The Loony Lampoonist

Poverty

2016-04-03T19:54:00.001-07:00

The office worker does not claim to understand Economics. It is best left to the pundits who pontificate on television, speaking of inflation and the devaluation of currency. They talk of the Greek crisis. And the Asian markets. It makes no sense to the office worker. He only needs an answer to a very simple question. Where does all his money disappear off to at the end of every month?

The office worker, and fellow office workers in a similar state of penury, head to the closest bar to discuss their situation. Frugal living might be the solution to their problems but the office workers don't believe in Occam's Razor. The answer is not that simple, they say. Down the ages, peasants have always struggled to understand why they have remained peasants all their lives. A philosopher-peasant in the 14th century, who is said to have spent a lifetime pondering over this question, sadly succumbed to the pestilence before his findings could be denounced as heresy by the Church. No one has come closer to the answer since and it continues to elude even the brightest of peasants of the Modern Age.

"If I were a country, I'd be Zimbabwe," says one of the office workers, despondently.

The others nod. Theirs is a very Zimbabwean situation.

"That analogy makes no sense," says one of the office workers, who has a background in Economics.

The others blow raspberries in reply. If he understands Economics so well, why is he poor like the rest of us, they ask, laughing.

The Economist tries to explain that his is not a field of study on wealth acquisition. It is the study of resources. There are a multitude of factors that cause poverty: Class differences, privilege, a banking system that favours the rich, the midd-

He is cut short by a cry of revolution.

"Revolution!"

One of the office workers is standing on the table, glass in hand. The others rise from their chairs in a show of support.

"Revolution is the answer!"

The others applaud.

"Vive la révolution!"

The applause grows louder.

"Off with their heads!"

The room goes silent.

The leader is pulled down. He is clearly too drunk to lead a revolution.

"Revolution!" cries the office worker who takes his place.

The others applaud again.

"We will erase all debt. Our lives will begin afresh!"

There is a resounding huzzah in response.

"A capital idea," says one supporter to another, "I wonder where he got it from?"

"I, Robot."

"I, Robot? Isn't that a film about a robot revolution?"

"I think he means Mr. Robot," says a third supporter.

"Ah, I haven't seen that one."

"You should."

A critical analysis of Mr. Robot commences as more supporters join the conversation. The leader and his revolution are forgotten.

At dawn, the office workers awake from their drunken slumber and head back to their homes. In a few hours they will begin their 9 to 5. They are one day closer to payday.

Pyro

2016-02-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

You'd think a cyclone warning would dampen the spirits of Guy Fawkes himself but the amateur pyrotechnician of Madras proves to be of a different breed altogether. He watches the dark clouds that appear on the horizon signalling the arrival of a cyclone on the Eastern coast. To the untrained eye the rain that follows seems relentless. The pyro knows better. He has lived through many a Diwali monsoon. A lesser mortal packs his fireworks away for the next year. The pyro simply waits for the lull before the rainstorm. He has always considered meteorology a pseudoscience, relying instead on his uncanny ability to understand cloud patterns. A sign from above is all he needs.

The office worker, on the other hand, looks at the clock. At the stroke of dusk, he emerges outdoors, ready to brave the elements. Home beckons.

Their paths are destined to cross.

The pyro has planted his explosives. He lets the weak pass, waiting for a challenge. The office worker appears. He sizes him up. He is sized up in return. It is a battle of wills now.

The office worker walks forward. The pyro bends down to light the fuse.

====================================

The last thing on the mind of an office worker making his way home after a hard day's work is his Hindu identity. He calls upon the Gods sometimes when he is in need, but those moments are few and far between. Fervent appeals are dispatched to the Heavens above on tortuously long workdays: Could you speed up Time, O Divine One? At other times, he begs favour from a specific God like Kamadeva. Kamadeva appears, pulls out an arrow and looks at the target, a remarkably attractive young woman. He then shakes his head, puts the arrow back into the quiver and tells the office worker, "Alas, mortal, this young woman is so out of your league that even I, the God of Love, cannot help you."

On this particular day, the office worker is reminded of his Hindu identity as he encounters the amateur pyrotechnician of Madras once again. Regular readers will recall the previous standoff between the office worker and the pyro. It was a topic of conversation among the idle youth in the hours of the day before liquor shops open for business. The pyro had brought out his secret weapon, they said in awe, a string of firecrackers with the fastest fuse anyone had ever seen. In response, the office worker announced that he was as fleet-footed as the Flying Sikh himself. The idle youth promptly divided into two camps, betting on their favourite horse. The office worker would have been dismayed to learn that the pro-pyro camp was far bigger than his. "He can run code, but can he run?" they asked, chuckling. In the end though, the office worker prevailed. He had leapt over the string of firecrackers and continued on his way home. "Cool guys don't look at explosions," he was rumoured to have said as he walked away.

On this particular day however, the officer worker finds himself facing the pyro without his trusty running shoes. Can he survive this encounter?

"You're back," the pyro says, in Tamil. "Are you here to challenge me again?"

"Why would I?" replies the office worker. "Do you bring out your firecrackers every day?"

"Not every day. Don't you know what day this is?"

The office worker knows it is the last day to file his taxes but he can't think of anything else that would define this day.

"Look at the lamps all around you," the pyro offers, helpfully.

"Oh, Karthikai Deepam."

"Yes, Karthikai Deepam," the pyro replies, "A day very special to me."

"Special?"

"My name is Murugan. Skanda Murugan."

It dawns upon the office worker that Diwali was merely a precursor to the main event. This boy who was named Murugan at birth unleashed terror every year on Karthikai Deepam.

"That is a simplistic interpretation of Hinduism, my young friend," the office worker says. "Skanda may be the God of War but he does not advocate violence."

"Pfft, that is no fun. Our names define us. What are you called?"

"Shivankar."

"Do you know what it means?"

"The devotee of Lord Shiva."

"Not devotee."

"Then?"

"A minion. A minion of the God of Destruction."

"Merely a minion?"

"A soldier then. A soldier who fights for the Destroyer of the Cosmos."

The boy has clearly been playing too many videogames, the office worker realizes. He smiles, thinking back to his childhood when he too played too many videogames.

"Very well then, I am a soldier."

"And I am your commander. Follow me."

Skanda reveals his arsenal. Contraband Chinese firecrackers. The office worker rubs his hands in glee. This is going to be a long, fun night.

Kaikeiyi's Conundrum

2015-01-17T23:23:00.001-08:00

The story of how I discovered India’s shadow government will no doubt be fictionalized in film with scenes of the actor poring over old newspapers at the library, going to dimly-lit, seedy bars to speak to people who prefer to remain anonymous and finally piecing together the clues to uncover the shadowy organization. In truth, however, I discovered it quite by accident. It happened one day when I walked in through the wrong door and found myself in a room that was certainly not the lavatory.

The clickety-clack of a hundred typewriters stopped suddenly and a hundred faces looked up at me. Only the whirring of the Emergency-era ceiling fans could be heard. It was a tense situation.

A woman appeared at a distance and walked towards me. "Who are you?” she asked.

"I am a reporter," I replied.

"What are you doing here? Parliament is in session."

That was a good question. Beat reporters usually camped out at Parliament or at North Block or even South Block. This building was far outside my jurisdiction.

"I'm following up on a lead," I answered. It was a half-truth. A tip-off led me here. "The canteen at ______ Bhavan serves excellent vada pav," the source said, adding that it was subsidized by the Government of India.

She surveyed me for a moment with an expression of mild curiosity on her face. I wondered if I was going to get evicted. I looked around the room. The peons began to look menacing to me, possibly armed.

To my surprise, she asked me to follow her. As I walked behind her, I noticed a familiar face as I passed the sixth row of typewriters. I stopped and knelt down to tie my shoelaces.

"Who is she?” I whispered.

The steno, a distant cousin on my mother’s side, stopped typing. "Madam? She is called Kaikeiyi."

My jaw dropped. It was true. Kaikeiyi did exist after all.

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Kaikeiyi. I had heard this name before. A rookie reporter is rarely privy to confidential information but it was perhaps a favourable alignment of celestial bodies that guided an email into my inbox instead of the Chief Editor's. I opened it. It contained documents titled the Kaikeiyi Files.

I set the email on the right course to the Chief Editor. He would never know if I had read it or not. Would he buy my silence, I wondered. Was I going to get a company car? Or perhaps even a promotion?

I was disappointed when the reply contained only a curt 'Thank you'. He evidently did not deem me important enough to be a threat. He was probably right too. My lack of enthusiasm in opening work emails was quite legendary.

I was initially shocked by the contents of the Kaikeiyi Files, but as I read further, it began to sound more and more like a conspiracy theory to me. The alleged existence of a woman who influenced government policy since Independence? A cover-up of Pokhran-III? Documented cases of UFO encounters by IAF pilots? It sounded like the plot of a Hindi potboiler.

Until now, that is. I finally had some concrete evidence that Kaikeiyi existed. There was one problem though. Kaikeiyi looked young, perhaps in her late 20s. How could she be the same person who appeared at different times in a conspiracy theory spanning almost 70 years?

-----------------------------------------------

Was Kaikeiyi a title rather than a name? The thought occurred to me one day as I watched a James Bond marathon. And why would a mother name her daughter after the mythological Kaikeiyi anyway? It had to be a title, like M, the head of the MI6.

Kaikeiyi, it turns out, wasn't a title but a code name. "Code name: Kaikeiyi," she said, in reply to my question.

-----------------------------------------------

I had quit my job and begun working for the shadow government. I could never remember what it was officially called. It was listed as a sub-department in the Ministry of Commerce. Or was it a sub-divisional office in the Ministry of Transport? Whatever it is was, it stayed hidden deep within the bloated bureaucracy.

It was also exceedingly hard to find us. Our office was located in a nondescript building close to Raisina Hill. It looked like a sarkari office from the outside. I was disappointed to find that it looked like a sarkari office on the inside too.

-----------------------------------------------

In my years of working for the shadow government, I duly recorded most of Kaikeiyi's successful campaigns. This is a story about her failure though. Or was it yet another success? Sadly, the world may never know.

I called it her Final Problem. Kaikeiyi was India's problem solver. A country like ours situated between two hostile neighbours, divided between proselytizing religions, and filled with a middle class that looks for the first opportunity to emigrate, has a lot of problems. It is a wonder that India manages to stay united instead of Balkanising into bickering pieces. The populace probably attributed this to a government that administrated the country against all odds. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Have you ever wondered how a barely-functioning Parliament which usually witnessed scenes with uprooted chairs flying across the hall managed to get work done? It didn't. The politicians seen yelling atop the benches and ducking down to avoid airborne furniture were merely actors putting on a show. The real work of statecraft was done by the shadow government.

So, what was Kaikeiyi's Final Problem? It began a few months ago, when the oddest results began appearing in the local elections. It seemed sporadic at first, a few underdog Independents winning seats. The council seats they won would have no effect on the larger political scene. And then it started happening in the Assembly elections. Independents were being elected as Chief Ministers. These Independents had no single agenda, no common manifesto. Their demands were as diverse as the cultures in this country. A candidate supporting green initiatives won in the Western region. A feminist won in one of the tiny Eastern states. The only common factor was the way in which the incumbents and the bigger opposition parties were thoroughly defeated. The Independents took absolute majorities.

Kaikeiyi tried in vain to find a pattern. It seemed to make no sense. These states were electing leaders who had no cultural connection with the people who voted for them. The results were a collection of random probabilities.

Kaikeiyi studied political movements and forms of government from the beginning of time. She mapped out the growth of ancient democracies in Greece and Rome. Built hypothetical models of a current-era Greek or Roman democracy that would have lasted a thousand years. She introduced obscure political movements and ideologies that barely existed for a few years into these models. Nothing seemed to explain the current situation. It was absurdist turn of events. Was this the end of democracy? Were we seeing the birth of a new form of government?

As more states headed to elections, the trend continued. Independents continued winning.

"This isn't a wave, it's a tsunami," she said, exasperated.

"What are you going to do?", I asked.

"I am going to wait as it heads to the shore. It's either going to wipe us all out or dissipate before it reaches us. There's nothing else we can do."

=======================================

Street War III: An Unlikely Ally

2014-02-03T01:56:00.000-08:00

In Street War I, a group of boys calling themselves Goonie, Sarge and the Commander band together to defend their street against an enemy with superior firepower. Under the cover of darkness, as explosions are heard in the distance, Goonie is dispatched on his bicycle to look for ammunition. Can he make it back in time to save the day?

http://loonylampoonery.blogspot.in/2007/02/street-war-on-festival-of-lights.html

In Street War II, the Street Defence Force find themselves deep within hostile territory. Trapped by an enemy armed with long-range missiles, they barely escape from a barrage of Holi water balloons. They find themselves forced to resort to a guerrilla tactic called the Cowadunga Manoeuver. Will it work?

http://loonylampoonery.blogspot.in/2011/10/street-war-ii.html

==================================================

Street War 3: An Unlikely Ally

October 31, 2030 hours

"A sulphurous fog has descended upon us, sir," whispered Goonie, as we lay huddled in the trenches. I climbed out of the ditch, tripping over wires left behind by an unscrupulous telephone company, and looked out for Sarge. I could not see very far; the fog had limited our vision.

Where was Sarge? I had sent him out hours ago on a covert operation to cripple the enemy's transport. Why hadn't he reported back yet?

"I wonder if Sarge managed to puncture their tires, sir."

That question was on my mind too. Reducing the mobility of your enemy by puncturing their bicycle tires might seem like a dastardly thing to do, but we were a ragtag army of three fighting against a superior force. Outnumbered, we were driven far back into our own territory. If they advanced any further, they would take our Street HQ. Thus, it was of paramount importance that Sarge complete his mission and make it back unharmed.

The prospects of such an occurrence seemed to be growing dimmer by the minute though. He was most likely captured by the enemy. With a heavy heart, I reached into my pockets to pull out the white flag and head to the enemy base, when-

"Look! It's Sarge!," yelled Goonie.

I looked in the direction of Goonie's pointed finger and could make out two figures walking slowly towards us through the fog. I recognized one as Sarge, his head slumped forward and an arm around the shoulders of the other person. I squinted, trying to see who the second person was, and my eyes widened in surprise. He seemed vaguely familiar.

"Is that-?"

"Rambo?!"

I looked at Goonie. His jaw had dropped too. So, this wasn't a battlefield hallucination after all. Relieved, I went towards them and helped Sarge climb down into the trench. He smiled as he lay down, amused by the look on our faces. "Friend or foe," I asked, looking at the foreigner.

"Friend," he replied.

I turned around to look at our friend. He was a diminutive Rambo, about five feet tall and wearing a wig made of long, curly black hair. He tied a black strip of cloth around his head to keep the wig in place. Dressed only in camouflage pants and bare chested, he looked the part.

"How did you manage to escape?"

"Thank the American," replied Sarge, "He saved my life."

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October 31, 1930 hours

Location: Railway Quarters

In hindsight, it wasn't surprising that Sarge took ballet classes. He was nimble on his feet, making him the perfect man for stealth missions of the tiptoey sort. Claiming to have mastered the Way of the Ninja while growing up in Japan, Sarge realized that his cover was blown when he was spotted in a tutu outside Bernard's School of Ballet, Belly Dancing and Bharatnatyam. A weaker man might have moved cities after an embarrassing revelation such as this, but Sarge was made of sterner stuff. He embraced his new identity as a classically trained ballet dancer/soldier and went on covert operations in a specially designed combat tutu. The Commander found no cause for complaint after he saw his operational success rate go up by 200%. They never spoke of it, as all men do when confronted with the sillier quirks of their brethren, but Goonie still giggled at the sight of Sarge preparing himself for a mission.

On this night however, it would take more than just his ballet skills to complete the mission. He was sent out to the Railway Quarters, a previously peaceful neighbourhood that had been recently occupied by a gang of foul-mouthed boys who called themselves the Naga. They were aptly named, Sarge thought to himself, remembering their wanton destruction of the park and the swimming pool and the subsequent framing of the Commander for the vandalism. The glorious name of the Commander had been besmirched and he had been forbidden by the Elders to enter the Railway Quarters again. Sarge swore to take revenge on the Naga, calling them a group of slimy snakes. But the Commander held him back and reminded him of the principles of Sun Tzu's Art of War. We will lay low and strike at an opportune moment, he said. And for that to happen, we have to weaken them by destroying their defenses and cripple them. Sarge agreed. The Commander was a veteran of two Street Wars. But still, this was a foe more fearsome than any they had ever seen before. The thought worried Sarge as he darted through the shadows. He could see the bicycle stand at the far end of the compound.

Knifing the tires was easy enough. And there were no guard dogs around. Perhaps this was a trap, Sarge wondered. The momentary lapse in concentration cost him dear. He bumped into a bicycle, knocking it down, setting off a domino effect. Within minutes, a row of bicycles crashed to the ground. He had barely exited the stand before he found himself surrounded by a group of boys in pajamas. It was the Naga.

"What has the night brought usss?," asked the leader of the group, who added a theatrical hiss after the end of every sentence. He called himself the King Cobra.

"Looksss like a ballet dancer in a black tutu, Bosss. Must be the Black Sssswan," replied his right-hand man, the Viper, who might have been imitating his Boss or simply suffering from a speech defect.

Sarge growled, realizing that he couldn't do anything. He was outnumbered. As they drew closer, he called in for help. There was only static. Making a mental note to never buy any gear from Burma Bazaar again, he flung the walkie-talkie away and stood with his head held high. He would not be taken like a coward, begging for his life.

"We are going to teach you a lesssson," hissed the Viper, pulling out a string of firecrackers. "Now you shall think twice before you messs with usssss."

Sarge closed his eyes.

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October 31, 2000 hours

Mordecai looked around. He could hear loud blasts in the vicinity. That's strange, he thought to himself, didn't Dad say this was a peaceful country?

Perhaps war had broken out here too. It wasn't the first time it happened during a posting. That would mean a quick evacuation along with the other families. Again.

He remembered Lebanon. He had to leave Balto behind. Dogs were given low priority during evacuations. He wondered if he would ever find a friend like that again.

The blasts were getting louder. It could be heard over the music now. Shouldn't they be heading back to the embassy, he wondered, looking for his father.

Not finding him among the crowd of dressed-up people, he stepped out of the hotel. And that's when he saw it. Fireworks. Of a different kind.

"Don't go knocking on doors tonight," his father had said earlier, laughing, "Indians don't follow the same traditions as us." That made sense now. They were celebrating something. He should have paid more attention during the briefing session on cultural differences.

However, even the most comprehensive of briefing sessions could not have prepared him for what he was about to see next. A boy dressed in what seemed to be a black tutu ran past him followed by a group of boys in their pajamas. Were they hissing?

"Screw Halloween, this is way more interesting," he said to himself, and ran after them.

----------------------------------------------------

October 31, 2100 hours

Location: The Trenches

"We made a last stand," said Sarge, continuing the American's story, "Rambo and I. It was glorious."

"Did you fight the Naga all by yourselves?" asked Goonie, incredulously.

"We did. Until backup arrived."

"Backup?"

"Yes. Mordecai's friends. They were in costume too."

"That must have been devastating," I said, "The sight of Rambo and a ballet dancer aided by the forces of darkness."

"Indeed. Dracula, the Headless Horseman and Clint Eastwood. They fled."

We laughed.

"And we live to fight another day," said Goonie, solemnly.

We nodded.

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The forgotten history of Vypin Island

2013-09-04T02:40:00.000-07:00

I could not have foreseen that the last telegram that I would ever receive would turn out to be the bearer of bad tidings. It was a month before India announced that it was shutting down its telegraph service, and I found myself answering the door to receive this relic from an earlier era. I opened it, pleasantly surprised, but the message within filled me with dismay.

Kutapee was dead.

It did not contain any further information. It did not need to. He had exited our world the same way he had entered it, unannounced and under mysterious circumstances.

I met Kutapee one summer when I travelled to Vypin Island to meet my grandfather. He worked for my grandfather as a young handyman, helping him tend to his garden and work on his driftwood sculptures. In return, he was given an education and a place to stay.

Kutapee was barely a year older than me, but he seemed wise beyond his years. Perhaps it was because of the lessons my grandfather taught him, which must have been very different from what I had learned in school. I remember asking him why no one in Madras seemed to know where Vypin, a small island near Cochin, was. That was because people in the cities cared very little about far-flung islands that they hadn't heard of, he said. They were distrustful of us islanders, looking at us as lesser people who led isolated lives, cut off from culture and civilization. In truth though, they were becoming increasingly homogeneous, eroding India's diversity from within. I nodded in agreement. It seemed to make sense.

I wonder why my grandfather never told us where he found Kutapee. He was an Army officer who served all over the country. Where could he have found this little boy? And under what circumstances? Kutapee, on the other hand, was more forthcoming with answers about his past. It was nearing sunset one evening as we stood at the beach watching the fishing boats return to the shore when one of us asked Kutapee where he had come from. "The lands beyond," he answered in a hushed tone, pointing to the horizon. "Africa?" asked Coco excitedly. Kutapee looked at the little girl and smiled. "No, the Laccadives.", he answered.

As we sat around him and listened, he narrated the tale of his daring escape from the pirates who had attacked his house in the middle of the night. "Pirates?" interrupted Coco, "Like Long John Silver?" We laughed. "No, not like Long John Silver," he said. "These pirates did not have wooden legs or parrots on their shoulders. They were African and roamed the seas in dhows, waiting to prey on merchant vessels." We shuddered. Somehow, real pirates seemed more sinister.

Kutapee continued his tale, describing the fierce attack that caught his little town in Minicoy by surprise. The island had five policemen who fought valiantly against the pirates but were soon captured. In the chaos that followed, Kutapee found himself separated from his family. Realizing that his life in this island was over, he got into a boat full of people fleeing to Kavaratti. However, the capital of the Laccadives was under attack too as Kutapee could see before his boat even reached the shore. The flames from the burning buildings were rising high up into the air. He dove into the water and swam towards a ship that seemed to be leaving the docks. Climbing the mooring line upwards to the deck, he whispered "All Aboard!" to himself and scurried around, looking for a safe play to stow away. As luck would have it, the ship was sailing for Cochin. It was a dramatic narrative filled with vivid descriptions that kept us awake for many nights after. I particularly enjoyed the fanciful episodes he made up to entertain young Coco, who would begin to fret whenever the story took a mundane turn. Mermaids would suddenly appear, swimming alongside his boat, speaking in Malayalam. "What would they say?" she would ask everytime, perking up.

I've always wondered about the truth in Kutapee's stories. Did he really come from the Laccadives? It was hard to tell. I remember asking him about the history of Vypin Island once. His answer was very different from what I had read in the history books.

No one remembers the brave men who defended Vypin, he said. At various times in its history, invaders arrived, looking to loot and plunder this land. And they were driven away every single time. All of Kerala had been occupied, but this one small island of indomitable men held out against the invaders. And there was also that one time, he continued, when we were attacked by Ming the Merciless himself. "The Emperor of the planet Mongo?" I asked, remembering the comics of Flash Gordon I found in my grandfather's library. He smiled and said nothing. It could have been an attack by the nefarious Ming of Mongo or a Chinese emperor of the same name. I would never find out which one it was in the end.

A week after I received the telegram, I went back to Vypin Island to meet the person who sent it. She was a grown woman now. And yet she looked like the little girl I knew many years ago. I told Coco that it was nice seeing her after all these years. She smiled, but I could sense a sadness within. I sat with her in silence until she finally spoke. The history of this island needs to be rewritten, she said. As the way Kutapee would have wanted it. I wasn't sure if she was serious. But, I agreed nonetheless.

"How did he die anyway?", I asked. She looked up at me. "Remember the aircraft carrier we are building?", she said, "In the Cochin Shipyard?"

I nodded. It was ready for active duty.

"Well, Kutapee led a small army to capture and commandeer it."

My eyes widened in surprise. "Why would he do that?", I asked.

"He wanted to break away from the Indian Union. And establish the Principality of Vypin."

I laughed. It was an absurd story. And yet it fitted his character. I realized that I did not wish to know how Kutapee really died. And Coco knew that.

The battle for the sovereignty of North Sentinel Island

2013-07-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

It remains a mystery why the Kaiju would attack North Sentinel Island, which lay in the waters off the coast of southern India. The tiny island was populated by an ancient people called the Sentinelese, who were hunter-gatherers with a way of life that was unchanged by modern civilisation. Why would the Kaiju choose to attack this group of people with only spears to defend themselves with instead of attacking Calcutta and making their way to Delhi?

Perhaps the answer lay in a theory propounded by an administrative clerk employed by the Survey of India, a government agency tasked with mapping the country. In a letter to the Editor of The Telegraph, he explained that the island was studied in great detail by an English naturalist whose work was unfortunately discredited completely when he claimed that the giant creatures described in the oral legends of the Sentinelese might be the same dragons that appear so frequently in European and Oriental myths. The naturalist was laughed off the stage at the The Royal Society of London and was never heard from again, presumably dying eventually in abject poverty. Could these creatures be the Kaiju, the clerk asked, instead of the mythical dragons? It is unknown if the Editor published the letter merely out of amusement, but it went by largely ignored by the readers.

Regardless of the reason, the first Kaiju attack in India happened on North Sentinel Island. The country was almost taken by surprise, as it was only a year after K-Day, and the construction of our first Jaeger, Juggernaut, was not yet complete. In many ways, that fateful day marked the beginning of the rule of Ray, who would go down in history as possibly India's greatest leader of the modern era.

Every schoolboy learns about the man who would cause political upheaval and lead a country during its time of need. Not everyone knew his story though. For he had no story. He was an orphan of no religion or ethnicity. The Indian Army adopted him in its scheme to train urchins to become soldiers. They called him Ray.

Ray would rise up the ranks quickly, eventually qualifying for the Jaeger program. He joined three other promising candidates selected to pilot Juggernaut. If he wondered which of the shortlisted four would eventually qualify to become the pilot pair, he needn't have worried. All four of them were the pilots, for Juggernaut was not a biped Jaeger like the others before him. He was a four legged colossus.

Remembering his history lessons which described medieval battles with war elephants, Ray looked up in awe at Juggernaut. He stood as tall, or perhaps taller than the American Jaeger, Gipsy Danger. Ray's eyes would widen more in surprise later, when he would realize that Juggernaut could stand up on his hind legs and raise his forelegs in the air, towering over every other Jaeger in the world. He smiled as he realized that the Asian giants, as China and India were often referred to, would use the Kaiju attacks to prove to the world how powerful they really were. If India had spent so much on building its Jaeger, he shuddered to think of what China was capable of.

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The Kaiju that made its way to North Sentinel Island was spotted on the radar by the Coast Guard. The government made its decision. The island was far too insignificant to defend. Its destruction would buy them time to finish Juggernaut's construction before the Kaiju attacks began on the mainland. That was the story that was fed to the press anyway. In truth though, Juggernaut was a white elephant project designed to use the fears of the people to spend their taxes on a colossal venture from which billions of rupees would be siphoned off by the government. Was Juggernaut actually intended to serve in active duty? Ray didn't wait to find out. Frustrated with the rampant corruption, he commandeered the public address system at the defence research headquarters, where the pilots and Jaeger crew were housed, and spoke:

"The Sentinelese might be uncivilised tribesmen, but remember this. They have never been invaded since the dawn of time. Let's keep it that way.

It's time for Juggernaut to defend his country."

It must have been a rousing speech, as the Action Stations! alarm went off across the base. Crewmen rushed to their positions, and in an hour, Juggernaut was powering up. Ray rushed to the command console where he found his co-pilots waiting. They saluted him as he entered. It was time to take charge, he realized. No elephant rode well under four mahouts. It needed a commander.

The Kaiju lay in wait near the waters of North Sentinel Island, almost as if in anticipation for a battle with a Jaeger. It took almost a day for Juggernaut to reach the island, after being airlifted from the Madras Harbour. It must have been a spectacular sight for the Sentinelese to witness a colossal machine rise out of the water and make its way to the shore, but they did not run back into the forest screaming in terror. It was at that moment that Ray realized that this was not the first time that these ancient people had encountered something that big.

Juggernaut battled with the Kaiju, creating waves of tsunamis that crashed into the shore. The Sentinelese were brave people; they watched from treetops as the water swept everything away underneath. It was when another Kaiju suddenly appeared and Juggernaut was forced into a defensive position, that the tribesmen decided to join the fight. Apparently unafraid of the behemoths around them, they climbed down to the ground, pulled out their bows, dipped their arrow tips into bowls containing an unidentified liquid, and took aim. As the Kaiju leaned on its hind legs, exposing its skin beneath the scales, they fired. Most of them found their mark. The Kaiju convulsed, apparently affected by whatever poisoned it. It lurched forward, seemingly losing consciousness. Juggernaut went in for the kill. After the death of the first one, the second was dispatched rather quickly.

Ray returned a hero, armed with knowledge that would give humanity a fighting chance against the Kaiju onslaught. He wondered if the Sentinelese had fought off these creatures before, when they might have been attacked some time in prehistory. As we now know, the Kaiju were not interested in our lush prehistoric world and decided to attack later when we reached the Industrial Age. Did they come back to North Sentinel Island to kill off the only people who knew how to kill them?

The Sentinelese compound, as we referred to the poison that we equipped our Jaeger weapons with, saved millions of lives in Kaiju attacks. Until the Kaiju evolved an immunity to it. By then, we had Indus Omega and Asura Alpha to defend us and Ray as our leader.

The untold story of the Indian Jaegers

2013-07-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

It was quite fitting that we would call our first Jaeger the Juggernaut. It was a word of an Indian origin, invented by the English to refer to a destructive and unstoppable force that crushed whatever stood before it. The Juggernaut we built towered over our people and even though they stared at him in awe, they were not unfamiliar with the idea of giant beasts used in warfare. This was the land of war elephants after all.

It was on K-Day, when the world first witnessed the terrifying sight of those behemoths we now call the Kaiju, that India began its Jaeger program, realizing that if it needed to be taken seriously as a force to be reckoned with, then it would need to defend itself against this common enemy on its own. The defence research organisations, long crippled by a lack of funds, quite remarkably stepped up to the challenge. It had taken the threat of an apocalypse to jolt a nation out of its self-destructive slumber.

Juggernaut was soon joined by his brothers-in-arms, Asura Alpha and Indus Omega. Indus Omega was a Mark-3 Jaeger, but Asura Alpha had no rank. He was a beast of a different making. It was after successive defeats suffered by humanity against the hitherto unseen Category 4 Kaiju that India decided to try something that no one else would. It was an idea born out of desperation, yet somehow we managed to pull it off. A battered, dying Kaiju was brought back to life, equipped with prosthetic Jaeger weapons in place of its missing limbs, and a command console with a human pilot installed in its brain to mind-meld with its native consciousness. We had created the unholy spawn of a Kaiju-Jaeger coupling. Against incredible odds, it worked. It was alive. It was the alpha among Asuras.

--------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately though, it was India that bore the brunt of most Kaiju attacks. The abundance of ports on the coastline must have made easy targets. The Juggernaut was the first to fall, heroically defending Calcutta. He took the Kaiju down with him, detonating in mid-sea.

Indus Omega was next, tragically succumbing to a Category 4 Kaiju that attacked Pakistan, our neighbour with no Jaegers to defend itself. In times of distress, old feuds were forgotten. We had offered our help and sent in Indus Omega. He was out of his league though. Category 4 Kaiju are fearsome beasts. Indus Omega defended Karachi in a losing battle, buying time for Asura Alpha.

After Indus Omega went down, the Kaiju had barely set its sights on the harbour before Asura Alpha appeared, blocking its path. It did not stand a chance. That was the moment when we realized that we might not be able to control this monster of our own making. Asura Alpha savagely attacked the Kaiju and tore it apart, flooding the seawaters of Karachi with toxic blood.

He has not been heard from since, though we received reports that he was seen headed towards the Breach. We don't know if he made it through. Was it an attempt to go to wherever these infernal creatures came from and destroy them all, right at the source? We might never know. For now, India is safe. We have rebuilt Indus Omega. We will continue our fight.

The Salty Saga of Captain Hooker : Index

2011-12-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1: Captain Hooker and the story of the mysterious, moldy MacGuffin.

Chapter 2: Cap'n Hooker and the mystery of Lesbos.

Chapter 3: Mr. Lampooner, literary superhero.

Chapter 4: Mr. Lampooner does Wonder Woman.

Chapter 5: The Quill of Mockery

Chapter 6: Mr. Lampooner in the hereafter.

Chapter 7: The cavalry is coming!

Chapter 8: Cap'n Hooker and the cowardly Ninjas.

Chapter 9: The Anecdotal Adventures of Cap'n Hooker.

Chapter 10: Cap'n Hooker and the Promise of a Portrait.

Street War II: Cowadunga

2011-10-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

Read the chronicles of the First Street War here :
http://loonylampoonery.blogspot.com/2007/02/street-war-on-festival-of-lights.html

================================================

Street War II

We found ourselves deep within enemy territory. The smell of sulphur was all around us and explosions could be heard in the distance.

Little Goonie had spotted them first. "Hostiles! 3 o'clock!", he screamed and ran for cover. We followed him.

Ducking behind an ice cream cart, I looked up. Goonie was right. They were positioned in the second floor balcony of an apartment.

"Should we make a run for it?" asked Sarge.

"We wouldn't make it," I replied, "They will use their altitude to their advantage."

"We're losing time," he said, "They will be calling in for reinforcements now. We're cornered and they know it. Perhaps I could sneak away, out of their line of sight and get help."

"It's not the time for heroism yet," I replied. I couldn't afford to lose one of my men this early in the battle.

Sarge's eyes glowered, but he nodded.

"I know someone who lives in this street," said Goonie softly, interrupting the silence, "He comes to visit my mother sometimes."

Sarge and I exchanged knowing glances.

"He is quite fond of me," he continued, "I'm sure we can hide over there for a while."

"A safe house! That is exactly what we need. Show us the way, Goonie."

We wheeled the ice cream cart, taking cover behind it and headed towards the safe house. The enemy taunted us, with more appearing on other balconies and terraces. This looked like a group trained in aerial warfare.

"Cowards!" they hooted, guffawing, "Wear skirts instead and tie up your hair in pretty little ponytails."

Sarge stood up, ready to utter a battle cry. He didn't get far before a loud SPLOOSH interrupted him and he fell backwards, drenched and sputtering.

"Holi Water Balloons!" I exclaimed.

"Direct hit!", screamed the assailant and barked out orders asking for more ammunition.

I dragged Sarge behind the cart and wondered if we should make a last stand. Goonie tapped my shoulder and informed me that the safe house was just a little distance ahead. I nodded and carrying Sarge over my shoulders, followed him.

--------------------------------------

The safe house belonged to a man who called himself a grizzled war veteran. He claimed to have fought many a street war back in his day.

"Do you have a stockpile of weapons now?", I asked him.

"Negative."

"I suppose we are doomed then", I sighed in resignation.

"It's not over until it's over", he replied, "I think I may know of a way to get you out of here. The Cowadunga Manoeuvre."

"Cowadunga?"

"Yes."

-------------------------------------------

It was now two hours past nightfall. We had waited in hiding for over four hours and then under the cover of darkness sneaked out to follow the instructions of the grizzled war veteran. By the time we were done, we smelled bad but appeared hopeful.

The enemy was now emerging out with their parents, ready to enjoy the festivities. They were dressed in their finest and the fireworks display was about to begin.

Little did they know that what appeared to be a pile of paper from exploded firecrackers was actually a booby trap.

We watched patiently from behind the faithful old ice cream cart, waiting for the right moment.

I studied the proximity of the enemy from the trap. They had to get closer for an optimum trajectory.

"They aren't coming into the blast radius," I cursed under my breath.

"Perhaps it is time for my heroism, sir", said Sarge.

I looked at him. I knew he was right.

I nodded.

He stood up and uttered the battle cry once again. The taunts that followed one-upped the tame insults of the enemy. They gasped in horror, the parents covering the ears of the younger ones. Quite predictably, they charged for him.

He waited till they came into the blast radius and then lifted his hands up in mock surrender.

I lit the long inconspicuous wick that led right to the booby trap.

The explosion that followed was quite blinding. Cow dung flew everywhere, splattering faces and staining new clothes. The enemy staggered for balance, overpowered by the smell. The revulsion led to chaos. In the midst of it, Sarge walked back to our hideout smiling. He looked unhurt.

"I dived away from it", he said, "Cool guys don't look at explosions."

We waltzed our way out.

Past tense

2011-10-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

I could not fathom why I would wake up with ephemera in my pockets. It became a nightly ritual to wear clean pajamas, taking great care to clear out the pockets of accidental contents (I believed in making the journey into the Afterlife with no identification, if I ever died in my sleep) and yet, in the morning I would find foreign objects in them. On a closer examination one day, I noticed that they weren't merely foreign objects, that were out of place, they were anachronistic rather, out of its place in time. These anachronisms piqued my curiosity. I would find tickets for modes of transport that no longer existed. Why would a man in the 21st century have a steamer ticket for a journey around the world in his pocket, I asked myself. I had no idea. I knew myself to be a person who picked up knick-knacks and assorted doodads along the course of the day, but how did I end up with objects from another time? It was a mystery.

As a man afflicted with considerable lethargy, I did not pursue the matter beyond a few hours of intense armchair analysis. It was when objects that looked strangely unfamiliar to my eyes turned up that I began to ponder about this phenomenon. The writings were like nothing I had ever seen. And some of them appeared on different parts of my body. I woke up one day to find rings on my fingers. They seemed to be fashioned out of some sort of animal hide. I called in a favour at the university and they dated the accessories. It was in fashion sometime in prehistory.

The findings suggested that I was either a time traveller or a kleptomaniac art thief suffering from a rare variation of somnambulism. I ruled out the second theory. My morals were rigid and my faith strong; even sleep would not cloud their effect on my good nature. I now had to understand the mechanics of my time travel. It was not mere retrocognition, where people have been known to have suddenly possessed knowledge of earlier times or places that could not have been obtained by regular means. That was too pedestrian. And I had returned from the past with artifacts. That was something the retrocogs could not do. On the other hand, I could not bring memories back. It was perhaps a trade-off for carrying objects of a tangible nature through the mists of time.

It seemed to me then that this was a mystery that would go to the grave with me. I made my peace with it, knowing that a lot of history was similar. Artifacts would turn up at archaeological digs with no narratives to tell their story. My story would be the same. Portions of my life unknown with no memory of it, save a few objects with tantalizing hints of fantastic adventures through time.

In time, anachronisms would begin to appear directly on my body. Tattoos depicting ancient gods covered the blank canvas of my skin and my hairstyles changed. I wondered what kind of makeup I might have seen on my face waking up if I were a woman. Clearly my nocturnal travels were beginning to get more intimate with the people of the past.

The intimacy continued to grow I realized, as I discovered one day in bed. My wife of many years, a fine woman who was amused by my time travelling, suspected me of adultery. After so many years of marriage she had created a record of my sexual styles, so to speak, and found me now performing in a manner that she was not familiar with. She asked me who this interloper was, who taught me these new (and exciting, she grudgingly added) moves. I had no idea, I told her, wondering if I suddenly started sleepwalking unsolicited into strange women's bedrooms.

These amorous encounters would continue, inexplicably leaving marks on my body even though my wife jealously guarded me. She would coil around me and not let go, until the first light of dawn. And yet, I would hurt from the scratches of a wildcat in the morning. Sometimes it seemed to my wife that the pattern of scratches indicated the presence of more than one woman in my bed. That infuriated her even more but she could not do anything as I shrugged it off blamelessly.

I found a person a few months later who had skills that could help me with my mystery. She called herself a forensic investigator, though she mostly operated in the fringes of forensic science. Her specialty lay in sexual crimes and she possessed an amazing knowledge in that area. She recently started dabbling in historical crimes and soon enough expressed an interest in my case.

I explained my unexplained encounters with strange women who left in the morning without a trace. She nodded, taking in every word. "Sleep with me," she said as I finished my story.

I was taken aback. My marriage was adulterous enough as it was with the unexplained dalliances. Why ruin it completely with a woman from the present?

I refused, but she smiled and said it again. "Sleep with me, if you want to solve the mystery."

And so I did, and she seemed to shadow my every move. Nothing was new to her; she shifted defenses, taking in every assault and launching some of her own. I was outplayed.

She smiled as I lay back exhausted. "I can date your travels," she said, adding that sexual knowledge changed over the centuries, sometimes increasing and at other times decreasing, with some techniques lost to most people forever, only to remain in record in obscure manuals. I told her that my artifacts already dated most of my travels so I wouldn't need her services and this had been a waste of time.

"There's more," she added, pinning me down and mounting me in the ways of a Sumerian charioteer. "Your body has so far brought back objects and art with it. But you now have something that's far more important."

"What is that?", I asked, increasing my horsepower.

"Muscle memory," she replied. "Your body remembers the things it is taught and so far you have performed ancient sexual rites purely from its memory. I can teach you to retain memories in other organs. And soon your eyes shall see, your ears shall hear and your brain shall remember events from a past long forgotten."

I smiled. I was finally on the path to uncovering this mystery and filling up the blank pages of my life.

The Belt

2011-09-25T03:06:00.000-07:00

I tried it on.

It circumnavigated my waist twice.

What manner of man held up his trousers with a belt of this length, I wondered. He had to have been awfully voluminous. I tried to picture such a man in my head.

And failed.

Pachydermous imagery filled my mind instead. Was it possible that some men could have been made so large? His skin could very well be filled in with two, or even three men of my build. What would I feel when I encountered a man of great girth? I suppose it wouldn't be quite unlike a child looking up at its father. He must have commanded greater respect and authority than a normal sized man.

I wondered about the gravitational effects around this man. What was the strain on the gravitational forces to keep him grounded, preventing from floating away into the black nothingness above? Would he exert his own gravity on people around him, drawing them closer to himself? I could not picture it in my head.

How many cows did he kill, or have killed to obtain cowhide to produce belts of this great diameter? Were animal populations halved during his lifetime to feed his existence? What was his metabolism like? Slower or faster than mine? My head ached from this reasoning.

I felt the texture of the belt in my hand. Leather, they called it in the old days. It must have been at least seven hundred years old. Rather well preserved for an artifact of the those times.

I looked at my own belt. Fashioned out of plant fiber, with a buckle made of oak wood and featuring a lone hole. Every one of us had the hole in the exact same place in our belts. We had to wear our belts at all times. Regardless of what we ate and what we did. We had to fit in.

I envied that man.

A nondescript tale

2010-08-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am a compulsive eavesdropper on telephone conversations. I have found that watching cloud patterns change in the sky as the hours pass by in waiting at the train station is not as interesting as listening in on the dialogue between a fellow passenger and his correspondent on the other end. The loveliest of women have been wooed, the most distant of star-crossed lovers united and the most tyrannical of governments toppled as I play my part of an onlooker, or on-hearer rather, in the proceedings.

All that would pale in comparison though, to the conversation I overheard this morning as a young man passed me on my way to the workplace. I heard him speak rather loudly discussing his domestic affairs, and as he was right beside me, the topic seemed to switch to his personal hygiene where he observed that he was sweating like anything. In those exact words, as I paraphrased them. And as I shall quote him now, to be recorded for posterity : He said, "I am sweating like anything..." The rest of the conversation went unheard as I stood there, gasping at the brilliance of this literary discovery. This plainly dressed man had, in the course of a banal telephone conversation, created a simile of infinite possibilities. I goggled at his receding form as he walked away, the discoverer of a hitherto unknown grammatical technique. He had constructed a simile that drew an analogy between the subject and infinity. I felt the feeling that the explorer feels as he gazes upon the dark beyond. What could possibly describe the state of perspiration of the young man? Was he sweating like a spy who knew his cover was about to be blown? Like a fat Russian Mafia don spending a Sunday evening in the sauna? Like a rickshaw puller in Calcutta during the tropical summers? I might never know. I knew however, that this was a potent weapon and its usage could break the narrative flow of every book it was used in. I imagined readers shaking their heads in despair, unable to form the end of similes of infinite possibilities, as Harry Potter confidently waved his wand, and cried, "I shall smite you, you who shall not be named, because you are as evil as anything and someone as evil as that must not be allowed to live!" Has Harry misjudged the evilness of the one who shall not be named, the reader wonders, putting down his book, never to pick it up again. The publishing industry collapses, the art of story-telling is lost to mankind and the world embraces absolute realism. "I am sweating", his descendant says, unaware that generations ago turns of phrases existed that brought colour to description and life to stories.

Fallout of a recessionary economy : Lampooners take to writing porn

2009-11-15T23:29:00.000-08:00

If you're a fellow lampooner dealing with a literary market that is drying up, here is one genre that is wet with opportunity : Porn Writing.

Porn really brings out one's juices. Creative or otherwise. Use your parodying skills to flesh out characters till they are well endowed, and put more meat into the story. Remember : Perversity and puns go hand in hand.

The greatest porn films stand out in their titular splendour. Adapt a classic film, the recent animated hit Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D for example, into a pornographic script with the title Cloudy with a Chance of Meat between my Balls 3D and voila, you have a potential hit at the BO.

Translate a classic film into another language and the unintended humour of dialogue-meaning lost, or worse, mangled in translation ensures a BO hit. Take the case of the theatrical release of Jumper in Spain. Mispronunciation of the title because of the differences in phonetic pronunciation in the two languages and you've got Spaniards rushing to the theatres to watch Humper. Who would've seen that coming, eh?

When the market does show signs of recovering, a few lampooners will still remain, writing the scripts of your favourite porn films. Perhaps to continue an alternate source of income, or just out of sheer interest. Who knows?

Mamma Mia

2009-03-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"An arCHAEologist", I said and Miss Cheesely shook her head in response, signalling incomprehension. My young mind was still struggling with polysyllabic words so I tried a substitution of phonemes and answered her again : "An ARCHaeologist".

"Oh, an archaeologist?", she asked, as I patted myself on the back for getting it right and made a mental note of the correct pronunciation, "Why would you want to become one, li'l Lampooner? Archaeologists spend hours out digging in sunny climes to find dirty old bones, y'know."

"Becoming an archaeologist gets me closer to mummies, Miss Cheesely. It feeds my need for mummies."

"Mummies?"

"I love mummies. It must be the Oedipus Complex inside me."

Miss Cheesely sighed. I hadn't been paying attention in the psychology classes she said, and Freud would be turning in his grave, she hypothesized.

"That's factually incorrect", I replied, "Even for a hypothesis. Freud was in fact cremated. His ashes would be swirling in an urn would be more appropriate", I pointed out.

"Right", she said, "Anyway, your penchant for mollycoddling mummies seems-"

"I fear it is more than mere mollycoddling, Miss Cheesely."

She stared at me through her glasses. "Okay, this um.. love for mummies suggests necrophilia."

Necrophilia. I liked the sound of that word. I said it aloud, wondering if I got the phonemes right, and as Miss Cheesely nodded, realized that I did and made a mental note of the pronunciation.

"But why mummies?", she asked, "Wouldn't the cadavers at the Biology department be better partners, for want of a better word?"

"Cadavers?", I scoffed. "Mummies hit a hypothetical eleven on the necrophiliac hotness scale, Miss Cheesely. Think deadness as hotness and you can't get deader than a Mummy. Mummies are vintage death."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miss Cheesely and I travelled to Cairo the year I came of age, an unlikely pair of tomb robbers. The desert - well, to cut a long story short, skipping over character descriptions and page filling material like intimate encounters, we did get to dig up mummies, actually a singular mummy, a single mom who preceded gender equality by centuries and was probably mummified alive and expected to be damned forever in the Netherworld. It is not known though why her mummy remained intact instead of being unwrapped and flesh torn to shreds by hellish minions, but a speculation on that subject is wisely left to the scholars. I was looking at the most attractive dead woman in the world and I could not care less about the dereliction of duties of the Netherworld staff.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She remained Miss Cheesely till her death in '56. After that she became Mrs. Lampooner.

Francis

2009-03-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

"It was nearing Christmas when I hit puberty. Francis began looking at me differently since. My breasts had grown bigger and I would notice his eyes going down towards them when he thought I wasn't looking. I let him stare though. I figured that one day he would ask me out to a movie and dinner and we would return to his apartment later in the night and throw ourselves at each other, hungry for the taste of flesh. It happened months later and we found ourselves in his place, undressing each other. As he pushed me to the wall, I resisted playfully and escaping his grasp, stepped away from him, tripped over the couch, crashed through the French windows of his balcony and fell to my death."

"It ends there?"

"Yes."

"That was a great hook though."

"Yeah."

"A pity that it had to be wasted here."

"I wouldn't call it a waste."

"It is a waste, isn't it? How could this story continue after the accidental death of the narrator?"

"Well yes, we wouldn't have descriptions of characters and setting. But tales have been successfully told in more extreme circumstances, haven't they?"

"Probably. But I have no interest in the literary avant-garde."

"That's surprising. Aren't you one of the openers?"

"Opener?"

"Were you scheduled to appear on page 1?"

"I'm not sure. Where does one check that?"

"In the draft, of course."

"I received no draft."

"You're beginning to sound like a secondary character.."

"I don't know who I am. Who are you?"

"I am the narrator's father."

"Oh. What do you do when you know that Francis is boning your daughter?"

"Warn him to stay away from my little girl, I suppose. My character is stock unfortunately, to drive the story along."

"Well, I think you can still serve your purpose."

"Really? How?"

"Applying Occam's Razor, I figured that I could only be Francis. And here we are, standing over your dead daughter's body. In your rage, you assume that I am responsible for her death. So, are you going to take this story to its bloody end?"

Yo who who

2009-01-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Knock Knock

Who's there?

Yo

Yo who?

Yo who who and a bottle of rum!

That is not how it goes! Argh! Why can't people be respectful to the original lyrics of-

SMASH

Whiny little twerp. That'll teach ye to not play smart with us Oriental pirates. Yo who who and a broken bottle of rum~

The question of fatherhood

2008-12-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

As many young men contemplate the decision of fatherhood these days, a lampooner finds himself coerced to speak out in its favour.

I come from a long line of lampooners; my forefathers have fathered on unfailingly since the beginning of time and our history is rife with tales of bawdy romances, impregnations under false pretenses and cuckolded husbands seeking revenge, though the tale that gets told the most is set during the French Revolution when my great-great-great granpappy Le Satiriste Fou found himself in the unenviable position of aristocracy and dragged to the guillotine realised that he was young and had no progeny, so to a request to find out his last dying wish replied that he would like to sow his seed in a woman so that his legacy may live on and the Bourgeoisie agreed for they would not deny a dying man his dying wish and produced a proletarian woman of great beauty and he coupled with her, before being decapitated with a smile on his face. The lampooners born since have carried on his legacy for they know that at the Day of Reckoning the last men shall be judged and their DNA shall be examined to determine their pedigree. It has been revealed by scientific study that fathering a child causes one to leave his genetic imprint on the next generation, so I too father children in the hope that I shall be immortalized in my descendants DNA and on Judgment Day I shall be recognised as one of the greatest men who ever lived.

Father as many children as you can, fellow men. We suffer from no want of fertile women in these times.

Erasmus in the Land of Cows

2008-12-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

I arrived on the shores of India a month before the Christmas of 18--, invited to the nuptial ceremonies of a friend and eager to travel the lengths of this ancient land. I would collect experiences; I gravely needed them, my story was far from complete, the deadline a fortnight away and here I was, facing a creative crisis. I had accepted the assignment, confident. Exotic erotica would be easy, I presumed, trusting my imagination to run on full steam and deliver. It did not however, as it turned out that writing erotica was harder than it seemed. Fantasizing oneself into an amorous encounter with a character of the opposite sex was an ability that every boy (and presumably girl) was born with, but representing it in literary form was a rather challenging task. One had to script the encounters between the characters using language that would not stray too far from the polite vocabulary of the readers, who in this case were presumably shy young women reading erotica on the sly, and yet at the same time maintain the sauciness levels to sustain reader interest; the cheeks flushed red, giggling sort of interest to be specific.

And then there was also the problem of unavailable exotica.

"It appears that you need the taste of fresh meat to get your juices flowing, Erasmus", said Post, the bridegroom-to-be, upon witnessing my predicament. He worked at the publishing company that employed writers like me, before he fell in love with a girl from India and decided to go there and get himself married.

"I have grown weary of the local fauna, dear Post, where would I find birds of paradise, except perhaps in paradise itself?", I replied, shaking my head. I had been sitting in front of the typewriter for the past hour and a single word hadn't been typed in.

"India."

"India?", I asked incredulously and he replied matter-of-factly, "Yes", which prompted me to question his sanity and ask, "Are you out of your mind?", to which he gave a flippant reply, "No" and smiled, which got a snarl from me in response indicating that he explain his suggestion before he got, quoting from what I remember saying at the time, "kicked in the behind in an impolite manner." "This girl is the very sight of-", he started explaining but didn't quite complete the sentence as I interrupted him and asked for the condensed version, which he provided in three short sentences : "I fell in love with this Indian girl. I am going to India to get married. You are coming with me."

I remember being taken aback and then taking a parental tone to scold the lovelorn child for his folly, but it wasn't very effective. A day later, we were on a ship sailing halfway around the world, to the Land of Cows.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On the day of the matrimonial union, an hour before the ceremony, Post stepped into my room, saw me in my splendid suit and made a fainting motion.

"By the third eye of Shiva, why must my eyes be witness to such horrors? Is that what you are going to wear to my wedding?", he asked.

"Well yes", I replied, "why else, pray tell, would I be wearing it on the day of your wedding?"

He opened his mouth and I knew what was coming. A lecture on the fashion trends of the nineteenth century.

So, I gave in and let him pick my clothes. He did not trust my fashion sense. "Non existent", he called it, reminding me of the various sartorial faux pas I committed in his company. I sighed. I did not know they were faux pas until he brought them to my attention. But I was thankful to him for that. We had always been like this, from our younger years. We were a good looking pair, Post more handsome than I. He devoted a lot of time to grooming himself and when he was done, grooming me, because I wouldn't do it myself. "You need to look good when you're out with me", he said, when I asked him why he bothered with my appearance, "otherwise you would cause a subtraction from the sum total of our collective beauty."

Our collective beauty must have been a big number tonight, if beauty could be measured on a numeric scale. Post had outdone himself. The young man in a dapper suit on the other side of the looking glass was not me surely. Or was it? I turned to look at Post. "What vile witchery is this?"

He laughed. "That, Erasmus, is the magic of fashion."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

We stepped in confidently through the door as our names were announced.

"Erasmus and Postlethwaite, ladies and gentlemen."

We bowed.

A lady came up and smiled at Post, her corset artificially enhancing her curves. I tried hard not to stare at her bosom.

"Hello Erasmus", she said, and took him away. I could see why Post had fallen in love with her. She was beautiful.

As he went, he looked back at me and mouthed the followed words : "Go forth, young Erasmus, and sow your wild oats."

And I went, surveying the fauna. A lioness presented herself, with a mane of burnished gold. She looked about ten years older than me.

"Nice evening, isn't it, m'lady?", I said, approaching her. The personification of my libido groaned and kicked me in my reproductive parts. "That is not how you do it!", he screamed.

And he was right. She made me get her a drink, chatted for a while, and soon excused herself away to the washroom.

Favouring a more direct approach, I went up to another lioness and introduced myself. "Hello, I'm Erasmus."

"Hello, I'm married', she replied, not bothering to actually show a wedding ring.

"Oh, that's nice", I replied, "So, who do you do for a living?"

She looked puzzled. "Whatever do you mean?"

"The presumably rich gentleman who pays for your upkeep. What is his position in the Peerage?"

Her response was unladylike.

I was beginning to lose hope. I sat down, dejected at being rejected. I must have sat there for a while, drowning my sorrow in drink, because I hadn't noticed that I wasn't alone.

The cohabitant of the couch was a young girl, probably a couple of years younger than myself. Her voice interrupted the sad voices in my head. "So, what do you do?", she asked.

I was tired of that question and the questions that followed.

"I am a milkman", I replied. Now why would I say that? Wasn't I a writer? Was the alcohol already slowing down my cognitive processes? I had no idea.

"A milkman?", she giggled, "Surely no milkman would look as suave as you do."

"Oh, I don't milk farm cows like them ordinary milkmen. I am a milkman of a higher order."

"What do you milk then, sir?"

"I milk the cow in my head."

"You've got a cow in your head?"

"Yes. The Cow of Creativity. I milk her for ideas."

"Ah, you're a writer!"

"Guilty as charged."

She took the glass out of my hand. "So, what does this cow look like?"

"Let's see. Four legs, a hump and two horns. Like a regular cow. What did you expect to hear? Could I have my drink back now?"

"No. And I refuse to believe that your cow of creativity looks like a regular cow. Have you heard of the Kama-Dhenu?

"Yes, the most sacred cow of the ancient Hindus. Now, can I have my drink back, please?"

She put the glass to her mouth and gulped the contents down. "You're not to have another drink. Until I'm done talking with you, anyhow. Now tell me sir, you know the Kama-Dhenu is a cow that gives her master whatever he desires. I think the cow in your head is similar in a way."

I sighed. I would have to tell her what she wanted to hear, to get rid of her. It sounded like a simple plan, but would my numbed mind make it difficult?

"No, there aren't any similarities", I replied, and then wondered why I was disagreeing with her. Wasn't getting rid of her the plan? "The cow in my head has no religious significance. She lives in the astral plane. Every time I sit at my desk and take up my pen, I go into a trance. I open my eyes and I find myself in the astral plane and my cow waiting for me. I take a bucket and sit down-"

"Doesn't an astral plane indicate a religious significance? Or at least a spiritual one?", asked she, finding a flaw in my explanation.

"Very well, the cow does have a religious significance. Now, I'll thank you to not interrupt me while I am talking. As I was saying, I sit down, place the bucket under her udders and start milking. I must be careful though. If I milk too much-"

"The cow won't have any left for her calf?"

"No. If I milk too much, I would be overwhelmed with ideas. I wouldn't be able to string a good story out of so much good milk, er material. Oh, would you like to hear about the methods of the other writers in the astral plane? I see them there at times."

"Do they have cows of their own too?"

"Well, some of them do. The others have other methods. I've seen a mysterious writer who can summon infinite monkeys and typewriters at will. With a snap of his fingers, the enslaved monkeys start typing, generating an infinite number of stories. He chooses the best one and leaves the plane. And then there is the lady who lays down before a giant phallic symbol, carved out of wood, and begins her ritual. When she's done, the symbol throbs and -"

"Yes, I get the picture. And I don't think I will be able to get it out of my head for a while. I would like to see your cow, Erasmus."

It was a strange request. Didn't she know the cow was in my head? Realising that I was going to be stuck with her all evening, I complied with her request. Picking up a paper and pen, I asked her to come out to the garden.

Her name was Orfelia, she told me as we walked out, and she was an assistant to a naturalist, a famous one at that. He was on the verge of a breakthrough, one that could shatter the known laws of nature. She spoke of wonderful creatures, both beautiful and bizarre, that she had seen on her journeys. Of strange tribes, a matriarchal tribe that was shocked to learn about the gender equations in the rest of the world. I realised that she had made me talk at first and I would not have known that she would be so intelligent if I hadn't asked her about herself. I listened to her tales, no doubt true, that I could romanticise for my fiction. Before we realised it, an hour had passed and we hadn't got around to milking my cow yet. We laughed.

I put pen to paper and wrote a few lines. I found myself continuing my erotica, titled Boris.

Boris boarded the train and saw the girl. She was reading The Origin of Species, her hair falling over her shoulders, just the length he liked it in women.

I closed my eyes and tried to visualise the scene in my head. As my eyes shut, I noticed Orfelia looking at me and following suit. However, I found myself not on a train, but in a farm. In front of the whitest cow I've ever seen. Orfelia was beside me. She was holding a bucket out to me, smiling.

I opened my eyes. Orfelia's eyes were still closed. She was still in the farm, looking lovely in the moonlight. I kissed her on the lips. It felt good. She did not resist. My fingers went over to the buttons of her dress. She still did not resist. I closed my eyes again. I didn't know where we were, in the garden or the farm, but it was a lovely place.

Boris kissed her on the lips. She tasted like fresh strawberries. They were alone on the train. As he unbuttoned her, he noticed her name written on the inside of the book. Orfelia.

I came out of it. It was like a strange dream. I sat up and wrote, filling up the paper. This is what I had been struggling with in my story earlier. Writing the intimate scene. And now, I had what I wanted. I looked at Orfelia, sleeping bare beside me on the grass. She awoke, looked over my shoulder and read what I had written.

"Orfelia?", she asked, upon discovering her own name in it.

"Yes. Boris, my character, has found his true love."

"And so has Orfelia. I love you, Erasmus."

"I fear, Orfelia, that only Boris has fallen in love with you."

She did not understand my words.

"Don't you love me, Erasmus?"

"No."

"Then what of the moment we shared now?"

"That was a moment you shared with Boris on the astral plane."

She shook her head. Her eyes went moist.

"Then who do you love, Erasmus? Is there another lady who has won your affection?"

"I love the Orfelia I created. I have had many women and will have many more. But I think I love her more than I could love a woman of flesh and blood."

"Why is she so important to you?", she asked, crying.

What could I tell her that would stop the tears? That would ease her pain? It seemed like Orfelia and I shared a bond stronger than love. Someday, a lady might come along who would make me feel like I was in love. But her living, breathing namesake was not that lady. I could not tell her that, so I walked away. I had a story to finish.

The Left Thumb

2008-12-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

"...arguably the greatest contemporary folktale on the subject of thumbs since Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, The Left Thumb is also a staggering achievement with an insight into the human condition of such profundity that surprises the reader..."

New York Times Book Review.

==========================================================

The Left Thumb

I am a seducer, I attract women with words written.

I fell in love with a woman, and in love cheated and loved another woman and another and another until the first love of my life found herself fallen out of love and in a mood for revenge, so that I may not succeed in seducing yet another woman, demanded of me the thumb of my writing right hand.

I sliced the digit, my eyes conveying the pain of losing my God given gift, and offered it to her; she went away with a smile of satisfaction and unknowing that as her back was turned, I held my pen in my left hand and said with a smirk, "If only you knew the irony of this tale, Beatrice, that I happen to be ambidextrous."

Shedded She

2008-12-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

"I feel like toilet paper."

I handed her a roll.

"No, I didn't say I needed toilet paper. I said I felt like toilet paper."

I touched her skin. "Doesn't feel like paper."

"I didn't mean it in the literal sense. It was a metaphor."

I wondered why one would use toilet related metaphors.

"I feel like used toilet paper", she continued, "I feel used like toilet paper."

I understood. "Dumped again?"

She nodded.

I sighed. She crossed the river of life leapfrogging from one relationship to another.

"Who was it this time?"

"Marcus."

"Malevolent Marcus?"

She nodded.

"Must you shed men from your life like snakeskin?"

"It is I who has been shed."

"Well, must you get shed from the lives of your men so?"

She looked away.

"Will you ever shed me?"

"I don't think I ever can", I replied.

She smiled. "I have been your second skin all your life."

I nodded.

"And now you can't live without this skin that makes you complete."

I nodded again.

"And I don't think I can survive another shedding."

I looked up. There was sadness in her eyes.

"Are you sayin-"

"Yes."

My eyes lit up with joy. We were one again.

I, the gynephobe

2008-11-22T22:25:00.000-08:00

Entry for S&C fortnightly contest, Theme : Phobics Anonymous.

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I, the gynephobe

'Twas in the twenty first year of my short lived life when the mooring line to my maleness snapped and I was cast afloat on solitary waters away from the shores of society. It was a long struggle all these years and I had endured until the day when I found that I could take it no longer and, throwing my arms up in the air, gave up and gave in to my fear.

A man hath no fear, quoth a minstrel singing the glories of a fallen king, but in reality man has feared everything including himself. I have oft asked the divine One if he created me out of mirth for I was born to become a man of finely sculpted shape but with a mind that feared the woman. My fine features might have better helped a man who loved the woman, but strange are His ways and it is not upon us to question His judgement.

My childhood is a distant memory and I suspect that the haze that surrounds it is created by the machinations of my mind. Perhaps it hides it to protect me; I cannot imagine what horrors lie shrouded in that dark corner, but I do not wish to venture there lest I be overwhelmed by a torrent of suppressed memories. Do the roots of my fear go as far deep as that dark place, I wonder at times but I am cowardly and I will not go in to find out.

I have no tangible memory of a mother either, but a mother figure appears in my nightmares and I wake up screaming, or shuddering. She is not headless, nor a banshee either, au contraire the image is always of a lady with an angelic smile and sweet smelling hair. I do not fear decapitated dancers, blue haired banshees and the spring heeled Jack, but I shudder at the thought of the mother who appears in my dreams. She is kind to me and my childhood self is filled with love, but I am violently torn out of this scene by a gripping fear and I find myself awake at some ungodly hour, my heaving chest wet with sweat.

The nightmares grew less in frequency as I grew up to be a young man, but my problems compounded. A young man who has entered society must plunge into the society of young women, and though a young man of my age would leap in with joy, I had to step in fearfully.

"Beware the lechery of women, Erasmus", warned my mind, somehow always wiser and older than I was. I followed the advice of this voice; it watched me all my life and I fear I might not have lived so long without it.

"Women are predators", it continued, as I nodded in agreement, looking at the ones that walked past me with painted faces, lithe limbs and red claws.

"Look not straight into their eyes, lest you fall prey to their hypnotic glare."

"Cast ye eyes away from their bosom, lest ye be enamoured by their beauty."

"Touch not their hair, lest you be smitten by the silkiness and be bitten by the snakes that are hidden within."

"Speak wisely for no woman will tolerate a man wiser than her."

And beware of, I did, as women tried to enter my life and I steered them away from it.

I spent my days reading, codex upon codex, almanac upon almanac, and learned the secrets of this fear that I shared with men who lived in eras before mine. The body built natural defences to threats, they wrote, and for a man afflicted with gynephobia the best defence was asymmetry. The human mind perceived beauty in the form of symmetry and the Greeks portrayed their Gods as humanoid figures of perfect symmetry. An asymmetric visage would have no effect on the eyes of the beholder and the soul continues to lie in a dormant state. A symmetric visage on the other hand has an explosive effect on the eyes and the soul awakens, smelling the presence of a possible soul mate.

I discovered that I was born without the natural defences however, the result of a creator in a mirthful state, and my most symmetrical visage must have caused an explosive effect in the eyes of many a woman.

In the years preceding the Black Death, I was a young playwright, celebrated and arrogant and I would attend the stage plays and dramas of other playwrights and carry out a conversational critique of the performance with my coterie. I would improvise the dialogue, outpun the puns of the scene stealer, parody the theatrics of the hero and better the end. They would not throw me out; they would listen to me instead, for in spite of my cocky disposition I did better the play. When the play was enacted again the next day, it was not the same; it was a rewritten script with the changes that I proposed as I heckled and my name would appear in the credits. My humour must have had an effect on women I realised later, as I was approached by the Lady Portia,

"I must confess that my ladies had to gag me to muffle my screams of laughter when you began your act, Mr. Erasmus. Will you grace us with your presence at dinner tonight?", she said.

"The lady is extremely kind. However, I must dine with Mrs. Erasmus tonight", I replied, confident outward, shivering inward, as I employed the charade of marriage.

The ploy worked. It would not work on a persistent young lady however. Absolutely smitten by my looks, she begged that I woo her and in mortal fear I agreed and asked her to meet me after the sermon on Sunday.

"I have finally got you in my grasp, dear Erasmus", she said, "Oh, who is this person?"

"This, my dear, is Postlethwaite. He is my partner", I replied, giving dear ol' Post a prolonged hug.

And the persistent young lady quit her persistence. I was delighted that I had mastered the art of evading the predators until a very direct young woman sat herself in the empty seat at my table one day and said, "Court me, Erasmus."

I shuddered. I realised that I had to act fast or be trapped forever, so I dropped the cloak of chivalry and said, " And what else may I do for you, madam? Carry your child? Clean the dishes? I am the man here, if you have not seen the lack of breasts on my chest."

She left, shocked that one with manners so fine would suddenly speak in so coarse a manner. And yet, it had to be done, as a mother tiger ignores her fear of the musket and defends her cubs, baring her teeth at the hunter. I might never overcome my fear of women but I was now learning to face it.

My progress notwithstanding, fate rolled in the dice again in the form of whispered rumours. Why was the wealthy Erasmus yet unmarried? I hear that he has spurned many a woman, is that true? Can he not perform the will of God?

The last question stung the most. As the codex had said, ordinary men are ignorant of gynephobia. Most have not heard its name. They would not understand it and beware, as a clan of wild animals eats its weak, so shall a man be destroyed by other men when it is known that he fears mere women. Protect your secret at all costs, it warned.

The mooring line to my maleness was weakening and I had to do something about it. So, I found Orfelia.

Orfelia was not a very beautiful woman, but there was something about her that did not scare me completely. She was the only woman I could look at without feeling threatened, so I courted her for a few weeks until the day came that I dined with her and found myself accompanying her in my carriage as we rode back to my house.

The circumstances that lead us to bed might not interest the reader so I shall omit that from this narration and continue at the point at which Orfelia undressed me, herself and lay next to me. She touched me and my hands quivered, I grit my teeth, a shiver went down my spine and back up and my chest formed drops of cold sweat. I was looking at naked fear and it was tangible, a tangible form that was over me and giggling, tickling me and a pleasure mixed in with the fear, and I have no words to describe the reactions of my body to the dual stimuli of fear and pleasure and I fear my mind must have lost control of my body a moment later as my eyes closed. Words cannot describe the experience afterward either, but I can remember the colours seen by my shut eyes : Vivid shapes of yellow that shot through castles of stony red, drenched in a green, slimy rain; a violet haze descends, shattered by the most golden lightning, suddenly a white flash, white all around, milky whiteness and then darkness. Pitch black darkness.

I opened my eyes to escape the deluge of colours, and saw Orfelias above me. I blinked once, twice, and there they were again. One Orfelia and another. They had different expressions, lest I thought that I merely had double vision. One Orfelia smiled with burning eyes and the other had uplifted brows in surprise. They spoke to each other in a strange tongue and I looked on in disbelief. I remembered one Orfelia on top of me as I lay down and as I opened my eyes there were two distinct Orfelias; did she have a twin who crept in unnoticed? How could- and then it was that I noticed that they were joined at the hip, one hip that rested on mine and two different persons in their upper bodies, two persons who now looked at me. Orfelias raised their four arms and touched me and my fevered mind was capable of experiencing no more. My eyes did not shut however, it stared at the ungodly sight and as they did unspeakable acts upon themselves and then on me, my mind simply shut down my optic connections and darkness fell. I was blind and I thanked the Lord for it.

It was a day later that Post found me; I was feverish and babbling, he said. I told him that I had gone blind, but nay he said, you have not. You can see and it is your mind that fools you and keeps you blinded. You must have seen a sight so horrible. What was it, Erasmus? What phantom could have shocked you so into blindness?

I heard the mooring line to my maleness snap. "It was a woman, Post."

"A ghostly lady? The Duchess of Viscombe?'

"Nay, Post. A living, young lady. A beautiful young lady. I fear her, as I do other women, because I am a gynephobe."

Cap'n Hooker and the Promise of a Portrait (Collab.)

2008-11-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

Dramatis Personae :

Mr. Lampooner, a meta-fictional superhero with supranatural powers which include calculating the viscosity of a book with the mere stirring of a bare finger and the ability to leap into the murky depths of its plot line. Last reported sighting : Leaping into a handsome leather-bound volume of the best seller 'The Salty Saga of Captain Hooker'.

Captain Hooker, the sauciest scourge of the Seven Seas, or so she claims. She emerged into the literary spotlight recently, created as the villainess of a children's story where she is supposed to die a horrible death in the briny deep. Dying is the last thing on her mind though, and in one of those rare unscripted moments in literary history, sends the handsome hero walking down the plank instead. The story never makes it to The End but the character goes on to appear in later stories, often as the protagonist.

Seagull 1 and Seagull 2. Non-speaking parts.

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I walked up to the deck early one morning to check the overnight bottle mail; it was one of the duties assigned to me as I took on the position of factotum on this ship, turning out to be too old for a cabin boy and not attractive enough to be First Mate; and I was surprised to find a letter addressed to the Captain. In the past half a year of serving on this ship I have not seen the Captain receive a communication of significance so the appearance of this missive made me rather curious. Looking around and finding no one awake at this early hour, save a couple of seagulls, I pulled the message out of the bottle; it must be explained to the landlubbing reader at this point that we seafarers have a postal system of our own called the Bottle Mail Service which allows the sender to seal his letter in a glass bottle (preferably corked) along with the name of the recipient and the correct ship code and pop it into the sea and let the currents guide it to the waiting mailbox which is usually situated near the keel of the ship; and read out the contents to myself :

Tell the Cap'n, I owe her some and I haven't forgotten.

Signed,

K-.

"Ahoy, Cap'n Hooker! Ahoy!", I cried, running towards the fo'c's'le, "Where art thou O' saucy scourge of the seven seas! I bear a message from a young lass, a message of grave importance!"

"This had better be good, Mister Lampooner", replied she, emerging from her cabin, "I be in the middle o' somethin' reeely important!"

"What could possibly be more important than a message of grave importance?"

"Me Jolly Dodger's birdbath, of course!", replied she.

I tsk-tsked. "Your parrot can perform his ablutions later. I carry a-"

"How dare ye! Jolly Dodger be a she. A lady of fine plumage and greener than the greenest emerald ye ever set yer eyes on!"

"One can hardly be blamed for mistaking the gender of a bird bestowed with the dodgy name of the Jolly Dodger, can he?"

"Oh, there be a story behind that, Mister Lampooner", replied the Cap'n laughing, "the Jolly Dodger had a wild youth, y'see-"

I stopped her in mid-sentence, wondering why every female character in this story seemed to have a wild youth, "Ah, never mind the backstory of the Jolly Dodger. It is a tale for another day. Returning to the matter in hand, or more specifically the missive in my hand, it reads that this young lass owes you something (of unspecified identity and value) and says that she has not forgotten. Though what it is that she still retains in her memory is left to the imagination of the reader.."

"Aye, I knows what she talks 'bout."

"Oh, what is it?"

"She wishes to paint me portrait", replied the Cap'n grinning.

"Why would anyone want to paint you?"

"What is that supposed to be meaning?", growled she, gripping her cutlass.

"Er- I meant to say why would anyone want to do something so pointless as try to capture your heavenly beauty on canvas?", replied I quickly, with a cheeky smile.

"Ah, beauty so heavenly surely must cast an earthly shadow", said she, claiming to be quoting a poet of yore, though I must say that I certainly haven't read poetry with such cheesy lines before, "so it be not a meaningless endeavour after all, eh Mister Lampooner?"

"I suppose so."

"Aye! However, I demand that I shall be painted along with dear ol' Jolly Dodger! Can ye carry that message back to her?"

"Yer wish is me command, O' commander of the octal oceans!", I replied, imitating her piratical lingo.

"Octal oceans? There be only five oceans known to landlubbers, ye silly person. And let's keep it that way, shall we? There be unimaginable treasures in the unknown seas, and Cap'n Hooker shall 'ave 'em all! Arr!"

"Aye Aye, Cap'n!", I said, saluting, running away to deliver the message. Ooh, a treasure hunt for real! We be goin' a-sailing, a-sailing we shall go!

The Contractual Husband

2008-11-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

We knew this day would come. We looked at each other; not knowing what to say and how to say it, whatever it was that had to be said.

Did we know what the other was thinking? I think not, even after all these years that we have spent together.

Did we know what the other was feeling? I think not; I cannot read his face nor can he mine, even after all these years.

But the day had come. The contract had ended.

I think back to the day when it began. In the year of the Dragon.

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His Fall

Erasmus was a Defender. Our society frowned upon aggression and our vocabulary contained no word for attack. Attack (ə-tăk') was a loanword from the language of the barbarians that crept into our language to describe their acts of hostility, as we entered their lands in search of rice grain. Our reserves were depleted; it was a year of famine and the farms would not yield crop. Our barbaric neighbours would not share our burden and hence our defence forces were formed that year to occupy farmlands outside our borders and defend them against their owners.

Years passed, the heavens opened, and we had bountiful crop. But the Defenders remained at their posts and created more. We continued defending, extending our borders further and defending them until the barbarians would eventually become unwelcome in their own land. Some fled, the others remained and our Defenders mingled, blood mixing, blemishing the purity of our race in these Outlands.

As this unholy practice of mingling with the heathen grew widespread among the ranks, the Creator began choosing the Defenders of her land herself. She could look into the minds of men and their weaknesses would be revealed. She thus chose the strong ones from our first born as her Defenders and send them into the Outlands, leaving the weak and wayward back home to be taken care of by their women.

Erasmus was one of the handpicked ones; he was chosen by the Creator, seeing in him not just strength but also leaderhood, and rewarded him with the position of Captain. He was sent into active duty that year. The year of the Dragon. The year of his Fall.

He fell hard, in the sixth month of his duty. "In his defence", said a comrade to me years later, "His mingling was with a musk woman of the Outlands. A strange people, said to have odour glands in their bodies, their women were much coveted by the Defenders. For the musk women had odour glands close to their reproductive organs, and as you coupled with them, the most heavenly scent would envelop you, an aphrodisiac in itself and an olfactory experience that would grow stronger as you took them to higher planes of pleasured excitement". I could picture the scene in my mind : Young Erasmus, proud and noble, shining white in his virginal purity, marked by the musk women for a long time, finally falling prey to one of them, their most seductive beauty I would like to think, as she approached him tantalizingly, a heavenly scent beginning to envelop her as she grew aroused at the sight of his taut, muscular figure and he, unable to resist such divine temptation; for it is said in legend that the musk people were endowed with their odour producing abilities by the blessing of their god, the Muscotaur; taking her and then as the scent engulfed him, ravaging her until her glands were empty. It would make me envious every time I pictured it; I knew I had no right to do so, nevertheless I coloured green every single time.

The Creator punished him on his return, forbidding him to return to the Outlands.

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My Fall

Orfelia Portson. I did not like my matronymic, bestowed on me by my mother Portia upon birth. She had wanted a male cub, one she could nurture and mould lovingly but the sight of a female emerging from her womb must have saddened her, knowing that the coming years would be filled with conflict as child rose against parent and eventually left the house to find her own man. It was the same story in every house and if my mother prayed that she be spared from it, her prayers were not chanted loud enough. It must have affected her greatly because, though I did not know it at that time, she found herself uninterested in teaching me the ways of our society, as a consequence I grew up to be a woman who was unsure of men.

And hence my marriage to Postlethwaite failed.

He was the son of a countess and I was desperate, after having failed to find a man for myself. I was too straightforward and unromantic, so it was said of me, and it drove the men away. So, I agreed to marry the man my mother chose for me.

The marriage lasted for a day.

Postlethwaite was a fop, the kind I despised. He oozed charm and beauty, and many a woman would be enamoured of him. But I wanted a man with hair on his face. And his chest. And he had it on neither, as I discovered to my disdain, undressing him on the night of our conjugal union. I could not be aroused and Postlethwaite fled, seeking mercy at the feet of the Creator. She took him into her harem, as she did every handsome husband of a failed marriage, and punished me. With a contractual marriage.

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As we women come of age, we go out and find a mate. When we find a suitable man, we start a family and live our lives until the day we die. However, every marriage does not turn out this way, mine included, and we are punished by the Creator. For we have become fallen women and she would unite us with fallen men, men who are guilty of violating our dogma of One Creation by coupling with other unrelated women either by compliance or, horrifyingly, by force.

And thus, for our transgressions, Erasmus and I were united in contractual matrimony for a period of ten years.

Erasmus was different from the other men I knew. The years in the Outlands had changed him, his mother said as she placed his hand in mine, in matrimony. He looked at me as she said that and I could see something within him. While other men seemed to have the purity of white lilies inside them, in Erasmus I saw something else.

But what I saw within would not come out easily, I realised as the priestess read out the contract and drew our signatures in blood. In the contractual marriage, Erasmus would have to carry out faithfully the duties of a husband, laid out by our scriptures, failing which he would be put to death. A contractual marriage was a chance of redemption for a fallen man and most men in it followed its terms till its end date. Would proud Erasmus follow suit? Though I did not know what he was like at that time, his face pleased me and I certainly would not have wished him dead. So, I prayed that he would not break the rules. However, there was still a small part of me, the part that listens to no reason, the part that liked what it had seen within him, that wished that he would break these rules.

And break the rules he did, on the very first night of our marriage. I do not speak from experience but from the memories of stealthily witnessing the coupling of my parents as I say this : the act allowed to us by our religion is monotonous and boringly bland. It did not arouse me in any way and I dare say I did not look forward to the nights with Erasmus. As he entered my room the first night, I looked up, expecting him to ask me to lay over him and begin the process of Creation. He did not, however, choosing instead to come close to me, with a wild look in his eyes, and caress my body. I grew aroused rapidly, but a small voice in me, fearing punishment, vocalised itself and asked, "But what of the terms of the contract, Erasmus?"

"I am beyond redemption, Orfelia. If I must be put to death tomorrow, I shall walk to the guillotine satisfied with the taste of you."

His words were crude but they burned something within me. "I am beyond redemption too, Erasmus", I replied and hurtled down the vortex to fiery hell with him, our bodies coiled together. If the good men and women of this land coupled for Creation in the way my parents had, I wept for them as they were deprived the real joys of union.

A good man and a good woman coupling were two blocks of flint stone, inanimate and inorganic, rubbing against each other to create a spark.

Erasmus and I, on the other hand, were living, breathing creatures. He was a snake coiling around the lemon tree. I played the flute in rhythmic patterns. He was the autumn leaf floating on the spring pond. I became the tigress swimming the easterly wave. He transformed into the pangolin in the hunt. I plucked grapes from the vines. He became a boar..

As the sun rose, yellowy rays entering the room, lighting it up, we found ourselves back in our human forms. I looked at Erasmus. Whatever was there within him, which emerged in the night, had gone back to the depths from whence it came. But I knew it would return as darkness fell again and I smiled in anticipation.

-------------------------------------------------

Musk

Ten years had passed. We were beyond our prime, but that did not slow us down. Even on the last day, Erasmus ravaged me, a discernible sadness in his eyes. I closed my eyes, lifted my oars and let my canoe rush down his raging river. I knew I would lose everything this day.

As we lay next to each other, we looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Erasmus had broken the contract the first day of serving it, taking me in his arms and performing unholy acts. Would he break the contract again to stay with me?

I looked into his eyes expectantly. He looked back. The sadness grew. There was a distant look, a distant and almost forgotten memory returning to haunt him.

"I have served you well, Orfelia", he said, "And I must take your leave now and return."

"Where will you go, Erasmus? Why won't you stay with me?"

"I will return to my beloved. She waits for me, in the Outlands."

"Don't you love me, Erasmus?"

"I was your husband by contract, Orfelia. With her, I am free and an equal."

His eyes had that wild look again. And he was gone.

----------------------------

Creation (Optional epilogue)

As Erasmus fled to the Outlands, he was captured and presented before the Creator. A look at him and she had not the heart to put him to death, instead it stirred her loins and she decided that it was time for another birth.

The Creator was a lady of great beauty and she chose a worthy mate every four or five years to produce an offspring who would eventually leave these lands to set up her own society elsewhere. And she had chosen Erasmus now, and they would couple before her people who would cheer them in a gala of the grandest pomp and splendour. She disrobed herself before the applauding audience and beckoned Erasmus to the ceremonial bed. She would coil herself around him, she planned, clutching his hair in intimate embrace and after the final moment draw out her dagger and- but, Erasmus had not followed her commanding gesture. He came close to her instead, with a wild look in his eyes.

The End.

Mr. Lampooner and the discovery of Bible powered Time Travel

2008-11-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

Dramatis Personae :

Mr. Lampooner, a meta-fictional superhero with supranatural powers which include calculating the viscosity of a book with a bare finger and the ability to leap into the murky depths of its plot line. Armed with the Quill of Mockery, hand crafted from the feathers of a Mockingbird, this man will always have the last word.

The Deus Ex Machinist, or the Tool of God as he is commonly referred to, is an entity spawned at the moment, after Creation, when the First Man lays the First Woman again and again and again until he tires of it and says that he needs a new woman and asks the creator where could he find a woman of fair bosom, tears of spring dew and toenails of pristine cuticle and the Creator replies "Literature" in response and Literature is created by the First Man who does a bad job of creating works in this new medium and is then given a tool by the Creator; a Tool so powerful, it can drive narratives forward. A Tool also so dangerous that it can drive plot holes through the story. A Tool, so disgusted at being used to fix inferior plots, that it decides to question its existence and realises that the greatest story ever told, being told and will continue to be told, the Story of the World needs fixing and the only tool that can rise up to this task is itself, or himself as he chooses his gender to be. The Tool of God.

Doobiewedder, an eighteenth century janitor who dabbles in metaphysics, astro-biology and other sciences of dubious scientific value during his work breaks is famously attributed as the proponent of the Einstein-Doobiewedder paradox and not so famously as the inventor of the grammatical molecule analyzer, an invention that holds the dubious distinction of being the only product of human scientific thought that can take science a step backward.

Jane Doe, a mysterious unplanned character that has suddenly appeared in the storyline and taken the writer by surprise. This character sketch will remain empty as details about this character remain sketchy.

--------------------------------------------------

ACT I

[In a poorly constructed set decorated with second-hand props and painted cardboard boxes, stand the three characters Mr. Lampooner, The Deus Ex Machinist and Doobiewedder. At a first glance the audience would suppose that the scene was set in the house of a divorced salaryman fallen on bad times but a helpful sign that reads CRIMEFIGHTING HQ informs them that it is what it says it is : The headquarters of a merry bunch of crimefighters.

Mr. Lampooner stands leaning on a table as appears to be his style, but it could be more accurately explained by an accident suffered by the actor the previous night as he crawled back home from a near-by public house in a drunken stupor. The Deus Ex Machinist stands, hands wringing, played a fidgety, nervous actor taken as a last minute replacement to the actor who was knocked out cold in a drunken fight last night in what is rumoured to be the same bar that the actor who plays Mr. Lampooner was partaking beverages in. Doobiewedder stands the janitor stance, receiving rave reviews later for his method acting and quest for perfection, though the fact that could have dulled this praise was that the actor is a real janitor, cast in the role by a desperate producer who had overshot his budget.

As the curtain rises, the spotlight comes in from the corner and goes towards the three characters waiting, passes them and focuses on a hungry rat nibbling on the anchor ropes. The rodent, unaware of having stolen the limelight from the stars, looks up in surprise and runs away. The spotlight operator's boy laughs and follows the fleeing rodent with his light; it is in his control as his father has fallen ill and trusted his scion with carrying out his duties; until he is boxed in the ears by the assistant to the producer, taken away from the controls and visual normalcy is restored. The light is bestowed upon its rightful owners and they begin to speak.]

"Avast! This be a message from a wench, me lads-", Mr. Lampooner starts saying in a carried over accent, carried over from his cross-dressing performance last evening in the titular role in the Cap'n Hooker, Saucy Scourge of the Seven Seas and Octal Oceans comedic drama production, but is interrupted by the frenzied gestures of the producer hinting at his colossal boo boo and quickly, clearing his throat, resumes by saying, "A message so boastfully self confident that it involuntarily brought out my mocking pirate voice to read it out :

'I am Jane Doe', reads the writing on this paper, received as a message from an anonymous source, 'My superpower is an ability to toggle identities. It's like I have a scramble suit wrapped around my brain. In retrospect, I can travel through time, I can do things. I am here to prevail.'"

"Are you friend or foe, Miss Jane Doe?", asks The Deus Ex Machinist, looking at the audience, "If you choose to be a foe, know that Mr. Lampooner, Doobiewedder and I are evaluating your threat as we speak."

[The lights go dim. There is a sound of heavy gears cranking. "The characters are deep in thought", says the narrator in his baritone, stating the obvious. The lights go bright again a few minutes later.]

"She does toggle identities faster than she changes clothes, but even Captain Obvious could tell you who her secret identity is. She is Jane Dough, daughter of baker John Dough, a shape shifting superhero himself", says the lampooner.

"Good 'ol John had a daughter?", asks The Deus Ex Machinist, surprised.

"Apparently, he did. I cannot dig up information on the mother though", replies the lampooner, leaping in and out of encyclopedias, census records and almanacs, "This presents a problem : If the mother carried and passed on super-genes to the child, we might be facing a little superhero here with undiscovered powers. What have you got, Doobiewedder?"

"Leave it to the master of paradoxes, of dubious scientific value, to tackle a time traveller. As she hops, skips and jumps through the fabric of space-time, Doobiewedder shall be there creating paradoxical obstacles."

"That's good to hear", says the lampooner.

"And that's not all, Mr. Lampooner. I have fashioned a time travel procedure for you."

"For me? I am perhaps the most under-equipped superhero in history; I merely leap in and out of books. How could I possibly travel through time?"

"A great superhero turns his limitations into his powers, Mr. Lampooner. Come with me, and I shall show you your time machine."

I follow him expecting to see the TARDIS, or a painted cardboard box that looks like one, but instead lay eyes on a...

"A Bible?"

"Yes, Mr. Lampooner."

"I am going to give a puzzled look now, which is your cue to start your explanation monologue."

"Very well, Mr. Lampooner. Until now you have been leaping in and out of a book. In these expeditions, you might have encountered connections to other books. These connections have been given different names throughout history : Influences, Inspiration, Derivative works and so on. In reality though, no book is an island. It is a small patch of land in the extensive landmass that we call the L-Scape -"

"This is beginning to sound like a ripoff of Terry Pratchett!", cries a heckler from beyond the Fourth Wall, in the audience.

"Oh, hush! I have not heard that name before", replies Doobiewedder, with dubious sincerity, "As I was saying, the Literary Scape or L-Scape, as we refer to it, connects every book together. You leap in a book, and I say leap out of the same book elsewhere."

"Like leap into a paperback copy of Les Chansons de Bilitis in Cognac, France and leap out of the hardcover edition in Quebec, Canada? If this worked, I would be a master of geographic travel!"

"And temporal. And that is why I gave you the Bible. It is one of the earliest published books in the world, the most published book in the world and the most translated book in the world, in excess of over 2,000 languages. Leap into your copy of the Bible and you would be able to leap out almost anywhere in the world and at any time between the birth of Christ to late 21st century."

"Why can't I leap beyond the 21st century?"

"Because Christianity has died out in the 22nd."

"So my bible-powered time travel cannot take me very far into the future, eh?"

"No. And neither would The Deus Ex Machinist's powers work in that time, since he hast been blessed by the Christian God."

"We are both impotent beyond the 21st century, eh Tool of God?"

"Sure looks like it", replies The Deus Ex Machinist, shaking his head sadly, "and if you haven't noticed, Mr. Lampooner, Jane Doe has stated that 'she can do things'; which at a quick glance means she can do things but a deeper analysis reveals an intentionally ambiguous statement which gives her the power to do virtually anything. It is an open ended statement that gives the user limitless powers. Even my powers are not limitless since I am restricted by anomalies and I am the very Tool of God Himself."

"Are we then looking at an opponent with frightfully powerful powers?"

"We sure are."

Mr. Lampooner, The Deus Ex Machinist and Doobiewedder look at each other, then look at the audience and scream in unison. "Please join us, Jane Doe, for we make a puny foe!"

------------------------------------------------------

ACT II

[It is evident to the audience that the actors are standing in the same room as before, but a helpful sign that reads 10 HORSEPOWER CHARIOT informs them that the characters are in motion, travelling at high speeds in a vehicle drawn by steed.]

"Don't we need a name for our group?", asks The Deus Ex Machinist, modulating his voice higher and lower, and vice versa, to mimic the effect of strong winds upon conversation.

"Fear not, I have already given that thought. We shall call ourselves The League of Gentlemen Extraordinaire!", replies the lampooner, with a dramatic flourish.

"And this is totally an Alan Moore ripoff!", cries another heckler from beyond the Fourth Wall.

"We serve the Greater Good, don't we Tool of God?", asks the lampooner.

"Aye", replies The Deus Ex Machinist.

"Then be a good utilitarian and zap those annoying hecklers out of existence. They're beginning to get on my nerves-"

ZAP!

ZAP ZAP ZAPPITY ZAP!

[Shocked silence. Curtains fall. There is a sound of running feet. The cast and crew have fled the scene.]

The End.

---------------------------------------------

In a shocking plot twist, the nervous actor turns out to be a friendly visitor from a neighbourhood galaxy who gets carried away by his role; the show is hailed for its burning realism. It runs to full houses for two whole months; every performance has a role played by a couple of audience members. A role that astounds the audience and is spoken about for weeks later and described as the heckler's swan song.

The Scene Changer

2008-10-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Portia stepped in through the door and Erasmus followed. They found themselves in a restaurant; and looking around and finding what she was looking for, Portia waved at me.

I waved back. I was seated at table 15, designated to be served by Marcus, the handsome waiter of Welsh descent. "What will you have today, Miss Orfelia?", he would ask in that accented puppy dog voice of his as I dined here at the same time everyday, and I would say every time in response, "You, of course", and he would reply straightfaced, "I'm sorry, Miss Orfelia, but I am not available on the menu." "What can I serve you today, Miss Orfelia?", he did ask differently once, perhaps as an attempt to rid the monotony of our conversations, and my reply went, "A large helping of Marcus, of course", but it turned out unsurprisingly that a large helping of him was still not available on the menu. This must have become a regular demand of the patrons seated at table 15 I realised later, as a sign appeared soon enough on the glass windows of the restaurant. It read : No, we do not serve human meat at table 15.

Portia came over to table 15, unaware of its history, muttering "What a strange sign..", and frowning, followed by Erasmus, always a step behind. "Can you be a dear and watch Erasmus for me?", she said, " 'cause I promised to help Sheba move into her new house."

"Wouldn't you need your man to carry the heavy stuff up?", I asked.

"No, Sheba is royalty and she has an army of men at her command."

"Ah!"

"Yes, some women have it all, don't they?"

"Why does she need you then?"

"To direct the men at their task, silly girl. Oh, I have dilly-dallied a quadrant of an hour speaking to you; I must be off now. Please watch Erasmus well."

And she was gone. Erasmus promptly sat down at table 15 and watched me intently.

"So, Portia tells me that you are a writer of sorts. What do you write?", I asked, uncomfortable in the direct gaze of the eyes that were previously downcast in the presence of his mistress but were presently gazing directly at me.

"Books, Miss Orfelia."

And a silence fell upon table 15. I looked around, trying to catch the eyes of Marcus, who wandered in and out of the kitchen. It had been two quadrants of an hour since I had ordered tiramisu, in disappointment after finding that Marcus was still not available on the menu, and it hadn't arrived on table 15 yet.

"Please excuse my skeletal appearance, Miss Orfelia", Erasmus said suddenly, breaking the silence.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you say something?", I asked absent-mindedly, my eyes still on Marcus.

"Please excuse my skeletal appearance", he repeated, "My character has not been fleshed out yet."

I stared at him. "Your character?"

"The characterisation of me in your story. Please excuse his skeletal appearance."

"My story?"

"You are generating the story of your life and today I appear as a character in it. So far, I have not been fleshed out and I appear horribly skeletal."

I confess I had no idea what Portia's man was talking about.

"However, to maintain optimum levels of narration in this story", he continued, "I must make the following modifications : A change in scenery, A reversal of gender roles in society and A change in command."

And the lights flickered, blacked out and came back again. Orfelia found herself sitting in a kitchen, a bowl of freshly chopped capsicum staring back at her and a knife in her right hand.

"What's for dinner, honey?", I asked as I walked in, dressed in a strange black suit, briefcase in hand.

"I-I- What's happening? Where are we?"

"In a different scene", I replied, "I would really love pizza tonight."

It took Orfelia a while to get her bearings right. And after she did, she felt an overwhelming sense of oppression; it felt as if freedom had been sucked out of her through every orifice. She could sense blinds around her eyes and manacles on her hands, but they remained intanglible. It was a strange experience and it intrigued her.

I smiled.

It did not get a smile from her in response. "Who are you?", she asked.

"I am Erasmus."

"And yet you look different. I can see the old Erasmus in your face; his presence merely suggests itself but cannot be ignored. Like a familiar face torn by lines of hate and distress leaving a hideous mask that cannot be removed."

Well- then, I hope you have a good imagination, Orfelia, and imagine yourself a pretty face for me 'cause I sure can't change my mask."

And she closed her eyes and opened them a moment later. She was smiling.

"I see the old Erasmus now and it reminds me of the previous scene", she said, happily.

I nodded. "Most people are guilty of doing this unconsciously when confronted with hideous ugliness that they cannot avoid. They cover the ugly face with an imagined mask of beauty. Our eyes are tuned to see beauty even where it does not exist."

"Why has this scene taken away your beauty?"

"Because Men live differently in this scene. We are hunters here, and become prey to primitive emotions. Emotions so strong that they become visible on our visage. And some emotions so negative that they cause changes that cannot be undone. There is pure beauty in the man child born, but it recedes as he grows older and hates other man children, marring his beauty."

"Are you a writer in this scene too?"

"I am a writer across all scenes. "

"How can you capture beauty in your writing when you are so hideous yourself?"

"Why would my hideousness affect my quality of writing?"

"Unlike beauty, your ugliness is beyond skin deep. It creeps into your flesh and goes deeper until it blackens your soul. You have now an ugly soul and your eyes are incapable of seeing true beauty."

"An ugly man is born with a gift. A good imagination", I explained, "Just as you have covered me with an imagined cloak of beauty, I have covered the ugliness of the world with imagined paint strokes of beauty. My eyes can only truly see ugliness but my imagination covers it with beauty."

Orfelia seemed satisfied with that answer. She was not satisfied with her voice though. It seemed as if someone else was speaking on her behalf.

"Why does it sound like someone is speaking on my behalf?"

" 'cause someone is speaking on your behalf in this scene. I am the narrator and I am weaving this part of the tale."

"Is that why the world seems so male now?"

"It would be so if I was male.."

"And you aren't?"

"No."

"You look male."

"I was born male. But my reproductive organs are non functioning."

"Then why is there a distinct XY feel in this scene?"

"Male memory."

"Male memory?"

"Yes, after my birth, I waited for the day when I would reach puberty and be capable of procreation. When the day arrived, I found myself a mate and coupled. The next day I lost my reproductive abilities in a horrific accident. I have not been male since. Only the memory of that day remains and it colours my world view at times. However, at most times I see the world through the eyes of an Olmec scribe."

"An Olmec scribe?"

"Have you heard of the Olmecs?"

"Yes, a lost civilisation that ruled over the lands constituted by modern day Mexico."

"Have you read the Olmecs?"

"Well, a lost civilisation usually means a lost writing system?"

"Not quite. Olmec books are stashed in the private collections of a certain collector who wishes to remain anonymous in this story. They have a singular outstanding feature."

"Which is?"

"They are all written by Olmec holy scribes. Men who are castrated upon birth so that they may record Olmec history and culture for posterity through gender neutral eyes."

"Did it really make a difference?"

"It sure did. Olmec literature is known for the non existence of sexual metaphors or euphemisms and poetic descriptions of beauty unmarred by carnal thought. In their books, a banana is just a banana."

"Aren't you an imperfect Olmec scribe?"

"Yes, the first flush of desire in my body overwhelmed me. I am now flawed, though I still am the closest the world can get to an Olmec scribe. The Russians have tried to raise a troop of Olmec scribes for cultural warfare, but it was a disastrous attempt. They realised too late that it would not work unless-"

"Miss!"

"Miss Orfelia! Snap out of this reverie. Your man has run away."

It was Marcus. His familiar blue eyes looked concerned. He had been trying to wake me up for the last quadrant. I looked at the bucket of water he held raised upright as a last resort and smiled.

"Has Erasmus run away?"

"Yes, miss. It was strange and disquieting. Something seemed to come over him. He had a wild look in his eyes and he ran away, screaming gibberish."

"When did I fall asleep?"

"Right after Lady Portia left and your man took a seat. He leaned over and whispered something in your ear. I did not like that and I felt strange, felt that he had no right to-"

"Oh my, were you actually jealous of Erasmus?", I asked laughing.

"Jealous? Certainly not, Miss Orfelia."

"Oh, silence yourself, Marcus. I would like to order a large helping of Marcus on table 15. Now get on the table and I shall have you."

"Very well, miss."

As I finally got my order on table 15, I asked him what Erasmus had screamed as he ran away.

"It did not seem to make sense, Miss Orfelia. He said the scenes were changing beyond his control and he did not know how this story would end."