Blue Badge

The northern port of Qin Asia empire, Ceylon City.

A rainstorm comes suddenly, pours into the gap from the fort. The sky is black as if it is infected with the dragon’s blood ink. The fishing boats in the port shrink and the rough sea waves are hitting violently and washing the dam. The waves splash with over ten meters high mist making loud sound.

The rain water acc.u.mulates and spread rapidly in the slum areas and the streets. The water spreads more and more on the streets. Since five years the drainage system has not been improved. The water has spread so much that the slum areas have turned out to be a vast ocean.

The Ceylon City of Magnolia Bay is not same like before. The revenue of the fishing business is limited now. The main people of the city are feeling powerless and helpless because they can’t do anything to repair the drainage system. To sort out all these problems at least one magician teacher is needed who can understand the situation and teach to all the apprentices who want to help the city. The people are ready to spend thousands of gold coins. For at least 200 hundred years the Ceylon City had no magician. The munic.i.p.al departments of the city are completely useless.

The lightning tears the sky, the thunder comes slowly making huge noise, the electricity was dancing like a snake in the air illuminating the city under the storm. On the wide streets covered with water, a boy likely to be ten years old, was quivering with the water.

The boy was very thin with short brown hair which was cut unevenly. The rain water broke through his eyelashes which prevented his eyes from opening. He was producing white smoke from his mouth and nose, and his legs were shivering due to extreme cold. He was wrapping himself tightly with an oil-paper wrap by which he collected his meal today to feed himself. Thunder!

A great thunder, the boy could not hold himself, fell down on the ground, face buried in the water and kept coughing. He was struggling to stand up but his fragile body could not resist the water and fell down again. He became unconscious with his hands holding the oil-paper wrap.

The unbearable rainstorm was there for nearly two hours and finally the sky was clear. The water retreats slowly on the streets making the way for the pedestrians. The unconscious body of the young boy arrives some eaves under a roof. The door opened and a man dressed like a servant saw the unconscious body. The man kicked the body angrily: “Beggar go from here, don’t die here.”

The man’s voice was very sharp, shrill and rude. The boy woke up from his unconsciousness by the kick and started coughing severely. His body became warm because of fever. He was subconsciously clutching the oil-paper wrap to embrace himself and breathed a sigh of relief. He tried standing up and started crawling the steps to a distance and meanwhile he was opening the oil-paper wrap to search for food. He finds mouldy old rice and plans to go home, cook and eat but he had no strength to walk also.

The uncooked mouldy old rice was there in the boy’s mouth like sand, chewing slightly and swallowing into the belly. “Unlucky!” the evil servant saw the boy was making effort to stand but was unable. He vomited out mouthful and turned into the door.

The boy lies on the ice-cold ground, unwillingly swallows the half pack of uncooked rice. Without looking back he starts moving towards east of the city to his home. If he doesn’t reach back home before dark and if there is more rain on his way then that can freeze him to death on the street.

From the front scarlet door, comes out a fat business man. He is dressed in a low quality silk, oil is poured on the hair as if it is poured by the rain.

“Well! Isn’t he Jacob Lee’s boy? What’s his name?” asked the sharp-eyed business man. Looking at the boy’s back, he asked the two servants.

“Sarin, sir, his name is Sarin.” Said the servant with a flattering smile. The master and the two servants described the poor eyes of the boy and looked at them.

“How come he hasn’t died yet?”

“Who knows whether that b.a.s.t.a.r.d gives him to eat or not” said another servant angrily.

“Well, you just keep in mind that if he dies, hasten to his house to buy it. Let’s not make someone else take the advantage of it” said the fat business man casually and turned around to walk toward another direction.

“Yes sir!” the servants carefully followed behind. The business man was so fat that two people can hide in his shadow. The boy’s exhausted body was dragged out of the Ceylon city. The night was too cold like cold water. The boy kept holding the oil-paper wrap and left the street. After taking few steps he reached back his home.

The giant stone house was Jacob Lee’s last property. Sarin opened the door and fluttered to enter the house.

The stone walls were covered with overgrown moss which was exuding the chill of the air. The windows of the outside rooms of the house didn’t have gla.s.s on it, making the lonely stone house appear gloomy, cold and dreary.

Sarin had a sigh of relief that he reached home finally. He was almost crawling up the stairs, returning to the bedroom and slumped on the bed. The bed was same like the wall, cold and hard.

His clothes were drenched by water, the wet clothes were sticking to the body. This was the only pair of clothes he had. Sarin struggled to get up and take off his clothes and lie on the bed. He placed the oil-paper wrap on the head. His waist was very painful and when he looked down he discovered a bruise.

That was the servant’s kick on his body. Sarin lied down to fall asleep but the pain still remained. The moonlight and the cold wind fill in the room from the windows. Sarin’s body became very warm and he was having severe headache. With this burn the survival of the poor boy was not guaranteed. He struggled to get up and pulled out a box under the bed.

The lock on the box was already removed long back. The lock was mad of gold and silver which can easily be traded for one week’s food. n.o.body would intend to buy the camphor wood box which was infected by insects. So Sarin was planning to use it for lighting fire.

He opened the box and there was a pile of messy notes. Majority of them seems to be debt doc.u.ments. Sarin discovers a metal badge from the box and pastes it on his forehead. He got relief from the headache and sat on the ground, shedding tears looking at the notes in the box.

Jacob Lee belonged to a n.o.ble family. There was a time when this surname was once a symbol of wealth in the north. But to the Sarin’s generation, Lee’s family has nothing. These debt papers are the evidence. The person who in the past owed money exists no more today. The change of rights, change in succession, wars, all these made Lee family decline gradually.

If the n.o.ble Lee family was alive then Sarin would’ve bought ten such Ceylon cities.

Pressing the badge on the forehead is a symbol of Jacob Lee’s family. Sarin didn’t sell this palm-sized badge, like these notes the badge is also his father’s belonging left for him.

Sarin was six years old when his parents died. They’ve left behind only the box and the ancestral home for him. Because Sarin did not have any skills to earn money for his living so he had to rely on selling the things of the house. Any merchant would not let the opportunity to become rich by buying from Sarin. What does the child know? In less than half a year Sarin will sell off everything and clean the entire house.

Sarin is now twelve years old but because of malnutrition he looks like ten years old, thin and emaciated. He has not sold the ancestral house, and do not want to sell. He has to go through the formalities for the sale of real estate in the city hall. Few businessmen covets his house but do not buy, they are waiting for him to starve to death. After his death there be not much value of the house, they would only need to buy the land.

Sarin has been leading a hard life, he lived by relying on begging for twelve years.

He was lying on the bed. The cool feeling of the badge was spreading all over his body, even reducing the waist pain. He didn’t even know that after this sleep he will even wake up or not.

Bang! Bang!

Sarin’s fierce eyes opened and he sat up. The sunlight out of the window spreads into the room.

A very strange thing happened, someone knocked on the door early in the morning. His house is not close to the main road but at the foot of the hill. And that apart one has to pa.s.s through a small forest to come to his house. Moreover he has nothing to sell, so usually no one comes to see him.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The knocking sound continues. He jumped out of bed. He felt his body light and there was no fever anymore. He kept the badge back in the box, and box into the bed and went down the stairs to open the door.

Last night while entering the house, groggy Sarin forgot to latch the door and he was scared if any beast came inside from the forest then he would’ve been eaten up while sleeping.

When the sunlight fell inside, he discovered that there is a man standing and he felt relieved. As the light scatters from the trees and falls on the face, Sarin discovered a middle-aged man, black hair, wearing a grey robe and hands leaning on a wooden stick.

The person’s age is not more than forty. He had a long head without any beard on his face. He was holding the wooden stick, wearing a huge silver and black coloured ring with complex symbols on it. Sarin was quite confused with the strange appearance of middle-aged man, is it the Holy See Priest?

The expression of the middle-aged man seems very moderate. Just like an aristocrat demeanour, but it might be his habit and custom, he has nothing to do with it.

Begging career has made Sarin a very sensitive person, he knows how to go and talk to people and what they want. But the man standing at the door seems to be different from other people of Ceylon City. The man stood in front of Sarin but he could not feel the presence of the man.

The man smiled at Sarin and asked “Is no adult present at home?”

This man is obviously from outside the city. Sarin’s heart calmed down, started rubbing his forehead and said “no one else stays here other than me, what is the matter sir?”

Sarin’s well-mannered and courteous behaviour along with his endeavour to stay calm has never made anyone dislike him. That is his twelve years of life experience.

“Oh!” The middle-aged man looked surprisingly at him. Sarin hurried out, wearing only shorts, bare upper body and a palm imprint on his forehead left because of the badge.

“Is this house yours?” Moderate middle-aged man asked.

“Yes” said Sarin with his eyes looking at the ground and his brown pupils contracting. This person is not a robber, right?

“Well, I want to buy this house, can we talk about it?”

Buy this house? Sarin was overwhelmed by the news, he wanted to buy the house and go to the city to work. Even if they provide fresh fish to the apprentice to eat, he’ll eat. He can manage to eat anything given to him as long as he is not starving to death. Sarin moved sideways at a thought and said: “Come in”

The moment the man stepped inside the house, the dust disappeared, the wind started blowing and even the damp smell in the living room suddenly vanished. Sarin was holding back his excitement, shut the door and started contemplating how much money should he charge to sell the house.

The vision of the man gently swept all over the room. There is nothing to admire except the four walls of the house. But the man was satisfied, he turned around and asked Sarin: “You said the house is yours, do you have the deed?”

“I have” Sarin nodded, but did not actually go to his bedroom to find the deed. Now he has grown older, he understands how the merchants deceive by taking advantage of the fact that he is a young boy.

The man smiled, put out his hand to touch Sarin’s head and said “Don’t worry, I’m a magician, will not lie to you, tell me how many gold coins are you expecting to sell this house?”

Gold coins! Sarin’s eyes lit up, he sold so many things but never got a gold coin. A person once took a four feet painting, delayed and then finally paid him a silver. He traded candlesticks of fine gold only for two silver coins. This particular middle-aged man is of conscience. At the age of six, a person took the entire cabinet and left Sarin with only two loaves of bread.