The Last Mission

By Dhrupad Mahanta (12K) & Vyoman Jain (11G)

“O hello Mister Buddhua!” the shopkeeper called, “What will you buy today? I have fresh catfish here, just for you!”

Buddhua hated it when people called him with that name. It meant ‘dumbo’. His given first name was Gyanendramohan, ‘the wise one’, and he was not really stupid. But, by the time he had reached primary school, his friends, and soon, his family, neighbours, and shopkeepers started calling him ‘Buddhua’, relishing the irony to the fullest.

This ritual persisted, and now, even though he was forty-five, married and had two kids, this childish, ironic nickname persisted.

“Where’s the catfish?” Buddhua asked the shopkeeper. He was on his Sunday morning shopping, dressed in a dull, stained shirt, tucked into his loose, faded cargo shorts, and mismatching leather sandals. The weather was hot and sticky, the air heavy, humid and stifling. There was an omnipresent smell of sweat, rotting fish, meat and vegetables, and there was a deafening din of that never-ending bargaining, calling, and shouting that prevailed in every Indian bazaar. 

“Here it is!” the shopkeeper barked triumphantly, producing the said catfish.

“This isn’t even a catfish. It’s an eel with fake whiskers…”

Buddhua bought it anyway and was having it packed when the phone in his pocket rang.

The phone rang thrice in quick succession. Buddhua realised what that meant. He dashed to the nearest alleyway with remarkable speed. The shopkeeper was left with the fake catfish in his hand, calling after him, “Buddhua babu, your catfish...!!” The Buddhua’s harried eyes darted around as he made sure no one had followed him into the alley. On finding a nook, he answered the call in a whisper, only to hear a robotic voice on the other end. Almost sounding like an IVR, the flat voice delivered a message:

‘Agent, your request for extraction has been rejected. The agency cannot afford to have another incident in your region. So, in line with the original plan, the rendezvous will occur at the scheduled time tomorrow. Continue with the same alias and be prepared for tomorrow. Good luck and Godspeed!’

Reeling under the impact of this cold message, Buddhua took deep breaths. He walked out of the alley to face his impending doom awaiting him in two quite different forms: the shopkeeper’s ire and his flawed mission.

“Ugh!” he thought, on his way back to the fish vendor, “not again. I’m tired of these cases! If only Boss would get it that I have a family too, that I have a life apart from my work…”

The shopkeeper had given away the catfish to another customer. Buddhua hit his forehead in despair.

“Come again tomorrow sir…”

Buddhua nodded, morosely.

He took his phone out of his pocket again, as he turned away. There were at least fifty messages lying there, at least half of them from his boss. He started to read them, one by one: 

There was a mission, from what he gathered from the messages, and he was needed to…

“Watch out! Buddhu Babu!”

It was the shopkeeper. Buddhua had, unwittingly, while looking at his phone, begun to cross the street, and realised, to his horror, that a speeding car was headed right towards him. The driver, unable to brake, screamed at Buddhua in despair, “I can’t stop! Move outta the way!”

Desperately, Buddhua tried to move away from the path of the car, but, as fate would have it, the driver, in a desperate attempt to swerve out of Buddhua’s way, also steered in the same direction, meaning both the driver’s and pedestrian’s attempts were nullified, and they were still on the same course…

With a huge zoom, many sparks and massive friction, the car ran over him and hit the fisherman’s stall in a melee of blood, fish, water, fire, and smoke.

‘The Wise One’s mangled corpse lay on the roadside, among the ghastly remains of a busy marketplace and a misshapen, twisted metallic car wreck…

His mission had thus ended before it could even start.

The End!