shorts

Vampire Story - Rhea Daniel

2005-09-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

The Vampire Siege swept over the turrets of the Cathédrale de la Nuit . There were hundreds of us then. Archemon the First was our leader.

It wasn’t much of a siege in the first place. They had no army against us, just a pack of vampire slayers trained in sword-fighting and martial arts, their bodies trained to withstand the physical exertion required to chase vampires, their eyes trained to pinpoint our undead hearts even in the darkest of nights; running up and down the sloping alleyways of Delmar with wooden arrows and stakes. The finest specimens of a weak race who thought they could be better than us.

They trained in vain. We squashed them like flies, punched holes in their necks with our teeth and drained them like goblets of finest wine, absorbing their erythrocytes into our systems and redoubling our strength. One loss on our side, three hundred on theirs. Thank you Archidiacre, I haven’t had a meal like that in about six hundred and seventy-three years. We had won yet again.

It was Archemon himself who betrayed us, our race, unknowingly as he might have done so. Our leader fell for the tenets of a religion he did not believe in. I wouldn’t blame him. Those frail humans with their feeble crosses couldn’t induce a rash amongst the weakest of us. Who would have known it was not religion but faith that failed them. They came to fight us with fear in their hearts, they perished with the same fear locked within the confines of that elusive, tireless organ they all took for granted. All this because they wanted the Cathédrale back. Our home, our haven, our refuge.

What did they want from our cathedral, what did they crave? Was it buried treasure? Or was it just the ego of the Church that needed to be satiated, a possession that needed to be retrieved to save face? Silly question. We were evil, and needed to be destroyed, that was all. And a holy relic in the hands of such evil? Abomination! Yet they failed to recover their precious cathedral, again and again, for hundreds of years.

In the end it was a small, inconsequential priest who defeated us. Reminds me of a story from their own sacred text, about a boy who felled a giant with the single throw of a stone. It seemed the story had some truth in it, after what happened to us.

The priest crept into the Cathédrale that fateful night. He poured some water into the marble chalice at the alter. The chalice was held up by angels that had long ago lost their expressions of saintly beatification. He began his low drone of prayer and it began to steam, that liquid, like it was actually reacting to the air around it. That was the sign that Archemon should have paid attention to, but we had been the victors too long to take our adversary that seriously. Archemon watched him curiously from his perch on a pillar.

Here now, this priest is interesting, thought Archemon. He walked in here, at night, into the vampire’s lair, and brewed himself a bit of holy water. He dropped silently to the mosaic floor of the cathedral and walked up to the priest. The priest jumped as Archemon spoke over his shoulder.

“Making ourselves a bit of soup, are we?”

The priest was young, so young he had barely sprung a few feathery hairs on his chin. His eyes shone blue and innocent in the flickering light of the torches. His eyebrows were finely curved and betrayed the worry of confronting the vampire of all vampires. He swallowed, but did not speak.

Archemon’s face took on the expression of amusement. He did not attack immediately. Us vampire like to tease our prey. He merely stared at the boy’s face, for Archemon did appreciate beauty, and the boy's face radiated sweetness like the virgin herself.

“You’re a pretty one. How old are you, boy?” he asked, almost affectionately.

“Twenty-one,” replied the boy.

“Aren’t you a bit young to be a priest?” Archemon began to circle him, sensing a degree of repressed fear, also of innocence in the aura of the boy, the quickening of breath that preceded death.

The boy did not reply.

“Are you afraid, boy-priest?” Archemon finished his circling and faced him.

“A little,” the boy replied truthfully, after some thought.

“Have you come to kill me?” he asked, a smile playing on his lips.

“I have come to kill the evil that dwells within you….and this place,” the boy, looking down and clutching the flask in which he had brought his precious water to his chest.

“You think you can, with this?” Archemon nodded at the steaming chalice.

“Yes,” said the boy simply, looking up and holding Archemon’s gaze.

Archemon stared back, and there are not many who could withstand his gaze. He gave a silent, mocking laugh.

“And you give your life, despite the knowledge that your religious excrement, your prayers and your crosses have never worked on the weakest of us?” His face took on an amused expression.

“Yes,” said the boy again, with some self-assurance. But utterly artless.

“Hmm,” murmured Archemon. He didn't feel amused anymore . He noticed that the boy did not clutch the cross at his breast and cantillate his useless prayer like the others before him had, so close to death. He still wasn’t as scared as Archemon would have liked him to be.

“Who sent you, boy?” Archemon asked, irritated with the priest’s lack of fear.

“God sent me.”

“ ‘God sent me,’ ” mimicked Archemon. He crossed his arms and turned to the cross that held the bleeding figure of Christ. Archemon was a large man. Together at the altar, he looked like a giant next to the priest.

“That which you swear on….this man whom you call the son of God, what if he fails you?”

The boy remained silent, as if he preferred not to answer. Archemon picked up the heavy chalice without effort and slowly, deliberately gulped down its contents, and then threw it away with one wave of his hand. It crashed into a thousand pieces when it hit the floor. Archemon wiped his wet chin with his sleeve and waited for the boy’s reaction. He sighed, disappointed with the boy’s silence.

“Your turn boy,” he said, grabbing the priest by his hair and twisting his neck backwards, forcing him to his knees. The boy gasped, his eyeballs rolling backwards and his eyelids fluttering. The Vein pulsed against his marble skin, a beautiful sight for any of us, especially for the one to whom the priest yielded so easily on that terrible night.

Archemon drained the boy and threw his limp body across the pulpit, over the pews, where it landed and slid all the down the aisle and stopped at the door.

Archemon sucked his toungue because it hadn’t seemed enough. “Mmm,” he murmured appreciatively.

* * *

Nothing calamitous occurred, not for days. But we sensed something was wrong. It began slowly. We couldn’t consume as much. Then our gorge seemed to rise the moment we’d had our fill. We still lusted for it, but our bodies seemed to repel it. A chain reaction that went through all of us, from the oldest to the youngest; all of those who had been initiated by Archemon. Including me. But most of all, the memory of the chalice and the young priest lay stark in our minds, the memory that Archemon could not hide from us. He finally called me to his chambers.

“I can’t Andros. I can’t do it,” he said to me in a stricken voice, bent over his desk.

“What happened, Archemon,” I asked.

“Aarrgh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I want it so and yet it makes me sick to even think of it,” he groaned again, “I can’t bear it.” When he looked up his eyes were bloodshot and sunken and his normally bright hair hung lank and dirty over his face.

“Did you have to go and show off?” I asked, annoyed with his weakness.

“I should have known something was wrong,” he put his face in his hands and groaned again.

“Arrogant shit. You had to ruin the lot of us,” I thought darkly inside my head. He looked up as I thought this, then buried his face in his hands again and wept.

His will and testament lay at his desk, sealed in his dark vampire blood.

* * *

We weakened. None of us could stand the sight of anything that resembled it. Soon we were all going mad with hunger. Some turned on each other.

I saved us, or at least a few of us. My interest in human science that had seemed a waste of time to the others had now found its purpose. I found a replacement, an imitation of human blood. The stuff was white and sticky and lacked its original counterpart’s appeal, but it kept us alive. Not before Archemon and most of the others put an end to themselves. A few stepped into broad daylight. Archemon, the most dramatic of the lot, threw himself on to the wooden spire of one of the cathedral domes. A cowardly act for a leader, now that I think of it. True to say wisdom and age do not always go together. Many followed him, and their bodies crumbled to dust on that very spire.

* * *

I spent most of my time in my study, in the new home our vampire wealth afforded. Hundreds of years of loot came to our rescue. It paid for our artificial sustenance and our new abode, for the library I’d painstakingly put together and laboratory I carried out my experiments in. I managed iron hand over our resources. The others followed my every whim, for it was I who kept them alive. They didn’t like it though.

We did not follow the old ways any longer. It was Archemon who had been insistent on ritual and public façade. Even the Church had forgotten us. Five remained. Blaine, Tariz, Kern and Delano, besides myself. It had been fifty years since we’d been living half-lives.

It showed. We were thinner, there was less of a bounce to our step. Our skin had an unhealthy pallor. Our hair fell lank and lifeless across our foreheads. We resembled the human junkies that prowled the streets at night. And yet, our minds hung desperately to the hope of this curse ending. Paranoia often guided our actions. Blaine’s arms were covered with cuts, to see if his blood ran white. He sucked his own wounds before they healed, though it made him nauseous. Tariz chewed continually on something, his teeth were soon blackened by it. Kern and Delano haunted the nightclubs of the city, and I saw puncture marks on their inner elbows while they slept.

We met on the rooftops, for we did not hunt any longer. Kern and Delano snuggled together and snickered about their latest conquests. Blaine scratched at his scabby wounds. Tariz was popping something into his mouth every two minutes.

“Tariz, what is that you’re chewing on?” I asked. Tariz mumbled something in response.

“What’s that again?”

“Chocolate,” he said loudly, like a petulant child, looking at me shiftily from the corner of his eyes.

There had emerged a pattern of behaviour among us, and I found some answers in the human study of psychoanalysis, that the adult behaviour of a human could be influenced by childhood experiences. It was no doubt that the memories from our human lives were returning to influence us now. Usually, when we are initiated, we are reborn and all memory of human emotion leaves us. Our senses turn sharper; our blood runs cold through our veins and most of all, our bodies gain an unnatural strength, twenty times to that of any man. That strength was useless now, for we couldn’t pursue our prey any longer. The knowledge of it drove us to idle pursuits that were perhaps influenced by our individual characters, emerging from the memories of when we had been human. It was an engaging thought, and it seemed to fit my own overwhelming need to find a partner for myself. I wanted something besides the quiet of my study, my dabbling with chemicals in my laboratory. I wanted to experience human emotion yet again. Especially that of love. Memories came unbidden, unexpected. It was much like hunting, it had the same anticipation, the same desire, the warmth of the kill would spread through my body right to my fingertips, and I’d crave for more. But unlike hunting, my heart would be filled a sudden pain I couldn’t identify. I couldn’t prolong the feelings for the memories were fleeting. I needed more, I needed the real thing, and it wouldn’t be answered for by an act of physical love. Somewhere in past, in my life before this, I had loved someone deeply, and lost them. Perhaps it was the reason I had chosen to be one of the undead.

I followed my vampire instincts. I began to frequent the public library, hoping to find someone like-minded. It was a large, pillared monstrosity, still better than the sleek, grey monstrosities that had cropped up like flies in the last fifty years. You would think the smell of all those humans drove me crazy. They would have, but my mind took precedence over any animal lust, plus the knowledge of final revulsion at the sight of its red limpidity assured my restraint more than anything else.

It was what was wrong that drew me to her in the first place. An incongruity, a weakness in the blood that made her shine like a beacon, and it didn’t take long for me to figure what the cause of it was. I had dabbled with samples of the tainted blood myself, and had some knowledge of it.

She sat all night, like I did, surfing through piles of text for anything that she could find out about her incurable condition. I could sense that she was deeply spiritual, in a naturalist sort of way. Her investigation consisted of, besides medicine, a wholesome research of history, mathematics, botany, psychology, philosophy; anything she could lay her hands on. She had begun with an urgency about her search for an answer, and as time passed that began to change to a sort of relaxed understanding. After watching and waiting for a whole year, I was curious to see what she had found, so I finally approached her.

“Found anything?” I asked. She looked up, startled.

My vampire grin and black clothes would have made anybody’s bowels loosen up. Besides, I had only pursued humans for one reason till then, and my manners by their standards were abominable.

My initial bungle aside, I did manage to ‘connect’ with her. We spoke all night until it was time for me leave. We caught up again the next night, and the night after that, until the librarian threw us out. After that we held our conversation on the library steps below the heavy head of a stone gargoyle.

She was in the last stages, and relied completely on medication to keep her standing. She spoke freely about her condition. She accepted it, strangely, as a need for nature to balance out an ever burgeoning attack on itself by its human population.

“You’re saying you deserve it?” I asked.

“I’m saying that things balance themselves out eventually, in horrible ways sometimes. We may be free from blame but…we’re paying for the sins of our ancestors. I believe that if you take something, you have to compensate for it eventually. May be not in one lifetime but…eventually.”

“And what if you give something?”

“May be it works the other way round as well. I don’t know. But I believe the rewards are…spiritual, more than material.”

I was secretly derisive of her beliefs. It didn’t make sense to me that the world was one big mathematical equation. May be I lacked the understanding because I lacked a soul. But I liked her optimism and I wanted to help her all the more. Perhaps that desire by itself spoke of love. I wanted her to join my kind, but I was afraid of how her tainted blood would react. I watched her shrivel up slowly instead.

I spent long hours in my laboratory, dabbling desperately with my own blood although it made me sick. My kind could easily resist the disease and the solution seemed to lie there. I was too late. She was finally too weak to stand, and she succumbed, her body ravaged by the virus.

* * *

In the event of her death I finally felt what eluded me all that time. So that was what it had been like to be human, to be lost in the anguish of losing a dear one. And it all centered there, in my heart, which was supposed to be apathetic to anything but power and blood. I did not want it any longer, but it persisted, that gnawing, undefinable sensation. Did she guess what I was? Did it make a difference? What had she thought of me, of my kind? Why didn’t I tell her how much she meant to me? I was soon questioning my beliefs again, my ‘condition’. How I badly I wanted to return to my earlier, powerful, individualistic, untouchable self. What a fool I’d been to step into this quagmire of human emotion. That’s when he came along, dressed in a trench-coat, possibly in an effort to appear inconspicuous. He made me a proposition.

“I know you, your kind. I’ve been watching you for years. I know there’s only five of you left. I know about your…weakness.”

He received a yawn in response to his threats, but I allowed the exchange for a sum, nonetheless.

“I’ll be back,” he said, dropping the vial into his briefcase.

* * *

It took years for the cure to finally make it through the meandering by lanes of every possible bureaucratic clap trap and procedure. There was money to be made for the pharmaceutical corporations, besides saving lives. I chose to remain anonymous through it all, and I couldn’t care less. I wanted to be alone, lost in torment as I was.

“Hmmm-nnmm-mm,” he murmured, perusing the newspaper at his desk. We sat in his capacious office in one of those sky-scrapers that swung at the slightest hint of a breeze. “A wise choice to stay anonymous. The remedy is sending waves throughout the world. You’ve saved millions of lives. They would suck you dry for want of more of that marvelous stuff that flows through your veins. ” He chuckled as he folded the paper and then looked up at me. I must have looked bored, my chin resting in the palm of my hand.

“You should be proud,” he said, scratching at a cut on his chin.

“What’s that?” I asked casually, beginning to salivate at the scab that had broken.

“What? Oh, nothing. Just cut myself shaving,” he withdrew a bloodied finger and jumped at the sight of it.

“Whoa, that’s a big one,” he smiled and reached for a box of paper tissues at his desk. I was quicker than he was, and before he knew it his finger was very efficiently licked clean.

“But--” we both stared at his finger and then at each other.

He didn’t last a second longer. I made a bit of a mess, but it was glorious. It spread through my veins right down to my fingertips and the effects were instantaneous.

Was there truth in it? Was it like she had said? The world was balancing itself out? Perhaps the problem in itself had been ‘spiritual’, since the perpetrator of the curse had won over us by his faith alone. I had saved millions of lives, the curse was lifted, I had compensated. I could hunt again. The irrational fear had left me.

Perhaps we did belong to the chain of life and death, in a strange, hybrid sort of way.

I jumped from one rooftop to another, whooping for joy, heading for the Cathédrale. The others would soon feel it as well and begin to hunt. There were several hours before dawn, and there was plenty of prey to go around.

And….I hadn’t had a decent meal in years.

* * *

- Rhea Daniel

Love in an elevator - Vivek Subramanian

2005-07-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

(Vivek is presently in his third year of engineering at the national institute of
technology surathkal,karnataka. He listens to rock and classical music and writes a bit.
homepage:http://www.livejournal.com/~safarial)

My watch read seven thirty. I sipped coffee as I glanced through the day's newspaper. It was always the same, some politician had made a huge donation to charity to pick up political mileage, and another accident had killed some more people. By the time I reached the sports section, it was eight - time for my shower and then breakfast. After that I spent the next twenty-eight minutes getting to office. I did have a motorcycle but the rush hour traffic in the morning irritated me and made me grouchy for the rest of the day. I had long since decided that it made more sense for the driver to take the trouble of driving. He was getting paid for it, wasn't he? And I had no desire of seeing my motorcycle adorned with scratches after being parked the whole day in the parking lot.

It was a nice sunny day and the warmth of the sun made me feel better;after all,it's never a nice feeling getting back to work on a Monday morning. The tall and imposing office building never failed to awe me. I pushed the huge glass doors, and stepped through the metal detector as the security guard smiled at me. He was a young chap, newly married. He dreamt of buying a small house someday. I had made it a point of getting to know all the people who worked here.

I made my way across the huge reception,floored with marble. The black granite walls were polished; they were almost like mirrors. The receptionist, fresh out of college, looked at me and winked. She was wearing blue and it suited her. It brought out the colour of her eyes. The morning flirtation was almost a ritual now.I glanced at the mail slots to see if there was anything that needed my attention.

I walked into the elevator. It was one of the best that money could buy. It had glass walls and rode all the way to the top of the building – twenty-six floors. The building being on the top of a hill,the view was marvelous. You could see the whole city beneath,laid out like an architect's model. The floor of the lift was padded with a rich carpet on which you could stand all day without feeling it at all. I ran my finger along the cold gleaming brass rail that ran all around the six-by-four feet box. I hit the button for the tenth floor and the doors slowly began to slide shut...

Moments before they met, a delicate little hand slid into the gap. The doors automatically opened on the most beautiful woman I had ever set my eyes on. Her hair was black as the night, and fell long and silky on her shoulders. The eyes hid a fire within – bright, liquid and deep. She wore a business suit that seemed to be made for her, not one of those off-the-hook creations that shops seem to have in excess. She
said something into her mobile phone and put it back into her handbag. The voice was what I fell in love with immediately. Soft and yet,husky – filled with passion and fire.

And then our eyes met. If there was ever a heaven, I could now see it in her eyes. Suddenly, for a moment, the lift, the building...everything just vanished. I was in a green field below an azure sky. She stood there in front of me, dressed in white, smiling. She started running towards me, her white robes billowing in the wind. I stood there with my arms wide open as she rushed into my arms. I fell backwards, holding her-I never hit the grass.

The stool clattered as I stumbled and found myself sitting on it. She looked at me with an amused smile as I grinned sheepishly.
"Third floor, if you will," she said.
I dusted my uniform, doffed my cap and pressed the button that read 3.

-Vivek
bluebarnacle[at]gmail.com

Coffee-Shop Thing (Part II) - rhea daniel

2005-07-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

* * *

PART II

Pity all newlyweds. She cooks something nice for him, and he brings her flowers, and they kiss and think: How easy marriage is. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

“Hey!”

Sid felt something bump into his chair and swung around. His expression changed from annoyance to gratification in seconds when he saw that it was a breathless Tina.

“Sorry, just tripped on the stairs on the way here,” said Tina, dimple sharpening visibly. Sid continued to stare at her with the same foolish grin before Lily jabbed him in the ribs.

“Oh, yeah anytime, sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, sorry his chair was in the way,” Lily said with a raised eyebrow.

“So I got her this, see?” Tina held up a gift-wrapped box.

“Nice,” nodded Lily.

“So what’s in it?” asked Sid.

“Oh,” Tina’s laugh tinkled down Sid’s spine, “It’s perfume.”

“Lovely.”

“Ok I have to go. See you Monday.”

She twiddled her fingers and exited with a smile. Sid watched her leave and was thoroughly
pleased to receive a parting glance as she turned the corner.

“That smile,” he said with a sigh.

“-Is especially meant for idiots like you.”

Sid turned and looked at her with irritation.

“You know, I wish you’d stop going on about that.”

Lily kept her eyes on the newspaper, “She’s got you eating out of the palm of her hand.”

“Better than that scowl you got 90 % of the time.”

“It’s a frown, and it comes when I’m concentrating. There’s a difference.”

“Why don’t you try smiling once in a while?

“You’re telling me it’s the smile that does it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh please! Why can’t you just be honest? I know where you’re looking most of the time, and
you think she doesn’t know?”

“You want me to be honest about where I’m looking? Ok.” He stared levelly at her chest to make his point.

“Not like that, you pig!” Lily moved back in disgust, “Just…stop going on about the smile and the eyes and hair and everything.”

“What, you think the guy you’re going to marry is such a saint?”

“Well…well he doesn’t squeeze a gelatin hand-rest out of frustration like you do all day!”

Sid looked affronted.
“What, the one next to my mouse-pad? Just like you to make that connection. Spying on me in the office!”

“Anybody would make that connection,” Lily said pointedly.

Sid thought about this for a while.
“Does everybody think I’m frustrated?”

“Well, you keep grabbing and squeezing it. What do you expect people to think?”

“It’s a stress reliever?” he offered.

Lily smiled in spite of herself.
“It’s a hand rest,” she said gently, patting his knee.

* * *

They made their way out of the coffee shop and walked down the pavement of the busiest road in the city. The rest of the people chose to walk on the other side of the road, which was lined with shops. Sid and Lily walked comfortably on the empty side. The breeze whipped up Lily’s hair in all directions. Sid stole glances at her every once in a while.

“So,” he ventured, “Getting married and everything.”

“Yeah.”

“Nervous?”

“No,” Lily shook her head.

“Not even a little?”

“No, should I be?”

“Well, people get cold feet and all.”

“I’m not,” said Lily confidently.

“What about your job and everything?”

“What about it?”

“Well, what if he gets a transfer?”

“Well…” Lily hunched her shoulders and cocked her head to one side, “Yeah… I guess he’ll stay there I’ll stay here.”

“That rarely works,” Sid shook his head.

“People do it all the time.”

“Well what if you get pregnant?”

“Why would I get pregnant?”

“Women get pregnant all the time,” said Sid knowledgeably, “I mean…you’re into your job,
you’re happy, you’re married and then bang! -You’re pregnant! - And then you want to get rid of it and then you get weepy and sentimental and decide to keep it and then the next thing you know…you’re leaving your job to stay with the kid and then you’re trapped!”

Lily stopped to face him.
“Stop acting like you know everything, ok?”

“I wouldn’t say anything unless I was your friend and I was…concerned and stuff,” he shrugged, looking mildly hurt.

Lily rolled her eyes and continued walking.

“Look, Lil,” he ran after her. “Stop, hey wait a sec. You mean you haven’t thought about all this stuff?”

“Well yes, but I’m trying to look at things positively and you make it sound so horrible!”

“But Lil! You just keep going on about female emancipation and all,” Sid waved his hands in circles.

“So?” Lily stopped to look at him, her cheeks flushed with anger.

“So you’re doing the same thing your mum and all the women before her did.”

Lily shook her head and looked at him quizzically, “And what’s that? Save me, I’m in the dark here.”

“You’re marrying for the same reasons they did...family, security…you know,”

“I’m secure. I have a job.”

“Lily, you don’t make much, ok? And you still live with your parents.”
Lily didn’t answer.

“You know I know a little bit about your guy and he’s nice, really. He’s so straight he even irons his boxers before going to bed.” He saw the corner of her mouth quiver with a smile when she heard this.

“Come on,” said Sid, “I know you. You’re too… practical. You’re going to marry for the same reason all women marry, financial and emotional security. What is so emancipating about that?”

Lily was short of words for once because Sid had struck an inarguable chord, The Truth. It leaked into her every pore and made her tremble with fear.

“Oh, God,” she put her face in her hands.

Sid put what he thought was a comforting arm around her shoulders.

“Well look at it this way,” he said cheerfully giving her arm a squeeze, “If things don’t work out between the two of you, you can always get a divorce!”

* * *

“Do you love me?”

Adi’s face twisted as he considered the question. Why did women ask it so frequently?

“To feel assured that they were needed,” his dad had told him. He thought about it often, they didn’t just want his time, his money and to be reassured that they were beautiful despite the wrinkles and the stretch marks. If they had enough of one, they’d be asking for more of the other. Where did it end? There was only so much of him to go around.

“Yes,” he said, as convincingly as he could, “I do,” and immediately felt embarrassed after he had uttered the same. Should he look into her eyes when he said it? Was she convinced? This is humiliating! Couldn’t they do without it?

Actually, he was no good at this. After having tried catching glimpses of her while hiding behind walls and making excuses to visit the HR department for a whole year, her best friend Jasmine took pity on him and introduced them. It was his inability to articulate his thoughts and bumble with his feelings that had attracted Lily to him in the first place. In fact, by his fourth bungle he had bumbled his way into her heart.

Or so he thought.

“But, you know, it might not last,” she said rather sadly.

“Why do you say that?”

“What if we fight, and we can’t reconcile.”

“We won’t fight then.”

“Adi, just because you can’t articulate your feelings doesn’t mean we won’t fight.”

“I’m improving.”

“That’s not the point.”

“That is the point, all marriages are difficult. Not one is perfect.”

“Yes, difficult. That’s why I don’t want to do this.”

“What? Why?!”

“I can’t handle the idea of leaving my job, getting pregnant, moving…and all this for one person.
I’m comfortable where I am right now. And I don’t want to change. Besides, I really think if I do this I’d be doing it for the wrong reasons. ”

“But--but…” he said stupidly.

* * *

The cordless next to bartender’s hand rang.

“Yes? Yes, yes he’s here. Yes, the boy with…er, yes. He is rather tipsy actually.”

Adi stared into the killer stuff that looked like water. Potato essence. Toxic.

It was that no-good scumbag Sids’ fault. He knew it the moment those words began to come out of her mouth. Adi, I’m comfortable here right now. Adi, I can’t do this. Adi, I’m independent right now and I don’t want to ruin that by getting myself hooked to a geek with a speech impediment.

Traitor! Rat!

“Shcum,” he said aloud, and gulped. Erk. Strong.

“Another round, sir?”

The bartender looked at the boy who had become a man. He came in here often with his
buddies but never went beyond apple juice. He wasn’t even ashamed of his apple juice.

But things had changed. He had taken his first sip rather tentatively, now he was gulping it with absolutely no awareness of the migraine to come. He was getting dangerously droopy eyed.

It had to be a girl.

“Bring it on,” Adi waved one drunken hand. This stuff was actually making him feel better.

'Whoosh. I’m going to fly like an eagle. I’m going to be an astronaut. I’m going to fly into space alone and leave the human race behind to destroy itself. And I’ll take my Star Wars DVDs along and watch them over and over. And my LOTR, and my Batman comics, and I’ll read them until I shrivel up and die in a lost corner of the universe. But I’ll be happy, with no Sids and no…no Lilies…'

A sob escaped his lips.

“Oi, Adi! Man, I thought I’d find you here.”

Adi swung around unsteadily from the barstool at the sound of the hated voice.

“You!”

“Yeah man, been looking all over…” Sid stopped. An unsteady Adi made his way from the bar
with a dangerous look in his eye.

“You t’ink yrrr sho cool…with yrrr..ssh--shynishishm ‘n vryth’ng?”

Adi lunged and swung, and missed Sid’s chin by about ten inches. The momentum twisted him around and he fell backwards, hitting his head on the floor.

“Arrrgh,” he groaned, momentarily, and then passed out.

* * *

He opened his eyes to a haze of blues and grays. It was cold. The couch he lay on was gray; the people were blue. Plutonians. His spaceship had landed on Pluto. No, the people were gray but the couch was blue…and now they were merging and becoming a grey, blue, purple...yellow…

“Quick, show him your face! Or he’ll take another swing at me.”

A strange female voice said, “Oh, shutup. What did you say to him anyway?”

“I didn’t say anything! She’s the one who broke the engagement!”

“He tried to punch you because he blames you for talking Lily into changing her mind.”

“See? I knew I’d come to the right place. The female haven for bitchin’ parties. Just sit back and blame the man.”

“Shtp grlng.”

“Shh. He said something.”

“He said, ‘stop yelling’.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s hung over.”

“Whrami?”

“You’re in a LOUNGE. A LOUNGE,” enunciated Sid.

Adi reached back and felt a lump at the back of his head.

The woman made a noise in irritation.

“Sid, you’ve made a mess. Now you have to set it right.”

That had to be Jasmine, Lily’s best friend. Which means Lily knew about his condition. Oh God. He tried getting up. Something pierced his brain.

“Lie down,” Jasmine’s voice echoed in his brain authoritatively.

“So now what. Shall I call Lily?” asked Sid.

“I already did.”

“What?!”

“Deal with it. I’m leaving.”

“No, don’t leave! He’ll try to hit me again.”

“Good, you deserve it! Every time you see something good in this world you destroy it!”

“Hey, that’s harsh!” Sid sounded hurt.

“What’s going on?”

Lily! Don’t see me like this, Adi thought desperately. He tried getting up and made a brave effort to open his eyes.

“Adi!”

Adi got up shakily; his knees ready to give way any second.

“I have to say something,” he managed.

“So do I,” said Sid.

“What’s going on? What did you do to him?” asked Lily, her arms crossed.

“I didn’t DO anything!” Sid yelled.

“Lily. I’m in love with you. You have to marry me,” said Adi to Jasmine.

Jasmine took his arms and gently faced him in Lily’s direction.

“That’s it. No lace, no icing. Plain and simple English,” Jasmine patted his shoulder encouragingly.

“No Lily, don’t marry him. What about you and me?” said Sid.

“What?” the other three said together and turned to face him.

“Yes!” he stepped forward and took both Lily’s hands in his. Lily looked momentarily perplexed, and then annoyed.

“What are you trying to do?” She pulled her hands away and crossed her arms.

“Don’t you see? The reason why you’re so doubtful about him is because you’ve got someone else on your mind! Me!” he laid both his hands on his chest.

Jasmine snorted loudly from behind Adi. Adi reached an arm back to lean on her for support as another wave of nausea swept over him.

“What are you talking about? We hate each other,” said Lily.

“Exactly! Our arguments, our fights, there’s passion there! Don’t you think it’s wonderful that we’ve stuck together through it all?”

“No...no…” said Adi weakly. He reached out a shaky hand but Lily seemed miles away.

“We’ll be miserable together,” said Lily, looking at Sid with what resembled revulsion.

Sid took her hands in his again and pressed them to his chest.

“Exactly! Miserable. TOGETHER.”

Lily stared at him for a full five seconds, incredulous.

“Besides,” he shrugged, “You’re like, what--twenty eight now? Pretty soon the wrinkles will start showing; here, there and everywhere- Especially with that scowl of yours. And no one will want to know you…except for me, because I already know you!”

Lily made an angry noise and pushed him away.

“You idiot! You epitomize everything that I despise!”

“Tell it to him Lily!” said Adi’s weak voice from the couch. Who put him on the couch? He had to get up. He moved one foot and it landed on the floor heavily.

Sid was laughing.

“Yes, all married couples start hating each other after a while. But we already hate each other! Think about it, we’ve saved on a couple of years!”

Adi managed to get up.

“Lily, don’t listen to him. Isn’t it better not to start off despising each other?” said Adi, leaning heavily on Jasmine.

“Lily, at least you won’t be unaware if any disaster should come along! We’ve been through practically everything together! Already!”

“No, don’t listen to his bullshit!”

“I’m surrounded by morons!” groaned Lily.

“Of course, as you know, I have my…needs as well,” continued Sid, emphasizing on ‘needs’.

“Ugh, Sid, you’re absolutely revolting! And Adi, how could you think I could be so gullible?”

“I—I—“

“And Sid, I think there is a small chance of me being happy in this world, and I certainly won’t find it dwelling on every ugly little detail with you!”

“So you’ve changed your mind again?” said Sid. “How typically female! Full of contradictions!”

“That’s ok! So you’re with me now?” Adi said, with a hint of desperation in his voice.
Lily looked at him with calm resolve.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Adi grinned happily from ear to ear. He let go of Jasmine and moved over with great difficulty, and took Lily’s hands in his, gazing at her behind his glasses.

“Darling.”

“Sweety-pie.”

“We can watch Star Wars together,” he said dreamily through his foolish grin.

“That remains to be seen,” said Lily.

“Let’s go,” said Adi, headache forgotten. He moved purposefully towards the door of the lounge, pulling Lily behind him.

“Where are we going?”

“Wherever.”

Jasmine and Sid watched them leave. Jasmine nudged Sid.

“What if she agreed to marry you?”

Sid had been holding his breath for sometime now. He let it out in a rush.

“Man! Thank God! For a minute there, I thought she would actually say yes. Imagine spending the rest of my life with that irritating women’s lib, complaining, annoying…” he caught Jasmine’s eye and stopped, “Hey come on, show a woman her choices and she’ll make a choice! And I was her only other choice!”

“Atleast you admit you’re a lousy choice. You’re really full of it you know? When will you stop?”

She shook her head.

Sid shrugged.

“Well, anyways, that was a close shave. I nearly saw my life dissolving before my eyes.”

Jasmine looked worriedly towards the door, “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

Sid snorted derisively, “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

* * *

-rhea daniel
(darkness_box[at]yahoo[dot]com)

Coffee-Shop Thing - rhea daniel

2005-06-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

PART I

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. ~Katherine Hepburn

A man and woman sit in a nondescript outdoor café, one of the many that dot this bustling city. The café sits at the steps of one the city’s largest lifestyle stores, and it is yet early in the evening for the usual crowd to step in.

Both are in their late twenties and reasonably attractive. They fit into the current trend of young people whose lives have been planned well in advance to settle into a conflux of new-age, urban professionals. They seem comfortable in each other’s presence. She refers to a file of papers and takes notes, stopping every once in a while to look up thoughtfully. The young man leans back in his rickety café chair and enjoys the early evening breeze with blissful calm.

“This is great. I love this city. The weather’s amazing,” he says with a smile on his face. He runs his hands through his deliberately frowzled, highlighted hair, styled into place to give the boyish, rumpled look that somehow went well with his Friday shirt and tie.

“Hmm,” she agrees busily, scribbling something on a small notepad. Her black hair is cut neat and short, and tucked behind her ears, the bangs resting just above her thin, well-shaped eyebrows. Every once in a while the breeze blows her hair out of place and she unconsciously tucks it behind her ears again. Her make-up is barely there, bringing out and softening her features at the same time.

“You can do that at home, you know,” he says, glancing at the sheaf of papers. He picks up a saucer and gently lays it on the papers to prevent them from being blown off by the breeze.
“Thanks, almost done,” she mutters. She looks up and smiles briefly before gathering up her things and tucking them into an open leather bag on the empty chair beside her. She lets out a long breath.

“Done,” she said, “What a relief.”

“Another presentation?” he asks.

“Not for another two weeks,” she says, shaking her head.

“Workaholic.”

“No, not really,” she rubs her eyes and stretches her arms, “Where’s that sandwich we ordered?”

“They’re still baking the bread I guess,” he said, turning to look at the counter. When he turns back to her his expression changes and he points to her face, trying to say something.

“Uh, um,” he manages.

“What?” she reacts worriedly, “Is it my eyeliner?”

“Yeah, its all over the place.”

She retrieves a small mirror from her bag to survey the damage and gasps at the black smudges around her eyes.

“I think it happened when you rubbed your eyes.”

“I realise that,” she replies tartly.

He grins with amusement at her hurried attempts to rub off the offending smirches. She looks at him angrily.

“I wish you wouldn’t gawk when I do that.”

“Its funny,” he laughs.

The waiter leans over his shoulders to put down a plate of freshly made chicken sandwiches.

“Finally,” he picks up one and begins to wolf it down. She picks up the other one and joins him with equal enthusiasm. He then picks up his mug of coffee and slurps noisily, catching her disapproving eye over the rim of the mug.

“You gulp coffee and eat at the same time it’ll go straight to your love-handles,” she said.

“Oh, man!” He put down the mug hurriedly, spilling the coffee on the browned plastic of the table.

“What? Oh…” she looks in the direction in which he’s facing and sees a girl approaching. The girl is casually clad in jeans and a t-shirt. Heads swivel for second looks in her direction as she walks by.

“Hey,” she greets them. She smiles sweetly and a small dimple appears visibly on her right cheek.

“Tina, hey. What’s up?” he half gets up, the enthusiasm clearly visible on his face. He shakes her small hand and sits back clumsily.

“Oh, nothing. Just looking for a birthday present. My mom’s birthday.”

“Okay!” he responds enthusiastically, the goofy grin doesn’t leave his face.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do about Monday’s presentation.”

“Oh, haha, don’t worry about it,” he waves his hands dismissively.

“I’ve done something…I hope it works,” Tina wrings her hands worriedly.

“Really, don’t worry about it, you’re still learning the ropes.”

“Okay. I’d better go. Bye Sid, bye Lily,” she says with a smile. She waves briefly at them both and then turns to enter the store. Sid gazes at her back until she goes out of sight.

Two seconds after Lily turns to Sid and says grimly, shaking her head, “You did it again.”

“Did what?”

“You fell for it again. You do it every time.”

“What?” he holds up his hands and shrugs.

“ ‘Learning the ropes’? She’s been learning the ropes for six months now!”

“What? Are you saying I have a crush on her?”

“I’m saying you fall for that-,” she flutters her hands and rolls her eyes, “-Every time.”

“All what?”

“Oh please. She’s always fluttering her hands helplessly and doesn’t know a fuck of what she’s talking about and believes sincerely the whole time that she does, and you fall for that and melt every time she does it, because she’s small and frail and childlike and delicate,” she makes a motion with her hands like she’s cupping something small, “And you know her work is crap…and --,” she shakes her head and shrugs, taking a sip of her coffee.

“I don’t fall for anything! She’s nice and she makes an effort. That’s it, end of story.”

Lily ignores him, “—I mean how can any sincere, hard-working woman expect to be emancipated in the workplace and be judged on the basis of her professionalism if dufusses like you are screwing us over for some ultra-feminine bimbo like that all the time?”

“When did I screw you over?” he asks innocently.

“I’m talking about womankind. And you did it right now.”

“What?”

“You asked her not to worry incase she turns up with some crap like she did last time…and the time before that.”

“Lily, it’s okay.”

“What, ‘its okay’?”

“I understand if you’re insecure about your looks, but let me tell you, you’re a reasonably attractive person. Anything else you make up for with your shining personality.”

Lily sighs and gives him a withering look.

“Very funny. I’m not jealous of that.” She gestures towards the store Tina had just entered.

“Well, considering the fact that you might be right. That she does plan to…you know, use her way out of things, or use her way up, and you have to slog your ass off to get anywhere; who has the better deal?”

“Me.”

“How so?”

“Because she has only about ten years until eventually age catches up with her. I on the other hand, I’m a true professional. I would have the dignity of knowing I achieved everything fair and square, with integrity and perseverance at my side. And at the end of the day I’d actually have learnt something.”

“But she’ll have reached there already, in half the time you would have…and she won’t need to work as much anymore. Because she’ll be at the top,” he folded his arms with casual finality.

She considers this with discomfort clearly visible on her face.

“In fact,” he wheedled naughtily, “You would be working for her.”

“May be,” she said squaring her shoulders, refusing to give in, “At least I wouldn’t be chasing something I can’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the only reason you bother working and getting up in the morning to work is for the money and the car and house and the gadgets so you can impress women like her,” she nodded in the direction of the store, “Someone that you, don’t stand a chance in hell of getting.”

“I’m not…I don’t want her,” he said shaking his head, thumbing uncomfortably at the topic of discussion and shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

“Who are you kidding? It’s typical of men to chase women they can’t have. And smart women like that use it to their advantage.”

“Aha.”

“What ‘aha’?”

“Aha, you admit she’s smart!”

Lily rolled her eyes.

“Yippee, that a significant contribution you’ve made to this argument. And anyways, if she’s smart enough to fool you into thinking she’s even mildly interested in you, good for her. Though, quite honestly, she doesn’t really have to make much of an effort. She’s already got you eating out of her hand.”

“You know, ten minutes ago you were condemning just that sort of behaviour and now you’re practically endorsing it.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s fun to watch you fall for that sort of thing and make a fool of yourself.”

“I’m not falling for anything!”

“That’s right,” she pats him on the head, “Keep telling yourself that.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Oh that’s so lame.”

“You’re jealous you don’t have the hot body and the hot looks and you have to work for a living.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“Not really, I don’t gaze at the mirror all day, chase every reflection like my life depended on it and spend all that money on the clothes and make-up and I hate to break it to you but it really makes little difference.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you spend all that money buying that fancy car and that fancy stereo obviously to make up for your other shortcomings.”

“Admit it, you’re vain, and I mean all of you. You with your hair and your nails and your…eyeliner and everything.”

“ I’m vain? You had this gigantic crumb stuck to your lips this whole time.”

“Oh fuck,” he hurriedly rubs the corner of his mouth.

“Other side. Here,” she says handing him her mirror.

“Aw damn.”

“Aha!”

“What ‘aha’?”

“ ‘Aha’, you’re as vain as I am.”

“No, there’s a difference, we don’t assess our entire self worth on our looks the way you do.”

“The fact is, you wish the crumb had never gotten there in the first place, at least while she was there to see it.”

“It was there the whole time she was there?” he asks worriedly.

Lily gives him a sympathetic look.

“Some women like slobs,” she shrugs taking a sip of her coffee. “You might just appeal to some ancient…Neanderthal…genetic memory…” she waves her hand dismissively.

“Hey, stop talking like I’m some filthy truck-driver on a late shift, okay?”

“Alright. Sorry, apparently a crumb became a mountain.”

“And its not like people don’t let you off the hook ‘cause you’re a girl. I’ve seen it all the time.”

“Yes, well, if I play my cards right I might just rise to the top at super speed.”

“Too bad the boss is a woman, no?”

“Too bad,” she said wryly. Tired of the conversation, she removes the days rolled up newspaper from the bag.

“Oh that’s so sweet,” she comments on a front-page article.

“What’s it say?” he leans over to look at what she was reading.“ ‘Traitor sells plans to finance wife’s pickle factory’,” he reads aloud. “What’s so sweet about that?”

“He was so in love, he sold battle plans to pay for his wife’s pickle factory.”

“What ?! He betrayed his country to pay for his wife’s pickle factory? And for twenty thousand bucks? Oh Gawwwd, you think that’s sweet?! Jeeeezz…women!!!”

He slaps his hands over his eyes in frustration.

“Yes, I think it’s sweet,” she said firmly.

“I bet he’s not thinking that in jail right now.”

“It proves that he loves her.”

“He’s a traitor, he did a bad thing,” Sid said pointedly.

“Yes, he committed a crime, but for a good cause.”

“Lily, he didn’t exactly deserve a medal of honour for saving a pickle factory from extinction.”

“Oh, you don’t understand. Love deserves a chance in spite of war, even if it means you’re saving a lowly pickle factory.”

“You’re saying,” his eyes widening like he’s just realised something, “Pickle, can be a metaphor for love?”

“Sounds good to me,” she thought for a moment and said, “Pickled Love. In a bottle.”

“Off the shelf. Lasts for years.”

“Pickle can go sour too,” Lily pointed out.

“Depends on the expiry date. Preservatives. That sort of thing. Flowers, perfumes for her.”

“Shags for him.”

“Hey, we’re not all that shallow.”

“Neither are we,” she retorts.

He ignores her, “But its not really there in the end…love is intangible, you know…” he makes a motion with his fingers like he’s feeling something between them.

“Encapsulated love? You can swallow it, like medicine,” she says thoughtfully.

“But really, its not there. It’s intangible. So you can actually sell just a bottle marked ‘Love’,” he looks at her questioningly, ”With some value-added packaging, you think anyone will buy it?”

“Made under clinical conditions, after thousands of years of trial and error, thousands of formulae. Revised, discarded. Reformulated,” she chews the end of her pen, ”Yeah, people will buy anything, especially these days. It’s like.... like The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

“That story was too deep for me to get at that age.”

“Me too.”

“What was your favourite?”

“The Little Mermaid.”

He nodded understandingly. “Sacrificial love. Pain, jealousy, lust, stupidity. Tragic.”

“No,” she shook her head, “I just liked the idea of sitting in the moonlight naked and combing my long blonde hair.”

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“You know what I like about you?”

“What?”

“You’re honest.”

“Well at least we’ve agreed on something today.”

PART II

Pity all newlyweds. She cooks something nice for him, and he brings her flowers, and they kiss and think: How easy marriage is. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

(Author’s note: PART II will only emerge incase of popular demand.)

-rhea daniel
darkness_box[at]yahoo[dot]com

Baker, Baker - rhea daniel

2005-05-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Baker, Baker

“It was an awareness of a new kind of potentiality, one very different from my old sense of the word, which had been based on illusions of ambition. The mess of my life, the selfishness and false turnings and the treacheries, all these things could fall into place, they could become a source of construction rather than a source of chaos, and precisely because I had no other choice. No doubt our accepting what we are must always inhibit our being what we ought to be; for all that, it felt like a step forward - and upward.”
- John Fowles, The Magus

I led Katrina around my desk in her delicate little dance. She didn’t have to try very hard; she had been born with the ballet shoes permanently painted onto her rubber legs. She twirled around my index finger and followed it effortlessly as the lesser ones watched. She treaded between staple pins and leapt over books, improvising around my giant finger. The mesmerized audience watched her performance in silence. She finished with a magnificent bow and I clapped for her as I always did.

“All right, bedtime everybody,” I said.

My voice boomed authoritatively and the rest scurried off to their secret little nightlives. They never really slept, or needed to. I only uttered the word ‘bedtime’ to impose some order to their miserable existence. I didn’t care what they did behind the shuttered doors of the cupboard, as long as they didn’t do it out in the open.

“Oh no, please don’t do that…”

“Hey, esperpento, let her go, you ugly goat!”

Sigh, to be woken to the charming sounds of a circus at dawn… To most people in love with their work, retirement spelt loneliness and boredom ….For me, I had my very own freak show.

“All right, what is it…don’t you people ever sleep?” I made my way to my desk with my pajamas around my knees and the musty smell of morning clouding my mouth.

“Oh, no, sir, its nothing really…”

Katrina was trying to extricate herself from Jack’s steel-wire grasp around her delicate wrist. The bells on Jacks’ three-pointed hat jangled as he …what exactly was he trying to do? Eduardo had grabbed hold of the seat of Jack’s tights and was yanking for all he was worth.

“This ugly goat tried to kiss her!” he bellowed.

Alright. That is it. Jack had overcome his shyness and had finally made a pass at Katrina. Ever since he had laid eyes on her he had watched her from the shadows; his slit eyes had followed her like a hawk, watching her every move, scaring her out of her wits, tempting me to lock him up separately every night.

I grabbed one of the three prongs that made his silly clown hat between my forefinger and thumb and lifted his struggling form off the desk. I slammed him against the soft board on the wall and jabbed a pin through his stomach, pinning his flailing, lanky form to the board.

“Let me go, I tell you…”

“Leave her ALONE,” I shook my finger at him.

I wonder how my gigantic, bespectacled face must have looked to him. My bristly beard could swallow any of them if they fell in.

“Let me go!” The pin was tearing at his costume as he struggled. The stuffing was beginning to spill out of his abdomen, which I would eventually have to repair.

“You made me like this!” he screeched.

He suddenly gave up his struggle and hung silently from the pin that impaled him. The bell from his hat hung over his head and hid his long face. I had made his face with two expressions in mind: a grin and a frown. He had been a court jester and he was made to hang around in the shadows and be creepy, besides some acrobatics his steel-wire frame allowed. But whatever face he pulled, he couldn’t help the wickedness surfacing.

“Oh sir, is he hurt?” asked Katrina.

Dearest, darling Katrina. Worried about the idiot who had just tried to take advantage of her.

“Don’t you worry my dear. I’ll take care of that.” I picked her up gently by the waist and laid her on the roof of the cupboard. She leaned over the edge, peeping curiously in the direction of Jack’s motionless form.

“He’ll be fine; give him time,” I shrugged. She nodded, still worried.

“Ey, Papaíto, did you see how I kicked that animalucho’s ass?”

“Yes I did, Eduardo, I did,” I picked him up by the seat of his pants and put him back into the cupboard.

“I really gave him good beating, eh?”

“Yes, yes,” I mumbled absently, “Good beating, yes….”

I shut the door in his eager, grinning face.

Poor Eduardo. Cuckolded by his flamenco dancer wife, he was grateful that I took him with me before the humiliation recurred and became more than he could bear. Eduardo had been a bullfighter before he found out his wife was up to more than dancing. As a result of his frequently bruised ego, he was trying desperately to hang on to the remnants of his glorious past by keeping a protective eye on Katrina, since there weren’t any other women around to impress. When I left the studio, he came with me. Better a man leaves a woman than the other way round, he had said.

Jack.
I lifted his limp form and gently extricated the pin.

“You..mhh…ff…” he was mumbling something between his thin lips and I couldn’t make out what. I had considered counselling him, but then conversation with Jack would make anybody’s gorge rise after a while.

I put the stuffing back with a pair of tweezers and began to sew over the ripped fabric on his front.

It was true that the moment you created something, some fraction of your hate or love went into it. Mara had left me; the studio treated me like a piece of crap; my diabetes was driving me nuts. Everything important to me seemed to be crumbling. Jack was a sad result of a whole lot of negative things. I mean, he looked bad and he smelt bad. When you heard him speak, his raspy, scaly voice would make your skin crawl; when he opened his mouth you would be assaulted by his fetid breath. And when he looked at you through his yellow slit eyes, you could feel a chill run down your spine. He seemed evil, but only potentially so. I had experienced nothing I could actually complain about; though I knew that of everything in his tiny world Jack hated one thing the most-- I, his creator. Sometimes I imagined him killing me while I slept, jabbing a pin through my jugular. I was the reason he was so damned ugly. Even when he smiled, he was ugly. It was my fault everyone loathed the sight of him. I thought of putting him out of his misery. I’m still thinking about it.

There was just one person who was still polite to him, Katrina. But then, Katrina began as a drawing by my nephew’s five-year old hand. She was an unspoiled product of innocence; there wasn’t a bad molecule in her frail little form. She was the only one of the lot who was the whole package, beautiful inside and out, and that’s why they were all drawn to her like flies to honey.

Jack had finally begun to relax in my grasp. The sly, slimy side of him began to surface again.

“You know, Papaíto, you growing old,” he began.

I didn’t reply. Despite everything, Jack was smart. Before you knew it he had you caught in his web of words, and what seemed like hard cold facts were cleverly concocted lies…Or at least…I think so.

“You always wanted to be free; you got your wish,” he continued.

I turned him over and began to work on the hole on his back. He hung limp from my hands, his mouth still working.

“The senorita, she left you. Who’s to blame? You didn’t want her anyway. She was a pain. Always crying for you to be with her all the time…hysterical when you left for work …hanging on to you like that…”

I kept my hands steady on the stitches; the mending was leaving a ripple on the silk of his costume. The stitches would disappear over time.

“She wouldn’t understand why you spent so much time in here, talking to yourself. Making the silly dolls, she didn’t understand…she couldn’t see the magic, she was blind to it….”

The silk was beginning to fray so I had to patch it over with another colour. Why not... it would give him a worn look. I was beginning to like old things.

“But you miss her, no, Papaíto? You miss the coffee every morning, you miss her voice…. the smell of her hair…but she left you…..she said she was better off alone….but she is not alone. And you are…aren’t you? She’s with that one you hate so much, and he makes her happy…..even now, after thirty years…”

My hands were beginning to shake; I needed some sugar.

“Women. They drive you crazy with their whining and their ‘be with me now..I want this I want that….you forgot my birthday..wee wee…’ in the end they go to where the grass is greener and the pockets are heavier…silly, complaining, superficial…”

Done. I turned him around.

“…bitches,” he finished in my face. I gagged at the gust of yellow tinged, foul smelling air that emanated from his mouth. He noticed and his grin spread all the wider over his elongated face and the apples of his cheeks stood out like shiny red balls. His teeth were even, like rows of gravestones.

“What will everyone do when you’re gone, eh?” he whispered, his eyes narrowing, “The muñeca, the ugly baby, that mad one you keep locked up in the safe, that bullfighter who lost his balls over his woman, just like you did…so long ago?”

I opened my drawer and threw him in with the rest of the junk I hadn’t sorted for years.
Jack was an eight-inch, wire frame, malice-packed demon from my past. I didn’t think all that hate and pain could form a little moving, talking tumour like that. I couldn’t even kill him. I could never kill anything that seemed a part of me, no matter how rotten it was. Just when you think you’ve left the past behind, you feel it leaking through the edges of your consciousness.
Well, Jack embodied the leaking that burned little holes in my heart.

I wondered, as I often have wondered, if our lives could be turned around, would they still be so full of regret….If I hadn’t done this, or had done that…if I had had more patience…if I’d chosen this over that…if….if……..If.

“Gerald?”

I heard Big Baby’s voice followed by a faint knocking from the inside of the cupboard.I walked over and opened the door.

At first glance Big Baby always looked like a miniature sumo wrestler. He had the gelatinous rolls of fat that jiggled with the slightest movement and sagged repulsively all over him. His bald head was small and seemed to have little to do with the rest of him, and his singsong voice combined with all of that didn’t seem to let him fit into any role in particular. He could barely carry his own weight, so he never moved. He had lain forgotten in a corner with the old models before I found him. I think he had been a fat woman opera singer before someone decided to give him a sex change and gave up halfway, so he was sort of stuck in between.

“You know, Gerald, we discussed our situation last night,” he began melodiously.

“Yes, we did,” said Katrina, nodding emphatically from the top of the cupboard.

“We thought a lot, Papaíto,” said Eduardo.

“Ahem, we…we…” ventured Big Baby.

I sighed and crossed my elbows. Clearly they would take some time to articulate.

“We have discussed this many times, over many time,” said Eduardo.

“Yes, and we were wondering what would happen to us when…whenwhenwhen…”

“When you’re gone, Papaíto,” said Eduardo.

“We want to know what you intend to do with us…under the circumstance of …of..of..”

"Muerte. If you die, you know,” Eduardo shrugged.

It hadn’t occurred to me that the thought of my impending death was a source of concern for my little companions. I didn’t think they thought that far into the future. I didn’t even think the word ‘future’ existed in their vocabulary.

“We really don’t want to lie here, like in the studio,” Big Baby shuddered at some faint memory of the place, and his blubber shuddered with him.

“We want to know if other people like you will care for us, like you do,” said Katrina from her perch.

“We are nothing, nobody will want us. So we thought we could do one thing,” said Big Baby.

“We thought we could go with you,” said Eduardo.

“Go with me where?” I asked.

“You know, to God, like in the Bible,” said Eduardo.

“To heaven,” said Katrina.

I let out a long breath.

“We do not think we would be accepted by this world, Gerald,” said Big Baby.

“We are ugly and useless, Papaíto. We have no battery. Nobody can hear us without battery.”

“Except you, you who made us.”

I heard Jack scraping through a crack in the drawer. His one arm had already crept through and he was pushing his way out.

“Yes!! He made us into the freaks we are! Tell us what you are you going to do with us Gerald?”Oh I don’t know, burn you in the rubbish pile where you belong.

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another into dishonour…” A droning combined with a rattling sound interrupted us and I looked towards Jack.

Who let out the preacher?

“I let him out,” said Jack smugly, crossing his legs and sitting at the edge of my desk. Jack, you clever debris of my every putrid thought.

“…Endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction…”

I turned to the rest and said, “Listen, people. You are NOT ugly. Nobody in this world is ugly. You’re just…unconventional, that is all. Unique..…”

“…And that he might make his own riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory…”

“Where is he?” I looked for the voice under the darkness of my desk and snatched up the rattling form of the mad preacher.

“Back where you belong,” I said.

His black habit was now gray and torn and hung in rags. His matted hair was overgrown and his mad eyes stared between the dark locks. He had been made with one of those placard-holding tramps in mind that preached doomsday, but his personality had intensified, into something else altogether. With a bit of foresight I had installed a key at his back that turned him off, because his incessant droning eventually crept in through the cracks of your consciousness until you felt yourself doubting your own sanity. What I never realized was that it sent him into a catatonic state and the pressure of words just built up inside him. So when I turn him on again the next time, there was an explosion of words, words, words; joined up together and making little sense.
I put him in a metal safe after that to cool him off, until Jack had let him out.

“You are not the Creator, you dare think you could match the glory of the Creator of all things in this universe!” the preacher pointed a shaking, accusing finger at me. “You will burn for your sins, you the Pretender! You who thinks of himself greater than God!”

“What does he mean?” asked Katrina from her perch.

“Harken O brethren! Your suffering will end with the destruction of this sinful planet! Blessed are the meek…”

“Blessed are the freaks!” screeched Jack.

“Your suffering will end when you embrace the Lord!” he screamed before I slammed the door of the safe in his accusing face.

“What did he mean, sir?” asked Katrina.

“He meant our suffering will end when we die,” said Jack.

“Shut up, Jack I’ve had enough of you,” said I, “Nobody’s going to die.”

Funny religion, Christianity. Telling us to mess ourselves up over some prize waiting at the other end while the one life we have finishes up waiting for it. What if there was just this one time we spent here on earth, and nothing after? What if we were just puppets at the end of a string, not being able change anything about ourselves, believing all the time that we could?

I killed Jack that very night. I thought I did, at least. Until I realized he was creeping back into my head. Every little screw-up bobbed back to the surface in my memory and I could feel the same rage that consumed my past creeping back, burning my heart, burning my lungs and making it difficult to breathe. How I hated myself. How little I mattered alone in this world. And I had given up the one person who didn’t treat me with the casual indifference that the rest did. What a fool I was to think that I had mattered all this time, now that I had nothing.

“Papaíto, you awake?”

“He’s sleeping, don’t wake him.”

“Where’s Jack?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Esperpento. Good riddance.”

“What do we do, I’m bored.”

“We wait for Papaíto to wake up.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“I don’t know. May be he go to Catatonia, like mad preacher guy.”

*****

-rhea daniel
darkness_box{at}yahoo{dot}com

The Buddha's Hand - Jack Galmitz

2005-04-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Ryder looked out his back window and saw a stranger in the vegetable field. A woman - and to judge by her appearance, one of the residents of the adult home. She was heavy-set and about fifty and she was in a state of ecstasy. Initially, he thought that she was a foreigner and the flowers of the melons were for a recipe. She had a handful of the yellow trumpets of the
pumpkins- to- be in one of her hands and was rummaging through the vines for more. He thought of shouting out and frightening her away when she continued to tear away one flower after another from the thickened stems, but the words caught in his throat. He just wasn't sure.

The woman kept looking around to see if anyone saw her as she pushed her way up the incline to the railroad tracks. The sky was darkening and in the distance there was a lightning bolt that landed somewhere in the far hills. Maybe, she'll be struck by lightning, Jonathan thought. Then, the woman suddenly began to walk triumphantly along the narrow road the farmers had built for entering and leaving the field and in an instant disappeared out of his sight with flowers in her hand.

Jonathan surveyed the field, counting the remaining melon flowers as if they were stars in a personal account. Enough remained and the dark green leaves that had begun to brown were ignited by their presence. He wondered what the woman would do with the flowers. His wife had once collected dogwood blossoms that the rain had knocked from the trees, then cleaned them, dipped them in flour, and fried them. He remembered the pleasant taste and the even more pleasant surprise at finding such use for fallen flowers. Perhaps, the woman knows old country recipes that call for pumpkin flowers. She looked as if she had come upon quite a catch , he thought.

The rain had begun to fall heavily and he went to the porch to see if any of the cats were outside. He counted four; two were missing. He called out their names, but none responded. He gave up and sat down at the desk looking out on the porch and watched the rain. The drumming on the aluminum awning concentrated his thoughts. The rain was sweeping out the year's dying. It came in gusts and Jonathan watched as it unfailingly found the weakest leaf
stems and pulled the red leaves off the branches. The trees were already half emptied and the rain soaked the boles black.

Jonathan bent over and pulled open the desk drawer that contained his writing materials. He took out a small notebook and his pen and opened to a fresh page. He thought about how to phrase what he had experienced and began to speak the words silently, listening to the play of sounds as he replaced one word with another. When he achieved the relationships he was searching for he tried it aloud. Then one more time. Then he wrote it down in his notebook.

A lightning flash
Catching a thief
In the melon patch

He smiled. He would send it out with his next batch of haiku to one of the publications he subscribed to. It was good. He looked around to see if the two missing cats had returned, but they hadn't. He began to worry. He got up and went to the porch door and called out: Mim, NuNu, where are you? Come home! When the cats didn't respond he tried again. Then again. Then he stepped out onto the slick wooden deck and began to search.

The rain soaked his face immediately and its coldness was painful. He looked over the cats' favorite hiding places, but they were not there. His shirt was beginning to drench through and he lifted the wet covers his wife used to protect the old furniture that she put out on the porch. Looking up at him from the shelf of a bookcase were the eyes of a gray and white kitten. It was NuNu.

"What are you doing?", he asked her. " Are you crazy?" She was four months old and he picked her up and carried her into the living room and shut the porch door behind him. That left Mim.

Mim had gotten lost before when he fell from the coping of the roof and three stories down. Jonathan was worried. He went out and began searching the stairwells of the building, guessing the cat might have snuck out when his wife had opened the door to go shopping. He went down the three flights of stairs calling Mim as he went. At the bottom of the stairwell, he looked under the stairs and into the boxes stored there, as Mim had hidden there once before. The cat was not there. He went to the first floor and looked from door to door, hoping the cat had got confused and was waiting outside of the wrong apartment. When he reached the far end of the hallway, he began climbing the stairwell on the South Eastern end of the building, calling out for Mim as he climbed. But, no luck.

At the top floor, he opened the door to the roof to see if the cat had climbed through the broken windows and got out. He peered around the air vents and went to the elevator room. The cat wasn't there. From the roof, he looked down at his own overhang, but couldn't find him. He looked down at the vegetable field and called out the cat's name, but nothing stirred. The sky
had cleared, but night was drawing on and in the deepening blue it would be hard to find anything.

He went downstairs to find his wife, Lu Shi, arranging cans of cat food in the battered closet they used for storage. "I can't find Mim", he told her. "I think he's fallen again." "Did you look outside?" she asked.
"No. I didn't want to get any wetter than I already am. I looked through
the building."

Lu put down what she was doing and began to look through the house calling Mim, Mimi, in a high piercing tone. She opened one closet door after another. She looked on chairs that were pushed under tables. She went out on the porch and called and called. "I'm going outside to look," she said.

From three flights up and in the parking lot he could hear his wife's voice penetrating all of the places a cat might hide: through the fence of the collision shop, under cars, in the brambles beginning to thin, in the waste places of the field behind the clusters of drying morning glories that bordered the vegetable field. For a while he didn't hear her and then he heard her
again from higher up. He leaned out from the coping and she was beside the railroad tracks calling out the cat's name. "Come home, Lu," shouted Jonathan," He'll show up eventually. Come on, it's getting dark. I don't want you out there."

She paid him no heed but climbed down through a fence into the thickest part of the brambles to look for Mim. He watched her as she forced back wiry branches and nearly lost her footing in the uneven earth. He couldn't stand to be idle while she worked so hard, so he went out again and retraced the steps he had taken earlier to see if he had missed something. Nothing turned up. He went outside to bring his wife back.

Lights were beginning to go on in the parking lot and on the street. Lights were already turned on in the building and in the buildings across the road. Jonathan walked to the back of the building and looked through the links of the fence into the vegetable patch to see if the cat was hiding there. He went the length of the fence but found nothing. He called out his wife's name and she returned the call. "Anything?" he shouted. "Nothing," was the reply.

Lu appeared at the far end of the field and walked through it looking dejected. When she reached Jonathan she took his arm and they went together into the building.

It was late and they decided they would find him the next day. In the living room, Jonathan lit incense before the Buddhist altar and prayed for the recovery of the cat. His wife joined in for the prayer. They prostrated three times and beseeched the Buddha to locate Mim and bring him home to them. Then they went to sleep.

The next morning was Sunday and they slept in a little later than usual. Mim was the one who usually woke them for breakfast and without his weight on them they slept soundly. Jonathan got up first as was customary and went to feed the cats. They came without quite the usual frenzy and Jonathan mixed the meat in the cans with the rice set aside for this purpose. He fed them one by one: Ami, NuNu, Shamim, Yang. Then, he had to switch to dry food for Snow. He put out fresh water, watched for a moment, then began to make his coffee.

Throughout the course of the day, Jonathan and Lu took turns looking for Mim. There was just no sign of him. By the time evening came again, each of them must have searched a dozen times. By the time Tuesday came around, they hadn't given up hope, but they weren't as enthusiastic in their search, either. Each one had begun to blame the other. "You always open the door without watching," Jonathan accused. "You're always involved in yourself and
don't keep your eye on the cats," accused Lu.

Then, on Tuesday night Jonathan looked at the thangka of Shakyamuni Buddha that hung on the wall and it gave him an idea. He thought, 'If everything is a Buddha field, then in the field of the thangka will be the location of Mim. And, as my ordinary mind is the Buddha and the mind is everything, then the Buddha will point out to me where to find Mim.' Jonathan felt this reverently and stood before the image of the Buddha seated on a throne with his right hand in the Bhumisparsa mudra, the gesture whereby the Buddha invoked the earth to witness his enlightenment.

'Buddha, where is Mim? Where is Mim, Buddha? Please, help me find Mim.'

Jonathan emptied his mind. He looked at the quadrants of the thangka. He was drawn to the Buddha's right hand, to the place where the fingers pointed to the earth to bear witness to his truth. He turned away from the image and then turned back to see if the same response held true a second time. His eyes were cast onto the same small space just below the Buddha's fingers. That's it, he thought. Now where in relationship to the building is that spot? It's the
base of the building. In the lower corner.

Jonathan ran down the stairs, Lu yelling after him. He ran through the parking lot and then he heard a sound. It was a crying, a loud crying, and it was coming from around the bend of the building. Jonathan reached the corner of the building in the back and under a window, hidden in a rose bush, was Mim. The cat was frightened and crying and uncertain when Jonathan approached. "Mim. It's me," Jonathan said as softly as he could. Mim moved a fraction towards him and then Jonathan knew it was alright to reach out to touch him.

As he picked up Mim to take him inside, he looked out at the darkness of the vegetable field. In the moonlight, two raccoons walked through the stubble of tanned stems and roots across the field. They moved strangely and laboriously. And they were huge. One appeared to weigh forty pounds. They ambled along as if no one was in sight and Jonathan felt fear. He held Mim tightly. If he hadn't found Mim, would they have attacked him? They had such large, sharp
claws and teeth. And they were known to carry rabies. He quickly surrounded Mim with his arms and carried him upstairs.

Lu was ecstatic when she saw them. She fed Mim and leaned over to watch him eat. The other cats came over slowly, to smell him, to satisfy themselves that he was one of them. In the night, from the shed of the collision shop, they heard a fearful sound, as if wild animals were fighting for their lives.

- Jack Galmitz

GALMI7[at]aol[dot]com

Privately yours - Santwana Chatterjee

2005-04-11T06:04:00.000-07:00

Mr Barat attributed a host of qualities to himself.He thought he was a perfect gentleman- which perhaps he really was; he prided himself for being an excellent judge of human nature , which did not always prove to be right and that he considered himself to have been endowed with an enormous masculine appeal,according to his female colleagues, was the biggest joke on earth.

Mr B N Barat was the Senior Manager of Mackilsons & Magor, originally owned by the British but now looked after by the State and as was the case with most state owned companies it was on the brink of being declared a "sick unit", producing spare parts.

Mr Barat was staring at a leave application that was lying on his desk with apparent distaste. `That lady wants a leave again. What nonsense, leave cannot be sanctioned, not so frequently`.Mr Barat pressed the bell. "Send Ms Sonali in", he howled.

The woman who drifted in looked more like a faded and dehydrated leaf. She had wrapped herself with the 'pallu' of her saree. It was end December and very cold, but as always she was without shawl. How such a frail woman could withstand such cold was a wonder. Mr Barat involuntarily shuddered under his warm tweed coat.

The saree she had borrowed from her second sister-in-law was quite heavy and protected her somewhat from the cold wind of December. Most days she had to borrow sarees from her sisters-in-law (there were three of them) and she was very considerate and careful in selecting the ones that were kept for the laundry and she limited her demands to the bare essentials,foregoing the 'luxury' of warm clothes, much to the relief of her sisters-in-law.

Her daughter's forehead was burning with fever when she had left home for office today. Chinki was only eight years old. Sonali had given her a tablet commonly prescribed for fever and promised, she would return early and take her to the doctor's. She had also promised to take a few days leave from office to be with her child.

Mr Barat did not try to hide his displeasure.

"Ms Roy, you take leave too often for our company's good.Please don't take it otherwise, but don't you agree that ladies should best be looking after their home and children rather than take up positions at offices,thereby displacing some good male candidates, the bread earners of a family? The office needs working hands and not vacant seats.I am sorry I can't grant you any more leave.Please try to understand."

Sonali came back to her seat resigned to her fate. She knew what she would do. She would simply not come to office for the next three days. Not because she had promised her daughter but because she simply couldn't leave an ailing child all alone. `It's very easy to say that a woman should not join office and remain just a housewife,but how could housewives like Sonali, fend for themselves and their children if not by working in an office?

'Bread earner' indeed`, thought Sonali. `So what was she doing;play acting?`

Deeply disturbed Sonali went back to her work. She simply had to finish the pending stuff. She took the petty cash payment ledger and made the entries mechanically with a frown on her small forehead.`These part time sweepers, they are a nuisance`, Sonali mused.`Always after money, putting fictitious bills for cleaning, carrying garbage.` Sonali could distinctly remember there was no garbage on the compound last Monday as the office closed in the morning following the news that Mr Samanta, their Accountant had expired in a road accident. Still Ramdeen had placed a bill for cleaning garbage from the compound on Tuesday.There were a few more bills to be entered in the register,a few vouchers to be made and she thought of sending the register alongwith the vouchers to Mr Avik Sengupta,the Assistant Manager. On second thoughts she herself went to his chamber.She had to get them signed that day itself.

Mr Sengupta was having the usual after lunch long and leisurely chat with Mrs Depali Sinha, a
catchy young lady with a reputation for leaving a string of broken hearts behind her beautiful frame.

Mr Sengupta gave her a wan smile- "Please Sonali why don't you leave them on my table. Err.. I am rather busy?"

Sonali looked at the dump of files, registers and papers on his table waiting to be attended to. "I won't take much of your time. I am sorry Sir, but these must be signed urgently. I can wait..."

Mr Sengupta gave a hurried and cursory glance through the papers and counter signed them. Relieved, Sonali sent the vouchers for payment.

The next two days were a nightmare for her.Chinki's temperature rose beyond normal limits and the child shivered and started talking in delirium.Sonali bathed her daughter repeatedly. She was constantly by her side, bathing her, watching her with anxious eyes,caressing ,feeding whatever little liquid she could consume, and taking temperature measurements at intervals. None of
her in-laws were by her side with a helping hand, as usual, but neither did they disturb her or call her for any household chores; for which Sonali felt immensely grateful.

In her delirium the child cried for her father which made the hapless mother more distraught. Three year ago, Kabir, her husband, simply vanished from their world. He was a draftsman in a
newspaper house. One day he did not reach home. Some of his colleagues said that they saw him near the Howrah station and some of them had even asked him where he was going to which they did not get any straight answer.At first Sonali thought that Kabir must have gone to Bandel, where her elder sister-in-law lived. But a few telephone calls later she was again at her wits end.
Kabir had not been at any place they knew of. For one whole year Sonali waited for him in vain. She still nurtured a faint hope in a corner of her heart that some day Kabir would return.

On Monday Sonali reached office quite early and did not panic when Mr Barat called for her. She decided to show her boss the doctor's prescription as evidence,and so first thing on entering his room she started putting the papers on his table.

Mr Barat brushed them aside saying "No need, no need." and asked her to take a seat which
was rather unusual. Sonali sat on the edge of the chair with a palpitating heart; surely she will not be dismissed for taking unauthorized leave?!

"Sonali, the office owes an explanation from you." He put out a hand to restrain Sonali, who was about to speak. "You have made a grievous mistake in the payment register.Because of you, a sum of Rs.1000/- has been paid in excess to the electricians who placed a bill for Rs.3999/- + Rs.202/- and you have put the total as Rs.5201/- instead of Rs.4201/- and the bill has been duly paid . Sonali take my word for it, if you can't make the electrician deposit the excess amount to the office cashier by tomorrow, I would be constrained to issue a show cause letter to you."

"Sir please, let me explain. Sir I was really very worried about my daughter's health. Sir I am giving you back the money- now, right now. Sir please don't take such an action." said a helpless Sonali.

"Why should 'you' return the money; you have not taken it yourself, nor did you do it 'deliberately'." said Mr. Barat.

Was there a sarcasm hidden behind those words? Sonali could not gauge.

Mr Sengupta spoke in her defense."Sir I can vouch for her, she won't do any such thing. It was just a clerical mistake."

"Well, a costly mistake Mr Sengupta, and the office cannot overlook such carelessness."

Mr. Barat was, after all, not an unkind man but he had a set of fixed outlooks on life. First among them was that women should not be seen in the workplace. Their ideal work arena, according to him, should be confined to their kitchens and if need be they can work in educational institutions at the most.

May be he thought that men being 'men' could take certain liberties, like flirting away their valuable office time inside office premises with their junior colleagues and could even afford to commit mistakes such as the present one by Mr Sengupta who was careless while countersigning important bills and vouchers for payment , but the blame should squarely be put on the weaker shoulders.

Mr Barat did not really intend to take any serious action on the incident if the money was returned safely but he wanted to teach Sonali a lesson. That it is a serious world, this workplace, that proper attention and care should be taken while performing office duty and that she should not have had the audacity to defy his order by staying at home freaking away time that was meant for office work. Men also have families but they cannot afford to neglect office for family.So should be the case with working women. If they cannot take such a stance, they have, according to him, no right to be in this place in the first place.

Sonali by nature was a introvert and fighting continuously with adversities in life had made her doubly so. She never made her private life be known to others and she could hardly recall the last time she shed any tears. But this was a situation where tears were very much needed. Mr Barat, the ultimate word in manliness, always melted before a weeping female. It would suit his male ego in the right place and in the right degree. But this was not the stage, so glycerin won't do.

So Sonali decided that she must do what she had never done before; she must pour out her life's misery before this man. 'Pity',the word that she hated most, was her only resort, for she couldn't afford to lose the job. She couldn't take any chances either for her job had not yet been confirmed.

Mr Barat listened to Sonali's typical tragic life history with a peculiar gleam in his eyes. It seemed to Sonali as if he was mentally licking her wounds and the feeling of suffocation and drowning came back to her.

She stopped midways and hated Kabir like never before for leading her to this unenviable situation,where she was showcasing herself as the wronged woman, abandoned by her husband, neglected and ill-treated by the world in general, just to arouse pity in strangers,to get a 'favour' she actually deserved.

'Why is it that when husbands leave their wives, they take away their dignity with them?'

-
Mrs Santwana Chatterjee

A166 Lake Gardens
Kolkata 700045
Ph: 2422-3170

santwana_c[at]yahoo[dot]com

Vibe: forthcoming special issue

2005-04-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

we at vibe plan to come out with a "best of vibe" downloadable pdf - a collection of vibe articles,poems and stories as selected by you, our readers- with added graphics and articles.

Please help us in selecting THE BEST by putting in your comments on which
articles,stories etc. from previous issues you would like included in this special pdf issue.

You have this whole week to savour the Vibe experience in a flashback and voice your choice.
We also hope to include your comments on the magazine.

Do write in at vibeindia[at]yahoo[dot]com

Thanks a lot for being with us.

A Promise Kept -sumandatta

2005-03-29T00:29:00.000-08:00

His bleary eyes slowly panned over the faces in the room. His parents were there, his sister and brother-in-law, a few colleagues from his office and a motley crowd of neighbours and well-wishers;all except her. He sighed and closed his eyes. There was time yet.

**********

"Why do you always insist on complicating things?", she shouted. She was visibly upset, her lips quivering, fair cheeks flushed red with anguish and pain; but he wasn't about to let her go - yet.

"I am not complicating things, you are! All I am asking is for you to be with me this evening. And even that's not something out of the blue- you yourself made me a promise yesterday", he retorted.

"Yeah, but I `have` to visit Larry today! Now I am getting late, he must be waiting. We'll talk another day." She picked up her handbag and made to leave.

He blocked her way."You are not going anywhere! Don't you have the slightest remorse at having broken all the promises that you made me day in day out? You call me up and fix a date for a Sunday evening and then go out with another guy with just a "Sorry.I have to"! Another day you promise to help me shop for my shoes and go off shopping for your stupid hostel mate's dress instead. And that day we plan for a movie together and you are held up with some work so that we cancel our plans and then that very night you go with your co-workers for the movie! I mean I can understand this once...twice, but not every damn time! What else am I supposed to understand but that you absolutely do not care for me?!"

"Understand what you will. I am sorry if broken promises are all you remember and choose to forget the rest. Anyways I have to go now." Her face was devoid of emotion. Unable to bear the onslaught she had withdrawn into her shell. And then all of a sudden she broke out of it to make a final plea. "Why don't you understand? Larry's suddenly taken ill. I have to visit him today."

He wouldn't budge. "Ill is he? So now I have to fall sick to have you with me is it? What do I do? Jump from this balcony and break a leg? Will you be with me then? Or do I crack my head against this wall? Would you come to visit me at the hospital then?"

"No.Never for you.I promise", she said with a final sigh. "I only visit people who are close to me." And she hastened off into the darkness.

"Fine then", he shouted after her. "If you are so eager to throw away a three year old relationship. Go to hell with your "loved" ones!"

*************

He opened his eyes once again.Darkness. And then he could make out the blurry faces. Hers wasn't one of them. It couldn't possibly be that she didn't know; they still had common friends and word of his accident must have reached her. Yet...

He closed his eyes again. More than two years had passed since that fateful night. "It's strange",he thought, seconds before his weak self finally gave in."Of all the promises she made me, she never kept a single one. Except...this. Of all her promises she had to keep this!"

She never came to visit him.

********

-sumandatta

The smile and the conscience - Arundhoti Banerjee

2005-03-14T00:18:00.000-08:00

Someone named Rima called me up last Thursday, whilst I was madly trying my hands at C++ and MPI and those loops and brackets in the code was getting me claustrophobic. With all phone etiquette forgotten, I gruntled my displeasure at my privacy in office and my concentration at work being violated. I shouldn't have taken that unsolicited call at all. On second thoughts, it could be my despondent subconscious self that knew the need of carrying myself with sobriety in office, even under conditions of growing despondency at my ineptness to produce a petty piece of code. The poor female on the other end provided the much needed vent to my fretting self.

Though guilty she was at having caused me trouble, her reluctance to hang up told me of the urgency of the call and got me a little softer. I had two minutes to spare. She cited some vague connections( a friend of some consultant who had supposedly helped me a couple of years ago and whose name I couldn't recollect) and stated the purpose. She was on the lookout for a job which brought her to my city and my organization, where she had appeared for a written test a couple of days back. The test takers were promised intimation in a few days if they made it.
She was putting up in a hotel waiting for the test results.That told me about her paucity of acquaintances in this place and I could imagine the kindling of a faint hope when she had tracked my number down. The favour she wanted of me was an enquiry at the HR Department as to the procedures and if possible the results. She promised me a call in another hour and I promised her the favour.

I dived deep into my code and comfortably forgot all about the call and the caller. It was only when the phone beeped after an hour and the screen flashed the same booth number that I recollected the deed I had to do. I cancelled the call( I always guard my laziness or sheer callousness with the excuse of being in a meeting) and rushed to the HR Department. After a hasty enquiry I was informed that the person who could tell me the things was at some genuine meeting. Now I took the call that came again, and with that meeting thing as the prelude( that made her feel guilty yet one more time) I quickly modified the requisite information as the concerned person being on leave for a day. I could hear her disheartened, but grateful at the same time for having granted her the favour. I felt a pang of guilt for a minute, but that was the only way to avoid being called again.

That didn't work though. She called up again the next day because she had this natural expectation that I would have the information when the leave duration was over. And the fact that it wasn't unjustified in the least, pricked my conscience one more time. With all that messy work left at my workstation and grudging this favour trap I had fallen into, I returned to the HR Department and collected the information this time. I told her that she would get to know the results in a couple of days' time and that the Department wouldn't divulge the results to anyone but the test takers. At hearing this she faintly mentioned the difficulties at her lodging and how two more days would add to her discomfort but the disinterest in my tone caught her in the middle and she stopped, thanking me again before she hung up.

Weekend saw me very deliberately missing her calls uncountable number of times, cursing her all the time for the annoyance she caused in the middle of my coffee-day conversation with my friends or more importantly my mid-day naps. Once I had almost picked it up while watching television, but my cunning self got the better of me just in time. I told myself repeatedly that I was a busy person and I had already done the most I could have. But then, something kept pricking my conscience repeatedly too.

Monday morning, the receptionist at my office reckoned while I was immersed in work. I walked there and found a dark-complexioned, ill-dressed and excessively lean female, greeting me with a smile that flashed eager anticipation. She introduced herself as Rima. I had no idea that she was so middle-class. I was wrong. Middle-class was an overstatement. The cheap salwar-suit, the unkempt hair, the almost-torn chappals, all of them talked about her plight with money.
I could imagine all the unstated discomfort in a second.

She was still smiling and I quickly cooked up my excuse for not having picked her calls. I was out of station with my cell switched on and left back here, that informed me only today morning when I returned, of all the calls I had missed. And I was so sorry that I missed them. I couldn't tell how I felt at having cooked that one. Only that I couldn't have felt worse.

She continued. She had managed thousand bucks from home for the trip and add to that a small hoarded amount as pocket money for emergency. The hotel took away most of it and she could only afford 6-bucks per plate idlis for all her meals. Her smile never faded. I added to that all the phone calls she had made to me. I could feel my heart thumping and my stomach sinking into a pit. I felt like running away. I was still listening. She cursed herself for not having foreboded an extended stay over the weekend. She wanted the entire selection procedure to be over at one go. She couldn't have convinced her family for more money to come down to the city yet another time. Her stupidity, as she put it, got her into dire straits because she hadn't the amount to pay at the hotel for another two days. So she called me to ask me of another favour. If I could allow her to stay with me for those two days. But my being out of the city( she had innocently believed the story) was her ill-fate and she shifted to some cheaper place. By God's grace the amount was enough. I hated myself and smiled.

I couldn't help asking her about the results. She replied that she hadn't made it. She was finally going back to her village and she just came down all the way here to try her luck at finding me. Again it was by God's grace that she found me and she couldn't stop thanking me for being the sole point of contact in this unknown city. I vaguely smiled. She thanked me for all the help. I could feel tears and remembered sobriety in office. She waved me a bye and left, smiling. I stood there. I couldn't feel.

- arundhoti banerjee
(http://arundhoti.blogspot.com)

The Grandson - Suraj Kamath

2005-03-07T00:37:00.000-08:00

( The basic facts are that I'm 24, an engineer, likely to be unemployed within 3 months, only
marginally tolerant of authority, deemed by most to have fallen off the tightrope into the realm
of insanity sometime around 2001. I read like crazy, do some meditation, work out intermittently,
have an eclectic taste in music, and have been writing on and off the last few years.
That, I hope, will be enough for an introduction. :)
Homepage : http://surajkamath.blogspot.com
)

"Yes, your grandfather was a fine man, a fine man indeed." The old lady had a sweet voice and a face that crinkled in a hundred little lines around her eyes when she smiled, which was often. But she wasn’t my grandmother. She didn’t know that though. For her I was her very own grandson, a fine upstanding young man who came to see her every day. I had seen her today for the first time in my life.

"She's got Alzheimer's." The nurse told me before I went in. "She'll probably think you're her son, or her grandson. Just go along with it. Don’t upset her. She's really a very sweet lady."

"What about her real son and grandson?" I asked.

"Son's dead, Grandson will probably come back to claim her body when she's gone, if even that. She's completely alone. It’s a shame, really. She deserved better." She gave a resigned shrug of her shoulders and walked off.

I was there at the old age home because I was at the end of my rope myself. I figured maybe if I helped someone else for a while, I could forget about my own screwed up life. My aunt was the director of the home, and she was always telling me to come and help out. She never really expected that I would, but what the heck, miracles do happen.

Its strange that I would ever feel like this. Me, the iceman, the rock, the android, laid low by relationship trouble. Well, shit happens. Sometimes even a person like me, with supposedly no feelings, finds that he has some, and worse, that he's actually a romantic at heart. Its hard dealing with that at short notice. Especially when you begin to see that there are actually very few romantics left today. Makes you feel like you're on an endangered species list.

Well, my aunt is a very astute person, good at reading people and moods, and she sent me to this lady who thinks I'm her grandson. And all I'm supposed to do is listen to her and nod once in a while.

"You remember how your grandfather and I met?" the old lady asked. I shook my head. "Liar." She said leaning forward and caressing my face with both hands in what I assume is a very grandmotherly gesture. "I've told you so many times. Why don’t you just ask if you want to hear it again?" I smiled as she released my face and sat back in her chair next to the window. I dragged my chair closer and sat leaning forward, elbows on my knees and resting my chin on the back of my hands, so I could hear her better. I hoped that was a grandson-like pose. I wouldn’t really know, since I'd never really known any of my grandparents.

"We met when we were in college. He was one of the quiet studious fellows in the front rows no one ever remembers except at exam time. I was a nutcase who flirted with all the guys and drove the professors mad. I never gave him a second glance. He was reasonably good looking, but not in my league at all." She said this so matter-of-factly that in a strange way, my male ego was hurt. I guess I could've just as easily fit that description.

"One day, I was in this terrible fix with my assignments, and I was almost in tears in the library, trying to complete them all. He just came over, sat down and started drawing diagrams for me. He didn’t even introduce himself, or ask or anything. He just silently drew one after the other until they were all done, flashed me a broad smile, hefted his bag over his shoulder and left. I was so zapped I completely forgot to thank him.

I thought that he'd come and start talking to me after that, but he never did. We sometimes caught each others eye across the hall, but he'd just grin and look away. He never tried to come near me. I was highly irritated with him. I mean, there was this beautiful girl clearly inviting him to talk, at least for courtesy's sake, and this darned helpful goof just wouldn’t. I also felt obliged, and I wanted to say thanks and get it over with.

I finally caught him reading under a tree in the campus grounds. I sat down next to him, and got that goofy grin again. I waited for him to say something but the idiot just went back to his book. I wanted to say thank you. It came out 'Do you even know how to talk?' in the most irritated tone I possessed.

'Well, yes' he answered 'when the situation demands it.'

'Well, it demands it now. Why wont you talk to me?'

'Let's see... we've been in the same class for a while now. You never spoke to me either. I just thought you didn’t want to.'

'But that was when I thought you were a damn .. ' I caught myself in time. I always put my foot in my mouth, don’t I dear? Your grandfather always teased me about that." the old lady smiled showing all those cute little lines. I didn’t say anything, so she continued.

"Your grandfather smiled. 'A damn what?' he said 'Geek? I am, there's no denying that. Look, if you just want to say thank you and get it off your chest, do it and get going. If you want to talk to me, be prepared to hear about geeky stuff.'

'Like what?' I asked. 'What are you reading anyways?'

'Dostoyevsky. `The Idiot`.'

'Dust of what?'

'Dos-toy-yev-skee. Russian author. Very insightful.'

'What's it about?'

'About this very simple man who begins to love a woman who’s torn between her love for him and her intense desire to punish herself for a shame that is truly not her fault.'

'Eeeek!'

He smiled. "Too heavy?'

'Much too heavy. When you finish, tell me how it ends.'

'I can tell you now. I'm reading it the second time. It ends in tragedy. She's killed by a man who only wanted to possess her, and when he realised that he could never really own her he killed her. The man brings Myshkin, the simple idiot, to see her body, and his love and pity for both the woman and her murderer is so great that it drives him back into the madness that turned him into an idiot in the first place.'

'Typical. All love stories end in tragedy. This love shove thing is just a stupid joke.'

'I take it you don’t believe in love.'

'There's no such thing as love. You just get used to people. After a while, when you get used to a person enough, you think its not such a bad idea to say you're in love with him, that’s all'

he started laughing. 'that’s a novel thought. Are you used to anyone right now?'

'No' I said. 'I know too many people to get used to any one now. What about you?'

'I'm afraid I'm not a person people can get used to. They find it hard to get used to me.'

'why?' I asked.

'I'm not quite sure. Maybe because I read books like these. Maybe because I believe there is something called love, and there is a way to love someone so that you don’t get up every morning and think, heck, I'm just used to her being there next to me.'

'My god, you're a romantic' I teased.

He laughed. 'A geek and a romantic. Guess you're never going to get used to me either.'

I just kept laughing and he gave me this wistful, slightly sad smile. He went back to reading and I got up silently and went away. That was how your grandfather and I met."

The old lady was still smiling as a tear crept down her cheek. I wiped it away on impulse. She caught my hand and kissed it. "You look very different from him, more like my own father. But you have the same sort of heart. You were always such a loving child. I'm so glad you still come to see me."

"But how did you and grandpa get along after that?" I asked, fighting to keep the lump in my throat from showing in my voice. The iceman never shows emotion.

"Well, He used to sit there under that tree everyday after college, and I would go and sit there and talk to him. Slowly I got used to his smile, and his books and his thoughts and all his funny emotions. He made me laugh so much, I couldn’t help getting used to him."

"And he got used to you too?" I asked her.

"No. He fell in love with me. He always believed in love." She was crying freely now.

"I'm sorry" she said, as I took out my handkerchief. "Its just that I miss him so much these days. I never thought anyone could get so used to anyone else. Funny how this love-shove joke usually gets the last laugh."

"You need to rest now." I said "You've tired yourself out with so much talk." I helped her to the bed and tucked her in. I kissed her on the forehead and turned to leave.

"You know, you're just like your grandfather." She said sleepily. "The same kind of heart. Your father and mother weren't like that, but you got your grandfather's heart."

I turned and kissed her again. "Get some rest" I said. "I'll come and see you again soon."

I walked out into a cold winter evening, and I stood at the entrance of the home watching people walk past. I was trying hard not to let that lump in my throat get the better of me. It was strange. I had lived through a hard childhood, an abusive home, a death, and an ice age within myself. I had done things I was ashamed of, said words that need not have been said, hurt people who had never deserved to be hurt.

And yet, for this sweet old lady, I had inherited my grandfather's heart.

- Suraj Kamath

A Close Encounter - Vijay Ch.

2005-02-19T02:01:00.000-08:00

( Vijayender Ch, Vijay or simply Vj for short, is a B.Tech Work who has worked with Orient Longman Limited, The Times of India and Deloitte Consulting and presently working with Oracle. His interests include Books, Music, Traveling, Movies, Web Designing, Short-film making,Fellowship in Philosophy. He is at present working on a book .
Web Site: http://www.geocities.com/vjwpf2/home.html

)

Doubt is his default position in life. Conclusion looks a mission impossible to him. And when someone comes along and says, "Hey! you just missed an opportunity buddy!" he looks bewildered and wonders how the other person can be so certain that it was verily an opportunity. He's wholly destitute of the ability (if it can be considered so) to spot that precise moment when a potential opportunity becomes a certain one. This is commonly called dumbness. You need to have opinions and conclusions to achieve anything in this world; doubt won't do. To heck with it, nothing of that makes any sense to him. If one zooms out and pans across life, everything goes easy and everything looks equally important. Zooming in is fuss.

Anything beyond assumptions that yield to common-sense approach and anything more than the necessary practical confidence principle look vague and unnecessary to him.

If being a sceptic has invaluable rewards for the individual, it puts him in interesting spots in relation to the world; those moments when the world becomes a stage and he appears to have donned the role of Hamlet. When everyone is happy or sad depending on the result of the throw of a dice, he is still engrossed with the laws of probability. When everyone believes life can be compiled, it appears to him that it is strictly an interpreter-based program.

So, when this girl - who was a friend of a girl he knew for some time - called up and introduced herself in a most impressive manner, he sensed everything wasn't normal. There was an air of difference - that difference that any other guy would have spotted. Yet, he was not quite convinced. "Maybe it is just the way she is", he told himself and deftly calmed down. She is studying speech therapy. He studied engineering. She is still in college, he is just out of college and is working as the Editor in a reputed publishing firm.

Fifteen minutes into the discussion, she asked him out, for a treat. "Boy, this is it!" his friend yelled. But he was nowhere near such certainty. "What exactly does he mean by 'it'!? And how can he be so sure!?" he thought.

But life isn't that easy, damn it! He felt life had suddenly become a jet plane and was about to take off. Only, he wasn't sure. Is there really an it in it? Or, is it all just in the mind? Anything can happen; how can only it happen? He wished he could exchange his mind with his friend's and see what he really meant by it. But then, is it not better to be ready for any turn of events than expect only one? Why are people so obsessed with destinations? Why can't one just enjoy a free ride? His friend was beaming up with envy but he just managed to give a matter-of-fact '"Let's see" smile. Meanwhile, life was speeding ...

He readily agreed for the treat. "Where?" she asked. Yes, fixing a place is still there on the agenda. Contemplation - or its pretension - over, he said, "Pick'n'Move?" Done. He dwelled on the two words pick and move for some time, and left it there.

***

She would reach Pick'n'Move in twenty minutes. Take-off. No seat belt, nay, he doesn't have one, he is on a “Splendor”. Riding a “Splendor” at 70 or more is bliss. He loves speed. He loves the amazing control over the machine. He never had sex, but he feels it cannot be any more exciting than a ride or a drive. Statistics support, you see - a ride or a drive can last much longer than 'eleven minutes', the world average for the 'act'.

The act, yes - this is what holds the world together. This is the damned shit around which all the fucking vocabulary of love, relationships, family and society revolves. It's never about love, it's always about this. Take away this from relationships and all families in this world will crumble. Love is just the sacrificial utility that is butchered at the altar of the bedroom... or a car... or the park... or whatever. Love is just the path, the act is the destination. See, it's all about the destination. It's all a game of instincts; all else is simple balderdash. Some chemistry, more biology, and then mathematics - that's our life. Animals do it simple and straight. We just complicate it. The signal turned red. Stop. Freud said it all, why does he need to repeat again?

He looked aside. A guy and his girl, on his bike. With her hand firmly wrapped around his belly, her chin resting on his shoulder, she said, or whispered, or whatever, something in his ear. She giggled. He laughed. A typical programmed behavior. A for loop, that must have run a million times now for millions of guy-and-girl pairs across the world, across centuries. As it appears, and by convention, it is love. But what's the real story? What's on the guy's mind? What's on the girl's mind? Is this that it that his friend referred to?

He wondered what was on his friend's mind right now. But how does that matter? More important to know was what's on that girl's mind - the girl who would reach Pick'n'Move in another four or five minutes. Yellow turned to Green. Time to shift gears. The guy and his girl, with her chin still resting on his shoulder, went the other way.

He looked at the watch again. He is almost there, and well on time. Will she be there waiting? Ah! wishful thinking? May not be; maybe she really will be there waiting for him? Or, will she come late - as they say, like most girls do? Or, will she not come at all? Was she just playing a prank? Nothing mattered now, he was game for anything. If she comes, he will have a good time, and interesting at that. If she doesn't, he will have a good time anyway. He parked the bike, took off the dark glasses and looked around for the girl wearing red. No, she's not there. Not just yet. He went inside Pick'n'Move and checked the location. "Nice", he said to himself.

Confidence dwindled and doubt took over. Doubt about what? Sometimes, it's about nothing. It's just doubt. A mystical vagueness. He had been out with girls before and had had his times and moments. But this time, it just doesn't seem to fit in the scheme. The sheer blinding pace toppled him. He does fine at 100 on a bike or a car. Shifting gears and accelerating doesn't come easy for him in life.
He came out to check again, and the girl wearing red was just parking her two-wheeler, blue in color. Looked like Kinetic, but he couldn't make out from that distance. He took three steps forward and strained his eyes. Yes, Kinetic Honda. The girl locked it and walked towards him. Silky hair, neatly arranged in a ponytail. Svelte figure and firm gait. It occurred to him that he would not have just a good time; he would have a great time! Formal, appropriate opening sentences over, they settled for a place to sit.

He wanted to say, "You are amazing. I mean... you call me up for the first time, and fifteen minutes into it you ask me out. It needs either an uncommon confidence or a firm intent, or an optimal mix of both. Besides, you look gorgeous! I believe I am in for something exciting. What exactly is on your mind?" But no, he couldn't utter a single word about that. You cannot be so direct in life until you cross a particular line. Till that moment, one has to deal with life in an indirect fashion. She lead the conversation. You know, ever since the jet took off he had been behind in pace. He is now just making a desperate bid to catch up.

Predictably - yes, most of it is predictable; a simple while loop - the discussion turned to books. Even for other reasons, it was an inevitable turn, given that both of them loved reading books and, important, he was into publishing. Presently, the waiter brought her drink. She felt the glass . Cold it was, and she made that "Ooooh, so cold!" gesture. Suddenly, his mind switched frames. The focus turned to the superficials, and he hardly followed her words. The fragrance in the air - no, he doesn't know the name of even a single perfume that girls use, so it was just fragrance for him - the swift play of her silky hair against her shoulder, that sly glance in her round and beautiful eyes, the brisk movement of her lips, her slender fingers resting just a touch away from his - made him at once at ease and uneasy . He wanted his friend to be here and just watch how he handles this moment. Would he have made the move X or move Y? Unmoved, he still focused on the superficials.

"So which book are you reading these days?" he asked between the sips. She held the glass a while longer to her lips, took a long sip, looked straight into his eye, and said, "The Art of Making Out". Making out? Same as figuring out, just as he figured out the name of the two-wheeler when she parked it? It perplexed him that someone thought it was an art and wrote a book about it too! However, it didn't convince him. Maybe, it occurred to him, it is different from what he knows. Maybe her 'making out' is different from his 'making out'? Maybe it is about logic? Fresh out of college and into publishing he could not admit ignorance. He managed to package ignorance as curiosity and dared, "What is making out?" Giving that you-don't-know-even-this! look, she said, "Making love". Sex, buddy. He gulped the drink but pretended to be easy. "Oh O.K. !" he said.

He still felt he was behind in pace. Should he make the move? But which move? Any move can be tried in any situation, he felt. Gut feeling suggested he could ask the girl out again and she would agree. Three or four outings more and he can attempt to cross one or two lines of intimacy. But what if gut feeling is wrong? Nothing is absolutely reliable in life. There are always exceptions, and what if she is an exception? Maybe she doesn't have any intent at all? Maybe she just wanted to have some nice time and didn't find any guy else for that? And everything else may be just his interpretation? But, then, yes, it's only a maybe.

Time to move. Not really, but he wanted time to think. And he never asked what exactly was on her mind. And whatever his mind suggested as were her intentions, he brushed them off as simple, but probably true, conjectures. As they moved out, he executed the last statement in the while loop - he asked her if she was busy next weekend. Every statement in this while loop is an if-else condition, in turn. If she says yes, plan A. Else, plan B. She didn't disappoint him. "Call me a little earlier so we can plan for a movie", she said. "O.K great, it is working", he said to himself. Was this 'it' that his friend talked about two hours ago? As she was about to push up the accelerator and join the traffic to head for home, she said, "Call me up when you reach home. Bye!" And she left. He believed every moment of parting needs a tune, but no music played in the background. Traffic moved ahead, and the jet landed.

He looked back at Pick'n'Move once and left. Those were not the days of SMS and e-mails. Despite his friend's reminders and his own ideas, he didn't call her up. The next day, he had to leave for Mumbai. She tried his number but nobody answered. He played with the idea of calling her at times from Mumbai but dropped it. "Later" is the easiest excuse in life. Not that he was lazy, but that he didn't see any point.

A year later he returned. On a lazy day, he tried her number. Promptly, the voice said that number did not exist any more. He looked at the receiver for a while, and it appeared as if he was holding life in his hand and wondering what to do with it.

****

They were driving past Pick'n'Move - he and his friend. His friend pointed at a girl and said, "Look at her yaar! Sexy naa?" As he shifted his focus from Pick'n'Move and tried to look at her, the smiling face of the girl wearing red flit past him. The girl who still was a part of a close and unforgettable encounter, the fastest of its kind for him- it was an encounter that promised it, but whose options were all closed now.
" ”It” could've gone anywhere. There are n number of roads in life, and every road leads to somewhere, what's the fuss?", he thought. The signal turned yellow. And he was all set to move ahead.

***

- Vijay Ch.

Orchids - rhea daniel

2005-02-11T00:53:00.000-08:00

She looked at the rich upholstered furniture around her. The carpet that covered the floor was rather old and moth-eaten. The chair that she sat on had almost swallowed her in. The teacup and saucer trembled in her hand.

“Careful, that’s Italian silk. Rubelli,” said a raspy voice.

She jumped and snapped her head around like a frightened bird.

“Who--?” she faltered.

“Here,” the voice sounded tired. An ancient, worn tiredness. It seemed to be coming from the table in front of where she was sitting.

The table seemed to have come straight out of a grotesque painting by Grünewald. The surface was made of intertwined slender branches supported by four human arms. The muscles on the arms were clearly defined as if they were truly straining from the weight of the branches above them. Each claw-like hand rested on a smooth wooden ball.

“Er...”

“Yes, me, table,” it addressed her.

“Ok,” she frowned, perplexed, and shifted uncomfortably.

“Not often we get company,” the table said conversationally.

“I’m…just passing through,” she mumbled into her teacup.

The table laughed, a low laugh of an old man with weak lungs.

“Yes, yes, well aware.”

Then the table actually coughed, and hunching, raised one hand in a gesture typical of a human covering his mouth. The intertwining branches creaked with each movement.

“Oh dear.”

The ball that the hand was resting on had rolled away and clicked the tip of her high-heeled shoe.

“My dear, would you--?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

She got up hurriedly and rolled the ball towards the table with her hand, thinking it would be impolite to do it with her foot.

The arm reached blindly for the ball so she grabbed it by the wrist and guided it. There was nothing remotely human about what she felt under her fingers. It was made of smooth polished wood. The table creaked and groaned as it regained its balance.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She sat down primly on the silk upholstered chair again and regarded the whole room with a serious stare. The wallpaper was a dark, swirly damask. The light shades on the walls were supported on the backs of tiny men. They did not talk. The only picture in the room was a framed collection of fish fossils, skeletal remains of some extinct species, their names marked on parchment. They all, however, had beady glass eyes. They blinked wanly at her, and she quickly looked away.

The trick was not to look at anything for too long, So she let her eyes roam all over the room until she was dizzy.

“Are you quite finished, madam?”

Her eyes took sometime to focus on whom the voice came from. A tall old man in a waistcoat and a polka-dotted bow tie stood in front of her, cane in hand.

“Mr. Crosby,” she jumped up hurriedly, and put out her hand.

“Sit down.”
She did.

“Miss Wheaton, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He turned around slowly as he spoke, and began to walk around the room tapping his cane to the ground.

“I presume you are here to, ah, apologize.”

“Yes, I’m very very sorry…”

“Do you know how much effort it takes to grow an orchid, Miss Wheaton?” he interrupted

“Yes I’m very very…”

“The right type of soil, the weather conditions, the fertilizer….hm?” he stopped in front of her and knocked his heels together.

“And most of all, Miss Wheaton! MOST of all---!!!” his voice rose and stopped.

“Ummm..” she ventured.

“Love,”

“Love,” she echoed.

“Do you see these, Miss Wheaton?” he held up three photographs of some rather obscenely shaped plants.

“This is Oliver, this is Jennifer and this, madam, the youngest and the most promising, Kenny,” he put down the photographs on her lap and whispered, “All gone.”

She looked at the plants for what she hoped was a polite amount of time.

“I realize my brother…”

“Your brother, madam, your brother ---!!” he stopped again and his whole body seemed to shake with rage, “Ate them.”

“Ate them?”

“Ate. Them.”

“Well, he did have a tummy-ache after....”

“And what do you plan to do about it?”

“Er..I’m very very sorry ..”

“Oh come on Mac, let the old girl go, what’s done is done.” It was the table’s voice.

“You stay out of this,” snapped Crosby in the direction of the table.

“Aww, come on Mac, let her go!” a squeaky voice issued from one of the fish skeletons.

“Let her gooooo,” they all said together, their spines writhing.

“I will not let her ‘Go’, do you hear me? So shut it, the lot of you,” barked Crosby.

“Aww, crotchety old thing,” scolded one of the cherubs holding the lamp and tore off a piece of the wallpaper.

“Aaarghh,” the damask’s swirly faces frowned in irritation.

“There dear, blow yer nose with this,” the piece of wallpaper was handed down to the table who gave it to the girl in manner reflecting compassion, as much a wooden table could muster.

“Er.. I’m not. …er..thankyou,” she said graciously, and pretended to use the crumbly paper on her nose.

The dust from it made her sneeze.

“See, you made her ill.”

“Stay out of this!” yelled Crosby, his spine stretched backwards and his fists curled, “Or I’ll burn the lot of ya! Along with this Godforsaken hovel of a house!”

The house’s foundations shuddered in response to the threat.

“I mean it!” said Crosby, “I spent years preparing for them, and look what its come down to. My babies are crunched up by some brat!”

He glared at the inhabitants of the room.

“Don’t you belittle my pain!” His voice broke and he took a moment to control the sob that was rising. He took a deep breath.

“Confound it,” he whispered.

All this time Miss Wheaton had been thinking furiously about how to deal with the angry old man, she hadn’t expected it to be an emotional issue, merely a financial one. She also had not expected a talking house. Well she had done a bit of research before coming. Eccentric old man, old house, rich, loves plants. She just wondered how anyone could be interested in plants with names like Bladderwort and Wormwood. And then baptize them with Christian names.

One of the things she was no good at dealing with was people. Jimmy was better at charming; unfortunately he was the cause of the problem and having him meet the man whose prize orchids he destroyed would make matters worse. Compensation was not the answer either, as useless as an apology, for the old man did not seem short of material things, however decrepit and ..garrulous. A story she had read as a child emerged from a cloudy memory. A witch who turned people who could not repay their debts into amusing toys that filled her four-legged house. It was possible the Grünewald table had been an antique dealer who’s business had suffered bankruptcy, the three fish fossils were impoverished widows, all who had been unable to pay back loans, all trapped into the old man’s evil web of transmogrifications, permanently reduced into household curiosities. She imagined herself as a disused instrument, old and battered and forgotten in a corner. A violin perhaps, with a sad look of dejection and melancholy. Paying for her brothers’ misdeeds, as usual.

When she looked up Mr. Crosby was staring at her expectantly with a “Well?” expression on his face. Her silence only seemed to infuriate him further, so she opened and closed her mouth like a fish while he slowly turned purple with impatience. The house seemed to sense a gathering storm; an explosion of thunder seemed eminent. The explosion never came, for a fleeting thought interrupted, and his expression changed from rage to thoughtfulness to resignation within seconds. He turned, put both his hands over his face and sighed deeply.

“No…no,” he said staring out of the window, “None of this will bring back my babies. Why did he eat them though, Miss Wheaton, did you ever care to think? Did the he ever care to think of the completely unnecessary act of cruelty in biting their heads off? I saw teeth marks on their stems. Didn’t seem to be the act of a human.” He turned to her with one eyebrow raised.

She felt a tremendous surge of pity for the old man whose only solace in his old age was his odd little garden and the curiosities in his house. He sensed her pity and was embarrassed by it.

“Tell your brother not to set foot in my garden again,” he said, and turning, left the room.

She walked herself out of the house, many a “bye-bye!” and “do come again!” trailing behind her from the odd pieces of furniture.

She stopped to look at the garden on her way home. It had a wild look to it. Despite that, she could see it had been nurtured and cared for by the owner. Water hyacinths grew in a murky pond beside rose bushes and rubber plants, white lilies and geraniums. Some were grown in pots and others grew out of the ground. Pink rhododendrons and varieties of shrubs managed to find their space in the confused jungle of plants. The three beheaded orchids stood out, the damage glaringly obvious. She wondered how the old man looked after all these plants that seemed to bloom all at the same time. Then her eyes fell on the tiny goblin perched on the rim of the stone birdbath. He was about ten inches tall and precariously balanced on the rim. He was a marvelous piece of work in bronze. Her eyes searched the garden and found four more of these. Two seemed to have frozen in the act of chasing each other around the pond. Two sat on the branches of the rhododendrons, seemingly looking in the direction of the neighbour’s house. Her house.

She made her way home in a flurry of thought, going over what she had just seen and heard.

A water balloon hurled with precise aim at her face greeted her as she entered. It burst and drenched her with some vile smelling liquid. Jimmy could be heard snorting with laughter as he ran up the stairs to hide in his room. She stood stone still for a few seconds, then went straight to her room, stiff with anger.

“I don’t see why we had to apologise in the first place. Jimmy could have died eating those awful plants,” said her mother at dinnertime.

“It’s the polite thing to do, Maggie. What did he say, Libby?” asked her father.

“Oh…nothing. Just asked Jimmy not to set foot in his garden again,” answered Libby.

Libby saw her brothers’ eyes gleam as if this was an open invitation.

“Poor baby,” said her mother, running her hand through his golden curls, “Don’t go to that silly old man’s garden again, alright?”

“I won’t Mama,” said Jimmy in his angels’ voice.

Libby had been a happy twelve year old before Jimmy had been born. She was then demoted from daughter to nursemaid and her life was never the same again. Jimmy had looked harmless enough but Libby soon came to learn of his freakishly cruel secret adventures. Only Libby was aware of his Jekyll and Hyde act. She had seen him pull the legs of sparrows, crush garden caterpillars, tear the wings of butterflies and mercilessly kick or crush any living creature smaller than him that crossed his path. Oh, she had tried telling Mama and Papa but they couldn’t believe the angelic looking Jimmy was capable of hurting a fly. Her violin practice suffered, and one day she had come home to find her violin case tampered with, and the remains of it scattered in bits and pieces around the house. She showed her parents the broken bits and was about to explode in a fit of pent up rage, when Jimmy had emerged from behind the curtain, tears in his puppy blue eyes, apologizing profusely, saying he only tried to play it and dropped it from the landing when it slipped from his hands. He had tried to fix it and failed. The apology melted his parents and Libby grudgingly made her peace. The violin was too expensive to be replaced, and Jimmy's escapades seemed to worsen as time passed by.

Libby was woken up the next morning with a cry of “My azaleas!” followed by a moan that issued from the direction of Mr. Crosby’s house. She sighed and decided she wanted no part of it. She walked to school as usual, followed by Jimmy who passed by on his bicycle, splattering her with mud from a puddle, laughing uproariously at her annoyance. She happened to glance at Mr. Crosby’s house and saw him standing at the window, watching. The next day she heard a howl issue forth from the same direction, “My roses!”

It had been a year since Jimmy had gone missing. Libby felt her life had improved considerably since then. She did not miss him one bit. His absence was sorely felt by his parents, who had called the police when Jimmy was found missing from his bed one morning. The first suspect was the old neighbour, Mr. Crosby. His house and garden was meticulously searched for any signs of the missing boy. They found nothing but odd-looking furniture and plants. Mr. Crosby watched the whole search party impassively, allowed his fingerprints to be recorded and answered all the questions he was asked politely.

Libby used to walk back every day from school and peer into the garden, for the growth and variety had only intensified, and she wondered how such exotic plants grew there without being put in a hot house. Orchids grew uninterrupted. Today she felt a little bolder and walked further down the garden path. The five goblins were frozen in the middle of activities like running, jumping, pruning; their goblin grins gleeful and uninhibited.

Her eyes came to rest on the birdbath that had a new bronze addition to its center, a cherub with wavy curls and wings, balancing on one toe with a watering can in one chubby fist. Its expression however, despite its angelic attributes, was that of unmitigated fury.

- rhea daniel
darkness_box[at]yahoo[dot]com

Dark gift of the gods - Denis BonnerGC

2005-02-07T01:35:00.000-08:00

(I was born in Australia but have spent almost half my working life outside Australia, mostly in Western Europe. My life has been interestingly varied - from selling smuggled Turkish puzzle rings in the Paris Flea Market, to a leather shop/workshop in a seventeenth century building in Troyes (France), to maitre d' and occasional flambe cook in Sydney, and teaching English in Italy. Now I have changed again and do accounting work - that is so exciting that I am spurred on to write a great deal in my spare time! The most exciting trip I made was from Australia to Europe overland - at a time when it was still safe (relatively) to visit all the countries on the way.Some years ago I decided the only real purpose I see for all this experience is writing, so I have been writing on and off over the past decade or so. Mostly it has been fantasy of one kind or another. - Dennis Bonner)

It was the last hour of the day, the sun slipping gently towards the sea, the sky already darkening. At the water's edge, three figures wearing flashing faceted sun-masks cavorted wildly around a bright fire on the sand, white robes flapping. Drums thudded a frenetic rhythm. This was the danse mukkubra - the dance of death. As they danced they chanted, staring out to sea, towards the setting sun. And the chant had for refrain but two words – monjer dum, Eater of Souls.

Further back on the beach among the palm trees, scarcely discernible in the gathering gloom, the dark skinned islanders stood in a huddle, wailing mournfully and beating their chests.

The girl watched the prets as their dance came to an end. The funeral boat was already prepared. Not one of the flimsy vessels the prets normally used, but the smallest of the lateen rigged outrigger canoes. The tiller lashed in position, the red painted sail full stretched, it bobbed and tugged at the fibre rope that held it anchored to the beach.

The decorated gourd of fresh water and the palm leaf wrapped packages of food were there. For the dead to eat during the journey to the Land of the Dead, the girl supposed. She looked around, taking in every detail of the scene. She was ten years old, so she had seen this ceremony often enough. Though she had never before found herself watching it with such intense personal interest.

The edge of the sun’s disc touched the horizon, the wailing of the watching islanders ceased, and the prets began their wind chant, the spell that called up the Vondwest – the wind that would blow the little vessel out to sea, into the sun.

Yes, the girl had seen this all before, but this time it was different – completely different. The difference was not only the boat. What made the event so frighteningly personal was that she was in the boat.

It all began with her birth. Over the years she had pieced together the facts from scraps of part-heard conversations; remarks the adults whispered, furtively, when they thought she wasn't about; the mutterings of her parents when she was presumed to be asleep.

When her mother knew her time was near she had sent for the midwife. Night time, the interior of the little hut lit dimly by a smoky cooking fire. The baby was small, the birthing easy. The midwife held the new-born out for the mother to take. Came a bright ruddy flash that momentarily illuminated every detail of the interior of the hut, followed almost immediately by the angry growl and rumble of the erupting volcano on the next island. Darkness again, and with it the fearsome whooshing of the wall of water that rushed across at their island, sweeping across the beach and foaming right up amongst the palm thatched huts, carrying with it the smallest of the outriggers beached on the shore. Dumping it right outside the hut where the new mother was now turning her head to get her first look at her child. Mother and midwife stared down into the baby girl's dark face at the same moment.

"Mbakara!" The mother drew back in sudden fright making the sign that wards against evil.

And so she was named.

It was a lonely childhood. Always little Mbakara was left to play alone. Often she was to be seen up on the wind blown cliff tops. She went there every day when the gull chicks were newly hatched, crouching among the seagulls' nests, staring at their young. Wishing that she too would one day be able to spread her wings and fly - away. The chicks screamed desperate defiance at her. Like the children, she thought. Screeching as they fled, hiding from her, shunning her.

It was hard when your very name meant 'demon'. But she never cried. She took a certain stubborn pride in that.

As she grew older she took to chasing the children. Eventually she caught one. One of the boys. Tussled him to the ground, demanded to know why they always ran. He twisted his face away, wouldn't look at her, whimpered "Because you can't see."

"Of course I can see," she said. Pudgy black finger prodding, "There, your knees." Poke. "There, your chest." Jab. "There, your silly woolly head." Tap tap. "Of course I can see."

"How?" he squealed. "You got no eyes! Demon!" wrenched from her grasp and fled blubbering.

For the first time in her life Mbakara consciously ran her hands over her face. Neat round ears, plump cheeks, full lips, straight nose and - where there should have been eyes...only empty sockets. But she could see!

No-one knew how to explain this mystery. No-one wanted to talk about it, certainly not her parents. So she found her own answer – not one the prets would have approved of. It was quite simply a gift of the gods, to be able to see without even having any eyes.

Then this morning the prets had come for her.

On the beach a final triumphant shout as the prets completed their spell. The boat was cast off – the Vondwest had been summoned. The red sail billowed, the small craft bobbed and raced across the bay, dancing through the gap in the reef, out to the open sea.

Mbakara stared back at the island as the prets' fire became an ever diminishing patch of shimmering brightness before winking out entirely. Good-bye, not'tair, land of my birth. Farewell jon d'tair, my people. But there was little regret. There had been no happiness, no love. No understanding. She turned her back on the island and faced the dying sun, saw how its light had turned the sea blood red. And now there was nothing but sea, whichever way she looked.

Then the unexpected. The enchanted wind dropped, the red sail hanging slack until banks of black clouds scudded across the horizon, blotting out the sun, bringing a premature night. The east wind swooped down on the outrigger which spun and flew back towards the islands it had so recently left. It sailed past them, or so Mbakara supposed, and on and on into the blackness of the night.

By morning the storm had blown itself out and she found herself sailing into the rising sun. The thought crossed Mbakara's mind that the Land of the Dead had rejected her because she was alive. But where she was going to end up now she couldn't begin to imagine.

The last crumb of food was gone, the final gulp of water done little more than moisten her parched throat, long before land appeared once more on the horizon. Before she realised what that distant line of darkness meant, Mbakara thought it was perhaps the edge of the world.

It was not. It was the great continent of Bimana, and she made landfall on the shores of the southernmost land, which is known as Eigne.

The surf pushed the outrigger onto a gravelly beach and Mbakara tumbled out. She was too exhausted to even think of dragging the boat further from the water and as she lay there a larger wave caught it up and snatched it back into the sea.

"By Tiv and Catha, what's this then?" exclaimed a voice. Mbakara squinted up to see a blue-eyed sunshine-haired man with skin so pale she thought him a ghost. He looked into her face and said more unknown words before stooping and offering his hands to help her up.

A little way from the shore they came to his hut and from the nets strung outside she knew he was a fisherman.

The Eignish fisherman and his dark-eyed wife cared for Mbakara. Little by little she learnt the rudiments of their language. The fact that she could see although she had no visible eyes didn't seem to worry them. Speaking about her survival of the voyage from not'tair and the terrible storm, the woman said simply:

"Nortia protected you."

"Who is Nortia?" Mbakara asked.

In answer the fisherman's wife had led her to a nearby grove where there was a shrine studded with nails. "Nortia - the goddess of Destiny." She explained, "Nortia holds us all in her hands just as Turms always guides my husband back to shore with a good catch of fish."

Mbakara nodded, the jon d'tair too worshipped many gods. So she understood, though she did wonder which particular deity might be responsible for her miraculous sight.

It was two moons later by the girl's count that she felt it was time to move on. If the gods had indeed saved her from the sea and given her sight, it was not so she could sit around by the beach doing nothing.

The woman gave her one of her own hand-woven woollen kilts and a thick jerkin. The fisherman presented her with a staff and a strip of cloth long enough to bind over her eye-less sockets. Not everyone, he explained, would treat her with the same understanding.

Mbakara did not comprehend until she saw her first blind man. She felt such pity for him. Then she realised the fisherman and his wife were right: most people distrust what they don't understand. So it was as a blind beggar that she began her travels around Eigne.

Mbakara encountered the minstrel in a busy market, quite by chance. Though later in her life she refused to believe that there was any such thing as chance.

She was tap-tapping her way along a cobbled street when she heard the singing. She threaded her way through the stalls, following the sound of the voice. The song ended just as she arrived and there was silence as she approached the little crowd gathered around the man. Then he began to sing again, and the girl stopped, quite astonished: for not only was the singer black, she understood the words of his song. She also saw immediately that he was blind.

From time to time he turned his head in her direction as if aware of her presence, and when he had finished his song Mbakara asked immediately in her native tongue:

"How did you get here?"

"I walked." There was amusement in his voice.

"But that is impossible." Mbakara was confused. "You can't walk on water," she faltered, not sure what else she could say.

"But you come from an island, and I come from the woods of Vandemonie in the far north of Bimana," the singer explained, smiling broadly.

The girl approached. "Why the stick?" he asked, "when you can see?"

"How can you know? How can you tell where I come from and that I can see?" She was totally bewildered.

"I have good ears. You move with the assurance that only the sighted have. Also," he added, "you speak Vandee with the accent of the Western Isles." Then he stepped towards her, "If you will permit me...?" and he reached out and ran his hands over her face, mapping her features. When his fingers discovered her eye sockets, he said, awed, "This is the work of the gods." He took a step back. "You are alone?" He made it a statement.

Mbakara nodded, grinned to herself, said "Yes." Explained, "They sent me away."

"And you speak some Eignish?"

"A little bit," she replied in that language.

He stood, thoughtful, one hand resting on her shoulder. So young, so vulnerable, with this strange god-given ability. Wise indeed to cover her eye-less sockets. But how could she survive here, now her own people had cast her out? He made a sudden decision.

"If you sing a little, and can remember new words, I will teach you my trade."

So it was that the Vandean minstrel known throughout Bimana as Nessun de la Forray took the black islander Mbakara as his apprentice.

He taught, she learnt. They sang together, travelled together and laughed together. They were the happiest times Mbakara had ever known.

It all came to an end as she was approaching her eleventh year. One day as she and the minstrel stood on the banks of a river, Mbakara announced abruptly -

"Nessun, I must go north."

"Why? I thought we had decided to go south to the capital for the Harvest Festival of Furflun."

"I can't go. I don't know why. I know only that I must go north. Now." She looked at the minstrel miserably. "Something calls me. And I can no longer ignore it." She sighed. "You are my friend. The only friend I have ever had. I don't want to leave you."

"I think I understand." Nessun nodded slowly. "The gods ask you to pay the price of your gift."

"Perhaps this is so." She hugged him. "Dear Nessun," she said, "one day we will meet again."

"I cannot doubt it."

III

So Nessun travelled alone to the Festival of Furflun, and Mbakara went north following the river and her call.

At first it was strong but not insistent. The further north she travelled the louder in her mind, the more imperious on her will, became the summons. She travelled for days and still that mysterious something tugged unrelenting at her mind.

As she trudged along the banks of the broad river, she searched for a place to cross. Ahead she saw a hillside, bare and rocky, that she decided, despite her weariness, to climb. For she had not yet seen bridge or ford or ferry.

From the top of that rocky outcrop she looked out over all the surrounding countryside. The river swept around in a wide loop and directly below a boat was moored to a rough wooden jetty. On the far side of the river she could see a settlement - at that distance there was no mistaking it: this was the place that drew her.

She was gazing at this collection of huts - poor places, roughly thatched wattle and daub, most of them, and a smithy smoking by the riverbank - when her vision clouded and ... there was another township superimposed on that small settlement. An impossible bridge now spanned the river, and there were many more houses, such as she had never seen, with windows all aglitter, and a great stone building with a tower.

Before the ferryman saw her she knotted the fisherman's cloth securely over her eyes and once again used her staff as the blind do.

The ferryman helped her aboard and cast off. As he rowed Mbakara across the fast-flowing river in his flat-bottomed coble, she asked him the name of the place.

"They call it Coble Hill" he told her, grinning as he pulled strongly on his oars. "Nowhere else you can cross, by Alpan and Evan, upstream or downstream, not for a good many days' journey."

She stepped off the boat – stumbled, disoriented, crying out in shocked horror. For darkness had engulfed her and she was truly blind. The world about her had gone, vanished. Ghostly figures moved all around her, surrounded her, yet ignored her, could not see her.

She could not shut the visions out. "Help me!" her voice a croak.

A voice, faint. A touch. Reality. Friendly hands that took her hands, directed her, sat her down, gave her water to drink. She calmed. Looked around. Looked around? Gazed upon this dream world. Watched, listened. By all the gods, it was a world of sorcerers. Then she understood: this is what called me. Now I have to tell the people in Coble Hill what is happening here.

Faintly now she could hear the voices of the present time people surrounding her. She held onto that thought. I am here. I am Mbakara. Said - too loudly perhaps:

"I am Mbakara the singer, but today I sing you no songs. Today I have a story to tell... "

And now she had announced that she would tell the story, the place sucked her in, into a whirling, swirling tunnel...of time? - for it certainly didn't feel like now.

Scenes presented themselves to her, and she described them as best she could. It made no sense. Too much was happening. More, there was the shock of her blindness...of the real world vanishing...the fear of being trapped here, in this dream world...forever – and so much of what she saw she couldn't begin to understand.

Mbakara saw sights no-one had ever seen, tried to explain them: mighty magicians who killed with sound; who flew in the air inside stiff winged birds; who spoke to each other across immense distances; saw things that were happening far away...

Then, exhausted, she slept. Awake, she was unsurprised to find she was still there, continued her tale, voice hoarse, as the images flowed on unrelenting. Unseen hands fed her, reassured her.

Then at last the tale was done, and she found she could see the real world once again. Relieved beyond belief, exalted by her experience, she sang as she had never sung before. No words, just a song as joyous as the lilting warble of the first thrush of spring.

Coble Hill was in a hubbub. Never had there been such a story as this little blind black girl had told. And the villagers retold each other the parts they had liked the best. Some recounted the exploits of the Hero with his enchanted sword, who had put to flight entire armies. Others dwelt on the beauty of the disinherited princess, told each other angrily of the brutal slaying of her parents by the evil usurper. Still others spoke of the magical Necklet of power with which a person could rule over all of Eigne...

Village life resumed. The people of Coble Hill discovered that their storyteller was a minstrel of no little talent, and despite her blindness she was soon able to find her way about the village with awesome ease.

And Mbakara? Mbakara remembered when the story had released her, how briefly she had felt an awareness of all those stories out there, in so many places in Bimana. Stories of events that would happen. They were waiting for her. A sea of stories, a tidal wave of tales. And she imagined being led – forced? – from place to place to place, condemned to tell all those not-yet stories. Living her life with one foot in the real world and one foot in the future.

If this was, as Nessun had suggested, payment for her vision of the present, it was indeed a dark gift that the gods had given her.

**********

The Continent of Bimana

Beauforton - capital of Vandemonia, heavily forested, in the north east;

Castle Crag - capital of Eigne, in the south; a rich farming land;

Limona - capital of Bezonia, an arid land in the south east;

Ormolu - capital of Zoloto, a desert land centre east;

Weltbrücke - capital of Peloria - which stretches from the North West (forested) to the northern boundary of Eigne (prairie);

Nepholia (the mountain plateau in the centre of the continent) has no designated capital.

Borders are not shown as they have altered over the centuries

***********

Denis Bonner
318 Wilson Street
Darlington NSW 2008
bacchus[at]telpacific[dot]com[dot]au

Miss Matthews - Rhea ( circa 2001 )

2005-01-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Miss Matthews was my junior school English teacher,

true evidence of the far reaches Victorian repression.

I remember her fondly though because I knew for all

her picking and nagging she secretly liked me.



She was definitely somewhere between forty and fifty,

gray-haired, yet unmarried and jumping at anyone who

called her 'Mrs.' by mistake. I didn't know anything

else about her but rumors said she was a bit of a real

life Miss Havisham. The furrow on her brow was deep

and fissure like and continued upwards to merge with

the parting in her hair. She had permanently pursed

lips and if she ever smiled it was frightening.

Bunches of girls stood at corners and giggled at the

strange bra-petticoat we could see under her blouse.

We figured she stitched them herself because we could

not find a bra so conservative in any market.



Her entrance was always grand, she swept in and came

to a stop in the front of the class. A severe glance

around always followed, leaving us wondering what we

had done wrong. Then her copy of Julius Caesar would

be opened and held majestically in the palm of one

hand, the other hand would support it at the wrist, a

deep breath, and thus began the monologue on the

virtue prayer and Caesar would be ignored until the

last fifteen minutes of the class.



I was deep into my romance novel stage then; and

horrors, she caught me with The Far Pavilions under my

desk, carefully placed on my knees so I could slip it

under my skirt when needed. Unfortunately not in time,

I was so smitten with Ashton that I didn't see the

ramrod straight gray figure glowering like a

thundercloud over my head. When I finally tore my eyes

away from the page there was the dreadful silence of

the class and Miss Matthews' nasal whine wanting to

know what trash I was studying instead of Shakespeare.

When she saw what I was reading she looked positively

stricken. "These books are NOT for children!"



As luck would have it I was saved by the bell.



I suppose she was referring to the one dirty scene in

the book that had been thumbed through so often by

lusty schoolgirls the book fell open at the exact page

when left on its spine. I also found her name in the

list of people who had borrowed it earlier. Clear as

day it said 'Miss Matthews'. I suppose she was ashamed

of it, for people like Miss Matthews it was a sin to

read anything other than the Bible.... and censored

copies of Shakespeare. The next time I had her class

she told me to "stop haunting the library with fat

books."



In a school where the prettiest and the cleverest and

the most talented got all the attention hers was more

than welcome. May be we both shared a common love for

Ashton even. Both our suppressed emotions reaching for

the intangible and unrequitable love of our hero from

an age long past, the only age that held passionate,

rebel love. I tried holding conversation with her but

it never went beyond Julius Caesar, or as she would

have it, the virtue of prayer. If an appropriate gap

in the conversation arose my mouth would dry up and

thoughts would turn to mush in my head. So I passed

through high school without ever bringing up the

subject. I changed and grew as people do, and I felt

myself slowly turning into Miss Matthews No. 2,

because I could never find Ashton, and I didn't want

anyone else.



I never thought I'd see her again, but I did. She was

sitting in a bus stop with a cane in one hand. I

slowed down next to her and she recognized me all

right. She was still distant, severe, but for once she

didn't start of on one of her monologues. She was

still unmarried and lived with her sister, and she

hadn't stopped teaching. Eventually I started getting

shifty, holding conversation with people like Miss

Matthews was always strained.  But I knew she was

itching to say something and I waited but it didn't

come, not until I got up to leave, and she looked a

trifle cheeky when she said it.

"Never been for a romp in the Himalayas?"

It was like some sort of coded sentence. "Never found

a good reason to, Miss Matthews," I replied.

"Well, better get on with it then. Time is precious."

"Yes. Good-bye, Miss Matthews."

"Good-bye."

-rhea (2001)

"11/09/'04, 5.12pm" - Vijay Ch.

2004-12-09T22:05:00.000-08:00

"Feb 16, '00, 11.24am", Banya scribbled on her notepad as she picked up the
phone. "Asha Jyothi. How may I help you?" she asked in a concerned tone. Banya
and Sarat studied at IIM, Calcutta where they excelled as an invincible team in
debating and quizzing. Coming from affluent families, neither had to worry about
money. Banya spent two years abroad with a consulting firm before she joined
Sarat again when he started Asha Jyothi, a befriender's organization. Banya
didn't readily agree and expressed the doubt if, in doing so, she would not be
wasting management education. Her doubt soon disappeared when Sarat told her, in
a firm tone that echoed conviction, she would, on the contrary, be putting it to
use in the most challenging and rewarding domain - adversity management.

"Adversity is a bog that pulls each and every person, at some point in time or
the other, and renders him helpless. We have to lift the person up and alight
him on the flight of hope", he would jest frequently. Four more people work at
Asha Jyothi that operates out of a sprawling apartment. A large poster in bright
colors of blue and yellow hangs on the wall behind Banya. The poster is a
combined effort - Banya designed the logo and Sarat wrote the caption.

As she put the receiver down, Banya wiped her tears. Whenever she does so, Sarat
reminds her that a befriender should just be an objective listener with a very
alert mind that would not lose the ability to reason even amid a hopeless
situation, and that crying is an absolute no-no. "When a person decides to
commit suicide, his perception becomes paranoid, and in such cases, empathy only
makes him go deeper into his shell. He does not construe your empathy as a
gesture of understanding his feelings, but just as your own feelings of despair.
So, you are actually posing him a problem instead of helping solve his", he
says. He believes this so strongly that you find the following lines right above
his signature on the first page of his notepad:

"Lend him your words and ears
And keep to yourself your tears"

These lines are also among the first that the new recruits are advised to learn
by heart. To make it easier, they refer to it as Asha Jyothi's Commandment -
"Thou shalt not cry."

Banya doesn't always receive his reminders with a cool head. "Not my way. I do
not agree with your twisted logic that the proof of befriending is in becoming a
robot with just an active listening faculty and dead to emotion. I cannot
pretend to be unmoved when the person on the other side of the phone is not yet
twenty and is going through hell, and concludes that death is the only solution.
Imagine! Hardly twenty, with all his life ahead! And he has already given up!!
Well, it could've been my brother, it could've been your brother. When someone
is down and is on the fringe of giving up on life, it is not his problem
anymore. It is a human problem. Adversity is a human problem, damn it!, and it
doesn't yield to intellectual explanation or logical comprehension", she would
scream.

Occasional outbursts notwithstanding, Banya and Sarat understand each other
quite well, so everybody knows that her anger would not last long. Sarat would
soon say some nice consoling words with good wit and the calm returns. Sarat is
a good listener and has amazing restraint over his feelings. Banya reaches out
to people and doesn't hesitate in taking that extra step to help. She finds it
queer that Sarat is a man of few words. And, whenever she asks him to explain
the reason he would say, "The deeper one's insight, the more silent he becomes.
Talking is easy; touch any person on the street and he'll start talking.
Listening is tough because it demands sensitivity. People, in moments of fun and
frivolity, enjoy the company of those who talk, but when hope is gone from life,
they hanker for a listener. It's tough to find listeners in this world. So, I'd
rather be a listener." She finds it impressive every time. It'd be obvious even
to a casual observer that they complement each other perfectly. It should be
surprising if at least one of them is not aware of this.

At Asha Jyothi, work usually ends at 5.30. Sarat drops Banya and two more of the
team before he reaches home. Banya isn't a keen diarist, but finds some minutes
after dinner to write statistics and one-liners. "12 calls - one saved, eight
hopeful, three gone. Tough day, but very rarely do days end with a smile at AJ
(Asha Jyothi)", a typical entry reads.

Sarat takes pleasure in writing his diary. A rather introspective kind of
writing, but, at times, profound tread of reason gives way to dexterous dance of
rhyme, and verse dissolves into poetry. More often very impersonal about life
and events, yet, rarely though, very sensitive and intimate accounts of the
same. But, of late, entries of romantic poetry have become more prominent and
Banya is slowly taking the place of his beloved, who has thus far been eluding.

Sarat picks up Banya and the two members at mornings as well, while coming to
AJ. Tough schedule as it might seem - what with working six-days-a-week, with no
holidays - they have as much fun on Sundays. So much so that they refer to
Sundays as Fundays. For all his composed temperament and exceptional knowledge,
Sarat is admired as a great boss by all.

Every morning, Banya talks with the two juniors and gives them more insights
about handling calls. She makes one of the members make a dummy call and
demonstrates by example. "And do not forget to make an entry of the date and
time before you pick up the call", she would insist, "and, more importantly, do
not forget to complete the entry after you finish. Remember? 'Saved', if you are
sure the caller felt better at the end of the call and so would certainly choose
to live, 'Hopeful', if you are sure that he felt only a little better and so
might choose to live, and 'Gone', if you are sure the caller is not going to
change his mind."

All is not dreary at AJ though. It has a wonderful collection of books and
music, besides a sleek TV set. There are moments of fun and surprise too - as
when one of their friends called up Banya, threw open a deal that he would slit
his throat if she fails to identify him within twenty minutes, and then
disclosed his identity when she just began to cry; as when a businessman sent a
load of bouquets on Diwali as a gesture of gratitude for being there when he
needed hope and company most; as when a man called up, read out his unfulfilled
dreams and Will, and ended up proposing the girl attending the call because he
liked her voice. A birthday is celebrated with much fervor, and issues -
political or otherwise - are debated with equal passion. And it's a law,
unwritten but mutually understood and agreed upon, that a team member should
avail of AJ's services when he is in difficulties himself.

Sarat decided he would not delay any longer in letting Banya know of his
intentions of marrying her and felt her birthday to be an appropriate day for
the confession. Although an element of doubt troubled him, yet he was confident
that she would accept. He always felt she belonged to him. After all, it was he
who shortened her name Lavanya and rechristened her Banya. He played with the
idea for two days and convinced himself that 'Mrs Banya Sarat Chatterjee'
sounded better than 'Mrs Lavanya Sarat Chatterjee'.

When the day came, and after they had cut the cake and sung and danced, he took
her out. He gifted her his small collection of poetry. The whole event did not
take her by surprise though. Besides being intellectually sharp and emotionally
sensitive, Banya has the gift of reading other people's minds with remarkable
precision. When he dropped her at home that night, the drive ended as the
longest and the most poignant for both. The reason for her disappointing Sarat
was not that she disliked him, but because she had already decided to marry
Amit, with whom she had been in love for five months.

It was not the pain of her rejection that haunted Sarat, but the fact that Banya
confided in him every important event in her life but kept him a complete
stranger to what he feels was the most important one. He felt utterly alone,
rendered helpless by the imperceptible yet sudden slice of the dagger of Fate,
thrown out of the stage of the world, thrown out of her life. But he handles
such states of mind very well and comes out of them soon. This time he came out
sooner, when he remembered that he too had concealed something very important
from her after all.

After graduating in management, Sarat worked for two years as a Rural Management
Consultant with a new energy company in Mumbai, earning a hefty pay. If not for
an event that occurred on August 24, '98, he would not have given up that decent
job to return to Calcutta and start AJ. Sarat's father retired as a commissioner
of police, his mother runs two schools for the poor, and his elder brother
Satyajit who studied at Oxford heads a publishing company. On that day, Satyajit
returned home late, watched TV, had a light dinner with their parents, locked
himself in his room and shot himself dead. When at dawn they broke open the
door, Satyajit was lying in a pool of frozen blood, a hole in his head and a
pistol in his right hand. On his writing table was found a small note -

"From that endless road begins the sojourn
And to that endless road does one return
The road of life is long and tiring
With only illusive hopes in its offering
Liberation in life have I sought
But deliverance in death have I found

Life is a lender of pleasures, pains, dreams and hopes; at the end, everyone
owes it a death.

I hold nobody or no event responsible for my taking this decision. Please do not
disclose the news of my suicide to anybody.

Yours
Satya"

That was Sarat's first experience of being the target of Fate's dagger. He loved
Satyajit very much and the family was close-knit. It was impossible for Sarat to
imagine that Satyajit could feel so lonely and shattered, no matter what. That
event prompted Sarat to start AJ and study the mechanism of suicide in depth.
And being honest to Satya's last words, he concealed this important event in his
life from Banya too. He instead coined the phrase 'adversity management' to
persuade her to join AJ. He uses the pistol in his cache - the same pistol that
Satyajit shot himself with - to get a first-hand insight into the feelings that
run in the mind of a person contemplating suicide. He does so, however, only on
those days when Banya is on leave and he stays back after everybody has gone.

He rationalized that Banya too must have had an equally compelling reason to
conceal that fact from him.

Equally compelling or not, Banya too indeed had a reason to have not told Sarat
about Amit for all these days. Amit too studied with Sarat and Banya. So, when
Amit and Banya decided to marry, they thought they would break the news as a
surprise to Sarat. And the idea of surprising her dearest friend was a matter of
delight for her. That night though, after dinner and that long, painful drive,
it troubled her with poignant feeling of guilt as she wrote in her diary - "One
birthday, nine hours of happiness, twenty SMSs, five bouquets, one broken heart,
one shattered girl."

As days fleeted past, Sarat and Banya tried hard to restore the same bridge of
intimacy between them. To make Banya feel better, Sarat would refer, in a
lighter vein, Tagore's Farewell My Friend and tell her that Banya and Amit are
the best pair. But the harder they tried, the more uncomfortable the relation
between them became. The dagger of Fate, it appeared to Sarat, was more
unrelenting this time, pulling apart each other with every word, just as water
pulls apart two ice-blocks with every slight movement.

But before it became any wider, Banya's wedding came as a savior. Sarat knew
that even if it takes away his beloved, it would still leave behind his dearest
friend. So, he was not entirely unhappy. Nor was Banya. A week after the
wedding, she would leave for US along with Amit. However, to save themselves
from feelings of discomfort, she and Sarat would not communicate with each other
for a good time. They would e-mail, in brief at that, only twice every year - on
New Year's Day and on each other's birthdays.

October 27, '00, 11.15am - Banya left for US.

"10/27/'00, 4.36pm", Sarat wrote on his notepad as the phone rang. "Asha Jyothi.
How may I help you?" he said. He heard no voice in response, but Sarat felt the
immensity of the burden in the other person's heart. He held the receiver closer
to him as he listened to the sound of heaviness in his own heartbeats. Shortly
after, the stranger began to make sounds of weeping. The sounds became more
frequent and when he could not contain himself anymore, he broke down. After
crying his heart out for ten minutes, he put the phone down. Sarat held the
receiver for a minute more, softly uttered "Thank you" and put it down. He
looked at Banya's seat, now empty, and got back to finishing the entry on his
notepad. "10/27/'00, 4.36pm - saved."

Almost four years have passed since that day. Sarat wrote to Banya eight times
and she wrote him seven times. His birthday is just days away and he would hear
from her for the eighth time. AJ now has ten members in the team, the collection
of books and music has only increased with time, and now they handle online
queries as well. Sarat has written two books - a work of fiction and another on
insights into the roots of suicide. He now writes for international journals on
psychology, serves as a visiting faculty at his mother's schools and other
colleges, and is also writing a script for a short-film on 'Depression - The
Serial Killer'.

Ever since marriage, Banya has been taking care of Finance operations for Amit's
software development company. Owing to immense work pressure, typical of a young
software venture, they believed it's a good idea to not think of having children
for at least another year.

On his birthday, Sarat arrived at AJ a little earlier than usual, for he
expected to begin the day with reading Banya's wishes and replying to her. He
was neither surprised nor disappointed when he did not receive any mail yet. He
is quite aware that Banya would write rather later than on time. But, skeptic as
he is, he checked his inbox ten times before he was made to cut the cake in the
evening. No matter how many times he checked, the result wasn't any different.
As traffic restrictions were being imposed, due to a foreign official's arrival,
from 5pm that evening, all the team-members chose to leave. Before leaving, they
agreed upon meeting Sarat at the Chinese restaurant at 8pm.

After checking the inbox yet again and not finding the mail he had been
expecting, he resumed reading Tagore's collection of stories - a book that the
team gifted him earlier that evening - when the phone rang. He waited, as he
usually does, for the second ring to ensure it's not a wrong call. He put the
book down and picked up the notepad. He looked at the watch and noted the date
and time - "11/09/'04, 5.12pm - ". The fourth ring was about to start when he
picked up the receiver and answered, "Asha Jyothi. How may I help you?" After
moments of silence, a female voice answered, "Hello". Sarat responded and waited
for the next words. But no words came. He repeated "Hello?" with intervals but
it failed to persuade her to speak. After three minutes, she cut the line.

Sarat sighed deeply as he put the phone down. He is used to answering such
calls, but he had little patience left at this moment. He was just about to
strike off the entry when the phone rang again. He decided against striking off
and answered the phone after the third ring. "Asha Jyothi. How may I help you?"
This time, the response was quick. "Hello", said the woman on the other side.

He reckoned it was the same woman who cut the line a minute ago, and he noticed
no obvious strain in her voice. "Hello, how are you?" Sarat asked as he waited
for her to speak.

She started in a low voice, "I have always believed that suicide is an act of
cowardice and that no reason, however sound and convincing, can justify it. I
believed life follows a pattern, and by analyzing the causes one can eliminate
the effects. I thought there can be only two reasons why a person thinks of
suicide - loss of hope as in the majority of cases, or obsession with an
irrational ideal as in the case of suicide bombers. One either gives up on faith
in life or gives up himself for the cause of his group. And I believed one can
come out of that state of mind if he is patient for some time. But I have
realized it is not so in all cases. Adversity makes life itself a quicksand and
neither time nor words of hope can bring one out of that. Its cold stare breaks
all the anchors with the known and throws one into the abysmal unknown. Today,
as I find myself giving in to death, it neither surprises me nor makes me feel
guilty. There are times when life proves a bad sample and is worth giving up.
So, I believe my decision is sensible. But before it is curtains down on life, I
thought I would confess this most important decision in life to my most precious
and dearest friend." Her voice quivered as she said, "Sarat, happy birthday.
Forgive me for offering no gifts, but only the sorrow of death."

"Banya!" Sarat exclaimed as he controlled his tears and held his head in utter
disbelief. He collected himself and said, "Banya! ...but I always thought you
are happily married, and enjoying work. What is it that has gone wrong? Whatever
it is, Banya, it can be worked out. Believe me. No problem is strong enough to
warrant giving up on life. And there is nothing wrong in cutting off all needs
or attachments, however strong they may be, for the sake of the most important
need of life - survival. There are no dead-ends in life, Banya. One can always
take a u-turn and choose another lane. Please! No matter what your problem is,
I'm certain it can be worked out. Please don't take any decision out of
impatience. Just give me five days, two days, one day, at least an hour! I will
solve your problems. Please!" Sarat pleaded and broke down.

"Sarat, I know you will. And if it's my problem, I know you will do whatever it
takes to solve", Banya assured. "But it's all beyond that now. It's all over.
I've taken the sleeping pills and I've barely few minutes left."

"What!!" Sarat yelled in anger. "You stupid, adamant girl! Will you ever listen
to me!" he cried out loud as he admonished her. This time, he realized, the
dagger of Fate is planning a fatal cut and has chosen him for witness while
mocking at his helplessness.

"Forgive me, Sarat. And remember our commandment, 'Thou shalt not cry'. Take
care of yourself. Bye", Banya put the phone down and the last drops of tears
rolled down her cheeks. The cut was complete.

The heaviest burden is not that of ignorance, but that of knowledge. To know of
the loss after the event is sad, but to know all along what you are losing, and
that you are bound to lose is pathetic. And life doesn't give a second chance.

Sarat shouted into the mouthpiece, "Banya! Banya! Banya!" But he could hear her
no more. He yelled and cried at the top of his voice and collapsed on the table
in tears.

A minute later he opened the cache, took out the pistol, pointed it at his
temple, and pulled the trigger.

The deafening noise splattered blood on the floor, and made the receiver,
hanging loose from the table, swing. And on the notepad read the unfinished
entry -

"11/09/'04, 5.12pm - "

-Vijay Ch.