The Silent Minority

without worrying that someone would misunderstand him.

  But now the dilemma was, whether he should wait in this house until the other boy returned, or should he go to the treasurer's house? He decided to wait. Being in the boy's room for no reason, he felt he was intruding someone's privacy, so he waited in the lounge. As the time went by, without the other kid coming back, he decided to go to the treasurer's house, and if needed be, he would come back. Again the house wasn't far; a very similar sort of a house, but a bit more spacious than the other two.

  The treasurer had one kid, a lovely little girl about six to seven years old; she was in her room, playing one of the video games. Her mother was in the kitchen, preparing the meal for dinner. The vice-chairman went straight to the girl's room. He watched the little girl, as she was occupied with the video, and said to himself, "If this is going to fail, I won't bother anymore."

  There were toys on the floor, drawings that the girl had colored in, and an open paper envelope with what it appeared were small pieces of paper, each one with a letter from the alphabet, in order to teach the girl how to spell. There were all sorts of colored pencils, and more. He concentrated on the girl, trying to see if he could lift a pencil, but nothing. At that moment the outside door opened, and the treasurer came in the house shouting, "Darling, I'm home."

  His wife embraced and kissed him saying, "Do you want a drink, darling?"

  "Yes I would like one; what a hectic day!"

  "How was the funeral?"

  "Oh, just like any other funeral."

  "Were there many people there?"

  "O yes! Even the chairman and the so-called Teacher, were there; can you imagine this, of all the people he could not stand, and this two turned up in his funeral.

  "Are you hungry?"

  "I am starving."

  "How is our little one?"

  "She is playing one of her video games. I'd better check up on her."

  The door was open and as she entered the room, she froze; she turned back and called her husband, with her finger across her lips, indicating to him not to make any noise. They both entered the room carefully and saw the little girl, in an unusual position, watching one of the small cut up pieces of paper she used for learning how to spell lift off the floor, and rise until it lay on the table, next to a word that was already taking shape. This letter was the letter "D", it lay a bit further from one word formed previously that read DONT, but without the apostrophe between the letters N and T. The next letter that came out of the pack of letters on the floor was the letter "O". It lay down next to the letter "D", forming the word DO. So far two words were formed; DONT DO.

  The treasurer and his wife looked at each other, baffled.

  What the hell is going on here? Wondered the treasurer. Before he finished his thought, another letter slowly lifted from the floor. This time it was the letter "I", and it settled a bit further than the previous word DO, obviously starting to form a new word.

  I, what? Thought the treasurer, I what? And at the same time the letter "T" lifted slowly from the floor, and laid next to the letter "I".

  DONT DO IT.

  Cold sweat started to run down from his forehead. Immediately he knew what the message was for him; he knew what it was all about. He looked at his wife, and she looked bewildered, and as he came to his senses and thought of trying to do something about it, suddenly a pencil that was lying on the floor, started to rise. It reached the word DONT, in between the letters "N" and "T" and was trying hard to scribe the apostrophe, but then, the pencil fell, the little girl fell, and over the other side, the vice-chairman fell too. All of them collapsed simultaneously, out of the sheer tremendous exertion from what he had managed to perform.

  The parents ran to the girl, wetting her lips with a glass of water. She was pale, and unconscious, but after a while, she sat up without ever remembering anything.

  At night the treasurer could not make out what it was all about. He sensed what the message was about, and that it was a warning for him not to proceed with what he and his buddies had planned, but he could not understand what happened, or how it happened. If he had not seen that with his own eyes, he definitely would not have believed it. But now, how could he dispute it? How could he resist what happened? And what should he do now?

  More or less they had agreed to take a radical step to eliminate this so-called Teacher. Should he back off? And what were the others going to say? They would demand an explanation. Should he tell the truth? Who would believe him? These guys, like him, despised anything to do with supernatural things, so they would be the last people in the universe to believe anything of paranormal phenomena. They would certainly mock him, and even suggest seeing a psychiatrist. But that was not all. Any hopes, and any aspirations he had of contending the chairman's post in the up-coming elections would go out of the window.

  But how should he proceed then? After today's incident, to get rid of the Teacher physically was out of question. The only road left open was to proceed with legal channels to achieve it. With this in his mind, he fell asleep.

  The four members of the committee that have been assigned to solve the Teacher's issue, met again, this time without the vice-chairman, to plan how to proceed. Already, at the funeral, they had decided to take the course, of physical elimination, in order to stop this guy continuing his attacks against their country, and the world. With all this paranormal garbage, new age sophistries, and ideological paranormal ties, the chances of this small wave becoming an unstoppable tsunami, were highly possible.

  They met in the back of the room at the WCFET again, but without the presence of the wise chairman, it looked rather incomplete, and it felt odd. The treasurer, as the highest-ranking official in the group, began to address them. "Gentlemen, we all know why we are here, so we will go straight to the point. Wasting time on formalities is an unaffordable luxury for us. Last time I could not sleep for thinking about our predicament, and so I have revised some thoughts about our Endeavour. First of all I want to say I do not think that there is one other man in the world who wants to get rid of this guy, as much as I do. Having said that, I will now elaborate on thoughts I had last night. As I was putting my little girl to bed, it occurred to me that it would be a tragedy if she lost her father because my irresponsible action. You all have children, so you know what I am talking about.

  "Then, I thought about the last time we met in this room, how we reacted when the vice-chairman suggested we should exterminate this guy physically. He even called us cowards. I am sure at that time we all acted rationally, but somehow; we deviated from that course influenced by the death of our vice-chairman.

  "If we analyze the problem we face with this guy, we'll see we don't show enough faith in our profession. Sixty per cent of our members are lawyers. I am sure if we concentrate on it, we will find a way to put this imposter back to his hole without violence. It is no use crying over spilt milk. It may take time, but I am sure we can eventually throw away the keys."

  "The truth is that I was not quite sure about it myself," said one of the others. "I think we over-reacted yesterday."

  "Is there anyone who wants to pursue what we had decided yesterday, gentlemen? Shall we take a vote for it?"

  They shook their heads.

  "Very well then," said the treasurer, "let's see how we shall begin then, for we will have to start from scratch."

  "I think," said one of them, "the best way to go is to declare elections in about one month's time. Our draft allows it for special circumstances, and we can justify it easily. We elect one of us as chairman, and then we will declare the recommendation issued by the former chairman as void, because of conflicting interests of the parties concerned."

  "That sounds all right. After all, these pictures of the pair prove that."

  "The problem is, whom shall we select for chairman? We don't want to finish up with a weak one. Don't forget what happened with the one we still legally have."

  "We need someone that we can trust."
br />   "I suggest that you should run for the chairman's position," the king maker said to the treasurer. "I think that you will make a good one, and above all, we all know where you stand."

  "That sounds all right," said someone.

  "I'll second that," said another.

  The date for the elections was set. Everything was going well for the treasurer. The king maker behind the scenes made sure things to turn to his favor, by campaigning the way only he could. It was not that hard, as the topic for the campaign was the issue about the way with which the WCFET handled the Teacher's problem. It wasn't a typical election, as such, as various governments from around the world appointed members, for it was affiliated by the UNO. The hardest problem, logistically, was to bring all the members together at the particular date at short notice.

  As the tradition was for the host country to hold the chairman's office, and since all the countries were dissatisfied the way things turned out of the Teacher's hearing case, it looked as if this election would be a breeze for the treasurer.

  And it was so. By a landslide, virtually unopposed, he became the new chairman of the WCFET, with two of the buddies of the four taking important positions in the committee.

  It seemed the new chairman would have his hands free to handle the Teacher's problem, as he felt fit. He called the first meeting of the new committee.

  "Ladies and