tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42187290715304356382024-03-13T19:14:09.447-07:00The Diary Of A Liarshort stories and flash fictionA Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-19385705191290519562013-09-17T07:26:00.002-07:002013-09-17T07:26:53.091-07:00Here be Dragons<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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After the sun goes down and the
surrounding forest becomes quite dark, you begin to hear noises of almost
innocent birds or mammals. They may sound strange to you, but the cynic within
would holler and pretend they are nothing. The left hemisphere of your brain,
the curious Sméagol within, seeks solace in common sense. As you prepare to
sleep and lay your head down, you hear a spine-chilling wail almost like a
coyote.</div>
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With his one good eye deeply shut,
the old man could see them, and deep in his sleep, he hears the whispers of the
specter in the remote wanderings, closing in with its weight, with the bones of
the universe breaking, giving in beneath its feet, and the silence holding the
woods deep in its snare. The imprints left on the patch of barren gray,
sulfuric and they glowed against the dark.</div>
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You don’t come out into the Pine
Barrens for a nice camping trip.</div>
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He spent most mornings hiding from
the sun, while the heaven beyond the stone-age roof of his abode is stirred by
the endless flights of nameless birds above. His starved fingers groping,
fumbling into his cowboy leather saddlebag, gaping holes and all, taking out
the yellowed bunch of parchments he had long discovered from his deceased
grandfather's basement, locked and forgotten in their revered family vault. The
parchments looked old, older than the world as the man had always known it to
be.</div>
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He squinted on the shapes, knowing
it was no map; a set of drawings done in charcoal, understandably little rough
around the edges. The drawings have never failed to haunt him, for as long as
he remembered.</div>
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With his satchel turning dry yet
again, the old man fought the urge to drink for days on end; down onto his
haunches, shivering and mumbling incoherently for a day, or days perhaps. Deep
into his fits, he bites onto the rosary beads that belonged to his dead wife,
grunting the names of the ghosts that once meant shelter to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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But all old men are survivor types,
he remembered, now moved by a terrible childlike fear that clings onto us in
the fag end of our lives.</div>
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He crept out of his cave, and
tip-toed his way to the nearby pond, his skinny frail physique bogged down by
an invisible force with too much space around him. But it was the spaces
<i>within</i>, which scared him the worst.</div>
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He saw the reflection of a wide
grin appearing on an old face against the calm watery surface, unveiling the
dark holes between the random set of crooked teeth and bad gum. The expression
on his face seemed to be one of invitation; daring him to accept the challenge.</div>
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He remember the nights he had
spent, staring deep and hard into the endless woods from the vantage point of
his cave, seeing the shapes from the parchment materializing in mute horror.
The blind spaces running deep between the narrowly lined pine trees becoming
alive and physical, resembling the shapes he had dreaded over for years from
the parchments in his saddlebag.</div>
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The cold eyes with menacing jaws
watching him, and large bat-like wings unfolding in a terrible slow motion,
hissing and writhing, and then flying off into the night. <i>Into the spaces
within.</i></div>
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With tears in his eye, he scurried
back into his sleeping bag, wishing for rapture.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...]</b></span></span><br />
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A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-12667311108270635262013-01-10T23:05:00.001-08:002013-01-10T23:05:51.243-08:00A World in Black and White<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><em>[The following is an excerpt from a currently undergoing novel, <strong>'Requiem for a Vertical Man'</strong>]</em></span></div>
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One quick glance at Raspil and you would suspect that he was a rat who has learned to evolve with the passage of time and exposure to human bondage. Learned to speak rather than squeal and to walk on two, a lone survivor distinguished from the rest of his clan beneath the swells and filth of the life underground; a labyrinth of dark sewers populated by the blind seers that feed upon the human waste, and look upon them as would an ill-treated disciple upon the Godhead responsible for their little misfortunes.</div>
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He entered the East End of the city, after one long hour of walking, an abstract figure with his head down, with usual brisk strides. Just one of his daily night walks.</div>
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Raspil has always felt more at home in the suburbs of the low, with the weakly lit street lights, and poorly maintained houses with broken porch stairs and the fuzzy window panes with secret messages scratched all over its glass. The old bricks that have witnessed millennia of living their lives, never to stir a limb, or utter a whimper of complain, for the years of inhuman conditions it has endured, forever plunged into the sinful cycle; the livelihood of the East End inhabitants. </div>
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The usual expressions stayed frozen for ages on the heavy laden doorways, made of thick wood from which arose a dull odor of ennui and old age, and men who appeared out of them every morning, leaving behind a stupor to join the squalor that they have grown to love and hate in their own peculiar ways; the way of an East Ender.<br />
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Silly rabbits seeking heaven in the most unlikeliest of the rabbit holes, behind dark lanes of the slums and dwellings, at the Hogan’s Alley, with years grown immune to the stench and foul odor of the little dens carefully tucked in between the residences of poverty, where strangers made merry on most nights during the week. And come every weekend, it was a mass requiem of the sinners and the unfaithful, men with prospects of syphilis, and the painted fairies of the dark who much appreciated their penchant for doom and feasted on it.<br />
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In the mornings, the sun light burned against the lice on their skin and the ugly whiskers, and their faces grim with the rounds of cheap whiskeys down at Bernie’s. Most of the men of the East End dreaded the mornings to follow; the light bringing little favors to their lives, lives which only made sense as a whisper and a secret that most had not the courage to admit in their most private, honest moments. </div>
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Inevitably, most men drank the nights out of the prospect of facing themselves in the mirror, and with good effect. For generations since the days of Separation, it has worked for the better. There were no places of worship left in the East Side, mostly bombed to smithereens by the blindgods of the skies; the metallic night fliers that flew from the other side of the bridge. </div>
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All that murder and mayhem during the days of the war. Though the bombings hardly took place these days, very rarely if ever, but Death has continued to frequent the East End, leaving the men to live in a constant state of hangover, from one to another and so on in their daily lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Out in the streets, the ravens of the night were missing from the ledges and the street poles with lights that have either gone missing or now were left to burn with the dull overbearing gaze of a near blind. </div>
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The emptiness added to the mornings, that feeling of unbearable loneliness in spite of the squalor, the dead end jobs on the factories and pubs, and the delis of the East Side. Though not all of them chose to work for a living. A number of men, rounded out into various packs, hounded the streets and the deserted back lanes, seeking a potential victim with enough in his or her pockets to get them off the hook as far as their next meal was concerned, while the day wears on, their stomachs churning, their hearts getting colder, and their minds conjuring crimes of the lowest variety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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And as the day draws to the close, a beggar in rags was seen running in the main market street, chasing down a boy who hardly looked more than seven, with not a shred of clothing on his painfully thin body, while in the backdrop the reckless Sun quietly headed towards the West.</div>
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At exactly the same time, at Hogan’s Alley, which was just off the lane Raspil was currently engaged in, three drunken scavengers gathered asunder, visibly in protest against the fire that took place couple of days ago, burning to death a mother and her two young children, in the tenement house 25 Pitt street. Mother, Lena Leiman was 24, and the children, Sadie Leiman and Henry Leiman, were two years and seven months old respectively. </div>
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The fire, it is thought, started in the rear portion of the cellar, which is partitioned off into bins for storing coal and wood. The flames spread with such rapidity that in a few minutes they had seized upon the stairway which ran up through the center of the house, thus cutting off the means of egress for the members of twelve families who lived on the upper floors. </div>
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All who were on fire escapes were rescued without accident. Those who were suffering from inhaling smoke were attended by a surgeon at the local hospital and soon recovered. </div>
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When the firemen came to explore the building, while Assistant Foreman and the rest of the squad were overhauling the debris in the stairway between the third and fourth floor, they found three bodies burned almost beyond recognition.</div>
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They proved to be those of Mrs. Lena Leiman and her two children. Aaron Leiman, the husband and father, a cloakmaker, was at work in a cloak factory at 124 Greene Street when the fire occurred. The mother had her two children clasped to her breast when found. </div>
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The bodies were in a fan-shaped recess midway on the stairway leading from the fourth to the third floor. The family occupied rooms on the fourth floor, and it was evident that the woman had caught up her children and attempted to make her way down the staircase, but had been overcome by the smoke and had fallen on the staircase. </div>
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He noticed a young girl, holding a baby, sitting in a doorway next to a garbage can. Raspil decided to halt, looking around to make sure that he was alone in the narrow lane, and take his time to study the girl. </div>
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The eyes were the first thing that he noticed. And the large wooden door serving as a grim backdrop to the overall visage, a silhouette of faded lighter shade on the dark wooden color a testimony of the many years of its existence in the most unfavorable of conditions. </div>
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The eyes lacked the dream; if anything, they were too attentive for their own good, like a set of x-ray balls on a hard stern face. It’s a face of a ten year old that has learned to give nothing away as early as that, having learned that the world around her was nothing but a great and secret show holding no secrets. </div>
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Raspil attempted to start a conversation with her, and was received with the sheer immobility of her response, no words or gestures that could account for the fact that the girl noticed him at all, except the eyes that continued to stare back at him. </div>
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The fire had burned fiercely; a burning dot at first perhaps borne of some freak accident, it fed like a hungry wild beast and grew in stature, like a giant blob spreading, brooding upon the wood and the human flesh alike, holding nothing back. It burned as if there was no tomorrow, and world would have nothing left to burn. As if quenching a thirst that was unfathomable.</div>
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And when the unfortunate mother tripped on the stairway, her survival no longer an equation, the beast of flames swallowed the unfortunate family in its snares, and the innocent faces of fear in denial of the approaching death, hoping against the inevitable.</div>
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As Raspil grew closer, he began to realize the horror at hand.</div>
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The thing the girl was holding so irrepressibly against herself was a charred, burned beyond recognition body of a little infant. There was nothing of the face, or the skin that remained salvaged. </div>
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He drew back, as if struck by an invisible bolt of lightening emanating from the girl. His stomach churned, perspiration beading from his forehead, and his mouth stayed agape, though it trifled no sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><strong>[Do leave a comment, it matters...]</strong></span></span></div>
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A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-52841131611869289412012-12-10T22:57:00.000-08:002012-12-16T22:20:20.899-08:00The Ghost of Winter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The rustle of midnight leaves against the winter wind isn’t the only sound outside his cottage in the wild. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Despairing against the liquor bottle fast drying up, he heard the faint footsteps approaching, realizing that the darkness has come for him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Gripping the sledgehammer in his hand, he waits for that knock on the door.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #ffd966;">This post is written for the <a href="http://sasithebeginner.blogspot.in/2012/12/best-55-fictionist.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;"><strong>Best 55 Fictionist Contest</strong></span></a>, hosted by Sasikumar Raja Blogs at <a href="http://sasithebeginner.blogspot.in/" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: #2288bb;">Beginner</span></strong></a></span><br />
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A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-76132923417025433532012-10-31T10:17:00.000-07:002012-10-31T10:18:15.849-07:00Of Patriotism and Other Diseases…<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlDVlnx-ai4a0Fizv6-ooHneAZJ7zVcAE4ld-QJCalLCr4o7OZHXpXOD0Xro_oyQ9i6t1xc7MKZ4IV4y0G4yKTqaqOPbHdKTuqBNyAwFtjOvtC_vTdc5NOVtAQdmIEir3zBbpmyKM_4Mx/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlDVlnx-ai4a0Fizv6-ooHneAZJ7zVcAE4ld-QJCalLCr4o7OZHXpXOD0Xro_oyQ9i6t1xc7MKZ4IV4y0G4yKTqaqOPbHdKTuqBNyAwFtjOvtC_vTdc5NOVtAQdmIEir3zBbpmyKM_4Mx/s320/1.jpg" width="173" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I sat quietly in front of the TV set, listening to the harmonized rhetoric from a happy idiot lip sucking the seemingly endless series of lyrics that smacked of patriotism and the much needed melodrama accompanying it, as always. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">From the corner of my eye, I had an obscure vision of Ammo entering the lounge, with the usual evening ammunition of pot and weed candy in her hands, all ready to suck in the marijuana once again, her nightly occupation for as long as I have known her. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She fixed herself a cigarette, and eventually noticed the popular song being played on TV, and exclaimed. “Holy friggin’ crow, Lev. Since when were you a nationalist soul?” A smile of amusement beginning to smear her face.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I gave her a look of horror, meeting her eyes, the bleary look within an evidence of the fact that the magic weed has finally started to weave its spell on her, and said. “You greatly disappoint me Ammo, not for the life of me will I ever stoop as low as that.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">She frowned. “What are you implying exactly?”</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I replied. “I mean how can one even think of justifying a notion, nationalism or more conveniently popularized as patriotism, which, if you study it thoroughly enough, is nothing but a conviction that a particular few thousand square foot of land is the best in the world simply because one was born in it, … and what does it make a patriot, a barbarian who thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature, and the rest of the world an offshoot of the ancient savage tribes of Germania.” Paused. “Jeez, Ammo, gimme a break, will ya!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">“Hmmm”. She made an inaudible reply and busied herself with the cigarette. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I continued. “I mean, isn’t that ridiculous by the mere sound of it”. And gave her a look that ranged from hypertension to one of sheer frustration, a part of me balking at the sight of her once again deeply immersed in devouring her stuffed cigarette while I had ranted on. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I sighed and politely inquired her. “Or is it just me, Ammo. Pray, do tell?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At first she gave a slight jerk as if awakened from a pleasant waking dream, a dried up wasteland surrounded by a multitude of Gollums serving as her objects of affection would have been my bet, and replied. “Lev, you know … that you have rarely, if ever, made any sense to me. Your notions are either totally devoid of sense or have too much of it within them. Either way, they are of no use to the society at large”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“I owe all my originality, such as it is, to my determination to be a man of no importance.” I replied, ignoring the sarcasm in her voice. “Instead of indulging to the vices of the well established and the over privileged club, I chose to bathe in the stink and stupor of the downtrodden and the devastated. Instead of drinking, dinning and womanizing to the hilt, while acquiring literary airs and articulating endlessly about arts and literature, I sat on the dumping tower of the local junkyard, and surrounded myself with the skilled crowd of scavengers, bootmakers, beggars and you know what not; the usual hordes of smalltime criminals we so like to malign in our dinner table conversations, on stupid media shows and God knows what else”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Criminals you call them!” Ammo said, apparently disgusted. “They are just a pitiable group of people trying to make a living for themselves and the families they are responsible for”. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0y8jOxfTPhf3u4of7LDfeJ1PAgatFS4zrCbtZ99WXnCjDkUHQpey-nZzWY_wZ89mrzIdhGeRGH1FW8knprBRmPptWMeUJvmlnkZFyFZxA-QGODP2k5d7YdA3ydwnbo8KLYqzNLdiUxF6/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0y8jOxfTPhf3u4of7LDfeJ1PAgatFS4zrCbtZ99WXnCjDkUHQpey-nZzWY_wZ89mrzIdhGeRGH1FW8knprBRmPptWMeUJvmlnkZFyFZxA-QGODP2k5d7YdA3ydwnbo8KLYqzNLdiUxF6/s1600/3.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Yes.” I agreed. “Trying to make a living, or criminals in other words. But I don’t blame you for the confusion because the breadth of the word criminal has been lost on most of us, given the lack of education in our esteemed educational institutions. There is just so much more to the word criminal than we have been told about.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But what I was mindful of not to add is that I didn’t expect her to understand most of it because she was after all a woman. A woman whose breast nourishes all criminals alike; the heroes, the politicians, senators, parliamentarians, ministers, the clergymen, doctors, media men and the mere criminals, the most honest of all criminals confounded to an eternity of petty crimes on the street.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Silence followed, during which Ammo ardently occupied herself with another round of puff, inhaling the dense smoke and bellowing out the infested junkie breath, relentlessly polluting the confines of the four walls of our room.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I ranted on. “And you must not forget that lower the criminal, the more impact he has upon the society he inhabits. In fact, all the progress depends on the lower class criminal than their bourgeoisie counterparts, who are only there to feed upon the goods lay down at their disposal, and who only dream of dying one day smelling of French perfumes and having caviar as their final meal-to-be.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ammo asked. “Is that one of your many feeble attempts at connecting with people you profess to represent, the needy and the starved. If so, dare I point that it is bound to fail, … yet again.” Paused. “You are just too much of a cynic to be anything but an isolationist, Lev”. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Why?” I exclaimed, ignoring the accusation. “I would rather be with the criminal in the street than be with the criminal in the mansion, because for former, crime is being thrust upon him, and the latter has been thrust upon the crime”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Indeed Lev”. She replied. “You are surely on your way to the glory you seek, be it in the shape of murder or lifetime imprisonment for treason”. And chuckled.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Murder!” I said. “That’s a fancy term isn’t it? Now tell me Ammo, where would they rather murder me. In the streets, the hills or the lonely white room?” Paused. “Because when a man wants to murder someone in the streets it’s called a crime; and when he wants to murder him in the hills, it’s an act of patriotism, and when he wants to murder him in a lonely white room, its only healthcare.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“So you would rather fancy a prison?” Ammo said, amused. “A condemned soul forever sulking in the world of his own half baked ideas”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Half baked maybe”. I replied. “But not as half baked as the prison you fancy for me. It was for the condemned alone that God created Hell, and we, on the other hand, trying to match God’s work by creating prisons in return, unwittingly ended up offering the lower class a sanctuary of sorts, the closest they can ever come to heaven.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Well.” She momentarily seemed to ponder upon what I said, or pretended to anyway, and said. “You are indeed hopeless Lev, good for neither prison nor the bullet. I mean what’s a point of hanging a man who does not object to it.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Silence followed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She continued. “But surely not all of those belonging to the upper class can’t be as bad as that, I mean surely, there must be exceptions.” Shaking her head. “Sorry but it smacks of too much exaggeration to me”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“My dear Ammo, like all young ladies who are yet to come across a naked man, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one man and another.”</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjypoMGmmWYJNRf-IsUZtacHXB3ZExQ4uwsR_NDgBz6hpMMOv9TsG4akxUog4vXmTCtFNMmM2NfDrhIV84xCZ8KdbEcvwsz91DN3UdaBqoMtkVSzY5WMypSR3_9SURiDyhVX5NpnQ-8euno/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjypoMGmmWYJNRf-IsUZtacHXB3ZExQ4uwsR_NDgBz6hpMMOv9TsG4akxUog4vXmTCtFNMmM2NfDrhIV84xCZ8KdbEcvwsz91DN3UdaBqoMtkVSzY5WMypSR3_9SURiDyhVX5NpnQ-8euno/s1600/4.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“I beg your pardon!” She gave me an evil eye. “And you are nothing but a wretch who thinks he can justify every useless little thing in life, including his own existence, by mere magic of words. Because that’s all you are good at, words, words, and mere words. Underneath all that, you are nothing but a shamefaced pessimist to the very marrow of your soul.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Pessimist indeed I am, but certainly not useless.” I protested, calmly. “Don’t tell me Ammo that you will also now deny the equal importance of both the optimists and the pessimists in the society. The optimist invented the marriage, the pessimist the abortion, and you ought to thank them both.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was glad to see her beginning to lighten up a little. Words do have their magic after all. She took couple of moments finishing her weed cigarette and said. “But pessimism, or pessimists, do not have any solutions to propose, all they have is complains and more complains”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Idiots shouldn’t be allowed to vote, is what I propose.” I said. “Define it as an act of pessimism if you will, but it’s a practical solution. It should take care of democracy good and proper, primarily because the hundred per cent of my countrymen comprises of ninety-nine per cent of the idiots”. Paused. “So, you see, it has to work”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Do away with democracy”. She chuckled. “Lev, you have totally lost it for good today, I am afraid.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Look who is talking. I thought bitterly to myself, and replied. “Well, Ammo, what else would you propose for a solution in a country that has become a den for the elites and elites alone, who only give enough alms to the poor, in order to keep them in a continuous state of breeding, while also very mindful not to change the state of absolute destitution they live in, because in order for upper class to have soldiers, the lower class must have children. Where each social class strives to serve its own ends, and that the upper class win in the struggle while the lower class loses. I condemn condemn condemn the democratic system of this age, where workers, ruthlessly exploited by greedy employers, live in abject poverty and are too ignorant and apathetic to vote intelligently. Where dying for their country does something to their minds, and because being shot in the head has become the surest way to become great without earning it”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Lev, I … have always wondered and failed to come up with an answer that would make sense. I mean what do you owe so much madness to?”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Ammo.” I replied. “This is the most impertinent of questions you have ever asked me, and yet the most appropriate one. I mean, how do I even begin to describe my inner struggles but to think of me as having a pair of dogs within me. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She asked. “And which dog wins?”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I reflected for a moment and replied. “The one I feed the most.” </span><br />
<br />
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<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b></div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-13915671943126192692012-10-27T08:34:00.001-07:002012-10-29T23:33:44.313-07:00Against the Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="postbody">
<div class="xg_user_generated">
<div align="center">
<strong><br />I</strong></div>
<br />
Under the relentless Sun, a little boy was down on his knees, and with his trembling finger drew what looks like the letter U, with the tip of his finger fumbling, trailing imprints of a deeper hue on the sandy surface.<br />
<br />
The letter was done, if not too well done, and the little semblance of memory stored, bit by bit, though as yet a beginning.<br />
<br />
Satisfied, the boy gets up and continues to walk the aimless path, with the breeze of the ocean against his fair skin. A wary soul in a middle of a land that did little to comfort him, his mere consolation being that name the boy held close to his heart, a name from the past that he had sworn to immortalize till the end of time, against all odds.<br />
<br />
And against the call of the deep now at hand, beckoning him, asking for the final remittance for the life as yet held unaccountable.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<strong>II</strong></div>
<i><br /><em>Zakaria</em></i>, the boy heard the call of the dead, the wind carrying his name, hissing, speeding through ... that dreaded whiz of the thousand ghosts in unison bringing chill to his bones.<br />
<br />
Time is not an enemy, he told himself repeatedly, time is not a friend, and began to pace faster. Behind him, the thousand footsteps of fear growing distant, allowing for a temporary respite, if not an outright reprieve.<br />
<br />
Few paces further, now running a little short on breath, he halted and went down on his knees, fighting the tremor that has by now become a part of his soul, refusing to let go, and his little boy's hand swaying in protest against the soft land, leaving yet another imprint, a single letter, a faint but beautiful whisper to withstand the finality close at hand.<br />
<br />
And as soon as he was done, the boy heard the wind closing in again, that roaring raving thing gone mad, covering the distant in haste with the progress of the boy on the temporary standstill, ripping through time and space with its sole emotional derivative being that of a predator for its prey; no love lost between them.<br />
<br />
Zakaria was on his feet again, skinny legs galloping on a damp surface, now racing once more against the ghostly waltz.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<strong>III</strong></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Men greater than Zakaria have feared and eventually lost to the harrows of the Deep, faces before him who have looked for too long into the infinity of the mother ocean, spoken to the very souls of their ancestors from the long past, till each one of them at last joined the infinity within, embracing the roaring waves masking the quiet within its deep.<br />
<br />
They all float down there, down the bottom of the sea where time doesn’t fly and future doesn’t breath down your neck, whispering no lies.<br />
<br />
The deep would bring all things to naught, the little boy knew, remembering the thousand faces of the dear ones lost, smiling, crying, in love and in anguish, in youth or in old age, each one of them eventually lost to the ocean, and wishing if only there was a little magic in this world.<br />
<br />
And with the end drawing nigh, the little boy with blue eyes found himself running short of time, the strength of the living slowly leaving him and the entire universe shrinking, eager to pinpoint all its destructiveness against that unfortunate ingénue.</div>
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<br />
<div align="center">
<strong>IV</strong></div>
<br />
And as the day drew to a close, the little boy cried like he had never cried before, his heart storming its way to a grief strangling him, a grief that wasn’t quiet but had no sound.<br />
<br />
The tears flowed, uncontrollably and the breathing became irregular with time, the boy breathing heavily, in and out, in and out, as the soundlessness of death tightening its grip.<br />
<br />
The tears blinded his vision as the boy lay face down on to the shore, barely able to move, his fingers now mere limp, numb and drained of will, lay half buried within the wet surface, with no letters drawn, no semblance of the memory stored, as our boy was not made of steel anymore; never had been.<br />
<br />
He felt the void growing around him, as the ghosts finally caught up with him, now whirling him to the deep, where it lay in wait for all things great or small.<br />
<br />
And as the world grew smaller right before his eyes, Zakaria wished if only there was a little magic in this world still, or if only the dreams were not made of clay, till he felt the thousand cold needles of the first wave, and the growling hands of the sea to follow.<br />
<br />
Till all that was sound and all that was sight, in conscious remains as conscious subside.<br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-37732903694601795552012-10-22T02:51:00.002-07:002012-10-29T23:32:04.642-07:00A God Dances Through Me (a short story)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
“I betcha don’t believe a word am sayin’. You one of them city boys who believe God won’t push the button nomore.” The old man said. “Well, you betcha sorry ass He has.”<br />
<br />
Crazy people tend to prey on the fears and vulnerabilities of the other people. Most of them could smell that in their prey like no other animal. <br />
<br />
I told myself not to panic. A single click of the ignition could be all I need to put it behind, and a bit of faith that broken down vehicles in the middle of a highway have a way of sorting themselves out on the first sign of trouble. <br />
<br />
And the old man was trouble. He was trouble all the way.<br />
<br />
Feeling nervous, I asked. “And when do you reckon He did that?”<br />
<br />
“It’s been two days straight, or a little over. When did you last switched onto your radio?” He pointed to the car radio. “Or does the damn thing work?”<br />
<br />
The damn thing that the old man referred to did work. My Sony car radio looking a touch too battered by years of neglect. <br />
<br />
He began pleading, as if reading my thoughts. “Yo’ sti’l plann’ to head north, arentcha? Like the rest of them fools.” He paused, half expecting me to panic and race off. “God’s finally made up His mind to get back on us you see. You ever seen people meltin’, that’s what it looked like to me back there. And most of the newborns lookin’ half finished too.” <br />
<br />
“You been in some kind of trouble, old man?” I asked, losing my patience. “Back there where you from.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“Huhn. What didcha say?” <br />
<br />
“Up to something no good back there perhaps? Got too drunk and whacked a fella, or touched a wrong girl or somethin’. Got an old limpin’ fool like you scurryin’ off like that.” <br />
<br />
The old man stared at me, long and hard. “Now look here, young man. Don’tcha go smartin’ on me now. I ain’t tellin’ you to do nothin’. Dig your own damn grave if its fits ya. All am doin’ is telling you that back north, things ain’t the same nomore.” <br />
<br />
I reached for the ignition, praying for a miracle.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
************</div>
<br />
<br />
My initial reaction was to run the damn thing down, and I probably would have, had it not been for a broken down car in the middle of a fucking desert. And no, I ain’t crazy, I ain’t the killing sort of man. It was just this thing, you see. Something about him that … that just didn’t quite fit in. Looking drunk, starved and running as if to escape God’s little planet. <br />
<br />
Or to ruin it. <br />
<br />
A desert noon playing tricks, that’s all. I told myself. <br />
<br />
Stranded on the highway, I couldn’t help but notice a figure running in the middle of a heated noon, waving about at the speeding vehicles, though there were none to speak of. The old man hardly had any clothes on. <br />
<br />
He cut a lone figure on the long deserted road, lingering a shadow longer than I had ever seen. <br />
<br />
Fell for the worm as they say. Curiosity makes a fish of us all. <br />
<br />
“Car trouble?” The old man asked once he got close enough, standing next to the car window with his eyes squinting, staring down at my face. “You headin’ north?”<br />
<br />
He looked a forlorn drunken figure, probably in his early 70s, long hairs and sunburns. Yes, plenty of them, and they looked a lot worse up close. <br />
<br />
But sometimes, you miss out on something that is right in front of your eyes.<br />
<br />
I replied in affirmative.<br />
<br />
“I ought to warn you off. Been doing that since I got off them towns, and none of those fools on the wheels payin’ shit to anything I said.” He paused. “Seemed to me that the whole world is headin’ north them last couple of days.” <br />
<br />
Around us, nothing else seemed to move. Nothing else seemed <em>bothered</em>. The whole universe had dipped its fat round head in the intergalactic pit of sand against the face of this intruder. <br />
<br />
I asked him to explain himself. Quietly telling him he was making no sense.<br />
<br />
“There ain’t nothin’ in them towns but trouble.” He croaked. “You can’t be headin’ north. No one in his right mind should. Need you to turn around, and put as many miles behind ya as ya can.” <br />
<br />
A crazy doomsayer on a highway wasn’t something I would have made my bets on when making up my mind for a trip back to my hometown after a decade of keeping distance, a decade of cold heartedness on my part borne of an unhappy childhood. Though the fact that my distant father has passed away recently made it a lot easier to go back to the things left behind. The trip wasn’t just about visiting him, but to bury him, and hopefully the memories that came with it.<br />
<br />
I noticed the empty bottle of whiskey in one of his hands, knowing where exactly all of this was going. <br />
<br />
The man looked back north, contemplating. “I been livin’ one of them towns. Them’s all too ugly now. All of them folks down there too. The whole bunch of towns’ lookin’ like scattered swamps, swarmed with bunch of creeps who once looked like men.”<br />
<br />
He pointed down his feet. “Lookie! I got a bit roughened up ma self. Down the riverside I walked yesterday morn’, Got ma feet all nastied up in the water there. Ain’t looked like no water I ever seen in ma life.”<br />
<br />
I needed to move on.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
************</div>
<br />
<br />
I told him that the radio worked just fine. I recalled listening to Cold Play’s Viva La Vida, Bill Withers’ Aint No Sunshine, and even to gruffly voiced Dylan getting feverish about death and dying. Telling us it was ok to die if you only put up a little fight, made it long enough and hard enough against the dying of the light.<br />
<br />
“Been listenin’ to the news lately?” He asked. “It ought to be in the news by now.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, I have.” I lied. “There ain’t nothin’ in them that I noticed.” I haven’t specifically been hunting for news on my trip so far. <br />
<br />
“Hmm, well, maybe the news hasn’t reached them ears yet.” The old man replied. “Or maybe they ain’t no believers no more. Little city boys like you busting their asses off for a livin’ while the world’s running short on time.” <br />
<br />
I took a moment to stare deep down into his bushy eyes, and saw nothing. Nothing of the madness pouring out of his mouth.<br />
<br />
I pointed at the empty bottle dangling on his left hand. “You been living of them cheap whiskey for too long, old man.” I managed a smile. A right amount of whiskey in the veins could bring the whole world crumbling down. <br />
<br />
“Whiskey my ass”. The old man crooned. Smashing down the bottle on the road as if to prove it. “I been runnin’ down this road for two days straight and this damn bottle ain’t licked liquor for the best part of it.”<br />
<br />
“You expect me to believe that?” I said. <br />
<br />
“I expect you to turn on that darn radio.” He replied. “That’s what I expect you to do, good and proper.”<br />
<br />
I looked at him, keeping a straight face. Thinking how crazy I would have to be to actually reach out for my radio, if only to make sure if the world was still round enough since I last checked in.<br />
<br />
“Turn it on, wontcha.” A wide grin appeared on the old man’s face, unveiling the dark holes between the random set of crooked teeth and bad gum. The expression on his face seemed to be one of invitation. Daring me to accept the challenge.<br />
<br />
“Turn it on and believe, city boy.” <br />
<br />
He is from some other planet. A crazy thought occurred to me. <br />
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“Whatcha lookin’ at me for like that”. The grin just got wider. “You ain’t no smart city boy are ya. Can’t ya tell that a God dances through me? Can’t you see nothing beyond the busted cars and sunny radio sets.” Paused. “Can’t ya see nothin’ yet?”<br />
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I half expected the old man to change. To watch him waver and blink as a hologram would, failing to hold on to some mysterious relay gone momentarily stray, channeled off by some cosmic plateau none have heard of; a deep dark hole in space responsible for all this. <br />
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<em>And I have fallen for the worm.</em> <br />
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Looking back at the radio set, I watched my hand reaching for the little red button, trying to hold onto the part of me saying that all I have to do is to turn the damn thing on, switch to one of those news channels, and that would be the end of this whole crazy episode. Same part of us that laughs about things we don’t understand, pats us on the backs, and tells us that it’s nothing at all.<br />
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I froze. My fingers against the cold dreaded button, itching to home in. Telling myself I ain’t the crazy one here. Telling myself that all I needed is a little push.<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #666666;">[Do leave a comment, it matters]</span></span></div>
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A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-79968694754004880972012-10-20T07:45:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:41:34.265-07:00Finity of Sex and Death<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk03IRxRJJNjC2ZVTJjM7KZI50OPpa1xHetYoJNLvQONIqLSKywC49GiFm3ih0yQEwNMX2x3fU-XgHhsJ4ko2k-xUNMpxyGxo_qslys_9Aiq6txyTkvKjr7use7L-k7nrg_0yORRj5TTjo/s1600/thumb1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk03IRxRJJNjC2ZVTJjM7KZI50OPpa1xHetYoJNLvQONIqLSKywC49GiFm3ih0yQEwNMX2x3fU-XgHhsJ4ko2k-xUNMpxyGxo_qslys_9Aiq6txyTkvKjr7use7L-k7nrg_0yORRj5TTjo/s1600/thumb1.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I quickly entered my apartment, hoping for a reprieve </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">against the cursed Karachi showers, and predictably found Ammo sulking in her private studio, in a middle of her artistic endeavors, her loose Victorian sleeve dress looking rather loose and shabby on her painfully thin figurine, and tears on her deep narrow eyes, giving a slight bluish tinge to it, however slight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I dutifully inquired the cause of her current predicament, while taking off my heavily dripping raincoat, which is now partially ruining the rug. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">“What’s the matter dear?” I asked, partly believing that one of her recent residue of boyfriends have dumped her, yet again. Of all the women in the world of Karachi, Ammo had dated just about anything that walked or crawled or could merely breath like a Stonehenge on this land, ranging from a bad ass hip hop richer-than-thou sun of a gun to a male version of femme fatale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I went back down the memory lane and recalled the long queue of male specimen she had gone out and possibly slept with in the last few years. Her perfidious sexual adventures were never the least of my concerns and it wasn’t something I would grudge against her. Over the years she had gone from the best of all possible to the worse, from the ultimate six-packs homo-erectus to a lily white college sophomore with an expensive tortoise shell arched over his studious nose, ten years her younger; one of those assortment of men that were every cosmetic manufacturer’s dream come true, men obsessed with looking like Robert Pattinson with spectacles and spent many hours practicing in front a mirror talking like Hugh Grant. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">As far as I knew, that college boy was someone she had been recently going out with. And last I heard, the sensitive flame of physical endorsements were well alighted between a marijuana stricken artist who had recently had her first taste of turning thirty, and the pretty twenty-something boy from the blocks of DHA. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Or so it seemed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In response to my initial inquiry, she merely sobbed, a grim orifice opening as her thin pursed lips parted hesitantly, but nothing audible came of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I decided to pursue the matter at hand, civility is a burden that not even that secret villain present in us all can do much against. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">“Ammo”. I carefully called out her name. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I have long been convinced that there is no place on earth with more dumb people per square foot than a college in Karachi. Given my conviction in case, there was no doubt that the impudent boy in question have waved farewell to their private little adventure, leaving my poor Ammo at my disposal, grief stricken and sobbing to her heart’s content. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">But I couldn’t have been further from the truth. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdA-2XvB2dPurJT1ZFo66HlYgFUq9tbf7r113FeJMMhhuk7MfSCmrw_N1oxStSSGFtVeT4dmTIwoj2ikyk9jhlu_-EGqiJAwGo6OfV29YMM5_5_R3hP-YqwIP4M24aC0L6oLRtbUYoWvE1/s1600/thumb2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdA-2XvB2dPurJT1ZFo66HlYgFUq9tbf7r113FeJMMhhuk7MfSCmrw_N1oxStSSGFtVeT4dmTIwoj2ikyk9jhlu_-EGqiJAwGo6OfV29YMM5_5_R3hP-YqwIP4M24aC0L6oLRtbUYoWvE1/s1600/thumb2.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia;">“Is it about him?” I asked, more firmly this time, feigning anger, since I realized she could use a bit of shaking up from her morbid trance. “Has he done anything to hurt you?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">After few seconds of struggle against her inexplicable grief, she finally managed to moan out few words. “He …. he ….. I suppose … he has …. has hurt me the worse possible way ….. you can … hu…. hurt someone.”<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I asked, knowing it was time to drive the point home. “Is he cheating behind your back? That good for nothing educated mongrel. Just say the word Ammo. Just say the word.” All of a sudden, I felt stronger, and few feet taller than I actually was; a champion of her cause, her lord protector. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In return, she gave me that look, a look that I didn’t like one bit. A look that could kill. Shaken up she sure was, but not to the desired effect I had privately hoped to achieve. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I looked back at her inquiringly; my expressions blank, now wondering where I have gone wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">And that’s when she eventually blurted out the truth, and it felt like a hammer against my unsuspecting ears. “He … he is dead, Lev. He is no more”. And broke into wild sobs, unable to continue further. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Stunned, I could barely believe myself. I tried hard not to feel ashamed of my earlier suspicions, and triumphed. As always, a die hard survivor against the most devastating of attacks by the inner conscience, I happily laid the accusing voice within me to silent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I hurriedly swapped my role and was by her side for most of the evening to follow, comforting her with my arms around her, and making careful inquiries as to the actually cause of his death once she was able to converse. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ugIjyfoMx_SPg9M0x1mPF9nK_LS2hNaFd2FJgYc43Yor4-zpY1w8cJsOuJy6HY8gnQF5QWjNh5HIqqGZeYh2MhCd28h3R3bJQk6oh-_QweTibupEkP2j7P3ihoWyZ78_wpbZSjPMOxUA/s1600/thumb3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ugIjyfoMx_SPg9M0x1mPF9nK_LS2hNaFd2FJgYc43Yor4-zpY1w8cJsOuJy6HY8gnQF5QWjNh5HIqqGZeYh2MhCd28h3R3bJQk6oh-_QweTibupEkP2j7P3ihoWyZ78_wpbZSjPMOxUA/s1600/thumb3.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia;">From her fragmented replies I mustered that the unfortunate soul, once left to his own devices in the house with the rest of the family out on the visit, the poor boy couldn’t resist the temptation that comes with all forms of self annihilation. And once the family was back, they found him dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in the kitchen, with his head in the oven, having sealed all the rooms of his apartment with wet towels and cloths. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">It was impossible to decipher why he did what he did. Ammo kept asking, more like thinking out loud, to herself, the reasons that drove him to this point. To quote in her own words, he was one of the happiest dudes going around, and wasn’t even on antidepressants or anything, as if that would have justified the choice he made.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">That night, in my bed, I found myself thinking. Realizing that death is but a form of distraction and nothing else. A few square box of mud and earth or ashes in the urn of the loved one lost, it’s an abstraction we culminate in our drawing rooms or in our muddled thoughts. Call it a vaccination of sorts that fills may sore gaps in the life of an individual. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">And sex does the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I had even wanted to tell her that within few weeks, she would be fine as dandy, that sexual encounters, like all the paintings she did, are finite, but the desire to be creative and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">But I decided not to. I could wait and let her bathe in the ambush of her vainglory, namely grief, however temporal that was meant to be.</span></div>
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<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b><br />
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A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-10385960745521357462012-10-08T00:40:00.000-07:002012-10-29T23:32:37.562-07:00Metempsychosis (a short story)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">(Metempsychosis <span style="color: #990000;">(Definition)</span> : the passing of the soul at death into another body either human or animal)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I hear them through the looking glass, watch them flock around. I know them well enough; they never like to be alone. Peering. Eyes like legion smiling down at you, their innocence can drive you mad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I stand up and walk about the room, shaking my head, hear things moving within. Things that don’t look too good, don’t sound neither. They croak and squeal their way around. Bolted eyes grilled on restless heads, arched figures with talons shifting gears on the narrow strip of the concrete ledge. Like empty shells carved to look like monsters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s the chorus. It’s the singing at the window. There is a language in it for you to understand; put the voices together, many chords once played in unison start to make sense. It jangles my nerves, bouts of electricity piercing through my veins. Like a pendulum against my head, making it hard for me to stay still. There is another life pushing me beyond the edge of sanity, that indiscernible line. To pulsate like a ticking bomb. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Do they know what they are doing to me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It didn’t matter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Unbearable. Dreadfully unbearable are the things they speak to me. I find myself a corner in the room, down onto my heels, holding my head against the temples, fingers probing nervously the throbbing hidden nerves. Trying to keep the head together, calming it down. It protests too much these days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I had blacked out. I realize. There is something missing. Something left incomplete in the minutes of my life. There is a sharp metallic object lying on the carpet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">There is something dreadfully wrong here. I muttered to myself. Hastily I get up and stride down the corridor to the other room, where the afternoon meal remained unfinished. The vision spits out a memory. I remember.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This isn’t my house!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The old figure of the worldly Mr. Joel flashed before me, as he munched away and talked. Mostly about things he had never understood in life. He must be in his 60s with receding hairline and round healthy face. His constantly moving jaw gives an impression of a wrinkled plastic mask worn on his face; peal it away and you will have your man. You will have metempsychosis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">He made small talk and grind away at his food. It was mildly troublesome to see him so unbothered. He had not the care of this world; he simply snorted it to feed himself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I gazed down at the plate served to me, looking back at me, little wings with mustard and pepperoni. The sight of it could so conveniently make me feel small. Sinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The head was missing and no eyes stared back at me. The feathers were shaved off, neatly and the flesh looked darkish with the human habits called cooking. The sight of it churned my stomach and I excused myself, refusing to touch the food. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Outside the room, down the corridor, I heard a muffled sound, daring me to touch their kind, daring me to eat one of their own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">My jaws stiffened and I grew red in the face. Mr. Joel, noticing my discomfort, inquired if I felt all right. I told him it was stomach cramps. Sometimes it made my life hell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Stomach cramps. Hmmm. He appeared to ponder over it for a brief moment. And resumed with his conversation. Mostly he talked about his wonderful wife, his beautiful blonde wife with a mild talent for music. Piano. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I immediately recalled encountering a blonde girl dancing on the beach on my way in. Her oval equine face quivering before my eyes. She also happened to be blind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And what was I doing here anyway, this morning. Yes. It came to me. She was planning to write a book, something to do with music. They had recently advertised for a ghost writer, a moderately good one at that. And that’s where I came in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I remember applying for the job, though I haven’t written anything for a while now. The last two years haven’t been easy, something in me started to rote and give away, with fearsome rapidity. My doctor keeps telling me I have to take things easy. Though I hardly ever paid much attention to him during the tedious sessions we have been through again and again for a while now. But having grown a little too fond of the tiny blue pills he prescribed to me at the end of each session; I simply couldn’t give it up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The pills didn’t help me in getting back to shape, or start writing again. They made sleeping sound like fun; I could sleep away most of the hours. Allowing me to not to pay attention to things that were better left untouched. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This morning, I didn’t feel too good about coming here. Things have been worse lately. Not paying attention hadn’t been so impossible to achieve. I have missed the last two sessions, and it’s been more than a week since I have </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">run out of pills. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The doctor had gone missing. It has even been in the news. He had simply disappeared, vanished without a trace. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Nobody has as yet been able to ascertain his whereabouts.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I heard it landing against the window pane, outside. It’s them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And another. And another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />Something stuck at my throat and it strangled me. Like a stone. I didn’t want to do this. Not paying attention is the key, I kept telling myself. Pills. I wished for the pills. Pills and music are the only things I should be thinking of; and a beautiful blonde who loved jangling the piano from time to time, smiling to the darkness that never refuses to greet her day in and day out. I tried to imagine her on the beach, outside the house, frolicking about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Her white skirt with the yellow strands chiseling, swaying with the growls of the ocean. I imagined her noticing me from a distance and stop swaying. The intuition of the blind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Now she is close enough to smell my fears. There is a conversation down the line which makes for a bad taste in my mouth. Her clay becoming more visible, shimmering in the sun. It had a tinge of brown about it, from the luxury of bathing under the glare of ancient Baal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I stared down at her skirt, at the yellow polka dots. They seem to be losing their focus. Bulging in and out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She stopped walking. And said Hello.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I helloed back. Hollered it with civility and charm. Smile protruding from my sea stricken lips. Smell of sandy beach whirling down to the vocal cord, gargling it. It felt like reincarnation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She turned her gaze southward, towards the ocean. It responded back to her stare. I felt its outstretched hands kissing my feet, cold sensation burning against my knuckles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">My husband just loves the ocean. She said. Her hair fabulous in the wind. Full of soul.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Behind her, I have lost the count. The distant dots in the horizon are becoming more visible. The gathering. One, two, three, more and more ….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">My white knuckle face with squinting eyes absorbing the fearsome flapping of the wings at the distant. Feeling the wet earth slithering beneath my feet, brushing against my nudity. Exposed skin and crackling bones made rigid by the floating shells and dead crabs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I felt entrapped. It wasn’t working. This was <i>paying attention</i>; the dreadful realization dawning onto me; <i>I wasn’t even there! </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Back to Mr. Joel again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Did you hear that?” I asked Mr. Joel. Cutting him short. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I didn’t have to do this. I need to keep things in order. In order. It’s a piano I should be worried about, her soft white fingers dancing on the chords, top toeing like a blind dancer. It must be like honey to the ears, moving the hearts of the listeners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Trying to imagine now. It’s a diversion I am looking for. A moment of intersection is my only hope. Clawing back my way to the dreamlike state, hoping it would work. It’s her again, playing the piano on the beachside. It’s beautiful to behold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">A light shone in the pitch blackness on a rearing head, thickly coated glasses and thinly fleshed features. Strands of hairs made to look like lifeless lump clouted together with a citric smelling gel, neatly combed on one side. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I closed my eyes for one brief moment and enjoyed the limelight. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Dream on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple of them whizzed past her head. Leaving behind them the echoes of their song, the shrilling …</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />The darkness was gone and so was the light. It’s the sun blaring down my face. I jerked around to see them, becoming smaller in the distance. Swooping figures in the mid air. Singing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I peered at her from the thickly coated glasses. Their clarity dampened with the moisture in the air. It’s a windy day. A beach kind of day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Did you hear that?” I asked. Feeling despair rising inside of me as I waited for her to respond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She seemed to be taken up by my query. “It’s the birds. Mostly sea gulls. They come here all the time.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I replied back. “But they look restless”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Sometimes they do”. The girl said. “Hard to tell with them”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I didn’t respond, beyond her, they waited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She continued. “I can feel them, mostly during the rainy season. That’s when they get really restless. As if they are trying to communicate something. That’s what my husband tells me. Occasionally they gather on the window ledge and on the roof tops, mostly old ones. They sit there for hours sometimes.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“They just sit there?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, just looking through the window. Watching us. According to my husband, that’s pretty much what they do. Sit there and watch”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“That’s strange”. I muttered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, it is in a way I suppose. But they don’t bother much. My husband likes them. He thinks they are trying to communicate on a certain level. It’s something he thinks we humans are not ready for yet.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“And what do you think?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“I think”. She paused. Her face taking on a grave look. “I think they are just trying to let us know that they are there”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I turned around and looked back at the house. They were still there, at the ledge. They haven’t moved. “Yes”. I replied. My eyes taking a distant look. It may not be the complete truth, but closer to it. Paused. “And I also think that .. your husband is about to metempsychosize, he will metempsychosize anytime now, it could happen to him even while talking”. Looking back, offering her my best smile. This is crucial. This is where the shit meets the fan. Miss or hit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She eyed me with interest. The dull overbearing gaze of the blind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Metempsychosis”. I said. “It’s a greek word”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She found me strange. Fumbling, short heighted and nonsensical. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s a transmigration of body and soul”. I continued to indulge in the conversation. “It’s like to live in different forms. </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Like you die out and live in”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Like rebirth?” She asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, I have seen it happening. I have been here before as they say. If you don’t realize what they are doing to you, you end up like them.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I see a shadow crossing her face. It’s called curiosity. Not mild, but curiosity born of darkness she couldn’t penetrate. She would like to know who she was dealing with; for once I became more interesting than the chatter that took place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Do you believe in incarnation?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh, you mean on that metempsychosis thing?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t know”. She shook her head. “It’s probably a lot of myth and nothing else”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She asked. “Do you?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t want to.” I replied. “But your husband will very soon, and so will you. Wait, I will show you. Here, hold my hand”. I reached out and offered her my hand. In anticipation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Your hands.” She said, feeling for them. “They have a soft touch about them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Like feathers?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Feathers!” She laughed. “You are still thinking about them, aren’t you?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Well, it’s more the case of who gives up first.” I told her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She asked me what I meant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s them, the birds. They are to be blamed. I think they are following me. I believe they have been following me for a while now. They are everywhere.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She looked confused. “What do you mean? You mean those sea gulls follow you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I continued. “I don’t think they like me much. They always seem to be making that noise. You know … that sound they make”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She looked flustered. “Oh, is it, is it that communication thing again? You think they are trying to tell you something.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Y….Yes”. I replied. “But it’s not like that. It’s different”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Different how”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s more … more like things they say. There are things they like to say to me. And they know I don’t like it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“What kind of things?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Bad things” I whispered. “Mean things.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">She turned white, or is it gray, dissolving with the heavy wind and the glaring sun at the background, in thousand minute fragments. Uncatchable. Impossible to assemble again with the same poise. That is the problem with imaginations, they are too good and never the same twice. She was gone. I was being too careless. I understood. Dreams aren’t meant to be touched, aren’t meant to be scared away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Joel frowned. “Hear what?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Someone is here I believe”. Staying calm. Pressing my back against the rims of the chair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“At the door? No, I don’t think so. I didn’t hear the doorbell ringing. That would be hard to miss I am sure. It’s loud enough to wake the dead.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Joel gazing back at me, studying me, I saw his frown growing deeper. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I had to tell him. I didn’t want him to think I was mad, loose in the head or something. That wouldn’t be fair. My voice sinking, dying out as it left my lips. “It’s not the door.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">His deep blue eyes staying on me, slightly widened, deepening. Looking for a crack, an opening, a shaft in my interior wide enough for him to peer inside and call me insane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I stayed intact. Feeling triumphant. I decided not to give in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Is everything all right?” He asked. “You don’t look too good. What do you mean not at the door? “</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">A godlike presence, of wings and talons, swooped down from the horizon. Tunneling its way through the invisible, like in the ancient magic tales, gliding past its peers, downward in a spiral and landing on the ledge. Outside the window. It’s a big one. It’s one with an ancient song.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Joel ate like a bird. It whispered to my ears. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“I am fine.” I answered back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I looked down at the table. At Mr. Joel’s fingers resting on the napkin, the index finger twitching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Why can’t you hear them?” I snapped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Them?” The twitching stopped. A wall of blankness greets me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes.” I whispered. “Something’s at the window.“</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Puzzled. He said. “Is someone tapping at ….”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“No!” I cut him short. “It aint knocking.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr.Joel’s countenance wavered with alarm. “Listen, I don’t think you are making any sense.“</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Outside.” I told him, more firmly this time. “At the window ledge. Something just landed over there.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Joel didn’t respond. I sensed he is getting ready to get up and ask me to leave.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s singing now.” I said. Strange calm took over me and shelled the dark boiling inside of me.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">He made an attempt to listen. Something swept through his face. It looked like comic relief.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh that .. that’s a sea bird. It’s squealing. It’s not a song”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I looked back at him and blinked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Is it … bothering you?” He asked. His face looked concerned. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“They are irksome”. I agreed. “These birds often are”.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes”. He nodded sympathetically. “They can be at times. If they get restless about something. Gladly, they don’t damage the windows or anything, which would surely be a nuisance.” He chuckled. Looking more reassured. He used to be a stock exchange broker, a big timer in his days. He thought he could chuckle his way into anything in life. “I think they might just do that eventually. They sure are getting restless. I can see the signs.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I heard tremor creeping in my voice. “Can’t they stop doing this? This is irksome.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Can’t stop doing what?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“The sound. The sound they make.” I pleaded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Joel looked on. Gosh, I know that look. It’s spiteful to look at someone like that.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I pretended to ignore it. “It’s just that … that they make me nervous.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Gosh, it’s you who is making me nervous now. That’s what you are doing sir.” Mr Joel was crossed, more so with himself for not been able to see it before. “It’s nothing. Apparently you have some kind of a condition. The bird sound makes you nervous. That’s just what it is. I have heard of many phobias in my life before. But this is the first. Huh, the bird sound, who would have thought of that.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s not a phobia”. I was firm, holding my ground. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s not?” Mr. Joel didn’t sound like he actually cared to believe me. He seemed to have made up his mind. This is the part of the conversation I hate the most. He <span class="entry-content">probably thinks I am crazy.<i> </i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span class="entry-content"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Not, it’s not. It’s because you are not paying enough attention”. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span class="entry-content"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Attention to what?” Mr. Joel was visibly irritated now. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span class="entry-content"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“To what they are saying”. I felt I was close to tears now. “Not possible … this … this can’t be happening to me. I hear them all right, because they can’t be missed. </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">They … they exists.<span class="entry-content">”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“What do you mean? Would you mind being more clearer”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Don’t you hear this sound. This … yes.. this one! You got it, surely you can’t miss it this time.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“But I told you, it’s … the birds. The sea birds. It’s that squealing sound they make. It’s a perfectly natural thing for them to do.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This couldn’t wait anymore. I had to tell him. It’s too late now. My secret is out once again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I told him. “Yes …. And they drive all things crazy. Can’t you tell? Why can’t you tell? How can people be so stupid. Can’t you see what they are doing to us? They are destroying everything. EVERYHING!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It apparently stunned him. As truth so often does to people like him. I heard him mumbling. “I don’t know what to say.” Was it sympathy in his voice that I heard? Indeed it was. I couldn’t mistake it for anything else. I have been here before. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, you don’t, because you know what your problem is. You don’t care enough. And you are just as guilty as they are. You can’t see the damage they have done already. Look closely, … look. How the entire world loses its balance. Look out for your wife on the beach, I mean, JUST LOOK AT HER!!! Is this how she was supposed to be? It’s as if she would explode any second. It’s the singing, the squealing, … when they do that, the whole world pulsates like a ticking bomb.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I watched him get up from his chair, holding his lunch in suspension. He needed that. He was afraid and needed to move his limbs to feel alive again. His face guarded. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I continued on. “You need to face up to them; it’s easier than you think. Come and have a look.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I grabbed him by the arm, leading towards the window. Wrong move. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Walking down the corridor, holding his hand. Old frigid hand with ugliness of age stamped upon it. Shrunken skin scrawled off rigorously with use over and over again, thickly bloated and soft.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Feathers. White, gray and colorless. I see them in black and white outside the window. It’s a large window, with silver rims squarely holding its expensive glass together. Through the looking glass, the eyes became acutely aware of my presence, approaching them. They didn’t like it; they didn’t see it coming…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Voices snarled at me. The things they said ….</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I find myself shrinking, phasing out from the memory of present tense. Now I am and now I am not. Like a noiselessly recurring static on a TV broadcast. It’s the window, staring back at my face, too close to it. It’s not easy, facing up to your own fears at madness’s length away, the thin illusive thread.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">From the corners of my eyes, I glimpsed Mr. Joel turn around, watching me dying slowly. He opened his mouth and words dropped out of him like pebbles on my head. Rolling down from great height and catching me on the apex, where it hurts. Yes, the head hurts. It fails to consume the whole world. The world throbbing, pulsating before my eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I opened my mouth and found my vocal cords repressed, damaged beyond repair. I said something and it didn’t come out too good. It swooped off my throat before I could bring it back, with the will of its own. I was left gasping for air. It was a half human, half bird sound. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I knew no more the language I spoke. It sounded like a cry for help.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. Joel looked scared. His voice reeked of fear as he spoke. “What did you just say?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I turned my gaze back to the window. My eyes widening as the glass in front of me looked liquefied. What lived across it didn’t move anymore. It swam in black and white with a languid shapelessness about it. Their talons growing hungry, restlessly clawing for some terrible consolation. Their movements seemed slow, as if struggling with invisible weight, like being in deep water. Their eyes never leaving me. The golden beak slewed in half, the opening shaft…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Metempsychosis. They squealed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I put both my hands against my ears and screamed for them to stop. Sensing Mr. Joel trying to leave the room, I turned around and grabbed him by the arm. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">A great terror fell upon me, the realization. That wasn’t Mr. Joel I was holding onto anymore. That wasn’t his arm. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">_______________________</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I had just dragged myself out of the room, having seen things I would be ill at ease to admit to myself. There is Mr. Joel right at the window ledge, still there; I saw him and something in me die instantly, without a whimper. I felt something give away. An invisible clot of hair, buried deep in the curly head, whinnied for one last time and turned white. Ashen. One more white hair on my head.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Downstairs, I heard someone entering inside the house, groping, leading her way inside. Calling a name. Calling for her husband. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I wanted to tell her about her husband, his … his <i>transmigration</i>; but I wondered what she would make of it. What had just happened to Mr. Joel wasn’t in the scheme in things, hers or anybody’s. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I heard her climbing the stairs, she was there walking, tumbling around with her stick. She wants to know where her husband is. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I ignored her. Looking across the window that was now wide open. Old breeze hits me on the face with the drops of rain, leaving me wet and bewildered. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Outside the window, I could spot Mr. Joel perched delicately on the ledge, smiling, his face beaming at me from amidst the flock of black and white. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Fly with me. He said. Fly.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Behind me, I heard her tensing up, groping around helplessly. Calling out for her husband. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Where is he?” She sounded lost.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“He is right here.” I had to tell her. “At the window. He is with them.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“With them?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“With them, with the birds.” I replied. “He is there, on the ledge. I think they like him there.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“On the ledge?” She sounded alarmed. “What is he doing there?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And I looked on, not caring anymore. Dazzled, and in a trance, I saw an opening to the world beyond imagination, with things without a name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I see Mr. Joel, I see the change in him, the transmigration. The talons and wings rising from within the rotten flesh and bones stretching and thinning out in bird like joints. The smile is there, but it is not a smile anymore, nothing like you have ever imagined it to be, perpendicular and pointed and like a golden beak. Pointed and threatening and malicious.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The eyes turned me ashen from the inside, and the beak slewed in half to speak. It will speak a language I am ill at ease to face.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In one swift go, I pulled the windows panes down, cutting down the voice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I fear its familiarity, the sound of the thing that was once Mr. Joel. I sense the haunting and the dreams that would come in the nights to follow. And I stand there, with tears rolling down from my eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I turned around in a motion that took eternity to happen. Looking back at her blind flustered face in the dim light.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">“Flying.” I said. “He thinks he can fly.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666; text-align: center;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">THE END</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #666666;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Started: 14 August 2010.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #666666;">Finished: 22 August 2010</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #666666;">[Do leave a comment, it matters]</span></span></div>
</div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-203993706950155482012-09-01T05:53:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.312-07:00Announcement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A short story of mine, titled PERDITION, is recently accepted and published at MUDJOB, a blog space by Michael D. Brown, renowned short fiction writer of the modern day.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.mudjob.blogspot.com/2012/08/javed-baloch-leviathan.html">http://www.mudjob.blogspot.com/2012/08/javed-baloch-leviathan.html</a><br /><br />Looking forward to your feedback,<br />
<br />
Thank You<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-43929567307540385032012-08-22T22:52:00.000-07:002012-10-29T23:33:06.692-07:00The Boy Who Knew Death<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As the sun rose each morning, so did the lonely old man with it; a sad limping figure strolling across the front lawn with a cigar tucked in his mouth, lighting fresh candles here and there, perhaps on an imagined grave of some loved one long lost to the infirmity of time and age.</div>
<br />
A young boy living across the street, with an unusual pastime for a rather simple minded 12 years old, watched the old man out at the porch each morning, raving and talking to himself or the ghosts surrounding him, with his eyes staring wide and in excitement against the narrow scope of a binocular.<br />
<br />
At times, he saw the old man going down in a fit of wild cough, settling against the neatly layered grass and spiting what looked like blood from the distance. The boy would be disappointed each time it happened, since it almost invariably spelled an end to his little morning show.<br />
<br />
But it was never the cough or the sight of blood that bothered the little boy, the idea that the old man might die one of these days; because in his heart of hearts the boy also had a secret about him, a secret he had sworn to protect till the end of time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>___________________________</b></span></div>
<br />
<br />
And then one fine day, when the old man began to cough incessantly, fell down, and remained unmoved for minutes on end, the young boy threw the binoculars down, got hold of one of the little Stickman Sam dolls stolen from his younger brother and ran for the house across the street; knowing that time was the enemy to all the magic in this world.<br />
<br />
Because our little boy knew how to cheat death, though the only thing bothering him was that he just hasn’t quite perfected the art yet.<br />
<br />
Once there, he leaned down and was relieved to find the old man with his eyes wide open, echoing loud irregular breaths.<br />
<br />
<i>There is still time.</i> The boy realized; his young heart now a lucent dream in the wake of this newly found hope.<br />
<br />
And with his eyes closed a little too tight, the little boy pressed the Stickman Sam against the failing heart of a dying old man and made a wish.<br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...]</b></div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-72317495623163285462012-05-29T22:20:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.330-07:00Every Writer’s Room<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="font-size-3"><b>1</b></span></div>
<br />
Under the pretext of writing, every writer worth his salt has come to know himself through the greater pain that drove him, the ever blind literary godhead oblivious of the pain of the underdog at its disposal, all the while knowing little of it as the hammer does of the nail.<br />
<br />
Zoom in to read if you may, and you would know that every writer but strives to write his own epitaph, the glorious finale that will outlive the skin and bones, because who knows it better than a writer that how much has been forgotten in the name of remembrance.<br />
<br />
Memory that finds itself on the paper, however inaccurate, is infinitely superior to a truth unknown, an over settlement of grievances between a sterile truth and the blind propensity that drives to bleed on the sheet of paper.<br />
<br />
All writers want a thousand pages that will tear this planet in half, more halves the merrier.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br />
<span class="font-size-3"><b>2</b> </span></div>
<br />
Under the guise of writing, there is a cold calculating act of telling people who they really are, to make them choke on their convictions, dissolve the molecules fretting about in their brains.<br />
<br />
Most writers think better in the sunniest hours of their every day life, because that’s when the show is on at its incredulous best. Every man caught on the mystery camera, a victim of his surrounding, wary dissatisfied soul in civility and in rage against the reason of his age.<br />
<br />
Reflections against the window view of every writer’s room and nothing more, with every man on the street being a well known superstition in abundance, offering a higher form of poetry, more in motion than in verse.<br />
<br /></div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-23307660155592181542012-05-07T02:36:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.316-07:00Requiem for the Vertical Man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
To be dead is to escape accountability; no more squinting into fold-out maps to make a living, in apprehension and fear, for the errors and failings don't cling to you the way they did back home.<br />
<br />
Good old days with life giving orders to the unshaped and the un-orderly, creating constellation within and around its many followers, with the entire mechanism of the host geared to accommodate the travelers adrift across continents and languages, floaters wrapped in the dull overbearing gaze of a sound thought.<br />
<br />
A case of freedom boiling down to a pattern, a level and a norm; when to reach out to the man next to you, the buddy floater, was to violate the rules of the constellation within and without; and would he ever get to hear you, and in which language?<br />
<br />
That is the mathematics of individuality wearing itself out, burning down to sheer multiplication of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades; each withholding a broader freedom within a nutshell.<br />
<br />
Take a picture along now if you will; bring it down with you if it serves anything at all. Make it vertical, clad in fabrics making waves, now mere ripples silhouetted in memory.<br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...] </b><br />
<br /></div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-15157244733776279222011-08-08T11:01:00.000-07:002012-10-20T08:51:05.641-07:00A Case For Suicide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU82ZbB1GQqFNYdCH05EE83IPPbFtGsCcmTW0j2r69M6uc9UXU1d7O7hp8V9AxF9qJIi2mxvQrGBZHXCv65zKdzw8cEs5lMExOWH5hmOfJTpqrP5eot8raN0SMriSuHFVDdfFtBSdu70jj/s1600/suicide2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU82ZbB1GQqFNYdCH05EE83IPPbFtGsCcmTW0j2r69M6uc9UXU1d7O7hp8V9AxF9qJIi2mxvQrGBZHXCv65zKdzw8cEs5lMExOWH5hmOfJTpqrP5eot8raN0SMriSuHFVDdfFtBSdu70jj/s1600/suicide2.jpg" /></a>“It’s nothing but a tale of the living and the dead, and the ones in between.” I watched the main street from the window of the apartment, thinking out aloud. “It’s funny that each man now walking across this street, is merely following the long lost trails of his ancestors who must have walked the same line, trudged on the same cobblestones and occasionally admired a fleeting beauty passing by, some whistling and rest in awe.” <br />
<br />
Ammo replied. “Have you never no hope, Lev? You know you ought to say something nice tonight, it’s your birthday, for creeper’s sake”. A half burned cigarette dangling from her left hand, a thinly clad wrist with white hairless skin and bones strikingly jutting out. The many misnomers of drug abuse blended with hours spent in artistic torture. <br />
<br />
I continued on, for a moment mindless of her incitements of hope. “And the ones before them, and before that, and so on. Hence the ironic cycle of life, and God’s great cast of actors and actress upon this planet.” <br />
<br />
Ammo replied. “Don’t you think that it’s a blessing that most of them, including you hopefully, will live to see another year.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, though I hardly consider it a cause of celebration.” I replied. “Living is but one of the strangest acts of suicide, Ammo.” My voice low enough to qualify as a whisper. “It’s an acknowledged descent into the abyss, self willed, but done with hope, with flair, and in high spirits. An act of self annihilation done in extremely good taste.” <br />
<br />
She said. “Perhaps you need to live a little more, Lev. And need to see beyond the veil of your opinions.” Paused. “Perhaps you also need to take into account the very possibility that you and your cockamamie opinions about life and the rest of the haberdashers surrounding it could be wrong.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I turned back to pay her a brief glance and indulged myself with the view again. “Perhaps I could be wrong. I would believe so, but if it wasn’t for growing old and dying. I mean seriously, Ammo, what do you get for all that stammering, and fretting and bloody yearning to enjoy each moment, as they say. What is that reward awaiting us beneath the veil of innocence and youth? It’s old age Ammo, in watch for years like a cold blooded reptile in the ambush, once all the ambitions of life escape us. What happens then? We friggin’ grow old. And you know what old age is like? Would you like to? It’s all that cocaine blood drying beneath your pretty skin and the bones stretch and curve to the hilt. Eyes sink and circle with bloodless dark, and you tend to squint to improve the vision that has taken a nose dive with age.” <br />
<br />
“Ahan”. She was obvious taken aback by my newly acquired tone, and forgot her protests for a while. “Do go on, Lev, what else is there?<br />
<br />
Now we are talking, I thought to myself and said. “What else? I guess your feet grow morbid with the distances traveled, whether for good or bad, all that walkin’ and dancin’ of mindless youth will have its toll. Because growing old knows no morality. It knows no good or bad, it is just plain simple growing old.” <br />
<br />
She averted her eyes and muttered quietly to herself. “It must be awfully terrible then, Lev.”<br />
<br />
I continued. “It’s terrible. Terrible from the sound of it, and terrible to look at. To feel and touch, it’s repulsive. Some say the physical aspect of growing old is the sickness of one’s soul manifested in flesh, sickness inherited by the years spent in the dark vestiges, to do one’s evil wills. But who knows. Hard to tell what rejoices the most in men, the body or the soul, by the prospect of evil. The evils we never tire to forbid each other in civility, while cherishing its many prospects in private. And you know, as always, evil is sought the most in private. Call it proliferation of man’s will against the God, especially when he thinks that no one is watching.” I winked at her.<br />
<br />
“All right”. She seemed to be pondering over what I said momentarily, and then asked. “But what of men who have spent a life of absolute righteousness. You can’t have a same yardstick for a saint and a sinner, or whatever is the word for men with and without morals.”<br />
<br />
“There are no words, Ammo.” I replied. “Just as there are no saints. Only an occasional soul who eventually tires out of sinning. Or perhaps it’s a sheer case of lambs never being able to indulge in cannibalism, much as they would want to. It’s immoral to make saints of them lambs. Since they didn’t know any better.”<br />
<br />
“So you believe there is no morality amongst men”. She asked. “Or that men with morals simply do not exist”.<br />
<br />
“No, I don’t believe that.” I replied. “Like I have always told you, Ammo, I believe in everything and in nothing. And as for morals, they have been thrust upon us, either with or without our consent. From the cradle to a grave, we are expected to behave like a child of Light, or a herald of truth and virtue. My point is, why can’t we simply be men, without the edifications of good and evil always shoved in our faces. Why can’t we be allowed to do evil, without being constantly judged, and above all, why is there a heavy price to be paid every time I bid to enjoy myself, even at the cost of my soul. And why, for all the evil but pleasant things, the price that awaits us in this world and the next is hundred times more than the magnitude of the deed done, if you go by the scriptures, that is.” <br />
<br />
“Well, most of what you say is beyond me”. She tossed her finished cigarette in the tray, now obviously looking to end the conversation. “But I do know one thing for certain.”<br />
<br />
I asked, calmly and without looking. “And what would that be, Ammo.”<br />
<br />
“Well, I do believe that one of these days, you are gonna take that .32 calibre out of your dad’s closet and blow your already-so-messed-up brains out.”<br />
<br />
“Ahan”. I said. “And would it be too bad if I did?”<br />
<br />
“Well”. She replied. “All I can say is that you would be sorely missed, for sure. In spite of all your eccentricities and mind boggling convictions”.<br />
<br />
“Yes”. I replied. “Sorely missed and remembered, and furnished with a fancy obituary in some daily that every fool wakes up in the morning to read. And celebrates in silence and in shame his existential triumph over the ones the fool had outlived. But only for some time, some some time …<br />
<br />
And I continued on, failing to realize that she had already left the room, having quietly shut the door as she did so.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b><br />
<br /></div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-91518347492924455212011-07-10T08:42:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.370-07:00A Thousand Pig Heads On Sticks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">It’s a day to be quiet; spent in anger and disguise. Because it’s a kind of day that scares you, scares you deep, and scares you good, real good I mean. When you are afraid of nothing more around you, but only yourself.<br />
<br />
Afraid of what you have become, if only for a day. <br />
<br />
And so you take a day off, a day off from yourself. The trick is to just take a back seat and watch the world go, like a small tin can rolling down the slanted street.<br />
<br />
And if you would watch it for too long, you would realize that it’s never rolling in, nor rolling out. Because it never grows too near nor too far, it just rolls. <br />
<br />
So what do you do? <br />
<br />
You just light the bloody cigarette and take a walk down that street. You simply roll with the can, and never take your eyes off it. You watched it dance, and follow suit. Watch it pull every god damn trick from the bag that is there to be had, and you watch. And ask no questions.<br />
<br />
No questions ever. Because there are no answers to be had. <br />
<br />
And once you have walked far enough, long enough, you realize you are not alone. No way near! There are people, and always more people. It’s a form of rejoice, a bloody festival out there. Like an ugly welcome, watching them grinning, or somber to the core. <br />
<br />
Walking down the street, filled with walking sticks, moral harelips and hunchbacks, people all around, it was like watching a thousand pig heads sticking out of thousand human torsos, made me feel like a captive walking down an Indian gauntlet, walking down to the scaffold. <br />
<br />
And continued on. Walkin’, and humming, trying not to finish my cigarette in a hurry. Trying to make every moment count. Knowing this is as close to fun as I am capable of being. <br />
<br />
And then, from the corner from my eyes, I see a beggar approaching. A beggar with a shine. A physical matchstick of a man with perhaps only enough blood pumped each day to keep the chest heaving. <br />
<br />
As the beggar neared, smiling, I spotted a set of healthy white teeth unveiled as his lips widened.<br />
<br />
<i>What a smile?</i> I wondered. Now realizing where all the blood in his veins was spent. Like every fiber of his body and soul, the heart, the bones and the blood, committed for one jingle of glory; to keep the teeth shining. <br />
<br />
And I moved on. Ignoring him as soon as I first noticed him.<br />
<br />
Straight down my eye line, a mother is comforting a little punk ass of her son, a fat round spoiled brat who had just found out that the world isn’t something to be taken granted for. While mother cuddles him, telling him things that like most parents do, things that little punk ass kid like this one has no use for, nor the care. <br />
<br />
I watch the kid sobbing, making economical use of his limited set of tears. Spending each with prolonged intermissions, while filling the gap with noise that, with their varying ebb and flow, perhaps represented more grief than there was a genuine case for. <br />
<br />
And the woman with expensive embroidery around her hanging cowish motherly skin, the kind of skin that has given birth to hordes of such brats, one too many perhaps, and dark eye shades, kept telling him to trust her, and to have faith in God, though which of those statements she actually meant to be true, it was hard to guess. <br />
<br />
Apparently the little kid has taken a fall, face first, into the hard concrete ground, chasing a wild puppy in the street, apparently meaning more harm than love to that innocent creature of God.<br />
<br />
And his nose bled, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop, and each drop only brought him closer to death, closer to the unknown, or so the fat kid in big shorts thought. Knowing that he only meant harm to an innocent soul, to a puppy that was now nowhere to be seen, and there would be hell to pay if he dies now, without repentance. <br />
<br />
<i>And deservingly so.</i> I mused and moved on. <i>All men should burn for what they do. 5 years old or 85, what’s the difference?</i><br />
<br />
Leaving them to their perils behind, I reached for the cell from my pocket, wishing to make a connection. Recalling an earlier conversation I had, or the lack of it for that matter. Because a phone call spent in silent misunderstanding is not conversation. <br />
<br />
<i>Make a connection. But with what?</i> I fumbled in my thoughts.<i> It’s hard to understand the man who woke up in my bed today, it’s hard to look him in the mirror and reach out. </i><br />
<br />
I slipped the cell back in my pocket, wishing nothing no more. Afraid of the disappointment that might await me on the other end of the frequency. Because a hope of being loved, and of being understood, of expectations, bring along with them a hordes of fear and apprehensions.<br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b></div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-13921184998210423312011-06-29T05:22:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.309-07:00A Little Scared Boy (An Excerpt)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<u>(The following is an excerpt from the currently undergoing novel, <b>The Liar's Lobe</b>)</u><b> </b><br />
<br />
<em>At first, it seemed the descent would never end as a little scared boy trailed down the wooden stairs. Then his stumbling blind feet hit the surface and the boy took a sigh of relief. </em><br />
<br />
<em>The earth beneath his feet felt hard and cold as he took first couple of steps. Feeling his way in, swallowed by the blind eater that masqueraded as dead darkness all around him. </em><br />
<br />
<em>Have mercy! Something in him screamed. Part of him that was wallowing in hopelessness since the day Grandpa has passed away. </em><br />
<br />
<em>Watching someone die like the way Grandpa did was like catching someone with his pants down. Stripped of all human dignity, and Danny didn’t think you are ever forgiven for that little sneak peak into reality.</em><br />
<br />
<em>He recalled the time when he saw the thing from the Grandpa's room for the first time, a night after Grandpa's died, a thing that walked and even made itself sound like Grandpa used to, approaching his room in the middle of the night, his back against me, and it starting to turn around. </em><br />
<br />
<em>And it was just as well that Danny got scared and ran back before he could face him. Deep within he knew he could never face Grandpa again, not even when it wasnt quite Grandpa that he had to face, but something else, something that only walked and talked like his Grandpa used to. </em><br />
<br />
<em>From above he heard Jimmy calling out for him. He sounded worried. But Danny chose to stay and begged for darkness to feed him. He had come too far and there was no turning back. </em><br />
<br />
<em>His patience paid off as it seemed that the darkness finally listened to him. He began to see. The cellar was a small round sphere surrounded by layers of thickly infested dust and cobwebs. Against the wall on his left he saw shelves with portholes carved in them. </em><br />
<br />
<em>Most of them seemed empty, except couple of them as Danny poked around in the dim light. </em><br />
<br />
<em>A square looking black object seemed to peek through the shelf’s opening.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Danny thought the little thing smiled at him. </em><br />
<br />
<em>He didn’t think when Lewis Carroll dreamed of rabbit holes of his own, he ever believed it could prove to be a doorway to things so demonic and destructive. He had thought rabbit holes to be fantastical apertures to other worlds, where life is full of color and magic. Warped in a strange but nice form of reality that make our most outrageously enlightening dreams seem like a discourse into dullness. </em><br />
<br />
<em>When Danny first laid eyes on the book, he forgot to breath. The blood underneath the skin slowly flushed out of his face, his eyes unable to focus on the black leatherbound book he found from the secret cellar in our backyard, stranded in the cobwebs and layers of dust.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Because for one brief moment, what Danny saw wasn’t some old book from the Grandpa’s past, but a thing born of darkness, of Danny’s worst nightmares and most secret dreads. A dark and slimy thing crouched in one of the portholes lined up against the wall of the cellar. </em><br />
<br />
<em>Who are you? Danny choked as the words he began to speak only succeeded to echo deep inside of him. </em><br />
<br />
<em>I am you. The dark-thing said and gave him a winning smile. Danny believed the things had eyes watching him. Weighing him down with a lots of love, the kind that gives you goosebumps and makes your blood run cold. </em><br />
<br />
<em>I am you. The dark-thing repeated. </em><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b></div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-84645440637103364002011-06-22T05:03:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.358-07:00A World Without Air<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The world of dreams is a silent facade, a showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant, something that we have all heard of, and strive for, and none achieve. If time is the big bad ball of ice rolling down the giant snow peak in clockwise motion, then the hope for happiness is the antithesis of it, an anti-clockwise act of desperation, of human struggle against the pitiless Void of creation that some call Nature, and others God.<br />
<br />
The point is the absolute pointlessness of the whole thing. The point is not the snowball falling down the mountain, the point is why it is there in the first place. <br />
<br />
And the point is, if there is a mysterious Machinist responsible for all the existence in the earth and beyond, a Machinist hidden to the common eye behind the veil of infinity, call it Nature or God, would it suffice as good enough explanation, a justification of sorts that everything that is there, or isnt there for that matter, is but a willfull act of Divine Providence, as it were.<br />
<br />
But irrespective of all that, of whether we need, or could, justify anything that there is to be justified or not, the fact remains that we all live in a world without, rather than in a world within. We humans are mere entities of self denial, in a way that we forever refuse to acknowledge or be at peace with what we are, instead are in constant striving for what we arent, or dont have. <br />
<br />
Every man or woman, no matter how mundane a soul he or she is, or how insufficient in imagination or ambition, seeks to do an act or follows a trail of otherworldiness, of that most beautiful of all that is unreal and fantastic, better known as the pursuit of happiness.<br />
<br />
We are all fiddlers, freting their way into the unknown future, curious and babbling, lauging and crying, loving and hating, but always seeking to divulge from our own present form and circumstances. Whereas the ones in light seek the dark, and spent their lifetime doing it, like poor old saints trying to become clumsy sinners.<br />
<br />
And the ones in the dark forever crave for the light, stumbling to light candles of hope, never realizing that it is not the darkness they fight against, but the very absence of light in their lives.<br />
<br />
And all the while, the ball keeps rolling down the peak, and hence the pointlessness of it all. <br />
<br />
Though we choose not to hear it coming, we choose instead to keep looking for a whiff of fresh air in a world devoid of the very substance that we call air.<br />
<br />
We chose to do the impossible against the face of nothingness, because it is only human to do so.<br />
<br />
We chose not to await the ball to finishing rolling, but to try and live in this world without air... <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>[Do leave a comment, it matters...</b><b>] </b><br />
<br />
</div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-51112064300825327892011-05-30T13:51:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.326-07:00Spider<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">25 years, a life span most of the mygalomorph spiders are expected to share, years spent in captivity of the predatory inclinations inherent in my kindred; catching the unexpected prey with a silken smile, O the irony of that; I have never been fond of non-predatory feeding, if there is such a term.<br />
<br />
With fangs that inject venom to a mere wanderer in my parlor, a Sicilian death kiss most of them find a little too sticky, though they never complain, was a necessary predicament of my livelihood; feeding my little young ones, like a good mother that I am; always making a point of eating the eyes off my prey, for my little ones did not deserve to see the glimpse of darkness in the dead eyes; the accusing look that dwells there forever.<br />
<br />
Death was a necessity, I once thought, and was proven wrong in the course of my lifetime; the long tedious hours spent in the hollow shade of wait, watch and wait, soundless and like a shadow that casts no suspicion to the unsuspecting prey; it became a pleasure.<br />
<br />
I have stared down many desperate faces, in fear and hopelessly deprived, throbbing and pulsating from the sigh of the silent specter before them, some begging for mercy, others dimly hoping for it, none ever appreciating death; the value they put on their lives ……<br />
<br />
‘Is it a bad thing’, one of my young one once asked me, having watched me taking the life out of one of my victims, ‘to make a living of their lives’; ‘No’, I told him with a smile, ‘once they are caught in the silken fate, it is all right to feed off them’; a curious babbling fledgling he was, soon he will learn the underlying principles of death and dying.<br />
<br />
Soon I will too learn the fears that enveloped my prey, now having grown in both wisdom and age; a little too much of both is a luxury none can ever afford; waiting … waiting for a silent silken kiss.</div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-4804292627778660862011-05-26T01:09:00.000-07:002012-10-29T23:33:33.844-07:00God's Business<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Blood came spurring out of the wound as if finally relieved of its tensions, of all that tension of living in a state of war. The little green man fell haplessly on the ground; his blood curdled eyes staring at my lily white face - the last thing that lucky commie bastard would ever get to see in this world. <br />
<br />
Down onto my haunches I searched the body and found nothing to my liking. Like most of his kind, he lived in the teepees and humped in the bushes - now just another slit-eyed creep with his throat gashed from my bayonet. <br />
<br />
War is murder in wholesale, somebody once said, and I say the hell with him, because we are at war. It’s the natural order of things, and you never ever fuck with nature. <br />
<br />
---------------------------<br />
<br />
We move on, like a bunch of best trained sniffers a country at war could ever hope for, slashing and moving our way in, deep within the forest. <br />
<br />
Look behind every jumble of bushes and you see a commie either breeding, or smokin' leaves, or doing both. Keep the trigger pressed for long and it doesn’t feel so cold any more. Doing God's good work on this earth makes you feel like one lucky bastard on this cursed land of tropical horrors, where sometimes the rain and mosquitoes seem more evil than the commies. <br />
<br />
But we move on anyway, because that is the only way, because we ain't fighting this war to win; we keep on because the job needs to be finished off. We ain't no quitters, no siree, not we; it’s about finishing what you started and moving on to better things in life. <br />
<br />
---------------------------<br />
<br />
The cigar stays tucked in my mouth as I walk. ‘Watch out for the commie dirt’, someone shouted. It's the brains splattered on the ground, mixed with a lot of blood and stuff, mostly from the guts; the other green stuff that always shows up every time we fry a commie family of four or more with an M1 semi-automatic carbine.<br />
<br />
That’s the one to look out for, its heathen blood and its fucking contagious once you catch it; because then you can’t get it off your skin. And aint that the proof, like someone said, proof that there aint no humans around in this island till we first landed. <br />
<br />
<br />
Good Lord has shown us signs, the right ones, and only the weak and the faithless will ever turn away from it; and once they do, they are as good as the dead commies, 'coz we need to tell the world that it's God's business we are here to mind. </div>
A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-85161675540543486612011-05-01T01:21:00.001-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.360-07:00Born Down In the Dead Man’s Town<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">We are all born down to the dead man’s town. Where each of those good old skunks was once a man of worth, till he learned to have an opinion. <br />
<br />
Where they all kiss, smile, and die henceforth, some by chance, other by providence. <br />
<br />
Where the wise men have a crack at Divinity and the mere average souls strive for immortality within their shaded abodes. Some worship the Seen, some Unseen, and the rest who could do with neither, followed none but their own shadows. <br />
<br />
Some had Gods sculptured in the shoddy back lane shops, others strove for them in the towering erected domes. <br />
<br />
And some dreamed of heaven above, while most strove to erect One of their own devices, heavens bricked with concrete and blood of their fellow beings.<br />
<br />
But each man is born to burn in this funny little town, is what none of us realize, not in the nick of time anyway. </div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-69449644971454408822011-05-01T01:21:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.329-07:00An Unkind Birth (An Excerpt)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><u>(The following is an excerpt from the currently undergoing novel, <b>The Liar's Lobe</b>)</u><b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>(Narrative by Martha – Danny’s Mother)</b><br />
<br />
<i>Danny was disposed off the Heaven as if treated as a mistake. </i><br />
<i><br />
It was as if the child would break into pieces any moment. He wasn’t too well done as a creation. Came off a month early, my Danny did. <br />
</i><br />
<i>But Danny did make it home. After months of labor, which Good Lord has devised in His plans for women to bear, he made it soundly. Unlike many newborns I have seen, Danny didn’t seem to have enough tears to shed. It’s as if providence do away with him in some urgency, disgusted or repelled by what it has got at its disposal.</i><br />
<i><br />
The little child Danny was hardly complete when he was first unhooked of the meaty strings. Hardly breathin’. Looking starved, and not much stirring, puffing noiseless in the well lit room surrounded by faces indecisive of whether to rejoice or be alarmed. </i><br />
<i><br />
I am just a mother. Now bearing a child that I could never save, knew the moment I lay eyes on him. He demanded too much work than a woman of mortal capacity could muster. Faith’s a thing plenty, but it ain’t enough to save everybody.</i><br />
<i><br />
My suspicions were confirmed when, days later, baby Danny first opened his eyes, his dark black eyes just like his father’s and the busy brows. Those were beautiful eyes and what lurked beneath the early years of innocence was sea of lies waiting for the right moment to gush out. </i><br />
<i><br />
Much as I loved him back then, and did for the rest of my life, for I never stopped loving him, even when the moments when I looked at him with nothing but spite and wish nothing more than to ram the dagger down his baby chest and let him take it down to his young grave, I never stopped loving him. </i><br />
<i><br />
But the dagger moments were too many and the love at times was forgotten in the moments of intense hatred and enmity in the air, though it continued to exist. </i><br />
<i><br />
But there were no surprise, because even as a young baby, my Danny had a look of a liar in his eyes. If eyes are windows to the souls as some wise mouth cracks it out to be, than my baby had a soul prone to deceit, fallen already at the time of its awakening, fallen to the touch of the devil. </i><br />
<i><br />
I had no chance. What happened probably wasn’t fair, but who am I to complain. All I can say is that Good Lord in the sky has created angels, demons, and men, and everything in between that walks upon two or four legs in this world. </i><br />
<i><br />
And then He goes on to do the inexplicable; He creates Danny, my boy. </i></div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-90577888401959609612011-04-30T04:23:00.001-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.361-07:00The Liar's Lobe (An excerpt)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--> <m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent><!--[endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The first time Danny went to the liar’s lobe was when he was five. That’s when he had his first real visit to that place, standing at the edge of the pond with the cool heavenly breeze against his cheek. Peering down against the surface of the pond, both amazed and a bit scared, because he has never seen anything like that before ever in his life. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But above all, he was relieved to be here. He had started to feel strangled, the despair rising inside of him, while watching his parents have another fight on the dinner table, all that yelling and shouting. With mother cursing Dad, calling him names, especially the ones that always started with God, God this or God that. Though young as he was, Danny was already getting to grasp the scope to which this God thing could be used by adults in their daily life. He could understand that God was a major part of an adult’s vocabulary in their everyday life, and Danny was sure that it wasn’t a mere coincidence that it would always come out especially when people were angry or sad or in some kind of trouble. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Was it because everybody who ever went there was in some kind of a trouble. Danny wondered. In Danny’s brief experience of this world, most people were always in some kind of trouble or another. At least Father Callahan always maintained that they were. He always reminded him of his mother whenever Danny saw him talking in the church. Shouting, cursing in sheer excitement, speaking of things, bad things that are coming your way.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But of course, Father Callahan never offered the solution to the dark future awaiting mankind, and that was just as well. Because it’s been more than a year since Danny first heard him speak, and nothing even remotely that bad had fallen to either his parents or to anyone else in the town. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One year is a helluva time, Danny was old enough to understand. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But apparently mother didn’t understand. She sat in one of the long line of benches, nodding her head vigorously while the tall dark figure of Father Callahan spoke of great mysteries about to be unraveled. Her constant agreement to the ramblings of that crazy old man had what irked Danny the most. Wasting her life in a self conceived entrapment, a web of fear around her woven on grounds that were most absurd if you come to think of it real hard.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And Danny was worried.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One night, on a dinner table, he couldn’t resist and eventually had to bring it to her. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny asked her if she knew that how Father Callahan was crazy. The question, coming out of her only son who has not even reached ten yet, startled her. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">From across the table, she gave Danny a curious look and asked. “Now why would you say something like that, Danny”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny could sense her eyes piercing into him; they were full of surprise and something else. Something that Danny at first took as curiosity, but figured that it was something different, something a lot livelier, and almost malign. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was alarm. That’s what remained veiled beyond her deep gray eyes, a sense of alarm that had suddenly become alive by the most unexpected question brought to her disposal by her son. To Danny, it didn’t look pleasant. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And Danny knew that mother will not believe him, having just experienced that magical moment of understanding, instantaneous and so clear, crystal clear. Just as that he knew everything there was to come. Darkness. All that darkness inside of mother now waiting to come out, now that it has found its prey, lurking in wait for an unbeliever to pounce at, to show him the way of the God. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The way of Father Callahan. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Now was that where the darkness was coming from, all that darkness that Father Callahan spoke of. It was from the inside of his mother. No wonder she believed him as well as she did.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He spoke. “It’s just those things he speaks, the kind of stuff he talks about”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mother persisted, as Danny had anticipated. “What do you mean by stuff, son. Father Callahan speaks the word of our Good Lord and the Bible. It’s called preachin’, not speaking, boy”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“It’s all so disturbing, don’t you think. The kind of stuff he sa… preaches that is”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mother replied, her voice already growing sterner. “But that stuff, that stuff is from the Bible, Danny. What is it about it that you find so disturbing”?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny said. “It’s the things that he speaks of, things about death and destruction. The kind of things that are going to happen in the future, mom. He keeps saying them and they keep not happenin’.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“But they will happen, son.” Mother replied. “One day, these things will happen, as Good Lord has promised us. Father Callahan only speaks of our Lord’s promise to us. It’s necessary that we shall be prepared.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny asked. “How do you prepare against the mighty angels blowing the whole planet to hell, with massive earth quakes, storms and famines.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mother said. “By believing in them, son. And in Jesus our savior. It’s called having faith. You shall have faith, son, and you shall be saved.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The idea of being saved by something as paltry as faith seemed a tricky proposition to Danny, it all seemed a little too easy, easy to believe that believing alone will save you. Something was missing, though he didn’t say so. Mother, like God, had limits, and he dare not test her tolerance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Instead, he said something a lot worse. “But why would Good Lord promise us death and destruction if He is as good as you believe Him to be.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mother exclaimed. “Shut your dirty little mouth, Danny. Don’t speak of these things in that manner if you don’t understand what’s going on. You don’t understand nothin’. It’s the Devil whispering all that filth inside of you, and that’s what’s comin’ out of your little pie hole now, nothing but Devil’s filth.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And that was the end of that, and later that night, father visited him in his room and told him that he was too young to understand. He must not mind too much what mother had said, because she was a fine woman, if only a little too much in love with our Good Lord. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“She loves the word of God more than anyone I have ever seen, that woman”. His father exclaimed. “And what she does is in the best interest of us all, which also includes you. Because she loves you, loves us, and would go to any length to save us, son. You ought to respect her and bear no ill will towards her, because she only means well. And because you are too young to know what’s going on, son.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny simply nodded his head and said nothing to his father. Though deep inside, he knew what was exactly going on. His parents perpetually afraid of the great darkness about to come, driving them on the edge of madness that was both quiet and destructive, eating them from the inside. Holding onto thin air for crutches that wouldn’t save them, because there was nothing left to save. How do you save someone who is as willfully mad as his parents, especially his mother. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That night he didn’t go to sleep, he stayed up late and believed, till he entered the place he cherished for many years to come, deep within the liar’s lobe. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">__________________</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Inside the liar’s lobe, it was a middle of the night, and the crimson moon shone in all its glory, its orange flare setting all things aglow in Danny’s surrounding, keeping the darkness of the night at bay. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was a powerful vision, and Danny was awestruck by it. Looking back, he could see the town he had left behind, quietly settling down as night grew deeper, with people slowing disappearing off the street, off to their homes looking for seclusion from the harrows of the night. The darkness made them uncomfortable, brought out unnamable array of emotions the simple folks of Derry could only secretly acknowledge, but failed to face up to, or talk about openly. They merely went on to do what every normal man does when faced up with something he did not understand, or see, is to scurry into their hide outs, looking for light and for familiar faces of their wives and children. A simple remedy that has always worked for centuries after centuries. Helping their minds to wander, to forget whatever that lay in the dark for them, the things that came down onto the very streets the people inhabited, intruding and intervening in their comfort zones with their harsh ghostly presence. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny could see it all as a blur, as if through a thick glassy wall, with thin layer of water streaming down from the top. It looked magical though Danny was sure it wasn’t real. The barrier was merely his mind’s interpretation of whatever it was that separated the unseen dimensions in this world. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny has always believed in the worlds within worlds, just he believed in the Liar’s Lobe; the brain within a brain. And he has made a major leap, a significant slip into the other world that would change everything for him in the days to come. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But from the day he first entered the liar’s lobe, he felt right at home. Probably because he had always dreamed of places like that, places where darkness never made it home, not even as a mere rumor, where all was light, and even in midnight, there was nothing to be afraid of. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny saw the pool and the deep forest across it, he bent low to touch the grass, which seemed to grow curiously thin and long, and found they were soft to the touch, like velvet. It didn’t even look like the grass Danny had grown accustomed to, a sea of blazing blue narrow heads stirring in the pleasant wind, in unison almost. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The grass looked blue, deep thick mesh of blue that shone beautiful against the orange flare of the moon reflecting off them. And the pool, the water, looked like a painted veil set horizontally across the barren patch, as the pond’s surface looked like a colorless crust of ice that was neither frozen nor melted, enamored with tiny dots that looked like tiny pebbles dancing on top of it. The pebbles looked white and remained floating above the surface, thousand tiny dabs shining like crystal dots.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Danny crouched down, onto his haunches, his knees feeling the cold touch of the grass against his skin, beneath the stripped pajamas he wore. He stared down at the pool’s surface and saw nothing but colorless sheen of the surface meeting his glare, blankly, and with one outstretched hand, he dipped his forefinger in the surface, feeling nervous but compelled, penetrating the magnificent surface of the carpeted visual and felt the thickness of the surface slowly enveloping his finger. He continued to bring his hand downward till the whole of his hand up to the wrist disappeared inside the pool and felt the strange sensation against his skin, almost ticklish. The water had a thick, jellylike feel about it, like a well garnered shake. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He fetched his hand back, and realized it wasn’t wet. Not a sprinkle of water like fluid on it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was as if the pool wasn’t even real. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But, Danny decided, real or not, it worked. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It worked against the stuff of mortals that Danny had enough of. The stuff of mother and her blind pursuits. What did she know? What did she care about but an angry old man clad in cassock squinting on the altar, with an eye sight that wasn’t improving with each day. Old as he was, Danny was sure that man couldn’t tell a boulder from a rock, let alone heaven and hell. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, where was the sense in that. Danny wondered. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And where was Father in all that. He wondered. A hard working man who had sold his soul to the evil of manly labors, yet another anonymous soul cursed with an occupation of feeding his family, doing something that God alone was responsible for doing. If there was a grain of truth in the ramblings of his mother. Danny could recognize the streak of hypocrisy beneath the facade. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For people like his father always ended up having the worst of everything, even in their own homes, where there is a corner in each house reserved for men like him, and it’s a lonely one. Danny called it the waiting place for working men, little factory men like his father, spent in solitude, surrounded by shadows they called family. <span> </span>A waiting place till they are ready to be passed on. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Like most men of his kind who made a living working in factories, his father was too busy licking his own wounds. And as far as Danny could foresee, nothing would change that in the days to come. Mother was a succubus he had fallen in love with. And he would probably never stop holding on to her, not in this lifetime anyway. In a way, she was his Father Callahan, the one he could hold on to and believe. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Leaving Danny all alone in this fight. </span></div></div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-1877252491642002782011-04-28T03:19:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.311-07:00In Close Range<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><u>(The following is an excerpt from the currently undergoing novel, <strong>The Liar's Lobe</strong>)</u><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>1</strong></div><br />
The thing about coming back to your hometown years after you left it behind is that they are never quite the same. Not that a lot can change in ten years, not physically anyway. The only change, if any, takes place between your ears; in a solitary confinement inside your brain reserved only for memories that are meant to be locked away. <br />
<br />
And with time, something always goes wrong there, because as you finally face up to everything that you once owned in the past long gone, none of it seem quite the way you had it remembered, in all those years you had been away. <br />
<br />
You think you had it all figured out, but you don't; because there is a place in each of us’ brain that is ruled solely by deceit.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>2</strong></div><br />
Looking at the body in the Town’s morgue, I realized how small my brother Danny looked, as if the whole of him had shrank, may be from the impact of the bullet, I am not quite sure. Because there is a lot about being shot at close range that I knew nothing about or wished to. And if I ever changed my mind, I knew there was only one way to find out; <em>Danny’s way</em>.<br />
<br />
His head was heavily bandaged, strapped in white all around the temples, because the bullet had travelled its way across one temple to another, till it finally hit the part of the basement wall covered with an elaborate looking Monroe poster, splattering it with blood and everything else that decides to come out when you shoot yourself in the head in such close range, close enough to feel the muzzle against the side of your head. <br />
<br />
Looking down on to the face, with hot tears streaming down that I had no control over, I tried to remind myself that the dead looking fella strapped in sheets didn’t look like my brother at all.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">But I cried anyway, knowing that it wouldn’t help, knowing that the problem wasn’t the DNA, but my memory of it.</div></div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-26601557076309394942011-04-17T11:02:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.318-07:00Tears of a Serpent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Tears are words that heart can’t express. It is the strangest form of grief, the one that makes you cry, a strange kind of sorrow, which if you closely observe, will make you realize the truth of it, that you are merely shedding tears for someone who has been your utmost delight. <br />
<br />
Grief can have the best of even the worst amongst us, the saint and the angel amongst us, the deer and the serpent amongst us. <br />
<br />
You will learn to hate it, you will learn to love it, to cherish it, rage against them running down your cheeks. But you shall in each case endure them. Like you learn to endure everything that is sacred inside of us, no matter how dark the soul of man, there is something that resembles like light even in our lowliest moment that we tend to hold on to from time to time. At times, it serves as our defense mechanism in the fight against the teasing gnawing conscience. <br />
<br />
Tears, likewise, are sacred. They are not the tool of the weak amongst us, but of a power the like of which most of us stay unacquainted with. And they speak of a love which would otherwise remain inexpressible and beyond words. And they say so much more while sparing us the frivolities of tongue. <br />
<br />
They say that only men who are good and worthwhile have it in them the nobility to cry. And I say to them, what of the ones who had lived in the shelter of darkness most of their lives, what of the villain who has the heart to shed tears. A grief to express. <br />
<br />
And what of the serpent we all fear and dread, the dark specter that none shall embrace. What of his loneliness and his tears. <br />
<br />
Don’t we all look at him and say, “Here goes a bad man, here goes a man without morals or worth.”<br />
<br />
Have not most of us facade keepers, the one who divine about faith and moralities over lavish dinner tables, have you all not in one time or another enjoyed the fruits of the dark, not served in the lair of the serpent for your own worldly gains?<br />
<br />
Or have you no sense of gratitude. That you may now pause in your frivolities only to mock what once served in your best interest. Provided you that pillow of comfort on which you now lay your head and dream of righteousness. <br />
<br />
It is a pity that men, often blinded by faith, may often see the worse amongst others, and not the best. May only see the serpent inside the serpent and not the tears that now forever draw him nearer to goodness than he could ever imagine.<br />
<br />
A lot nearer than most of you could ever have been.<br />
<br />
Because if it is noble to love a good man for his nobility, isn't it nobler to love a dark one for his fallibilities, for his torments of mind and soul. And if for nothing else, for that small world within him, a mere idea, or a world of fantasy he often escapes into and does much good; where none of his own evil lurks to haunt him, and no marks of the beast upon his reflection. <br />
<br />
Where, for however unreal and briefest the moments, he stays a good man…</div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-36002036729923261982011-03-24T14:10:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.320-07:00To Love A Lie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent> World is a facade, bounded by dyed rags around a squaw, dyed rags around each one of us, some with love, some with faith and rest with pure material pursuits.<br />
<br />
Each of us living in a lie we would rather not give up, not because we have learned to love a lie, but because we believe there is not an iota of truth to be had around us. Because the world we live in and the world we have woven for ourselves is conceived of a lie, a lie of a wife to her husband that endures a shallow marriage, a lie of a mother to her child that endures one's upbringing, a lie of a father to the son, that endures his manly pride, the lie of a preacher to the herd of faithful, to endure a living based on the promises of the supernatural.<br />
<br />
Or lie of a drunkard, or a rich man's, each boasting of a possession he could never truly own, neither a drunkard his wine nor a rich man his treasures.</m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac><br />
<br />
Hence, what do we truly own in this world. What is it that is real and yet beyond ‘reachable’. That had made us accustomed to living with a lie. What are those obligations, hidden from our sight, that doesn’t allow a wife to give up on a shallow marriage, or a mother to give up on her worthless child, or a father to relieve himself from the duties of a boastful son, or never allows the faithful herd to pull away from the prospects of supernatural?<br />
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And neither a drunkard without his wine or a rich man without his treasures would ever be seen. Is that all there is to boast?<br />
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Why is it that even a minute prospect of something that is real makes us jittery, gets on our nerves and becomes hard to bear? Why is it that we would rather cling to falsehood than face the facts?<br />
<br />
We do all that, and yet have the audacity to wonder why there is so little good in this world. Why there is so much darkness in people, least of all the one bragging his heart out on this worthless piece of paper. Why the vibes we exude are so negative, we complain, and yet do we ever ask ourselves the question:<br />
<br />
"What have I ever done to make this a better place. To make one a better person. A single soul, any one? Do I have anything else to offer except bitterness and disappointments, and lies, more lies." <br />
<br />
Have we wondered what we call negative or dark could merely be the absence of positive, or light. Have we asked ourselves; "what have I ever done to negate this avalanche of darkness brooding inside of us."<br />
<br />
Or better. "Have we ever the strength to stand in front a mirror and ask ourselves the dreaded question. "What exactly is my valuable contribution to this whirlpool of swirling darkness, hatred and negativity".<br />
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My answer to that last question would be: "Enough to last a lifetime."<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com53tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4218729071530435638.post-52253116646097125462011-03-20T10:18:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:44:02.327-07:00To All Things Versatile<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaQO6JtWetnHksRF61eljeKZZiDWnQn0b2kDrO5C9llHOCA5f-Lo8LYEvdAR4Apdn4bX8qc5xJLiCyZRSPqR0x5pCldtIb204X0LUnZ_UBG3BUr3IjXT6QlsECKRsY1j8VBRxyysIWh31b/s1600/versatileaward1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaQO6JtWetnHksRF61eljeKZZiDWnQn0b2kDrO5C9llHOCA5f-Lo8LYEvdAR4Apdn4bX8qc5xJLiCyZRSPqR0x5pCldtIb204X0LUnZ_UBG3BUr3IjXT6QlsECKRsY1j8VBRxyysIWh31b/s1600/versatileaward1.jpg" /></a></div>This post is about receiving the Versatile Blogger Award, and as per the rules, offering special thanks to the one who honored you with the award, passing the award to the bloggers you hold in high esteem, (or the ones you have the hots for!), and lastly, sharing seven things about yourself with utmost honesty.<br />
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So first thing first.<br />
<br />
Dear <b>AL</b>, thank you so much for the award, and for being an avid reader, simply can’t express in words how much it meant to me. <br />
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Mind you guys, <b>AL</b> writes at <b>Let Me Whine!</b> (<a href="http://al-whodoesntntgiveashit.blogspot.com/">http://al-whodoesntntgiveashit.blogspot.com</a>/), and reading her stuff will shake all the traditionalist bones in your body, if you have any that is. Do pay her a visit. <br />
<br />
Now moving on.<br />
<br />
And now here are the bloggers with awards, in no particular order mind you.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>Freebird:</b></u> <a href="http://alkagurha.blogspot.com/">http://alkagurha.blogspot.com</a>/ <br />
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<b>- <u>Spoken And Heard:</u> </b><a href="http://aseelahaque.blogspot.com/">http://aseelahaque.blogspot.com</a>/<br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>Rolling Stone:</b></u> <a href="http://ridsabs.blogspot.com/">http://ridsabs.blogspot.com</a>/ <br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>ApniBoli:</b></u> <a href="http://irfanurs.blogspot.com/">http://irfanurs.blogspot.com</a>/ <br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>Thinking:</b></u> <a href="http://thinking-lifeandyou.blogspot.com/">http://thinking-lifeandyou.blogspot.com</a>/<br />
<u><b><br />
</b></u><b>- </b><u><b>Ye life hai....take it lightly!:</b></u> <a href="http://sadiyamerchant.blogspot.com/">http://sadiyamerchant.blogspot.com</a>/<br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>The Oddity Express:</b></u> <a href="http://abeerj.blogspot.com/">http://abeerj.blogspot.com</a>/<br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>Calories in half a cup of tea:</b></u> <a href="http://caloriesinhalfacupoftea.blogspot.com/">http://caloriesinhalfacupoftea.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>Life as i know it:</b></u> <a href="http://maryam-malik.blogspot.com/">http://maryam-malik.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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<b>- </b><u><b>Hamza-The Philosophaster:</b></u> <a href="http://hamza-the-philosophaster.blogspot.com/">http://hamza-the-philosophaster.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
All I ask you guys is to follow the rules, and pay it forward.<br />
<br />
It’s a pity that the rules imply that the award can only be forwarded to as many as ten bloggers, since the above list leaves out couple of bloggers I thought were also deserving of an award. <br />
But surely next time.<br />
<br />
And making that list out wasn’t easy, because when it comes to stuffing their blogs with widgets and images, the word discretion is out of the window for most bloggers around. Surfing such blogs is like driving a bike with trunk full of George Foremans hung on the back. <br />
<br />
So a big no to them, and surely a big no to blogs that merge dark backgrounds with equally dark colored text, as if no one is supposed to read it. And my personal favorite is the ones with highly italicized fonts, like in one of those ancient sea scrolls. Phew!<br />
<br />
A blog is there to be read. Period. It doesn’t have to be over the top, should be decent enough and convenient. Without too many distractions. And if you continue to provide interesting enough content over a period of time, you will be read. <br />
<br />
And now here are the things I really don’t want to talk about. <br />
<br />
(1) I am an avid reader of both contemporary and literary genre. Ranging from writers like Joyce, McCarthy, Pynchon, Delillo to Dan Brown and Stephen King. To be honest, I don’t buy much of Contemporary vs. Literary debate. Like movies, all books are an art form, some good and rest downright horrible.<br />
<br />
(2) I probably unfollow as many blogs around the week as I follow. For obvious reasons, of course. Ranging from hideous ducklings who can’t think above the belt to lame Beep Beeps, I have unfollowed just about every goddamn thing that ever walked or crawled upon this earth.<br />
<br />
(3) I am an avid unbeliever of things. I hate people with taken for granted convictions or social stereotypes. In all fairness, I can’t stand most people and the usual hickory dickory of absolute rubbish they talk about. And if normalcy was a stuff of clay, I would happily reduce it to ashes. <br />
All of it doesn’t necessarily make me the most likeable fella ever, but who cares. <br />
<br />
(4) Besides being a writer, I am also a software engineer by profession, being good in Mathematics and all. And no, I ain’t boasting, being good with numbers and formulas is almost like a curse. You can reduce just about anything to mere numbers, algebra and calculus etc. It’s an exercise into soullessness. Mathematics has no essence, no soul or any other flavors of life that we associate with living.<br />
<br />
(5) I am currently working on my first novel, ‘The Liar’s Lobe’. The backdrop is a small American town in New England. Chosen because I am more at ease with American dialectics, especially the way small town folks talk and all, and also because I know pretty much next to nothing about people from my own homeland. Not because I have always been aboard or something, but because during all my years spent in this wasteland of a country, I have never been quite here, if you catch the drift. In my own Oz so to speak. <br />
I did make couple of attempts at starting something based on Pakistan, but gave up, realizing how little I know of them, and this lack of insight discouraged me to continue further. The characters and the dialogues didn’t sound too believable. <br />
<br />
(6) I am twenty six, and still suffering from illusions of grandeur. So much so for it being a teenage phenomena. And I wouldn’t want it to end, to be honest. It’s just too much fun.<br />
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(7) I absolutely detest being told what to do. Tell me what to do, and rest assured I would do the exact opposite of it. <br />
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I hate talking about myself. </div>A Great Liarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00726324062407699145noreply@blogger.com34