Courage of a Velvet

By Usama Mehmood

A teenage girl coming back from college is kidnapped and then sold to a rich sindhi guy.
A 35 year old butcher’s eight months wife’s is dead on her way to bring him lunch. A teenager with his entourage in a luxury car ran over her and her stomach burst on the road.
Harris, the butcher saw it all. She was love of his life. His life has no meaning left. He leaves his parents’ house and start living in an apartment in an old abandoned building where city’s all criminals live.
He turns in to a target killer. One early morning he receives a call to buy two kgs of apples and cut them into pieces for people. It is code for find random two people, kill and cut them into pieces and throw them in public place so more horror can be spread amongst people.
Same day, at noon his father visits his apartment and tells him that his younger brother hasn’t come home for three days. He with his father inquire places his brother could be then they visit policestation where they are told to visit hospitals themselves and police can’t help with already security situation of the city getting worse and they are busy in that.
They find his brother’s dead body in one of the public hospital. He is outside the hospital sobbing while his father do the necessary arrangement to release the body from the hospital. An old couple who came that day from a rural Sindh village ask Harris for some direction, they are trying to find their son who hasn’t called for two weeks. He takes them to his apartment, drugs and kill them and then cut them in to pieces.
He then dumps those pieces in same luxury car who ran over his wife, he finds in a parking lot of a supermarket. The teenager is the son of a political person who’s party is behind all the target killing.
He then visits his parents’ house and attend his young brother’s funeral.
Police identifies Harris through security cameras in the parking lot.
Harris receives the call from the same guy who told him to target kill people and tell him to meet somewhere. They meet and Harris is told to leave town and go to safe-house in rural Sindh somewhere.
Initially he refuses but then agrees. (details in screenplay)

He is put in a train and told about an unknown station, where he finds an old guy with donkey-cart who takes him to the safe-house. At safe-house he finds a target killer already living. They both receive calls to kill each other. When trying to kill each other, they find out that the same guy is behind manipulating the, they plan to go back to Karachi and revenge. (details in screenplay)
They burn down the safe-house (chalet) and walks towards the station. On their way they find the same donkey-cart guy and snatch the ride from him.
They are then stopped by the same rich sindhi guy who bought the teenage girl. The old donkey-cart man was supposedly supplying drugs to the sindhi guy and when he sees the two random guys on the same donkey-cart, he stops them and inquire. (details in screenplay)
They couldn’t justify how they got that donkey-cart so sindhi guy told his bodyguards to bring him to his villa. The teenage girl is being held in that villa’s second floor.
In underground floor, some other rich sindhi guys are gathered to play Russian duelet, where participants are given one bullet for their revolver, and told to put it on the head on the guy in front of him and they guy behind the guy has his revolver on the head of the same guy. That’s who the circle is complete.
Rich sindhi guys bet on who will survive. There are rounds and in next rounds more bullets are given for the revolver.
The two target killer are put in that duelet. There is a long details how they end up in last round and they then shot the sindhi guys and burn the villa down while the girl upstairs is planning for her escape. (details in screenplay)
And then there is a twist in the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Usama Mehmood
• Release date: Nov 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370917143

Book preview

Courage of a Velvet

Usama Mehmood

March 04, 2015

1. INT – SECOND FLOOR - VILLA – FOREST – SOMEWHERE IN INTERIOR SINDH – 2 PM

ANNIE, who was kidnapped yesterday when she was coming back from her college had left the college that day with four of her friends.

Because ANNIE’s house was the most furthest amongst those five girls, she was walking alone in a deserted street under the scorching heat.

She never liked the idea of a Veil or Abaya or Burkha.

She believed it confines the minds of a women and physically makes them more vulnerable between men. A woman is already half defeated in the competition with the men if she is wearing a veil; well that’s just her believes.

She was 17 years old, beautiful fair skin, dark luminous black eyes and two toned long hair, the sort that gives almond color shine in bright sunlight and black shine in dimmed light.

A high-roof car stopped in front of her in the street, two men with bare naked face grabbed her with shoulders and her feet; and threw her in the car.

The car flew off.

They put a blind fold on her eyes, taped her mouth and cuffed her hands behind.

She was taken to an unknown destination and was put in a room with other girls, door closed outside.

She sat at that room on the floor, uncomfortably for aroud thirty minutes.

Two women aging almost 45 years old, entered in that room and picked her up and started ripping her clothes off.

WOMAN I

Don’t worry child, I have a daughter too, take me as your mother. Stop resisting. We just want to see if you have any birth marks or any deficiency on your body.

They kept on ripping her college uniform, her bra and finally her panties until she was standing there blind-folded, tapped mouth, bare naked.

That blind-fold was then almost wet because of her tears.

WOMAN II (to WOMAN I)

I think she looks perfect amongst these lots.

She was referring to other girls kidnapped and put on that room.

ANNIE was still wearing her college shoes.

ANNIE realized that those girls were there sitting bare naked too.

Her heart was pounding like an atom bomb on every beat.

Her house was just in the next street, she thought to herself standing naked there and thinking if she could have walked more quickly, she would have been lying on her bed comfortably, eating ‘biryani’, MOM promised in the morning she was making Chinese for lunch, the thought of that broke her already shattered heart even more.

WOMAN I (to ANNIE, holding her cheeks with her two palms)

Okay Beta, you can sit now, my beautiful princess.

Bidding is about to start in 15 minutes.

The two women pushed her shoulder down to force her to sit back.

ANNIE mumbled through her tapped mouth but no one could hear her.

Bidding starts. The two women were showing them girls.

Men with big moustaches, some with beards, some with no hair on their heads, some so aged, they could go for as far as grandfather of ANNIE.

They must be 10 men, all at once in the dirty, isolated room.

SOOMRO saw ANNIE.

WOMAN I

O you saw one of our precious possessions.

SOOMRO

How much?

WOMAN I

She is virg—

SOOMRO (slightly louder)

How much? (continuously staring bare naked body of ANNIE and ignoring WOMAN I face)

WOMAN I

For our regular client like you, Rs. 500,000—

SOOMRO

Done. (he didn’t even let the WOMAN I complete the sentence)

WOMAN I (excitingly)

Excellent!

SOOMRO left the room.

WOMAN II grabbed ANNIE with her right arm and quickly dragged her to the next room. She was forced to put traditional Sindhi clothes by WOMAN II.

When she was ready, still blind-folded and tapped-mouth, she was dragged by two men who kidnapped her two hours ago and put on the back seats of the Vigo.

SOOMRO was driving that Vigo car.

The car took off like a bullet, from Karachi to somewhere interior Sindh.

ANNIE sat in that car for twenty more hours. SOOMRO drove the car silently.

Her eyes are all dried up, she hasn’t drank or eaten anything since her lunch-time yesterday in her college.

The car stops at a Villa, middle of nowhere in the forest somewhere in Sindh.

She is taken out of the car and put in a room in second floor of the VILLA.

March 18, 2015

1A. INT – DARK ROOM – ABANDONED FLAT – DESERTED BUILDING – KARACHI – 4 AM

Phone is ringing for quite sometimes, HARRIS (35 years old), is in deep sleep after drinking desi-alcohol till 2 am. The apartment had no furniture. A dirty-rotten smelly couch and an old table next to it. On the table, there are bottles and paper plates and cups used days ago. It’s a one bed apartment in a building which was stopped almost from full construction because of the dispute between a resourceful politician and a successful businessman. Both claiming their rights to the land. Case pending in the court for almost a decade now.

Harris has been living here for a year. The building is a safe haven for criminals, convicts and drug-addicts. The smelly-aroma from the building gives impression of it being built in Mughal era.

Phone is still ringing. Harris gives up the resistance of ignoring the ringing voice which was hitting to his brain as a continuous hammer to his head. He stands sit, tries to find the phone on the couch or sheet he is using to cover from the chilly weather.

HARRIS

For fuck sake…Where the hell are you.?

His hangover head can’t figure out the direction of the ring. He begins browsing through the things on the table, throwing them down the floor after checking them. He eventually finds the phone in a paper cup. The phone is a small old Nokia.

He looks for the caller id but his vision is still blur due to hangover.

HARRIS

Yeah? Who the fuck is this?

MAN

I need two kg’s of apples cut in pieces for the audience.

HARRIS

Wait, I haven’t gotten the last—

MAN hangs up the phone.

HARRIS

Fucking hell!! (throws the phone against the wall, which opens up into two parts)

He grabs the edge of the sheets, lie down and cover himself. We see his red eyes wide open and gradually the eye lid shuts down as he loses the urge to stay awake.

Cut to black screen.

2. INT – DARK ROOM – ABANDONED FLAT – DESERTED BUILDING – 1 PM

There is a heavy knock on the door. HARRIS has been incorporating that knock in his dreams for last a couple of minutes and he doesn’t want to wake up. The noise from the door is like of someone trying to break the door open. HARRIS eventually wakes up. Take a deep breath and looks around his surroundings. Life is still shit. He is only wearing under garments.

He walks towards the door, avoiding to hit on any stuff lying around the floor. He opens the door.

BABA (barges in the flat)

Where have you been? I have been knocking for hours.

HARRIS

I was sleeping.

BABA

It’s