The Dictator’s Curse

 Short Story

Kaleem Butt

Forty-five year old Professor Akram, the master storyteller of  ‘Land of Pures’, known as man of uncountable words and stories, walked past the huge tower of curse, his eyes went upwards to the hourglass that was filled with the dictator’s curse, the curse inside the glass looked like some kind of white liquid. Professor Akram sighed walking away quickly, firmly pressing the spectacles that he held in his right hand since his lips were sealed with a black tape, he was unable to speak. He’d to walk a mile from the isolated area of Kaf City, and show his presence at the dean’s office testifying that he was the happiest citizen in the dictator’s regime, even if being a storyteller his lips were sealed.

In his early days Professor Akram was a clean shaven man, it was said he was a charmer and any woman could fall for him just by listening to his magical stories. Stories that gave joy and happiness to the listeners.

   Some seven years ago, when the dictator illegitimately took the power in middle of the night, an hourglass filled with his curse was placed on the huge tower made of stone, which stood in the middle of the city. Prior to the coup, when the days were called ‘the golden days of democracy’ a beautiful clock used to show time to the passers-by.

   Right from the beginning of the dictator’s regime; he ordered to seal the lips of storytellers with black tapes, and also had ordered his loyal guards to throw them in an isolated area of the city, so that they couldn’t intermingle with common people and tell them their non-sense stories. If truth be spoken, the storytellers were not the only people in the city whose lips were sealed; on the contrary every person’s lips were sealed with tapes of different colours.

 Lips of government officials were sealed with green tape, lips of close aides of the dictator were sealed with white tape, lips of journalists were sealed with red tape, while the lips of storytellers were sealed with black tape. The citizens were allowed to unseal their lips only for one hour per day. However, the journalists and storytellers didn’t have that liberty, they were not at all allowed to remove the tapes and open their lips.

 ‘In case of disobedience a fatal curse would fall upon you and upon your born and unborn children,’ citizens were told.  

The citizens cried: ‘aahs….and oohs….’

‘Silence;’ screamed the soldier with thick beard standing under the tower, since the dictator had announced a special allowance for soldiers who kept beards and trimmed mustache, every soldier kept beard like the one who stood under the tower and shouted at citizens to become silent,  for silence was the order of the day.

Being fair with Professor Akram, he’d nothing to do with the dictator’s allowance on fancy black, white, red or orange coloured beards. The day he was stopped from entering his class and also stopped from telling people stories, which he concocted, he stopped taking care of himself.   

   Professor Akram, man of uncountable words and stories walked quickly towards his hut in the isolated area. There were about fifty huts of storytellers, whose lips were sealed.

   The funny thing that happened in the isolated area of the city was, wives of all the storytellers were expecting babies, and each of them was going through the eighth month of pregnancy. So was the case with Professor Akram’s wife Shama (meaning light). That evening when Professor Akram reached his hut, he lit the candle as the dictator had disconnected the electric supply of the isolated area, so that the storytellers might learn the lesson. He sat beside his wife’s cot, removing the black tape from his lips placed both his hands’ on Shama’s belly. Shama protested and reminded him of the dictator’s curse, she being a storyteller’s wife knew about power of words, either a blessing or a curse, she knew scholars and writers like John Barth had again and again taught ‘the magic was in words, but that magic only worked when they came out from a master’s mouth’ and her husband was a master storyteller of the ‘Land of Pures’. Professor Akram ignored her and started narrating a story to his unborn child, for him telling that story was more important:

‘Once upon a time, in a place not far from us, there was light of democracy that faded away and the darkness of dictatorship ruined lives. All rights and liberties of citizens were suspended. Minds were controlled by religious rites. Darkness overshadowed light, violence killed the peace.  

‘My child, please listen this story….’

Soon voices started coming from other huts too, as though all the storytellers had started telling the same story to the babies that would soon arrive.

Within few minutes the hourglass burst out and there was a loud scream, as loud as one could imagine, everyone covered ears with hands.

   A month later the babies were born without ears. The story that was narrated to them was never heard.