Year.N

(i) This is an experiment, somewhat like Odd Even.ts.
(ii) There are 12 parts, each part consisting of as many words as the number of days in the mentioned month. Like JAN.gle - 31 words. APR.on - 30 words.
(iii) There are 3 sets - the parts with 31 words each| the part with 29 words| the parts with 30 words each
(iv) The parts or the sets are not necessarily in the correct order of occurrence.
(v) On an unrelated topic - My Blog turned a year old at 8:09 pm(IST) on the 27th of April, 2011.

 Year 2008.

“And as we wind on down the road 

Our shadows taller than our souls.”

JAN.gle

The metal bar slid over the strings of the lap steel guitar. The screech hit his eardrums – coerced his impotent hands to cease the rendering of mellifluous music turned noxious noise.

**FEB.rile

The smack and the coke in the same syringe.  He was speedballing. He was shivering with fever. Was he insane? She saw him and knew she had her story.

MAR.ijuana

The beige cloth draped around the cherubic chillum had turned feuillemorte. Inhale! His sore throat bled. The diffused smoke ushered the diabolical entities to their alveoli seats. His hands shook compulsively.

“In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, 

And the voices of those who stand looking.”

*APR.on

She loved the acetic acid stains on her apron, the vinegar odour, the light through the red filter, the negatives and the photographs. She knew she was ‘developing’ a story.

MAY.hem

The crowd was going insane. They should have been oscillating in unified trance then, with the reverberating rendition of liberating verses and psychedelic music. An hour gone. The stage was empty.

*JUN.cture

She stood still, stupefied. He excavated her words from the locked chest kept safe in a dungeon, and sung them. She knew, she should’ve captured. But she didn’t miss anything.

“And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune 

Then the piper will lead us to reason.”

JUL.iet

He changed the tuning from standard to open E, for the song “Juliet”.  His voice echoed – faded to the sounds of saxophone, piano and drums. He waited for his guitar solo.

AUG.ment

The crescendo lingered. Lights changed colours like the chameleon – their long tongues ensnared him. The succeeding diminuendo got lost in his handcuffed silence. He recovered, improvised; then ended the song abruptly.

*SEP.ia

She wanted the photographs to live longer. She wanted them to speak the language he speaks. She wanted the story to be warm and brown. It had to be sepia.

“In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings, 

Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.”

OCT.opus

As his opus terminated, the tentacles of an octopus like creature swung before him. From the heavens descended 'Cthulhu'. He clung to one of the tentacles and wished to escape doom.

*NOV.ice

It was probably her last chance to click the conclusion of her story, given his wretched appalling condition. She didn’t have a pass. She was a photographer, but a novice.

DEC.adence

As he lay on his cot, staring at the ceiling fan, he wondered about Juliet and “Juliet”. The crescendo and diminuendo were dead. All that was left – the sound of shutter.

“Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run 

There's still time to change the road you're on.”

Do we learn?

Do we earn?

Do we Year.N?

Y/N?

 ---------------x----------------

“And if you listen very hard 

The tune will come to you at last. 

When all are one and one is all 

To be a rock and not to roll.”

The quotes are from the song - Stairway to heaven by Led Zeppelin.

P.S. - Lethargy and the El Clasico forced me not to proofread the post. I apologise for the brazen and imbecilic mistakes.

The Hunt

Gulp! Bang! Crash! Thud!

– silence –

Tick Tock! Drip Drop! Knock Knock!

– silence –

Creak! Whoosh!

His eyes were blinded by the Cimmerian hue. The deviant waves of the delirious Black Sea, forced their way through his nostrils and lips; the water mixed with filth and vitriol. Maybe, on the other side his eyes would be blinded by the luminosity, of lucrative possibilities of raw reflections that boast of their ephemeral existences in the delusory dimensions. The fluid soiled his torn clothes, fouled his breath, burned his throat, and moistened and charred his lips at the same time. Was THAT water? The acrid taste sprinted through his tongue to summon the participation of his senses that could send signals to his brain inferring the nature of the liquid. It was Urine.

“O’ sense of gustation. Liberate me.”

Discrete!

With not much ease he managed to stand up. His fatigued legs shivered. He started walking. He reached a cavern. He could not verify his presence in a cavern visually, though. He dragged his naked feet over the rocks. He felt someone’s breath on his neck. He shivered. Then he felt someone touch his hand. For a fraction of a second he was petrified, which probably lent some in(ane)-coherence to him to establish a camouflage with the stones around him; but it was overruled by his urge to run. He ran. He felt something sharp brush against his feet. He felt his warm blood gushing out of the wound. He stopped. He felt someone licking the blood off his leg. Scared, he started running again.

“O’ sense of tactition. Liberate me.”

Secrete!

Probably, he entered a hallway. The sounds of air resistance reached his ears. He turned back and forth to improve the reception of the sounds and then abruptly, with a frivolous intervention of an occult entity he was rendered immobile. But his fortification of quiescence was swiftly revoked by a harsh noise. A multitude of pins raced downwards, released from an unknown height. They hit some hypothetical metal obstacle in mid-air to produce simultaneous inseparable clinks. From there the pins came together and transmogrified into a sheet of glass and resumed their journey downwards to hit the glass floor and shatter into pieces to produce another host of clinks. He paused. He resumed walking.

“O’ sense of audition. Liberate me.”

Concrete!

He reached a room, probably. The smell of weathered wood hit his nose. The portentous wooden floor beneath him was not showing much promise. He walked carefully. The nauseating smell of his own sweat, blood and saliva was making him weak. He was on the verge of vomiting, when he was miraculously rescued by an overbearing smell of wet soil which shunned the stench away. And then the realisation dawned upon him that he was not walking on wood anymore; it was earth beneath his feet. An angelic fragrance met him. The fragrance came to him floating in the air, presenting herself be his mistress. She executed a quick exhibition of her skills of captivation. He followed her with carefree conviction, as she danced gleefully in the air and showed him the way.

“O’ sense of olfaction. Liberate me.”

Replete!

There was no transition or translation. Suddenly, he was greeted by blinding lights. The incessant and exuberant radiance of the place purged every drop of exhaustion from his body and killed every bit of the decadent darkness that had seeped into his existence. After a while, when the light ceased being harsh and started being soft, he realised where he was. Giant plants bearing gigantic flowers towered over him. The flowers were beautiful. They spread an empyrean aura of unhindered prosperity that delicately disfigured the inharmonious elements born out of the excrements of the excruciating interferences of apparently realistic iniquity. His hunt for the utopian garden was over. He believed his eyes. He was in heaven.

“O’ sense of vision. Liberate me.”

Effete!

----------

Flesh and bones lay scattered on the ground. The plants(flowers) had shared their treat. It was eons ago, when a human had wandered into their territory, conceiving an outrageous notion of exploration, fuelled by dystopian imageries of a transcendent utopia.

He was just the second one. There are more to come.

Delete!

----------

Whoosh! Creak!

– silence –

Knock Knock! Drip Drop! Tick Tock!

– silence –

Thud! Crash! Bang! Gulp!

The third one begins his journey.

But he possesses an extra sense.

Ashes

"The rendition of intuition, intuition being an abstract personification of sublime simultaneous symphonies playing incoherently and incessantly in our neurons, can be catastrophic; especially because of its vivid and varied inconsistencies, mis-interpretations. But, I can bravely embody it or them, before you. When I write to you, I don't need to be politically correct, I just need to be grammatically correct. When I do something, I don't need to be politically correct, I just need to be conscientiously correct. I don't have to, or I won't say, you complete me. You don't, because I am a nonentity. How can you complete something that doesn't exist? But, my physical absence is the testament for my esoteric and intangible presence in you." - wrote Sean to Penny.

   You are the rock,

Resolute, intrepid;

Yes, maybe.

I am the water,

Irresolute, trepid;

Yes, maybe

You can shield yourself from me; contest, will you,

You can withstand me, you think?

I’ll not flow over you, but I’ll get inside you;

Not your body I’ll devour but your soul I will drink.

You must be wondering, why this thirst.

Oh, for me...No, I am thirst.

You envisage, what’s the body and the soul, severed

They are mute, dysfunctional debris, when not allied.

Ah, I am hysterical, euphoric, ecstatic, enraptured-

After I am done with your soul, I’ll break you from the inside.

You are no god, then why deicide?

I am the one, I decide.

Had you mistaken me for a friend?

Know me better, I am a fiend.

That old house I long for,

Not house, that was home.

The garden, the greenhouse and the orchids.

This new house I do not abhor,

This house too, is home.

No garden, no greenhouse and no orchid.

And the dark blue walls that surround me, seem a tad turbid.

Or maybe they are not, maybe I am beseeching a mirage,

My mind is dis-painting the walls, to make a new collage.

Penny sauntered in the garden, with an air of nonchalance and uninhibited carelessness; cloaked in pleasant perspiration, which was being unhurriedly unveiled and consumed by the calm, cool and erotic breeze. Her face, so beautiful, so immaculately white – some of the veins around her forehead were partly visible; the veins carried a colour of dull green – portraying congruence with the green but contrast with the bright green that was all around. She walked towards the greenhouse, where the orchids resided.

The grass blades danced a little;

To the air?

The earth was the drumhead,

And her feet were the drumsticks.

And it seemed that the grass moved,

With the vibration-

When she played the drum,

Paradisaically.

Penny struggled with the pile of obtrusive materials she was carrying all at once, with an obvious intention of incarcerating them, or better incinerating them. Those were reprehensible, jejune and gratuitous entities emulsified in vitriolic flavours of obscure reminiscence that served as tools for strident infliction of affliction. They better be obliterated than ominously perpetuated. Penny dragged her feet on the cold floor. She reached the barren backyard of her house, where she dumped the junk in the waste bin.

Penny went back into the house, and walked towards the kitchen. Maybe she had forgotten something.

“You know, Penny, we could probably travel in time if we could travel at the speed of light. It’s hypothetical though, but the thought itself amuses me. I envy the quantum particles; they can travel at speeds comparable to the speed of light. Maybe, they can time travel”, conjectured Sean.

The officinal stench of the place hit Penny’s nostrils. After, a brief shake of neurotic nausea, followed by a rapid recuperation triggered by a defense mechanism of adroitly evading any manifestation of or any proclivity for an autocratic impotence of the perceptive or cognitive faculties, she entered the blood donation camp. People, on beds, squeezing sponge balls; needles stuck to their arms, drawing blood from the median cubital veins; the blood bags getting filled gradually – her sight revealed. She was just accompanying her friends, she could not donate blood; she was anaemic.

Sean : “Time when reversed spells Emit. Nice coincidence, right? If you can reverse time you can probably emit quantum particles. Hah! How lame is that?”

Penny : “Sean, I’ve been thinking, maybe, I had a twin. She doesn’t exist physically, maybe; but metaphysically, within me; like I am two people, two things at once, I am the water and she is the rock and vice versa. Sometimes it brings me to an atrocious edge of impending turmoil. We switch our places so quickly that it’s really hard to distinguish, who’s who.”

Sean : “Oh Penny, do you mean to say you have an evil twin and that she’s no one else but you? Have you been watching those darned movies which endorse those stupid ideas? Our discussion about time travel was a lot more interesting.”

Penny : “Shut up! Will you? I don’t buy that evil twin theory. Oh, about your obsessive travelling- in-time thing, I had time travelled to the future and I saw that we were not together. I showed you the finger, for being a segregated superficial shmuck.”

Sean : “Okay, I shut up!”

Penny : “Do you know about vanishing twins? It’s not very uncommon. One of the twins die very early in the mother’s womb. The dead foetus is absorbed by the mother or the other twin. It becomes nonexistent. Maybe I absorbed my twin sister, maybe she is within me.”

Sean : “Okay! Even if I believe that you had absorbed your twin sister; the time when this happened, your sister or the dead foetus had not developed a brain. So, even if she is present in you, theoretically; she can’t do anything on her own, or she can’t make you do anything.”

Penny : “You’re not getting it Sean. How do I make you understand what I am trying to say…”

Penny returned from the kitchen, holding a porcelain mug and a match box. It was the same mug from which she had coffee everyday. It was given to her by Sean.

Maybe she had time travelled into the future. Sean and her were not together, for reasons - aplenty.

Penny dropped the mug on the concrete. It was shattered into pieces.

Probably, the mug would not have broken had it been her old house, the old garden with a cushion of grass.

She lit a matchstick and dropped it in the trash bin.

Apparently, old paper catches fire easily.

She sat down.

Penny took up a piece of the broken porcelain mug and pressed it against her wrist. Slitting her writs? Oh! That was not her. But, she had always wanted to donate blood…

Sean’s last letter, in a sealed envelope burned in the trash bin –

“I know, we’re not together anymore and I know that you might not be interested in reading anything I write; but hoping that you’ve read till here, I shall continue my jabber hence and hope against hope that you shall bear with me. Do you remember our discussion about the vanishing twins? I do. Well, I don’t know which of you were prevailing then, when we broke apart (and not broke up), but I think I have an alternate theory for that. I was reading about the Tachyon the other day, a hypothetical sub-atomic particle which could travel faster than light. Maybe, you were something like that. I couldn’t see you; understand you when you were approaching me (read with me), but when you passed me (read left me), I could actually see you, understand you, both of you. You were clearly divided into two images, moving in opposite directions, one red and one blue, personified and transmogrified into the rock and the water. But, I can’t travel at the speed of light, let alone faster than that, so I could not catch you, neither of you.”

Penny longed for the orchids, the white ones, the blue ones, especially the red ones… There is a myth that Blood Orchids can resurrect people. She could use them, now.

It was (is) the sixth of February.

“Happy Birthday Penny”, Sean’s voice crackled over the telephone.

Maybe it was past, maybe it is future; or maybe in some other dimension, Penny was in her old home, and it was midnight.

Penny got engulfed in the smoke…

All that remained in the trash bin were ashes, but there were a couple of invisible remnants which could not even escape with the smoke – the vanishing twins and the tachyon.

Black pastel on 6"x4" white paper.

p.s. - The sketch was made upon a whim. I am not an artist.

Sequel - Fumes

Odd Even.ts

(i)   This is an experiment.

(ii)  The irregular chronological order is intentional.

(iii) There are 6+1 parts, each comprising 55 words.(so have I counted)

Beg.inning

6^th September, 2010. Night.

Norah clenched her teeth.  She gasped.  She embraced the silence that followed. No mirth, no melancholy and no miff; she was a stone. Sound of scissors. Severed umbilical cord. Time progressed. No relevant sound. The unwanted yet unavoidable, obligatory slap. Cries of the baby filled the room. Norah’s brain throbbed like her heart, with agony.

Cow.ardice

1^st January, 2010. Afternoon.

John was a powerful man.  Aal kept silent like a dead piece of log. Aal preferred to live like a castrated ox rather than fight with vigour like a bull and ultimately, probably die with his testicles getting crushed. Aal succumbed to the opprobrious clout. Norah’s body was profaned, mutilated; and now, her soul, amputated.

New.s

31^st December, 2009. Late evening.

‘You look terrific, Norah.’ Aal took Norah in his arms. The red dress she donned, embraced her immaculate lissome body, envying anyone, everyone else who could, who would lay a hand or even a sight on her.  She dispersed seeds of pulchritude that could absorb any man’s wavelength of restraint. ‘I am pregnant’, she whispered.

Part.y

1^st January, 2010. Around midnight.

Aal exceeded his limit of sane alcohol consumption and slayed his consciousness, probably unconsciously. John offered to help Norah get Aal home. She agreed, albeit reluctantly. John’s hormones flickered. He pounced on Norah. Norah let out muffled shrieks, tried to fight back, but in vain. John increased then ceased his pubic movements with diabolical satiation.

Mo.u.rning

1^st January, 2010. Morning.

Aal’s head was still heavy with the previous night’s alcohol. Norah handed a cup of coffee to him, her hands shaking incoherently. Norah choked on the lump in her throat, gulped it, and then let it all go. The fact that John raped his wife seeped in, as the hot coffee slipped down Aal’s throat.

End.urance

1^st January, 2011. Noon.

A little more, Norah thought. Endurance, that’s banal, mundane and superfluous. She can stay unscathed, unstirred, even if hot lava is poured on her coarse skin which used to be gentle sometime, long ago.  A little more she thought. The stifled muted shrieks of the child drowned in the cotton pillow, his legs stopped moving.

--x--

Epitaph

31^st December, 2011. Morning.

The kid placed the white rose on Aal Carter’s grave. His parents, Norah and John stood behind him. Aal was a promising writer, but he was addicted to drugs, which subsequently led to his death, after gifting him coma for a year. “Can people think while they are in coma? Maybe, Aal had a story.”

Rapture-Love-Rupture

Like a detached variegated feather of a possibly mythical, mystical bird that floats, dances in the air- a little exploited, a little caressed by nature, not stagnant, not firm, maybe fickle, almost always in turbulence yet in absolute peace; and then it comes to complete rest when it gets caught, entrapped by someone or something, depleted of alacrity, replete with insensitive senses, a sense of kinship, belonging, acceptance, of being overpowered, held, caged; Neil’s sight, the sight of a coherent, dull, fastidious, gullible, transparent, convoluted, sane, lunatic romantic walked, sprinted, peregrinated from one place to another, not waiting, not stopping, with unflagging spirit adulterated with mirthless vigour; and then it got stupefied, it froze, subtly, suitably, enchanted by some oblivious spell executed through a seductive, exquisite tool by a sorceress.  Neil’s sight remained bound, albeit loosely, like a ribbon tied carelessly to a little girl’s hair by herself, in a desperate effort to prove her mettle and failing miserably; but that outrageous freedom urged his sight to cling, hang on to the hypnotization. The freedom coaxed him, teased him, mocked him; it was as if a challenge, a casual one, thrown at him, telling him that he would not lose if he quit, he would not be humiliated, humbled if he refused, and just by saying that it also said that it would be his greatest defeat if he did surrender. His sight remained fixed.

She was an embodiment of the sun.

It hurt his eyes to keep looking at her.

What she had, she held, what she had begun-

He was helpless before that, he had to defer.

In one of her hands she held a small paper packet, the usual ones made out of sold off or discarded old newspapers. It contained a delectable mixture of puffed rice, spices, pieces of vegetables and snacks. Neil’s eyes chased the movement of her hand holding the paper packet. She raised her hand, tilted her head a little backwards, then poured some of the food in her mouth. He could separate, see, each element of the food that got lost in her mouth. A sole soul, a diminutive speck of puffed rice, a stranded, estranged entity, nonentity got marooned, prisoned in the island of her moist red lower lip; but she was generous enough to liberate it with a swift movement of her tongue.  Neil closed his eyes.  He was defeated. No. Not yet. He resumed looking at her, after that sudden pause of stare. Her mouth shut, her jaws moved, she crushed the food with her teeth, and then the sublime paste slipped down to her stomach, grazing her throat, leaving marks inside her with incoherent ecstasy. Neil’s eyelids batted in a synchronized fashion with the movement of her mouth, lips. He listened to the gentle sound of bliss, the unchained pleasure.

How he wished he was the…

The bus started moving. Neil had forgotten that he was sitting in a bus which was about to leave the bus-stand in a few minutes. He was startled, but he was relieved. He was on the verge of defeat; he was succumbing to the colossal coercion, the fatal force. Escape, could he? Did he?

Neil knew that he had fallen prey-

to that primitive propensity,

the delicate desire,

the daunting, haunting urge,

that he could not successfully purge,

the feeling, the reeling, the peeling of the soul,

the object, yes object,

which he had ruthlessly ruptured,

mercilessly murdered,

then carried it’s carcass himself,

in his arms,

and unceremoniously cremated it,

the thing called ‘love’.

Apparently, it had come back to life. Suddenly he felt an emptiness, a void in his stomach.

The ticket collector of the bus asked for the fare. Neil handed the few coins that he fished out of his pocket to the ticket collector and declared the name of the bus stop he was to get down at. The ticket collector asked for 50p. The bus fare was Rs. 8.50. Neil had only Rs. 8 with him. He produced his college ID and got a student-concession of Rs. 2, which reduced the fare to Rs. 6.50. The ticket collector sighed, frowned, returned the balance and left. So Neil had Rs. 1.50 left with him now. He didn’t know what was he going to do, from whom was he going to lend money; he was drowning in debts already. He rejected those naïve notions and closed his eyes. Of course he had better things to muse.

Neil went back to his own world, again. He wondered about ‘love’. It had been a conscious choice of his, semi-completely consequential to his circumstances, to sacrifice love. Then why did he feel love again? Why?

But he just couldn’t deny his love. He loved FOOD. He loved to eat, but he was broke, he couldn’t afford food, let alone good food. He could starve for days and weeks and months, now.

How he wished he was the one holding that paper packet and having the food.

---x---

Food is a necessity, a biological need. So is love, may be, or may not be. Some ascetics conquer hunger and also desires. If love is a desire, they conquer that too. Neil was not an ascetic. But he thought that he had conquered love, perhaps; hunger, of course not.

He still had food,
when he could afford to,

but he didn’t feel,

the same zeal;

love, was not there,

it didn’t matter though;
he didn’t care,

and then comes love again,

to heal,

or perhaps, to kill.

Neil was not hungry. Neil was in love, with food.

Visions

A sequel to Lives.

Sean did not visit Andy at the hospital.

Sweat beads decorated Sean’s forehead. The sweat infiltrated his eyes and irritated him. He scratched his eyes. His eyes, a little moist, a little tired and incoherently calm delineated a coldness that belied all comprehensions about and all complaints against the hot weather. His eyes carried a tinge of orange, formed by the redness of the scratch and the yellow left as a mark by an execrable and agonizing jaundice.

Sean entered the metro station. The cold air from the air conditioning hit his face, and fell back, as if accepting defeat to a greater force, to a higher degree of coldness. Sean stood at the queue to purchase his ticket. Tokens flashed before his eyes, reviving the memory of a city where tokens were given instead of tickets in the metro. The uninvited vision could not bother him. With the ticket in his hand Sean waited for the train to arrive. The train arrived. The doors opened. The doors closed. The train left. Sean stood at the same place. When the sound of the train moving on the rails ceased to reach his ears, he started walking towards the exit. He wanted to walk.

Sean was walking by a playground. The green-ness of the grass hurt his eyes. He stood there for a moment. A few kids were playing football. The swift movements of the white and black skinned sphere sent him in a tizzy.  He saw his brother score a goal. ‘No. Not real’, he said to himself and resumed walking. He walked past a house where a lady was singing Hindustani classical music. The voice of his mother singing Raga Desh, an evening raga filled his ears. It filled him with a peculiar sense of excruciating ecstasy. ‘No. Not real’, he said to himself and increased his pace.

Sean entered the coffee house. He wasn’t hungry, nor thirsty, probably tired. He rested on the chair and ordered for a cup of coffee. Two middle-aged men were sitting at the next table. They were discussing something very animatedly. Sean didn’t bother to listen, until he heard one of those men reciting a poem. The poem didn’t just sound familiar, he knew it by heart. He saw his father sitting across his table and reciting ‘Nirjhorer Sopnobhongo’, a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. ‘No, not real’, he said to himself and got up without finishing his coffee. He paid the bill and left.

He crossed streets adjoining which stood buildings with picturesque architecture. The white pillars, at a place, a thousand miles away got projected before him, as if through his eyes, exploring some hidden chambers of his mind. He saw a couple walking hand in hand, talking and smiling. Who was the boy, was it him? Who was the girl, was it…? ‘No’. A kit of pigeons rose from the ground and assumed flight. It startled him. No. ‘Were they pigeons or a murder of crows?’ They sounded like crows, but he thought that he saw pigeons.

He was exhausted, hallucinating.

He plugged in his earphones.

He needed some respite.

The hospital was five minutes away.

Andy had been unconscious for two days. The doctors did not say that there was much hope that he would make it. Andy had made it, apparently.

The first thing that Andy did after gaining consciousness was to call up Sean.

‘... Sean, my whole body is covered up with bandages and plaster. I look like, rather I feel like an Egyptian Mummy…’

‘Okay Andy, I will see you in the evening’

Sean pushed the glass door at the hospital’s entrance. His facial muscles yawned and stretched as if they have been woken from a long slumber. He was smiling. All the hallucinations and their misgivings were swept aside. A strange energy flowed through him. ‘Is this, what they call happiness?’ He thought to himself. ‘Adventures of the Egyptian Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster. Now, that’s a vision, a good one’, he shared a joke with himself, the smile still painted on his face. Maybe it was Andy. Yes, Andy was his priority now. He felt that.

The last but one stanza of his favourite song stimulated his eardrums.

“I took a heavenly ride through our silence,
I knew the moment had arrived,
For killing the past and coming back to life.”

– Pink Floyd

Sean walked towards the reception.

Andy’s father was filling in a form. It was for Andy’s death certificate.

Andy had made it, apparently.

---x---

The End.

The Beginning.



Sequel - Fits.

Lives

A sequel to Fumes.

From the heaven descended bulky drops of rain, they struck Sean’s face like arrows hurled from the slings of a group of deft archers. He had been waiting in the rain for more than ten minutes now, and he wasn’t carrying an umbrella, abiding by his inveterate trait of acute carelessness. Andy is supposed to pick him up. Andy had called five minutes ago to let him know that he was caught up in a traffic jam and would be there any minute. Sean had replied ‘Okay!’, not complaining the slightest, in his usual strain of uncompromised indifference and utter expressionless-ness. He was indifferent to the rain, to the vehicles that went past him splashing mud-water at him from the roads. He stood there shaking, feeling and observing- the unobserved, the unkempt, the unfulfilled, the unnerving facades of the vivid, poignant and beautifully destructive dystopic  colours of unnatural nature, which mercilessly yet mellifluously debased life, his life. He was painting, capturing, narrating and listening, all with his eyes.

Time flowed,

So did water.

Clouds bellowed-

Hoarse thunder.

Sean could feel a silhouette approaching him, but he chose to be indifferent and be engrossed in his job of discovering the dystopian spectrum, the obscure light which was making unflagging and unmitigated efforts to keep dusk, night at bay.

A man appeared out of nowhere and asked Sean “What time is it now?”

Sean replied “It’s quarter past six by my watch.”

Sean realized then, that five minutes had long passed.

It was no theatre,

So did he ponder.

Why did people gather-

In a crowd yonder?

Sean asked a person who was walking hastily towards the crowd, “What’s the matter?”

The person, without even glancing at Sean replied hurriedly, “There’s been an accident.”

Suddenly everything seemed still, the rain, the noises, the people around; everything. Sean’s senses seemed to have undergone temporary selective impairment. He walked towards the crowd, often bumping into people; not apologizing, he moved on.

He dreaded these accidents, these sights made him sick.

Sean recognized the car at once. He saw the body lying on the road, soon to be put on a stretcher and carried off in an ambulance, a few people surrounding it. The man was still alive, Andy was still alive. Sean observed Andy and the car, he couldn’t figure out which was more wretched, Andy’s body or Andy’s car.

The blood made him sick.

Sean’s senses did not get better. Silence prevailed.

Without inquiring anything about the accident, he found his way out through the crowd, swiftly.

No tear escaped his eye, no shriek escaped his throat.

Sean reached home. He was soaked to the skin.

The warmth of his home was hauntingly tranquilizing. He did not turn on the lights. He didn’t change, nor did he get himself dry; he sat on his bed, inert, motionless.

His mind drifted-

One year ago,

“He was in love. They have been together for more than two years now and the spark was still there.”

Sean was on his way to meet Penny. Penny didn’t turn up that day, instead she texted him, ‘We’re through!’ They had their fair deal of occasional tussles, but that was a bolt from the blue.

Dejected and crushingly mesmerized by the aura of atrocious affliction, he had switched off his cellphone and wandered apathetically on solitary streets.

When he reached his hostel, he was informed that a friend of his father’s had been trying to get to him all day. Sean called him back immediately. Sean was instructed to get home as soon as possible, availing the quickest and best mode of transport he can manage to get.

Sean stayed in a different city. He was studying engineering.

All the while he was on his way home; his mind was digging up the same cadaver of his deceased relationship with Penny. He had even shouted out once in his mind, “Thank you God; what can be worse?” He didn’t even try to know or comprehend why he was rushing home.

Sean’s family comprised his father, mother and younger brother. They had been out to the market on an evening, shopping. While they were returning, their car had met with an accident on the highway. It was a ghastly accident.

There was no corpse on which Sean could rest his head and weep. Just a heap of flesh, undistinguishable; what was his father’s flesh, or mother’s or brother’s.

Sean hardly remembered when was the last time he had hugged his father, had a hearty chat with his mother or fought with his brother. He was away, in his own kingdom of inherent insane inanity.

Water dripped from his hair and from his clothes on the floor. The bed was already wet.

“Andy: ….Don’t be this dead man, this zombie. C’mon, don’t be Frankenstein...”

Sean: …Victor Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who created the monster and not the monster itself. ‘Don’t be Frankenstein?’ I’d love to be him….”

Sean bent down and with his index finger as a pen and water as ink he started writing on the floor-

Why do you follow me so assiduously, o’ Death?

I won’t give up, although it hurts with my every breath.

Why do you bruise me with your abhorrent tentacles of depression?

My life is annihilated and exiled are my expressions.

Why do you stab me again and again, to inflict agony with your blunt knives?

With my head still on my neck, I won’t be afraid of you, for those taken LIVES.

Finished with his eccentric scribbles, Sean sat up again.

It was still raining outside.

He kept sitting on his bed, inert, motionless!

-------

Life is futile-

And short-lived.

A bullet fired,

Hits the target-

In no time.

Tracing the path of-

An obnoxious projectile.

Sequel - Visions

Fumes

A sequel to Ashes.

“A pack of Marlboro regulars, please!”

Sean lit a fag and smoked it listlessly. He loved it. The cigarette smoke was strong but his throat, his lungs were stronger. With dwindling footsteps and a rugged poise, head burdened with joyous premonitions, he moved towards the subway.He needed to board the train, he had to meet Penny. A swift flick of the fingers and the brown cigarette bud disembarked his hands, right into the trash bin, and cuddled amongst a half-eaten cheese sandwich, a rotten apple, and a fresh bouquet of roses. Sean fished into his pocket to retrieve a mint gum; to retrieve himself from his foul breath. He couldn’t kiss Penny, like that. He needed his mouth to be fresh; his lips moist and awaiting his love’s lips. He was in love. They have been together for more than two years now and the spark was still there.

Six months later –

Andy : “Sean, would you like to have a smoke?”

“SEAN, hey; HELLO… Would you like to have a smoke?”

Sean : “Umm…”

Andy “WHAT?”

Sean : “No thanks!”

Andy : “What the hell is wrong with you? Yes, Penny left you for the better. Now, shrug it off and get going. Don’t be this dead man, this zombie. C’mon, don’t be Frankenstein.”

Sean : “Yes, okay! I won’t smoke; not for some time at least. And by the way, Victor Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who created the monster and not the monster itself. ‘Don’t be Frankenstein?’ I’d love to be him.”

Andy : “Don’t smoke, if that makes you happy. Frankenstein or his monster; you got my point, and that’s all.”

Another six months later –

White cigarette buds were strewn on the white marble floor, gray ashes made the immaculate harmony dull, and a few pages with staff notes written on them made unflagging efforts to obliterate the monotony with their silent melodies; a drawing sheet and a few colour pencils, an almost damaged cellphone, a diary and a pen. Amidst this chaos, lay Sean, unscathed, oblivious to the filth, the cosmos.

He is in a dire need to decipher his creative and intellectual traits; that is if he does have any. He needs something to drive him, something which can make him live, make him believe in himself.

Sean, searched for a cigarette. His pack was empty. With herculean effort he got himself up, put on his jacket and walked down to the nearby store.

“A pack of Marlboro lights, please!”

Sean needed to smoke. His throat and lungs were still strong, they could bear the smoke of Marlboro regulars, but he smoked lights now.

Penny is a person of the past now.

Sean likes Tina. He isn’t in love with her, yet; and he doesn’t hope that he will be in love with her anytime soon. Sometimes he finds this feeling, his ‘like’ for Tina, repulsive.

Sean lit a fag and smoked it listlessly. He loved it.

He coughed.

He never coughed while smoking Marlboro regulars and then Marlboro lights made him cough; Sean wondered and smirked.

Sean took a long puff of his fag.

He puked.

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

Marlboro regulars and ‘love’ were delightful.

Marlboro lights and ‘like’ are repugnant.

Sometimes the harsh doesn't hurt, but the soft stings!

Sequel - Lives

Jour de naissance

In a pensive stance,

I sit beside a window,

with my head tilted sideways,

my eyes affixed,

on the blades of grass,

that dance to the tune,

of mellifluous drizzle.

I have switched off the fan,

I didn’t like the sound of it;

it is obstructing, distracting, subtracting;

the convergence of my cognitions.

I light a cigarette,

I smoke effortlessly.

The smoke,

sometimes slaps back at my face,

and sometimes it is extracted,

deep from my mouth;

in a twisted cyclonic fashion,

goes out of the window,

and dissolves into the moist air.

How, the direction of the wind changes without any notice.

I try to recollect my last birthday. Abhishek wishing me at midnight; lunch with Sumit and Anish; the movie Love Aaj kal after that, at Inox. Yes, Ma had made Ilish Biriyani for me. That’s all. I don’t remember anymore of that day.

The last year of my life had not been very eventful, as I’d supposed it would be. I had spent most of the time coping with my illness.

A few good people were added to my life,

a few good ones subtracted.

Sporadically, at times of depression,

I feel, maybe,

I’d held the grains of sand,

Too tightly.

They slipped through my fingers,

Through my clasp.

Well,

I could have gathered,

the grains of sand,

could have taken a piece of paper,

made a few strokes,

with a brush and glue on it,

and then let them slip away,

all of it, again.

It would have remained.

A piece of art.

Birthday kiddo.

You’re a year older.

Letter

Dear I,

I wonder why I didn’t write me or myself or just simply my name Sayak. Maybe I have an affinity towards the vowel ‘I’. You might think I, that’s also you, are a narcissist; maybe I am, or may be not. Let’s drop it, it’s not important.

Look at me, look at how lame a thing I am doing, perturbed by the hallucinated repercussions of self established, self demolished melancholic felicitous ode of insularity, noisily ranted in the harshest possible voice. Why don’t I sit for a while in solitude and get over with this conversation? Ah, I can’t strain my vocal chords to yell my quirks at you, or even if it is a mute conversation I can’t vex my mind to do the talking; I am too lazy to do that, you know. But I can do the typing; it comes to me almost involuntarily.

We hardly talk nowadays; and to speak the truth I don’t feel bad about it, rather I don’t have the time to feel bad about it. I am always busy doing something or the other and more often than not I am in the company of friends. Not that I am all ablaze and lost in hyperbolic hysteria while I am apparently and technically not alone, I do feel solitary at times, I glance at your silhouette, try to speak up, then reject the notion and lapse into the prevalent marooned numbness of temporarily anaesthetized inertia of the fake frivolous presence, the thing called fun, joy and very loosely life.

Sometimes, I feel like that small bird perched on a high tension wire, oblivious to and free from the facts of science. I don’t even realise what flows beneath me, grazing my feet; just like I let the relentless waves of time flow, disdaining and mocking that dimension altogether.

Nothing concerns me nowadays, not even you; I stay afloat and adrift on the turbulence of the jittery ocean of interminable nonchalance. But you are indispensable to me. I might burn out, but you are like the Amaranthus plant, which never withers, never fades away. You are the soul, the energy; which can neither be created nor destroyed.

I shall cease my speech now. I hope to talk to you soon, although, seriously I am not very hopeful about it.

Yours sincerely,

Sayak

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

" The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves. "  - Eric Hoffer

Injury

I got injured while playing a football match.

My ankle got twisted, and it got twisted so bad,

that I wasn't being able to stand up;

so I was carried out of the field.

The injury was bad.

I informed a friend about my injury. 

She was laughing.

I replied : 

Please, don't laugh. 

It's terrible. 

When the pressure is intense,

and I ought to run to the toilet, 

my condition becomes pathetic. 

I limp and crawl to the toilet,

restricting a volcanic eruption of bowels,

which by the time has built up so bad,

that I don't even get the time to lock the door,

lest it floods my pants with all yellowness.

I feel like a soldier,
 a leg of whose has been blown off by a bomb;

 who is dragging his ass up to an already deceased medic,

 who lay,

 on the earth covered with his own blood and used up and unused bullets;

 with the faint hope that he might get something which could make him live,

 while blood oozes out from his torn out leg.
His agony rocketing sky high,
with every inch he moves.