Q U A R R Y …

There are many who adopt and conform to the patterns of eating seeds as a part time activity; Fred was not one of those. Fred was interested in diving deep into the thoughts of other beings. especially those considered intelligent. Doesn’t it now go without saying that such a person is more often than not found in a bookshop? Every Friday, Fred would religiously walk into a bookshop for the next experience. Nothing excited his intestines more than this.

He had enjoyed the last couple of books he had read more than the usual. When he goes to buy another, the owner of the bookshop recommends a very specific book. Fred buys the book and starts to read it. It captures every bit of his attention. A few chapters into the book, he starts to realize that the story of the book is set around that very town. The setting of the book was about fifty years earlier. It was about the bookshop owner who would prey on his customers. The realism in this book allowed the mind of Fred to treat the book as a piece of history more than fiction. According to the book, the bookshop owner would rally the entire town against the customer. This was somewhat really chilling for Fred.

The next day, Fred heads out to the groceries and also to get a couple other household utilities. As he walked through the streets, he thought he saw people drop everything they were doing to stare at him and even move towards him. Every time this thought would cross his mind, he would look around and would notice that just like always everybody was going about their business. Even so, he lost his sense of security and hurried back home. The atmosphere around that day had completely changed. Basing his logic on these happenings, he elected not to continue reading the book. Anxiety had just found a home in Fred.

He then fell asleep. He was woken up by something that sounded like people marching, a thousand feet stepping in rhythm. His heart began to race. He rushed to his window and outside his house, he saw a throng of people dressed in white from head to toe surrounding his house. He felt weak in his knees. His mouth went dry. He became very light headed. Yet all these was far from a dream. This was a real event in history. The crowd were singing dirges after dirges and anthems of dying days. Fred was frozen. His heart, his bowels – they all froze.

The crowd then began to speak as though reciting a rehearsed speech. Yet all those words sounded eerily familiar to Fred. It felt as though they were quoting from the book. He reached for the book and true to his suspicion they were reciting the words of the last paragraph he had read. The more they read, the more aggressive they became and the closer they moved to Fred’s door. Following that, they stopped reciting the book and were relentlessly shouting “DEATH TO YOU, DEATH TO YOU”

Fred quickly dialled the emergency police line. When the call was picked, the first words he heard was, “DEATH TO YOU”. Then the crowd went silent. After ten seconds, in a chorus, they started shouting, “WE ARE THE POLICE! DEATH TO YOU! Be it so true, Fred could see the person who picked his call amongst the crowd. A fire torch was then hurled at Fred’s house. He rushed for the fire extinguisher. He heard the marching stop followed by silence. After fifteen seconds, in a chorus, they start chanting, “WE ARE THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER! WE ARE THE POLICE. DEATH TO YOU!”

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