Windows

Far away, far away there was somewhere a planet just like Earth, out there in the universe. Human civilisation had started there. Being a civilisation which had sprang up not that long ago, there was struggle for a better understanding in this foreign planet which inhabited Homo sapiens. They had come to understand various things like the cycle of rain, infection and some general science that relieved a few of their fear of something they could not judge. Fear had not been something latest as it was something they experienced right from birth. The progress in infrastructure being slow along with the gradual development in weaponry had left the people of this society being in constant fear of beasts that tore them up to fill up their stomach. There were many differences in the way this society raised and the way it is on Earth. There was yet to be appearance of belief, belief in the person whose name is made of just three letters. There was yet to be fear of the belief of someone too big and too distant controlling the strings.

Once a murderer ran away from his society where he killed the person who had raped and killed his daughter, who was the only person he had left in his family. He ended up on a cliff, below was water and there was the desire to escape reality and feel free of the grief but all he did was sit down and looked to the bottom where the waves hit the rocks at the foot of the cliff. He followed the boundary of the beach and found settlements at the beach not far from the cliff.

The huts were made of coconut leaves and there were adults lying on the beach, kids were playing in the water and climbing coconut trees. At some distance there were men throwing a net in the water. The murderer walked toward them peering at them with all of his attention. The adults on the beach noticed him and looked at him with surprise as if he was a beast from the jungle. There was dried blood on his face, his neck still wet with sweat looked a darker shade of red and bruises on his body due to running in haste through the jungle made him look dangerous even more since the habit of cannibalism was evident in many tribes on that planet. For a while they stood and observed him, the sun scorched their feet on the sand, sweat ran on everyone’s body, bare in most parts and the privates covered by a mat of leaves. He walked slowly, as he dragged his feet up and stomped them heavily down due to the exhaustion. He was extremely thirsty and wanted to ask these strangers for something for some water. But these strangers stepped back except a lady who stood bent ahead and peered at his face from down. She ran to the beach carrying a coconut that lay on the beach cut in two. She filled some sea water in it and ran to him to splash it on his face. He was taken aback and wiped the water with his hand. The others watched closely as the blood flowed down with the liquid to reveal his face. He looked at the lady, opened his mouth wide, pointed at the sea and then at his mouth. Language had not made much progress in the society on this planet.

While the lady had taken him in the jungle to a waterfall to drink water, the rest gathered up on the beach and talked of the man. The walk to and back from the waterfall took half the day giving the rest a lot of time to decide what to do with the man. The discussion was not much intense since they did not understand what to say exactly. It was all random, all said what they thought was right but it could not reach the listener the way it was supposed to, since there were just like random voices in the air. The only thing everyone could make out was who they talked of, since it naturally became common to refer to the murderer with a hand on the face. Another thing that got to everyone was that everyone were disgusted by the mere presence of that man since that was a mutual feeling and what more, it showed in their body language which enabled most of the communication in the primitive era of this civilisation.

By the time the lady and the murderer were back the sky was shade of light blue in which there were two moons. As soon as they entered the vicinity near the tribe, the men standing near the fencing grabbed the murderer regardless of the protestation by the lady and took him to a cave at the foot of the cliff.

After he was led in, a boulder was pushed in the entrance of the cave. This cave was a bit special, had windows for ventilation, far from reach though. These were not made but were there due to the loose nature and abundance of the soil. The cliff was made up of the rocks and stood barely firm due to the presence of this soil in between. The soil was a special mixture of chemicals such that it was flammable not that these primitive humans were aware of. The windows were like holes that allowed to peep and were narrow enough such that nobody could get in or out of the cave through them. In total there were 3 of them and they allowed a top view, a diagonal view and another diagonal view from the opposite side of the cave.

The murderer was imprisoned in the cave and he did not have any means of escape. Three men stood outside the cave near the holes to keep an eye on him. This was coincidentally quite beneficial for the men as they would no longer have a reason to be uptight about his escape from the cave. Each man sat near a hole and could peep through the hole.

The murderer had been crying loudly since he was grabbed to the cave. The men could not figure out why he would still keep bleating when that would only tire him out. But it had gone unnoticed to them that he had bruised his right foot while they dragged him. He was still screaming in pain from that.

The sky had become a darker shade of blue and grey clouds had begun to gather around blocking the little light there was. The murderer was still screaming, and the men were resting comfortably at their posts. The man who was stationed near the hole directly above the cave was irritated of the screaming and looked in the cave. He could not make out exactly what he was doing in the cave so he focused hard trying to make out what was happening down there. He saw that the murderer had sat down and held his hands in the air trying to clamp something while screaming like anything while pulling his neck back. The man watching from above thought that he was simply mad and it would be crazier to look more at him.

At the same time the other man stationed near the hole that gave a diagonal view had peeped in and saw that the murderer was screaming while standing on one leg and holding the other with his hands. He moved down to see the head through the small hole but could not. He thought it was the darkness but as he kept staring he realised that the head had vanished which took him back. He breathed heavily and looked up at the sky. He came to the conclusion that he had got too sleepy. Probably he actually was too sleepy to figure out that he was watching the murderer’s back and the darkness shadowed over him making it hard to make out the head.

Unlike these two the last had settled down quite peacefully near the hole on the opposite side of the mountain. He was not troubled of the noise cause unlike those two the screaming did not reach till him. So he was lying on the grass, looking at the sky that getting covered up with the grey clouds coming in gradually. He thought that it might rain and before getting annoyed with the mud that would stick he decided on taking a peep at the man in the cave. He saw that the murderer was standing; his hand held out and ranting something which the guard found inaudible. While he continued to peer at him, it had begun to rain heavily all of a sudden and he got distracted.

Following the long torrent, the sky finally brightened up at the dawn. The three men came to the entrance of the cave and without speaking a word pulled the boulder out. They stood and stared in the darkness of the cave which had softened by the orange rays of the sky at dawn. They stomped hard to the woman who had helped the murderer yesterday for he was found missing. They wanted to panic but maintained a serious face and grabbed the woman as it was obvious to them that he could not have escaped without outside help. It resulted in the woman being imprisoned in the cave.

Subsequently she too was found missing.

The moment when they had pulled out the boulder and stared hard in the cave they had been struck with an emotion they were used to. This emotion surfaced up when they were being hunted. It woke them from their sleep. It made them sweat and their throat dry. It made them speechless. They stood still for a while just staring at the cave. They found themselves powerless and they did not know against what. They were scared and the panic had built up just enough to burst out. They walked off silently to their own shelters. They could not tell each other what they thought of how the escape occurred. They could not tell each other of what they each seen that night. It did not make sense to them that what the murderer had done that night could possibly be they way to escape.

Even though they did not open up to each other however they spoke to the person they found closest. They too found it baseless but trusted them nonetheless. It spread fast and everyone on the beach knew about it. The only problem was whose opinion was correct. At first the three guards were shocked to learn that each of them witnessed something and believed it to be a way to ‘contact’ but a quarrel soon began where each cited he saw the genuine thing. The spectators looked at the three and inspected them in their minds in their own way. At the end there were three factions. Each faction opposed the other two. The news spread from place to place.

A hop, skip and a ride away in time this civilisation lived together yet opposing any person from a faction they were not a part of. Fraternity was shared only with the same faction members. It is funny how it all began from a misunderstanding. The holes on that cliff provided the window for an opinion but divided the rest.