It was a dark and cold night. An old man slowly walks past the hospital, the same route he has taken for the last ten years. His weary eyes look slowly up towards the third floor of the derelict place once full of birth, life and death. This is his ritual which he has followed for the past 10 years, the third floor of the hospital needed to be surveyed by him.
Among the darkened windows of the abandoned hospital, there was one that glimmered with faint light. As the man's eyes concentrated on the old hospital window, silhouettes of figures slowly appeared. The man was puzzled by the shadows in the window and suddenly felt a chill down his spine, followed by a sense of anger.
The window belonged to the room that the man was sadly familiar with. Who is in that room now? Why is someone there? The man carried on walking past the hospital. "The police can handle this," he thought. The thought calmed his anger. But, as the man calmed down, a sudden rush to find out what was going in the hospital swept over him like a powerful gust of wind.
“No! Someone is in HER room!” thought the old man, and with as much purpose that all his 70 years could give him, he walked towards the entrance. As he approached the entrance, he felt a whisper close to his ear. The old man turned around, only to be greeted by nothingness. The entrance was dark and the man thought he saw shadows in the corner of his eye as he entered but he wasn't scared. The man has experienced too much pain throughout his life to be scared of shadows. He walked into the empty concourse.
When he entered the hospital concourse the darkness broke with a shimmer of light coming from the stairwell. He walked towards it. The man looked round for something to help him if there was to be a sign of trouble. He saw some lead piping on the floor. He picked it up. “I don’t need this I have never needed this.” He put the pipe down slowly so as not to attract attention.
The old man walked the stairs. He remembered the last time he had walked down the same stairs to collect some clothes and possessions, it made him sad and resentful. But he carried on and entered the corridor where he saw a glimmer of light from the room that lit an otherwise dark corridor. He carried on walking towards the room.
A howl of laughter suddenly stopped the man in his tracks. Profanities followed joined with a chorus of more laughter. “Who were these people in her room!” the man thought angrily. As the old man drew closer, the light went dimmer. The door was slightly ajar. The man looked through carefully so he could not be seen. He could not see the light or find where the light source came from, as the old light bulb that was lighting the room could not possibly be the same light that guided him here. He saw two men smoking - a young man with a cap that looked vaguely familiar to him and an older man with scars. They were going through wallets and purses from their days work.
“What’s the point of going after wallets these days? People use cards to pay,” the younger man said.
“Not the tourists! Look at this wallet, there is about 500 in here” the scarred one said.
“Are we going to go to the Burners with that?” asked the younger man.
“Yeah right after we sell the batch they gave us” the scarred man replied.
The old man looked away from behind the door for a moment in case he gave himself away, “Muggers,” he thought to himself, and the Burners he has also heard of, the crime family that fed the petty criminals of this city drugs to sell. The man looked through the door again and to his astonishment he recognised the younger man as the younger man removed his cap to scratch his head.
The old man swung the door open and shouted,
“Michael?!”
Michael looked shocked and dropped his cap. The scarred man was about to run but at that moment the old man was shoved violently in the back by someone behind him. The old man fell to the ground although he managed to put both forearms out to lessen the impact. Behind him stood a large thuggish looking man in a long overcoat.
“Burner?” said the scarred man to the thug
“I followed him here, he was looking suspicious like a cop or something” said Bob Burner the debt collector of the Burner family.
“Who is he?” asked the scarred man.
“Why would I know? But he seems to know Channy there, didn’t know your first name was Michael.”
“Yeah, I don’t use that name much,” said Michael.
“Who’s your friend?” enquired Bob.
“I..I don’t know!” Michael responded.
“Go on, I asked you a question. Who the hell is he?” Bob persisted.
“I..he’s my Uncle, alright?” Michael said “We should just leave him now, I will take care of it”
“No this old man knows too much,” Bob retorted
Although the old man appeared unconscious, he had been listening to the conversation all along and he slowly got up and brushed himself off, not making any eye contact with the other men in the room.
“Michael, we are going home,” demanded the old man
Bob and the scarred man laughed.“The hell you talking about old man?” said the scarred man, “You stepped into our court so I am going to make sure you don’t talk,” and with that comment the scarred man struck the old man in the arm with a bat. The old man fell slightly but it wasn’t enough to knock him down. He regained his balanced and his composure.
“Michael, I said we are going home!” the old man loudly repeated
Bob laughed and the scarred man with him
“Old man, he ain’t going nowhere and you know what, I am going to mess you up!” Bob threatened.
Bob kicked the old man in the chest which knocked him out of the room. The old man slammed to the floor onto his back. This time the old man was hurt. Bob and the scarred man then casually walked over to their downed opponent with Michael looking on in despair.Michael ran in front of the two men. “Hey! Come on! It’s my Uncle! He hasn’t done anything wrong!” Michael pleaded.
Bob grabbed Michael by his shoulders and threw him into the room and Michael went crashing to the floor. Bob then pulled the lead pipe from his jacket. It was the same one which the Old Man had disregarded earlier. The old man was on the floor, he knew this wasn’t going to end well but something else told him that he had a chance ... something.
Suddenly a blinding light came from the room and it shone right behind the old man’s attackers. They both turned around to see what it was, covering their eyes with their forearms. The light was so blinding it hurt the eyes of the attackers but it didn't hurt the old man's eyes. In fact the old man felt the light was comforting and reassuring. The old man stood up and waited for the scarred man to turn back around to face him. When the scarred man eventually turned away from the light, the old man struck him in the jaw with a palm strike, knocking him out cold. Bob, who was still temporarily blinded by the light, didn’t see his fallen comrade but was confused that the lead piping he held was now rolling down the corridor. The old man had disarmed him with quickness and precision. Bob then felt the strike of an elbow to his jaw and crashed down to the floor. The old man stood over his fallen opponents in a fighting stance but slowly lowered his guard as he realised that both his attackers were now unconcious
The light then slowly dimmed after the commotion. The old man, curious to see where the light came from, entered the room. Michael was in the corner, sobbing.
“I am sorry, Uncle Jake!” sobbed Michael.
“It’s alright Michael.”
“The light, it was Mum, I saw her!”
“It’s alright Michael,” repeated Jake and then he sobbed too.
------------------------------------------------3 months later, Marvin the barber was cutting a regular’s hair. Across the road, Jake Chan’s Martial Arts gym was having it’s grand opening.
“What’s with the commotion across the road?” asked the customer.
“Oh, Jake Chan? He is a good man, he is reopening his gym again.”
“Again?”queried the customer
The customer looked across the road and saw Jake shaking hands with several people.“He’s a bit old isn’t he?” the customer observed.
“Well, he used to have it open years ago but 11 years ago he shut it down, people said he couldn’t save his sister from a mugging so he fell into deep depression.”
“So what made him come back?” the customer asked.
“Well, he told me he had to teach the kids of the street some discipline to keep away from that gang,” Marvin explained, “Yeah, his nephew was part of the gang but now he has helped his Uncle refurbish the building and also assist him in the gym.”
“Right, well that’s a nice story,” said the customer.
“Yeah, he must have seen the light,” said Marvin.
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