Please DO NOT read the post if you are chicken hearted! A scare indeed today!
The deadly attack on me!
Restlessly I keep turning on my bed, sleep long deserting me. I have handled several adversaries in my life; a few rascals in my trade, some arrogant government officials, a minister or two, several whom I never hesitated in confronting whenever I thought they were wrong.
This was different. My adversary’s imminent attack on my assets was foretold by not less than 37 friends, most whispering as if it was a closely guarded state secret with potential to cause the greatest havoc since the Bhopal tragedy, in India terms! He was never seen by any one, but the whole world seemed scared of him. He could, just with a finger-touch, take away all you possessed; magician, was he? or devil incarnate of the 21st century? No one knew really, but the fear was all pervading. His news spread from the east coast of the US, making a full round of our planet.
He was right now the most famous name that made the world’s greatest villains cower and hide in shame. Gabbar Singh nervously shuffled in his grave and Cambodia’s butcher Pol Pot worried if his name as the worst perpetrator of genocides of millions was going to be snatched away by an unknown nincompoop. But a name dreaded he had become.
The ping in my cell phone was the loudest in decibel that I have heard, despite my disarming my hearing device. It was greater than the sudden thud in the film ‘exorcist’ when the cot jumps us, it was worse than the shriek of the hyenas in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I sweated, mumbling the ever-protective mantra’s my grandmother had taught me when I was barely five years old.
I decided to brave it, touched my forehead to check if the vermillion mark could be still felt as the powdery substance proved still its presence. I meekly opened the cover of my cell phone as the next message from another kind hearted warned me yet again; do not accept a friendship request from Jayden K Smith, who has his system connected with the Facebook. Accept and you lose all and all your contacts are hacked too! It explained of miseries of untold proportions. I trembled, what if my contacts vanish, I have toiled to be admitted as a friend to some of the greatest names, Chiu Ching Chang, Lulumba Lubonda and even more exotic ones. How shall I ever retrace them, as many may not even exist?
No way! I shall not allow any Smith or anyone to ever disturb the small world that I have built around me. My dream cannot be left shattered as I wait for the day break and hurriedly shower and apply an extra layer of heavy vermilion and keep the laptop in front of the many Gods. I vigorously shake the brass bell and pray devotedly. I take a lemon, a few chillies and fistful of salt and exorcise the laptop from any hidden Smithy virus and to protect it from future Smith attacks.
I throw the lemon as far away in my garden and return. I feel sleepy. Here comes my pet dog Scooby, chivalrous, extricating a lemon with vermilion traces from some corner of the garden. I resign to fate as a retrograde Saturn has moved into Sagittarius, whatever that means!
Sampath Kumar