the think tank.

It drizzled the entire evening. After filing my reports, I rode back to my sister's place in Mr City. On the third stop, I stopped my bike. It was still breezy. The sky was still leaking over the city. I took a stroll on the third Street. I badly wanted to smoke.

For days, we have walked the street smoking late in the night, early into the dawn. Sudha used to live here. On the third house on the third street on third stop. His ancestors were kallars before becoming christians.

Therefore, born to a christian family, he, the eldest, was the brightest of the three children. We need not step into his home to stay at his room on the first floor. We were like ghosts. No one in the house knew we existed.

Up there, there is an overhead tank. The Think Tank. We will climb over it. Smoke all night. Think all night. It was here we drew plans to kidnap film stars for ransom or asasinate politicians, including the great dame. We wanted to be the cleansing force.

The Purifying Spirit. Most of us believed in violence. With people becoming all the more selfish, we believed that violence to be the only way to clean up the system. None of us had studied Marx or The Revolutions, excpet in text books. We have heard stories, read quite a few war stories. We were fascinated with secret service, specially the KGB and the SS.

We wanted to be just that. Don't hesitate to kill to earn your living. The thought process sure was induced by substance addiction. The objective though was for the common good. We will have some money to spend and operate. The rest will be offered to others.

As we talked for hours, the dark blue sky turned darker only to change into a lighter hue of blue and then truly blue before it dawned by four o'clock. Staring into the bluish sky and into the stars, we wanted to be stars. Not the filmy kind but like those twinkiling from the sky.

We wanted to guide people who had lost direction. We were a gang of good guys. Drugs are a cruel kind. They killed all of us. Not fully, but effectively. Like all those brave sailors, we were also shipwrecked.

Time can be cruel also. Here I walk, all alone, thinking of my friends. It is midnight. I walk into the third street and stand in front of the third house.

The Think Tank Is Still There.

Above All.