Tab saves the day...

Jack was a sick kid.

Here, sick does not stand for someone who has a sadistic bent of mind or has thoughts so vile, that the society doesn’t see fit to interact with him. It means that he was one of those frail kids who are mostly on some sort of pills to cure one ailment, while the other ailment is secretly sneaking up on them, dragging them back to sickness, not breaking the ‘vicious cycle of sick kids’. In fact, he was so sick that his pill popping in school got him a nickname; Tablet.

For the longest time, Jack tried to get rid of the name, tried to fight it. He ran past kids in corridors, bumped into them at the canteen. It was not only his classmates anymore. Somehow, the name had leaked out of his classroom and slushing across the school corridors, soaked the entire school into a jeering, teasing frenzy. Tablet Tablet Tablet. In the dark corner behind the school building. Tablet tablet. In the last cubicle of the washroom, scrawled across the back of the door.

TabletTabletTabletTablet.

This was before a single day changed his life.

Jack the introvert spent a lot of time on his computer.  He had been following the date for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 launch, just the way an expectant kid waits for Christmas. And then finally, whump! The day was there. It was the tenth of August, 2011, the LIVE Webcast of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 launch. Jack watched it like it was the last programme before Doomsday.

As the webcast slowly went on, the circuits inside Jack were going through a change that he wasn’t personally aware of. All the negativity was suddenly fizzling out like it never existed. He had been running a slight temperature, being the ‘sick boy’ that he was, but that was slowly turning into history, with every single second passing on screen. It was as if, the webcast was like a placebo not only for his illness; it was the answer that he was looking for, all his life. He never noticed his father enter the room and stand behind him. He never noticed him smiling and giving an almost invisible nod to himself. He never saw the satisfaction playing on his face, having finally found a way out for his son. All he saw was the dreamy image of the tablet in the webcast. He slept a peaceful sleep. Jack the tablet was soon going to spring a surprise not only to the people around him but also to himself, as he would soon find out.

The next morning was going to be the best morning he had had in a long time. The sun shone in through his window and he half opened an eye to look. Time for school. He raised his hand to the dresser beside his bed to get his glasses. Strangely, his hand touched something sleek and rectangular. Something he hadn’t expected. Something which Couldn’t have been there. When he opened his eyes, he held up the rectangular thing.

There was nothing else he could ask for...

As he settled into his seat in computer class in the last period, he fished out the Samsung tablet and connected it to the wi fi. The kids around him took their notes in the laptops that they carried, eyeing him with furtive glances, exchanging words which Jack no longer cared about. There was a smile playing on his lips. As he sent in the assignment of the day, executed on his sleek new device, he saw the teacher give him a strange look and saying nothing. As the day closed, he heard a mean voice in the back hissing “tablet”... he turned back slightly and curling the right side of his lip in a knowing grin replied “exactly”...

 As school got over, he was sitting right outside his school gates, browsing through his favourite e-books that he had recently transferred to the device. “Hey, fancy!” he heard a voice croon right near him, and his heart splashed right into his stomach. “Um...sorry, I only know your name as, uh , tablet”, she fumbled sheepishly. Jack was feeling large hearted, so he replied ‘Its Jack. You are Jenn right? Football star Ned’s girlfriend?’

“Was!” she said rolling her eyes “he thinks he owns me or something, so I got rid of that jerk. You mind coming along for a coffee?” she said.

Jack’s heart, which was finally returning to its original position, fell right back with a louder splash this time. “Sure” he said and got up to dust the backside of his pants.  As he tried to stuff back the tab, he heard “Can I see it?” from her. ‘Umhmm’ he replied handing it to her, as they walked to the cafe, not hand-in-hand. Not yet.

Afternoon soon stretched into late evening, as they chattered their hearts out. She was a huge reader, the last thing that he expected. He showed her his e-book collection, going from one title to another. Jenn continued squealing with happiness as she handled the tab, her fingers flowing smoothly over the amazing touch screen. In the meantime, he had somehow managed to quickly text his dad about not worrying, that he Just might be late. Eventually, it was time to leave the place as the sun had already dipped below the horizon, and the first stars were coming out.

“Lets hit Ollie’s!” she sang, her eyes twinkling like the prettiest diamonds Jack had ever seen. Jack wasn’t a pub hopper, so he tried to chicken out, “no not happening! I gotta get home, its too late anyways...my dad...”

“Just this time. I promise it would be fun” her voice like the most beautiful melody Jack’s ears would catch. This was turning more difficult that he imagined. ‘Sure’ he said relenting, now headed to a pub, for the first time in his life.

Ollie’s  turned out better than he had expected. Since they had checked in early evening, the place was just warming up. Few scattered high school kids occupied a few stools while others were occupied with people he would rather not want to have anything to do with.

The minutes of his Blockbuster Life Movie sped past him. He couldn’t believe that he, Jack the tablet, could actually have so much of fun in a single day, let alone a lifetime. He had his tab snug inside his backpack. Two beers down, his body felt light, like a kite. He was at peace. But then, just like every Blockbuster, it was time for the twist.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and a voice boomed behind him ‘Someone let Jack out of the box today hmm?’ A few stray voices sniggered. He did not need telling it was Ned, the football star, the one who had received atleast six detentions in the last year itself, out of which atleast four were for beating up guys. That, ofcourse, was the official count.

Jenn looked behind him and said “I wouldn’t do that if I were you Ned”, motioning Jack secretly to move. Ned came and stood leaning on their table, going red in the face only slightly before hitting back at her “Tablet? Seriously? You must be seriously out of your mind!” A few more laughs followed. Jack signalled the guy at the bar for the cheque.

“I am not. I can prove it to you that Jack here is more intelligent than all of you guys combined” she said colouring visibly. In fact, he can take money off you to clear the bill here, right this moment!” she said. A loud roar of laugh went up from his cronies, and Jack suddenly started wishing he could melt into the sofa he was sitting on.  

Ned silenced the laughing hyenas behind him with a raised arm. He then turned towards Jack. His next words were like a death knell. He whispered, his face level with Jack, breathing right into his face,

“Sure. What do you have on your mind Jack?”

Jack’s mind raced like it was one of those hulking supercomputers he had googled so many times on the internet. He slowly slid his hand, out of Ned’s sight into his side, where the tab now lay, and closed his fingers around his new best friend, the Samsung Tab. Right then, a moment of inspiration struck him. He spoke

“Alright Ned, here’s what we do. I ask you a question. If you answer it, I will give you five bucks. But in case you don’t, you would have to give me fifty bucks. Deal?” He fervently hoped his head wouldn’t turn into a mashed potato.

‘Sure tablet, bring it on. But if I or my friends answer it, you are gonna give me much more than five bucks’ Ned retorted, steaming a little. People around the pub were starting to look now. Jack gave a slight nod.

Jack’s mind raced as thought about every question he had ever read. His mind went into a tizzy. Before he knew what he was saying, he blurted,

“What goes up a mountain on four legs and comes down on three?”

Ned’s face looked like someone had knocked the wind out of him. His cronies slowly started backing up, half step at a time, knocking they were soon going to be hauled up for the answer. But Ned did no such thing. Instead he screamed, “That’s bullshit” and swung his right arm at Jack’s face. Jack closed his eyes for impact. The punch never came. When he opened his eyes, Jenn was holding his hand and he looked like he had seen a ghost. Jenn spoke

“Why don’t you stop behaving like an animal for once, and put down the money if you don’t know the answer?” Jenn glowered. Jack made a mental note of taking tips on bravado from her later.

Ned, knowing that he was stuck square, fished into his pocket and came out with the fifty. The cheque was there as well. He boomed ‘I don’t know the answer.’  

Jack fished into his pocket and slung his bag. When his hand came out, he had his palm balled up around something. Holding the Samsung tab in one hand, he said ‘I would take the tab now, gentle men.’ No one said anything. He picked up the fifty and gave it to the waiter.  The waiter quickly gave him the change and disappeared from the scene. A big hand belonging to an equally big Ned, blocked his way.

“I don’t know the answer” he said through gritted teeth, his face a big tomato, on the verge of exploding.

Ned calmly took his hand and closed it around the object that he had been holding.  Ned opened it to discover a fiver.

‘Neither do I!’ Jack screamed behind him, as he heard laughter coming from Ned’s friends, and his efforts at quietening them down.  A few strangers smiled at him. His right hand was inside his pocket, fiddling with the change that had come back from the waiter. He felt fingers close around his left. The most delicate and beautiful fingers that he could ever imagine holding. Life was good. As he walked out, a single thought crossed his mind,

‘I took care of the tab. Or maybe, the Tab took care of me...”

'Middle'some Mayhem

A few days back, I sat down to watch 'Children of Men', but
something rather interesting happened. This is how I summarized it on a facebook status update.


"So, the movie starts...people run around, shoot blam blam blam, Michael Caine dies in about 5 minutes (??), more shooting running, another guy dies, run around, shoot, boom, everyone else dies, hero heroine get on to a boat, Clive Owen dies...all in under sixty minutes!! And then I realise, I have been watching Disc 2 of the movie. :| *facepalm* "




This however did not prevent me from watching Disc 1 of the movie. As a result, what
happened was, I was lead to a point in the movie, after which, I knew what was going
to happen. And then I thought, HEY....




Cliffhanger




 “If you kill me, I become Immortal!!” he shouted, his voice trying to rise over the wind as it blew in great gusts around them. His fingers were slipping.

"Convenient! How FUCKIN' Convinient! You really don’t expect me to fall for it, do you?" he barked, looking down upon the guy hanging with one hand. Beyond him lay the dark expanse of an open gorge.  You couldn’t see the bottom; not even if you squinted.

“Enough with the puns George; just pull me up and we can figure this out. What I am trying to tell you is, if you let me go, I die, and then I come back again!” he bellowed, making an unsuccessful attempt at hooking his left hand to a ledge. If he couldn’t get a grip, there was a good chance he was going to fall straight down.

Getting stuck with your once-a-friend-now-an-enemy on the side of the cliff wasn’t just bad. It was fucked up.

The man standing on top of the gorge arched his right eyebrow and paused for a bit.

“What are you talking about? Don’t give me that entire time travel thing again Greg. You already disappeared because of it for months and I had to fill in your shoes. I have been beaten, stabbed at, hell, even dragged around the marketplace by the people you owed money to! Give me one good reason why I should save you?”

  

“Because if you don’t, you shall get old right here and die! And I would remain this way till you were gone! Now pull me up before this gets out of hand!” he said, holding on with his last efforts.

“What do you mean?” George said, still reluctant at pulling him up. He had had enough of punishment for something he never did, and wanted to get over with it.

“The time machine got built! I have programmed it to take me back in time to the point when I meet you on top of the cliff, and that happens in another three minutes! When you get me back up, I can reach down in my pocket and turn it off! Otherwise it would happen yet again!” he screamed, his voice dying out slowly, his strength ebbing.

“Wait...what? Are you trying to tell me this already happened before?” George said, a look of surprise creeping up on to his face.

“Yes...and if you don’t pull me up, it’s going to happen again! So PLEASE PULL ME UP! There is hardly any time!”

George straightened up and grinned. He added “you are not going to get me this time. Enough of your bullshit, you hear? ENOUGH!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he stamped hard on his fingers. A fading echo later, there was no sign of another man there.

He peeped over the cliff face and looked down into nothingness. He was most probably dead. George could now lead his life in peace. He turned around and looked into the face of a man he had just killed.

“Cripes! You are dead!” George said eyes as big as marbles.

“What are you talking about George? I just came as promised; to meet you at the cliff face after the completion of the stipulated year. Now, I know you have faced a lot of trouble for the money I borrowed off the lenders...”

“NO!! YOU ARE DEAD! I JUST KILLED YOU!” George screamed, spittle flying into Greg’s face. He was almost bawling.

“What’s up with you? Look at your watch! It’s four o’ clock, the time I promised to meet you! How could you kill me if you never met me?” Greg, incredulous, questioned.

George slowly looked at his watch. It was indeed four o’ clock. He suddenly felt himself going mad. It felt real, like a sensation.

“It’s all done George, I have made the time machine! All our problems are solved! We can go back and start over a new life!” he said, brimming with anticipation, and took a step forward.

“No it wouldn’t!! Martha is dead because of you, you bastard!” George screamed and lunged at Greg. Greg suddenly swung through the air and found himself hanging from the side of the rock face. Somewhere in his head, it felt like déjà vu. He thanked his stars at having set his time machine.

“If you kill me, I become immortal!” Greg screamed at the growing night, which grew darker, swallowing everything around, swallowing them, growing rapidly, till it became a big empty expanse of an empty universe... 

Part Three: Dessert

[Big sorry to all the people who had to wait so long for the third part to come up. I have been plain lazy and I am actively looking for a cure. In the meantime, Dessert, and also something that I originally didn't have in mind; a Part Four!!]

Part Three: Dessert

There is a jazz band playing somewhere. I can hear the steady tinkle of the cymbals and the soft brush strokes over the snare, smartly doing a ball dance with the kick coming in at predefined intervals. I can feel a smoky room, waiters shuffling around picking up a glass here and laying down a gossip there. I could wager my life that I can hear a jazz band playing somewhere close by.

Uh.

You must have seen those big putty maps that lay out in the middle of the town centers or city centers or whatever you call them. They have little ridges, bumps and crevices, showing the forests, houses, roads, hills and just about everything else around the town. You avoid everyone’s eyes, make sure no one is looking and quickly run your hand over the surface. It always leaves you with a funny, tingly feeling at the tips of your fingers as you imagine yourself to be God, waving his hand over all creation, over river, hill, road, building and all else.

That just about sums up how my face feels. Except, I don’t feel God.

My eyes are mostly swollen shut; it feels like someone has put in one big pebble each on the inside of my eyelids. The rivers on my face all seem to be going down under. I don’t try to touch my nose; it makes me shudder just to think of what it might have become. There is a strong smell of vegetable fat, coming from my face. A few teeth roll around freely inside my mouth. Such a beautiful mess, this. A perfect facial barbecue.

Let me help you, he says and I feel something cover my face, whole. Pain, white hot, sets a thousand alarm bells ringing in my head. I feel faint. Through my half closed eyes, I can see him holding something big and square in his hands and grinning at it. It has dark brown edges and the center of it is a big patch of crimson. He has another of his twisted flowers in place now. His creative fulfillment.

That talkin’ bastard.

I am still struggling to stay conscious as he turns to me, the same grin pasted on his face. Thank you, he says. It’s been lovely knowing you, he says. I am really sorry, but there is food for only one. From the looks of it, you won’t need much food anytime soon. But yeah, thanks to you, I don’t think I would need to go and get fresh food supplies. So, thank you, he says. End of monologue. I catch him getting ready to swing the frying pan for one last time.

And I duck.

The pan resonates with a dull thud where my head had been half a second ago. The vibration of the pan is hard against his hands; he lets go. I see my chance and push him blindly. It’s my only chance. The idiot loves cooking over the fire.

It’s a shame he forgot to turn the gas off.

Like a sixteen wheeler out of control, I blunder across the room, tripping over things, clutching at whatever I can to prevent me falling over. He is screaming somewhere in the background; his voice is rather muffled. The pan managed to not only fry my face, but most of my hearing as well. I see a runny, shaky picture of a room in front of my eyes and try to maintain my consciousness. God-damn. This isn’t what I had asked for.

I have fallen down; managed to take about a total of thirty steps away from him. It’s strange he is not catching up on me. The screaming continues in the background. The house feels a little hot. Fuckin’ moron is bringing the house down.

His screams tell me the house is on fire. I see a blurry moving lump of yellow shaking flames try to douse itself with water from the tap. There are tongues of flame slowly starting to lick around me. From the place on the floor, all the things are playing out in front of me at over-the-head-level. Almost makes me feel like being in a planetarium, watching the Armageddon fold right out in front of my eyes.

He just can’t stop screaming. I think he is burnt up pretty bad. The smell of burning flesh starts to gel in comfortably with the crackling wood around the house. If you are me, you know the smell of burning flesh among a million other smells. Don’t ask me how I know this. Like I said once before, there are certain things you wouldn’t want to know.

The house is going to go up in smoke, that’s for sure. If I want to get out alive from this place, this is probably the only chance I would get. Either out looking like an ‘alive and kickin’ human version of a mashed potato with ketchup for a face or a dead roasted duck like him. I choose the former.

My vision is swimming. The entire room is being enacted out like a short psychedelic sequence from some drug movie. The fire is spreading in a yellow warm glow around me. In my mind’s eye, I can visualize the roses catching fire and wilting, curling into paper rose ashes. There is a speeded up video reel which is unfolding in some other corner of my head. This reel is showing faces being smashed against various places; walls, frying pans, the floor, the sink next to the stove, a chair and places that I can’t identify. A mélange of voices are echoing all around me; groans, thuds, sickening crunches and breaking glass. Elsewhere, I can imagine shelves full of strange objects; strange and twisted dolls, half eaten sandwiches, broken down Rubik’s cubes, mostly shred to pieces with disgust, catching fire. These are not imaginary. I remember seeing them to the room on the right. All of it must be having a bust time turning into a part of the burnt pile that the house is slowly but surely turning into. That place is a dead end. I have enough time to figure out the exit before the house comes down; but the challenge is I must find the door. With the kind of condition my face is in, looking through my own eyes feels like solving the most difficult quadratic equation at the moment. I continue my efforts at finding a way out, figuring that the fire and pain are my only enemies at the moment.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The wood splinters as something goes through it, inches above my head. He is getting better and closer. The chase is still on.

Sigh.

I picked up a little speed. The pain has turned into a dull throb by now but the room is much hotter. The headache, as expected is gone. Without it, I feel sharper, wittier, and almost ready to crack a funny line like a stand-up comedian. I turn only for a second to catch a glimpse of the guy who is after me.

For this, I really wish I was a writer. A good novelist could spend an entire chapter just on his face. It isn’t much different from mine I am sure; but when you don’t have a mirror to hold to yourself in a burning house, every other burnt up face you come across seems unique and pretty gruesome to you. The last bit, I made up, because from the looks of it, I am not going to become a writer. And talking about looks, I am sure neither of us is looking too hot at the moment.  

All of his limbs seem to be in perfect order; except he is a little sluggish, just like me. Both of us are starting to feel a little exhausted with the game of ‘tag’ and want to give in. Giving in at this point means only one of us going out of the house. So that is surely not an option.

I duck and turn towards the other direction. I am still blundering through the house, as lost as a ship in sea storm with a broken compass. My knees hit against some upturned chair and then knock painfully against the edge of a table. It’s strange how things that you thought were buying for a bargain end up hurting you in the long run in more ways than one. But there is no way to know about it. Same goes for life too I guess.

I want to smirk at my own wisdom but I think my lower lip is in pretty bad shape. It’s mostly swollen to a small balloon and should have ideally been touching the tip of my nose; but it isn’t. I am pretty much scared to wonder about my facial topography; I would rather get out of the house alive at this point. My right foot clangs against something on the floor and my instinct immediately tells me what it is. It’s my trust worthy knife, the one I dropped when that pan came and hit my face like a jet.

Talk about sweet timing.

I bend and try to feel it like a blind man. My back creaks like a detuned violin in my inner ear. It’s a surprise that my inner ear works perfectly. In case you don’t know what the difference between an inner ear and the outer is, I could give you a simple example. The inner ear is the one where you hear your own voice and a ‘swoosh swoosh’ sound when your nose gets blocked. It also pops open from time to time and suddenly opens you up to a brand new audio factory that you never knew existed. The outer ear is the one which gets screwed when someone hits you flat with a frying pan.

Simple.

Clutching the knife with my left hand, I have found a doorknob; now only if it was connected to a door. I feel the round wooden surface, still cool among the burning wreckage around it. Slivers of wood on the other side of it cut into my hand but I don’t notice. I clutch it tighter, hoping it to connect to some invisible door and get me out of this burning inferno of things-gone-wrong.

My logic is still up for my rescue. Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is a door knob, there is a door. I am beating across hot burning wood, hoping for a way out. The entire house is on fire. I hear beams and rafters crashing in the distance. Time is running out, burning, turning into ashes aiding the sweltering inferno gathering around me.

And then it happens; right out of the blue. My hand gets singed on burning wood and I claw at it. The skin on my palm is probably cheap CGI from some B-grade Hollywood flick, but this is real. There are bits of the door which are coming off. The stupid thing is stuck on hinges.

It rattles for a while before the bolt finally gives in with all the frenzied tugging. I quickly make an exit, choking, wheezing like an asthamatic, quickly shutting the door behind me.

Commercial Break. Just what I needed.

My lungs clutch greedily at the freely available oxygen. The house-that-was has almost become the-house-that-never-will-be. The drama is over. I cooked the bastard with his own recipe. It is done. Maybe a little overdone, but I am sure it tastes as good as the others did.

Am I the animal you are thinking that I am? Possibly. In a larger scheme of things, I would have to disagree with you. I admit the fact that when I set out to do what I did, I had no clue this was the guy would end up facing. I don’t know what he did with their bodies though. I still don’t. I just hope its not something as vile and disgusting as you are thinking. Or I am.

He was a killer right? So am I, but that is beside the point. Contrary to my original intention, I actually ended up doing a philanthropic bit for humanity. Now there is one killer instead of two. Natural selection, as Darwin would say. Survival of the fittest.

Almost poetic.

There is no sound coming from behind me. The fire is dying down. The occasional crackling escapes the inferno-that-was, as a piece of wood gives way inside. There was a muffled explosion sometime back. His small cooking cylinder is no more. I pray to the Almighty, hoping that the bloke is done in.

I never find out when I slip into unconsciousness due to exhaustion.

Epilogue:Cheque

I don’t identify the creature sitting in front of me as I come back to my senses. At some point in its life, it might have been human. It now looks like a badly made human model, made out of cheap clay which never set after being completed. I can see places where it possibly got chipped; a bad imitation.  He is not moving.

It’s not over .Why won’t it just get over!

The house behind me is a blackened pile of burnt wood. The sun is out again. It’s not as hot as it was yesterday.  I can feel new places in my body, starting to protest the pain growing by the minute. My life is not going to go back to normal; not this moment on.  There wouldn’t be afternoons searching for victims, trying to make my headache go away. Not after what happened. And with the creature sitting infront of me, this episode, is yet to come to an end.

He probably waited all night, sitting in front of me, waiting for me to come to senses. Kill only when you  know he would feel it. Providing pain only when it could be experienced. Wait it out, like a patient hunt in the jungle. This guy played by the book. I almost feel a new respect for him, though I know that the end is near. Then he does something I never expect.

He gives me his right hand and pulls me up to my feet.

There are hundreds upon thousands of stories and tomes written on the lesson of humanity in humans. The word itself takes birth from ‘human’. It is a quality that is supposed to come like a shopping tag, attached to something new that you are buying at the supermarket; but to expect it from a serial killer? It would obviously be over expecting a bit, but after what I went through last night, I am not surprised. People have a change of heart all the time. Someone becomes a believer after coming out of a coma. Someone ends up going to the church when he becomes bankrupt. I start believing in miracles.

His face is dreadful to look at. I look away. Both of us slowly start walking down the hill, towards a new fate. He has had a change of heart. However hard it is for me to believe, I take refuge in the unbelievable. Hasn’t it been helpful so far?

The fingers of my left hand are aching. They have been gripping something very tightly inside my pocket; something that I failed to notice. I take it out only a bit. You need not need telling what it is.

I smile to myself and look at him. He doesn’t look and keeps on walking.

Sucker.

Part Two: Main Course

Ah Fuck.

Leave it to a headache to crash a party when you are just getting started. It starts like that irritating drip of water running in your bathroom in the middle of the night, grows into a motorcycle which lost its muffler somewhere and finally cavalcades into a mad elephant stomping through dense foliage. All of this is so cool when you are thinking about them inside your head, images falling face down, like a pack of cards in slow motion. But, in the real world, it’s crazy. Like a pin pricking the back of your neck, five times per second.  A bundle of chalks dragging across an endless blackboard, right into eternity.

Uh.

The sun is still simmering, as we weave into deeper parts of the locality, passing useless information, one stranger to another. It’s mostly him that does the talking, the variety that I like. I am not too good at making stuff up and it’s not a good idea giving away what I have. Call it instinct.

He is from about three hundred miles west of here. Loves rock n’ roll, none of that country shit. Says it makes him want to puke his guts all over the guitar of the guy fingering the instrument. When you have a guitar, you treat it like a bitch; spank it a little, make it scream. Make the people around take notice. Make it feel like a real thing. Don’t stroke it and treat it like your pet dog. It won’t lick your face.

He likes farming. I like checkers. He thinks the politicians in the country should go eat shit. I think the buffaloes around here are thinner than the ones up country. He thinks marijuana should be declared the National plant of the country and then sinks into thinking if there is such a thing at all. I hate water colours. He thinks heaven sucks. I think my headache is growing worse.

Yada yada yada.

We make it to his house as he breaks into a monologue about how vegetable oil is less fattening in summers than in winters.  For a moment he makes me think that he is the kind of guy who sell scuba gear to fishes. The guy who makes the flower smelling detergents and fucks up match-the-following. God help us all.

The house is a log cabin on the low hills that start on the end of the city limits, where the ground starts climbing a little. A friend of a friend was leaving town so he sold it to him. A bargain. The hills and the trees and the birds and the animals keep his spirits high. After all, what is man but an animal? An animal without a jungle?

I suddenly start believing in fairies and wish for a chainsaw.

The house inside is pretty unremarkable, except for the paintings. The whole cabin seems to be full of frames with strange twisted roses painted on them, all in red. At least that’s what I hope they are, because I am a little conservative to pass it off as modern art or something. A valley of flowers in hell.

You have found out my secret hobby, he says, as he catches me staring at the paintings. That’s the only style I do, the red blotches. They are a part of my creative fulfillment. Red, now that’s a real colour, he says. Not like sky blue, fleeting, always beyond reach. Not like black, making you wait till everything disappears or the whole bright day slowly slinks into the gutter holes, one painful hour at a time. Not like any of the other colours. Red. Raw and true. Like blood. I don’t like the way this man talks.

I crease my brow to show my disagreement, but he doesn’t notice. He is busy getting his new pan on the fire. He opens up a beer for me and another for himself; says it helps him focus while cooking. What’s on the menu? I ask, walking around the house checking out knick knacks here and there.  I hear him laugh, but I never quite make out what he says.

I go and check the windows out, one at a time. There are a total of three; none of them look over the town. It would be weeks before someone came knocking at all. Even then, they might pass it off as some wild buffalo or other animal which bit the dust. I smile to myself. This is going to be easier than offering candy to a kid.

Back here, where the limit of habitation ends and the ground starts to rise, it gets dark quickly. I could always finish my work in the dying light of the sun, but I never tempt fate. I maybe itching to go, but patience never killed anyone. I don’t want to do something stupid and get the force running after me, trying to take me down, hook, line and sinker. I hate the Titanic anyways.

The headache is still there, except, it’s like someone hammering on an anvil inside my head.  That’s how it all started in the first place. No pills would work, no amount of massage or balms or any of those fancy medical things that they now have, for everything from mucous to mutation. Some doctor called it migraine while another called it something else. Whatever they did, they never found a cure. So I decided to find one myself.

The first one was mostly by accident. We had gone up the trail back where the view from up there is probably the best in the neighborhood, and carried my headache with me. The person accompanying me was a postman, someone who had gone on the job recently, about two months back. We went through the trail, hacking at forest growth on the way, sharing things of little or no consequence between us, climbing all the time. My headache kept getting worse, as the sun kept getting low on the horizon. By dusk, we were at the top, overlooking a cliff face, thoroughly spent. I was almost blind with pain, without a clue to get back. We got up from the face of the cliff and decided to get back. The details of what happened next are mostly a blur. I think it had something to do with lose rocks and me pushing him away from me, because I couldn’t stand him next to me anymore, thanks to the raging pain. That pain makes me a little unsocial that ways. What I do remember though is, me coming downhill from there, whistling to myself, the pain totally gone. It was almost dark by then, and I should have been afraid of the wild animals which would be out by now, but no! I traipsed along rocks and grass, my tiny flashlight guiding me along the broken path, almost making me believe it was the sun on a bright spring morning.

I had the best sleep that night, better than I had in months.

Give them a chance and they would make you believe anything. They would tell you that there is no cure for cancer or you couldn’t possibly lick your elbow. There was no El Dorado and the dinosaurs were all but dead. Mona Lisa was an alien from outer space. I say, don’t trust their word. I cured my own headache. I have learnt it a little hard that way, but I have learnt it nonetheless. A lesson in life is a lesson. Is a lesson, is a lesson.

Needless to say, I left that town in a week or so, after the search for that postman started heating up. No one had seen us getting out of town, and he was a bachelor. I don’t need to spoon feed you the rest of details. It’s something you would get by without knowing.

The outside is almost dark. I have my trusted pen light to show me the way. I wouldn’t be expecting much of lighting on this side of the town. I can hear that guy calling. Whatever he seems to be cooking, is probably done. If you have ulterior motives about someone, do you share a bite with him? Do hidden agendas count as a deterrent towards ill practices in gastronomy? Whatever is on the fire smells like heaven. I could do with a bite. No sense in going back with a happy mood, no headache and empty stomach. But, first things first. Got to get the job done. I could always help myself to generous servings later.

He is standing with his back to me, sautéing the final bits of whatever he is cooking in the pan. He is still gibbering on. No wonder the guy doesn’t have company. The amount he talks could make your ears bleed. I guess I would be doing his acquaintances a big favour. I grip the handle of the knife tucked in my pocket tightly and go stand right behind him.

He is still cooking, making that huge blob (meat?) go round and round in boiling hot oil. And talking. The headache has turned into a steam engine, spilling molten coal and steam inside my head and rumbling on. A quick recap of the scenes from the past is running in front of my eyes in quick succession. The guy on the bus, heavily sedated, his wrist going drip, drip on the floor. The woman standing with her head inside the sink at the publish washroom, not knowing what hit her. Another, sitting quietly on the bed, his television running on full volume, never to be seen again with his living eyes. Relief in various packages, signed and delivered. Relief standing right in front of my eyes, frying food. The knife is in my hands now. Raw. Quiet. Waiting.

My eyes wander towards the paintings. Remember what I told you about me hating water colours? That tiny detail makes me linger just a little longer, drawing my attention towards them. The paintings stand, shoulder to shoulder, glowing softly in the light of bulb planted in the middle of the room. There is dullness in the paintings that attract me. I don’t find the red in them repulsive; there is almost a growing fondness towards it. There is a strange uniformity in the shapes of those objects, something that I am familiar with. Each of those paintings, varying in size, has features, features you wouldn’t associate with a rose or a tulip or any flower at all. And suddenly, the roses in the painting aren’t roses anymore.

Ohmysweetgod.

I never find out when the guy stopped talking. I stood too long. I did not care about getting the work done first, and chilling out later. I cannot afford mistakes. I could not afford mistakes. I fucked up. I probably looked like an idiot standing behind him, knife in hand. I lost my chance. I did not wrap up the Christmas present and now its back to bite me.

The last thing I see is a big black sun, rushing to meet my face. And then,

Crunch.

So...

So.

I have never Ever begun a piece of writing/letter/story/poetry/epic on such a monosyllabic note.

So?

I haven’t done a lot of things before that I am trying out for the first time now. I haven’t job hunted ever, but I just did it a while back and scooped up a job. I haven’t ever given a surprise to my parents and I am past quarter life. Did too. A few other unmentionables, but you get the drift. You could call it blasphemy.

I call it perception. Point of view.

So?

I haven’t written on the blog in a while, and for longer, not written stories. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. I have written a novelette and it should be out before you guys can get this blog out of focus again. If you still haven’t bought the book you see on the side panel, do a favour to a starving author and he would bless you with more stories. Okay, I exaggerated for a bit there, but aren’t that all writers, pseudo or otherwise, about?

Enough with the trash talk already. If you are here for the first time, flip through the archieves and you would land up over a score of short stories. For free. Free highs. Free Kicks. Of late, that four letter discount into nothingness is the only thing that matters.

So?

Become a follower. Spread the word. Buy the book. Like the fan page on Facebook. Do my bidding or I would turn all of you into multi-coloured tadpoles. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to find out if I am lying or not.

All you story mongers, tale vultures and fable vixens, do not fret; the wait is finally over. I give you THREE COURSE. Feast.

Point of view

You know what they say about dark alleys and little girls? They should never be friends. Never ever.

The clouds rumbled loudly as she stepped into the alley, either going someplace or coming from somewhere. A bright colored raincoat adorned her little frame as she walked on the pavement. There was little light, since the moon was cosied up comfortably behind charcoal clouds. The streetlights did little to improve the situation. Trees swung back and forth a little and occasionally nodded hard in agreement. She did not care. It wasn’t raining cats and dogs yet. More like kittens and puppies. The thought made her giggle.

As she walked on the pavement, she did not notice a pair of eyes sizing her up, like a wild animal. She walked along, uncaring, occasionally doing a step here and a step there. The pair of eyes now appeared out of hiding and stood under the pale, jaundiced streetlight. Supported on a ragged frame, it stood complete with a ragged shirt and a pair of ragged pants. The thumb of his right foot stuck out of a torn pair of canvas and secretly licked a small puddle on the street before being complete drowned. He let out a string of curses as his right foot came out soggy. There was no moon to be seen yet. The streetlight continued to light up the scenery.

Water made him irritated. Water damaged his temper. Water dissipated his inner peace. Since the time it started raining in the afternoon, all he had done was get soaked in the rain. He hated it. And now his canvas had managed to find a puddle and get soaked in it. As one of his shoes squelched, he had seen the little girl, walking quietly, occasionally skipping. She even seemed to be humming a song now. He had the answer! It was all her fault! He did not know how, but he knew one thing for sure; she was the one who would pay for it.

There was an alley lying in wait for her. A few rotten banana peels and an occasional stray cat made up for its everyday livelihood. It encountered an occasional druggie or someone who had lost his way. Sometimes a drunkard would come and crash, and wait for dawn to arrive, when he would finally get up with a splitting headache and mend his way home. Today, a little girl in a bright raincoat decided to grace the alley. The alley stood there, surprised, and decided to let her walk through. As it stood there, admiring the cute thing, the ragged man stumbled in. The alley frowned and let a discarded can in his way. The man kicked it and realized he was about five steps away from her.

The little girl heard the clanking can and turned around to see a ragged man with a ragged expression. His face was streaked with rain water and grime and he looked really mad. The light in the alley was dim. Just then, lightning tore across the skies and revealed his shabby attire. “Don’t come near me!” she bleated. While her voice was soft and sheep like, it strangely did not carry any tones of fear. The shabby man was too drunk to care and he realized that this was the moment which would turn his day a little better. Just a little better. Maybe, a lot better.

He lumbered towards her. She stood still, her eyes like black buttons fixed on his face. “Don’t come near me!” she said once more, almost making it sound like a warning now. There seemed to be a shift in her tone as well. The man was either too drunk to notice, or too naïve to take a little girl like her seriously. As a result, he now stood right over her, breathing down her face.

“Come to daddy!” he said and broke into shabby laughter. The joke seemed extremely funny to him for some reason. She still stood there, her face set like stone. He finally looked at her eyes. Black and stony, they seemed to be staring right at his soul. He ignored the fact and placed his hands on her waist to pick her up. She did not struggle. A rat quickly ran past his foot and hid behind a trash can by the corner. She looked at him one final time and did something totally unexpected.

She placed her right palm right on his nose.

The man took it as a sign of defence and it tickled his funny bone even more. He broke into a fresh peal of laughter and tried to shrug his head sideways to shake off the hand from his face. Strangely enough, the hand remained. Suddenly he felt something hard closing around his nose.

Teeth.

He screamed in agony and let her go. The hand stayed, not moving, as she continued looking at his face with the same stone expression. He stood there, bent, unable to take his face off her hand. Blood flowed freely now, dripping down, mixing with the rainwater. The cats and dogs were finally coming down. His scream kept reverberating through the alley, but no one heard him. The hand soon let go off his nose and worked its way across the rest of his face. He finally managed to push her away and fell backwards. His face, by now, was a bloody mess. “Fuck off bitch!” he managed to utter through a mouth full of blood and a few broken teeth.  Then he ran.

She looked at him till he disappeared down the far side of the alley. He was gone. The rainwater washed off all the blood and gore from her hand. She looked at her palm. A pair of thin lips looked back at her.

“Thank you hand.”

“Hey no problem. Can we get another meal before we retire for the night? I am still kinda hungry.”

“Sure thing. Lets go check up a few more alleys!”

The rain kept falling in sheets as she trotted along the alley and stepped out of it. A frog croaked somewhere nearby. A few crickets chirped. No one had noticed the encounter; none of any consequence at least. No one would believe a babbling roadside idiot anyways.  The night, it seemed, had just started to get better…

Hometide musings...

A roller coaster trip, spanning three cities, three modes of transportation, countless relatives, changes of weather, and so much more, finally wraped up today morning, as I set foot into the City of Djinns. What caused the entire whirlwind of events and occurences? The Big Fat Indian Wedding!!!

It started with a flight from New Delhi to Kolkata on the fourth of August. With just about three hours of sleep in my kitty, me and my brother landed in an extremely sticky/sunny Kolkata at about ten in the morning. Close to an hour later, I was finally united with my family and a gazillion relatives. Most of the remaining trip has been trying to piece together the most complex jigsaw of the extended Indian hierarchial family. The only other high point is anybody's guess; people tryin to get me set up with some "sweet girl who sings like an angel!" Your's truly has managed to return, if I am allowed to use the word; "unscathed"! If anyone of you actually wants to know what transpired in the ten missing days, lemme know, and I shall endeavour to post about it. No guarantees about how it shall turn out. Looking forward to a writers meet this weekend and a quick meetup for the graphic novel. Also in the offing is fresh fiction fiwting. Sorry, writing.
In other news, Clarity of Night turned out to be a flop show this time.I managed to get into the forties club though. The Forties Club, is a special system of marking where to qualify as a finalist, you gotta make a forty out of forty five. Thats the only accolade that I managed this time. Any which ways, here is the entry that I sent in. If nothing else, its gonna be a part of my next collection of shorts! Presenting, The Maker.

The Maker

Make it shine…

Light bouncing off the million faces, sunshine is a sliver of broken glass meant to cut through your defenses. Shimmery, radiant. Let it slice through the barriers of your psyche, like melted butter. You must. You will.

Every single one screams.

I block it; it’s my job. Bawling, screaming, a pile of thrusting limbs, a growing confusion. Material. Raw. I create their Nirvana, I design their enlightenment. I am blocking every single emotion trying to clutch at me, as I work on them, one at a time. The rest continue screaming, a desperate mass, but I ignore them. I am paid for this.

They look me right in the eye before going.

I am a preserver; I have never killed. I separated what you did not want; would never have wanted. You will never see those eyes; all you would see are the colors and a respiring brilliance. ”No stone”, you said…”something real!” I only delivered what you asked for. I turned the mundane into a masterpiece. The ones that go are never missed; they really don’t go now, do they?

Turn, turn, turn. Shine. It’s nothing but a stone now. It won’t scream anymore. Won’t look you in the eye. Won’t question your purpose. Glitter. You never need to know what it was; all you see is what I turned it into. I did it for you. Stones never have a heart, unless it’s a heart of stone.

Forget your useless jewels now; wear a soul...

Occurence

Its always hazy.

Occasional pin points of dull, lazy, colored dots waft through an almost monochromatic vision. The middle of the night is never sepia; almost always monochrome. It begins with black, and then the white slowly washes over, tingling the rods and cones, as it invades the castle of your eye. The ground feels cold, almost frigid underneath the bare soles. You are still trying to focus. Reality is acting like a bitch that it is, refusing to perch on the twig of your consciousness; flitting ceaselessly in and out of your imaginarium. Look closer.

Its still hazy.

Dragging the mass of a human body, you feel your emotions rise; the sense of direction is finally coming back to haunt you. Being directionless almost seems like a boon, now that the path of unforeseen agony lies before you. The metallic demon isn’t clanking anymore, aware of the fact that its silence is going to rouse your intrigued self. It does and how. You lurch towards it, the task in hand beckoning you like gnawing hunger. The objects around you are finally starting to filter into your consciousness, making you feel aware of your surroundings. They seem strangely alien. In the bright light of the daytime, all of this would have passed off as the dullness of the everyday existence, but not now. Not with the quiet monster inches away, not with the set, concrete, ‘Now’ hammering realism into your slow, dormant awakening. You have set the illumination in place, which now offers a clearer understanding of all forces involved, and in the moment, you place your hands on the hide of the metal monster.

The haze explodes.

A brilliant bolt of energy, races through your body, almost tearing your body apart. The point of contact is warm now, almost scalding, but you can’t let go; it won’t let you. ‘This is probably how enlightenment feels like’, you wonder; healing yet painful. An act of will is the only way. Let go before it consumes your soul, leaving behind a sorry pile of flesh and bones, devoid of anything that ever resembled the living, let alone human. You must let go now. NOW!

The piece of hide clangs to the floor now, complete realization finally settled upon the brow. Everything is totally in focus, the haze gone. The wound on the palm pulsates with white pain; but it would fade, eventually. The moment is over. All that is left to do is go back to the monochrome. Go back to the black. To the dark.

Before the haze…

[inspired by my cooler, which shocked me out of my senses a few nights back. Thank you for the moment of Nirvana.]

Onset

“Rains”, she thinks, looking out of the window, as the city scene passes her by at twenty four frames per second. The bus weaves through crowded streets, making its way to the final bus stop now, a few final passengers waiting to get off. It creakes and clanks through scorched potholes and dusty neighborhoods filled with sun burnt, sweaty people. She sits on the window seat, still looking out, with just one single thought crowding her head; Rain.

The summer heat is finally driving her up the wall. The summer in this country is supposed to last longer than most places. This city, especially, has to face the season a lot longer, thanks to all the pollution, chopped down trees, messed up weather balance and what not. As a result, the city has been smoldering. The pitch on the edges of the road is starting to turn squelchy and sticking to the soles of the hapless pedestrians, refusing to let go like a long forgotten breakup. All the ‘metal’; the railings, vehicle skeletons, fences, steering columns, can hardly be touched, without scalding your palm. The tempers are flaring too. She almost has had a couple of altercations in the day and is hoping she wouldn’t be pushed to the edge.

A man looks at her through the window. He is sun burnt, to the point of an ill fated cookie. He stands there looking at her, wearing a pair of worn down shorts and a vest with a sprinkling of holes of assorted sizes. He is staring right at her, and she doesn’t know what to do. He continues staring till the bus passes out of his line of sight. She knows he still stands there, sunburnt, sweat on his forehead, frizzle haired, barefoot. She doesn’t feel agitated anymore; she only feels sorry.

She is still thinking about the word, but now her thoughts are a lot more…tangible. They are almost like a real thing; throbbing, rotating, twisting and turning like a kaleidoscope mural. She looks up to see the sky slowly take on a leaden look. A soft wind, almost secretive, slowly begins to blow, stirring the leaves and other strewn debris into little circles of dancing dust. A few more passengers get off, while the last of the bunch look up at the sky with a marked expression of relief.

Her stop is now approaching. Silent streaks of lightning are tearing across the skies. A few lazy potbellied drops of rain start falling, kicking up microscopic swirls of parched earth. She has a little smile playing on her lips now. She gets off the bus and heads to her apartment. She is standing in front of her door now. She looks back for one final time. “Rain!” she shouts and gets in, closing the door behind her, as the rains come streaming down, washing the summers away for another year.

[Written as an application to the sultry summers, hoping that they get the cue.]