“THERE IS NO TOMORROW”

Deeply overwhelmed by the barbaric act in Peshawar,One of my student, Pranav, 14 years old wrote this ! Numbing our souls!
Respected ma’am
I was greatly influenced by the barbaric act of terrorism on innocent children, and decided to write a story.

“THERE IS NO TOMORROW”

“I think I like her”. Ibrahim glanced over his partner’s shoulder, looking at the girl he liked so much, Massoodi. “It can’t ever happen between us, our families have never been on good terms.” He sat en-captured by his lovers’ beauty. He felt as if time had slowed, even the teacher’s grunt, lecturing on the adjective, seemed like background music, as he looked upon her.
“An adjective is any word naming the attribute of a …” The teacher continued.
“Just go, and tell her. Just do it. Irrespective of what your families opinion. Dude, it is, after all your life!” Rahim, Ibrahim’s best buddy, advised him, like a “Love guru”, looking rather grave, earnest and sobering, concerned for his friend.
Ibrahim continued reading his book, indifferent to his friend, and teacher. It was just him, his thoughts and the book. It was a story about a soldier in enemy territory, trying to escape back into his own. It was deathly cold, but he could not ask for shelter. Instead, when he got tired, he would lie on the ground and will himself to believe that it was warm. It worked for him. Even in the crippling cold, he could use the power of his mind to believe it was warm and that it would all be fine. Ibrahim laughed at what he read.
“Ibrahim, ibrahim”. Rahim, waggled him, breaking his chain of thoughts.
“Oh, yes , yes.I’ll see about it tomorrow. There is always a tomorrow. Ain’t there?.” He smirked. “You are coming tomorrow, aren’t you?”asked Ibrahim.
“Off course.!” He gestured with his fingers, his eyes, stuck to his watch-” the bell rings in 3….2…1!” The bell rang precisely, as Rahim left his index finger, to symbolize one. The boys grinned as the walked out.
They walked out of the main gate, and rahim left for his bus. Ibrahim, for a moment, turned and looked back.
He looked through the the gates of the school, at the long straight road ahead of him, with a playground to the right of the road and the school wall to the left, and then at honk of his bus , ran to catch his bus,that had already been delayed.
—————…………————–…..——–
INTERCEPTS OF PAKISTANI INTELLIGENCE:
“Sallam-e-alikum”
“All set?”
“Yes,commander”
“Are you nervous?”
“Not at all,commander! . Everything will be fine.”
“May allah be with you! COMMANDER OVER AND OUT”
“Over and out”
——————————————————
“Dawood Ibrahim. Wake up. Wake up immediately!” Ibrahim’s mother, a middle aged woman, seemingly in her thirties, tried waking up her stubborn son.
“I’m leaving, now. What it’s already 7? You wake up!”the lady busily left for job.
“Yes mom. Just 2 minutes more. The alarm will ring anyways.” The boy replied sleepily.
——…….. ————–………………………..
2 hours later:
“Damn, I overslept? I should have avoided that wedding. Ah, my stomach hurts too. And this alarm, why didn’t it work? Hahahah, Rahim would be so hot under the collar.” He smiled at the mere thought and memory of his friends. There was something, just something that made him smile. There had to be.
——–…….-.-.-…………………….
They scaled the wall of the school, separating it from the adjacent graveyard, carrying heavy Ak-47’s , hand grenades, and dynamites attached to vests.
Six taliban gunmen stormed the school, toyed with students.
The class-9 students, sat in an english lecture.
“Rahim, you incorrigible inattentive boy! What is it that is bothering you?” The tall teacher, with dark enchanting hair, and deep green eyes stared upon Rahim.
“Sir, I can’t help being distracted by these gunshots. They are extremely..” Rahim lied. His literal cause of in-alertness was the skipping of school by Ibrahim.
“Oh, they are nothin’. They are probably from the first aid class. The sounds are of the demonstration. Now relax, and focus.” He emphasised on the word “focus”.
“But, Mr. Khan, they are growing louder.”shouted a voice , full of fear, from the far end corner of the classroom. It was Massoodi.
“Fine, let me check, if you insist!”
The teacher, opened the door and suddenly rushed back, in haste-
“Get under your benches. Quickly!” He yelled, in vehement outcry.
He tried to bolt the door, just when, someone distressed from sudden activity, pushed it from outside. Mr. Khan fell to the ground, when two men, in army-like uniforms , carrying AK-47’s
barged in.
“Make no noise and do as we say!” Their faces were covered with black cloth.
“All those, who wish to be let go, raise your hands!” The entire class responded to the call by doing so. “Alas, I need only eight.” The gunmen laughed.
“Akar, bakar, bombay, baw-aasi, nabe puure saaw. Hahaha.” The picked a student , every time they finished the rhyme.
They made them stand, facing the wall in front of the blackboard.
One burly gunman, forced the teacher to a chair. “Watch, as your loved ones die. Ours are also being killed in the same way.”
He opened fire on the children, ruthlessly and heartlessly. The children slumped to the ground, some dead, while others writhing and moaning in agony.
“Now , now, now. I want eight more . Whose turn is it, to die first?” The gunman grabbed and pulled students, to take them near the blackboard, when nobody raised their hands. The students wrenched violently, pulling at each other, refusing to let go.
As the gunman, started pulling Chaheti, Massoodi intervened.
” Take me. But leave her unharmed!” She wailed as she spoke.
The gunman, thought for a moment, and shot Massoodi, in the middle of her head. Rahim, from the opposite end, lamented. He blinked of tears.
The second gunman, guarding the door, paused briefly, to make a phone call-
“How is it going?”
We have killed all of the children in the auditorium,” the militant replied. “What do we do now?”
“Wait for the army to arrive,” came the reply. “Kill them, then blow yourself up.”
After the telephonic conversation, the gunman guarding the door, informed the other, seeing the troops-“Mayday, mayday. Abort. We must leave. They are here. Quick!”
The terrorists, started spraying bullets indiscriminately, and left.
Rahim got two bullets on his shoulder. He tried to cover his wound with his tie, but fell conscious.
Elsewhere, in the school complex – four main buildings clustered around a central administration block – it was the blood of children that dominated. It was everywhere: smeared on the walls, pooled in the corridors and soaked in abandoned clothes. The smell of explosives and charred flesh filled the air.
The greatest carnage occurred, apparently, inside the assembly hall, with more than 100 bodies, many piled on one another. Shoes, copybooks and spectacles were scattered amid empty rows of seats where, according to witness accounts, students had cowered in vain attempts to evade the killers. They were singled out, one by one, and shot in the head.
The militant rampage was cut shot, when the army’s elite SPECIAL SERVICE GROUP entered the school.
The gunmen retreated, holing up in the central administration block. They used the walls as cover, opening fire on the advancing soldiers.
One commando with a microphone, announced-” Surrender, and expect leniency. This is the last…..”
It was there, where the siege ended. Five militants exploded their suicide vests in the lobby; the remaining two charged at the commandos who had taken position outside the building. They also exploded their vests, sending a spray of shrapnel into trees and walls and wounding seven commandos.
———————-………….
“Where is the bus? I have been waiting for an hour now. How late can it get?” Ibrahim in a fit of anger, left the bus stop. He was waiting for his friends.
He returned home, and switched on the television. He turned to a news channel. His eyes, were
Glued to the television, not believing what they saw. “These news channels now-a-days. They show just about anything for popularity.” He switched channels.
“the pupils who have survived the massacre recuperated in the hospital or just counted their luck. Some said they escaped the gunmen by hiding in a nearby graveyard; others played dead for hours, lying among the corpses of their classmates as a gunbattle raged between militants and soldiers. ” The journalist then, stopped talking, for a minute, as whole of Pakistan observed a minutes’ silence, as a tribute to the students who were subject to such barbarity.
Ibrahim’s smile turned to wailing and lamenting as he saw pictures of his mates, with no life in them.
He knew, in that moment, why he smiled at the mere thought of his friends .
“How could I have? I am left all alone? Rahim…….!” He couldn’t take it anymore.
He ran to his mother, and hugged her passionately.

He spent the whole of the next day attending funerals. His city, Peshawar became a city of small coffins.
” The smaller they are, the heavier they get.” He thought. Through the day, mournful funeral processions wended through the otherwise deserted streets, as the victims of the massacre were escorted to mosques and graveyards.

Unending tears flowed from his eyes. In his mind’s eye, the length of the schools’ road remained the same, but He struggled to recall it with the images of little dead bodies superimposed over it.
When He was reading that book, He remembered finding it impossible to believe that we could use the power of our minds to ignore the stark facts before us. Now, He saw how it is possible and how they had all been doing it for so long.
They had been, for the most part, warm despite the cold, unflinching terror before them.

That night, He tried every remedy and position to fall asleep, but where was sleep going to come, in eyes of a young boy, whose life had come to a halt , or as it seemed. So there he was, tossing and turning in bed, waiting for sleep to come, thinking to himself –
“THERE IS NO TOMORROW!”….

The END