The asylum was on a deserted island, four kilometers off the coast of Karachi. Not most people know about it today, but it was used very frequently during the Second World War.
The island was a pile of rocks sprinkled with sand. The only inhabitants of the island were crustaceans and a few migratory birds that had their humble abode inside the weather-beaten, seasick asylum – or rather, ex-asylum.
Contrary to popular belief, the German Nazi scientists weren’t the only ones striving to discover a magic spell to win the war. The asylum housed less mentally insane and more political inmates. The gloomy 4-storey structure that stood on the island was once a bright colored hospital, but to those that knew about the real reason behind the establishment of this asylum, the current version was more suitable.
Waves clashed with rocks now where once stood a sturdy harbor. The abandoned light house was now a semi-corroded structure under 3 meters of water. The asylum itself was now all but destroyed. The entrance lacked two glass doors, the corridors needed cleaning, carpeting, lighting, and all else that is needed to make a century old building look less like a grave. The wards were empty and housed only dust and bird-droppings. The sea could be heard unmistakably from any part of the building. Of course, at one time, the sound had been of maddened laughter and agonizing screams. A walk through the building was enough to make anyone’s hair stand on ends. The operation theatre now only held jars of murky water and dissolved organs, apart from a few medieval torture devices. The still, damp air smelt of decaying corpses and sewers.
The asylum had been destroyed in a fire in the early 50’s, taking with it the lives of all 500 inmates and staff. Thus, a mysterious aura always surrounded it and restrained anyone from destroying or replacing the remains of the experimental asylum.
With nothing to illuminate it, the asylum seemed like a giant cavern whose silence seemed to echo every scream uttered by its ill-fated inmates. A thousand eyes seemed to pierce the darkness with their ever watchful presence.
Local fishermen had reportedly heard calls for help from ashore on full moons when the tides were at their highest and the sea was the most turbulent. Those who already knew about the island were sure to avoid the calls for as long as they were near the dreaded island.
Surrounding the asylum were the remains of a garden once intended to enhance the island’s beauty. Later on, it became a graveyard for failed experiments and some cases of irrecoverable torture. The asylum started off as a hospital for the criminally insane but after the start of the Second World War the place was filled to the brim with political inmates whom the government wanted to get off the grid for good. The train medical staff was over the next few years replaced with the crazy scientists seeking an easy way to win the war.
Bloodshed, madness, and death followed as the hospital transformed into a slaughterhouse. Merciless tortures had numbed everyone’s sense of humanity, and in the end, the place was filled with merciless killers and brainless zombies.
One such night, during a usual torture session, they lit the inmate’s limbs on fire as a gruesome joke. No one noticed the gas tanks on the other side of the room as within no time the whole asylum was aflame. Many of the inmates died in the metal cages they were put in for further analysis of how severed limbs affected one’s brain function. Those lucky few that survived the fire either starved to death or were slammed on the pointed rocks sprinkled around the shore in a failed attempt of swimming to safety.
Authored by Usama Gohar Dahri of class AS Level
at Pakturk International Schools & Colleges, Islamabd Chak shahzad Branch
A piece of descriptive writing with astoundingly good quality! What impresses me most is the fact that it was attempted (manually) as a monthly test by the student (the author) when sitting in the class-room (AS Level Class). That afternoon, I marked it hurriedly in a casual, speedy way awarding him merely 80% marks (an ‘A’ grade). As a couple of sentences went on haunting my mind, I later decided to give it a second look. The student’s writing font being a little perturbing, I offered him my laptop asking him to type it by sitting in the library the next morning. He was back after half an hour to show me the file he had saved on the desktop. It was then that I perused it word for word - only to discover that the description was of outstanding quality. Least to say, it’s an A* star grade attempt. I can say it with unwavering confidence that if Usama managed to produce the same standard of writing in the Cambridge Exam, he might end up with winning a distinction – be it city level or even greater than that.
ReplyDeleteHumayun Mujahid
‘A’ Level English Teacher
PakTurk International,
Chak Shahzad Islamabad