Midnight's call

This is my first attempt at writing a short story. I hope this one fits the bill because I have mixed feelings about it. Here it goes…..

   “ Time is now 11.00 AM” sounded the alarm. An arm just rose and hit on its head and went back to bed. “ Time now is 12.00 PM”, this time a leg kicked the clock out of its porch. “Time is now 1.00 pm”, a leg kicked, this time he was at the receiving end, drenched in water. “Now get up you lazy goose” his mom said. He reluctantly got up and went up grumbling, now to his laptop . “Welcome to Windows vista” it uttered. “Connecting to Local area network”….. “Loading Vasudevan991@gmail.com…..” He started checking his mail and then updated his Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and every other social networking site in the World Wide Web. He was getting tired of resting and hit the bed to rest even more.

   2 years had passed since his graduation, yet there were no signs of him getting any job nor was he interested in one. His parents were worried about his attitude. He was quite a rich guy; to be precise his parents were rich. Time was now 8.00 pm, nearing the ‘Dhan te nan time’, that’s how he calls late night pubbing. He had a shower took out his party wear, donned it and rode straight to the pub on his ‘Enticer’. 

    He was riding his bike so fast in a drunken state. A dog ran across the road, he maneuvred and went past it and then came a cat, a black one, he maneuvred and went past that one too and then came this fairly old guy with ragged clothes and dreadlocked hair, bang! He hit him. Vasu went skidding on the road and the rugged ragged guy was literally blown off his feet and fell where he belonged, the platform. Though it seemed to be a brutal accident, it wasn’t one. The man had sprained his leg and Vasu had some cuts. Now that’s what you call third time unlucky or was he?

   Vasu got up and yelled at the man “You blind moron, do you have your brains in the place or do you have !$@%^ . Oh sorry you don’t know English, kurutukku kabothi, moola vechirukira eduthula !@#$ vechirukiya da” he uttered the same in Tamil.

The ragged man smiled and said “chill down young man, and thanks for the lift to the platform i really wanted to go there. I was sick of walking from there ”.

Vasu was taken aback by the way he dealt with him and his impeccable accent. The man asked “what are you staring at? i can speak English. For Pete's sake stop staring ” 

   “ So you get up really late right and you spend the whole time toying with your laptop and then pubbing right”, he smiled sheepishly.

   “But how do you know that? you are freaking me out ” said a befuddled Vasu.

“You see I was exactly like you and I could spot that from you. My life changed suddenly. I had only my dad, my mom died before I even had a look. I also lost him in an accident. Thanks to my AC accustomed body, TV watching eyes  and Internet surfing fingers; I ran into a road block when my dad died. Till this point i have not done anything meaningful in life. I lost everything. This platform has become my home and mosquitoes have become my friends ”, Vasu was silently listening to all this.

   “Hey I am the one who should be sad buddy not you, your time will come , just kidding”

   “Whatever,  I am leaving now” said a shit scared Vasu seeing a creepy man divulging such details and lifted up his Enticer and scooted.

   Wouldn’t you be shit scared if a man like him tells details about you, that too at the stroke of midnight. On his way home with his smashed Enticer, he was thinking of his future. More importantly he was thinking what he was doing presently.Was he a ghost? Was he a messenger? All questions remained unanswered. Whoever he was; he surely sent shivers down Vasu’s spine all for the right reason.

   “Time is now 7.30AM” Vasu got up and went straight to his laptop. This time he was busy uploading his profile to Job websites. This is what fear can do to people. That day he went to the same place to meet him.

“Hi, remember me. I think I can help you ” ;

“enna dorai pesara onnum puriliye namakku Englipese laam varathu pa”( what are you talking i cant understand English).

“May be he is not the one, I think he had some more beard like dad. Must be a hangover. I don't want to end up like him even in my dreams, anyway. I better hurry now” , he said to himself and walked away.