Twist

by Ram Prasath

Sundar was a familiar name in many of the petty thefts in town.

Things became complicated for him when he tried his luck in the local jewelry shops. The jewelry shop owners secretly appointed two contract killers, Jagan and Kumar, to lift Sundar. A date was fixed.

Sundar was at a tea shop, reading a newspaper in the outskirts of town. Jagan and Kumar waited for him to step away from the tea-shop crowd.

A few moments later, Sundar, after paying for his tea, walked through a one-way lane into the bushes. Jagan and Kumar each retrieved a sharp knife from their trousers.

"Stick that thing in his throat. He can't shout," Kumar said.

"By height and weight, he looks much like you, man. Thick-boned. A hard push should do," Jagan murmured.

Sundar kept walking through the bushes. At some distance, the lane turned a bit. He went out of sight.

Jagan and Kumar approached him. At the turning, in the darkness, a swish of a knife was heard, followed by the chopping of flesh.

"Look at God's extraordinary creativity,” Jagan said. “You and Kumar are so much alike that I can trick everyone into believing you are dead, provided you and I share the gold that you picked." Jagan held the knife, dripping with blood, at Sundar's throat.

Kumar lay on the ground, in a pool of blood.

Ramprasath is a curious child always wondering about his cosmic placement. When not writing programs for computers, he watches documentaries on Voyager 1 & 2 and Cosmos.