I LEAVE IT TO YOU - CHAPTER II

Minutes passed before he was brought back to conscience. His mind however hard it tried to render him sentient, his heart acted otherwise. You know, there is a greater indication of sorrow than tears, the state of shock in which the brain stops working, tears stop flowing and the body just stays stiff as if approaching rigor mortises. Finally the battle between the mind and the heart was finished and done with the mind emerging the slow victor. Tears started flowing immediately and his body began loosening. It took him a couple of minutes again to plan the next course of action. Timothy had no one else other than Hoggar and Steve. He should go there immediately whatever said and done. So he just started running all the way to Timothy’s place. He did the right thing as the frequency of buses and trains at this time of the day would be minimal or completely nil. He didn’t have a vehicle of his own too.
He ran frantically, palpitating heavily and his soft black hair waving up and down like the great oceans. Tears and sweat flowing together through his face. Totally exasperated, he rested for awhile on a bench at the side of the road. His heart beating fast and his stomach making crests and troughs like radio waves. After a few minutes he started running back. Timothy’s place was not very far, just about 2 miles. Not a distance at all for wheels but really a big distance for the foot. Reaching Timothy’s place, he saw Steve standing near the door as if like a watchdog. Steve looked devastated too partly because of his friend’s death and partly because of his inability to think what he was supposed to be doing next.
“He was just returning home from his office” Steve was telling Hoggar inbetween sobs “guess he didn’t see the big truck coming fast in the turning”. Hoggar just pushed his hands in air as if asking Steve to stop talking. He knew the rest of the story. He had actually seen the whole scene already. He didn’t need to hear the whole thing again. Steve looked shocked at Hoggar’s behavior but he thought it was because he couldn’t take in the facts of his friends gruesome death.
Both of them used each other’s shoulder to place their heads and each other’s shirt to wipe their tears. After their eyes went dry without any tears to shed they decided on what to be done next. They planned for a funeral to be held two days later. They wouldn’t require a lot of time to inform people and ask them to attend the funeral because of the very simple fact that there are just a handful of people who would be informed, just a few colleagues and a few friends.
He returned back home at about two in the night. He had calmed down. He was a very pragmatic man. Eventhough Timothy was his best friend and there was no one else in the world more valuable than Timothy, he couldn’t imagine sitting at a corner of the house and mourning for him a whole week. He was practical enough, but not enough to get him sleeping that night. Sleep was really necessary, he knew it. The next day he had to inform a few people the not-so-good news and arrange for the funeral and make some money too. He took sedatives and sleep came to him ‘tablettically’. It would have been about 4:30 in the morning. Hoggar was enjoying his soporific interlude till then. Then he started dreaming his early morning dreams.
Hoggar was standing perplexed and intrigued. The train was moving at a slow speed and had a big crowd in it. He was standing near the door wondering why he ever got into the train. He wanted to break the glass and just jump out of the train but he could never do such a thing. He was standing there, all shivering and frightened. Why? He didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Next, there was a continuous honking noise that penetrated even closed doors and windows. Immediately next, a big bang and a huge crash. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He was thrown over some smooth green fields with terrible injuries and little conscience. A severe pain on his ankles was trying to kill him. For that matter, he didn’t even know if he was dead or not.