JOHNNY GONE DOWN by Karan Bajaj Read Free Book Online Page A

black-clad Khmer soldiers in their midst. Shops and houses stood abandoned as everyone walked reluctantly in one direction, shepherded by the Khmer boy-soldiers who coaxed them along with sticks and rifles.
    ‘They are evacuating the city,’ said Ishmael. ‘Everyone will be moved to the villages to work on farms. We are dead.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘They are going to make it a Utopian communist society. You eat what you produce; everyone works equally, everyone eats equally. Great in theory, but in practice, these idiots don’t know a thing about farming except how to produce rice. Soon, everyone will die of starvation.’
    I didn’t care about macro-economic socio-political issues. I just wanted to get out of here alive, to go back to the security of my dorm in Boston. Once there, I promised myself I would gladly embark on the downward journey that Sam kept referring to. I would lock myself in the room and never leave, not to buy groceries, not even to watch films - if I managed to get out just this once.
    ‘Keep your head down and try to merge with the crowd,’ I said. ‘If we can make it to a village without being spotted, perhaps we can find a way from there.’
    ‘You aren’t going to give up, are you?’ He smiled. ‘Works for me.’
    A heavily pregnant woman fell down a hundred yards in front of us. One of the soldiers walked up to her and struck her on the head with the butt of his rifle, while shouting at her to get up. She resisted. He seemed to go ballistic. Again and again, he hit her on the head with the rifle until all I could see was a pulpy mass of blood and skin. Still dissatisfied, he sliced a bayonet through her stomach and the traditional white Cambodian dress she was wearing turned crimson. She stopped moving and he walked away, satisfied. I watched silently, then continued to walk with my head bowed. No one’s life matters more than my own, I repeated to myself.
    Soon though, it became increasingly difficult to be inconspicuous as more and more people became victim to sudden eruptions of violence from the boy-soldiers. An old man had his legs broken with a staff because he had stopped to rest; a baby was thrown into a ditch because it was wailing; a young man’s head was burst open with a rod because he was drinking water from a ditch. The crowd began to thin alarmingly.
    ‘How far is the closest village?’ I asked Ishmael.
    ‘Two, maybe three days walk,’ said Ishmael. ‘It’s going to be fun in the sun then. Harvest rice twenty hours a day so that Pol Pot can measure his dick against Mao’s and Lenin’s.’
    He was a funny guy, I thought, completely unperturbed by what was happening, almost enjoying himself.
    ‘What if…’
    An intense light blinded me as someone struck me on the back of my head. I turned around in reflex and another blow on my side seemed to shatter every bone. I felt my face hitting asphalt, heard gravel crunching - and then there was silence.

    I tasted blood. Every part of my body hurt. My eyes refused to open. I drifted out of consciousness.
    I awoke again with a throbbing pain in my head. I tried to move but something weighed me down. My throat was parched. I moved my tongue over my lips and tasted more blood. I coughed and it felt as if someone was dropping massive piles of bricks on my ribs.
    ‘My name is Nikhil Arya. I’m from Delhi. I study at MIT,’ I told myself silently.
    I was alive.
    But where was I? I tried to wiggle my toes and felt them move. I moved my fingers and they touched a hard surface. I was lying on a cement floor. A sudden thought struck me. Why was everything black? Had I lost my eyesight? Not my eyes, I thought, anything but that, please.
    I tried to speak but only a whimper escaped my lips.
    ‘Are you awake?’ A steady voice pierced the darkness.
    The Khmer Rouge. Ishmael. The city centre.
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    My throat hurt. A rush of blood filled my mouth. I coughed, and again felt the shooting pain in my ribs as if a bus had run