Shadow Play by Rajorshi Chakraborti Page A

picture emerged inside me of someone in a T-shirt and shorts beginning to run on the other pavement.
    For the first time in those two months, I knew terror. I had put my foot in the water counting on being bitten, and yet without expecting it. I had still believed no one could mount anything that large: after all, I’d called the world’s bluff so many times before. No one ever imagined it was the cat that killed its uncle, even after they’d seen and heard everything – that had become the lesson of a lifetime. The world was so messy, so multiple, immersed in itself, entangled at so many points. Everybody had friends and enemies, debts and indiscretions, secrets – and whatever the police might suspect, they were always obliged to investigate everything. I’d kept a clear head and let nothing ever stick to me; I had thought that was all the protection I needed. Because the world was so full of the unbelievable, yet the sheer scale of the mundane helped disguise everything, or so I had believed.
    I picked up speed on the empty pavement. I knew I would have to keep turning because I couldn’t leave the area; I would be ‘captured’ again the moment I emerged on a main street. My only chance was to tire out my pursuer before I myself had to halt, and gain a lead large enough so I could hide, maybe jump into a garden. There I would stay still until nightfall. I turned around to check the distance between us, and that’s when he made his error. He never stopped running but he pulled his phone out from his pocket. I made one last effort and turned. He was just approaching the corner when I turned again. Up ahead was another street. When I reached it a few seconds later, he was a street and a turn behind me. This was my moment. I crossed, jumped a wall, ran across a garden, another wall, and crouched behind a shed.
    Instantly I switched off. There were streets I could have taken in front of me but I knew he would call for reinforcements.I didn’t care how long they searched – I would remain here and outwait them. I wouldn’t even listen out for them, because I might give myself away. I might take an unnecessary precaution, or they might hear my heartbeat. So I stretched out on the grass on my side, my right arm acting as a pillow. And I deliberated these things for a few minutes, in the course of which I must have dozed off.
    It was already dark when I awoke, but I stayed for another hour. When I was sure I could hear nothing I crawled towards the wall, glanced around and jumped over. I had already begun striding away when I realized the street wasn’t quite empty. About twenty yards from me, there was a little boy behind a lamp post on the other pavement. I turned around to look at him, but he remained where he was. When I continued walking, I could feel that he was following me. I made my first turn and waited. Sure enough, he reached the street and kept staring. It would only create trouble if I went nearer or said something, I argued to myself. He’s a kid and he’s seen me jump out of a garden. He’s just playing cops and robbers.
    But he continued all the way to the main street without ever closing the twenty-yard distance. It struck me that I hadn’t really seen his face, that he might be a full-grown man, a midget or a dwarf. He might be the night-watchman they’d left behind. At the same time I realized I was on an unfamiliar road, that I had emerged the wrong way. But retracing my steps meant facing him: suddenly I didn’t want to be on those dark side streets again, and I couldn’t be certain of his reaction if I started walking towards him.
    I broke into a light jog, believing it would be enough to lose him. But when I looked, there he was, still twenty yardsbehind me. I kept this up for a few more blocks and then had another idea: how would a child dare follow someone who ran down the middle of a four-lane artery? So I speeded up and