eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 34

33 STORIES THE MOSQUITO SOLDIER     SAMYA GHOSAL                                    Samya Ghosal is a student of Mechanical Engineering at NIT Durgapur, currently in his 3rd year. He spends most of his time writing, reading novels, and comicbooks, watching serious cinema, and sketching. He spends his nights roaming around the campus, hiding from the guards and doing graffiti on the walls. His favorite authors are Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Kurt Vonnegut, William Gibson, George Orwell and many more. He has previously written reviews for various graphic novels at Striptease – The Magazine. O NE OF THE insects bites the septum. Jolt. Awake. Asleep, they crawl again, another bite, awake. Awake now. Inhale Exhale Deep and intense Forget Forgotten everything Sweet soothing insects crawling out of nostrils Asleep He was a soldier on a watch tower. His unit had taken refuge in the ruins of an ancient city. The tower was tall with a sharp tip, like a spike sprouting from the ground and shouting silence. He was the night-watch. The tower provided a three hundred and sixty degree view. The landscape around him was motionless; nothing stirred, like a painting. It had a sporadic distribution of giant rocks and hills, enough dark crevices for the enemy to hide. It was a barren desert. The night sky was like a dirty, dark pane of glass. The stone and metal ruins lay scattered around like numerous broken pieces of dice. His unit was asleep, not many awake. The city was called Taxopolis in the ancient times. Its residents used to worship giants eFiction India | June 2014 who roamed the Earth, stepping on things. Things