Surprise

This is my first blog post. I am editing this post.

The wishing hell

The voices, the sounds,
And the coins that jingle.
Mix and mingle
Like there were no bounds.

One fine day, the sounds became noises
Muting the flies and even the bee
That's when they said- It's time to flee
And that was the last of the Market Day.

He then dove into another hell
Wishing for the noise to end
And now he sits flicking a coin
Calling it his very own private well.


True, the world out there
Walks on and on
In their private hells of well
It's an unseen Market Day.

I am the coin that used to be
But now, just a piece of metal to thee.

(In response to 'The Market Day')

Forty-one Years

The old lady hobbled into the coffee shop with an affected limp. Her legs gave in to the forward motion of the rollator and moved like they didn't have opinion or an option. I watched her scrutinize the items on the menu listed on the colorful board behind the counter. I knew she was going to get the regular, house-blend coffee with 2 spoons of sugar and cream, but she continued to scratch her quivering lower lip like she intended to prove me wrong.

After a good minute and a half, the women barked authoritatively with an Italian accent, "A small, regular, house-blend coffee, cream and 2 spoons of sugar." She added a 'please' as an afterthought, more like a tip instead of a request. She glared angrily as she waited for her cup of coffee. I followed her stare to look at the friendly snow falling to the ground and the mounds collected on the sidewalk. The roads hadn't changed much in the last forty-one years.

I looked back to see her move swiftly, coffee in one hand, to her regular seat by the window. Carefully setting the coffee on the table, she folded her rolling walker and let it rest by her table. She rubbed her right knee as she continued to look at the roads outside carpeted with white fluff.

"You know, if I knew that wheels were better than skis on this walker, I would have got them fitted in the first place.", she announced to her coffee as she raised the cup to her lips.

"Excuse me?", said the young chap seated at the next table, looking up from the book that he was reading.

The woman continued to speak to her coffee. "The skis get stuck in the snow more often than they glide. And before you know it, you are flying over to the other side." The young chap leaned forward courteously to meet the old lady's eyes.

"5 years back it happened to me. My husband and I were walking down to the Espresso shop. I flew and broke my hip. He continued to walk and didn't even notice.", she chuckled fondly. "I had to go into surgery to get a replacement done.", she looked in my direction.

I stared down at my limbs and wondered what it must feel like to walk with an artificial hip. I was thirty-three years old, married to a fine, young man who used to work down at the mills.

She told her newfound coffee shop companion about how she was born and brought up in Arlington and lived a majority of her life in New England. I fondly recollected my childhood memories. The snow was always the same, even though it seemed like the enemy these days. My father owned a house over the hill in Arlington, and I went to university at Amherst, and then moved to Boston for work.

The man talked about how his job got him to Boston. She scorned at him when he informed her that he moved there from Los Angeles but relaxed when she got to know that he was natively from Paris. I smiled at my month long honeymoon in Paris. The place had an electricity that I could never forget. Barry and I could never make it to Paris after that. I wondered what Barry was up to these days. How must he look now?

The woman rambled on about how she detested the earthquakes in California and the hurricanes in Florida didn't tempt her to move there. She lied about her love for New England, and how she never felt like moving any place else. I remember the gloomy skies of Seattle, how I fell in love with the smell in the air. The city transfused its energy into me, I remember feeling light like a feather. I also remember how sad I was when I had to move back to Boston. But the city had grown over me. Perhaps, I had genuinely forgotten about Seattle, it was indeed a long time back ago. Forty-one years ago. May be, I did start loving New England afterwards.

"My husband can't use a walker." So, he was still alive. Thank goodness. "He is a strong man, and can still walk." She cracked heartily at her own joke. The young man smiled chivalrously and glanced at me. I was positive that he could see me. I smiled back at him.

"Shirley, how's your leg doing?", she asked the other lady who had motored her way into the shop. Shirley pretended to not hear. That was not nice, I thought. The young man went back to his reading, he looked a bit relieved. I wasn't sure if I should thank him for being nice to the old lady before or be angry that he seemed a bit relieved to not make any further conversation.

"Any luck with those lottery tickets?", the old lady nosily cajoled the man seated opposite Shirley. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her anymore. She got up from her seat and hobbled over to them, "You know, these wheels are better than them skis. It took me a broken hip to understand that." She jested. She didn't seem to notice that there was nobody laughing with her. I felt sorry.

The woman hopped back to the counter. "Could you make another coffee, while I step out for a while?" I followed her outside to the sidewalk, where she promptly flicked a light to the cigarette dangling from her mouth. I was alarmed. Forty-one years was indeed a long time to go from sane to cranky, from young to old, from Seattle to Boston. But somethings, along with how I took my coffee didn't seem to have changed. I was still smoking my Marlboros.

Twilight Zone - The Prisoner in the Last Cell [Chapter 3]

The prisoner sat upright on his cot and looked around his surroundings. It was cold and musty. The acute stink of urine and human excreta stung his nostrils. The hazy stream of light that seeped in from the tiny window indicated that it was nearing dusk but there was no way to tell. He felt light and fresh, in spite of the odd surroundings. He could see a solitary guard patrolling along the opposite corridor. There were books strewn on the floor, some of the pages were yellowed and the bindings were worn out. He wondered where he was.

There must have been some kind of a misunderstanding. He couldn’t recollect how he got there. He couldn’t recollect what he had for dinner the last night. His mind was drawing a blank. It was dawning on him that he couldn’t recollect anything beyond the time that he got up from his bed.

The prisoner was amazed at himself for analyzing the situation so calmly. His self-composure discomfited him.

‘How can I not panic, given the situation that I am in, right now?’, he thought to himself.

He sat quietly on the cot for what seemed like an hour before he decided to question the guard. Nonchalantly, he slipped his feet into the prison slippers that lay beside the cot and walked towards the cell door.

“Excuse me, Sir!”, he addressed the guard who was facing the other direction. The guard stood alarmed and petrified in his promenade, his thoughts disturbed. The cells were not lit; the corridor lights weren’t very helpful either. The guard walked toward the direction of the voice, slinging his gun off the shoulder. He had been positioned on Island Kiev’s 2nd quarters for the past 17 months and he had never heard that particular voice before.

Slowly approaching the last cell, he observed the prisoner who was motionless. The guard was nervous. He had never heard any voice from this particular cell before; nobody had. There was a mysterious force emanating from the cell that made him want to sound the alarm. But there was no act of aggression, au contraire the prisoner seemed calm, composed and still. A tinge of confusion scrawled on the guard’s face.

The guard had not uttered a word. The prisoner observed that he was being looked at as if he were a ghost.

“Who am I? And what am I doing inside a prison, Sir?”, the prisoner questioned matter-of-factly, “I don’t seem to remember much, actually anything.”

The guard continued to maintain his silence. With a keener eye, the prisoner observed that the guard was looking at the bed on which he lay sometime back.

He turned around to find himself in a corn field; a till lay at his feet. Dusk had made it’s way through, and the sky twinkled with the stars. The sudden change of scenario would have been creepy to any normal mortal, but the prisoner seemed to be amazingly composed. He looked back but the prison and the guard seemed to have vanished.

He couldn’t figure out what was happening to him, but the fact that he was not panicking was gnawing at him.

Memories flitted back to him. He remembered the field; this is where he had fallen in love with the mute damsel. There seemed to be a faint murmur in the air.

The entire episode of him granting her the death-wish fell upon his mind’s eye. The memory of that twilight hour seemed to get vivid by the moment. He was still nonplussed about his identity, and what had happened to him in the past, and what in the world was happening to him now. He looked around for the tree where he had first spotted her, sitting quietly, motionless.

The sky had progressively darkened, but he spotted the solitary tree camouflaged with a mountain in the background. With a desultory mind, he ran towards the tree, not knowing what to expect.

And there she was, sitting just as before, with a tear that seemed to have frozen in it’s place. She didn’t look up this time.

He approached her carefully. She didn’t seem to notice. She wasn’t talking to him through his thoughts as before. In fact, she didn’t seem to realize that he was standing by her.

His thoughts were disturbed by the noise of approaching footsteps. They both looked in the direction of the beholder.

For the first time, in the past one hour of his existence, the confounding transition from the prison to the field, his eyes widened in shock.

The prisoner found himself staring at a person clad in cotton robes, who seemed to be him, now uttering, “Are you hurt in anyway, my dear lady?”.

He turned around to look at the damsel, and almost took a step back to find the damsel looking straight at him. He wasn’t sure whether the damsel was looking at him, or his memory-figure who was standing right behind him.

He took a step aside, and her eyes followed him. “I can see you, Brad.”, she spoke gently. The name struck him like thunder, giving rise to a multitude of memories, none of which he could place a finger on. It was confusing and contradicting.

“You are … Cleo?”, Brad stuttered. That was the only other name he could think of at that moment. He had romanced her in 2 worlds, and this one was one of them.

“And you thought we would never meet?”, she mocked him like she used to. Slices of memories came back to him in bits and pieces.

“What exactly is happening to me now? What happened in our past? I can’t seemed to remember anything. I don’t feel good about myself anymore”, his frustration writ large on his face.

She smiled coyly, picked up her veil, and walked to his memory-figure. “Meet me yonder.”, she beckoned. He knew how it was going to end already.

He turned around to stop her, only to find himself staring at the guard at the prison again. He almost took a step back in shock. His mind was slowly churning into frenzy. He still didn’t understand what was happening to him. The guard was opening the door, still looking at the bed.

He turned his head in the direction of his bed. For the first time, he felt fear. His body was lying on the bed. Lifeless.

Twilight Zone - The Entity [Chapter 2]

Cleo stared at the AIM window that said 'Hey there!' from some id that read 'bradmcn'. She couldn't place that name anywhere. With a finger running along her eyebrow, she thought of the possibility of 'bradmcn' being the commentator who had been commenting on her blog for sometime now. Her 'IN' box on her desk didn't have any files, so she was relatively free until the next file came in. She toyed with the idea of ignoring the IM entity, but the sun was shining bright, and the breeze was cool, "Oh...what the hell!", she thought to herself as she punched in, "Hey you!". Before she could hit the enter button, another message popped up, "Anybody home!?". She clicked enter.

That was the last depressing week of December, and the unknown AIM entity had grown to be a regular feature every morning at work. She knew he was on the other side of the world because he said so, but she hadn't delineated anything more than that about him. She hoped she was right about him being a 'him', but she wasn't sure. It was the internet, and nobody could be sure of anything. She didn't think of him as a friend as yet, she probably never would.

Every morning, it was entertaining to interact with 'bradmcn'; she found it easier to say things that she normally wouldn't talk about to somebody in person. For some reason, Brad, as he referred to himself, was quite receptive about whatever she said. He seemed to be online all the time. She didn't give it a second thought, but wondered at times, how can a person be online all the time. Must be some kind of an online geek, she mused.

And then, one day, Brad offered to place a call to her. Unperturbed, she waited hesitantly for the overseas call. A minute passed by. Her eyes darted impatiently towards the receptionist desk who was keeping the phone busy. She conveyed the message to Brad, and gave him an alternate number. She looked at the receptionist again, who was keeping the other line busy as well. She was getting increasingly irritated. She was about to get the opportunity to attach a voice to the entity that she had been chatting with, for over a month now. She wondered how he would sound like.

The phone call got transferred to her desk, and she whispered a reluctant 'Hello' into the mouth piece. His booming voice transcended her imagination, he sounded almost like the way she wanted him to sound. After a bad connection, and a short exchange of nothing, he hung up. She pondered about the unknown entity whom she had just spoken to. In their chats, he seemed to echo her thoughts. He seemed to say exactly what she wanted to hear, and she felt related to him in a strange way. She didn't know who he was, but she seemed to connect with him on a spiritual level. She toyed with a disturbing thought, but rejected it on her way out of the office.

On one ocassion, she found herself thinking about him, even when she should have been doin' other things. She looked out of the window of her car, as her driver drove her homeward. The breeze played with her hair softly, and she let herself breathe the evening air. She didn't mind the pollution then. She felt his hands play with her curls, and his breath on her slender neck. She didn't know what to make of her thoughts, but she didn't want to open her eyes, lest he drift away. Her fantasy was broken when the driver announced that she had arrived.

Cleo looked back at the empty backseat of the car, where she was a moment ago. Was she dreaming, or fantasizing. The thoughts that she had rejected some weeks back, kept coming back to her. Was this unknown entity a spiritual reality, or just a figment of her imagination!? The breath did seem very real. Uncomfortably, she wiped her neck and climbed the stairs to her room. She called up her friend who was getting married and completely forgot about her previous thoughts.

The next morning, on her way to work, the thoughts returned, when she felt somebody hold her waist. She looked around alarmed, wary of a male hand on her waist. There was nobody. Shakingly, she put her hand on the invisible hand, but it landed on her waist, and for a split moment she felt her hand being one with another spirit. And all of a sudden, in a jiffy, everything seemed back to normal. She was surprised that she was pretty calm, anybody else would have been paranoid.

She switched her monitor on, and her messenger showed the mysterious entity online as usual. She decided to ignore him for a while, but she knew, a 'hey' would pop up any moment. It never did. Annoyed, she pinged a 'hey' to Brad. There was no reply coming today. She realized that he could be away. She didn't think about him until lunchtime when he pinged her back. She smiled coyly, and the day seemed normal. Their chats had progressed from normal flirtatious to playful romancing. She didn't see any harm in this. After all, she wasn't at the losing end anyway. She would be happily married in a year's time, and she wasn't doin' anything wrong. She tilted her neck backwards to remove the rising crick, and felt a familiar breath down her neck. She didn't bother to turn back, as she knew who it was.

Days passed by, she was interacting with the paranormal on a daily basis. She was beginning to have her doubts whether somebody by the identity 'Brad' really existed. That night, when she was alone at home, she decided to place a call at the number that was given to her. A sleepy voice answered her call, 'Morning, Hey, This is Brad.' She heaved a sigh of relief, atleast he was real. The rest of the stuff that was happening throughout the day was just her figment of imagination.

The more she interacted with him, the more involved she thought she got. She couldn't believe this was happening. Brad seemed to be on her mind for more time than she had allotted. But she convinced herself that it wasn't her, but him. He was expecting more than what they had. She wondered what did they have, but no answer came to her.

The next day at work, Cleo opened her email, and as usual, Brad had commented on her post. The email in her inbox said so. She had gotten used to that email. She ran through his comment, and it wasn't anything special, but as per her habit she replied non-chalantly. And when she signed onto her IM, her partially unknown entity was online. She was beginning to lose her interest in him gradually. How much can one chat with somebody you just don't know. And she hated the fact that somebody whom she hadn't met occupied some of her thoughts.

That evening, Cleo called up her friend, she wanted to clear a disturbing thought. Was Brad for real? He sounded real, but did he really exist. Could he just be a form of thought, her thought! It left her with an uneasy feeling. The butterflies were stuttering in her stomach, as she knew she was in a for a long wait, until she heard from her friend in Vegas.

The next week, she stared at the unopened email from her friend. For the first time, she was scared, she didn't know why, but she knew she was. With a shaky finger, she clicked open the email. Cleo read what she didn't want to see, and couldn't believe what she was reading. Brad didn't exist, the number was unlisted, and was not associated with any service provider. The house address where he was supposed to be staying didn't match with any Brad. The company that he worked for didn't exist. She didn't know what to say or think. And yet, she could see him online. It was supposedly well past midnight, his time. She shuddered, as she felt a finger move up her spine. She closed her eyes in anticipation, as the touch moved up her neck and traced lines below her face. She grabbed her bag, and rushed out of office.

At night, Cleo stared at the ceiling with the nightlamp on. She knew he lay besides her, and it wouldn't be long before her thoughts would start playing games with her mind. She didn't want to resign, not as yet. She decided, she couldn't possibly have any feelings for an entity that existed as an intangible form, a thought that couldn't be expressed, but very much real as far as she was concerned. She decided to put an end to the story that night. She got up quietly from her bed, and tiptoed herself out of the house to her terrace.

The cool night breeze tinged her body, she felt the chill of the night as she stood at the edge of the railing. He didn't make a move tonight. She waited a while longer, she knew he would arrive. The town clock struck 2o'clock in the morning, and she didn't feel the usual finger or the hand on her waist. Out of sheer desperation, she screamed his name, and took a confident step to plummet.

Right then, he held Cleo close to him. For the first time, she could feel his entire body against her back. She could feel him parting her hair softly. She cringed as he kissed her on her nape. Her neck arched, and a 'No' escaped her lips. The touch behind her seemed to dissolve, as she continued, "You don't exist, and you have to go. NOW." There was no resistance as she expected. She felt the last touch of his fingertips on her back, as if somebody was pulling him away from her. Cleo knew it was none other than herself who was pulling the entity away.

She checked her email the next day, and there was no email. Brad wasn't online on IM as well. His phone responded with a 'Non-existent phone number'. All through the day, she thought whether the last few months had been for real or not. Cleo wondered whether she had dreamed the whole thing. She pinched herself, she yearned for the touch of the finger, a 'hey' on the screen, and she wanted to be away from it all.

To etch the final line on the epitaph, she decided to place a call one more time. Her heart sank, as she heard the mandatory female voice say, 'This number is temporarily out of service, or you have reached a non-existent number...', her thoughts seemed to follow an unlikely straight line, happy and relieved, yet hoping for a ray of reality. The female voice droned on monotonously; Cleo widened her eyes in shock as she heard the final familiar tone, 'Have a good life, Cleo'. Click. The phone went dead.

Twilight Zone [Chapter 1]

Cleo looked at Brad with her brown soulful eyes, her locks shadowing the same tear that rolled down her cheek, like it had before. Brad's thoughts ran an era back, and he mused at how a new episode was about to begin. And thanked providence for the change in his capabilities. This time, he wasn't going to listen to her; this time it wasn't going to end the way she wanted it to. It might not be exactly the way he would have liked it, but atleast it wasn't going to be the way like she had it the last time. This time, they were goin' to be happy!

* * *

The farmer was still tilling the soil in his own private twilight zone. The sun had set a long time back, but the rays still lingered in the misty air. He wasn't sweating because he was not tired, although he had been working away in the field since morning. He reached the foot of the hill beyond which the sun had set, and it was then that he heard a faint murmur of a woman.

She looked like a damsel to him, fallen from heaven and yet her eyes were moist. He approached her with noisy steps to make her aware of his presence. She looked up to see the new arrival, but the murmur didn't stop. She was clad in a orangish hue that matched the color of the sky right then.

"Are you hurt in anyway, dear lady", he asked, still clad in his work attire. He didn't step any forward from where he stood. In a snap, he changed into his cotton robes, looking like an ordinary tramp, with no purpose in life. She hadn't moved an inch. The farmer wasn't sure whether the lady had heard him or was even aware that he had spoken.

She looked at him with her eyes that lacked any expression. The murmur stopped, and the silence echoed in the valley. If it were not for the tear, it wouldn't have transpired that she was sad. Her lips shivered with a smile long forgotten. It made him feel like he didn't exist in her world.

Keeping his distance, he leaned ahead, "Would you like me to take you home?", he pressed on. His body was feeling an influx of energy. A suddent surge like the current one, always reminded him of the day when he realized that he was different than the rest of the normal people around him.

A minute rolled by, and the damsel had not spoken a word. She continued to look at him hoping that he would read her thoughts, but he wasn't gifted with those powers as yet.

"I don't feel good about myself anymore.", it was the same murmur that was beginning to form words now. She had been speaking all this while, but he had not been listening.

Not sure whether he should ask her the reason for feeling that way, he probed carefully, "Would you like something to eat? They say that 'food' and 'company' dissolves a lot of things." She smiled softly at his spoken words, and her aura went a shade lighter. He hoped he had said the right thing.

Gently, she rose, picking her bluish veil, and walked towards him. He could hear her breathing now.

"Why do you try to help when you know you can't help me today?", she read his mind as casually as she brushed the leaves off her hair.

The man realized that she belonged to the same clan. She was a demi-goddess. Demi-entities don't need introductions, they read each other, feel each other by their thoughts. They could fall in love in a minute and fall out of it in less than one. Each one had special gifts.

Her tear was no longer visible, but it was still there. He hoped he could make her happy.

"And how do you propose to do that?", she questioned his thought. She already knew that he could make her wish come true, that was his gift.

She seemed to be distracted from what she was thinking before. "Do you really help people by granting them what they ask for?", she tried to read him, but somehow he was restricting his thoughts from crossing over. "Oh well.", she thought.

"I provide them with hope. It's the best that I can do.", he modestly boasted. He was about to add how he hated to see her the way he had seen her a minute ago, but decided against it.

They looked at each other with insouciant eyes, every good thing has it's drawbacks. The chemistry seemed to bubble. She came closer to him; her aura infringed onto his. He could feel a tremor run through his body, she was about to wish for something he wouldn't want to grant. He hoped against hope that she would change her mind. He wanted to hold her and comfort her.

She placed her head softly into his shoulders, "May be in a different world.", she whispered into his ears, "But today, I want to die.", her tear rolled down his shoulder. He couldn't ask why. This time, he would have to let go of her.

"I also wish to meet you as a human the next time, whenever it may be. May be then...", her wish trailed into an ellipsis. He smiled at destiny again, he had never felt emotions before, and there he was oscillating between the joy of new found love, and the sorrow of it about to be lost, but not forever.

He held her gently, and watched her body go limp. It would have to be another era before he held her again. He would accumulate power to 'not' grant wishes then. He walked back to his till, and looked as his nameless love disappeared into thin air.

Formal Pain

Pain is an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder." It was very unfortunate that I was involved in an accident on the 15th of August, 2005, and had to undergo an experience that continues to corroborate the aforementioned saying. The sensation of pain also affected my emotional behavior, mental health and thought procedures in a variety of ways, taking a huge toll on my precious time.

It was my first accident with me being at the wheel. At the moment when the accident took place, I didn’t realize the extent of the injury until the shock wave had passed. The presence and aid of the paramedics at the site of the accident was helpful momentarily. The ice-pack helped subdue the effects of the concussion on the orbit of my left eye. I shudder to think about the possibility of a loss of vision if the impact would have caused to hit my eye on the steering wheel. Nevertheless, it only seemed advisable to have myself checked for any extremely possible internal injuries.

Concerns about vehicular damage involved has been attended to, but I had to drive a rental vehicle for a whole month, and pay for full coverage from my pocket; an expense that I wouldn’t have incurred had the accident not happened. The matter still needs to be talked about as of the moment. I decided to lay that particular matter aside and concentrate on gaining my lost health.

The week immediately after the accident was one of the most traumatic experiences ever. Being an extremely health conscious person, it felt horrible to expose myself to an enormous amount of X-rays involved in CT Scanning. The long wait at the hospital and the ensuing endless procedures were not helping me relieve my built-up stress. The time involved caused timeline shifts in all the projects that I was professionally involved in. My organization had to incur a heavy loss of money as project deadlines were not met on time. It is a wonder how just 2 seconds involved during the car accident caused an upheaval as far as other aspects of my life were concerned.

Sleeping patterns were affected as a result of all the stress involved, and the lingering pain around the concussion. The accident also caused injury to my back. I have been diagnosed with ‘whiplash’ by my chiropractor, and have been undergoing chiropractic therapy for quite sometime in an effort to get my back to normalcy. The time spent has taken its toll on my professional and personal life.

Many aspects of my normal daily life were affected on account of this untoward incident. I was not able to attend regular workout sessions for at least 10 days after the car accident, thereby affecting my physical strength. After regular therapeutic sessions at the chiropractic clinic, and under professional advice, I have been able to slowly resume normal workout activities thankfully.

Sleep is still a problem however, but I am hoping with time, I shall be able to sleep well. My neck feels better now; the headaches have reduced a lot, the occurrences of blurred vision have diminished, and I feel that I am getting to being how I was before the accident.

I only hope that I haven’t overlooked anything as far as my health is concerned.