Fiction: The Glass Palace by Humayun Malik

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Editor's note: This story contains instances of sexual assault and violent content. Reader's discretion is advised.

As the president notices that the ministers, bureaucrats, foreign diplomats, and even the general public unconsciously stare at his wife, distracting themselves from various events, including his speech, he has to try not to take his enchanting lady to such occasions. Although the First Lady Zerin Nay enjoys these stares, she doesn’t dare to say that she should accompany him to the state occasions.

Now, after several dramatic turns, she herself is the president. In the meantime, people consider her the Iron Lady. She knows they consider so, knowing not how tender she is.

What do you think of me? when she asks her private secretary, Konok, he thinks it’s just her curiosity. As she has some programmes for the rootless, jobless, and destitute, opportunists capitalize on this to appease her, saying, The Goodness of humanity. As he can’t be the president’s sycophant, he thinks, now he should keep mum.

You write poems, then she asks, right?

I pursue… He responds.

Then write a poem about me.

The next day, she urges him for the poem.

He submits his effort.

In the poem, she is a symbol of birth, nourishment, shelter, and also of nature. She considers that these stanzas are worse than what her husband used to tell her during sex, You are interesting like our resourceful island.

It’s very artificial, she said angrily to the PS.

I think you yourself are a great poet, ma’am. The giant nuclear power plant, Romin International Airport, and the longest bridge over the furious river named after the great leader you’ve created, each is an epic.

But I know you could write an epic on me.

How she says this!

Doesn’t my beauty attract you!

He is stunned.

After lunch, she calls him to her restroom to present an important file. There’s a restroom attached to the president’s office. The exhausted president rests there. Konok had never entered the room before.

When he enters, he sees Ma’am lying on an artistic couch. She is wearing short dresses of aesthetic rural designs on valuable foreign cloth.

She offers him to sit on the bed beside her.

He feels nervous and can’t ignore.

After sitting, he opens the file.

Close it, I’m feeling a serious headache, she says closing her eyes, massage my head.

He’s embarrassed, says, I may call nurse Risa!

Her soft fingers won’t work here; my head needs rigid touches. O, she utters in pain, oh…

He overcomes the dilemma and places his right hand on her forehead.

I’m feeling comfort, she utters.

After a short time, she says, My chest wants comfort—please massage.

He senses himself paralyzed. But she snatches his right hand and presses her breast forcibly with it under the bra.

He’s sweating in the cool air of the AC.

Within a few seconds, the rebellion inside him, like this island’s students on the highway, political leaders on the dais, or deprived workers in the procession, then they are shot, and some of them die.

You can kill one, but can’t subdue. With a sudden jerk, he tries to pull out his hand, but in the contest of power, he loses. Moreover, she forcibly pulls her to her chest, saying, I’ll have sex with you.

He tries to free himself. But how strong she is! Last 7th February was her 75th birth anniversary. The island state Rowland has only not the resources of oil, coal, and even gold, above all, the country is so beautiful for its nature with sea around that only the income from tourists could play an important role in its shaky economy, but for the corruption, robbery, and anarchy of the government’s people, tourists from all over the world avoid this beauty. Its natural resources are also polluted by her men. But even by them she obtains the best organic fruit, meat, honey, and other things from all over the land, and to preserve those, there are ponds, farms, gardens, etc. in the president’s palace. She becomes so energetic not only through this exploitation, Konok thinks, but also, certainly, she takes provocative sex pills. He noticed that the most beautiful young heroines and models praise Zerin, saying, We’re jealous of your elegance, ma’am. But now Konok senses that she is in the grip of an old, ugly witch.

He tries continuously to be free.   

As you told me, Zerin utters, I must rape you to prove the term.

Then she has read the poem, which is published, although anonymously, in the international magazine, Literary Geography. Or it’s his intelligence source.

And as you’ll not be able to resist, it’s better if you enjoy this, her tone becomes liberal, or do me as you like.

She offers it, Konok realizes, to make sex more enjoyable for her.

But it’s a far cry; she finds his penis shrunk. Every abled man must be excited with the touch of her loveliness—how does he stay so dull! Is he panicked, as she knows what he wrote?

She holds his penis with her right hand and tries—as masturbation; no excitement flows through her palm and fingers. In the history of sex, generally, women can’t rape men; they are victims—if a man wishes, he can. But, Zerin determined, I must perform it.

When all her efforts come in vain, she considers herself the depriver, insulted, and the victim of this young man as a raped woman. You hate me, as a result, you…

She gets extremely angry and kicks him off the bed. I also built Glass Palace for people like you.

She bursts into anger over the phone with someone.

Rapidly, four or five personnel enter Konok’s room. They are in civilian dress, but their trained, hard bodies indicate they are from the Special Action Battalion—SAB, consisting of police and army.

SAB quickly tied his eyes tightly with a piece of cloth and snatched his mobile phone. Then, two of them grab him from two sides and begin to drag.

Where are you taking me! he asks.

Let’s go first, someone says, then you’ll feel it in your bones.

He already knows from many reliable sources that there are many torture centers across Rowland. If anyone works, even speaks against the government, they are picked up there, and many of them never return.

Then let me talk with my wife.

No.

Even my infant daughter for the last time. They wouldn’t reveal anything. If they… You can punish them, too.

Just shut up.

When they remove his blindfold, he’s in an unfamiliar old palace. He hears terrifying sounds of torture and screams all around, and also notices security cameras in every corner—does she not even believe her SAB?

He realizes that this disbelief always survives her. She has not only made the palace transparent, but by any means, the entire island; anyone who acts against her she captures.

They lock him in a constricting, dirty, and suffocating room.

In no time, they commence torture by punching and kicking him. Then hang a heavy stone from his penis. He feels his penis is falling apart.

Is Zerin observing this on the monitor?

Is she not a psycho!

When he first enters the president’s residence after being appointed, he notices numerous murals of her brother, son, daughter, and husband, who were assassinated in the coup, on both sides of the staircase, from the ground floor to the bedroom.

Ma’am, after a few days, he asks her, how you bear these painful frescoes and why!

I see them from dawn to dusk—they are my inspiration.

When Zerin Nay came to power, although some assassins escaped, most were captured and received punishments according to the offense. Major Kiaf, who directly shot her brother, young son, and baby girl dead, on the night of the hanging, Zerin enters his cell with some professional killers.

They force Kiaf to lie on the floor for slaughter. But suddenly Zerin snatches the bull-butchering knife from a killer and stabs Kiaf’s throat. While blood is gushing from the throat, her bloodthirsty eyes flashed with satisfaction.

But what did she do with the main assailant, Lieutenant General M M Tikka!

When the president, Romin Nay, became unpopular for nepotism, corruption, and dictatorship, some ambitious army officers made a blueprint for a coup.

Entering the president’s house, they first fire Romin Nay, then others; at last, their leader, Tikka, comes to the First Lady and says, I can’t kill you—a true beauty inside and out, but others must. If you agree to live with me, I’ll take the risk to save you.

A popular uprising followed five years of military rule, and Zerin Nay was elected president. Then, some killers were hanged, but Chief Martial Law Administrator Tikka may flee abroad. Konok thought about the five years when Zerin had to lie with CMLA reluctantly, during the intercourse, she must have felt she was on the bed of the corpse of her husband and children, but now he realizes she enjoyed that, and it’s she who really made the opportunity for Tikka’s escape.

But later, people find her serious with her husband. She says, Our great leader, Romin Nay, is my role model, who started sustainable development, the longest highway, great skyscrapers, to build a prosperous nation, but… Spending a lot of money, she arranges to make his sculpture at the important points across the country. If any artist draws his portrait, any writer writes a poem or a piece of fiction about him, a singer sings a song about him, her government gives him a good honorarium, a housing plot, a job, promotion, etc. Thus, the country’s significant turns are decorated by his sculptures, all libraries are overloaded with books on him, TV channels almost always just talk about him, and sing his song.

Day by day, people have reached the point of bursting, but they can’t because of jail, torture, and death, as during Romin’s reign. Even aganist Romin Nay, the army rebeled, her army chief Kadel has establish bars, farms, and a children’s parks with black money, the director general of SAB, Noab, picks up girls from colleges to the Glass Palace, she has records—although she can sacrifice her life for the interest of this land, she ignores their crimes for her survival.

However, if any incident occurs by mass uprising or military coup, Konok thinks, to save herself from extreme humiliation, as Cleopatra, Hitler commit suicide, Tipu Sultan, Ibrahim Lodi fought up to the death—it’s too one kind of suicide, which Zerin can’t, she is so clever that she must escape anyhow, that’s why she has leased oil mining to a big brother and gold mining exploration to a superpower, endangering this land.

But I can’t escape anyway, Konok understands, then, what would happen to my wife and children, who have no way to live without me.

Again, they hang a heavy stone from his penis.

He utters through unbearable pain, I’m not involved in any political conspiracy.

What’s the result of telling us these! You’ve to walk, he orders, Walk.

After a few steps, he fell. I’m dying.

So what! They held him up, inserted a stick in his anus, and said again, Walk.

Better you kill me.

We can’t let you die, but the pain of countless deaths.

After a few steps, he becomes senseless.

Are you not thinking of writing about us? It seems that, hearing Zerin’s question, he’s regaining his sense. And will compose poems on behalf of justice! But…

The torturers force him to stand and place his hands on a table. One of them rapidly cuts off his fingers with a mechanical knife.

Then your tongue, man with a knife informs.

Though it doesn’t need to cut your tongue, their leader says, because no sound goes out from here. Even to God, it’s a dark and dumb house. So don’t scream, up to cutting your tongue, you can pray; the Goddess of this palace only enjoys the prayer.

Humayun Malik’s fictions & poems have appeared in international anthologies and literary magazines, including Ariel Chart, Nixes Mate Review, Kelp Journal, Medley Ostraca, Down in the Dirt magazine, Shoegaze Literary, and LitBop. He has 25 released books. In his fiction, he seeks to introduce a novel approach that synthesizes symbolic arrangement, magic realism, and surrealism. He aims to craft an engaging yet meaningful story that challenges anarchy, hegemony, violence, exploitation, and injustice from a postmodern perspective. He began his career as a journalist, then worked as a government officer and a part-time teacher at universities; currently, he is a lawyer.