The Cripple and His Talismans Read Online Free

repeatedly.
    The one in white moves again. With great force he steps onto the other’s foot. There is a deep hole in it, near the ankle. The outer rim of the hole is black, the inner rim is yellow and the core is white as ivory. With his heel still dug in, the leper in white thrusts his hands onto his opponent’s chest, pushing him away. He lifts his foot and watches the leper in black fall to the floor. The sight is terrifying. Three toes lie on the concrete.
    I look for the In-charge, for some signal to explain this horror, but he is not visible. I want to look away, but the only sound I hear is that of the beggar’s tin can beating the concrete.
    In the glare of the headlights I see the whites of the lepers’ eyes. The vanquished one does not recover from the onslaught. He lies on the ground, as torn as the garland petals that lie by his feet. He looks to the sky. Is there a spirit world up there? Is there a separate one for lepers? Does the soul of a leper have leprosy?
    At this moment I could donate the excess of blood in me to each hospital in the city, it pounds so hard, gushes so furiously. It could spurt from my mouth and make the city brighter.
    I could make dying oxen dance.
    The In-charge reappears. He raises both his arms. I wish I could raise mine. I have raised my arms in the past, but only to pull things down, curtains and people alike. It is sometimes more convenient to raze lives than raise them.
    The In-charge walks to the centre of the circle and goes to the lepers. No, he walks past them and comes toward me.
    Do not come here. I do not wish to be singled out, a sparrow among lions.
    An endless row of eyes stares at me.
    It is easy to stand on a pulpit and lecture about how the world sits on a dog’s tongue, that each time the dog licks excrement it coats the world with a layer. That we are all bad people, and that we must be punished. I ask all holy men to stand here today. Wisdom will escape them like worms from fruit. They will feel naked and shake, and hope that their eyes do not meet a leper’s.
    “You must be part of the proceedings,” the In-charge says.
    “Please, I’m okay,” I reply. I would give my other arm to be somewhere else.
    “You must earn your right to be here.”
    “I don’t understand.” I say that to buy time.
    “Come with me,” orders the In-charge.
    He holds my hand and takes me to where the leper in black is on the ground. The other leper looks on.
    “Now help him up,” the In-charge tells me.
    “But he’s a leper!”
    “I’m aware of that.”
    “But if I touch him.…”
    “Help him.”
    “Why me?”
    “You must earn the right to be here.”
    “No one told me that.”
    “Do it. Now.”
    I look around.
    I extend my arm.
    For the leper on the ground, it is a shaft of light.
    He holds it with both hands. His hands are hot.
    I lift him.
    The crowd disperses. They turn and go on their way, to their brothels, their begging spaces and their drinking cells.
    “Why is everyone going?” I ask.
    “They are mere spectators. This is
your
moment.”
    “My moment?”
    “It is why you have met me. Help this man here. He is the victor.” He turns to the leper in black.
    “But he lost,” I say. “The one in white tore off his toes!”
    “The winner is he who loses his ugly parts. The loser is he who is left with them.”
    The leper in black, the one who has been relieved of his rotting toes, looks surprised. The lepers must not have known the rules of the fight. They were tricked. And rightly so, or else they would have ripped off their own body parts.
    “It’s his turn to be free,” says the In-charge.
    “Free?” I ask.
    “He has done his time. As his body slowly comes apart, he will be relieved of it. He will be cleansed soon.”
    The leper in black bows his head. The one in white snarls and walks away.
    “What about him?” I point to the one in white. I am conscious of the manner in which we speak, as though the lepers are not part of our