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On the Receiving End

by Md Atique Ullah A Level, Aga Khan School
**Here is a new and exciting series story. Two burglers are about to open a safe while the inmates of the house are away ... a lone man walks despondently on the streets .. Where is the connection ?What will happen ... Who will be ... 'On the Receiving End" ?
IITJ URRYup! Wc don't
£1 have much time. The owner might turn up any moment now." urged the man with a dark complexion as he undid his lungl and knotted It properly. The other man whose eyes were fixed rigidly on the safe lock making his best effort to unlock the sale, producing feeble clattering sounds slightly stooped over and looked bitterly at his companion as If vexed by the urgency.
"What do you think I am doing? Sucking lolly pop? I am trying my best to open the safe and you are here doing nothing but delaying the process by talking." the man busy with the lock said coldly as he Jerked off the bunch of hair hanging over his eyes.
"Well, go on. Try your best. It's no time for a quarrel." The dark man said feeling that ft was not the right moment to an nay him.
It was almost midnight. The streets were secluded and people were already sound asleep in their bed. And these two men were trying In vain to open the safe of a rich man who had gone off to attend a marriage ceremony with his family save the maid servant of the house, by whose grace and help these two burglars had succeeded In entering the *ffic maid servant stood near the edge of the door keeping her eyes on the street to warn her accomplices of the arrival of the owner who was due to come before midnight. She was poorly clad in a dirty worn-out saree which was donated to her during the last Eld festival by the lady of the house. She was gripping the end of her saree with her light yellow, stinky teeth for she felt shy tn front of the man busy with the lock with whom she was not acquainted. Of course, she knew the dark man — he was her lover
"Well, how far?" the dark man Inquired Impatiently. He rubbed his two hands In expectation. His eyes were flickering In the semi-darkness — darkness mingled with the dim light of the torch — of the room, looking at the safe greedily.
"Easier said than done. Be patient, will you V
"You don't understand. If we get caught we are dead meat."
"OK OK. Don't worry. I'm almost at the end" the lock expert said raising his head.
He was a better looking man than his companion and the maid servant was glancing at him through the corner of her eyes now and then, forgetting her vigilance of the street.
Not very far away, there was another man walking on the streets searching desperately for the doctor's house. His daughter, a three year old child, was terribly ill. His wife had requested him to go in search of a doctor; she told him that there was one at the second street where many wealthy families dwell.
At first, he stubbornly resisted saying he wouldn't go out in search of a doctor at such an hour but the pitiful wall of his daughter melted his stubbornness and persuaded him to go.
Drops of perspiration had accumulated on his forehead in desperation and failure and poured down his moist face like an avalanche gaining momentum every second. He wiped off the sweat with the crook of his finger and glanced at the luxurious bungalows and wished he lived in one of them. For sometime he forgot about his ailing daughter and became deeply absorbed in a fantasy world where he was very rich and had no sorrow. He Imagined having expensive cars whose glittering colour was pleasant to look at. He also imagined having many servants and his wife ordering them or admonishing them for their offence and his daughter having beautiful and expensive toys. A mild, blatant smile appeared on his face unconsciously which triggered off his eyes into a wider range of vision in the fantasy world.
Suddenly, as if oozing out of hts sub-conscious mind, his fantasy shattered into sheer reality at the barking of a stray dog where the reminiscence of his ailing daughter displeased him for a moment He heaved a
sigh of sadness. He stood infront of a gate of a bungalow and studied the inscriptions on the number plate hung on the gate. Although, the inscriptions on the plate were obscured by the low Intensity of the light of the lamps hoisted high above on the lamp-post, his eyes became quite powerful enough to see them.
To be continued