Cursed Blessings: Tales of twisted fates

In the mountainous region of a small country on the planet Earth, a group of boys gathered around a small clearing in the middle of the valley, playing a game of cricket in the middle of the day. Occasional laughter was echoing through the hills as they hit and ran around chasing a makeshift rubber ball.

Among them, a seven-year-old Sherpa boy with a snotty nose was rubbing the makeshift rubber ball vigorously against his trousers, preparing for the next throw. His eyes were narrowed in focus considering another boy with the bat he was facing against.

The Sherpa boy named 'Dawa' said, "Peanut, I'm definitely going to beat you today."

With a bit of a short run, he threw the ball with a spin, sending it across the pitch.

Standing at the other end of the crease directly in front of him was another 7-year-old boy, Peanut, with an oddly dual-complexion face—one side of his face having a darker complexion than the other, appearing a bit mystical. Peanut was not his real name but everybody in the village called him that since he was a child because he accidentally ate a peanut when he was about a year old almost choking on it.

Peanut swung his makeshift wooden bat to strike the ball, connecting the ball with surprising force, and started running towards the other end of the pitch.

A loud sound echoed as the ball soared high above the boy's heads to great heights, disappearing into the dense forest beyond their playing boundary.

For a moment, everybody suddenly became silent and the atmosphere became heavy.

The boys around him made no attempt to retrieve the ball but were instead staring at Peanut with angry faces.

"This is too much, Peanut", the Sherpa boy said, irritated. "This is the third time this month that you lost our ball. You know how hard it is for us to get even a half-decent ball to play."

Another boy said angrily, "This is it. I'm never playing any games if you guys include Peanut in it."

"Me neither!" echoed another.

"Yeah, same for me."

The boys muttered in agreement, frustration could be clearly seen in their voices as they glared at Peanut.

Peanut winced seeing their reactions, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "Guys, don't be so harsh and exclude me. I promise, next time, I will try to control my strength and not hit the ball too hard, okay."

"It was not so bad this time, just the ball went a bit far. See, the bat I have in my hand is still intact."

He held up the bat and as he spoke, a deep crack spread through the wood. One part of the broken bat splintered and can be seen hanging.

 "Now, he's done it.", cried one of the boys with tears in his eyes. "He even broke my precious bat. This was made by my father with the strongest wood in the village."

Peanut hurriedly replied, "I will ask my uncle to buy a playable bat for you the next time he visits the town."

One child slowly said, "Humph, show off. Since you have a rich uncle, why don't you buy us all a whole set of cricket accessories along with the bat while you're at it?"

"And my football that you tore last time."

"What about my table tennis bat that you broke?"

"My badminton racket that you bent."

Other children started bearing down on him.

"Hey, hey, stop it guys. I remember I gave you all enough money as compensation for that." Peanut replied.

"Don't worry guys, this time I will try my best to get playing items from Uncle."

They were living in a remote village far from town so it was hard for them to buy playing items as they get stocked only once in one or two months.

"Just wait for me—I'll go get that ball back in no time!."

With that, Peanut started sprinting with great speed towards the forest, his legs moving with an unnatural speed as he disappeared into the forest area where the ball flew.

Peanut had been living in this remote area since he remembered with his aunt Tsering and his uncle Samuel. He did not know anything about his father and mother.

He was told they had an unfortunate incident and they left this world.

He finally spotted the ball and was about to head back to the usual spot when something unusual caught his eye—a snow fox, its white fur blending seamlessly with the forest, watching him from a distance. Intrigued by the rare creature, he felt an irresistible urge to follow it. He took a few steps toward the fox, but before he could get close, it vanished as if it had never been there. He searched around for its traces to no avail. Disappointed yet captivated, he shook off the moment and hurried back, only to find the clearing empty. All the other children had already left, returning home without telling him, much to his disappointment.

Having nothing to do, he slowly strolled the area returning home and observing the snow-capped peaks wondering what would it be like at the top of such tall mountains. But he knew his uncle and aunt would never agree to even let him roam around the base camps.

He could smell the food just as he could see his home.

"Whoa, Aunt Tsering did you cook the noodles today?", he spoke joyfully as he ran to the house.

It was a typical one-story house made of stones and wood using mud mortar, featuring a sloping roof covered with thatch, stone tiles, and a few corrugated metal sheets. The exterior was painted in an earthy tone using local materials. It was similar to other houses in the village with a kitchen, dining, two bedrooms, and a toilet.

"Ah yes, it's your favorite noodle. It's just getting ready. Sit in the chair and I'll bring it to you." said his Aunt.

She was a 25-year-old young Sherpa woman who was similar to other women in the village with a round beautiful face.

"Oh! You are back early considering today's the weekend. Did you finish your games early today?", his uncle asked from the door.

A 37-year-old lean, dark-faced man with sharp-looking eyes and nose had entered the house.

"Uncle", shouted Peanut, "You must get me one of those cricket sets for playing. We were playing today and the bat accidentally broke so I returned early."

The aunt spoke from behind the kitchen, "Tell me, you broke the bat, didn't you?"

Peanut said, "I just wanted to see how far I could hit the ball."

"…so you exerted more force resulting in a broken bat.", Aunt teased.

Aunt brought two bowls full of steaming noodles and placed them on the table.

"(Sigh) How many times have I told you already to not show your gifts and powers in front of your friends and other people?", Aunt said in an angry tone.

Peanut hung his head low expecting a long lecture.

"Do you know what the village calls you nowadays?—a devil. They have even discussed several times how to remove you from the village. Once, they even dared to bring those charlatan shamans claiming to remove evil spirits from you."

"I'm sick of all those superstitious bunch."

"Can't you call the police or do something about those wretched people?", Aunt said turning towards Samuel.

He replied, "You know how far it is from the nearest police station and most of them are illiterate and gullible."

"I've already scared the previous bunch of charlatans. So, I don't think any of them will come to disturb us again."

"Don't worry I've raised this issue with the village committee and they said they will help us."

Sighing in relief that he was not getting any long lectures on how to behave in front of other people today, he started focusing on his favorite noodle.

Tsering said, "Due to the village committee, they will not directly harm him but those women all tell their children to stay far away from Peanut. Will this not affect the child's psychology if all his friends alienate him? Can we not leave this place and go somewhere else?"

The uncle sighed and said, "You know I don't want to live in any big cities and this is the best place for him to stay. Won't we be plagued by reporters and all kinds of shady people daily if Peanut's abilities were exposed in some other city or town? Even worse are those YouTubers hungry for content who will distort all about his abilities to get views."

"We did not have to face any nuisance all this time despite his unusual qualities because this place is very remote and most of them don't even have a smartphone."

Peanut asked, "Uncle, what's a smartphone?"

Samuel did not answer his question but instead opened his bag and took out a package.

Inside the package was the latest smartphone.

He gave the smartphone to Peanut, "It's actually your birthday today so here's your birthday gift, a smartphone. Didn't you always ask me all sorts of questions to which I had no answer? Now, you can use the internet data on the phone to search about anything in the world."

Not caring that today was his birthday, Peanut looked at the screen flickering as it was being switched on, "Can it answer all my questions?"

Samuel shook his head, "No, but it can provide the answer that other people have found and shared on the internet."

Samuel explained about the features of the smartphone, especially the internet and its various uses to Peanut in a few hours.

"Remember the network signal in the village is not good. If you want a good signal, you have to go on top of that hill." (Pointing at a nearby hill)

Peanut acknowledged as if climbing that big of a hill for a seven-year-old child was easy.

Peanut fiddled with the smartphone till midnight and fell asleep with the phone.

Samuel came to put a blanket over him, put the phone on charging, and left the place.

Aunt Tsering sat with Samuel and said in a sad tone, "Other children would run around announcing their birthday, happily getting wishes from everybody on their special day. But, this boy did not even tell his friends about his birthday nor did he want to celebrate. He feels ashamed being special enough that he does not want any 'special day'. He doesn't even ask about his mother and father."

"His mother left him to me when he was not even a year old and she has completely disappeared for all these years with no contact so who knows if she's even dead or alive.", Samuel said reminiscing about his missing sister.

"I don't know anything about his father."

"My sister was very unusual and mysterious in her own way which is acceptable considering our ancestry, but she did not have these abilities. So, my guess is these strange abilities, he might have gotten from his father."

"It's strange for there to be any other beings with strong bloodlines in this part of the world. My parents were exiled to these remote areas with low ethereal content as a punishment for some crime they committed."

Tsering said, "You also have such special powers—can you not help this kid control it?"

Samuel said with a sullen look, "I myself don't know how to use the gift I have. My parents said that if I was in the original ancestral land, I would be known as the failure of the clan with no potential. They did not teach me anything related to mysticism."

"My sister and I found early on that we were very different from other kids around our age in terms of physical and mental abilities even though others considered us normal geniuses. Our parents always avoided that topic when we talked about it in front of them."

"And one day, we found that our parents had mysteriously died. The police told us that it was some kind of accident. But, my sister figured out that they were murdered through some unusual means."

"Later, we found a letter written by our parents asking us to hide from some mysterious murderers."

"I'm staying in this remote place so that they cannot track and kill me.", he said with gritted teeth.

Peanut was oblivious to all these discussions as he was deep in sleep.