The Man with Broken Wings

It was Sunday market day. Usually karma and his wife went for shopping but that day his seven years old daughter blocked the door and would not let them go. “Apa, I also want to go along” she would say with tears welled up and wouldn’t move from the door until he agreed to take her along as well.

It was a warm Sunday morning where sun was young and gentle. They had just reached the market when their neighbor Tashi called out “Karma, came for shopping?” extending his hand for a firm shake. Karma nodded.  “ You know, the price of asparagus has gone up by five Ngultrum compared to last week?” Tashi said showing his basket full of vegetables. And they started their talk about the rise and fall of prices of vegetables. Mean while, bored by the talks of the adults, the little girl looked around to see that an old man with his weak and frail body was sitting at a dark and dimly lit corner. She went near to have a closer look. As she neared he looked much older than she had seen him from afar. She was horrified to discover that the man had no legs. But the horrifying feeling was overruled by feeling of pity and sympathy.

 karma missed a heartbeat to find that his daughter has gone missing. He scanned the crowd and saw his daughter giving the old man her ten Ngultrum which Karma had given to his daughter for the sake of shopping. Touched, he went closer and he too was engulfed by pettiness and sympathy looking at the man.

But he was curious as to how the man reached in such an unfortunate situation and when asked replied the man, “ few years back, when my daughter was too ill to be conscious I carried her to the road point near Thinleygang from our village to take her hospital. When I reached the road point it was already late in the evening. I laid her by the side of the road and cried out to all the vehicles that passed by for help. Nobody stopped to care, so when I saw a vehicle approaching from far I went to the middle of the road and waved for it to stop, but it rolled over me, crushing my leg. That is how I lost my leg. My daughter died there and later my wife committed suicide. I can't work so I started begging.” The man started weeping.

Just then a cold feeling ran down karma’s spine and he started shivering for few years back while he was working as a site engineer at Punatshangchhu, he had one evening secretly loaded bags of cement on his Bolero from his site to be sold to his friend in Thimphu. That night just as he had crossed Thinleygang a ghostly thing had appeared in the middle of the road. Out of fear he had accelerated his vehicle over the ghost and fled.