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My unfinished novel
Krishna's Diary: An extract
Chapter 4:
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Today I saw a snake. It was night, I was so comfortable in my bed and yet
a thorn was sticking into my side. It was a long barbed crooked thorn that
seared the flesh and God, how it hurt! I looked down at my belly, that is always
bulging so hideously, loathing filling my inside like bilious vomit, and I could
see the thorn growing. It had a life of its own, throbbing and writhing and
twisting like an animated thing, searing through my flesh, poking holes through
the yellow blubbery masses that vibrated like a water filled balloon. It grew
all the time and pretty soon I could see that it was not a thorn at all, it was
a snake. Black and gruesome, with little wrinkled scales on its back that
glistened when the light caught it. My skin was shrieking with pain as it buried
its fangs deeper and deeper into my flesh, its busy little head wiggling from
side to side with maniac energy, but I was powerless to do anything about it, my
hands lying helplessly on the sheets. I gazed with horrified fascination as the
little beast seemed to become larger in front of my very eyes, gorging on my
insides, sucking out the life sap that flowed in my veins. All of my energy was
ebbing away, feeding the busy little animal that was working away so
energetically. The weaker I got, the less I could do anything about it, my
powerlessness increasing minute by minute, as the beast got stronger and
stronger. My sides were on fire and yet still I could not move. My mind was
frenetically telling my unwilling muscles to move, my vocal cords to scream, my
entire body to convulse, but none of that was happening. Waves of agony,
unimaginable in their intensity were passing through me, my senses could pick
out each and every single one of the individual nerves that were causing me
pain, but of volition there was none.
After what seemed like forever and the snake was nearly an inch in
diameter and a foot in length, it let go its strangle hold. In an instant I
could move and I scrambled to stem the flow of yellow fat oozing out of my
sides, using my bedsheets and pyjamas and whatever else I could lay my hands on,
but all to no avail. The yellow putrid foul smelling ooze was unquenchable,
bubbling and welling up around my scrabbling fingers, smearing everything in
sight. The snake was wriggling with incredible swiftness, moving like lightning
to all the different parts of my body. My right hand busy at my side, I tried to
grab the damned creature with my left, but the moment my fingers touched it, the
wriggling would redouble in intensity and it escaped my clutching fingers. The
loathsome feeling of its cold touch on my naked skin was unbearable, the
peculiar tickling sensation was intolerable. My eyes were rolling maniacally in
their sockets, trying to keep the two uncontrollable things in sight, but never
succeeding. Suddenly the snake gave a wriggle and passed over to my back and now
I could only feel it. My anxiety was at its peak when the ugly creature passed
down my back and over my bums. Suddenly there was a pause in its movements and I
swear I heard a hoarse cry of pleasure. Like a streak of lightning the thing
squeezed through my arse hole with a final wiggle from side to side. There was a
horrid slurping sucking noise as it vanished inside.
The pain! The most awful pain man has ever felt! Eating my side was
nothing compared to what I felt now, the most terrible pain I have ever felt in
my life. My insides were on fire my intestine was burning. With a horrible
scream of agony I passed out into insensibility.
How long I was unconscious I do not know. When I woke up the sun was
shining bright through through the window. My entire body was a mass of pain,
and when I moved my back there was an agonizing wrench that redoubled my agony.
My mind was still in a state of shock wondering what had happened to the snake.
Was it still inside? Did this pain mean it was eating my inside? I used all of
my concentration to feel inside my body to try and make out what was happening
there, but all I could feel was pain all over. I lay still trying to sense
something, and after a long time I was sure I could feel it after all. The thing
was munching on my spinal cord, that was why there was so much pain there. A
peculiar grating sensation, accompanied by shooting pains as I moved, confirmed
this. It was there, I knew it. I gave a gasp and rushed out of my bed, throwing
my bedclothes to one side. Opening the door, I rushed out into the hostel
corridor, oblivious to the fact that I wore no clothes. My flesh was vibrating
like jelly, my penis flapping up and down crazily. Two of my fellow hostellers
gazed at me with disbelief, which soon changed to broad smiles and hoots of
derisive laughter. I didn't care. I fled through the corridors as if the devil
were after me, desperate to get rid of the creature inside. Hideous yells
pursued me as I rushed down the corridors and I realized with a shock that they
came from my own throat. I ran and ran and ran until I couldn't run any more,
and fell down exhausted from my efforts. I gasped in agony as I tried to catch
my breath , but the vile thing inside of me was hampering my efforts at
breathing, sucking up all the air. I could hear the sucking and gasping noise it
made as it impeded my efforts. It was sitting somewhere in the middle of me and
was flicking its barbed tail painfully from side to side, savouring all of my
suffering. It seemed to enjoy that, thrive on it.
The IIT doctor didn't believe a word of what I said. He thinks this is
all a hallucination. He has not said so, but I can see it in his eyes. He has
referred me to a psychiatrist, who will come to see me in the dispensary
examination bed on which they placed me. He won't believe me either. I just know
it. To them I am mad.
I knew this man from our medical examination when we joined the college.
He is a thin almost cachectic looking man with ugly thick black spectacles. He
had simply given a questionnaire at that time, but just looking at him had
filled me with contempt and loathing, just as it did now. He looked like the
proverbial pasty, the man born to be misled, the man who would believe anything.
I knew this weakling could never be my intellectual match and something swelled
inside of me. I looked hard at it and realised it was my self confidence flowing
back slowly.
The man began with another questionnaire, a verbal one this time. Was I
feeling all right? Yes, I am feeling much better now, thank you. Would I like
something to drink? Yes, coffee would be great, my throat was parched. Was I
comfortable? No, I feel silly wrapped up in a blanket without any clothes on,
could I have them please?
We continued after I was dressed and had my coffee. What had happened? I
don't know, I feel very confused, I hardly remember what happened. Had I taken
any drugs? - There! The fool had given me the very idea I had been cudgeling my
brain for. I remembered the party I had attended yesterday evening, a harmless
one for Atul's birthday in which no one had even got badly drunk. A perfect out
for me. I remembered a movie I had seen in which someone had symptoms similar to
mine with ants and crabs crawling over him, but perhaps it was a withdrawal
symptom rather than effect of the drug itself. It would never do to be thought a
drug addict. I had to keep everything vague and pass it off as a one off drug
effect.
I looked at him and said I had been at a party last night
which had gone on till three O'clock. I could see his eyes brightening,
and grinned to myself. This was too easy. So there the story came out - the
friend I would not name, the white tablet which I had been too scared to eat
last night, pocketing it, drinking too much, continuing to drink back in the
room till five, taking the tablet and the rest I hardly remember. The guy fell
for it, I knew he would. He probably thought it was Mandrax, since it is the
only tablet form drug I knew of, having been offered it once.
I told him it was the first time I had taken anything like that and
promised I never would again. After lectures from everybody I went back to my
room. The guys laughed at me all the way and my friends came and asked who had
provided the drug, but I just swore at them and locked myself up in my room. It
would never do to name names, since there had been no drug last night. No, there
had bee no drug, not even booze. Just the snake.
I felt so normal now that I could simply not comprehend what had
happened. I had been asleep and suddenly had woken up with that thorn sticking
into me. Was it a nightmare? Or was I going mad?