FICTION

Disheartened to the core, I stood atop the roof over the last flat of a ten-story apartment, contemplating suicide. Peering down, I saw a deep abyss below. The city’s apartments and plazas looked like a jungle of huge buildings.

Beyond the sightline of residential areas, perhaps thousands of miles away, barbed wire fences had been erected. A sign marking a “Prohibited Area” stood in front of me, and there, I was exhausted.

In this land we inhabit, one could either be mad or a monkey. And I, undoubtedly human, wondered what crime had led me to be born among lunatics and primates, or perhaps it was a punishment from a past life, flung down from the heavens. Whatever it was, the only path to salvation now seemed to be through suicide. The boiling thoughts encouraged me to jump. Suddenly, the growling of a dog caught my attention. Looking down, I saw a rabid dog barking furiously. Its terrifying and agonizing sounds seemed to even halt the angel of death in its tracks.

Before finalizing my decision to end my life, a battle of thoughts ensued: If I fell into the prohibited area, tangled in barbed wire, I’d surely be declared a terrorist. And many future generations could be forced to live a savage life amongst the mad and the monkeys. This thought brought me immense sorrow. My intention changed. Tears flowed from my eyes like rivers, reaching the barbed wires, where they began to spread an epidemic of misery, turning into a firestorm, spreading thousands of miles.

Driven by fear, I descended… Yet, that same fire now blazes within me, becoming flames that lick my soul. Perhaps you too feel this heat! “Yes — No?”  I seek liberation. I yearn to escape the land of the mad and the monkeys. Searching for another place to end my life, I’ve arrived here before you. Is there a place where one can find peace and salvation?

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(Translated from Urdu by Abdul Ghani)

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