Chapter 45 - 45- Maya

A tall bulky woman in jeans and top with a face cover entered Kaizermagus Central Library. The man at the entry – the library gate keeper, even did not dare to ask to write her name in the register, as he used to do to other people entering the room. She was surely ferocious with her big breasts and muscular figure. She was exuding a pungent smell of sweat and some deodorant too; and few drops of snow had fallen on her hair. She looked certainly very angry by her walk and intense gaze. Is she drunk? : wondered the gate keeper. Why else she is wearing a mask inside the library? Oh perhaps it is snowing outside. He felt an urge to stop the woman. But he could not. He was mortally terrified. But after few seconds he mustered some courage and silently followed the bulky manish woman who entered the middle area of the library. She stood still. He too stood still beside her. Then she started looking for someone, for she was scanning through the faces of the readers present inside the library. She looked here and there for few seconds, and then she paused. Her gaze was fixed on one middle aged good-looking man who was busy browsing through several books. The gate keeper again wondered: Why she is staring at him? Perhaps she is just an angry girlfriend of the good-looking man. Or a wife, or a flame? And this man is showing no interest in this woman now-a-days. Well if he is not doing so, then it was not his fault. She should at least choose some womanly attire and gait. But the woman in a mask was not advancing toward the man. The gatekeeper had expected that the woman would rush to the man and would wail and create a scene crying why he had left her… etc. – that kind of soap opera thing. But the woman was standing still. The woman now put her hand into her back pocket of the jeans. What is there inside the pocket? The pocket was stuffy. He noticed that she produced a shot-gun from her pocket in a flash. She was quick. Now she was aiming the gun at the good-looking man sitting in the corner. This woman has gone insane: observed the gatekeeper. Suddenly he found himself grabbing the woman's hand from the backside. The woman had fired a bullet already. The bullet missed the aim – the man, by inches. It hit the glass window next to the aim – next to the man. Everyone in the library was scared. Everyone was looking at the masked woman. Different people, different views. Some said, "A frustrated lover." Others said, "A mad woman."

But now the woman could not move her right hand to fire another shot, for the gatekeeper had taken grip of her gun. She dropped the gun. It fell on the ground with a metallic clang. Then she freed herself from the gatekeeper's grip and lifted him into air and hit him on the ground with a great thud. The gatekeeper was not ready for this. He felt as if his waist bone was crushed. He could hardly move. He gripped her forelegs tightly and he saw the woman grabbing her gun again in her hands and other readers ducking under their desks. The good-looking man in the corner opened the broken window and jumped down onto the ground carrying a couple of books with him. The woman freed herself from the gatekeeper's grip and rushed to the corner and peeped through the window. Perhaps she could not find the good-looking man down there. She turned to the gatekeeper. She saw other people were cowering under their desks. She returned back to the gatekeeper. As if her eyes were burning: the gatekeeper, who was still aching in pain, could see it. She aimed her gun at him. He was terrified beyond imagination. He thought that his life was over. He cursed himself: Why the hell did you go to help a stranger? The woman pulled the trigger, but no bullet was fired. The gatekeeper thought: Perhaps as it fell from her hand onto the ground, it became dysfunctional. The woman tried several more times. But there was no shot. The woman then hit the gatekeeper by her high-soled shoes and walked away from the library. The gatekeeper lost his sense – blacked out, in relief.