CHRONICLES OF TATRA----EPISODE 1,B

CHRONICLES OF TATRA----EPISODE 1.B

Back home her husband, a truck driver at one of the oil fields, was getting worried of what might have befallen the mother of her two twin daughters in their early and tender ages of five.

He checked for network signals in his phone but the reception seemed to be very poor, but he had to try to at least reach her. The militants had partially cut the connections in this area after blowing up one of the only two communication masts in the town in which this village lay. He quickly scrolled down on speed dials and bam! Her contacts popped up. He hit on the call button and fortunately the call was going through. Tatra was startled by a familiar sound on the other side of the bush amid her deep speculations of what step to take now that she was literally in the line of fire. It was the sound of her twin daughters singing their national anthem which she had recorded in her phone. She immediately knew it was her husband calling, but she had to find a way to either crawl or walk and risk being seen to go and collect it from where it fell on the roadside while running to hide. She was not the only one who heard this song. The silence of the night except the murmurs from the militants had started sweeping the forest. The night was starting to mature and she couldn’t tell what time it was. The only thing she remembered was that at such time, she would be listening to her kids verbally fight over who is to be carried on which lap of their father or who did what and who did not do what, that their father had to be told.

She heard footsteps charging towards the direction of the song. A heavily built six foots mean looking man donning full military rags and hoisting a grenade launcher over his shoulder walked by and picked up the mobile phone. He looked at the screen for at least one minute tops before alerting the militant on guard about the call. All this time she relied on the faint light from the burning woods in the four bonfires that were lit to roast meat needed to feast but left to go off on their own after that. She, herself was baffled by this rate of carelessness, anyway, it was proving useful to her now. The two militants consulted for a few minutes after the call went answered and before they could separate their ways, it started blowing again. This time, the one on watch got infuriated. He gestured signs that would mean he wanted the phone either thrown away or crushed. The mean looking one didn’t seem bothered which gave Tatra hope that may be he would answer the phone. But which option was better? Answering the call by a strange man over the wife’s phone would disgruntle Nick and Tatra knew it. That had never happened before. It happened anyways. He swiped his tongue instead of his fingers across the screen and tapped on loudspeaker.

Tatra could hear her husband talk over the phone with all the courtesy he possessed but these militants had a way of breaking peoples’ spirits because that is what they do best. She hear them explaining to him in broken English, how they had captured her wife, paraded her naked for all to see and made everyone in the camp tease and gang-rape her after which they rained bullets on her and threw her body into the river passing by. In fact one of them was demonstrating verbally, how the wife was pleading with them but they kept going. They then instructed him to go search on the river banks the next day for her wife’s body if he would be lucky to find it. The mean looking one then took the cell phone and threw it across into one of the bonfire. “It can melt there, whatever this is”. He lamented. He first wanted to throw it in the air and shoot it into pieces but that would draw attention to their location so he opted for the fire.

Nick’s voice sounded like that of a person who had lost hope. What if all they were telling him were true? And if at all they were lies, how could he verify it? Tatra on the other hand was fuming with anger and burning inside with much pain wishing her anger could transform into a landmine and blow off all their skeletons out of their filthy bodies. She had to soldier on and hold tight. She knew damage had already been done to her husband emotionally and all that remained was to make sure she did not become what Nick had been described to over the phone.

Tatra now felt ready to take action, she remembered one of the lessons she had learnt on stone-age period when fire was made by rubbing rocks or twigs against each other. She brainstormed over this plan for a while, then gave all her energy to this cause. She successfully made fire and waited for the militant who was roaming around her hiding spot disappear. She then threw a small ball of glowing lump of twigs tied together into a dry shrub bush a stone throw away. It was taking long break into fire, blame it on the dewy condition that had started setting in in the cold night. Finally fire erupted engulfing the leaves and shrubs sending thin smokes before growing into heavy nimbus type smoke. She believed this would by her time to disappear into the woods and head towards the valley where she could find an easy way back home if it was still accessible that is. But after the agonizing call to her husband, this was not her plan for tonight. She was embarking on a new mission then…………….let’s find out how it goes in the next episode..To be continued