The Debt Collector Athul DeMarco 9886720869 Don.osiris@gmail.com
Story Description: It is never good when the debt collector comes knocking on your door. Author Bio: Spends his time scrounging for rupee coins so that he can sustain his crippling nicotine habit. The Debt Collector
‘There is something greatly debilitating about being broke. The single digit followed by the inconsequential two decimal points beams at you from the ATM machine, indicating what you have and reminding you of the weight you carry as debts and bills and rent. Unlike a physical and in some cases the mental weight on your shoulders, the heaviness is first experienced in your chest before it slowly descends down and makes it way to the pit of your stomach. It thrashes about like an overboard stowaway nobody is aware of. He thrashes about, seeking a rescue rope. The five stages of grief probably comes closest to recognizing and classifying the gamut of black and brown emotional rainbow coloured chemical process which sparks in your head. Your first question is, ‘But how? I had money in my account. Where did it all go?’ The question suddenly makes you all too aware of all the poor impulse purchases you made to be happy, to satisfy your wishes and aspirations because the last time around when you wanted something, you didn’t have money to do that thing or to buy that thing. You don’t follow the first question with another one. No! You get angry. At yourself, at your own poor decision making skills. You question everything you have done and are doing or are about to do. When the embers of hot anger begin to cool down… That’s when you come up with a new question. And it always is, ‘If I give the stuff back, can I get my money back. Some money if not all. I really don’t need this stuff. Not right now anyway.’ But you know the answer to this question. You are too ashamed to ask this question aloud. You don’t want to be taken for a fool. You don’t want your respect and your esteem to take a hit. You try and find a way. And the more you think about it, the more you recognize that there is no exchanges, no offers. You are… Fucked! And you are suddenly wondering, is it worth it? Is living like this really worth it? You feel like you are an unwanted burden to everybody and everything. You punish yourself. You try to seek acceptance. Yes, you fucked up. But you are depressed and you see a pattern. And you hate what you see. You wipe your tears to see the man you hate staring back at you from the mirror. And suddenly, just like that, you feel nothing. You recognize the absolute need to feel pain, the need to empty yourself out of this miserable shell of a human body. You remember the bit about how slashing across your wrists is considered an amateur mistake. You take the blade and run vertical lines. The skin splits open. You see the liberating colour red oozing out of you like popped zits. You run the blade again through the open skin and feel the blade sharply burning against your skin as you push the blade deeper and run it slowly and steadily. Your eyes get blurry as your cry for yourself, apologizing to everybody about what an absolute failure and disappointment you are. And you cry some more. And then… you are dead’ The man finally stopped whispering the words. He stepped back and watched the young man slump and lie on the ground. His blue overalls, littered with paint turned black, his face a twisted smorgasbord of paint and pain. ‘I am sorry’ the young man with the bleeding wrists faintly utters amidst sobs, as the leather booted man, dressed in black letter, black T-shirt covered his kohl rimmed eyes with black shades, turned and walked towards the door. The lines around the man’s full lipped mouth wrinkled as he sneered and closed the door behind him. The man stood in the doorway, turned left, no one in sight, turned right and saw a young boy of eight staring from an ajar door, seated on his red tricycle and sucking on a lollipop. The man walked towards the young boy with a charming smile on his face which the boy reciprocated. The man kneeled down next to the boy and pulled out a lollipop from behind his ears. The boy beamed, the lollipop still firmly held between his cheeks and teeth. The boy stretched his little eight year old hand to grab the lollipop from the man’s hand. The man, dressed in all black looked behind the little boy and saw the father noisily watching telly and heard the mother yelling over in the kitchen. The man turned the lollipop he held in his hand, the lolly in his palms as he motioned to the boy to look behind him with his chin. The moment the boy’s head turned, the man pushed the lolly stick in the boy’s ears. The stick pierced straight through the boy’s infant eardrums and straight into the boy’s mushy brain. The man pulled the lollipop from the boy’s mouth and put it in his own sneering face. It took another twenty minutes before the parents realized that the boy wasn’t sleeping on his tricycle. It took an hour for the cops and the ambulance to light up the neighbourhood with their twinkling lights. The weatherman had predicted the skies to be clear. The man dressed in black made his way through the onlookers. He spat the lollipop out on the street as he walked into the diner across the street. ‘What can I get you love?’ The matronly waitress inquired. ‘Coffee. Black.’ He answered with a smile. ‘Sugar?’ The waitress inquired. ‘No thanks. Been having too much sugar lately’ he replied with a smirk.