Shadow Play by Rajorshi Chakraborti

options? I had already tried underestimating them. What was overestimation going to achieve? But it was unthinkable that I should dangle for months waiting for their call, not knowing whether they were watching me. I would have to run. Should I fetch my passport, or should I just bolt one day in the middle of the street? Suddenly the simplicity of the second plan struck me. If I took off, someonewould be forced to give chase. And even if they were working in teams posted at various street corners, the chasing would have to continue. The very fact of people running after me would confirm that I was being followed, but surprising them seemed the only way to break their dragnet. If I had my passport on me and acted fast and with sufficient unpredictability, it could be my one chance to leave the country.
    It took me four days to organize myself, and in that time I had two dreams. In the first one I was assigned a job, and I watched myself beating down the subject repeatedly with a spade in the middle of a dark field, the lights of the city far beyond us. Then I buried him and headed towards the lights to report to my masters. I located Faisul at a party and shouted to him over the din that I had done it. ‘But you haven’t,’ he smiled, then took my hand and started walking. We passed through one crowded room after another until he pointed out the man I’d just killed, the big Turk, in a corner with a drink, chatting. ‘Go right now and make sure you finish it properly.’ As I ran towards him with my knife in my hand, two men stepped up from behind him and held his arms for me so I could swing unimpeded into his stomach. I drove into him once and once again and turned around to Faisul for approval. ‘Maestro, you’re losing your touch. Look carefully and ensure you have finished.’ Sure enough, the Turk was still standing, but now the tables had turned. He was moving towards me; the men behind him had disappeared. I looked again to Faisul in desperation but he had already left the room. And when I started running, the Turk followed right after.
    The second dream was even stranger. Immense spaceships had landed on legs as long as thirty storeys as I stood watching from the roof of a high building. The city below was alreadyrubble in all directions, night covered everything, and they had thrashing long whip-like arms to bring down the few buildings that remained around me. The walls crumbled like chalk but it was all peculiarly noiseless. No one else was around to be aware that the city was dying. Then the first whips struck my building. Gradually, by breaking away the edges, all they left me with was a large crumb of roof, standing on a similarly shaped section of the building. The whip seized me in its grip, lifted and turned me upside down. It slipped a plastic suit over me that fitted me perfectly and covered my face and my hands, sticking close to my skin in all places. Then they started sending bolts and charges through me. I couldn’t scream because the plastic had perfectly sealed off my mouth, and I couldn’t close my eyes because it was sticking to the eyeballs.
    A day after I had persuaded myself to return home, I ran on Muswell Hill High Street.. At first I thought I wasn’t being followed because no one began running after me. After two hundred yards I was about to slow down and reconsider when it struck me that they would have the intersections and busier streets covered. All it would require was for someone to calmly call ahead and warn their relay to expect me earlier than usual. I had no right to assume anything. The real test would be the side streets: I would have to turn into a quiet neighbourhood entirely against their expectations; only there could I expect to lose them. And I would have to do this now, because they knew I was planning to flee. So, without breaking stride I turned into a suburb and turned again, and sure enough, even though I was looking ahead, a