Chapter 1: A sweet Robber
The night was chilly and silent. The cool breeze of winter was flowing all through the village. These breezes take birth into the vastness of Himalayas so townfolks used call them the daughters of Himalayas. Though it was always cold in here but in the winter a single person need at least two woollen sweaters to cover his body. Dhudesar was a village sat just below the great Himalayas, protected and nurtured by Himalayas. The people of village slept in their beds with their wives and kids without a single worry as they knew the great mountains of Himalayas are there to save them from the yetis, to protect them from any kind of mishapening.
Into the darkness, a boy was hiding behind a pole just as big as a giant leg. His chest move up and down as he took heavy breaths. He was shivering with cold but his father always told him, 'No matter what, always march forward. Always forward'. He took few heavy breaths, searched the area with his blue eyes for any humanly presence, looked at the Himalayas covered with white snow for blessings and jumped inside the building from the open window. It was his usual time and entrance into the great library. His father was a shoemaker, all he could do is to make shoes out of leather and tell the stories he heard from his father and grandfather but the kid wanted more, he believed there is more outside these walls of the village and there is more beyond these mountains of Himalayas. The only thing that could help him to kill his curiosity was the books but as his father was only a shoemaker who could feed his family for two times a day, could not lend him money to spend it on some kind of books which were much worst than a demon for him. 'Books rotten one's mind kid' all he could say when the boy asked him for money to take a book on rent. So he found his own kind of solution to kill his curiosity, to sneak inside the library when darkness surrounds the village and the lazy old librarian snore like a drunk bastard.
He cleaned the dust off his woolen sweater. The library smelled as usual, the smell of old papers mixed with the smell of rat's piss. A dim blue light spread across the hall of the library which was enough for him to read the title of the books. Few days back when few people were engaged in a serious discussion with the wise one, the boy heard the name of a book which ignited an undying curiosity in his 15 year old mind. "What was the name of the book the old guy mentioned while telling the story?" the boy whispered to himself and closed his eyes in order to search the name into the wilderness of his brain. One could clearly see the fine line of tension on his forehead and suddenly his blue eyes sparkled with shining and he murmured, "Beyond the talking trees". Finally he remembered. He looked into the vast library. It has thousands of books stacked inside many shelves but he had drawn a map of the library inside his mind. He knew which book to find in what shelve much better than the old librarian whose hairs go gray from black while working into the library.
"so the robber is back again." he heard a hard voice. He wasn't scared as the voice was familiar to him.
"How do you always know that i am sneaked inside? don't you have to sleep or something?" the boy said.
"Owls don't sleep in nights kid." the voice echoed into the library.
"yeah yeah! i know. so what do you do in nights, read books?" the boy said and laughed.
"Not really. But i know things much more than any author can know." a big figure came out of a book shelf which was a home for the owl. An ordinary kid would have wetted his pants if he had seen the disproportionally large eyes in comparison to a small skull. It had a conspicuous circles of feathers around its yellow eyes which were shining in the dim blue light. The people in the village said, 'owl is the only bird which had a binocular vision' meaning a type of vision in which an animal having two eyes is able to perceive a single three-dimensional image of its surroundings. The owl was different as compared to other birds, it had forward facing eyes which helped it in low-light haunting. It had white feathers all over its body. It rubbed its hawk like beak on the wooden shelve and asked, "So, which book you need this time?"
"It is a book about the world beyond the talking trees. It is in the B section and obviously as usual my height betrayed me this time too." the boy said looking at his legs, "I wish my father could make me a shoe which will allow me to jump as high as i could."
"Don't worry. Until your father invent something like that, i am here to help you. where is it again?"
"B section, 2nd shelf from the top and..." with a pause the boy completed his sentence, "Book number 5."
"Okay kid. you got it." The owl flew off his shelve and rested its leg on its destined shelf. "Book number 5 is it. One…. Two….. Three….. Four…. and here it is." the owl pulled and pushed the book off the shelve. The book fell on the ground making a loud thud. The boy picked up the book, cleaned the dust off it, opened the book and smelled the brown old pages of it, "aah after a long time!" he said with satisfaction.
"Who is there?" the words strike his ears as he understood that the loud thud had woken up the old fellow.
The boy mimicked the sound of a cat which he learnt by a great practice, he ran towards the window and said, "Okay friend, farewell for few days. I gotta escape now and Thank you for your help. One more thing, next time when we meet i would like to hear the story about how you learnt the counting." and then jumped out of the window and vanished into the darkness before the old man could see him.
With his slow walk old librarian reached the open window, looked outside but his old eyes could found nothing into the darkness. He closed the window and said sounding like a pedophile, "These cats need a bad spanking." and headed back to his bed to sleep. The owl continued its night job while standing on the top of a shelf.
The boy ran through the bushes and reached his hut and with steady walk without disturbing his parents and little sister he made it to his room upstairs. It wasn't a room though, it was just an attic which he converted into a room and named it sky parlor. He hid the book below his pillow, drank some water from a pot and threw himself into the bed. He looked outside the window and looked at the sky filled with infinite stars and whispered the words he read in some book,
Under the shiny sky
He grew into a man from a boy
With hopes, wishes and dreams
One day he would fly high
He covered himself with the blanket and closed his eyes, fell into deep sleep losing his soul to the dreams. The dreams which were going to come true soon.
*****
The sun rose with new hopes pouring a new energy inside the people of Dhudesar. Everyone got busy into their daily chores, men started doing their respective jobs while women started cleaning the varandas and pouring water to the plants, farmers could be seen heading towards their farms with a plough on the shoulders. Dhudesar was a village where people preferred to be independent of each other. Though it was the poorest town in Kamboja empire, the people were satisfied with their conditions because they had a pure heart and readiness to help and support each other in any kind of situation. Kamboja was a kind of empire where rich people gets richer wharease poor gets poorest. The Emperor of Kamboja lost control over the empire since he was getting older and had no son or a daughter. He was the emperor just for name, his cruel minister Demien Howler gained the control over the empire by earning respect of the members of the great hall. Though it wasn't respect, it was fear. Everyone feared him as the whole empire was aware of his evil and cruel nature. Dhudesar was situated at the border of the kingdom so the people of town never faced the evil minister but there is always a first time for everything.
"Wake up Philip, sun is almost over the head and you missed your breakfast again." A woman screamed to wake her son up.
The boy curled himself around a pillow and slowly opened his eyes, his blue eyes, no one knows from who he inherited it as both of his parents had brown coloured eyes. "I am awake mother." he said from his sky parlor. He gently pulled the book which he have placed below his pillow and looked at its cover into the light of day. The title of the book, made up of a metal found rarely in the kingdom shone as the red beams of light fell on it. Philip closed his eyes as the beams reflected back into his eyes and then slowly opened the eyes adjusting his iris to the amount of light and read, "World Beyond the talking trees." His eyes searched for the name of the author but it wasn't on the title page, flipped the book still no, on first page? NO! He said with surprise, "I wonder who wrote this book." He kissed on the title of the page and said, "We will get to know each other some time later my friend. I have some woks to deal with." and placed the book below his pillow away from anyone's eyesight and started climbing down the wooden stairs.
"Sure we will." He heard a girly voice. He stopped and thought who must be it. "Maybe someone downstairs." and walked down off the stairs.
******
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