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Chapter one
Eric woke up and stopped the alarm clock buzzing for
over a minute. The bright sun ray was already
halfway across his bedroom. Pushing the blue
coloured down blanket aside, he yawned and
stretched both arms as far as they could reach.
Rubbing his eyes, he looked around the bed and bedside table for his cellphone. Then he paused. The
house is unusually quiet, especially for a saturday
morning. No whirring sound of the vaccum cleaner
whenever his mother performs the daily cleaning
routine that seems to never end on saturdays. The
alarm buzzed at 10 am. Two hours ago his mother would have pulled the blanket off to wake and remind
him that his room wont clean itself. Eric casually got out of his bed and saw the phone
lying on the floor. He might have dropped it as he fell
asleep the night before. Picking it up, he checked for
missing calls and new text messages as he adjusted
the collar of his pyjamas. He paused again and cocked
his ears for any sound or movements. Except the muffled chatters of kids playing outside the six storey
apartment, the house was dead silent. Wondering
what his mother was upto, he head towards the door
of his bedroom. “Mom!”, he called out as he crossed the living-room,
heading towards the dining. No answer. Eric opened the refrigerator and took out a half filled
bottle of water. Closing the door, he noticed a yellow
sticker on it as he raised the bottle to his lips. “Gone to see someone i will be
back by afternoon. Make sure u
eat your breakfast” It was his mother’s hand writing and was hurriedly
written. Eric pursed his lips and swallowed the cold water.
“Probably gone to see Dave”, he thought with a smirk. Mr David whom Eric calls Dave was a patient his
mother met in the hospital where she worked as a
nurse. A few dinner dates and unending phone chats
later, a good chemistry had being developed between
him and Eric’s mother. Eric got to know what was
going on when he noticed the greater amount of time his mother spent on wearing make-ups. And seeing
her checking out some dresses infront of the mirror in
her bedroom. Dresses Eric never knew his mother
had. Some late nights he do caught her in the balcony
of their apartment smiling and talking softly on her
cellphone. Eric took a few more gulps of the cold water and
grimaced. He hate the taste in his mouth and need to
brush his teeth.It’s 2pm and the dojo is packed with practitioners of
different ages and sizes. All of them were doing one
form of training or the other since it was the dojo free
training day. The place was big but not that very big and located at
the basement of the building. It had everything. Six
punching bags hung on the left side. Four of them
were heavy bags. Away from the punching bags and
against the wall is a big four legged wooden frame
that resembled a swing, but smaller. It hanged four heavy sandbags. Two were above around the chest
level with a few inches of space between them and
the other two were below and a few inches above the
floor with similar space in between them. Next to the
wooden frame is a rack of dumbells and barbells. The
right wall is adorned with a large blue coloured logo that had “KYOKUSHIN-KAN KARATE” written on top of
it and a japanese inscription on the side. There is alot of energy in the place. Some practiced
and perfected their ‘katas’ infront of the giant sized
mirror facing the dojo. Others were either stretching,
hard hitting the punching bags or conditioning their
knuckles and shins with the “Makiwara” , a padded
striking post firmly attached to the sandbag frame. The little kids contented themselves with running
around and play wrestling on the padded floor After completing the tenth round of a five minutes
hard hitting of the heavy bag with both fist and leg
combinations, Eric wiped the sweats dripping from his
face with a towel. He is trying to control his breath
and must have pushed himself too hard. Drinking
some of the mineral water he had with him, Eric proceed to the “Mkiwara” to condition his knuckles
while he cooled off. Taking the stance and making sure it was right, he
begin to rhythmically pound the first two knuckles of
his fist on the wooden board. Unclenching the fist as
he withdrew and clenching before it hit. The thumping
sound keep getting louder and louder as he put more
power to the punch, earning him a few stares mostly from the beginners. “Dude…..is that how hard u can punch?”, Eric paused for a moment and continued. He
recognized the voice. “No wonder guys dont wanna fist fight with u because
u might tickle them to death with those lady punches”. “Oh yeah?”…….i hope u dont mind me tickling u on the
neck right now”, Eric began as he turned and faced
Stanley, his best friend. “Where the hell are u coming
from?”, he asked. “From the hospital” “Hospital?…..so what is it this time?, herpes or
something worse?” “Ask your sister…….u should have told me she was a
bed frame tester”, Stanley feigned seriousness as he
tried to suppress a smile. “Let’s just say i wanted to teach u a lesson”, Eric said. The two friends laughed and shook hands that was
more like grabbing arms. Stanley was more built than
Eric but not as tall. He was their high school wrestling
champion and he is now training with the national
wrestling team. He is 18, same age as Eric. “So what’s up with u yesterday?”, Stanley asked as he
looked around the dojo. “What do u mean?”, Eric wasn’t sure of what he was
talking about.Stanley looked at Eric surprisingly. “About Jerry’s
birthday. U promised to attend only to call at the
eleventh hour saying that u wont make it. And u
sound rather impatient on the phone”, Stanley stated. Eric remembered. He was with Janet. Actually he had
made his plans for the occasion until Janet called. He
didnt know how she got his number and was pretty
sure that Liz didnt give it to her. She said she wanted
to have dinner with him to show her appreciation for
what he did for her last week. Eric had refused the offer and quite vehemently when she was so
insisting. Until she told him she already booked a table
at an upscale restaurant called the Valentino’s. The
restaurant is well famed in Metro-city and no one ever
refuses an offer to have dinner there, especially on a
friday evening because there are always the possibilities of meeting a celebrities and getting an
autograph. It was said that tables there were booked
in days advance, even weeks. Eric had wondered
how Janet pulled it off till he learnt that the restaurant
proprietress was her god mother. “So why the change of heart?”, Stanley asked Eric,
interrupting him in his thoughts “Home issues”, Eric lied and picked up two 12kg
dumbbells from the rack. “My mother needed my help
in sorting out some stuffs………work stuff”. “Ok”, Stanley murmured thoughtfully as he watched
his friend do the curling exercise. “So how was it………the birthday”. Eric asked and
pursed his lips as he curled up the dumbbells. “It was okay. Lots of drinks, good food and alot of old
friends from high school attended”. Stanley replied “What about Jerry?”. “Quite disappointed when he heard u won’t be
coming. He wanted to know why, so i told him u were
on a date with your girlfriend”. Stanley smiled. Eric completed the tenth rep. He re-racked the weight
and looked at Stanley. “U knew that he wasn’t happy because of my absence
in his party”. he began. “Then u told him i didn’t make
it because i chose to go on a date with a
girlfriend?……….congratulation……u are a genius and a
best friend indeed”. “Dude i know u were out seeing that girl…..dont tell
me u were at home helping your mother”. Stanley
said with a funny look. “Which girl?”. Eric wondered if he had seen him and
Janet. “The rich girl, the one whose mother is a fashion
designer” “U mean Liz?”. Eric was relieved. “Dude she is just a
friend and i wasnt with her that day. She also has a
boyfriend”. “Really?…” . Stanley asked looking at Eric intently.
“…because last time we were together, she had this
thing in her eyes each time she stared at u. Like some
kind of hunger”.
