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MUSTARD I – Ch. 2 | KT OLLA

THE tender voice rose above the fading noise. It was a younger man’s voice.

‘Must man play that game with death to be sure he is man? Or is he born different till death calls him man?

‘Really, must we go and fall in war to prove ourselves men?’

Those words were spilled like water. They weren’t supposed to be spoken out for all ears...

But Moro was lost in thought all the while. And here he was, back to the place and thinking his thoughts aloud without knowing it.

Moro was the sixth son of Dada. And what the sixteen-year-old shared with his older siblings was just their father.

He had a different mother.

Then even now, he had got a different view.

His brothers looked in his direction as the eldest one went fuming at the lad.

He shouted at him. ‘Morrohh!!’

And then the next moment, he made to pounce on him as the other boys stopped him.

‘Brother, let me handle this,’ someone requested.

‘Let me talk to him instead,’ said another.

Several words came from different angles as one of the men reached the kid first.

He was the fifth, and Moro’s immediate elder. So he asked:

‘What is your plan? Do you not know we must all fight in this war?

‘What exactly is your plan to think otherwise?’

And right then, an older one spoke. He was quite taller than the former as he was the second one of Dada’s sons.

‘Nonsense! Nonsense!! Is that the way you handle this fool?’ he asked with a snarl.

He walked up to Moro and stood against him with a stampeding stance. The sixteen-year-old staggered back and fell.

Now the second one shot an angry eye at the fifth.

‘Do you really mean to reason with this fool? The point isn’t whether or not he knows we must fight.

‘But here’s the point: Your half-brothers are born cowards! And cowards must all go with this battle!

‘Now mark my words: this is the end to Dada’s bastard children!’

He faced Moro. The boy was getting up; so he said:

‘Listen here: when real men talk, cowards stay mute! Do you hear me?!’

Moro grunted and turned to find a seat.

Yes, the mood was already tense and the brothers didn’t like their chatters going south.

They wanted a heated talk about the fierce battle at the warfront. Yet here the mood was ruined already.

So the brightest of the men decided to save the situation. He was the third of Dada’s sons. Then he had got his way around words.

So, the young man picked up right there, and spun the conversation his own way.

He saw that the men couldn’t pick the talk about warfare now. So he tried to lift the mood his way.

 It was the way of taunting, and poking, and laughing at the boy.

Everyone joined the man in taunting the kid. Then they faced his two young brothers and taunted them, too.

Now while the grown-up boys taunted their young wards, Moro was off already to an island in his mind.

The lad mused and knew things that didn’t seem to make sense. He stretched—thought of an age that didn’t look like one of theirs.

He was young, so he liked to dream. Liked to grow, and love, and live.

Then at a point in his thoughts, he woke and spoke things out.

‘I will see tomorrow! I will not die in war! I will not pass with this war!’

Yes, his taunters heard him talk and went laughing at him more.

But Moro didn’t seem like the taunted one. For he sat back on a small rock and smiled to himself.

He seemed to have found a way to live past Now.

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