Rasool

In a world where every kind of evil found a home, one entity did not belong. 

Rasool. 

No one wanted him. Not even hell. Even the most depraved inhabitants of the netherworld shied away from granting him a place in their midst. Each time he slid past a soul, it shrank away, not just from him but also from his shadow. 

It didn’t bother Rasool much, this ostracization. He had found a new dwelling. Each time he saw someone cower, he quirked a brow and tipped his bowler hat, his cheery-red lips parting open to reveal a toothy grin. White. So white. 

One evening, when the sun hung low on the horizon, Rasool raised his hat for the last time, threw out a salute, and slithered to Earth. His head came up in front of a shingled home with custard walls and a broken chain-link fence. Rasool stretched his arms towards heaven, letting the dirt slide off as the rest of him emerged from the ground. 

His gaze flicked towards his reflection in the mirror of a rusty old Maruti 800 parked in the driveway. The hat sat on his head at a jaunty angle, and Rasool adjusted it to his satisfaction. He smiled at his reflection, and his reflection smiled back at him. A toothy grin. White. So white. 

Rasool directed his attention back to the house. The bright yellow paint had putrefied to grey in places, and the outer mesh door rotated back and forth on its hinges, its creaks faint as the wind whispering in his hair. The house had a single picture window, shuttered off with a faded flowery curtain. 

Rasool cracked his neck and took a step toward the house. And then another. And another, until he reached the porch steps. 

Suddenly the curtains parted open, and a little girl in a sleeveless pinstriped dress peeked out, jet-black braids swishing down her back as she moved her head from side to side. Rasool halted mid-step and swerved in her direction. The girl stared at him, her little pink mouth fashioned into an O. 

Rasool raised his hand and waved. The girl blinked once and then returned the greeting with a wave of her own. Her other hand pressed into the glass. 

Rasool smiled. The girl jerked back as though she had been stabbed in the face with a sharp object. She closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath, her bald, pink shoulders shaking from the force of it. 

“Ladli.” Rasool cooed softly, “It’s me.”

As if on cue, the girl opened her eyes and smiled back at him with white teeth. So white. “Is mommy home?” Rasool mouthed. 

The girl nodded. 

Rasool climbed up the porch steps and rapped his fist against the door. 

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The door swung open, and a woman with tired chestnut eyes met him at the threshold. “I’m home, sweetheart,” he said.