CHAPTER-V

"Glen? ~ Glen? ~ Glen…" a faded voice said, or maybe I was hallucinating. "Glen! Wake up mate!" a bold voice waked me up. I opened my eyes, it was Shawn. I sat upright rubbing my eyes and realized I fell unconscious the night before. "Maybe we drank a bit too much." he said. "Yeah, enough to knock us out on floor, where are we again?" I asked. "Your house, we are at your house." He said and I laid back on the floor again looking up at the ceiling. "Ohh, yeah; I remember."

"Are you all right?" Shawn chuckled and asked me, he is good at trolling me, always. "My head hurts. You?" I replied closing my eyes. "Not better, do not expect me to stand up for about an hour or so. Make your cereals on your own. Sugar coated cereals!!" He said and let a giggle out. I smiled and said, "Just lay here idiot, your boring jokes makes me feel like crying." We both laughed.

"Glen, what was your ambition as a kid?"

"I wanted to be a painter. A particularly good one. I wanted to paint pictures of people, a lake, London bridge, mountains, village, my hometown Manchester, and a lot more…" I said.

"And then?" asked Shawn.

"What next? I grew up! I miss those days sometimes; I hadn't worked for my dream. It was a dream after-all, I did not have any goals back then, just a fantasy of touring the whole world selling my pictures and drawings. I wanted to be known by all. Wanted to go down the history. But then again, I grew up." I ended with a big smile and asked, "What about you? You must have had a better ambition, a dream?"

"I wanted to play football. Like Mario Coluna, Lev Yashin, Bobby Charlton. I did play football but never got a chance to play in a stadium. I wanted to play for our country. It has been my ambition for a long time. I still want to play, but I can't play now."

"Who the hell stops you? I'll support!" I genuinely wanted him to play. "Thank you Glen. But I don't have to get worked up now, I am happy."

At that moment I said to myself, "Are you sure Shawn? Are you really happy? Well I am, because I can be with you in your adventures. Forever."

"Shawn, I am happy that we are always together in your adventures."

"I am happy that you are always with me when I solve a case. And who else could write better chronicles embedding my brilliancy? Huh?" He chuckled.

"Yeah, I would write everything about the cases, even those crucial small-dull points which police missed, and those which never will get published in newspaper."

"Yeah, write for me, about our friendship, brotherhood, our cases. I promise to be with you every time you go to get your book published."

"It has been a year, Shawn, our friendship."

"Seems like we met yesterday."

"It sure does. I wonder what an amazing coincidence it was, me sitting in the park nearby and you came to me asking for if I had seen a particular guy, showing me his picture."

"I'm glad you remember."

"How the hell can I forget that? A young man, with a brown overcoat and a hat on, leather boots, these, which you are wearing now. Who was that man again? Shawn Carter?" I laughed.

"Past, mate, it was past. But I still wonder how that man resting on the bench that evening became my friend? My mate? What was his name again? Was that you? Glen Sanders?" We both smiled and chuckled. Burst out a loud laugh.

"We should get up now, it doesn't look good, I don't think even the door is locked." said Shawn.

"Yeah, let me make you a coffee. I think I need one too." I said while getting up.

"I am going to wash my face." he said and went to washroom. I went to the kitchen. Took two cups out of the shelf, put the kettle on stove, and while the water boiled I picked up the newspaper. Shawn came to kitchen and sat on a chair. I served him with two baked cookies, homemade by myself.

He took a sip and laid back. "I like the strong taste of coffee, especially in the morning. It sure is very good!" he said, "Thank you, I knew you would like it" I took a sip and asked him, "Well, you always are excited about a new case, aren't you, Shawn?"

"To be honest, Glen, being an unprofessional detective, I am in a constant search of something interesting. Even small cases are exciting when I can't get them solved easily. A murder or a mass murder may sound horrible when read in a newspaper; but by experience, I somehow understand the criminal better than the victims."

"Understand criminals better than the victims? I don't get it Shawn." I said and took a sip.

He looked towards me and continued. "It is not necessary that the criminal is a victim himself, but, as a rule, people are needed to be taken out of this world. Good people, bad people, we all deserve the same fate. Murder, suicide, death caused by a disease, death caused by aging; are all at the end of the day, a death indeed." Saying this he laid back on his chair and looked up perpendicular at the ceiling.

He continued with a sigh, "Criminals are humans too, awful humans, but humans. Do you know the feeling of getting blood on your hands to protect a loved one? It is miserable, the other person whom you kill may have a family like you, may have had a good, innocent life as you. Then tell me, was he a criminal or you are?"

"I…uh, I~ don't know. But Shawn, what does this mean? If I love someone? Is it necessary to cover my hands with blood as well when necessary?"

"If you love that person, that is."

I felt numb for a moment then, I thought hard about every word that made out of Shawn's throat at that moment. Nothing, nothing in this world helped me to wrap my brain around the exact thing he was talking about. I asked him helplessly, "But Shawn! I don't want to kill a person! I don't have the wit to do that! I am coward, I just feel a bit powerful when I am around you. I cannot grasp it at all. Explain me everything clearly Shawn." I got impatient.

"Sure, but first answer me, do you think wanting to love initiates hatred? And that hatred leads to violence?"

"I~I think that's true. I think that is a possibility but not necessarily it is love that creates violence or hatred." I replied after a solid minute of thinking.

"Doesn't it seem like love is the only cause of violence? The only cause of hatred? The only cause…of losing everything?"

"Huh? But that should not be necessary, I mean, how can love be behind every evil? What do you intend to state?"

"State?" he chuckled, "Let's take an example. Let's say a man robs a bank. He loots the money because?"

"He loves the money?" I said with my eyes wide open.

"Well, let us assume he was somehow bound to do that, maybe his mother, father, sister, brother, girlfriend, or someone else he loved was suffering from a deadly disease, which's cure required a big amount of money."

"Still, it is love."

"How about a leader's love for his/her country that causes him/her to start a war against another country?"

"Still…love. So Shawn? Are you trying to say that love creates violence?"

"I don't stand to conclude or state anything, mate." he said as he lit his pipe. "It is up to you to connect the dots; I am no one to meddle with your own thoughts. I can only speak facts. And before you think again, remember, I don't stand to conclude or state anything."

"But Shawn! Love cannot be a bad thing! How can it be a bad thing? Those with love cherish while those without suffer many untold miseries. Not being loved is such a dreadful feeling! How can one survive without love?! Love is not bad!"

"When did I say love is bad? Did you consider violence as a bad thing and equated that love is bad too? Glen, when you try to wrap your brain around something, you narrow down your vision, expectations and your beliefs. You avoid possibilities that goes against your so called conclusion or understanding.", he released a cloud and continued.

"Humans have the tendency to be eager all the time to know things, and more than that, to know things with certainty. We want to be certain about things all the time, about our thinking, our experiences, our words, our feelings, our…lives. It is not something to blame someone for; we all ask a lot of questions ever since our childhood, we seek answers for every question, and also after sometime, we ask for justifications for those answers. Then, after those justifications and our experiences we conclude with our own understanding, which is, as per the rule, often as accordance of the society."

I gazed at him the whole time. He raised from his chair, walked to the parted curtains to set his eyes at my beautiful backyard shining in the morning.

"What an amazingly huge world of thoughts; at an end, however, narrowed down to a straight line of 'social thinking'. But of course!! You have exceptions too, and exceptions turn out to be exceptional! Nikola Tesla! Who could have thought pure electricity can travel through air as per humans wanted it to? Adolf Hitler! War is a way to freedom and freedom means no supervisor, no bondage, no rule, nothing to control an individual. And it took long enough for Hitler to understand what complete freedom causes, when there is no limitation, no control, no supervision on a person's or a country's actions. But that was an exceptional exception. Was he right though? Was he wrong?" he exclaimed dramatically and turned to me and continued in his usual bold and appealing voice.

"Nothing is right, even though it may seem so, everything is wrong when compared to other. Contemplate experiences, and come to conclusions, then BAM!... Something comes out of the blue and alters everything. Shit…" He burst out in a laugh in the end.

"Yes, I know that feeling. Deciding to take an action and putting your trust into it, even when you have an uneasy feeling about it. Then…(sigh) everything falls apart. Leaving you with sorrow and disturbance which becomes a scare on your personality." I looked at my feet and continued, "I~ I don't have the guts to kill anyone, I too have people whom I love, but… I'm too afraid to kill a person, I have never killed a person with my own hands. I, just am a bag-full of trash. Yeah, that's all I am. I have nothing in my hands." I ended with a red face and tears in my eyes.

"You don't have to."

"Huh~?"

"I said you don't have to kill a person. It is okay. I know the feeling of getting your hands bloody for the first time. The thought that comes after killing a person is never bearable. You question yourself a thousand times, 'Am I even a human now? Can I still walk along the people as I did before? Am I just a monster who did not give second thought before killing a person? Even if it was for good, even if I have a thousand reasons to back my actions up, was murder the only option?' This happens. Even with me when I killed a person for the first time. But don't worry Glen, you don't have to do it."

"But Shawn! What if I need to do it anyway? You too killed a person, as you said…" I said it without thinking. There was silence for a moment.

"I am sorry Shawn, I did not intent to…" "It is perfectly fine. People have to get their hands bloody sometime to save a person they love, they care about. But that doesn't mean you have to do it. I understand. It is a horrible feeling, and it lingers on your head and heart for the rest of your life. No one can blame you for your choice, neither when you choose to kill nor when you choose not to." Shawn said with a little smile on his face.

"Huh~, hmm… I understand. Thankyou Shawn. So in the end, love becomes the cause for every violence."

"Not always. But those are exceptions, with the same ending but the different approach, or rather different start."

"What?"

"Someday, I will die too."

"What do you mean?"

"Most probably I will be murdered, I am in a risky business you know."

"No…"

"Maybe right before you."

"No!!"

"Yes, accept it, Glen."

"No, no!!...Something like that cannot…"

"I will not blame you for your choice then, Eh? Friend?" He was smiling again, peacefully.

His picture started to get blurry, I couldn't see clearly. I stretched my arm out to get a hold of him, "Shawn? My eyes are burning. I… I can't see your face; you…you are right here, right?... Shawn?? Shawn!! Shh…Shawn, where are you? Answer me! Hold my hand!" A bright light blinded me whilst his smiling picture burned down to ashes.

"Aaaaaaaaaah!" I was crying at the limit of my throat. My hands on my head. Tears rolling down all over my face. I was in a sorrow my heart could never handle, I was about to die any time then.

"Glen! Glen! Calm down! You are going crazy!" I didn't care who came to console me, it was in vain, of course it was all in vain!

"How the hell can I calm down!! My~ my~ friend died right in front of me, I couldn't do anything. Nothing changed, NOTHING CHANGED!! Not a single fucking thing changed! I could not save him! I should have gone with him! WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SO FUCKING COWARD!!? YOU LITTLE PIECE OF TRASH! Didn't you… didn't you want to save him?!! Huh~ Wasn't he your beloved friend…? Didn't you talk to him about all kinds of things?"

"Stop! Stop! You'll die!"

"I don't care if I die!! Who the hell cares? I am such an incompetent piece of shit!! Just a moron with a feeble heart!" I started to punch myself in the face. "You!! How did you do such a horrible thing?! Huh~?? HOW IN THIS WORLD DID YOU LET YOUR FRIEND DIE ON YOU?!!" Blood spilled all over the place, I nearly broke my own nose, but I could not feel any pain; at least on my body.

My heart could not hold a single bit of it, my head was running out of blood, my whole body was cold and numb, my hands were shaking as I faced up at the ceiling mumbling all sorts of shit, "Die! Die! Die!! WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE, YOU TRAAAAASH!!"

I don't recall much…, but a punch from nowhere, in my gut, knocked me out.