Tag: short story

One night at a park

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The park was always in ruins. No one knew if it had ever seen better days but you can be sure that the colony’s respectable residents would never be seen there.

I would always scheme with the other residents about it. Especially that Naik. No one would ever think we didn’t get along. 

Living near a place with such a bad reputation can do us no good. The atmosphere is never right but these other fools will never understand. Everything that is bad happens because of atmosphere. It is why dictators who smoke get their countries in trouble. They make for terrible atmosphere. Just look at Cuba.

Now we must do something about those dam hooligans at the park. Everyone nods when I tell them this but are happy to sit at home with only the light from their TV’s  leaving their houses when the time is right. How many time have I told them of my plan? That gatekeeper is terrible. I keep telling him to get the other servants together and paint those dam fences.

Those rusty fences would give you tetanus if you even look at them. My plan was perfect. It was simple, and the intelligent could see that this rainy night was actually the best time for it. Just a few knocks on the head would send those idiots at the park away. They were better off at home rather than hanging out in parks so late. Well, so I thought.

 There’s the gateman now. His smile always unsettels me. It seems to be mocking me in its unusual whiteness. Maybe I should give him a knock on the head too, now that I know the measure of my blows. He wasn’t wearing a watch. More time would always do me good.

No, I just have to get back to the east gate. I was right, the atmosphere was perfect. In the rain all you could see was the blue and yellow glows from the apartment windows and the lamps that would only fliker like the insects that flew past them. 

I looked at my watch carefully.

Hmm. I didn’t mean to do it honestly, but I think it will be for the best. All I saw was him shuffling around aimlessly, suspiciously. I should have noticed that bent gait but I was a bit too excited to be honest. I took my walking stick and aimed.

It should have hit his arm buy he stumbled across nothing. That dam Naik. What was he doing in the park without me? I was the one of started the whole clean park business and now he goes off without me? 

I nearly felt my pulse go when his did but I realised that atmosphere was just right. I made sure to tap my walking stick extra loud and even leave a cough or two as the gateman walked by. I didn’t want to oversell it.

That fool was always blind, might actually take him a few days to find Naik. I looked at my watch carefully in the orange street light and memorised the exact time again. 

Who could know if I came home at 8 or 9? No one other than the gateman would know I was at the park and I would have many ready to testify how I sat by the TV all day. When the police come at least there won’t be anymore idiots at the park anymore.
 

 

Fairy

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All I could see were his feathers and antlers, so why should I have felt any fear?

His eyes like colored marbles, smaller than my palm he spoke in a strange cackling. I could hear his flutter and I swore I heard the night speak in its cold breeze. The brushing of leaves that I had forgotten since I left the old farm, since the world left the old farm followed the fireflies that buzzed around us.

The land broke and bent, on it’s bones lay roads. A serpent crushing what once was. In these forest lost stories of man eaters, demons and spirits once made their home. The forest floor was harsh. The land around me was dry and quiet while men would thunder and glow across the forest borders.

This was not home, the straggler would not like my habits. I felt guilt, deep down I longed for my land of light and fire.He led me far, onto the icy roads and head beams. So came my peace. I should have known. Why would the faeries lay in wait for  man’s repentance?

The Wait

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The dog at the station, how long had he been there?

I would have offered him something, but his stare was empty. I stepped back trying to figure out if he had died. Before us people milled about. The train didn’t want to leave, but really what was there to look at?

The din was like the ticking of a meaningless clock. Feet shuffled but the crowd never died. There were so many, only a blur without meaning. So I stood there and with the dog I listened. People moved but the station never changed.

The fear poet

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Despite his failing mind, he knew the doctors were selling him the glow of cat eyes in the dark.

He knew. The green fluorescent flies had told him as they clinked Morse against the dying bulb. He pulled at his chain and smiled. The dog nearby wore a blank stare .

“Go away! When they’re through they’ll make a monkey out of you.”he shouted. The dog gritted his mirrored fangs and his orange eyes grow more incandescent.

He smiled wryly for the attendants to come in and sing like shattering glass over a glossy lake.

While I ran

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I should have paid more attention to my map but the night air was far cooler than I expected. I had to move before the chill reached my bones.

A figure in robes dragged his feet behind me. And here I thought it was only the fluttering of my own robes in the wind that I heard. Maybe it was, but I knew I had to run. In the maze of mud buildings and cobbled streets I could not see where my path would end, where it would go.

The sweat cooled my back as I turned, a roof here and wall there but not a single lamp to guide my way. Within windows the light would mock me. I knew I would not run far. On a roof someone took my hand and said “Let’s swim to eternity.” I looked again and the flat, walled roofs were covered with water. But I dared not look at who held my hand.

The air was warmed by fire but my fingers cold and dead like wood.

I leapt and flew, to an old man’s store. How could I have known? In the darkness I never saw the strings. In my fear I could not see him like the spider on her web. I heard people watch and shadows dance as the old man pulled his strings.

Mirror Dance

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I was so tired after a day at the passport office and my internship that I wouldn’t have noticed him if he was crawling up my neck.

I can’t remember what the first signs of him were. I was distracted by the breeze that only grew more soothing the more I sped up. The road was empty and the air was welcome relief from the warmth of the day. But suddenly I felt something on my arm.

I looked but found nothing. Then I felt like something leapt off my neck. In the light from the neon Deccan Herald sign on the opposite lane I realized I was covered in spider webs. When I stopped at a signal I started getting rid of the webs. When I’d finished blindly pawing at the air I realized another motorist had stopped next to me and wore a look of utter confusion. When he realized I was staring back at him, he panicked and sped off ignoring the red light.

It was only when traffic got thicker that I spotted him. Or her. A yellow little thing on my right rear view mirror. I was grateful for the lack of traffic. I was entranced and let it rest on the speed dial all the way home. What can I do but ask if you’ve ever seen a spider dance on glass in the light of streets?

Flame Set Eyes

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It was an evening like any other-I had just retreated to the shaded apartment in the cities few quiet refuges and had perched myself on my balcony. I tugged at my shirts collars and lent on the railings observing the car that had driven by.

It stopped by the house opposite mine and a family streamed out. The car was an old model but I guessed the owners must have been wealthy at some point of time. Their faces were directed at their phones as the man who drove the car said something and made his way into the house before the others. Right after the last thump of a car door I thought I saw one of them look at me.

I nearly fell back into my chair. I wasn’t quite sure why I was thrown off. But I knew where to look when I rose again. Right across the street burned two troubled eyes un-obscured by a veil. They looked right at me with a casual intensity I thought impossible. I exhaled and looked away at the trees that swayed with a flourish. I could not bear to look back down but I am certain the stare was not quickly broken.

I could hear the party at the house across the road but did not see her again. I can’t explain my curiosity. I knew that she was just a visitor and that she would not be here long. I dreamt in a troubled sleep but, as all city dwellers do, had little time to worry about the eyes. Soon enough she was the least of my concerns.

I traveled a lot in those day so it wasn’t long that I was in the city. But those eyes seemed to have marked themselves onto my soul. I would forget as I grew older and traveled further, only to be reminded by the breezy branches of those eyes that burned.

The White Revolver (R word essays)

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“Only a few meters away… The revolver must still have a round in the chamber”

He dragged himself across the cold white marble that grew a sickening shade of red as the hallways’ occupants bled out. His sticky fingers irritated him. He drummed them against the floor as he caught his breath. Funny how he still felt excited, like adrenaline made him invincible, like he was still in control. If only he could get up.

“No. That’s not it. I’ll just need the gun, he’ll be back and he won’t be ready,”

The revolver was an old thing. Primitive; a remnant from naive days. His coat looked like one he used to wear back then. He’d picked it up last week on a whim. Maybe it could have been a return to the glory days. It seemed a bit hilarious to start reminiscing at that moment.

“Must be the blood loss. Where’s the bloody revolver anyway? Might take me forever to find it in all the blood,”

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. It was supposed to be easy. But he was uneasy the second they’d walked through the revolving doors. All that planning was for nothing. What a time for revelations! The cities best law enforcers would never be suspected of staging a robbery. It had taken them forever to gather up fall guys, but those were worries from a time when he had more things to worry about.

Four shots rang out and a gun clattered as it hit the floor.

Everything went wrong when they choose their first collateral for the day. They’d have more glory and authority if a few clerks and tellers hit the floor. Four shots rang out and a gun clattered as it hit the floor. The first victim didn’t fall. He grasped at his head and gargled black foam, one that seemed to drip from the hole in his head too. His face threatened to pull into his ears drums and he groaned like a falling tree. His arms tore themselves apart and seemed to extend into a hundred antennas. Before anyone said anything, one antennas flew across the room and whipped him. It cut halfway through him and he fell over, mouth agape. He looked like he was trying to understand why he’d turned into butter.

He didn’t die. He wished he had; he wished he hadn’t seen everything else that happened. One by one, the thing hunted down everyone in the bank. Everyone who had seen, everyone who…

The doors spun open.

“Well… Hello there,”

“Too late” he thought to himself.

He didn’t take his eyes off the ornate handle

Upturned now and against the wall, he turned and spotted his revolver. It’s ivory white handle unstained out just out of reach. He didn’t take his eyes off the ornate handle even as a crack filled the room and his ears rang with the sound that be his end.

This is a part of the word essay challenge.

Prompt words- revolver, round, revelation, remnant, reminiscing.  

Amelie

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Ah, there she goes again. Curious little creature. And its’s… 8:30 now. I have a feeling she’ll be gone for a long time.

She’s got something about her. Maybe that’s why I can’t paint the woman. There’s this whiff of destiny- look at that gait- a bit of fear too. Perhaps it’s time I offer a bit of help. How long has it been? Half a century? Maybe more. Back when things were still different. I think I spent months working on my painting. I wonder what a young and virgin eyed version of myself would say if someone told me I was going to paint the same thing every year. Maybe I would be happy, happy about knowing.

Who was that other girl? I think I remember her. The one with silky,yellow curls who pranced around in her apartment when I was young. I can’t remember her name. Years. Years I spent looking out through my window. they say the world changed. All I see is another woman at the window, in shadows where my dreams paint in the blanks. I wonder if I really want to know who she is. But Amelie seems so permanent.

Like the woman in the painting, captured on canvas now and forever. That is of course, only if I manage to paint her. To copy the window, that seems to have her preserved forever. But first my bones of glass will have to carry me far. to understand her I must tell her all I know. Tell her not to make my mistakes. To look through no windows.

Sights Around Mangalore

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My neck is usually strained and screaming with pain by the time I reach Mangalore. I can only tolerate bumpy, stuffy bus rides for so long; I always keep my bus window wide open to get as much fresh air as I can.

After the semi-conscious excuse for sleep that only a sleeper bus can offer,along with the unending chatter of passenger who act like they’ve found their soulmates sitting next to them, I’ve half a mind to hop out of the window. You can always see men with legs and mouths tightly shut preparing to sprint at the next stop. Everyone gropes around still dazed while they try to find their things, stretch in cramped quarters and ask the conductor how far away their stops are at least 6 times. They always manage to forget and receive a earful from the conductor.

It is tradition to complain about the driving, roads, sleep and ghat section once we’re off. Soon everyone sporting righteous outrage at the crass, loud nature of some co-passenger. Awkward silence and righteous indignity set in as the relatives who are supposed to pick us up, like always, are late but insist they’ve been waiting for us at another stop for hours.

The streets are quite, deserted, cool. The air is thick, pleasant and smells lazy. Stray dogs eye us as they enjoy their rule over the quit tarmac, the buzzing orange streetlights  their collaborates. We pile into a car, while everyone asks each other how they’ve been. they point out how so and so has gotten taller, thinner. They whisper how so and so has gotten fatter. they all decide they must eat. We leave the car before it has moved an inch and head over to the nearest restaurant. The one’s where regular customers eat are always located in a hotel. There we eat Mangalore buns that are surprisingly filling. When your eating buns and waiting for hot tea/ hoicks in town that’s still asleep and grey, you know your in Mangalore and no where else.

People discuss how the roads where back when they were kids, how certain granduncles were caught by leopards while they stopped off to pee etc. I stick my head out of the window and look at all the trees that seem to rush past me. The cool, green, residential areas that are far away from the main road are always deserted when morning buses drop off passengers. People point to the new apartments and reminisce about the old, luxurious, spacey tiled houses that always seem to invite rain are all but gone. they point to the few survivors and tell each other stories of how they used to play by the compound walls.

The few quite minutes you have after you get home and the age determined ques to the bathroom is set up is a voyeurs wet dream. You can drag a chair out to the large open baloneys that Mangalore houses always have and watch sleepy life sneak out of the apartments and houses. Inevitably I’m told to get potato chips, milk, tukudies,flavored banana chips etc. The shopkeepers, the customers and pedestrians wear dreamy looks. You’d think they lived in a world where clocks didn’t exist.

Someone always insists on going to some temple, visiting some obscure uncle/aunt before they die, so we’re always out of the house. This will always be one of the greater mysteries of life to me. Manglore is the one place where wasting time at home is pleasant. If you disagree the sun and humidity will send you rushing back for cover indoors.My family however insists on packing themselves into a sweaty car and braving the heat. The humidity and sun torture you. I’m always drenched in sweat in Manglore.

The veg restaurants we visit, once someone man’s up and tell’s everyone else that we should probably take a break, always serve amazing sandwiches. I don’t know why but sandwiches always taste better in Mangalore. The petty shops around ever corner are the best places to eat however. They always have some specialty whose name I am too tired to remember. I can remember taste but not where they come from.

My most recent discovery is this guy who has an dd love affair with the coconut. He has multiple shops carved into old house near the port of Mangalore, where the air always smells of fish. He serves you coconut based ice cream, mixed with other melted flavors of ice cream. The ice cream is served in a coconut and is meant to be scooped out with a piece of coconut husk he gives you. You can recognize his shops by the red, 90’s refrigerators they always have.

We leave Mangalore the same way we came. In a sweaty, sleeper but filled with loud gossip, loud passenger, loud conductors, loud streets. One day I want to stay awake through the trip and locate where it is you top smelling the salty air of Mangalore.