The Story Of A Jackal

Their profile read the same... young, broke and worthless. There are the ones who are happy that they are born, some bring happiness to atleast others when they are born and there are 'the others' who have no purpose or clue as to why they were born in the first place. The last one's are the ones surrounded by sadness, negativism and curse that comes along with their birth, through their life, till their death and probably even ever-after if there was a chance. This is the story of one such jackal, born not because he wanted to, not dead as he is clueless "why not?!" and living just because he has nothing more or better to do between the "being born" and "not yet dead" timeline. 


There are some who are dead and forgotten and some who are dead-forgotten yet there are these kinds, who are alive yet forgotten like dead and this jackal is one who fits the last category perfectly. Time? Space? Fate? What is to be blamed? Who is to be questioned? Who is answerable? Neither knowing his whereabouts nor where to go, in stillness he stands as the path under him seems to move endlessly, twisting and turning, churning and whining, moaning and crying through darkness and eternity like a ever-coiling, never-dying slithering snake. Every turn only gets darker with every turn that gets just more ruthless. At times, it feels like the pinch of a strong, thin string smeared with pieces of sharp, shiny glass, with a noose carefully made to snugly fit the contours of the heart it is tied around, getting tightened with every pull, bearing witness to the shrieks and cries and the unbothered whistle of the strangler tugging at the chord watching the blood ooze-drop by drop, with no hurry, dripping its way into an awaiting earth, quenching its ever-needy thirst for blood. Pain seems to heighten to a level of pleasure and the dark trinity of sweat, blood and tears mix with no choice, dancing to the faint, fading cry of laughter at a distance.   


Dungeons and chambers of torture will know this pain, that pleasure-a rare entity for the pointless few. With nothing more to give, having nothing more to lose, with nothing more to gain, having nothing more to take, this beast screams behind walls of silence eternally. Always asked to respond to loss with patience, pain with silence, he is a victim of his own making; made more for the maker's amusement. Why this patience? Why this silence? Why this bearing? No one knows. "Why does no one see him?" "Whats the delight one gets in seeing him suffer?" he often wonders. Is he as dead as a log after a tree he ponders as he watches people with a halo behind their heads and sacrosanct opinions move about casting their feverish glance at him as they move past into their own worlds. "Whats the point?" "Whats the freaking point when no one bothers to care, no one bothers to hear, no one bothers to see in his eyes, the dark looming shadows of death?" he renders. 


The few things he can call his own, his very own, are those tears, sweat and blood-those that seem to be trickling away more and more with every step he takes to advance... nevertheless stand and so effortlessly fall. Every step he takes on his own makes him weak beyond his chance, ever tripping two with every single step he manages to take and yet he struggles, struggles to get a grasp of what he had lost, with no one to care or to stop for a moment and give a helping-hand. 


His pace gets slow and steadily unsteady and the pounding gets even worse, something he suffers with no one to share with a smile he is expected to have; a stray after all, a lonely stray who will not find compassion and has been decided is unworthy of a shoulder to support. Yet, this stray still tries... for a chance, for strength, one more time, just one more time, to stand on his own, to show that he once stood too, higher than the rest who walk past him, before the ruthless fall, before this uncouthed confidence with which he is mocked, right between his eyes like it were his back, yet it still makes no difference in trying after having lost all. After all, you can't kill a dead one twice... can you?! 


Now, this is the ghost that is moving. Not him. He is too dead to move. Its his spirit, that faint soul that tries to take those steps, those steps to escape into a new world. If not here, beyond this to the promised land or to the mud down below where his skin and bones are dying to go. What would it be like down there or high above? Would he care? Would he bother to?! Surely must be better than living this hell on earth. This never-ending jackal still moves through the darkness, searching for light, the strange piece of light, that ray of hope, that oasis he often glimpses in the desert that keeps him moving. Tattered, limping and groaning in pain that is too weak to rise above a voice to even beg, he lifts himself higher than he can, yet criticized, yet smitten, yet poked, yet uncared... yet unconquered, he struggles with insane faith to stand, again, one more time... even if it is for the last time, one more time, again he would stand, that ruthless, uncouthed, unconquerable jackal.


Photo: This was a photo I had clicked a while ago which I found meaningless then and hence was lying in the archives and found it apt for this piece of dark writing today... everything happens for a reason.