Dabi had always been the lucky one among us. While most of us grew up in cramped apartments with parents too busy surviving to care about dreams, Dabi's home was different. His house always smelled of spices and warmth, full of aunts who pinched his cheeks and uncles who slipped him candy when his mother wasn't looking. But most of all, he had his grandfather.
The old man was a walking storybook, his leathery face creased with memories of a Karachi we could barely recognize. Every weekend, rain or shine, he would take Dabi to Empress Market - that chaotic, smelly bazaar where hunters sold their spoils. Live monkeys in tiny cages, peacocks with clipped wings, even baby crocodiles with their jaws tied shut. The air stank of fear and dung, but to Dabi, it was magic.
"Back when I was a boy," his grandfather would say, voice trembling with age but eyes bright, "the mangroves around Karachi were so thick you could walk from tree to tree without touching the water. The fish! They shone like jewels beneath the surface. And the birds - beta, you couldn't hear yourself think in the mornings for all their singing!"
We'd roll our eyes when Dabi repeated these stories. The Karachi we knew was a concrete jungle where the only free birds were scrawny kites fighting over garbage, where the sea lapped black and lifeless against oil-stained shores. The only parrots we saw were miserable creatures in tiny cages, their feathers dull from malnutrition.
But Dabi? He drank in these stories like they were water in the desert. His mother only allowed National Geographic channel in their house, and he'd watch wide-eyed as lions prowled the savanna or whales breached in arctic waters. Meanwhile, the rest of us had to wait until midnight when our parents were asleep to flip to the forbidden channels, giggling at the grainy, pixelated glimpses of bare skin on Naked and Afraid. That was our "Corn"
The Silence After
When Dabi's grandfather passed that winter, something fundamental shifted in our friend. The funeral was on a Thursday. I remember because it was the first time I'd ever seen Dabi in a proper shalwar kameez instead of his usual t-shirts stained with ketchup and dirt.
He didn't cry. Not in front of us anyway. But in the weeks that followed, Dabi became a ghost of himself. He stopped coming to school. Stopped playing cricket in the empty lot where we'd broken all those tiles. The few times I went to his house to check on him, his mother would shake her head at the door. "He doesn't want to see anyone," she'd say, her eyes red-rimmed.
I told myself I didn't care. But sometimes, lying awake at 3 am after another marathon of Naked and Afraid, I'd wonder what he was doing in that dark room of his. Was he watching those National Geographic documentaries on loop? Was he rereading his grandfather's old wildlife books? Or was he just staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks like the rest of us counted sheep?
The Morning It Happened
A month to the day after the funeral, I overslept. Another late night watching trash TV had left me groggy and disoriented. The house was empty when I woke - my parents at work, my sister already at school. I threw on my uniform, didn't bother with breakfast, and ran out the door.
The street was eerily quiet at that hour. All the other kids had long since left for school. The only sound was the distant honking of traffic and the ever-present cawing of crows.
That's when I saw him. Badoo.
Dabi's fat, pampered cat sat at the end of our street like some furry sentinel. In the harsh morning light, his orange fur looked almost on fire. He stared at me with those unnerving yellow eyes, tail flicking back and forth like a metronome.
"Stupid cat," I muttered, but something made me slow down as I approached him. Maybe it was the way he sat there, so still, so... expectant. Like he'd been waiting for me.
I crouched down, hand outstretched. "Come here, you fat bastard."
Badoo didn't move. Just kept staring. Then, quick as a snake, his paw shot out.
Pain exploded across my hand as four parallel lines of fire opened up on my skin. I yelped, jerking back instinctively. My foot caught on a loose stone, and for one terrifying second, the world tilted.
My flailing leg connected with soft fur.
Time slowed.
Badoo's eyes went wide. His considerable bulk lifted clean off the ground. Three feet. Four. He hung in the air for an impossible moment, limbs splayed, mouth open in a soundless yowl.
Then the bike hit.
The sound was worse than anything I'd ever heard - a wet thump followed by a screech of brakes. I didn't see the impact. Didn't need to. The image of Badoo's body tumbling across the asphalt like a broken toy would haunt me for years.
I didn't check if he was alive. Didn't call for help. Just ran.
My schoolbag slapped against my back as I sprinted, each footfall echoing the word pounding in my skull:
Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.
By the time I reached school, my lungs were on fire and my uniform was drenched in sweat. I skidded into class just as the morning bell rang, earning a glare from the teacher.
Dabi's seat was empty. Again.
I spent the entire lesson staring at the four angry red lines on my hand, listening to the blood roar in my ears. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a terrible certainty took root:
This wasn't over. Not by a long shot.