Reza a pain which was pale in comparison with the one Reza gave to him and yet Reza was scared.
After a moment of silence, Imran spoke. “Go,” he said.
He felt the breeze again, patting his face. The view vanished. Now, he stood a few feet away from them, the initial distance between he and them. They were standing too, not sitting on the road in pain anymore. They frowned and looked around. They checked their arms and stomachs and other body parts that hurt. Their eyes were wide in shock.
Reza started to say, “What the -”
But Imran cut him off. “Go,” he repeated. “Or I’ll make you live through it again.”
They were disarrayed but left Imran soon. Reza looked back at him before looking away.
Imran was alone. The gray spherical talking light appeared at his side, floating and brightening and dimming as usual.
“That went smooth,” it said.
Imran nodded. “I guess you’re right. They felt the fear when I was about to bully them. I didn’t feel that when they bullied me. I just wanted to get over it. The pain though was barely bearable.”
“Hmm,” the light said. “Imran, why could not you just allow me to boost your strength? You could easily beat them if I did that to you.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t want that,” he said. “I didn’t have the desire to beat them. What drove me to try to bully them was curiosity. I wanted to understand their motivation of bullying me. I thought by assuming their positions I could feel what they felt.”
“Why couldn’t you relate to them emotionally, then, when you were in their shoes? Why did they feel fear while you did not when they bullied you?”
He sighed. “I guess I’m lacking emotion. Scratch that. Most of the times, I am emotionless. Maybe that is the reason I’m unable to comprehend their motivation, unable to fear them, and unable to have the desire of revenge after what they’ve done to me.”
“What would you do from now?”
He brushed the bandage on his lip. “They have understood that I don’t want any more bullies. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to bully me again - not for a while, at least. Now, I have to understand them. The motivations and desires that persuade them to bully others. We can punish them for their actions and it won’t be enough for them to stop their wrongdoings. We have to understand them. We have to know the root of the problem to solve it.”
The light twinkled and let out a melodic laugh. “I can see you have understood now. Well, you actually have made a wise wish when you asked me to set up an illusion here. You did not want to cause any damage and only wanted both sides to reach a mutual understanding.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t want that. Anyway, I’ve to ask you - why, out of all colour, you pick gray as your colour? It doesn’t suit well with your role as a helping light.”
The light moved back as if it was surprised. “Oh, so you have noticed? I’m glad you have. It represents you, Imran. You are always a light gray - cool and neutral with a hint of innocence and sincerity. I hope later you will become a full-fledged white - a brilliant and strong white. You have what it takes to understand humans - your kind. You only need the sense of understanding and goodness to reach there.”
“Hmm,” he said, looking to the road. “Your answer isn’t really convincing but I’ll take it for now. Thanks for you help, by the way.”
“It is mostly you, Imran. It is mostly you.”
He looked up to see the light but it was gone. He looked around and what he saw was only the school’s block and wall. The place where he got bullied was the same but the sky was a canvas of pristine blue. There were no more depressing gray clouds staying there to prepare some water bullets. For the first time since he entered the school, he smiled in relief. There would never be enough satisfaction, however. He would always try to understand humans more and be a better person.
Points: 270
Reviews: 25
Donate