A road less travelled...

Thirty minutes.

Thirty straight minutes at a jam. The car running, devouring fuel like it was a monster out of a children’s fairy tale, with just a huge mouth and nothing else. There was a limit to how much a man could take. It was time to make a difference. It was time to break the cycle and he was the one who would do it.

He gave one last look at the huge snake infront of him, made completely of cars, gorging on invaluable fossil fuel like a blood hungry leech. He closed his eyes and gripped the steering wheel. Concentrate. You can do this.

A hum, like a TV channel which isnt broadcasting, makes, started to go up. It increased in volume and soon enveloped his car. People around him were looking from their cars now. With a huge boom and a big ball of yellow light, the top of the car flew off. Glass fragmented on all sides, littering the road and the cars around in a shower of diamonds. Rohit, the struggling corporate, was suddenly not struggling to reach his office on time. He had become Rohit, the flying corporate, guardian of the fossil fuels. As he flapped his huge, white, angel like wings, taking to the skies, dazzling in the golden light of the sun, speeding like a bullet towards his office, he thought to himself, “that should solve it!”

A rude honk slapped him right back into his car and he discovered the jam had cleared. He changed gears, urging his car to move forward. There had to be a better alternative than taking to the skies with imaginary wings.

Swimming in his pool of thoughts, he was now standing right outside Swati’s house. He saw her come out of the door, just in time, about to take her car. Swati had joined his office last week and he had been wondering how to get chatty with her.   

“Swati!” he called, attracting her attention. She stood wondering for a while and slowly came towards his car. “Rohit right?” she said. His turn.

“Yeah!” he said, trying to play it smart. “I go through the same route everyday to office and I was seeing that you take your own car to office too...I was wondering you know, the rising costs of petrol and everything...”

“I know! Isnt it crazy?” she retorted, cutting him short. “I was anyways planning to dump this fuel guzzler and get the Fiat upgrade offer soon...its where you buy the car and if you are lucky, you upgrade to the Fiat Multijet diesel technology  for the price of a petrol car. That should happen soon enough.”

“Great idea! In the meantime, why don’t you fly with me? I mean, in my car?” Rohit stammered, trying real hard to get the daydream out of his head. He thought he blew it, but he was in for a pleasant surprise.

“You are a funny guy” Swati giggled. “Only on one condition though...” she continued “ we split the cost. That way, we both save” she finished, moving towards the passenger door.

“Sure! Whatever you say!” Rohit scrambled to get the passenger door, almost strangling himself with the seat belt in the process. She smiled again, and nodding her head sideways, sat beside him. Buckling herself into safety, she finally turned towards him and with a twinkle in her eye said,

“What are you waiting for? Lets Fly!”

Revelations

The Clarity of Night contest is on, and as always, yours truly has sent in an entry. Only this time around, it is unlike anything that I have ever written.

Its not dark.

Its not scary.

It doesn't chill.

Then WTF does it do???

Its a simple story. I would rather let it talk for itself. Check it out here and please tell me how you like it?

I am trying to put in fresh fiction on my own blog as well. Hope to come up with something which is worth the effort, atleast to me.

Cya! 

Update!

My Shocketry fever seems to be finally dying down, so you guys wouldn't have to look at any poetry coming from me for a while (unless you Really want it, in which case you could let me know in the comments. It was a joke. Haha. ) I am working on a short right now, which should be up in a bit (I Promise!). In the meantime, I thought I should update you guys about whats going on here.

The blog has been featuring at teabreak.pk for a while.

Also, the blogpost on Shocketry managed to get featured as a chosen post on "best web pages for poetry" for the 9th of July at the Paper presentation website, paper.li . See, I told you its a cool idea right? :)

I have been toying with the idea of playing with parallel narratives and somehow combine them with distortions in time. I have done both before and have been toying with the idea of clubbing them together to deliver some superawesomeness. If you guys have some cool brainwaves, I am all for it. Also, the guest blogging thing...um....anyone?

Another Brick In the Wall...

One year and one month ago, this blog had seen the first 

fruits of my writing endeavours; Cold Feet, my first book,

a collection of dark fiction shorts, had seen the light of the day.

The book got rave reviews from writers like Samit Basu(of Turbulence

and Gameworld Trilogy fame) and newspapers like Hindustan

Times, which carried a review of the book. Its time to lift the curtains

from my first Novelette and second book, REVENGE....

Options to order it coming soon. In case you want some particular detail about

this book or the previous one, feel free to contact me at insanemindfreak@gmail.com.

The Party, my dear friends, is now ON!!!! 

P.S.- The final part to Three Course shall be updated by tomorrow hopefully. Watch out

for that one as well! 

Letting Go....

I have always loved dolls. The morning stands out like a well developed Polaroid, etched deep into the corner of my brain. It’s the corner which keeps my happy thoughts. I keep memories of walking through dead , scrunching leaves on a winter morning and cycling down a slope on a sunny day in there.

We are in the throes of a childhood memory; embracing the moment, hoping to never let it go. My hands are soft and pudgy, capable of holding only little things, meant for little hands, such as mine. The room is full of colours. I see bright oranges, sunny yellows and sparkling greens. They seem to be everywhere. And then I see the doll.

The doll looks deep into my eyes, caught in the moment of a Doll universe. Entrapped in an unknown Doll’s dream, the moment seems to stretch for ages. You sit there, at the corner, nose deep in one of your silly books. The walls stand around us, pale and faded, not interfering in our invisible games of hide-and-seek; the one which we play, without needing to move a muscle. My playthings are strewn all around; miniature pots and pans, a gas stove, even a little beauty kit. It is my world, and the doll lives with me here.  I want you to stay with me here, but I am afraid. I am scared of you turning my offer down. I worry about you turning up your nose from the book, crinkling your forehead and saying “what sort of a silly game is this?” That is when ma walks in.

“This cannot go on!” she says, irritation painted in a bright red on her face. I see her standing there, quiet now, without a word more. I just gape at her. The doll doesn’t look at me anymore at this moment. Its face has found something new to do; stare at the fading walls with a stone cold expression. I can’t see out of the window; not because it’s dark. It’s only because I can’t. Just.

I move my gaze and stare at the floor. The pattern on the mosaic is bright; almost alive. My mood is rotten now. I want the floor to open up and allow me to run down a flight steps, so that I can disappear forever. Ma doesn’t know all of this. She cannot read my thoughts. I sit there, a picture of grumpiness, with a million toys before me lying neglected. As she gets ready to shoot another of her verbal arrows, you finally take your nose out of the book and look at her. Then you say “Why do you have to bother her? She doesn’t want to go! Let her be!”

The silent room somehow turns more silent. It feels as silent as a grave now. Ma just stands there looking at you. She doesn’t say anything. I haven’t changed my expression, but there seems to be a toy train filled with pretty flowers running around in circles in my head.  The doll doesn’t seem to be interested in taking part at the proceedings, and continues to stare at the wall. You go back to reading your book. There may be guilt on your mind, but it doesn’t show on your forehead. Ma, perhaps in hope for some sort of a follow up, waits for a little while. When she sees no reaction from you, she decides to exit, stage right. She is gone for now, and with it, the room becomes a little brighter. I decide to go back to playing, considering you are back to reading. The doll now comes back from her doll universe and decides to spend time with me.

Ma is standing at the corridor speaking to another woman. I can’t see her face, but from Ma’s voice, I can make out that she is talking about the events that transpired a while back. I concentrate till the point I can hear her clearly. She tells her about how I don’t talk to her and won’t go back. She sounds perplexed. She says she doesn’t know how you know everything about me; what I want, what I would say or maybe wish for. Then I hear the other woman’s voice for the first time. It sounds like someone running a chalk on the blackboard. I don’t want to hear, but I have to. She says that there is only one solution to the entire predicament; and then she drops the bomb. She tells her that you must go back. You can’t talk on my behalf for the whole of my existence. You must be sent home.

I am so engrossed, that I don’t notice the walls or you or anything. I suddenly look around to find that everything around has changed. We aren’t kids anymore. The room is gone. We stand on the prettiest sea shore that was ever made. The beach is made up of sand which sparkles like diamond. We stand facing a emerald blue sea, packed prettily with a powdered blue sky. The doll is gone, and so are the toys; Ma cannot be seen anywhere either. That is when you suddenly break out “Go to the sea and never come back!” It almost sounds comical, but I am too happy to notice. I race down the beautiful beach towards the sea, the sand scrunching beneath my feet like coarse silk. The waves crash softly on the shore, spraying their foam in a soft caress, as droplets land on my face in soft unheard steps. I look back in a moment of elation. That’s when I notice that the beach is empty.

You are not there. In a moment of panic, I scream your name over and over. There is no reply. The sky darkens. The sea is turning into a deep shade of azure as I speak. The sand slowly heats up, like baking coals. I am still screaming.
And then, in the moment of desperation, I wake up...

(based on a real dream, which was narrated to me; the guy in the story is actually me in the dream...)

The Residents at 4, Ice Cream Cone

Its not that hard to imagine. All you have to do is put your mind and a freezing soul into it.

When the residents moved into house number four, no one really paid attention. People by now were pretty used to people moving in and out of houses on the ice cream cone all the time. While most claimed that living on an ice cream cone was easy, they soon realized that it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

The first thing about living on an ice cream cone was that it was always cold. There was no scope for any other weather. You always walked around in soft, slushy ice cream and couldn’t complain. While the kids enjoyed the experience, the older folk got a little irritated with all the slush around. They could not do much about it, for an ice cream really wouldn’t look different for them now, would it? So they walked about in the slush without complaining much. It seemed that the people living on candies, taffies and chocolate bars were not having that great a time either.

The family which had moved into house number four had three people; a kid with parents. They had come in with their skin, a light golden, and smart wavy brown hair.  A month on the ice cream cone, and they would start looking white like the rest of the inhabitants. In the beginning, whoever came to stay here mostly stuck out as sore thumbs. Over time, they soon became a part of the system; but if you decided to leave the ice cream cone and move elsewhere, the entire process of acclimatizing would start again. There was a very loud couple living in the house before the new family moved in. People hated them, every time they crossed their house. While the snow and the slush never let sounds travel far, the ice cream cone was not big after all. What you did in your house was not much of a secret anyways. Sooner or later, the whole neighborhood knew.

The first problem came to notice when Mr Smith, from seven, Ice Cream Cone was headed to the house of Mr Jones, who lived at two, Ice Cream Cone. He had to cross the house where the new people had moved in. It was late in the night and the street was empty. As he neared the house numbered four, Ice Cream Cone, he felt a strange sensation. It was one which he had not felt in years, since he had moved into the Ice Cream Cone.

He felt warm.

He had almost forgotten how it felt to be warm. The thing with certain feelings is you don’t know how it feels, if you haven’t felt it for a long time. And then, when the feeling takes you over, you, for a better part of it, are surprised. Sometimes, it fills you with dread, or it washes you over with a spirit of happiness and gaiety. For Mr Smith, it was the latter, and he welcomed the feeling.

He stood in the darkness, soaking up the feeling of warmth. His skin prickled and he looked at it in the soft moonlight, a big grin on his face. His footsteps had slowed down and become more sluggish than before. They sank in the slush softly and came back out in a hushed rhythm. When they decided to start sinking in deep and not come out, he almost did not notice. He was still caught in his moment of warm rapture. He finally noticed when half his body sank in and he was waist deep.

Panic seized him. He tried to thrash around initially but gave it up soon enough. They hadn’t been taught lessons in personal disaster management. He just stood still as he sank deeper. The place felt warm, so he really did not feel like complaining. It was a sensation that made him feel like he was somewhere else. Infact, it was so overwhelming, that he did not fear death, incase it decided to rear its ugly head, and shake him out of his warming fantasies.

And then it froze.

He stood chest high in the slush outside 4, Ice Cream Cone, not knowing what to do. The feeling of warmth was gone. It was cold all over, and he could hardly stand it anymore. He slowly moved his shoulders and brought out his hands. They were almost blue due to the cold. He hated how his hands looked. He managed to extricate himself from the slush, and realized he was soaking completely. He did not like it anymore. His Ice Cream Cone days seemed to have come to an end.

The next morning was special. Mr Jones from 7, Ice Cream Cone was leaving the neighborhood. Everyone was surprised; after all, Mr Jones had been living on the Cone for years now. When people asked him about why he had decided to leave the place, he just clamped his jaws and nodded his head. He decided to keep his reasons a secret, because the last thing that he wanted on the Ice Cream Cone was unrest.

But alas, that was not to be. The next incident happened two nights later. When Harry, the kid from 9, Ice Cream Cone was getting home from his friend Angela’s house, he happened to cross 4, Ice Cream Cone. He spotted a faint orange glow surrounding the house. It made him feel warm and happy, just like Mr Jones. He settled next to the wooden fence of 4, Ice Cream Cone and closed his eyes. Soon, he was fast asleep.

The next morning turned out to be chaotic. Harry’s parents came out, searching for him. There was no police, so all they could do was knock on doors and ask as to where their kid had gone. No one ever went missing, for if they were not at home, they were generally at someone else’s house. They knocked all houses till they found him blissfully blue on the side of the fence of 4, Ice Cream Cone. The cold, it seemed had done him in.

Harry remained sick for a week, during which more incidents occurred outside that house. Two more people left, who were soon replaced by new inhabitants.  Houses in Ice Cream Cone were pretty sought after, but the present spate of people leaving caught them on the wrong foot. Soon enough, people decided to avoid the house altogether. Interestingly, no one ever remembered talking to the inhabitants of the house ever. They couldn’t even agree upon how they looked. There was one thing that they had a unanimous vote about though; they were one family that no one wanted to be friends with.

The mood inside 4, ice cream cone was definitely not of merriment. At this very moment, the elders in the house were busy trying to find all the commotion. With the first report that came in from the neighborhood, they had figured it was a coincidence that occurred outside their house. As the incidents turned more frequent, they knew that there was someone or something inside the house, which was definitely responsible. They did their math and zeroed in on their son, who had lately been keeping to himself.

The son now sat on a chair facing his parents. Like every early teenager, he was a picture of discomfort and fear. His parents had repeated the question innumerable times, but he did not have an answer. He felt responsible for whatever was happening but could never figure out as to what was happening. So he decided against taxing his little mind.

His parents finally gave up on him, and soon it was time for bed. He lay on the bed thinking. What was it that was driving people to behave the way they were? What was it that was leading people to vacate the place? His head was spinning. He felt sleepy. Outside, Mrs Jones struggled to get out of the ice cream slush, but soon gave up, for she felt warm. She had never felt so good before. Next morning, no one would find Mrs Jones, and they would be bothered for a while. Then, forgetting about her, life would go on as normal, even in front of 4, Ice Cream Cone.

His droopy eyelids soon won the war with him and he felt blissfully asleep. There was a smile playing on his lips. Unseen to any, the frost around him seemed to disappear and an orange glow filled the room now. Mrs Jones was gone by now. He was dreaming of roasting marshmallows over a bonfire.

Again…

[A cousin of mine told me that she flunked drawing in her upper KG when she drew a house over an ice cream cone. I wish I had been correcting the paper! :) ]

Killing time...

Crayons. That's how it looked. It looked like someone had rubbed crayons
all over the entire sky.

I sat there on the grassy stretch, looking out into the skies, the stars twinkling like glassy orbs of enchantment, stretching out over a marble universe. I did not have a home to go back to, no meals to swallow. No pets waiting for me. Occasional trees looming in the distance exchanged secrets among themselves, knowing fully well that I wouldn't go around asking about it. I decided to close my eyes and dream for a bit.

The sky came in the dream, and so did the stars. Only, they were bigger. They flickered like big yellow lamps, hung out in the open expanse, to guide unseen spirits traversing along the galaxies. The occasional clouds curled into strange spirals and floated about gently. I raised my hand and floated upwards, borne by the winds like a secret feather. The crayon sky continued to change around me, clouds turning, swirling, undulating like native snakes, brought out in the rain washed fields. That is when I felt the sharpness on my skin.

There were teeth on my arms. I tried to see them but couldn't. I tried to take my arm away, but the teeth seemed not to budge. The colors started changing now. The black slowly was giving way to a very deep red and the clouds danced, as if under a spell. I shook my head violently, hoping for the teeth to go. The stars shone with a deep fire within, lighting up the sky with renewed fervour.

"Let me go!", I said, and snatched my hand from the stupid mongrel dog. The moon shone in the sky, right among the clouds and blackened skies. The dream was over. I killed some time. The sky still looked the same, as it did the last time. I think I want to go home now.

[random picture prompt writing]

Homesick

” Wow! where did you get this one from?”

“Got it off the SETI project.”

“Wo! The one where they are trying to find extraterrestrial intelligence?”

“Yep.”

“Hey! Wait a minute…this looks familiar…isnt this…”

“(sighs) Yeah…It is. But how does that make a difference now?”

“Er…I don’t know…shouldn’t it? I mean…don’t you feel anything anymore?”

“You know what? I don’t know! I mean how would it matter now?”

“I don’t know…It should have…it does to me atleast!”

“Yeah whatever!”, he said, firing up the engines now. “We anyways have a long way to go…next I know, you would be cribbing about this place too! What does the picture do to you anyways?”

He looked deeply into the picture for a while and placed in in front of the dash. As they strapped in and blasted off, he finally said,

“It makes me feel homesick…”

(originally written for flashfiction.in, where I have recently started contributing. Check the site here. )

Fallen

I remember being on clouds since I can remember.

The older folk say there existed land below, once upon a time long past. You could set your feet on it, feel the warm, moist soil and tiny inanimate creatures called grass stick to the base of your foot and walk upon hard reality, filling your mind with a constant sense of heightened realism. There were hard structures, made of material called wood and softer growth on them called leaves, which sprang up high towards bright skies, embracing the openness, swallowing every bit of the atmosphere that they lived in. Creatures like us had extensions called limbs, which enabled us to walk upon this surface, among those green and brown creatures and a host of other animations. Life, had been “beautiful”; a word that the older folks used to describe something that could be looked at for long durations with a certain amount of elation in your psyche.
Alas, all of that doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s all white around. Expanses of soft, woolly, cotton-like clouds litter the skies as far as the eyes can see. You can perch for a little while, before it gives way, turning into wisps of shiny water droplets, twinkling in the light of the sun like a sea wave of a million diamonds. We have wings to keep us in the air all the time; suspended. I try to imagine what it must be like under the last layer of clouds. Does the land underneath still exist, like it is talked about in the legends? No one has been able to go down willingly. The stimulus ingrained in these wings of ours makes us take flight as soon as we start nearing the final cloud layer in the lower strata. They tell me that our ancestors had their own legends where they imagined people like us living among the clouds and christened them “fairies”. It was supposed to be their ultimate ideal of freedom. I smile to myself at the ignorance of the lost tribe and continue gazing at the wooly cloud tufts, floating by, as if in a dream.

I have always wanted freedom.

I want to break free of the monochrome circle of light and dark and venture into the unknown. I want to give up on the bales of clouds that our tribe has been surrounded by since eternity. I want to escape the legends of yore, the make belief heavens and abstract utopia. I want to reject the perpetual state of suspension and set foot on to reality, letting me feel the weight of my thought and flesh. I want to surrender the façade that my ancestors tagged ‘freedom’, and set upon an actual path of knowledge and wisdom. I want to explore the pathos attached to the lost emotion of ‘sacrifice’. I want to do all of this and so much more.
I don’t feel anything as I tear apart my wings; only a heightened sense of consciousness. I am too excited to feel the emotion they call “pain”. Maybe, just maybe, I shall be able to feel it once I have made it to the place below the last layer of the clouds. My mind is full of thoughts which seemed to have gained “feet” and finally seem to be moving around on them, instead of flying. I have started to descend at a rapid pace. The torn wings are still acting on impulse as I work hard to detach them from my existence. I don’t know if I shall live to see the wonders that I hope to see. I don’t know if my tribe would notice my disappearance and wonder at it. Streams of crimson flow upwards as I start to gather speed. My eyes feel moist. I know I have committed folly. I know I keeled over. I am aware of the thin line between servitude and self illumination that I overstepped as soon as the thought crowded into my mind. As I let go of my wing and fall through the final layer, I close my eyes and let a comforting thought, like the feel of grass, seep into my senses;

I am free…

Room For Rent

The chirping of the birds on the lone tree near the door rose to a shrill cry as he turned the key into the lock. A thousand things played on his mind as his gaze caught a rather dreary looking cat jumping over the wall and disappearing on the other side. A few ruddy looking chicken played hopscotch nearby. Not the kind of neighborhood that he would want to stay in, but real estate was pricey. This was the only setup he could get. Afford.

***
I hate empty rooms. I have always hated them. They don’t scare me; they only make me uncomfortable. I remember the first time they had asked me to stay in one; I had probably been around seven years old. Young enough to be not taken seriously, old enough to remember every detail. It was in my mother’s village and we had gone there to attend a funeral. My parents decided to stay in one room and asked me to sleep in the other one which was vacant. I had decided not to complain and sleep in it. I slept pretty well and woke up to a bright and fresh morning. Everything was perfect; until the moment I overheard some elders saying that it was the same room that Shashi chacha committed suicide three days ago.

***

The room opened up and drowned him in a sea of dampness. He stood for a while surveying the place. The landlord, it seemed, had tricked him. Nothing complicated though. He had told him that the room would be his. Only his. And here he was, standing, looking at someone else’s luggage. He was sure that the house had been sold to the other guy with the same assurance. There was no use fighting about it; he just might lose the only abode that he had finally managed to get. He would have to figure it out with his new found roommate. He was a little disappointed. But more than that, he was happy. It wasn’t an empty room.

***

While growing up I always avoided empty rooms. They always reminded me of the room that I had spent the night in at the village. Once, during recess, as we played hide and seek, I went and hid in one of the empty unused classes. Some kid noticed it and latched the door from the outside. I screamed for about half an hour before fainting. The next memory I had was of four hours later, sitting with my parents’ worried expressions boring down on me. Obviously, I did not tell them anything.

***

“Hello! Will you be sharing my room?” a voice called out behind him as he stood there with his bag still slung over his shoulder. He turned around to see a decently built guy, sparse hair and smooth expression in place, standing at the door looking straight at him. “The other guy”, he thought. Half his problem seemed to have been solved. The other guy had taken him to be his roommate without even being asked. The landlord had probably given him a different story. No problems.

“Yes, looks like it”, he said finally, after doing a quick run through in his head. He would stick in now, and ask the landlord later. Not that he was complaining about the room not being empty. But the matter had to be sorted, sooner or later.

***

After we came back from the village, I could never sleep alone again. My mother never figured out the reason but she made it a point to sleep with me everyday. One night, she promised she would come in a bit. She was crying for some strange reason. She never did.

Did I tell you I hate lies?

***

I went and confronted the landlord, just as the sun decided to splash out of sight in the distance and drowned the whole place in darkness.

“What are you saying? There is no one in that house! The last guy who was living there passed away some two years back. Nice chap he was, well fed, looked from a good family! What a loss!”

I did not say anything. Strange, you might add. But I will tell you what bothered me now. If he was not staying there, it only meant that I was the only one. It also meant there was no one staying with me, which was kind of obvious. I tried my level best to take the supernatural angle out of it.

It meant the room was empty.

***

He slapped his knee, throwing back his head in a jerk and laughed. “ He told you I was a ghost?” he asked, eyes shining.

“Yes” I said defiantly. I was not used to having spirits laughing at me.

“And this guy, you said, rented you this house. His name was…let me remember, Manohar?”

“Ofcouse!” I replied, starting to feel a little irritated with his behavior now.

“The wit of that guy! Why don’t we go along and have a quick chat with him yes? Let him say that on my face! I hate people calling me a ghost behind my back!”

We walked to the door of the house where I had the conversation with my landlord the previous evening. He went boldly and knocked the door. A lady, in her mid fifties came out. He folded his hands and greeted her. She returned the greeting.

“Doesn’t look like she thinks I am a ghost unless she is one herself!” he whispered in my ear and asked her loudly, “Manohar ji hain?”

She nodded her head and seemed to looked through me. Then she looked straight at me and questioned at length “ Did he ask you to go and stay with this boy?”

“Yes” I replied, a little bewildered. “ I met him about three days ago at the very spot where we are standing!”

“He prabhu!” She said and looked up, paying her respects to someone in the skies. “ It’s high time he stops renting out the house to people when its already occupied!”she sighed.

“After all, it’s already been five years since he passed away!”

[ Another successful writer's meet down. New writers, newer writing, an overcast sky, the steps at Habitat Center...if you are in Delhi, you wouldnt want to miss this!The story above was written to the prompt of "an empty room". Also, add Disturbia and Devil's Advocate to the weekend affairs. More writing soon!]