The Dreaming Machine thanks Masrufa Ayesha Nusrat for helping the journal contact Bangladeshi writers. Cover art: Detail from Bangladeshi rickshaw art.
It was 19th of July, Rizwan found it difficult to cross the road, it was swarming with students, their parents, slogans were being chanted at the front of the procession. The people held placards with phrases like “we want justice!”, “no discrimination” while shouting. The rows of policemen stood with their transparent plastic shields with police written on them. Both the groups stood face to face.
For the past week students all over the country spearheaded a protest against ruling regime. Their demand is to eliminate all kinds of discrimination in social life and in government jobs. Rizwan couldn’t be bothered to join in. He didn’t even fully grasp what was going on as he had to work to pay his room rent and buy the food. All he knew was that it disrupted his everyday commuting. He was fine once he reached the roadside restaurant with tin shade. But then hardly any customers came these days and that was not good for his owner. If it wasn’t good for his owner it couldn’t be good for him either.
Rizwan was returning home after finishing his work at the restaurant, he was the cook’s helper. The cacophony of people shouting, the slogans numbed his ears. Suddenly some gun shots were heard. It looked as though people had just awaken from slumber. Everybody started dispersing and in minutes the roads were empty. Rizwan was dumbfounded. He ran into the roadside under-construction ten storied building. The whole skeleton of the building looked abundant with no one in sight. He climbed the stairs and got on the third floor. There were some pieces of wood here and there, a heap of broken bricks in the center. A policeman ran behind him followed by another. When Rizwan turned back and saw the police he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and ran towards the edge of the building, by now the first police man was close behind him. Rizwan fell on the floor and rolled to the rods protruding out from the unfinished floor. The policeman came to the edge of the building pointing his gun at him and shouted “jump!”
Rizwan held on to the rods with all his might and said “no!” The police man fired, and fired again. The second policeman joined him, he also fired, fired again and again. Six rounds of bullets were shot on the boy. Rizwan kept on holding to the rods and hung like a coiled caterpillar. He held on to the rods till both of them left, and pushed himself with all his might towards the third floor, slanting his body he managed to jump on the concrete floor inches away from the edge before passing out. A person witnessed the whole episode of the boy running and falling out on the rods and the policemen shooting him from a high rise building opposite. He recorded the scene on his mobile. This witness came down and asked some volunteers to go the building and check on the boy. Even though Rizwan was bleeding profusely and was unconscious when the volunteers found him, he was still alive. In the hospital the doctors found that all the six bullets passed through his body. One bullet passed through his right leg and came out on the other side and he had two more bullet wounds on the same leg and three more bullets went in and out of his right leg in different places. Some how none of the bullets hit him above his hip hence his life was saved.
Jackie Kabir is a writer and translator from Bangladesh. Many of her fictions and nonfictions have been anthologized both in home abroad. She is a regular contributor to the literature pages of The Daily Star, The Business Standard, The Financial Express.
The Short Stories of Kazi Nazrul Islam (2024) published by Orient Black swan anthologized “Agony of the Destitute” translated by Jackie Kabir.
Jackie Kabir edited Juktaswar vol 3, year 2, Jan 23; a Literary Translation Magazine.
Silent Noise is being taught in BA course in colleges under Manomanium Sundaranar University; Tamil Nadu. She has translated Selina Hossain’s River of My Blood (Rupa) and co-translated Charcoal Portrait (Palimpest), New Delhi. Her translation of Ngugi Wa Thiong’s Between the Rivers came out in 2023. She contributed to Bangla Academy Journal.
She has contributed to Bangladeshi Literature in English by Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (2020). The Literary Encyclopedia 2020; The Asiatic Iium Journal of English Language and literature published from University of Malaysia (2020). Her story Nineteen Minutes was published in The Bridge Magazine vol 1. Borderless Journal published her story Khatme Yunus and her poem Secrets of the Evening Sky. She was also interviewed by The Bridge: a webzine from Pakistan.
Ten Square(2020) published one her flash fictions. A short story titled Stolen was published in the book Gantha Miscellany (2019). A nonfiction Green Helmets was published in Stories from the Edge (2020) byBengal Foundation. She contributed in Lekhoker kotha (2017). Ninth Edge (2012) published by Songbed anthologized one of her short stories. Sticks and Stones anthologized one of her stories. A translation of a short story ‘A Flash of Lightning’ was anthologized in a book titled Ganthagolpo published by writers.ink in 2010.
