One often experiences strange incidents in life. Such incidents remain etched in the memory lane. Scary or cheerful, my first trip on the Lyari expressway can never be forgotten. Why not, for it is recorded in detail in my personal diary. Before the arrival of my cousins from USA, I believed myself to be a sort of an extremely brave wunderkind. It all changed after that. Even my grandiloquence did not stop them from frightening me with hair-raising stories. Very soon, I had started to fear every nick and corner for what it may conceal.
As a small child, I started believing in out-worldly people and in the fact that my cousins were clairvoyants and could see into the future. Along with these stories, my cousins had burst me with admiration for the autobahn on the Lyari River. I repeatedly tried to persist my over-burdened father into taking me for a ride, till he finally accepted my request. Dressed smartly on that eventful day, I looked for all to see as the luckiest boy in the world. As a final blood curdle, my eldest cousin warned me that something bad could happen to me on the expressway. However, even his warning could not dampen my spirits before the ride.
After 5 minutes of light-hearted singing (and unhesitating driving by my father), we finally reached the tollbooth of the autobahn. I could not stop myself from thinking whether the collector was an out-worldly creature or a human. Only when I discovered that his ears weren’t pointed – but were round just like my ears – was I convinced of his being. After the toll had commanded over a littlemoneyfrom my father’s pocket, my father opened the car radio and started driving at a ridiculous speed. He had a wonderful sense of schadenfreude when he learnt from the car radio that a car crash had occurred near the entrance of the expressway.
The crash meant that there would be no other cars on the autobahn, so my father could continue driving at his ridiculous speed. At this point of the narrative, I will blame my cousins for redirecting my thoughts. Their stories spooked me for a long time, especially on the Lyari autobahn. I believed that every nick and corner would reveal a specially armed kidnapper. Then suddenly I saw the outline of a man running towards us and my blood ran cold. Many people say that reading too many books can be bad for you. I sincerely agreed with them after the incident.
At that point of time, I imagined myself to be an African slave of the 1800s being shipped to the States. I prepared myself to be stripped of my lederhosen and to be given a diet of kinkorn. I would be separated from myfamilyand be thrashed by a myriad of people. Harrowingly, I told my father that a convict, who was brandishing a sword, was beckoning us to stop. Seeing my miserable face, my father started laughing uncontrollably, and almost crashed into a wall. After gazing at my surprised face, he told me that the ‘ convict’ was actually guard pointing to the speed limit; which my father had been crossing.
Chuckling, my father related that the guard had a much more powerful weapon to brandish than a sword; the guard had a gun! After the afore-mentioned incident, I vowed never to spook little children with haunted stories. I advise all readers never to take a trip on an autobahn during the night.
