The dark knight

The night is dark in a very excitingly scary way. The roads are sparse and there in a hint of bad weather. The phone rings. A few cousins and friends are with me and we look at each other. I pick up the phone.

Nazi like voice from a 80s Hollywood movie: “Will you be the CEO?”

Me (fully aware that I can’t get that quality in my voice ever): “Uh, wha… what?” (I kill the lack of a forceful voice further with my downer of a stutter)

This time the same but almost Nazi like voice from a 80s Hollywood movie: “I said will you be the CEO?”

Me (apparently with a vague idea of what is being spoken about, but just to be sure): “A CEO?”

Friend T has meanwhile heard me talking and pounced upon me: “CEO?!?! Say yes!”

Me (almost confused): “Uh, okay.”

Click of the phone.

Me: “What was this all about?!”

Friend T (super excited): “CEO is the code word for the undercover agent! They were calling from CACO and you will be their lucky hero!”

Me: “What’s CACO?”

Friend T (in his 15 minutes of fame): “That’s the Central Agency for Clandestine Operations. The most prestigious investigative agency. With unlimited power.” He has clearly worked with them before. As a CEO. (?).

Me: “Well… I am not sure if I am up to it.” Why am I sweating so much! “I am sure it will involve dealing with criminals and goons! I have no experience of all of that.” Read in between the lines – I am feeling super faint-hearted (or make it sissy) even at the thought of a gangster or an assailant. I am hiding my hands behind my back so that friend T and others can not see what fingers shivering faster than a volcanic activity look like.

Friend T (clearly losing his head from the top of his broad shoulders and increasingly erupting with unsolicited arrogance): “Oh come on! It isn’t all that difficult. The strength lies within you. It is in the mind. Look for it inside you instead of outside somewhere. Blah blah blah (lasting five seemingly eternal minutes).”

Me: Well, I did not say anything but perhaps I thumped in to a chair. Perhaps they all saw my fingers trembling like a mad dog or perhaps I myself started trembling like one.

Friend T (reaction to a mad dog?): “I really thought you were brave – did not expect such a cowardly side of you.”

Me (hurt and infuriated, snapped out of the mad dog thankfully): “Oh please. If you really want to encourage, then do that. Do not use all these negative reinforcements or threats or whatever they are.”

Friend T (walking inside a room without talking and emerging out with some weird stuff): “Here, take these.” I look at the gadgets in a bewildered way. He hands over huge green roller skates to me. “These are faster that a leopard – give you real head start over any possible attacker.” Gulp. Next, he takes out this fat gun with some small red and green buttons. And wait, the gun has roller skates fitted on to it too. “A roller gun – will guard you ferociously.” Longer and more painful gulp – painful probably because my mouth being so dry, there is nothing left to gulp. And out comes a transistor or is it a black box? “This is a talking radio. It will scan all directions when you are on the move and keep you updated on what’s happening on all sides. You will always be on top of the situation knowing well in advance about who ever approaches you from any side.” End of gadgets – smug look on friend T’s face. I look wretchedly for more gadgets but find none forthcoming.

I look out of the window and promisingly enough, the CACO car has arrived and waiting around my corner. If they are so dreaded, then clearly all anti-social elements track their activities and they know they are at my door steps tonight. So when I will step in five minutes concealed beautifully in my gigantic green roller skates holding the overweight roller gun and the quaint talking radio, they will be left with no doubts that I am the new, you know what. CEO is way too asinine for me to pronounce. And so they will follow me dutifully and well, you know what. Okay, let me say it even if it is supremely dreadful for me to pronounce. Follow me dutifully and kill me. A really dry gulp.

{{This is an extract from my dream last night}}
{{No, seriously, what have I been eating?!}}
{{There was a short culmination, which in the hindsight seems more like a doctored climax to satiate and pamper my ego but I can bet it did happen in the same dream}}

And so I step out. The huge green roller skates are very cumbersome and I somehow stumble out of my door.

And the transformation begins.

The clothes are quickly shed in favor of a white coat and pant. A stethoscope is hunted out from behind a dumpster and hung around my neck by my confident fingers. The clumsy skates are discarded with a trace of a smirk.

The best undercover agent steps out in to the night and the garb of a doctor itself bows in honor. As she walks out in to the night, the CACO along with the many gangsters and goons make way, their fingers shivering like a mad dog that winks somewhere at a distance.