Skip to main content

A mad man’s Christmas

Fiction

Atami was sick of the blood on his sword.  He wanted to vomit.  That’s why he walked into Helga’s brothel.

“Get me some water to wash first,” he ordered when Helga’s nose puckered involuntarily at the stench of blood.  Helga shuddered at the sight of the blood-drenched sword.  “Then send me your best girl,” Atami growled.  “With enough wine,” he added.

“Not me, please,” Naomi said when Helga asked her to carry the water.

“Why not?” Helga shot an angry glance.

“He is Herod’s soldier.”

“And he looks majestic,” added Helga.  “Maybe you can please him enough and he’ll marry you.  Think of your future girl.”

“I hate Herod and his beasts.”

Naomi had reasons to hate Herod and his soldiers.  She was a descendant of the Hasmonean family which was ruined by Herod.  On Cleopatra’s request, Mark Antony had decided to make Aristobulus Hasmonea the king of Judea.  Herod’s beasts killed Aristobulus and haunted Hasmoneans like a vampire.  Naomi escaped into Helga’s brothel. 

“I’ll kill him,” Naomi said to herself as she carried the water to the ablution. 

“Wash away that,” Atami ordered when Naomi reached with the water.  He was asking her to wash away his vomit. 

“Pour it on me,” Atami ordered when Naomi brought the next pitcher of water.

Water became wine-red as it flowed down Atami’s body.  “How can he bear this cold, cold water?” Naomi wondered. 

Atami dried himself with the linen brought by Naomi and put on the robe given generously by Helga.

“Kings are mad people,” said Atami as he sat in front of the fire lit by Helga who had taken possession of whatever the soldier possessed as she helped him strip himself.  “Herod wanted all infants to be killed because some other kings came from somewhere and said that they had seen a star somewhere….”

Herod’s soldiers went all over the country killing all male infants because three people who called themselves kings from the east visited him and said that a child was born in Judea who would be the king of the Jews. 

“The East is mad,” said Atami as he sipped the wine that Helga kept supplying copiously.  “They have given their madness to Herod now.”

“Wasn’t Herod always mad?” Naomi blurted out.

Helga threw an angry glance at Naomi.

“You’re right, girl,” said Atami.  “I’m sick of him now.  Sick of Herod.  Sick of Antony and his bitch Cleopatra.  Sick of all Caesars.  What are kings but dogs in perpetual heat?”

Naomi and Helga looked at each other.  Helga served more wine to the soldier.  Wine seemed to enlighten him.

“I’m thinking of god,” said Atami. 

“God?” Helga was amused.

“Yup.  Someone told me that God was born on the earth and that’s what set the fire to Herod’s ass.  Some dream or prophecy or whatever shit, you know, the religious people.”

Helga winked at Naomi.  Naomi planted a kiss on the soldier’s stubbly cheek.

Atami pushed her away.

“I’m thinking of god,” he said.  “How will god wash away his sin of killing thousands of infants?  Thousands of innocents!  Thousands of innocents butchered for god’s sake.”

Helga and Naomi stared at each other.  They wondered what they would do with a mad man.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Maveli in the Pothole Republic

Illustration by Copilot Designer I was trying to navigate the moonscape they call a ‘national highway’ when my shoe vanished into a crater big enough to host the G20 summit. Out of it rose a tall figure, crowned and regal, though with a slight limp. “Maveli!” I exclaimed. “Yes,” he said grimly. “Your roads are terrible. I thought the netherworld was bad, but this—this is hell on asphalt.” I helped him up. “Don’t worry, Maveli, our leaders say we’re heading toward becoming a global economic superpower. See, even Donald Trump is impotent before our might.”   Maveli frowned. “Yes, yes. I saw your leader guffawing in the company of Putin and Xi Jinping. When he’s in the company of world leaders, he behaves like a little boy who’s got his coveted toy.” “Are you a little jealous of him, Maveli?” I asked. “I have reasons to be, but I’m not. Let him enjoy his limelight. A day will come when history will put its merciless foot on his head and send him to his own Patala.” Tha...
8 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more