Round 1 : Disgraced
Round 2: Disgraced 2
He saw what happened to his friend Jason. He was beaten to death by his stepfather.
"I was crying helplessly in that corner of the house. The neighbors kept coming back and forth to peep in by the shanty's door. I was seated at the corner near the door while watching Jason's mother crying so loud holding my best friend's dead body."
Luke, twenty years old, was telling his story to the policeman.
"How can adult's be so cruel to little bodies like ours?"
The policeman did not answer. So Luke continued.
"Those were the questions that kept coming to my mind. Anger overwhelmed me. My mind, heart, body and whole being were in a mixture of pain, anger and fears."
The policeman asked how long he knew Jason.
"I had known Jason since I was three years old. Jason was older than me for three years. We were neighbors. Both were only children."
The writer stopped for a while. Turn his look at his pen as if asking it a question.
"How come I did not see Luke in the previous story?"
He looked back at his paper and saw his answer.
"I sneaked in quietly at the corner of the house without anyone noticing me. I was running behind Jason when he was sent to run an errand."
The writer shook his head and smiled. But continued writing.
"Quickly I sat myself in that corner. I hid my face as I wrapped my arms around my knees while Jason's stepfather was beating him. I could not do anything from the time I saw Jason fell on his face. I was shocked, sitting where I was. Then his stepfather grabbed him and I knew then what's coming."
Luke burst into tears. The policeman waited patiently till he recovered.
"The scene was not the first time I had witnessed the beatings. There were many before, but not as worst and never ended with Jason close to death."
The policeman's face changed into obvious anger and disgust.
"Many?"
He asked. Luke nodded and continued.
"Every time it happened to him, we cried together. We would go to the closest bridge where there was a river below. We just called it the bridge. Both of us had never been to school. We did not even know how to write our name. We just knew our name, because that's how we were called by our parents and other people."
Luke stopped for a while with eyes on the prisoner cell's floor. Then with dismay looked back to the policeman across the bars.
"Our parents were of the same kind. They were bad people. To Jason, it was his stepfather who beat him. His mother defended him sometimes when she herself was not high with drugs."
The policeman's face turned red and abruptly he stood up from his chair he put beside Luke's cell. He wanted to hide his tears. Luke continued his story, thinking that the policeman just wanted to stretch his legs.
"On my part, it was my mother who hit me. Every time I made a mistake, no matter how innocent, if I irritate or upset my father, she beat me with whatever she could grab. She would always blame me for something I have never understood. She would say, 'If not because of you, your father would have not beaten me as well.' She would always say those words to me."
The policeman asked Luke a question,
"She was also beaten by your father?"
Luke responded with a shrug of his shoulder.
"Yes! My father beat her even before she hit me. He said to my mother, 'your son with that bastard,' when he got angry with me."
The policeman looked at Luke with more questions in his face. Luke realized he was surprised.
"I know what you are thinking."
Luke took a deep breath and cleared his voice.
"Later in life as I grew up, I found out that my biological father was the stepfather of Jason."
The policeman gave a shocking look. Luke smiled and continued.
"My stepfather then, was the drug lord of Jason's stepfather. The real father of Jason, according to our neighbors who knew him, was a policeman. He left Jason and his mother when Jason was five years old."
Suddenly, the policeman covered his face with both hands and burst into tears.
This time, it was Luke who was surprised, with big eyes and could not believe what's coming into his mind. But it was confirmed.
"I was the father of Jason."
The policeman confessed himself to Luke.
Luke was behind bars standing alone in his cell. He was recently caught by the police in a drug raid on the warehouse owned by his stepfather.
After Jason died, he grew up becoming himself one of his stepfather's agents selling drugs for him. He lived the tough way of life which had changed his character.
It was a long night and the duty policeman talking to him took a chair, made friendly gestures with him like offering something to eat and even a cigarette. Then they started to talk.
"Fuck you asshole!"
Angrily Luke shouted and cursed the policeman and tried to grab him and punch him in the face. The policeman was able to avoid it being outside the locked cell.
The policeman wiped his face of his tears. He picked up his fallen chair and promised something to Luke.
"I will help you Luke. I will help you."
Luke got back to the rail from his cell bed after crying helplessly, with deep anguish in his heart as shown in his face.
"What help are you talking about? You left your own son Jason, and now, you're telling me you will help me? Get lost, devil! Go back to hell!"
The policeman did not say anything but just left Luke alone to himself.
The writer put down his pen. In his mind came the question of what could have happened. Why the policeman left Jason. He wanted to continue writing but as he turned to the next paper to write, the pen fell to the floor. He looked at the pen and questioned.
"That's it?"
He picked up the pen, only to realize that the ink was finished. There he got his answer. He smiled and threw the pen.
"I understand. Maybe next time, right The Pen?"
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