That Geek Is A Trouble

Chapter 3

When I was a kid, my family, which was whole and big then combined with my uncles and aunts and their families, used to go to our farmhouse in every summer vacations. It was always fun except when my cousins would pick on me for being the youngest and tiniest member of the family. The whole picking on me thing was never overboard but from time to time it would land us in situations where I ended up crying and they ended up with punishments. Seeing my cousins plucking weeds and cleaning stables cheered me up later on.

One day my second-eldest cousin, Monty, convinced me to climb up the slanting terrace of our farmhouse in return of which he promised to give me his complete collection of The Flash comics. What to say? I was naïve and stupid back then and I was and still am a great fan of comics. So I climbed up the terrace with the help of a ladder but with my ever so bad luck which you already have witnessed the ladder fell down the moment I got hold of the edge of the roof. That exact moment, hanging by the edge ten feet above the ground I was so scared that the incident imprinted on my mind permanently. I was rescued safely in five minutes but within those minutes, I cried like I never had and screamed my throat raw. Not to mention that I soiled my pants too, a memory I'm not so proud of.

Standing inside my bedroom with the eyes of the two burglars locked on me I felt the same fear rising inside me. But that doesn't mean I was going to shit my pants or cry. I've grown out of it since I was ten. There was something really wrong with those men. Although I have never encountered any thief beside the one who stole my ice-cream when I was twelve and who broke his leg after I jumped at him, I did had some ideas how a thief would look. Definitely, a thief won't be wearing a black suit and shiny shoes. But these thieves were sporting a complete Men In Black style with a black suit, shiny shoes and collectible watches.

I could have closed the window and ran for my dear life which looked rather sensible but I felt paralysed, unable to move even an inch. Only my eyes were working as they followed the hand of one of them moving towards the inner lapels of his suit. As he slowly took his hand out I saw a glint of metal but before I could recognise it he pushed it back and turned towards his partner and said something in a language I was unaware of. Russian? Bulgarian? I don't know.

I was confused at why he stopped from whatever he was taking out, not that I was excited to see it. For all I know it could have been a gun. If it was, the situation was way worse than I thought. My confusion dissolved when I too heard the police sirens. Oh! That's why. The men gave me a sharp intended look as if they were memorising my face in that tiny moment and then they left Ian's room in few seconds. Their departure broke me out of the paralysis spell and I shouted at their retrieving figures which disappeared behind the wall, "Hey!"

A moment later the cops flooded into Ian's apartment with the apartment's secretary on their tail. For the following two hours, I told and retold the whole incident to the cops, the secretaries of the apartment block, few residents and my mother over the phone. For a daily boring night, this night was definitely adventurous although I would still prefer my daily binge sitcom watching with junk foods over having encounters with burglars.

After taking necessary evidence and notes, the cops left and the crowd hungry for spicy news thinned out slowly ultimately leaving me alone in my apartment. Ian was still nowhere. His apartment block's secretary had told me that he had tried reaching him through phone but each time his call ended up in voicemails. So he had left Ian a voicemail explaining what had happened.

From what I gathered about him in one year of shared neighbourhood, he worked in a Software Developing firm whose name I still didn't knew. He usually left his apartment at nine in the morning and returned only after ten which was convenient for me since the rest of the time he would be in his apartment he would blare loud music and whenever I would come in his view he would make fun of me and taunt me. Whether it be my morning hair, my large ill fitted clothes or some random thing he would never waste a chance to entertain himself seeing me red after he threw some stupid comments on me.