He owned the world. He was young, strong and handsome and he owned the world. It had not been an easy task. He had to rise from the rank of a common soldier to a leader who defended his country. After many alliances in secret, he led his fellow men to conquer the world. It wasn’t for his personal benefits. No, not at all. It was for the greater good of everyone. He had to unite an entire world divided by anarchy under a single banner and lead them to peace.
… His eyes watered. The glare was too much. He took of his glasses and wiped his eyes. After blinking a few times, he put them back on…
Now what?
It was over. He had fulfilled his destiny. The prophesized Son had come and led everyone to freedom. What does a messiah do after he has saved the souls of his people and had taken his rightful throne? Where does a climber go after he has defeated the highest of the peaks? He asked himself, what’s next?
… He once again went through the checklist. Everything was marked in green. Done and over with. He thought he might restart something or the other…
He wondered if there is another world out there awaiting his arrival. He looked at the stars – maybe one of them had a planet he ought to visit. He looked down. People were not looking up at him anymore. They had idolized him as a god and then nothing. They would come cowering tohim everyday with the little trinkets they brought as presents. As if wealth mattered anymore, or sacrifices. It was over and done with. The war had been fought and won and now it was just plain boring sitting on this golden throne. The large halls that he had dreamed of now held no attraction for him. He guessed something is exciting only when you don’t have it. All the fascination and all the charm disappears the moment you get it. And worse, it is probably to get everything you wish for. What would one live for after that?
It really was over. He stared at the screen and all he saw was an animated version of his self sitting on a throne in a large hall, smiling stupidly at a large number of people who were coming and going with gifts and offerings. And in the bottom corner of the screen it was written in green letters – Game Over. Underneath was an option asking if he would like to start over again. He pressed ‘x’ on the keyboard and the game shut down and went on to show a blank computer screen. There was no way he was going to play this one over again. The fun of any game is only once. By the time you finish it, you know how to get around things, you know all the secret paths and if he was to start over it wouldn’t take him even two days to finish it. Hell, he even knew all the cheat codes by now. It would be extremely boring if he was to play it again now.
He thought he would buy a new one. Maybe one in which he could be an Elf Lord this time or even an Indian mythological character. Finally, they were coming out with some good Indian role playing games. He had seen the trailer for one on Youtube which allowed you to play as Kalki in a post-apocalyptic world and the mission was total annihilation. It sounded fun. The trailer had looked really promising. But it would cost some money and they had long since banned the torrents and the free hacked downloads, with a strict penalty. The free world of the net leecher had died an eventual death. He didn’t mind giving it a shot but he was out of a job right now and couldn’t really afford to pay the fines. But he had some savings he had made. Maybe he could pull out a little cash from there.
No. He told himself. His wife’s birthday was coming up next week and he would prefer to buy her a nice present that would cheer her up and lift her out of her state. He fished into one of the packets lying on the table. The chips were over. He cursed and lit a cigarette. He would definitely buy her a present this time and that too a damn nice one; but the idea of buying a new game never really left his head.
There was a knock on the door and his wife entered. She looked at him and then at the screen and then back at him. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing,” he replied, trying to evade her eyes.
“Weren’t you supposed to be working?”
“Yeah I was. Just took a break,’ he lied. He didn’t like where this was heading.
“A break? Come on, don’t lie to me. I know you. Why is the screen blank? You were playing, weren’t you?”
He couldn’t lie to her really. She knew what he had been up to and he didn’t really see a point in that.
“I just wanted to finish it up before I start on work,” he replied picking out another cigarette from the pack.
“You know I am sick of your games. That’s all you do all day long. You are a father of two kids and you don’t feel any fucking responsibility to feed them. You are out of a job and when you are supposed to be looking a new one you sit here lazily on your chair…’ He didn’t like the word lazy. It was back-breaking stuff – sitting on the comp for ten straight hours. “… and just play. “It’s all real to you. Isn’t it? And your family is just a fantasy that you can manage to throw away when you like?.” She was on the verge of shouting. And every time she got really angry, tears would come to her eyes. Tears that made him hate her in those moments. He switched her off..
“I told you, I’m getting a new job.” His tone was one of indifference. He couldn’t stand looking at her being angry and crying at the same time. He ignored her.
“When?” She demanded.
“Soon.” He stubbed the cigarette in the ash tray and held on to the action even after it was out and just black nicotine was staining his fingers. He thought of the smell of nicotine on his fingers after he had smoked. Mostly everyone found it disgusting but he liked it. The faint lingering smell of burnt tobacco made him smile. He had really stopped listening to her by now. She got the message that he didn’t want her around anymore.
“God! That’s what you have been telling me for the past one month. I have been working double shifts to keep this family alive while all you do is live off my hard work and blow it away on your virtual realities. You know I’ve had enough of this and if you don’t fix yourself anytime soon I’m going to leave.” She stormed out of the room.
He stared at the passage for a while. He wanted to feel remorse and sadness but that was too much of an effort. The computer had come to life by then and a file on the screen glimmered, it was named The Shadow Conqueror. He opened it. Two options blinked in front of him – one asking if he would like to start a new game and the other one saying if he would like to resume the old game. He clicked on ‘Resume Game’ and there he was back again in a large golden hall filled with people who bowed to him and were ready to lay their lives down for him at a word. He was undefeated. He ruled the world. Maybe he would finally buy a new game. Screw her. She didn’t deserve anything from him. If she wanted to leave then let her. Maybe this time he would buy the one in which he could be Kalki and spread total destruction. He would like that. He would like that a lot. The glare of the screen was reflected in his glasses and a thin smile stretched over his lips.
(end)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
LIST OF PROPOSED FINAL STUDENT PROJECTS
LIST OF FINAL PROJECTS
1. Diggy – unsure
2. Anurag – short story
3. Bharat – short story (writing+)
4. Sargam – short story (writing+)
5. Bharat – writing+
6. Mahima – writing+
7. Neeti – illustrated kids sci-fi story
8. Deboo – a series of artworks
9. Karno – music+illustration (what will the final form be?)
10. Sadvi – illustrated kids story
11. Divya – story+graphic novel
12. Alannah – story+with some illustration
13. Ramya – story
14. Mrunmayee – writing+artwork
15. Sayantini – Time capsule
16. Shailee – story
17. Sneha – story
18. Mihika – story
19. Mitalee – story
20. Shivani – a sci-fi kids story
21. Samvida – writing+
22. Vishnu – short story
1. Diggy – unsure
2. Anurag – short story
3. Bharat – short story (writing+)
4. Sargam – short story (writing+)
5. Bharat – writing+
6. Mahima – writing+
7. Neeti – illustrated kids sci-fi story
8. Deboo – a series of artworks
9. Karno – music+illustration (what will the final form be?)
10. Sadvi – illustrated kids story
11. Divya – story+graphic novel
12. Alannah – story+with some illustration
13. Ramya – story
14. Mrunmayee – writing+artwork
15. Sayantini – Time capsule
16. Shailee – story
17. Sneha – story
18. Mihika – story
19. Mitalee – story
20. Shivani – a sci-fi kids story
21. Samvida – writing+
22. Vishnu – short story
DAY 5 - AUGUST 8, 2009
Time Action Outcome
9.30-10.30 am Listen: Variety of Sci-fi music, soundtracks
Sonified Sci-fi
Soundtracks of Alien, 2001 Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Star Trek
Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream
Wendy Carlos
Mark Ayres
Inter Galactic Touring Band
Sci-fi depends on musical settings too.
Use of choral, symphonic orchestral music
Creation of sci-fi effect
Sci-fi rock operas
How experimental music and sci-fi blended – so too electronic music
10.30-11.15 Watch: The Awakening
Discuss
From the Sci-fi series selected by Stephen Hawking
Holistic sci-fi
11.30- 1.00 pm
Series of writing exercises
1. Directions can be written in the style of appliance directions for things that don't usually require directions. For example, "How to break a human heart".
2. Characterisation:
(a) On a sheet of paper, make four columns. At the top of each column, write the name of a good friend of yours. Under each name, make a list of the character traits that each of these friends embodies, traits that you admire. Now, go across your page and circle the traits that seem to be common between at least 2 or 3 of the friends you listed. Using these circled traits, write a short sketch (200 words or less) of a character that embodies the OPPOSITE traits than the ones you've circled on your list.
(b) Make a list of gestures and indicative behaviors as if you were writing a how-to guide for the impersonation of the character you wish to describe. Gets the students deeper into the writing process as they begin their final stories.
1.00-1.30 pm Discussion with students on what kind of final project they would embark upon.
Assignment Begin final project.
Facilitators Avy
9.30-10.30 am Listen: Variety of Sci-fi music, soundtracks
Sonified Sci-fi
Soundtracks of Alien, 2001 Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Star Trek
Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream
Wendy Carlos
Mark Ayres
Inter Galactic Touring Band
Sci-fi depends on musical settings too.
Use of choral, symphonic orchestral music
Creation of sci-fi effect
Sci-fi rock operas
How experimental music and sci-fi blended – so too electronic music
10.30-11.15 Watch: The Awakening
Discuss
From the Sci-fi series selected by Stephen Hawking
Holistic sci-fi
11.30- 1.00 pm
Series of writing exercises
1. Directions can be written in the style of appliance directions for things that don't usually require directions. For example, "How to break a human heart".
2. Characterisation:
(a) On a sheet of paper, make four columns. At the top of each column, write the name of a good friend of yours. Under each name, make a list of the character traits that each of these friends embodies, traits that you admire. Now, go across your page and circle the traits that seem to be common between at least 2 or 3 of the friends you listed. Using these circled traits, write a short sketch (200 words or less) of a character that embodies the OPPOSITE traits than the ones you've circled on your list.
(b) Make a list of gestures and indicative behaviors as if you were writing a how-to guide for the impersonation of the character you wish to describe. Gets the students deeper into the writing process as they begin their final stories.
1.00-1.30 pm Discussion with students on what kind of final project they would embark upon.
Assignment Begin final project.
Facilitators Avy
Friday, August 7, 2009
CONSCIOUS GRAVITY - VISHNU PASUPATHY
Seventeen space pods, each with the word ‘Hope’ embossed on their hulls were drifting with a certain ethereality in an illusion of vast emptiness. They were cast together to form a pyramid. It was like a cold star that would never shine.Orbiting it were three white dwarfs.
The three could afford to stay powered. Even to do so, they needed gravity, strong enough to hold them together in one place. A place that could never be plotted in any man’s imagination.
The little remnants of plasmid fuel left on board Hope-17 were used to run the particle accelerator and breed some of the heaviest elements known to mankind. The seventeen pods were filled to the brim with these dense elements, so that they could become a little planet that the three moons could orbit. This would ensure that they stay together even if they got hauled by some distant helium giant.
The pod pyramid was the only solution to Mikzo’s biggest fear; waking up to find her pod isolated in some maddening void and perceive that the only non scientific bonds she shared had drifted millions of miles away in space and time. Zevil and Ana occupied the other pods.
Mikzo had led them away from cataclysm at the cost of eternal excruciating guilt.
May 15th, 2020 ESTS
For six continuous years, she had investigated and pondered over what she believed would yield answers to her tenebrous obscure state of being. Hope had mystified her & it was too late to avert what the Large Hadron collider was about to reveal, the very eventuality that the founder of CERN had purposefully averted ingeniously during its inception.
Twenty years hence, a new team had anticipated everything. Did the world want to witness the effects of the Naked Singularity? That was out of the question. The mission was almost running inside a black hole, a place no human could fantasize. Findings from the LHD had empowered CERN with technology that could completely camouflage its identity and generate a false realm of knowledge for the rest of the world. Even the precocious Israelis had not known what was afoot.
It was in this dire situation that Mikzo persuaded her fellows to make the penultimate escape from Earth. The decision was hard but it needed to be quick. Loved ones were taken along.Twenty pods equipped with close to infinite life supplies shot out of the Alps with remarkable stealth.
The pods were eEscaping the vicinities of a familiar environment, where the material manifestation of space and time seemed suddenly limited. It was all going in, into the naked singularity that would disintegrate the nature and habitat of planetary life forms. CERN was digging a nebulous trap; a burrow mankind would not climb out of.
August 10th, 2020 ESTS
The singularity manifested, taking with it the entire mass of the planet. At least that’s what Hope 20 observed a few light years away.
Initially Mikzo had hoped that the planet might have slipped into a worm hole and reincarnated itself in another part of the universe. She hoped that the electron blast from the collision would have ionized all the harmful gases and made her home a better place to live.
July 30th, 2021 ESTS.
Hope 20 loses incentive and her members turn fatalistic. Lack of purpose forces them to surrender consciousness.
May 18th, 2023 ESTS.
The three survivors had been saturated with guilt for the past three years till this morning. Radio waves had interrupted their nightmares. The waves instantly triggered cyan aurorae in their minds.
A peculiar cyan that evoked the one word that their pods bellowed from deep outside. Was the wait eventually worth it? Mikzo could only get speculative. Enough to drive her into a new orbit of insanity.
Keeping her focus was paramount. The three sat down to decipher the signal. It was still striking H-17 like an invisible beacon of hope. Zevil tried converting it into all possible outputs. There was an embedded rhythm that resonated the human essence.
Mikzo strived for consciousness. Gravity prevailed.
What remained was what they were called.
AVY COMMENTS
It’s a good story but you have to handle your language more carefully and work out the plot. If Mikzo is the protagonist then what is her main problem? I wuld like you to plot this carefully and take it forward. The ending is vague.
The three could afford to stay powered. Even to do so, they needed gravity, strong enough to hold them together in one place. A place that could never be plotted in any man’s imagination.
The little remnants of plasmid fuel left on board Hope-17 were used to run the particle accelerator and breed some of the heaviest elements known to mankind. The seventeen pods were filled to the brim with these dense elements, so that they could become a little planet that the three moons could orbit. This would ensure that they stay together even if they got hauled by some distant helium giant.
The pod pyramid was the only solution to Mikzo’s biggest fear; waking up to find her pod isolated in some maddening void and perceive that the only non scientific bonds she shared had drifted millions of miles away in space and time. Zevil and Ana occupied the other pods.
Mikzo had led them away from cataclysm at the cost of eternal excruciating guilt.
May 15th, 2020 ESTS
For six continuous years, she had investigated and pondered over what she believed would yield answers to her tenebrous obscure state of being. Hope had mystified her & it was too late to avert what the Large Hadron collider was about to reveal, the very eventuality that the founder of CERN had purposefully averted ingeniously during its inception.
Twenty years hence, a new team had anticipated everything. Did the world want to witness the effects of the Naked Singularity? That was out of the question. The mission was almost running inside a black hole, a place no human could fantasize. Findings from the LHD had empowered CERN with technology that could completely camouflage its identity and generate a false realm of knowledge for the rest of the world. Even the precocious Israelis had not known what was afoot.
It was in this dire situation that Mikzo persuaded her fellows to make the penultimate escape from Earth. The decision was hard but it needed to be quick. Loved ones were taken along.Twenty pods equipped with close to infinite life supplies shot out of the Alps with remarkable stealth.
The pods were eEscaping the vicinities of a familiar environment, where the material manifestation of space and time seemed suddenly limited. It was all going in, into the naked singularity that would disintegrate the nature and habitat of planetary life forms. CERN was digging a nebulous trap; a burrow mankind would not climb out of.
August 10th, 2020 ESTS
The singularity manifested, taking with it the entire mass of the planet. At least that’s what Hope 20 observed a few light years away.
Initially Mikzo had hoped that the planet might have slipped into a worm hole and reincarnated itself in another part of the universe. She hoped that the electron blast from the collision would have ionized all the harmful gases and made her home a better place to live.
July 30th, 2021 ESTS.
Hope 20 loses incentive and her members turn fatalistic. Lack of purpose forces them to surrender consciousness.
May 18th, 2023 ESTS.
The three survivors had been saturated with guilt for the past three years till this morning. Radio waves had interrupted their nightmares. The waves instantly triggered cyan aurorae in their minds.
A peculiar cyan that evoked the one word that their pods bellowed from deep outside. Was the wait eventually worth it? Mikzo could only get speculative. Enough to drive her into a new orbit of insanity.
Keeping her focus was paramount. The three sat down to decipher the signal. It was still striking H-17 like an invisible beacon of hope. Zevil tried converting it into all possible outputs. There was an embedded rhythm that resonated the human essence.
Mikzo strived for consciousness. Gravity prevailed.
What remained was what they were called.
AVY COMMENTS
It’s a good story but you have to handle your language more carefully and work out the plot. If Mikzo is the protagonist then what is her main problem? I wuld like you to plot this carefully and take it forward. The ending is vague.
TO WISH UPON A STAR - SAMVIDA NANDA
Prologue
The stars are shining especially bright tonight. There is almost a definite pattern in the way they are twinkling. It’s almost as if they are trying to spell out a word. Or possibly a whole paragraph. In a way, they are.
In a drawing, you have a white canvas on which one can paint with shadows. Whereas in a photograph, you have a black canvas, on which one can paint with light. And now the whole sky is a giant canvas. Those stars are points of light. And each point of light is a point of information about another time.
Let me draw you a picture.
Me Sun
Earth
Even when the sun has dipped below the horizon, the atmospheric refraction allows the light from the sun to travel the distance into yesterday. What if some point in the future, we found a way to reflect the light off of that day, and send it out through the curve of space back to yesterday, which is today. What if those reflected points of light were the stars in the sky? What if every time we looked up to read the stars, we would literally be looking at our future?
For one, it would give astrology a whole new meaning.
Chapter1
Damn. My wrist just got twisted in the wrong way. Not in some physically bone breaking way. Just not in the way I wanted it to move. And now my bank is transferring eighty one point three million dollars into another bank account. Loose change these days, but it’s going to her. Why her? Now she’ll think I’m being petty or something. I take in a deep breath trying to calm myself. I fail, and decide to take a swing at the stupid banking machine. I fail at that too. And end up hitting the holographic wall next to the machine.
The wall crackles like a network of stars and then settles back into a regrettably solid wall. It’s one of those promotional gizmos. And the advertisement on it is about ‘freewill’. There’s a corny picture of a crystal ball sitting on a hand. A crowd of faces peers hungrily at the star set inside the crystal ball. But what catches my eye, is the big purple gem on the ring worn by that gnarled hand.
It’s my ring.
I stare helplessly at my hand. Freewill?
The world is run by machines that are so attuned to our movements, that our thoughts can be translated to any medium with a simple flick of the wrist. Draw a frigging Monet a minute. But if everyone already knows what’s coming tomorrow, and they can now change their actions if they want to, how is it that I can’t even open a stupid juice box without spilling it over myself like some baffled seven year old.
I realise I said the last sentence out loud and there is an annoyed seven year old staring at me. But I’m completely crazy. And I know it. There’s this reality out there. And I just choose to live in my own. It doesn’t bother me. But everyone else looks at me as if I’m an alien or something. That doesn’t bother me either. For one, I am an alien.
I wonder why I wanted to visit these carbon life forms again. These...Humans. But I know why. It’s because I wanted to watch all the episodes of Star Trek. They do have a knack for dramatisation. Their ideas of warp space and time are slightly childish. But the characters!
The slightly annoyed cough from my left is from the banking machine. It tells me to kindly take my receipt chip and have a good tomorrow. Even their machines have character, albeit annoying ones. I raise my hand to pull out the memory chip and glance at my ring again. I miss the chip completely this time. My actions are falling not short, but in the wrong directions.
I’ll never get used to this human form.
I find a set of gnarled hands begging me for a million or two. She is wearing a number of earrings and necklaces over her entire person. She is reminiscent of a gypsy woman that I read about in a history book, and I find myself giving her my ring. I’m almost afraid I might hit her by accident instead.
I pick up a copy of the seasons of Star Trek. And I move to the planet Mars. There’s an especially intelligent species there with three eyes and no hands.
Epilogue
There are no stars in the sky tonight.
AVY COMMENTS
Hmmm . so why is it I feel that something is lacking in here? Everything seems to be pat. And yet!!!! Something is there but a lot isn't. Can you figure it out?
Is it because some of it reads flippant? I don’t understand the epilogue. There are too many gaps in my view in the story line and otherwise. However, I might be interested in seeing how you can take this story forward as your final sci=fi story if you like. The title is really cliched.
The stars are shining especially bright tonight. There is almost a definite pattern in the way they are twinkling. It’s almost as if they are trying to spell out a word. Or possibly a whole paragraph. In a way, they are.
In a drawing, you have a white canvas on which one can paint with shadows. Whereas in a photograph, you have a black canvas, on which one can paint with light. And now the whole sky is a giant canvas. Those stars are points of light. And each point of light is a point of information about another time.
Let me draw you a picture.
Me Sun
Earth
Even when the sun has dipped below the horizon, the atmospheric refraction allows the light from the sun to travel the distance into yesterday. What if some point in the future, we found a way to reflect the light off of that day, and send it out through the curve of space back to yesterday, which is today. What if those reflected points of light were the stars in the sky? What if every time we looked up to read the stars, we would literally be looking at our future?
For one, it would give astrology a whole new meaning.
Chapter1
Damn. My wrist just got twisted in the wrong way. Not in some physically bone breaking way. Just not in the way I wanted it to move. And now my bank is transferring eighty one point three million dollars into another bank account. Loose change these days, but it’s going to her. Why her? Now she’ll think I’m being petty or something. I take in a deep breath trying to calm myself. I fail, and decide to take a swing at the stupid banking machine. I fail at that too. And end up hitting the holographic wall next to the machine.
The wall crackles like a network of stars and then settles back into a regrettably solid wall. It’s one of those promotional gizmos. And the advertisement on it is about ‘freewill’. There’s a corny picture of a crystal ball sitting on a hand. A crowd of faces peers hungrily at the star set inside the crystal ball. But what catches my eye, is the big purple gem on the ring worn by that gnarled hand.
It’s my ring.
I stare helplessly at my hand. Freewill?
The world is run by machines that are so attuned to our movements, that our thoughts can be translated to any medium with a simple flick of the wrist. Draw a frigging Monet a minute. But if everyone already knows what’s coming tomorrow, and they can now change their actions if they want to, how is it that I can’t even open a stupid juice box without spilling it over myself like some baffled seven year old.
I realise I said the last sentence out loud and there is an annoyed seven year old staring at me. But I’m completely crazy. And I know it. There’s this reality out there. And I just choose to live in my own. It doesn’t bother me. But everyone else looks at me as if I’m an alien or something. That doesn’t bother me either. For one, I am an alien.
I wonder why I wanted to visit these carbon life forms again. These...Humans. But I know why. It’s because I wanted to watch all the episodes of Star Trek. They do have a knack for dramatisation. Their ideas of warp space and time are slightly childish. But the characters!
The slightly annoyed cough from my left is from the banking machine. It tells me to kindly take my receipt chip and have a good tomorrow. Even their machines have character, albeit annoying ones. I raise my hand to pull out the memory chip and glance at my ring again. I miss the chip completely this time. My actions are falling not short, but in the wrong directions.
I’ll never get used to this human form.
I find a set of gnarled hands begging me for a million or two. She is wearing a number of earrings and necklaces over her entire person. She is reminiscent of a gypsy woman that I read about in a history book, and I find myself giving her my ring. I’m almost afraid I might hit her by accident instead.
I pick up a copy of the seasons of Star Trek. And I move to the planet Mars. There’s an especially intelligent species there with three eyes and no hands.
Epilogue
There are no stars in the sky tonight.
AVY COMMENTS
Hmmm . so why is it I feel that something is lacking in here? Everything seems to be pat. And yet!!!! Something is there but a lot isn't. Can you figure it out?
Is it because some of it reads flippant? I don’t understand the epilogue. There are too many gaps in my view in the story line and otherwise. However, I might be interested in seeing how you can take this story forward as your final sci=fi story if you like. The title is really cliched.
DREAM TWIG - SNEHA KESHAV
The sweet smell of earth never fails to curl her lips into a smile. Parul tried remembering the times she had enjoyed this smell of mother earth, lying on a cot in some obscure corner of her uncle’s sugarcane field. A glint in her eyes, a song on her lips. But never the thought that someday a steel grip would slam her down and choke her on the same earth she loved so much. The grip was unshakable; how could it not be? It didn’t really care or feel for what it crushed.
Tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap....the faint sound that jerked her back into her reality. The monotonous manner of mockery becomes insulting after the 561st cycle (each cycle consisting of 692 tips and 693 taps). The message was clear: you don’t even deserve a change in the mode of ridicule. Other than being insulted she also found herself in a very uncomfortable situation of role reversal. The ants that roamed on her well padded white floors seemed different. In the fields, they went about their chores, scattering at the drop of a hat. But here they marched and almost dared her to block their way! Not that she hadn’t tried; the now amputated pinky was just a reminder of who was to cower in here.
Times like these she tried to think of her evening walks. Parul loved to walk. She really did. She walked from her ‘burrow’ to school, from school to the club she performed at; from there to her dog’s kennel which was at a distance of 5 kms from her own ‘burrow’ as her land lady wouldn’t let her keep Hoochie. And she danced; it was this little secret that kept her sane. Her way of living was motion. She liked keeping her pace. Not too fast to blatantly escape, not too slow to be caught up with. Just a sprightly manner to keep her two paces ahead. Even when she was sitting, there was a sense of motion, rhythmic displacement, never distracting, never still. Like a small rivulet crinkling in the sun.
But no longer; for Parul now found herself straight jacketed in mind and body, caged in the dystopia of red livid emotions. She didn’t know why they caught her, drugged her, and immobilized her. The drug: Dream Twig, that’s what she heard them calling it. It was injected into her system in no way she could detect or resist: Air.
Air: the only other like her, never obviously moving, but never stationary either. Air: now betraying her and dousing her with unaccounted memory and time lapses. Air: the carrier of Dream Twig and nightmares.
She didn’t know. But the People behind the Dream Twig did. They didn’t believe in “What you don’t know cannot harm you”. Maybe she didn’t know that she could not be destroyed; or at least not in the conventional manner after what she witnessed 17 years ago in the fields. The light, the drone and the impression of things being moved around at a lightning speed. Maybe she hadn’t grasped the true meaning of what she saw.
Or maybe she did. Maybe that was why she was always two paces ahead. Because she hoped to outrun the memory.
Maybe the people behind the Dream Twig wanted the same: they wanted her to run out of the memory.
(ends)
AVY COMMENTS
I FIND THIS STORY VERY INTERESTING. AND YOUR LANGUAGE IS TIGHT. HOWEVER, I WOULD LIKE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DREAM TWIG! MAYBE YOU CAN WORK MORE ON THIS STORY AS YOUR FINAL SCI-FI STORY.
Tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap....the faint sound that jerked her back into her reality. The monotonous manner of mockery becomes insulting after the 561st cycle (each cycle consisting of 692 tips and 693 taps). The message was clear: you don’t even deserve a change in the mode of ridicule. Other than being insulted she also found herself in a very uncomfortable situation of role reversal. The ants that roamed on her well padded white floors seemed different. In the fields, they went about their chores, scattering at the drop of a hat. But here they marched and almost dared her to block their way! Not that she hadn’t tried; the now amputated pinky was just a reminder of who was to cower in here.
Times like these she tried to think of her evening walks. Parul loved to walk. She really did. She walked from her ‘burrow’ to school, from school to the club she performed at; from there to her dog’s kennel which was at a distance of 5 kms from her own ‘burrow’ as her land lady wouldn’t let her keep Hoochie. And she danced; it was this little secret that kept her sane. Her way of living was motion. She liked keeping her pace. Not too fast to blatantly escape, not too slow to be caught up with. Just a sprightly manner to keep her two paces ahead. Even when she was sitting, there was a sense of motion, rhythmic displacement, never distracting, never still. Like a small rivulet crinkling in the sun.
But no longer; for Parul now found herself straight jacketed in mind and body, caged in the dystopia of red livid emotions. She didn’t know why they caught her, drugged her, and immobilized her. The drug: Dream Twig, that’s what she heard them calling it. It was injected into her system in no way she could detect or resist: Air.
Air: the only other like her, never obviously moving, but never stationary either. Air: now betraying her and dousing her with unaccounted memory and time lapses. Air: the carrier of Dream Twig and nightmares.
She didn’t know. But the People behind the Dream Twig did. They didn’t believe in “What you don’t know cannot harm you”. Maybe she didn’t know that she could not be destroyed; or at least not in the conventional manner after what she witnessed 17 years ago in the fields. The light, the drone and the impression of things being moved around at a lightning speed. Maybe she hadn’t grasped the true meaning of what she saw.
Or maybe she did. Maybe that was why she was always two paces ahead. Because she hoped to outrun the memory.
Maybe the people behind the Dream Twig wanted the same: they wanted her to run out of the memory.
(ends)
AVY COMMENTS
I FIND THIS STORY VERY INTERESTING. AND YOUR LANGUAGE IS TIGHT. HOWEVER, I WOULD LIKE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DREAM TWIG! MAYBE YOU CAN WORK MORE ON THIS STORY AS YOUR FINAL SCI-FI STORY.
MOTHER - SHIVANI KABRA
My Mother
I am lying here on my bed over the crisp linen sheets, staring at the blue ceiling of my square room that seems endless in some strange way. This is my favorite pastime, lying on the bed with my legs dangling down till the floor and just staring at empty space. It makes me feel so content, reminds me of all the happy times with mom.
She once told me about this little secret in that soft, nectar voice of hers “My angel Sherlyn, do you know angels have lots of bad days, God always tests them and in those times they should not lose their patience, they should be calm. You know, just go lie down in your most favorite spot and look up as if staring at heaven and smile as if smiling at God. He will come to know that you are the one who has no fear and can handle each situation gracefully and so he will come down Himself and help you find a solution in your troubled times.” I don’t know whether mom was telling me a fact, but one thing I am sure of; she had faith in goodness and I feel it too, as it works.
Oh my God! It is 8am already! I have an amazing knack to while away big chunks of time doing absolutely nothing, that too right on the day I have a major presentation at the office! And I really need to replace this bloody alarm clock, it has got the most annoying sound and well it is quite ugly too; the stuff that people manage to gift you!
Bugger! This marble floor is beautiful, but so bloody impractical when in a rush, so slippery, impossible to run around on!
Where is my Coca-cola campaign pitch? I am sure I kept it on my desk. Hmm…should check out all the drawers. These fat dark timber drawers are so cumbersome! I almost felt as if my arm would get ripped from the rest of my body while opening one of them. My conclusion: Expensive stuff is certainly not the most convenient to use! Voila! Found the campaign. Strangely I am feeling really, really happy. Why? I know being happy is a privilege; but the happiness I am feeling right now doesn’t seem right.
Standing in the middle of the room is certainly not helping me recollect the missing link. Okay, I am looking around. I wish mom had finished that sculpture before fate engulfed her and moulded her into a star and oh I love that painting, you know “Starry Night by the river Rhone” by Vincent Van Gogh? Brenda gave me a reproduction of that painting on my last birthday. Of course she can’t get me the original, lying in the Louvre in Paris. I am sure, the original costs a fortune and so there is no chance she’d be able to buy it. But well I love it in all forms – original or reproduction! It is so magical. Sometimes I wish I could just be part of it, leave all my problems behind and join this utterly beautiful, magical artwork somehow. Oh! Look how the stars are shimmering and…
And then the events of the last evening start flashing back in her mind – all at once, like a thunderstorm. Her head starts hurting; she has a terrible migraine five minutes later.
Gasping for breath she tried reaching for her cellular phone but suddenly her feet couldn’t take her weight and her mind refused to sync with the rest of her body. She gave up the struggle and settled on the floor instead, legs crossed, face buried in her hands; clasping the temples with the tips her fingers. The nerve on the centre of her forehead was suddenly prominent and throbbing uncontrollably. Her face was slowly turning a sickly pink and beads of sweat were forming on her temples.
“Sherlyn, Sherlyn…how could you do this to yourself, today of all days!” she muttered sitting alone still clasping her forehead.
The weird combination of depression pills and migraine pills were showing their side effects now.
This Coca-Cola pitch can be the turning point in my life! This is the biggest opportunity that I have ever had to prove my talent. I was so happy when the head of my department chose me to lead this project. But just hours before the proposal presentation I feel completely disorientated, vulnerable for some reason and very helpless. I think I need a doctor.
Sherlyn waits for Dr.Elnazak to arrive at his clinic in Camberwell while trying to hold back a strong feeling of nausea. After exactly twenty-three minutes Dr.Elnazak arrives and asks her to sit in the impeccably organized white patient chambers. After two hours of counseling and calming her down he suggests her to visit a specialist – his psychiatrist friend Dr Dalton down Docklands in Melbourne CBD.
This road is choc a r bloc with cars and trams full of people ready to start their day at work. How can they be so excited? How can work be so important? Life, what is life for them? I don’t want to do this Coca-cola campaign shit and fuck everything. I don’t want anything. Life is so useless. This Dr Elnazak, what does he think he is? His so-called counseling doesn’t seem to affect me one bit. And what does he think he was counseling me for? Why do I need a psychiatrist? Uhhhh…I feel so frustrated, I just want to bang that car in front, stupid driver, doesn’t know how to drive or what? I don’t…
She starts drifting away into a fit of anger and faints and crashes into a speeding hauling truck. She is rushed to the hospital whilst the police find her medical file in the car wreckage. They contact Dr Elnazak who in turn directs them to Dr Dalton. He reads the symptom sheet attached to Sherlyn’s medical file and jitters at the conclusion. Sherlyn is suffering from a form of manic depression. While he sits in his office going through the file again and again, the phone rings. It’s the police. Sherlyn is dead.
AVY COMMENTS
I like the effort you have taken but you are getting confused with the points of view and the character being schizo is kind of passé and clichéd. How do you push this to another level altogether? The story dips and rises and dips which means it needs to be cut down to two-thirds its size with only the essentials. You need to build the plot up strongly too and not give way to using some of those teenage angsty language and expressions you seem enamoured of.
I am lying here on my bed over the crisp linen sheets, staring at the blue ceiling of my square room that seems endless in some strange way. This is my favorite pastime, lying on the bed with my legs dangling down till the floor and just staring at empty space. It makes me feel so content, reminds me of all the happy times with mom.
She once told me about this little secret in that soft, nectar voice of hers “My angel Sherlyn, do you know angels have lots of bad days, God always tests them and in those times they should not lose their patience, they should be calm. You know, just go lie down in your most favorite spot and look up as if staring at heaven and smile as if smiling at God. He will come to know that you are the one who has no fear and can handle each situation gracefully and so he will come down Himself and help you find a solution in your troubled times.” I don’t know whether mom was telling me a fact, but one thing I am sure of; she had faith in goodness and I feel it too, as it works.
Oh my God! It is 8am already! I have an amazing knack to while away big chunks of time doing absolutely nothing, that too right on the day I have a major presentation at the office! And I really need to replace this bloody alarm clock, it has got the most annoying sound and well it is quite ugly too; the stuff that people manage to gift you!
Bugger! This marble floor is beautiful, but so bloody impractical when in a rush, so slippery, impossible to run around on!
Where is my Coca-cola campaign pitch? I am sure I kept it on my desk. Hmm…should check out all the drawers. These fat dark timber drawers are so cumbersome! I almost felt as if my arm would get ripped from the rest of my body while opening one of them. My conclusion: Expensive stuff is certainly not the most convenient to use! Voila! Found the campaign. Strangely I am feeling really, really happy. Why? I know being happy is a privilege; but the happiness I am feeling right now doesn’t seem right.
Standing in the middle of the room is certainly not helping me recollect the missing link. Okay, I am looking around. I wish mom had finished that sculpture before fate engulfed her and moulded her into a star and oh I love that painting, you know “Starry Night by the river Rhone” by Vincent Van Gogh? Brenda gave me a reproduction of that painting on my last birthday. Of course she can’t get me the original, lying in the Louvre in Paris. I am sure, the original costs a fortune and so there is no chance she’d be able to buy it. But well I love it in all forms – original or reproduction! It is so magical. Sometimes I wish I could just be part of it, leave all my problems behind and join this utterly beautiful, magical artwork somehow. Oh! Look how the stars are shimmering and…
And then the events of the last evening start flashing back in her mind – all at once, like a thunderstorm. Her head starts hurting; she has a terrible migraine five minutes later.
Gasping for breath she tried reaching for her cellular phone but suddenly her feet couldn’t take her weight and her mind refused to sync with the rest of her body. She gave up the struggle and settled on the floor instead, legs crossed, face buried in her hands; clasping the temples with the tips her fingers. The nerve on the centre of her forehead was suddenly prominent and throbbing uncontrollably. Her face was slowly turning a sickly pink and beads of sweat were forming on her temples.
“Sherlyn, Sherlyn…how could you do this to yourself, today of all days!” she muttered sitting alone still clasping her forehead.
The weird combination of depression pills and migraine pills were showing their side effects now.
This Coca-Cola pitch can be the turning point in my life! This is the biggest opportunity that I have ever had to prove my talent. I was so happy when the head of my department chose me to lead this project. But just hours before the proposal presentation I feel completely disorientated, vulnerable for some reason and very helpless. I think I need a doctor.
Sherlyn waits for Dr.Elnazak to arrive at his clinic in Camberwell while trying to hold back a strong feeling of nausea. After exactly twenty-three minutes Dr.Elnazak arrives and asks her to sit in the impeccably organized white patient chambers. After two hours of counseling and calming her down he suggests her to visit a specialist – his psychiatrist friend Dr Dalton down Docklands in Melbourne CBD.
This road is choc a r bloc with cars and trams full of people ready to start their day at work. How can they be so excited? How can work be so important? Life, what is life for them? I don’t want to do this Coca-cola campaign shit and fuck everything. I don’t want anything. Life is so useless. This Dr Elnazak, what does he think he is? His so-called counseling doesn’t seem to affect me one bit. And what does he think he was counseling me for? Why do I need a psychiatrist? Uhhhh…I feel so frustrated, I just want to bang that car in front, stupid driver, doesn’t know how to drive or what? I don’t…
She starts drifting away into a fit of anger and faints and crashes into a speeding hauling truck. She is rushed to the hospital whilst the police find her medical file in the car wreckage. They contact Dr Elnazak who in turn directs them to Dr Dalton. He reads the symptom sheet attached to Sherlyn’s medical file and jitters at the conclusion. Sherlyn is suffering from a form of manic depression. While he sits in his office going through the file again and again, the phone rings. It’s the police. Sherlyn is dead.
AVY COMMENTS
I like the effort you have taken but you are getting confused with the points of view and the character being schizo is kind of passé and clichéd. How do you push this to another level altogether? The story dips and rises and dips which means it needs to be cut down to two-thirds its size with only the essentials. You need to build the plot up strongly too and not give way to using some of those teenage angsty language and expressions you seem enamoured of.
ALL CHANGE - SHAILEE ADKE
Sid was fast asleep. The alarm went off at 5:30 am. He set it on snooze and tried hard to go back to sleep. It had started to get cold and he wanted to keep sleeping, wrapped inside the cozy quilt. He lay with his eyes shut for 10 minutes and again heard the shrill beeping of the alarm which kept growing louder with each beep; so he finally decided to wake up. Sid had a flight that morning and did not want to begin the day by being lazy. He sat up on the edge of the bed and wore his slippers. He rubbed his eyes and tried adjusting to the light that was now coming through the window. He stood up and walked towards it.
Sid went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and take a shower. As he looked in the mirror, he saw himself looking back at him. He smiled, but he doubted the smile. When was the last time he actually had a big smile on his face? The dream that Sid had last night had been haunting him for quite some time. Why was it haunting him? It scared him like hell. He tried hard to think about it. But it just didn’t mean anything to him. It was not a very comfortable feeling. Dreams like these definitely have a reason to them. Something was definitely worrying Sid. But what was it? Was it just one thing or many? He decided to think about it later, and went ahead with getting ready for the flight.
It was a long journey and he finally arrived. They were all waiting for him at the airport’s international arrivals lounge. His parents, his brother and two really close friends. And along with all of them, there was Joanne - the girl who had waited so long to see him. She had waited too long and could not bear to wait anymore. Sid had been away for more than two years. He walked towards them. He was really happy to see all of them after such a long time. They were all so excited to see him too. Joanne flung herself into his arms the moment he reached her.
Sid suddenly realized that there had been a drastic change somewhere. Nothing seemed the same anymore. Joanne sensed it too. After being away from his home, his country for the first time and for so long, he was back; back with his family, his friends and the love of his life. But he realized that something still kept him away from all of them. He was quite confused about what was happening. He sensed that something was terribly wrong. Everybody looked very happy to see him, but there was something that was troubling them all, including him. Joanne looked the most troubled. When Sid looked her in the eyes, he knew it. She had realized that he had changed. She had revealed the fear, the anxiety and the hatred that was hidden behind the happy smiling face.
Joanne had got to know that Sid had not been honest with her while he was away. She had found out about all that he had been up to, while he was away from his loved ones. Sid had been feeling guilty about everything since a long time but hadn’t expected Joanne to know about it. He had committed too many crimes and she would never forgive him for them. It was all over. He suddenly felt the world around him come to a standstill.
(END)
avy comments:
It is succinct. Can do with some tightening up. Like a short and powerful episode. Where does it fail? I think the emotional moments have to be ramped up - between Sid and Joanne. Because the moment of returning to each other is also the moment of their parting. You are also ready for the sci-fi story now.
Sid went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and take a shower. As he looked in the mirror, he saw himself looking back at him. He smiled, but he doubted the smile. When was the last time he actually had a big smile on his face? The dream that Sid had last night had been haunting him for quite some time. Why was it haunting him? It scared him like hell. He tried hard to think about it. But it just didn’t mean anything to him. It was not a very comfortable feeling. Dreams like these definitely have a reason to them. Something was definitely worrying Sid. But what was it? Was it just one thing or many? He decided to think about it later, and went ahead with getting ready for the flight.
It was a long journey and he finally arrived. They were all waiting for him at the airport’s international arrivals lounge. His parents, his brother and two really close friends. And along with all of them, there was Joanne - the girl who had waited so long to see him. She had waited too long and could not bear to wait anymore. Sid had been away for more than two years. He walked towards them. He was really happy to see all of them after such a long time. They were all so excited to see him too. Joanne flung herself into his arms the moment he reached her.
Sid suddenly realized that there had been a drastic change somewhere. Nothing seemed the same anymore. Joanne sensed it too. After being away from his home, his country for the first time and for so long, he was back; back with his family, his friends and the love of his life. But he realized that something still kept him away from all of them. He was quite confused about what was happening. He sensed that something was terribly wrong. Everybody looked very happy to see him, but there was something that was troubling them all, including him. Joanne looked the most troubled. When Sid looked her in the eyes, he knew it. She had realized that he had changed. She had revealed the fear, the anxiety and the hatred that was hidden behind the happy smiling face.
Joanne had got to know that Sid had not been honest with her while he was away. She had found out about all that he had been up to, while he was away from his loved ones. Sid had been feeling guilty about everything since a long time but hadn’t expected Joanne to know about it. He had committed too many crimes and she would never forgive him for them. It was all over. He suddenly felt the world around him come to a standstill.
(END)
avy comments:
It is succinct. Can do with some tightening up. Like a short and powerful episode. Where does it fail? I think the emotional moments have to be ramped up - between Sid and Joanne. Because the moment of returning to each other is also the moment of their parting. You are also ready for the sci-fi story now.
TERMITE - SAYANTINI
There were women and then there were women. The women of the first category were never a problem. Truthfully speaking, they didn’t even matter in the scheme of things because they wouldn’t remember a thing he wouldn’t want them to remember. But they were a weakness of his. And that little weakness, and the very faint strain of loneliness which was all that was left in him that reminded him that he had maybe once been conceived as human, was what gave rise to the problem, which was the second category of women, who were a problem. But sometimes, one simply needed to feel that there was someone there, swimming in the unending fabric of space and time who would know who you are, maybe love you, or that, simply, exist.
Adan Garcia, though, being not what one might call completely a normal specimen of homo sapien sapiens, knew what happened when one felt that way. But he had still made that mistake. And now there was a woman named Cybele Kouris, with eyes which looked like slate from afar, but melted into the different shades of a stormy sea when seen intimately, constantly shifting, proclaiming through her actions that yes, someone could indeed tamper with the Script, and more than that, practically shouting out aloud to him, that yes, she knew who he was and was deliberately flinging out a challenge to his face.
I know who you are.
Come out, come out, wherever you are...
He could feel the changes, the very nuances of what made the universe and all its dimensions function. A little shift in the fog surrounding his cottage told him volumes. And today, as he sat under the old elm tree, the shadows had lengthened and suddenly the little oasis in time, with its green meadows at the edge of a forest with a perfect wooden hut and a placid lake with flowers of unnamed colours growing on the border, had suddenly turned cold, and cloudyfrom the warm golden spring it had been, in a span of seconds. The evergreen trees of the forest had suddenly turned coniferous and he could see icicles forming on the top branches and leaves.
***
The day he had left her sleeping under the grunting ceiling fan of the dilapidated room in the old abbey, it had been hot. Hotter than anything the suffering poor of 19th century Mexico had ever experienced. And to put it one way, temperate wasn’t a word that came into mind. But it had been something in the eyes, those damnable eyes which had drawn him in. And he had gone, knowing with the knowledge of one obsessed one too many times, this one he would have trouble wiping out. And so it had been. When it was time, he had hesitated for that one crucial moment, and had chosen to disappear while she slept rather than have never existed in her mind at all. He had failed to notice those silver eyes following him into the darkness and the steady gaze that remained on the spot where he had been.
***
And now those steady eyes, silver, melting and glowing, looked into his and said nothing at all, when once it had spoken epics. She was still as a statue, as she stood on the cliffs, seemingly undisturbed by the white spray of the waves crashing on to the rocks not two feet from her, as her long black hair billowed in the wind as did the blood red gown she wore. Her only ornament was silence.
“ So, you came.” She said, her voice soft yet with razor edges. Irresistible.
“ I think the effort you put in telling Caesar he was going to die, and not to mention who was going to do him in, makes the question redundant.”
“ Well, you always did believe in grand gestures.”
“ That shows how little you know me, darlin’”
“ Well, it worked didn’t it?”
“Yes, it did.”
There was a silence. Both thought the same thoughts, yet both so distant. They looked at each other and the drama of quiet unfolded. Battles were fought and wars were lost. The furious music of the sea pleaded and raged and demanded the demands each made in their minds.
Then the calm reinstated itself with force, and she smiled at him once more like she had done the first time he had seen her, mysterious as ever, in her domino and mask, dancing recklessly at the carnival, the name of which had eroded from both their memories. It was a smile of knowing; of knowing that the inevitable couldn’t be changed, and even if it could, some choices had to be made.
A step here and a tilt there. They were now close, close enough for him to see the lines beside her eyes, and the fatigue in them. And he wondered what she saw when she looked into his.
“Nothing.” She said. As if she had read his mind. “The shadows are too deep. And the glint of something electric is all I ever saw.”
And that was how it should be.
“There is nothing else, you know.” He said. “There can never be. It’s stupid to hope for more. There can only be one.”
She smiled a smile of misery and torture, and she bowed her head for a moment. Then she looked up and her gaze was steady again.
“Go on, then.”
With a flick of his hand, she was gone. He sat down on the rocks on which she had been standing, and turned to the sea with unseeing eyes. He gazed into nothing and said to himself;
“I’m too old for this shit.”
(ends)
AVY COMMENTS
Your writing is fluid and I like the way the sentences flow into one another. But what you have to test for yourself is the easy way you fall into certain cliches and avoid those pitfalls. It is one thing for a story to flow, it is another to edit it ruthlessly thereafter.
I think you are ready to do your sci-fi story.
Adan Garcia, though, being not what one might call completely a normal specimen of homo sapien sapiens, knew what happened when one felt that way. But he had still made that mistake. And now there was a woman named Cybele Kouris, with eyes which looked like slate from afar, but melted into the different shades of a stormy sea when seen intimately, constantly shifting, proclaiming through her actions that yes, someone could indeed tamper with the Script, and more than that, practically shouting out aloud to him, that yes, she knew who he was and was deliberately flinging out a challenge to his face.
I know who you are.
Come out, come out, wherever you are...
He could feel the changes, the very nuances of what made the universe and all its dimensions function. A little shift in the fog surrounding his cottage told him volumes. And today, as he sat under the old elm tree, the shadows had lengthened and suddenly the little oasis in time, with its green meadows at the edge of a forest with a perfect wooden hut and a placid lake with flowers of unnamed colours growing on the border, had suddenly turned cold, and cloudyfrom the warm golden spring it had been, in a span of seconds. The evergreen trees of the forest had suddenly turned coniferous and he could see icicles forming on the top branches and leaves.
***
The day he had left her sleeping under the grunting ceiling fan of the dilapidated room in the old abbey, it had been hot. Hotter than anything the suffering poor of 19th century Mexico had ever experienced. And to put it one way, temperate wasn’t a word that came into mind. But it had been something in the eyes, those damnable eyes which had drawn him in. And he had gone, knowing with the knowledge of one obsessed one too many times, this one he would have trouble wiping out. And so it had been. When it was time, he had hesitated for that one crucial moment, and had chosen to disappear while she slept rather than have never existed in her mind at all. He had failed to notice those silver eyes following him into the darkness and the steady gaze that remained on the spot where he had been.
***
And now those steady eyes, silver, melting and glowing, looked into his and said nothing at all, when once it had spoken epics. She was still as a statue, as she stood on the cliffs, seemingly undisturbed by the white spray of the waves crashing on to the rocks not two feet from her, as her long black hair billowed in the wind as did the blood red gown she wore. Her only ornament was silence.
“ So, you came.” She said, her voice soft yet with razor edges. Irresistible.
“ I think the effort you put in telling Caesar he was going to die, and not to mention who was going to do him in, makes the question redundant.”
“ Well, you always did believe in grand gestures.”
“ That shows how little you know me, darlin’”
“ Well, it worked didn’t it?”
“Yes, it did.”
There was a silence. Both thought the same thoughts, yet both so distant. They looked at each other and the drama of quiet unfolded. Battles were fought and wars were lost. The furious music of the sea pleaded and raged and demanded the demands each made in their minds.
Then the calm reinstated itself with force, and she smiled at him once more like she had done the first time he had seen her, mysterious as ever, in her domino and mask, dancing recklessly at the carnival, the name of which had eroded from both their memories. It was a smile of knowing; of knowing that the inevitable couldn’t be changed, and even if it could, some choices had to be made.
A step here and a tilt there. They were now close, close enough for him to see the lines beside her eyes, and the fatigue in them. And he wondered what she saw when she looked into his.
“Nothing.” She said. As if she had read his mind. “The shadows are too deep. And the glint of something electric is all I ever saw.”
And that was how it should be.
“There is nothing else, you know.” He said. “There can never be. It’s stupid to hope for more. There can only be one.”
She smiled a smile of misery and torture, and she bowed her head for a moment. Then she looked up and her gaze was steady again.
“Go on, then.”
With a flick of his hand, she was gone. He sat down on the rocks on which she had been standing, and turned to the sea with unseeing eyes. He gazed into nothing and said to himself;
“I’m too old for this shit.”
(ends)
AVY COMMENTS
Your writing is fluid and I like the way the sentences flow into one another. But what you have to test for yourself is the easy way you fall into certain cliches and avoid those pitfalls. It is one thing for a story to flow, it is another to edit it ruthlessly thereafter.
I think you are ready to do your sci-fi story.
THE LAST RESORT - SARGAM
Dinesh, or Dan as many called him, sat at the edge of a bed that creaked uncomfortably under his weight. The poorly furnished dormitory reeked of routine. One by one his eyes grazed all the sixteen beds, each covered in the same orange bed sheet, differentiated only by the blemishes and marks left behind by predecessors. A bird sang nonchalantly, a broken picture frame adorned the stark white wall and a lizard scuttled past seeking its prey.
Dan’s gaze rested on his own reflection in the glass of a window which was as insignificant as his own presence in the room. He could barely recognise himself. He hadn’t shaved for days, and had lost much of the weight that a well to do man often shows off as a status symbol. He tried to say something, but his voice cracked with lack of use. He thought of how things had changed since the last three months.
He clearly remembered that joyful sunny afternoon which had changed his life completely. The office boy had knocked timidly, coming in with a cup of black coffee, shaking at the very sight of him. Dan relished the fact that only a few could take its bitterness. “S-s-sir,” the boy quickly put the coffee on the table, waiting for his next order. Dan took a sip, looking up at the boy with sheer disgust. His coffee had sugar. Dan smashed the cup on the floor, the glass shattering into a million pieces. Muttering an obscenity he hollered, “YOU! Don’t you know I have my coffee without sugar? Get out! I said GET OUT!” The boy stood there frozen, unable to move. Dan held him by the collar of his shirt and pushed him out of his office. He seethed with rage.
After a while he smiled. He drew insatiable pleasure from power. He dialled his secretary’s number and waited. “You, fire that good for nothing office boy, and bring in the days mail.” A minute later his secretary walked in warily and handed over a letter. Looking paler than usual, she hastily handed over a single letter and left. It was the government’s seal on the envelope that caught his attention…
“Mr. Dinesh Shah?” the mention of his name brought him back to the sordid dormitory. Wistful of his previous life, he chose not to respond. The woman in a stark white uniform repeated his name again. He ignored her. Unconcerned she went on, “Mr. Shah, there is another hour left before your appointment is due. You can rest till then. There will be no need to venture outside your dormitory as yet.” She kept a glass of normal coffee on the side table and walked out without another word. He bit back a retort.
He could do this. He told himself. There was no need to be scared. Nothing was lost, yet. His thoughts drew him back to that letter, the repercussions of which brought him here. The letter had mechanically stated that with the death of his aunt, Mrs. Indira Shah, his property was under the ownership of the government and his business would thereby have to shut down unless he bought it off the government. His property was worth six crores.
Dan cursed his dead aunt who had died a month ago, under whose name he had originally bought the premises and started the business so that he could enjoy a generous rebate on income tax. He had never bothered to get himself acquainted with government regulations since he found them unnecessarily complicated and the possibilities of the acquisition of his entire wealth had not struck him. So much so, he had not even considered getting his aunt to write a will. He had simply forgotten the fact that the property was not really his in the eyes of law.
There was no way a bank would loan him such a huge amount, and a court appeal could take years to materialise. Most of his money was spent in a business transaction the proceeds of which would now be lost with his business shutting down.
Over the next one month he braced himself to collect cash, but everyone turned their back to him. His ego and the need to control had lost him his friends, and he was slowly losing himself too. Due to recession, there were no jobs available. There was little money left after he packed up his business. He sold his house, and moved to a much smaller apartment. He had collected just about enough money to survive a few years but it was not enough. A few days after his premises were acquired, Dan disappeared…
The Asylum for Special People was situated in the suburbs of Panipat, a small town in Haryana. Funded fully by the government it took care of anyone who showed signs of retardation or derangement. Dinesh Shah was their latest patient. He had been brought in by a local shopkeeper, who reported that the man was screaming at an electricity pole, claiming that it was his office boy who had brought him coffee with sugar. When he tried to pull him away, he got violent. With difficulty the shopkeeper managed to bring him to the asylum.
The Asylum was poorly furnished but clean. Dan sat at the edge of his bed, waiting. It was his new home for the next seven years. He allowed himself a smile. He had taken care of his life for the time being. The plan was going well. He was in control and most importantly he was not mad. He simple had to wait for his fixed deposit investment to double up and he could get out of this hell. It was the only way out, and he was ready for it…
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan couldn’t move. It had been six years of madness, and he could no longer differentiate between logic and insanity. “I have to be brave”, he told himself. He felt a cold hand touch his ankle. “STOP! STOP imagining things that don’t exist!” He trembled at the thought of that medicine being forced down his throat every day for six unbearable years. He tried to behave like a sane man, but no one believed him. He spoke to himself as he often did, “It is just the effect of the medicine, it will all go away… no one can ever take possession of my life.” The words had lost connection with meaning. His reverberating thoughts of empty optimism only emphasised the sinking feeling that a nightmare had turned into plain, stark reality.
(end)
AVY COMMENTS:
The writing is good and lucid.
The plot is interesting and the twist at the end.
You're ready to do your sci-fi story and what should help you is your style of writing simply and with clarity.
Dan’s gaze rested on his own reflection in the glass of a window which was as insignificant as his own presence in the room. He could barely recognise himself. He hadn’t shaved for days, and had lost much of the weight that a well to do man often shows off as a status symbol. He tried to say something, but his voice cracked with lack of use. He thought of how things had changed since the last three months.
He clearly remembered that joyful sunny afternoon which had changed his life completely. The office boy had knocked timidly, coming in with a cup of black coffee, shaking at the very sight of him. Dan relished the fact that only a few could take its bitterness. “S-s-sir,” the boy quickly put the coffee on the table, waiting for his next order. Dan took a sip, looking up at the boy with sheer disgust. His coffee had sugar. Dan smashed the cup on the floor, the glass shattering into a million pieces. Muttering an obscenity he hollered, “YOU! Don’t you know I have my coffee without sugar? Get out! I said GET OUT!” The boy stood there frozen, unable to move. Dan held him by the collar of his shirt and pushed him out of his office. He seethed with rage.
After a while he smiled. He drew insatiable pleasure from power. He dialled his secretary’s number and waited. “You, fire that good for nothing office boy, and bring in the days mail.” A minute later his secretary walked in warily and handed over a letter. Looking paler than usual, she hastily handed over a single letter and left. It was the government’s seal on the envelope that caught his attention…
“Mr. Dinesh Shah?” the mention of his name brought him back to the sordid dormitory. Wistful of his previous life, he chose not to respond. The woman in a stark white uniform repeated his name again. He ignored her. Unconcerned she went on, “Mr. Shah, there is another hour left before your appointment is due. You can rest till then. There will be no need to venture outside your dormitory as yet.” She kept a glass of normal coffee on the side table and walked out without another word. He bit back a retort.
He could do this. He told himself. There was no need to be scared. Nothing was lost, yet. His thoughts drew him back to that letter, the repercussions of which brought him here. The letter had mechanically stated that with the death of his aunt, Mrs. Indira Shah, his property was under the ownership of the government and his business would thereby have to shut down unless he bought it off the government. His property was worth six crores.
Dan cursed his dead aunt who had died a month ago, under whose name he had originally bought the premises and started the business so that he could enjoy a generous rebate on income tax. He had never bothered to get himself acquainted with government regulations since he found them unnecessarily complicated and the possibilities of the acquisition of his entire wealth had not struck him. So much so, he had not even considered getting his aunt to write a will. He had simply forgotten the fact that the property was not really his in the eyes of law.
There was no way a bank would loan him such a huge amount, and a court appeal could take years to materialise. Most of his money was spent in a business transaction the proceeds of which would now be lost with his business shutting down.
Over the next one month he braced himself to collect cash, but everyone turned their back to him. His ego and the need to control had lost him his friends, and he was slowly losing himself too. Due to recession, there were no jobs available. There was little money left after he packed up his business. He sold his house, and moved to a much smaller apartment. He had collected just about enough money to survive a few years but it was not enough. A few days after his premises were acquired, Dan disappeared…
The Asylum for Special People was situated in the suburbs of Panipat, a small town in Haryana. Funded fully by the government it took care of anyone who showed signs of retardation or derangement. Dinesh Shah was their latest patient. He had been brought in by a local shopkeeper, who reported that the man was screaming at an electricity pole, claiming that it was his office boy who had brought him coffee with sugar. When he tried to pull him away, he got violent. With difficulty the shopkeeper managed to bring him to the asylum.
The Asylum was poorly furnished but clean. Dan sat at the edge of his bed, waiting. It was his new home for the next seven years. He allowed himself a smile. He had taken care of his life for the time being. The plan was going well. He was in control and most importantly he was not mad. He simple had to wait for his fixed deposit investment to double up and he could get out of this hell. It was the only way out, and he was ready for it…
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan couldn’t move. It had been six years of madness, and he could no longer differentiate between logic and insanity. “I have to be brave”, he told himself. He felt a cold hand touch his ankle. “STOP! STOP imagining things that don’t exist!” He trembled at the thought of that medicine being forced down his throat every day for six unbearable years. He tried to behave like a sane man, but no one believed him. He spoke to himself as he often did, “It is just the effect of the medicine, it will all go away… no one can ever take possession of my life.” The words had lost connection with meaning. His reverberating thoughts of empty optimism only emphasised the sinking feeling that a nightmare had turned into plain, stark reality.
(end)
AVY COMMENTS:
The writing is good and lucid.
The plot is interesting and the twist at the end.
You're ready to do your sci-fi story and what should help you is your style of writing simply and with clarity.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
WATER - RAMYA POTHUKUCHI
She woke up with a start and the muggy hot air stifled her. She looked about to find that her eyes were still adjusting to the dim evening light that faintly bathed an otherwise empty room. She could still see the image of the sun, a very real sun, which was scorched onto her retina, by a dream.
She had been running from something and it had been very silent, hot, red and full of light, this place that she had escaped to. And it was also unnervingly quiet, full of alien life forms, none of which she belonged to.
Then she felt the stifling heat as she watched the sun slowly move across a red sky of breath taking beauty, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe as she awoke in a dark cool room. She groaned as she felt the familiar jarring feeling full of foreboding and distaste and a strong desire to be anywhere else but here right now… she felt her body weight as she shifted slowly off her bed and felt a slight clearing of her head as she stood up. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, wondering why she loved to feel so distastefully pathetic, low and miserable… as the sun glowed behind her… and suddenly she felt peaceful and happy.
She stepped out into her living room window as she felt the water under her feet. It seemed to have leaked in from the old crack in the window in the corridor. She ran on tiptoe and entered into the kitchen, a clean, white, sterile place that was modeled to look like the dream of a minimalist Zen architect. She went on to make herself some tea, all the while humming to herself a happy tune, drawn to the warmth of the electric kettle that whistled away happily. She was faintly aware of someone watching her and turned around to find herself looking out of a window, onto scenery that was calm and familiar. . She looked admiringly at the shimmering red sand that always reminded her of the sandbox in the backyard she used to so dearly love playing in. She felt awetness on her cheek, which made her wince, but it was gone soon and she looked on.
She snapped out of her reverie as she felt the weight of the warm mug full of tea in her hand. Her right arm was usually sore, for she suffered from a constant gripping cramp in her upper right arm that throbbed dully all day and plagued her at regular intervals throughout the day. She was used to it though, and tended to ignore it.
She sipped her tea looking balefully out of the window at the beautiful deep brick hue of the landscape, a plain stretch of glimmering sand under a brilliantly radiant sun. The moment, she felt, was ruined only by sporadic passing gusts of frigid wind that disagreed with the otherwise perfect evening. She felt complacent though, and made no attempt disturbing her stasis.
Time passed her by in which she watched a brilliant sunset, and the glitter worms rise from the sand into the evening. She shook off her inertia and steered herself out of the kitchen back into her room. She felt a vague discomfiture as she looked at her bed, a faint stirring of unpleasant emotions she couldn’t pinpoint. ‘ I must have had a nightmare’ she told herself as the warmth of the bed made her smile.
She hears a faint click as she drifts off
“The new medications seem to be working,” said the nurse to the warden as she shut the door.
“Yes. It is after a long time that she has been so serene…She woke up peacefully enough, and watched the children play in the rain in the garden for a long. I remember the days when she couldn’t even stand hearing their voices through her window.”
“ Yes, I noticed how she didn’t fight being steered by her arm like she used to, poor arm was sore she would say…although she did seem a little wobblier.”
“Yes well if the place is doing as well as it seems like it is, the doctor might want to make it look like that too! …The rainwater has leaked and seeped in everywhere, even the cells! And poor Jimmy has suddenly developed a strange distaste for water, and can’t sleep at night because he has heard the rain for four days straight now! …”
(ends)
AVY COMMENTS:
I like the internal contrast between the happy scenario and the shrink hospital reality. There are some internal contradictions you need to iron out in the plot. The menacing aspect of it is quite strong. Good for a first attempt. Now you need to push what you have learnt from this effort into the sci-fi story.
She had been running from something and it had been very silent, hot, red and full of light, this place that she had escaped to. And it was also unnervingly quiet, full of alien life forms, none of which she belonged to.
Then she felt the stifling heat as she watched the sun slowly move across a red sky of breath taking beauty, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe as she awoke in a dark cool room. She groaned as she felt the familiar jarring feeling full of foreboding and distaste and a strong desire to be anywhere else but here right now… she felt her body weight as she shifted slowly off her bed and felt a slight clearing of her head as she stood up. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, wondering why she loved to feel so distastefully pathetic, low and miserable… as the sun glowed behind her… and suddenly she felt peaceful and happy.
She stepped out into her living room window as she felt the water under her feet. It seemed to have leaked in from the old crack in the window in the corridor. She ran on tiptoe and entered into the kitchen, a clean, white, sterile place that was modeled to look like the dream of a minimalist Zen architect. She went on to make herself some tea, all the while humming to herself a happy tune, drawn to the warmth of the electric kettle that whistled away happily. She was faintly aware of someone watching her and turned around to find herself looking out of a window, onto scenery that was calm and familiar. . She looked admiringly at the shimmering red sand that always reminded her of the sandbox in the backyard she used to so dearly love playing in. She felt awetness on her cheek, which made her wince, but it was gone soon and she looked on.
She snapped out of her reverie as she felt the weight of the warm mug full of tea in her hand. Her right arm was usually sore, for she suffered from a constant gripping cramp in her upper right arm that throbbed dully all day and plagued her at regular intervals throughout the day. She was used to it though, and tended to ignore it.
She sipped her tea looking balefully out of the window at the beautiful deep brick hue of the landscape, a plain stretch of glimmering sand under a brilliantly radiant sun. The moment, she felt, was ruined only by sporadic passing gusts of frigid wind that disagreed with the otherwise perfect evening. She felt complacent though, and made no attempt disturbing her stasis.
Time passed her by in which she watched a brilliant sunset, and the glitter worms rise from the sand into the evening. She shook off her inertia and steered herself out of the kitchen back into her room. She felt a vague discomfiture as she looked at her bed, a faint stirring of unpleasant emotions she couldn’t pinpoint. ‘ I must have had a nightmare’ she told herself as the warmth of the bed made her smile.
She hears a faint click as she drifts off
“The new medications seem to be working,” said the nurse to the warden as she shut the door.
“Yes. It is after a long time that she has been so serene…She woke up peacefully enough, and watched the children play in the rain in the garden for a long. I remember the days when she couldn’t even stand hearing their voices through her window.”
“ Yes, I noticed how she didn’t fight being steered by her arm like she used to, poor arm was sore she would say…although she did seem a little wobblier.”
“Yes well if the place is doing as well as it seems like it is, the doctor might want to make it look like that too! …The rainwater has leaked and seeped in everywhere, even the cells! And poor Jimmy has suddenly developed a strange distaste for water, and can’t sleep at night because he has heard the rain for four days straight now! …”
(ends)
AVY COMMENTS:
I like the internal contrast between the happy scenario and the shrink hospital reality. There are some internal contradictions you need to iron out in the plot. The menacing aspect of it is quite strong. Good for a first attempt. Now you need to push what you have learnt from this effort into the sci-fi story.
ON A COLD NIGHT - NEETI GOKHALAY
He sat here on his swivel chair that was obviously too small for him. He sat thinking about all the miserable vermin. All those pseudo mother fuckers who didn't have a back bone of their own. He looked around the room. The same room he had occupied for the past forty years with that picture of the Virgin Mary looking down at him. And now, on this cold night he wondered how he had come to be this faccid
bastard who just sat at home.
“I am turning into one of those idiots. Those country bumpkin kinds.”
This room was where his life had unfolded in front of his eyes. His first steps, his first joint, his first kiss, his first fuck...and now he felt like too much had happened here.
“I've been here too long...”
He took a long drag of his cigarette.
She plonked herself on her bed in the adjacent room. Unlike her father next door, she had been here only some fourteen years. She wanted to leave. She felt like she had had too much of this place. She wanted to run away, get away from that old woman who had tried hard for the past eight years to replace her mother.
“It's impossible. Why does she think she can replace my mother? She deserved to die, not mother.”
The thought tormented her soul and for years she planned her revenge. She planned and conspired to get that old woman for surviving the car accident.
She felt like she had waited far to long. But, what option did she have? A small seven year old hands couldn't have ripped the old woman's esophagus out with a fork even if she had tried with all her might.
But now she was seven years stronger and the old woman was seven years weaker. She would take advantage of the situation and tonight would be perfect..if only Johnny wasn't at home tonight sitting and smoking next door...
It was an unusually cold night. Across the hall, the chair creaked as she adjusted her shawl with fingers that could just about manage to hold the ends. She struggled slowly, to make sure she felt just warm enough. This was her favourite spot in the house, right next to the window. She looked out but the cold had fogged up the window. She sighed and almost like a reaction the lamp next to her chair fickered.
“I must ask Johnny to fx up the window” , she made a mental note to herself.
But tonight was just so cold, she didn't want to move from her spot. The chair had the perfect depression and the springs creaked as she moved slowly, readjusting her shawl.
Four cigarettes later, the only thought that came into his mind was his daughter. She worried him. She was coming of age and the crazed look he saw in her eyes sometimes scared him. He knew what she was thinking. She was smarter than your average joe, but he was her father and he knew.
“ How do these thoughts even come into her head. She blames her grandmother for her mothers death.
How can she expect me to sit here and watch.. How dare she think I will watch....”
“Damn power cuts!!”
She smiled. It had just gotten colder, with the 100watt bulb off..or so it seemed.
The fork glistened in her hand. The was a sinister energy that she could feel. But she did nothing, not yet.
But, she knew it had to be done.
“It's now or never”, she giggled.
There was evil and it was around. This would be the last thing she did if she had to.
She had a purpose. She got up and made her way to the door.
She never quite got out...
He smoked his last cigarette as he quietly slipped out from the back door.
Mother would be safe now. She would be alright.
He had lived in that house far to long and tonight was perfect to just leave. He walked down the road
humming softly, threw that piece of silverware and continued to walk without looking back.
“Fuckers...All of 'em..”
avy comments:
it's a good story - a bit too perfect. Now that you can write at this level can you bring in more subtlety?
means you need to work in a deeper plot, bring in/out the conflicts more powerfully.
you're ready for your final project.
bastard who just sat at home.
“I am turning into one of those idiots. Those country bumpkin kinds.”
This room was where his life had unfolded in front of his eyes. His first steps, his first joint, his first kiss, his first fuck...and now he felt like too much had happened here.
“I've been here too long...”
He took a long drag of his cigarette.
She plonked herself on her bed in the adjacent room. Unlike her father next door, she had been here only some fourteen years. She wanted to leave. She felt like she had had too much of this place. She wanted to run away, get away from that old woman who had tried hard for the past eight years to replace her mother.
“It's impossible. Why does she think she can replace my mother? She deserved to die, not mother.”
The thought tormented her soul and for years she planned her revenge. She planned and conspired to get that old woman for surviving the car accident.
She felt like she had waited far to long. But, what option did she have? A small seven year old hands couldn't have ripped the old woman's esophagus out with a fork even if she had tried with all her might.
But now she was seven years stronger and the old woman was seven years weaker. She would take advantage of the situation and tonight would be perfect..if only Johnny wasn't at home tonight sitting and smoking next door...
It was an unusually cold night. Across the hall, the chair creaked as she adjusted her shawl with fingers that could just about manage to hold the ends. She struggled slowly, to make sure she felt just warm enough. This was her favourite spot in the house, right next to the window. She looked out but the cold had fogged up the window. She sighed and almost like a reaction the lamp next to her chair fickered.
“I must ask Johnny to fx up the window” , she made a mental note to herself.
But tonight was just so cold, she didn't want to move from her spot. The chair had the perfect depression and the springs creaked as she moved slowly, readjusting her shawl.
Four cigarettes later, the only thought that came into his mind was his daughter. She worried him. She was coming of age and the crazed look he saw in her eyes sometimes scared him. He knew what she was thinking. She was smarter than your average joe, but he was her father and he knew.
“ How do these thoughts even come into her head. She blames her grandmother for her mothers death.
How can she expect me to sit here and watch.. How dare she think I will watch....”
“Damn power cuts!!”
She smiled. It had just gotten colder, with the 100watt bulb off..or so it seemed.
The fork glistened in her hand. The was a sinister energy that she could feel. But she did nothing, not yet.
But, she knew it had to be done.
“It's now or never”, she giggled.
There was evil and it was around. This would be the last thing she did if she had to.
She had a purpose. She got up and made her way to the door.
She never quite got out...
He smoked his last cigarette as he quietly slipped out from the back door.
Mother would be safe now. She would be alright.
He had lived in that house far to long and tonight was perfect to just leave. He walked down the road
humming softly, threw that piece of silverware and continued to walk without looking back.
“Fuckers...All of 'em..”
avy comments:
it's a good story - a bit too perfect. Now that you can write at this level can you bring in more subtlety?
means you need to work in a deeper plot, bring in/out the conflicts more powerfully.
you're ready for your final project.
THE LAST STANDING TREE - MRUNMAYEE
I have always found the owner at the food shop very erratic in nature. He has the air of disregard towards some of his daily visitors. I am one of the daily visitors, I had no other choice, but to be at the mercy of the only food shop around.
He definitely had his crowd of favorites. And I knew I was not one of them.
Every time I found myself resisting asking him the dreadful question, ‘A bun and tea. please, Sir'.
After having said these words, all that danced around my head was this picture of me trapped in a cage with the last of the species of the 'Kingdom Animalia', waiting hungry for a chunk of meat to be thrown inside. First, a hand slowly making it’s way through the cage holding a big piece of meat with all the trickling fresh blood running downwards. Then, the meat purposely would be kept at a height to tease all the creatures in the cage. In this situation, the only thing one could do was taste the dripping blood as it dropped slowly onto the tongue making you want to grab a big bite from the meat.
I finally rested comfortably on a dilapidated and shaky part of a house with my bun and tea trying to snap out of my disturbing daydream and at the same time thinking how revolting is the feeling of being teased..
Teasing. One of the things that really makes me unhappy is being teased by anything. Everyone knows how much I hate being teased and being proved wrong. Yet people do it – because, that very act of doing it is defined as teasing.
Still attempting to snap out of the torturous daydream, I started thinking about how not laying out the bed-sheet neatly would make bed-bugs crawl into my bed; how my lost eye-pencil was finally found stuck in the keyhole; how paranoid I was about my mirror balancing on one nail and all the work pending from last week. All these purposeless thoughts crossed my mind as I sipped my tea.
A feeling that I had forgotten something occurred to me. Suddenly I saw a hazy image of these two people of whom I am not very fond.. And there! I finally remember, as it registered that my vision was fuzzy, that I have forgotten my glasses!
I took a big bite out of my bun and finished my tea; I was all ready to get up and leave when something gleamed right into my eye. It was really shiny and indistinct. I knew it right away, that it was the big, bright sun. I remembered the shiny yellow sun from a photograph of my grandma’s ‘Old-Memories Diaries’.
"Alas, it had finally blessed us with its presence!” I squealed in my mind.
Grandma would always say that the day the yellow globule would shine in the sky would be the day; this land of debris would cover itself with a green blanket.
In this state of happiness, I heard a loud swoosh. I looked around. Everything looked unfocused. So I followed the loud sound to find myself under the ‘The Last Standing Tree’.
It was the same tree my grandma would ask me to pluck flowers from every evening. But, now, the authorities had banned others from plucking any more of those flowers, because then, there would be nothing pleasing left for the eyes to see.
The tree stood tall above me. The leaves of the tree swooshed and rustled out aloud. It felt like the movement of branches that had lost all control and were about to unleash the energy trapped within. The sun gleamed through the leaves blinding me with every uncontrolled movement of the branches.
I stood there speechless.
AVY COMMENTS:
Yep, I like it. But I want more meat. I want to know more about the last standing tree. The title promises so much but the story delivers so little. I want to know more about the condition of the earth. I want to know more about Grandma’s prophecy. This could be a great eco sci-fi story. Do you want to develop it in that direction or try an absolutely new story?
He definitely had his crowd of favorites. And I knew I was not one of them.
Every time I found myself resisting asking him the dreadful question, ‘A bun and tea. please, Sir'.
After having said these words, all that danced around my head was this picture of me trapped in a cage with the last of the species of the 'Kingdom Animalia', waiting hungry for a chunk of meat to be thrown inside. First, a hand slowly making it’s way through the cage holding a big piece of meat with all the trickling fresh blood running downwards. Then, the meat purposely would be kept at a height to tease all the creatures in the cage. In this situation, the only thing one could do was taste the dripping blood as it dropped slowly onto the tongue making you want to grab a big bite from the meat.
I finally rested comfortably on a dilapidated and shaky part of a house with my bun and tea trying to snap out of my disturbing daydream and at the same time thinking how revolting is the feeling of being teased..
Teasing. One of the things that really makes me unhappy is being teased by anything. Everyone knows how much I hate being teased and being proved wrong. Yet people do it – because, that very act of doing it is defined as teasing.
Still attempting to snap out of the torturous daydream, I started thinking about how not laying out the bed-sheet neatly would make bed-bugs crawl into my bed; how my lost eye-pencil was finally found stuck in the keyhole; how paranoid I was about my mirror balancing on one nail and all the work pending from last week. All these purposeless thoughts crossed my mind as I sipped my tea.
A feeling that I had forgotten something occurred to me. Suddenly I saw a hazy image of these two people of whom I am not very fond.. And there! I finally remember, as it registered that my vision was fuzzy, that I have forgotten my glasses!
I took a big bite out of my bun and finished my tea; I was all ready to get up and leave when something gleamed right into my eye. It was really shiny and indistinct. I knew it right away, that it was the big, bright sun. I remembered the shiny yellow sun from a photograph of my grandma’s ‘Old-Memories Diaries’.
"Alas, it had finally blessed us with its presence!” I squealed in my mind.
Grandma would always say that the day the yellow globule would shine in the sky would be the day; this land of debris would cover itself with a green blanket.
In this state of happiness, I heard a loud swoosh. I looked around. Everything looked unfocused. So I followed the loud sound to find myself under the ‘The Last Standing Tree’.
It was the same tree my grandma would ask me to pluck flowers from every evening. But, now, the authorities had banned others from plucking any more of those flowers, because then, there would be nothing pleasing left for the eyes to see.
The tree stood tall above me. The leaves of the tree swooshed and rustled out aloud. It felt like the movement of branches that had lost all control and were about to unleash the energy trapped within. The sun gleamed through the leaves blinding me with every uncontrolled movement of the branches.
I stood there speechless.
AVY COMMENTS:
Yep, I like it. But I want more meat. I want to know more about the last standing tree. The title promises so much but the story delivers so little. I want to know more about the condition of the earth. I want to know more about Grandma’s prophecy. This could be a great eco sci-fi story. Do you want to develop it in that direction or try an absolutely new story?
FOLLOW THE VOICES - MITALEE RAWAT
The grey on the walls was interrupted by the relentless tapping on the table. Keeping the pen down, he steps up to the window and takes a look outside. Listening intently to all the sounds available, the cars sounding their horns and more, he slips into thought, his eyes focusing on a point in mid air, somewhere in the clouds. A few moments later, a loud annoying sound at the door shakes him out of his meditation.
She leans in through the half open door. “They’re waiting for you.” Anna has been his personal assistant for four years. He turns around to look at her, eyes fixed on hers, perhaps a little too fixed for comfort. “Thank you Anna, I need the Johnson & Millers report by ten thirty tomorrow,.” he says with the usual frosty politeness that he’s always wearing. She takes a moment to read his face; his eyes shift to his pen as he puts it back near the books where it’s supposed to be as soon as he utters his last syllable.
“Okay, I’ll get right to it then.”
An hour later, the door swings open and he walks out. The company has never suffered a loss, never lost a deal, never had any disappointed customers or stock holders. Curiously perfect, the man he was, except that he had no friends, no ‘lady’ friends and no messages from a worried mother or calls from a proud father. You would imagine everyone to be extremely proud of what he had achieved so soon, so young.
He was your typical loner, who took being alone to new levels, and he looked more like a Superman from some Ivy League College with the most convincing voice you would ever hear. The funny part is, the world was in love with him, and neither party fully understood why.
Something was different about today. This dry, dull day that deceived all of New York City into thinking it wa going to rain any minute. He got into his car and turned the key. He did a 145 somewhere on the way and stopped precisely at the door. His hands refused to move, like they had a mind of their own. He didn’t want to go home, not now.
So he starts off to somewhere only he knows. And he knows exactly where he’s going. The next thing he knows he’s kneeling in front of a statue, an image, a symbol that he believed would save him the way everyone said.
“Father, where have I gone wrong? Why are you putting me through this? Do you ever listen?”
A small droplet moved across his face and landed on the wooden platform he was kneeling up,on. Suddenly in a fit of rage, he got up and cried out “Why?!!”
Shortly afterwards, he was left standing in a pile of concrete and dust. The church had a new hole in its wall that went right through Jesus’ feet and Mother Mary’s dress. In no time, Bishop Ronson was at the door separating his quarters from the main church hall.
Something didn’t feel quite right about what was coming, he thought. As he entered the church, he noticed the mess on the floor and standing right in front of it was Christopher.
He stood there for what seemed like forever. His eyes were fixed on the pile of broken plaster and stone. He had a look of disbelief on his face and a glimpse of awareness of what he had just done. This wasn’t the first time. How else would you explain a perfectly happy little boy suddenly orphaned when he was 12 by an accident. It was a time he wished to forget. Someone had killed his parents. That someone had also died shortly after. His body was found sandwiched between the dishwasher and the couch.
Christopher was far from that. He was compulsively in control of his temper. Well, maybe not today.
The Bishop’s face now wore a strange expression, a little surprise, some curiosity, but mostly fear. As he approached Christopher’s mildly swaying figure he looked at his dazed expression and his fear grew with every step.
“Why are you here, son?”
The last word did not come out as easily as the rest. “I need counsel, Father, I need a friend. I don’t understand why I have to exist. I need answers. The voices in my head have haunted me since I can remember. I can’t take this anymore! “The church was all I had when they died. Why did you abandon me? The voices won’t let me go to Him.”
“You can’t go to him. Not if you kill yourself. It’s a mortal sin. You can’t go to him in any case, Christopher. Go away, far away where no one will find you. Hide yourself my son, in the deepest cave under the deepest sea. You must never return.”
The series of events that followed within the walls of that church would decide the fate of Christopher, Bishop Ronson and the rest of the human race.
Christopher is speeding again. Down that familiar road, past the houses he grew up around. He felt a change in him. He was smiling for the first time. He turned on the radio and started singing along to some old sixties rock music. He was a new person.
He was…cheery.
Next morning Christopher decides to take an “off”. The first one in seven years. The annoying freckled kid was doing his routine newspaper delivery job as he did every day. As he rode his bicycle up to Mr. Christopher McCain’s residence he noticed some unusual marks on the front door. The door was covered with something that looked, smelled and tasted like blood. He ran his fingers over the deep cuts and scratches all over the door. “Newspaper!” he said as he rode away from the house but he peddled harder, pushing further ahead, and let out a shrill scream at the end of the street.
Here at the kitchen window, with an apple smiling at the paper in his hand: Bishop dies under mysterious circumstances.
“Well done,” said the legion of voices in his head.
Smiling to himself he murmurs, “There’s no denying who I am and what I must do.”
AVY COMMENTS:
Interesting story. You have tried to develop a psychotic character and it works to some extent. However, the key question (apart from appreciating your effort and the ease with which you seem to be able to handle language and to transition situations in the plot) is: do you think the story itself is clichéd?
If so, how could you change some of it to make it quite different in the way it develops and ends?
Of course, now I have confidence that you can do a good sci-fi story. (By the way, where is your PRESENTATION? It is a graded assignment.)
She leans in through the half open door. “They’re waiting for you.” Anna has been his personal assistant for four years. He turns around to look at her, eyes fixed on hers, perhaps a little too fixed for comfort. “Thank you Anna, I need the Johnson & Millers report by ten thirty tomorrow,.” he says with the usual frosty politeness that he’s always wearing. She takes a moment to read his face; his eyes shift to his pen as he puts it back near the books where it’s supposed to be as soon as he utters his last syllable.
“Okay, I’ll get right to it then.”
An hour later, the door swings open and he walks out. The company has never suffered a loss, never lost a deal, never had any disappointed customers or stock holders. Curiously perfect, the man he was, except that he had no friends, no ‘lady’ friends and no messages from a worried mother or calls from a proud father. You would imagine everyone to be extremely proud of what he had achieved so soon, so young.
He was your typical loner, who took being alone to new levels, and he looked more like a Superman from some Ivy League College with the most convincing voice you would ever hear. The funny part is, the world was in love with him, and neither party fully understood why.
Something was different about today. This dry, dull day that deceived all of New York City into thinking it wa going to rain any minute. He got into his car and turned the key. He did a 145 somewhere on the way and stopped precisely at the door. His hands refused to move, like they had a mind of their own. He didn’t want to go home, not now.
So he starts off to somewhere only he knows. And he knows exactly where he’s going. The next thing he knows he’s kneeling in front of a statue, an image, a symbol that he believed would save him the way everyone said.
“Father, where have I gone wrong? Why are you putting me through this? Do you ever listen?”
A small droplet moved across his face and landed on the wooden platform he was kneeling up,on. Suddenly in a fit of rage, he got up and cried out “Why?!!”
Shortly afterwards, he was left standing in a pile of concrete and dust. The church had a new hole in its wall that went right through Jesus’ feet and Mother Mary’s dress. In no time, Bishop Ronson was at the door separating his quarters from the main church hall.
Something didn’t feel quite right about what was coming, he thought. As he entered the church, he noticed the mess on the floor and standing right in front of it was Christopher.
He stood there for what seemed like forever. His eyes were fixed on the pile of broken plaster and stone. He had a look of disbelief on his face and a glimpse of awareness of what he had just done. This wasn’t the first time. How else would you explain a perfectly happy little boy suddenly orphaned when he was 12 by an accident. It was a time he wished to forget. Someone had killed his parents. That someone had also died shortly after. His body was found sandwiched between the dishwasher and the couch.
Christopher was far from that. He was compulsively in control of his temper. Well, maybe not today.
The Bishop’s face now wore a strange expression, a little surprise, some curiosity, but mostly fear. As he approached Christopher’s mildly swaying figure he looked at his dazed expression and his fear grew with every step.
“Why are you here, son?”
The last word did not come out as easily as the rest. “I need counsel, Father, I need a friend. I don’t understand why I have to exist. I need answers. The voices in my head have haunted me since I can remember. I can’t take this anymore! “The church was all I had when they died. Why did you abandon me? The voices won’t let me go to Him.”
“You can’t go to him. Not if you kill yourself. It’s a mortal sin. You can’t go to him in any case, Christopher. Go away, far away where no one will find you. Hide yourself my son, in the deepest cave under the deepest sea. You must never return.”
The series of events that followed within the walls of that church would decide the fate of Christopher, Bishop Ronson and the rest of the human race.
Christopher is speeding again. Down that familiar road, past the houses he grew up around. He felt a change in him. He was smiling for the first time. He turned on the radio and started singing along to some old sixties rock music. He was a new person.
He was…cheery.
Next morning Christopher decides to take an “off”. The first one in seven years. The annoying freckled kid was doing his routine newspaper delivery job as he did every day. As he rode his bicycle up to Mr. Christopher McCain’s residence he noticed some unusual marks on the front door. The door was covered with something that looked, smelled and tasted like blood. He ran his fingers over the deep cuts and scratches all over the door. “Newspaper!” he said as he rode away from the house but he peddled harder, pushing further ahead, and let out a shrill scream at the end of the street.
Here at the kitchen window, with an apple smiling at the paper in his hand: Bishop dies under mysterious circumstances.
“Well done,” said the legion of voices in his head.
Smiling to himself he murmurs, “There’s no denying who I am and what I must do.”
AVY COMMENTS:
Interesting story. You have tried to develop a psychotic character and it works to some extent. However, the key question (apart from appreciating your effort and the ease with which you seem to be able to handle language and to transition situations in the plot) is: do you think the story itself is clichéd?
If so, how could you change some of it to make it quite different in the way it develops and ends?
Of course, now I have confidence that you can do a good sci-fi story. (By the way, where is your PRESENTATION? It is a graded assignment.)
WALKING AWAY - MIHIKA
First there had only been darkness. Some sort of mid-point between life and death. No feeling, no thoughts. Maybe this was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Maybe this was what it was like to die. Just as he thought that, he could feel a feeble pain rise somewhere within him. Oh no... he thought. Let me go, please just let me go in peace, he begged. The pain grew- in retaliation. It was throbbing now. He still wasn’t sure exactly where it was coming from, but the intensity was increasing and now it was almost unbearable. It merged with the throbbing in his ears. Chaos rumbled, he couldn’t identify any of the sounds. Noise? Searing noise? Descriptions rose in his ridiculous brain. He just wanted to shut his ears and go back to his happy place.
She was walking down the road. Sure long and quick strides. Her boots clicked smartly with every step. Anyone who saw her couldn’t help but take a second look. Men and women, alike. They wouldn’t call her beautiful, but there was something about her. Attractive would be a better word. Tall, she looked straight ahead as she walked, not giving away the slightest expression on her face. It might as well have been chiselled out of ice, her eyes - the colour of frozen water. Her mind was still white hot with anger, fury and maybe just a hint of guilt.
This is exactly why she didn’t mix her professional life with her personal one. There were times, when things got messed up and then you had to choose. She had worked hard to get to where she was today; she was respected by men and women alike. She was extremely proud of her position. In her field of work, that was a great achievement.
What a bad idea this was. I shouldn’t have agreed to start with. God dammit! Him and his silly reasoning skills, he might as well have been on his knees begging. Definitely one of the weakest moments in my life.
She shuddered.
Never again! Never ever again.
With a shake of her head, she strode on.
Suddenly his mind was filled with images, mostly of her. Her lovely red hair, how smoothly his hands would weave through those lustrous tresses. Her light blue eyes, the colour of the bright blue sky on a white wintery day. The way she looked when he knew he had struck gold at work. She loved a job well done. All hell broke loose when he’d messed up... He loved her so much. If only he hadn’t made that one mistake. Nothing could calm her down when she turned cold and furious. He was only human. Right? She would forgive him, he was sure of that. Why couldn’t she see that they had had something precious? Why did she have to be like this?
The images were changing rapidly now. Her swanky house that doubled as her office headquarters, the different kinds of people he had to deal with day in, day out. The places he had visited in the past five years, the tiniest joys and the lowest sorrows.
Why now? Why suddenly? What’s happening to me?
For the first time since he’d been in this state, he opened his eyes. It seemed like he was in the middle of nowhere. There was complete darkness. As he tried to look around, he noticed the far off flickers of light. They weren’t very large from what he could see. All dots and flashes. He had no clue of what or where he was. He could have been at the bottom of a dumpster for all he knew, except for those lights. What for heaven’s sake were they?! They kept flashing in his eyes now, blinding him and increasing the pounding in his head.
As much as she tried, she couldn’t lock away that teeny bit of guilt that kept gnawing at her and into her box of unnecessary feelings. She kept thinking of whether she had done the right thing. At least she hadn’t killed him. If he died now, it wouldn’t be her fault. Hopefully he’d know what was good for him, come to his senses soon enough, run away from the train tracks and never contact her again! That is what she needed. All she wanted was to be able to concentrate on work without any sort of distractions. No matter how small.
If only he hadn’t messed up. She would not let it happen again. She swore under her breath. Thankfully her cover hadn’t been completely blown. She had an immaculate record. Her plan was almost fool proof, except for a single minor glitch. But now she had gotten rid of that too. The police would have found her if it had continued. She knew that much. It would have been way too easy for them. She had built her dark empire off the radar, and she had to keep it that way.
Sorry darling, I did love you. I just love me more.
This was the only way to go.
In the distance, the place from where she’d been hurriedly walking away, she heard a train blow it’s horn as it swooshed on moving further into the distance. Taking with it possibly her only way to failure. She felt a slight jab where her heart should be.
So this is what that sappy heartache feels like, she thought.
Not being the religious sort at all, for the first time she whispered something that sort of resembled a flicker of a prayer. She loved him, she couldn’t lie.
AVY COMMENTS:
Hmm, so we have some talent here. The story has great flow. Nice twist.
But it cannot be your sci-fi story, can it? Let the sci-fi story be your challenge to actually flesh out characters, plot, conflict, sub-plot, denouement. Let’s see where it goes.
Good luck.
She was walking down the road. Sure long and quick strides. Her boots clicked smartly with every step. Anyone who saw her couldn’t help but take a second look. Men and women, alike. They wouldn’t call her beautiful, but there was something about her. Attractive would be a better word. Tall, she looked straight ahead as she walked, not giving away the slightest expression on her face. It might as well have been chiselled out of ice, her eyes - the colour of frozen water. Her mind was still white hot with anger, fury and maybe just a hint of guilt.
This is exactly why she didn’t mix her professional life with her personal one. There were times, when things got messed up and then you had to choose. She had worked hard to get to where she was today; she was respected by men and women alike. She was extremely proud of her position. In her field of work, that was a great achievement.
What a bad idea this was. I shouldn’t have agreed to start with. God dammit! Him and his silly reasoning skills, he might as well have been on his knees begging. Definitely one of the weakest moments in my life.
She shuddered.
Never again! Never ever again.
With a shake of her head, she strode on.
Suddenly his mind was filled with images, mostly of her. Her lovely red hair, how smoothly his hands would weave through those lustrous tresses. Her light blue eyes, the colour of the bright blue sky on a white wintery day. The way she looked when he knew he had struck gold at work. She loved a job well done. All hell broke loose when he’d messed up... He loved her so much. If only he hadn’t made that one mistake. Nothing could calm her down when she turned cold and furious. He was only human. Right? She would forgive him, he was sure of that. Why couldn’t she see that they had had something precious? Why did she have to be like this?
The images were changing rapidly now. Her swanky house that doubled as her office headquarters, the different kinds of people he had to deal with day in, day out. The places he had visited in the past five years, the tiniest joys and the lowest sorrows.
Why now? Why suddenly? What’s happening to me?
For the first time since he’d been in this state, he opened his eyes. It seemed like he was in the middle of nowhere. There was complete darkness. As he tried to look around, he noticed the far off flickers of light. They weren’t very large from what he could see. All dots and flashes. He had no clue of what or where he was. He could have been at the bottom of a dumpster for all he knew, except for those lights. What for heaven’s sake were they?! They kept flashing in his eyes now, blinding him and increasing the pounding in his head.
As much as she tried, she couldn’t lock away that teeny bit of guilt that kept gnawing at her and into her box of unnecessary feelings. She kept thinking of whether she had done the right thing. At least she hadn’t killed him. If he died now, it wouldn’t be her fault. Hopefully he’d know what was good for him, come to his senses soon enough, run away from the train tracks and never contact her again! That is what she needed. All she wanted was to be able to concentrate on work without any sort of distractions. No matter how small.
If only he hadn’t messed up. She would not let it happen again. She swore under her breath. Thankfully her cover hadn’t been completely blown. She had an immaculate record. Her plan was almost fool proof, except for a single minor glitch. But now she had gotten rid of that too. The police would have found her if it had continued. She knew that much. It would have been way too easy for them. She had built her dark empire off the radar, and she had to keep it that way.
Sorry darling, I did love you. I just love me more.
This was the only way to go.
In the distance, the place from where she’d been hurriedly walking away, she heard a train blow it’s horn as it swooshed on moving further into the distance. Taking with it possibly her only way to failure. She felt a slight jab where her heart should be.
So this is what that sappy heartache feels like, she thought.
Not being the religious sort at all, for the first time she whispered something that sort of resembled a flicker of a prayer. She loved him, she couldn’t lie.
AVY COMMENTS:
Hmm, so we have some talent here. The story has great flow. Nice twist.
But it cannot be your sci-fi story, can it? Let the sci-fi story be your challenge to actually flesh out characters, plot, conflict, sub-plot, denouement. Let’s see where it goes.
Good luck.
A TIMELESS KNOWING - MAHIMA PUSHKARNA
It was a primitive race that found it's heat in the lava-like deliquescent metal and its breath in a solar winter. Mankind had gone though one complete Darwinian cycle, leaving one sole survivor on Earth. The concept of fire was as alien as the understanding of the erratic behavior of the sky and the land and the wind and the rain. Every single day the land became hotter and the sky colder, and every day was longer than the previous. No such thing as paranoia existed anymore; it had given way to hysteria, and that had slowly faded into a curiosity of what would happen next.
A small rock fired past me and straight into what used to be Africa. Zimbabwe was reduced to, if possible, more fused metal and radiations. Some debris broke off the continent and floated into a warped orbit around earth. I turned and continued searching for an approximation of my earth-home and scanning for any glowing verterenoscere. I, R4P70R-v2 am one of the three successes of the Eden Capsule. When the world as we knew it was coming to an end, I was volunteered to be a part of the capsule. One man, one woman, and two children would be exposed to selective radiation mutation that would destroy their natural DNA, and capacitate the body to produce engineered DNA. DNA that would comprise of all the knowledge in the world and all the virtues of the world and everything that was positive about each human being.
The process would have seen an intensive study of each individual possible and would have spanned overer close to a century.The atmosphere had been diminishing at a constant rate, and exposure to the harsh heat of the sun had been growing. After 300 solar years of it, a sudden cloud cover replaced the bright harsh sun for a year. Little did we know that this was the start of our sun dying. We had no atmosphere to protect us, and our only source of energy was consuming us. I woke up one morning in the radiation room which was fondly called the "Garden". 28 hours later, four capsules were launched into space. The last thing I can remember, a blue and brown planet erupting into flames. Over eight centuries later, I'm still wandering in space hoping to find the other three capsules of the Garden of Eden while faithfully going about the duties etched into my synthetic genes. A familiar patch in the clouds appeared- a lunar verterenoscere. Mankind on earth had discovered a little bit more about itself. I focused and my eyes zoomed in towards the glowing verterenoscere. Relief. I had been wondering how long they would take to discover it. Recording and Documentation. Man would now develop and preserve a first-hand account of the afterlife of his kind. I hit the twelfth and last green panel; the capsule started processing the data being sent by the verterenoscere. Name. Age. Sex. I don't know what that is but I know I am human and I just learned how to speak and write for others. I came across another big green thing that was glowing pink around it. I placed my hand where it fit, and just like the others, saw a big green moon in the sky glow with a pink aura around it. And now I know how to speak and write and everybody around me understands me. It’s miraculous, and we need to go hunting for more greens. I found another one some time ago, and ever since I have been able to gather and hunt down food and fix myself when the red oozes and I feel funny and happy when I see different humans. Not all, some I feel angry and irritated at. These greens are good, another human who was different from all other humans, told me. There will be twelve greens but the thirteenth green will not be green or good. I was told to stay away from the white in the non-green-green. I'm not sure what twelve or thirteen is but I do want to know. There was another green that only half green. Ever since I pressed that green I need to organize everything. I need to create some system by which I can know. By which I can arrange, I can know. But not all humans understood when I pressed it. Only some of us did. I did not like it. I was different. It made us all different. I still do not understand why. I was thinking about it too much, which was a bad thing to do because I fell into a hole and I kept on falling. I fell down into a red place. It was cold and nice not like above the hole. The red place had small black things, doing a tribal dance. The things had •|•|•|•|•|•| legs and were very very small. Next to them I saw the fitting place. Only it was white. I looked up at the hole before I pressed it, and I saw some kind of green. "I really like green", I thought while putting my hand. "But this is a not-green-green." A moment later I realized my mistake and it was too late. It made us all different. I still do not understand why. I was thinking about it too much, which was a bad thing to do because I fell into a hole and I kept on falling. (926 words)
AVY COMMENTS:
I feel that your writing began fantastically well but as it progressed it regressed.
This is a brilliant story idea.
Develop this by ironing out all the confusions and contradictions into your final story.
You can develop this as your final story.
A small rock fired past me and straight into what used to be Africa. Zimbabwe was reduced to, if possible, more fused metal and radiations. Some debris broke off the continent and floated into a warped orbit around earth. I turned and continued searching for an approximation of my earth-home and scanning for any glowing verterenoscere. I, R4P70R-v2 am one of the three successes of the Eden Capsule. When the world as we knew it was coming to an end, I was volunteered to be a part of the capsule. One man, one woman, and two children would be exposed to selective radiation mutation that would destroy their natural DNA, and capacitate the body to produce engineered DNA. DNA that would comprise of all the knowledge in the world and all the virtues of the world and everything that was positive about each human being.
The process would have seen an intensive study of each individual possible and would have spanned overer close to a century.The atmosphere had been diminishing at a constant rate, and exposure to the harsh heat of the sun had been growing. After 300 solar years of it, a sudden cloud cover replaced the bright harsh sun for a year. Little did we know that this was the start of our sun dying. We had no atmosphere to protect us, and our only source of energy was consuming us. I woke up one morning in the radiation room which was fondly called the "Garden". 28 hours later, four capsules were launched into space. The last thing I can remember, a blue and brown planet erupting into flames. Over eight centuries later, I'm still wandering in space hoping to find the other three capsules of the Garden of Eden while faithfully going about the duties etched into my synthetic genes. A familiar patch in the clouds appeared- a lunar verterenoscere. Mankind on earth had discovered a little bit more about itself. I focused and my eyes zoomed in towards the glowing verterenoscere. Relief. I had been wondering how long they would take to discover it. Recording and Documentation. Man would now develop and preserve a first-hand account of the afterlife of his kind. I hit the twelfth and last green panel; the capsule started processing the data being sent by the verterenoscere. Name. Age. Sex. I don't know what that is but I know I am human and I just learned how to speak and write for others. I came across another big green thing that was glowing pink around it. I placed my hand where it fit, and just like the others, saw a big green moon in the sky glow with a pink aura around it. And now I know how to speak and write and everybody around me understands me. It’s miraculous, and we need to go hunting for more greens. I found another one some time ago, and ever since I have been able to gather and hunt down food and fix myself when the red oozes and I feel funny and happy when I see different humans. Not all, some I feel angry and irritated at. These greens are good, another human who was different from all other humans, told me. There will be twelve greens but the thirteenth green will not be green or good. I was told to stay away from the white in the non-green-green. I'm not sure what twelve or thirteen is but I do want to know. There was another green that only half green. Ever since I pressed that green I need to organize everything. I need to create some system by which I can know. By which I can arrange, I can know. But not all humans understood when I pressed it. Only some of us did. I did not like it. I was different. It made us all different. I still do not understand why. I was thinking about it too much, which was a bad thing to do because I fell into a hole and I kept on falling. I fell down into a red place. It was cold and nice not like above the hole. The red place had small black things, doing a tribal dance. The things had •|•|•|•|•|•| legs and were very very small. Next to them I saw the fitting place. Only it was white. I looked up at the hole before I pressed it, and I saw some kind of green. "I really like green", I thought while putting my hand. "But this is a not-green-green." A moment later I realized my mistake and it was too late. It made us all different. I still do not understand why. I was thinking about it too much, which was a bad thing to do because I fell into a hole and I kept on falling. (926 words)
AVY COMMENTS:
I feel that your writing began fantastically well but as it progressed it regressed.
This is a brilliant story idea.
Develop this by ironing out all the confusions and contradictions into your final story.
You can develop this as your final story.
THE BOX - DIVYA GAITONDE
‘Gift wrapped’, she thought to herself. She looked out of the window into the startling blue sky. ‘How thoughtful, but of whom? Me? Did I do this to myself?’ Memory is a fickle thing. ‘Too smart for myself’, she sighed.
*Sigh* It slipped from her into the night air.
Outside, everything seemed calm. The horizon was far out in the distance, disguised as a thin line separating the sky from land, separating the land from the sea. Boundaries, like scars.
It was time.
With a whirr everything shifted. The sky, land and sea reshuffled themselves like a jackpot machine set in motion. As they settled down in a new combination, she held her breath in anticipation.
Ting! A smile. It worked like clockwork, every time. The dust settled. It always did. A jigsaw puzzle completed well in time. It had become a ritual for her now, to see the start of a new day.
Playing god. She was everywhere but still nowhere. The Santa Claus and the Wizard of Oz. Then she disappeared into someone less universal. Then she became me.
It might have been irritating, it was sometimes. Not today. Today, I pitied her. I had myself, she couldn’t say the same. How could you trust yourself if you were capable of fooling yourself? And successfully at that!
She had sent herself a box. She knew she would resist the box when she got it. . So, she had erased it from her own memory. What a fix she had gotten herself into! If she knew what was in it, she would never have opened it. If she opened it, she would be stuck for eternity. Eternity was a long time.
Enough of her, I had a life of my own to live. And so, I forgot about her, till I saw the box.
The box, the box, her box.
‘I’m yours’, it said to me.
‘Huh? But that’s not possible.’ ‘This goes against the rules.’
Thank god for rules! Or must I thank her? How does one function without rules and guidelines? It is vital is it not? Even if they don’t exist we do tend to make them up.
The curtains flickered. Or was it the light that flickered that made the curtains do the same?
All I knew was that it wasn’t mine.
The dilemma was running around in circles and dragging me with it. It was suffocating and releasing at the same time. It meant that I cared enough, or that she cared enough now that we had established our differences. Being two people is never easy. So she believed that it was the best she could do. It still choked though. It brought up unpleasant memories of dusty gulps of air and dirty nails. Like war, but only in your head; exclusively, for the mind. The outside was such a different world: Pleasant and almost sweet smelling. But some dourness from the mind had seeped out. There were always cracks. The system was such.
Oh dear, what can the matter be? The problem’s right over the chair. It sat across the room looking sheepishly at me. We both knew it was time. A brown box made of corrugated sheet, the wrapping had long since disappeared. What was in it? Pandora’s Box had happy things in it as well, didn’t it? Maybe it sensed my thoughts, maybe it didn’t, but it was more excited than it was a few moments earlier. My soul mate! What a treacherous word. It loathingly sat. I hate it! I hate it! The very idea of it! Life does not revolve around love, does it? At least not for me it didn’t.
A hand came out of it and held mine. Fine then, no more fighting. But I knew I would. That was just it. Maybe I could buy some more time. I could convince. Deep inside, she knew there was no going back.
AVY COMMENTS:
It’s got a great feel and I like the interplay between the two characters who are one, rite?
However, the shift between personae and thing is kind of disconcerting and makes it tough to catch.
It’s good but again, the end is kind of weak. I think if it ends at “A hand came out of it and held mine.”, it would be great.
Otherwise, you need to give the reader some clue as to why you end it the way you have done.
More clarity would help.
*Sigh* It slipped from her into the night air.
Outside, everything seemed calm. The horizon was far out in the distance, disguised as a thin line separating the sky from land, separating the land from the sea. Boundaries, like scars.
It was time.
With a whirr everything shifted. The sky, land and sea reshuffled themselves like a jackpot machine set in motion. As they settled down in a new combination, she held her breath in anticipation.
Ting! A smile. It worked like clockwork, every time. The dust settled. It always did. A jigsaw puzzle completed well in time. It had become a ritual for her now, to see the start of a new day.
Playing god. She was everywhere but still nowhere. The Santa Claus and the Wizard of Oz. Then she disappeared into someone less universal. Then she became me.
It might have been irritating, it was sometimes. Not today. Today, I pitied her. I had myself, she couldn’t say the same. How could you trust yourself if you were capable of fooling yourself? And successfully at that!
She had sent herself a box. She knew she would resist the box when she got it. . So, she had erased it from her own memory. What a fix she had gotten herself into! If she knew what was in it, she would never have opened it. If she opened it, she would be stuck for eternity. Eternity was a long time.
Enough of her, I had a life of my own to live. And so, I forgot about her, till I saw the box.
The box, the box, her box.
‘I’m yours’, it said to me.
‘Huh? But that’s not possible.’ ‘This goes against the rules.’
Thank god for rules! Or must I thank her? How does one function without rules and guidelines? It is vital is it not? Even if they don’t exist we do tend to make them up.
The curtains flickered. Or was it the light that flickered that made the curtains do the same?
All I knew was that it wasn’t mine.
The dilemma was running around in circles and dragging me with it. It was suffocating and releasing at the same time. It meant that I cared enough, or that she cared enough now that we had established our differences. Being two people is never easy. So she believed that it was the best she could do. It still choked though. It brought up unpleasant memories of dusty gulps of air and dirty nails. Like war, but only in your head; exclusively, for the mind. The outside was such a different world: Pleasant and almost sweet smelling. But some dourness from the mind had seeped out. There were always cracks. The system was such.
Oh dear, what can the matter be? The problem’s right over the chair. It sat across the room looking sheepishly at me. We both knew it was time. A brown box made of corrugated sheet, the wrapping had long since disappeared. What was in it? Pandora’s Box had happy things in it as well, didn’t it? Maybe it sensed my thoughts, maybe it didn’t, but it was more excited than it was a few moments earlier. My soul mate! What a treacherous word. It loathingly sat. I hate it! I hate it! The very idea of it! Life does not revolve around love, does it? At least not for me it didn’t.
A hand came out of it and held mine. Fine then, no more fighting. But I knew I would. That was just it. Maybe I could buy some more time. I could convince. Deep inside, she knew there was no going back.
AVY COMMENTS:
It’s got a great feel and I like the interplay between the two characters who are one, rite?
However, the shift between personae and thing is kind of disconcerting and makes it tough to catch.
It’s good but again, the end is kind of weak. I think if it ends at “A hand came out of it and held mine.”, it would be great.
Otherwise, you need to give the reader some clue as to why you end it the way you have done.
More clarity would help.
CLEAN UP - DIGBEJOY GHOSH
The room lies empty in the dark, a diffuse glow filtering through the window. The old bed in the corner covered by pale sheets seems damp at night. In a chair across the room he lies sunken in gloom. A bead of sweat runs down his forehead and falls onto his lap. The book he was reading stays near his feet where he dropped it three hours ago, its pages sometimes fluttering in the draft that blows periodically under the door.
His face begins to contort suddenly. His brows knit into a frown, his closed eyes twitch rapidly.
“It’s coming for me! I know it is. I can feel it in my chest. In every pulse that beats in my veins. The lump in my throat forces its way upwards and all I can do to force it down is grind my teeth. I can't feel my legs anymore, don't know how long I've crouched next to the bed. Too afraid to get up and run. What’s the use anyway? There is nowhere that it won’t find me. Nowhere I can hide. It is all powerful, all consuming. The evil that’s inside it is pure, untainted by human emotion. It’s precision deadly.
It approaches now.”
She tries hard not to show it. That anger that swells in her guts. You can tell by the way she clenches her fist and unclenches it suddenly when she smiles at you. She turns paler than she already is, her sharp nose cutting an angry line across her thin face. With her hair pulled back tightly, her expressions appear even more pronounced. The eyebrows twitch a little when she speaks, with all the calm of a storm in the sea. As she leans on the table in front of her, it tilts a little and then wobbles some.
The rain begins to fall suddenly. Large isolated drops at first, then a complete blanket that covers the streets in grey. She doesn't know what to do. She looks for shelter, first left, then right. For as far as she can see there are buildings with no way of entering them. She begins to run anyway, as if that would help in any way. It only makes things worse. The water stings her eyes, gets in her nose and flattens her hair against her head. The loose shirt is drenched almost instantly clinging to her skin like glue. Fighting to ignore all this, she keeps running. A large puddle looms up ahead. As she tries avoid it, her foot catches a stray branch and she falls with a large splash onto the street, which looks more like a stream now. Covered in mud, she picks herself up.
AVY COMMENTS:
While the writing itself is good and descriptive and also emotive, what do you think is the main problem with this piece which does not allow it to actually become a short story?
The two characters – what is their relationship. There are moods and actions for each, but how do you make them come together?
It it is there in the story, I cannot recognize it. Can you show me what is really going on?
What is hunting the guy? Why is she running? Where do the meet and how? That would be your plot.
His face begins to contort suddenly. His brows knit into a frown, his closed eyes twitch rapidly.
“It’s coming for me! I know it is. I can feel it in my chest. In every pulse that beats in my veins. The lump in my throat forces its way upwards and all I can do to force it down is grind my teeth. I can't feel my legs anymore, don't know how long I've crouched next to the bed. Too afraid to get up and run. What’s the use anyway? There is nowhere that it won’t find me. Nowhere I can hide. It is all powerful, all consuming. The evil that’s inside it is pure, untainted by human emotion. It’s precision deadly.
It approaches now.”
She tries hard not to show it. That anger that swells in her guts. You can tell by the way she clenches her fist and unclenches it suddenly when she smiles at you. She turns paler than she already is, her sharp nose cutting an angry line across her thin face. With her hair pulled back tightly, her expressions appear even more pronounced. The eyebrows twitch a little when she speaks, with all the calm of a storm in the sea. As she leans on the table in front of her, it tilts a little and then wobbles some.
The rain begins to fall suddenly. Large isolated drops at first, then a complete blanket that covers the streets in grey. She doesn't know what to do. She looks for shelter, first left, then right. For as far as she can see there are buildings with no way of entering them. She begins to run anyway, as if that would help in any way. It only makes things worse. The water stings her eyes, gets in her nose and flattens her hair against her head. The loose shirt is drenched almost instantly clinging to her skin like glue. Fighting to ignore all this, she keeps running. A large puddle looms up ahead. As she tries avoid it, her foot catches a stray branch and she falls with a large splash onto the street, which looks more like a stream now. Covered in mud, she picks herself up.
AVY COMMENTS:
While the writing itself is good and descriptive and also emotive, what do you think is the main problem with this piece which does not allow it to actually become a short story?
The two characters – what is their relationship. There are moods and actions for each, but how do you make them come together?
It it is there in the story, I cannot recognize it. Can you show me what is really going on?
What is hunting the guy? Why is she running? Where do the meet and how? That would be your plot.
THE COMPLEX - DEVASHISH
It is day and the sun shines down, hot, onto the neighborhood. But even under the brightest of lights the complex is a fractal of itself. It was a layout with a network of lanes, the kind of structure they preferred these days which was quite unlike back then when they built as and where they went (to conquer). Now they planned out space in order to optimize it. Maps started looking like mazes and shortly everything looked all the same.
People began to get lost. There were no landmarks.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going? Should I turn left or go straight? Should I follow the man before me or should I follow my own instincts? I don’t know where I’m headed and it unnerves me. I have never felt this feeling before. Nobody recognizes me, takes any notice, or pays heed to me. Where have I come to?
She walks with her head high; her pointy shoes cut people out of her way as she walks towards her car. The address is on the paper that 3.3 had given her in her hand for her regular site visit.
She drives through the crowded streets further away from her office, which she yearns to get back to. Piles of uncategorized projects lie in her cabinet which 3.2 was quick to say he’d take care of. The papers that 3 had to file were still not on her table when she left.
“He should pray to god he gets them there.“
She was the end-all of the company. She’d made her way up as high as anyone could’ve hoped to. She’d always known what she was doing and what she wanted no matter who those pointy shoes had to impale. It was her confidence, and that skirt that winked its way past everyone. She walked through the office as though she owned everyone in it. People around her were all lesser than the standard, with an opinion and a say that she governed. Where had she come from? Who helped her establish such authority? They did… or at least to some extent.
She pulls over at the entrance to what seems to be a residential complex. She removes her sunglasses and perches them high on her head. Her eyes study the space for a minute as though they were mapping her next move through this unfamiliar territory. She gets out of the car.
There are people walking about in front of her. Each of them walks a few steps and stops. They look around, left, right, and then at their feet. They scratch their heads, mutter to themselves and look at other people around them helplessly. They are sweaty, clumsy and unsure.
She moves out into the complex, the address in her hand she walks down the road. House number 55, 56, 57, 58…. She needed number 62. She turns right as the road curves. House number 59, 60, 61, 55, 56, 57, 58… and she’s back to where she started.
She can see her car parked outside the entrance. She looks around at the other people. A man walks by her in a yellow shirt. “Hey you! In the yellow…” She calls out but he pays no attention. “HEY!” He almost looks back at her. A fat man walks out from the neighboring lane all sweaty and frantic. His lower lip is quivering. She goes to him but he doesn’t see her either. She snaps her fingers in his face but he continues to look bewildered.
“Excuse me..” she says and suddenly his eyes fix upon hers.
She stumbles.
They are the most brilliant green. He suddenly looks calmer.
He asks her “Could you be (he pauses) …ever so kind as to (pauses gain) …help me find a certain house number 57?”
“Yes” she answers uncertainly. “It’s back that way.”
“Oh, alright.” ,“Thank you… umm… very much” and with that he scratches his head and walks off to where her hand was still pointed.
But what was she supposed to do now? Should she follow the person in front of her or her own instincts? She didn’t know where she was headed and it unnerved her. She had never felt this before. Nobody recognized her or took any notice. Where had she come to?
And why were there no landmarks?!
Something she could name more than just numbers.
What was this place? Every house looked the same? Everybody looked at the houses that looked the same and soon the numbers, the roads, the people, the houses and the entire landscape seemed to be boxing her in. Her head began to swoon under the scorching sun and the sweat got into her eyes and blurred her vision. The houses began to move and soon the entire neighborhood seemed to have repositioned itself.
Everybody reacted the same way around her. “Help us, please!” they cried. And through the sweat and the tears and the people she saw her car but it seemed to have lost its shine. She ambled toward it. Fumbled with the keys. Opened the car door and drove off.
She tries to take her mind off her experience as she drives.
“Think about work” she tells herself.
“Think about the files on your table!
Think about who was supposed to have the projects in your cabinet filed and ready…
Think about him.
Think about 3 point… 3 point… 3 point who?!
WHAT IS HIS NAME?!
AVY COMMENTS:
This story also has the possibility of becoming a great sci-fi story dealing with both memory (landmarks) and their juxtapositioning/relationship with outer landmarks.
Push it into that space.
There are contradictions within your narrative. The plot is there but you have to flesh it out.
There is a need for some sort of history as to the need for and creation of such a landscape without landmarks. But it raises too many questions – do people ever venture out for fear of losing themselves? What sort of people venture out? Why did she have to get into this mess? What was she looking for? Who runs these landscapes/housing colonies? What do they get out of all this? Etc etc.
Flesh it all out – your story is there and is ready to be revealed – work on it. Memory, mnemonics, control through flattened landscapes – etc – these are the elements of your tale. Work it out.
People began to get lost. There were no landmarks.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going? Should I turn left or go straight? Should I follow the man before me or should I follow my own instincts? I don’t know where I’m headed and it unnerves me. I have never felt this feeling before. Nobody recognizes me, takes any notice, or pays heed to me. Where have I come to?
She walks with her head high; her pointy shoes cut people out of her way as she walks towards her car. The address is on the paper that 3.3 had given her in her hand for her regular site visit.
She drives through the crowded streets further away from her office, which she yearns to get back to. Piles of uncategorized projects lie in her cabinet which 3.2 was quick to say he’d take care of. The papers that 3 had to file were still not on her table when she left.
“He should pray to god he gets them there.“
She was the end-all of the company. She’d made her way up as high as anyone could’ve hoped to. She’d always known what she was doing and what she wanted no matter who those pointy shoes had to impale. It was her confidence, and that skirt that winked its way past everyone. She walked through the office as though she owned everyone in it. People around her were all lesser than the standard, with an opinion and a say that she governed. Where had she come from? Who helped her establish such authority? They did… or at least to some extent.
She pulls over at the entrance to what seems to be a residential complex. She removes her sunglasses and perches them high on her head. Her eyes study the space for a minute as though they were mapping her next move through this unfamiliar territory. She gets out of the car.
There are people walking about in front of her. Each of them walks a few steps and stops. They look around, left, right, and then at their feet. They scratch their heads, mutter to themselves and look at other people around them helplessly. They are sweaty, clumsy and unsure.
She moves out into the complex, the address in her hand she walks down the road. House number 55, 56, 57, 58…. She needed number 62. She turns right as the road curves. House number 59, 60, 61, 55, 56, 57, 58… and she’s back to where she started.
She can see her car parked outside the entrance. She looks around at the other people. A man walks by her in a yellow shirt. “Hey you! In the yellow…” She calls out but he pays no attention. “HEY!” He almost looks back at her. A fat man walks out from the neighboring lane all sweaty and frantic. His lower lip is quivering. She goes to him but he doesn’t see her either. She snaps her fingers in his face but he continues to look bewildered.
“Excuse me..” she says and suddenly his eyes fix upon hers.
She stumbles.
They are the most brilliant green. He suddenly looks calmer.
He asks her “Could you be (he pauses) …ever so kind as to (pauses gain) …help me find a certain house number 57?”
“Yes” she answers uncertainly. “It’s back that way.”
“Oh, alright.” ,“Thank you… umm… very much” and with that he scratches his head and walks off to where her hand was still pointed.
But what was she supposed to do now? Should she follow the person in front of her or her own instincts? She didn’t know where she was headed and it unnerved her. She had never felt this before. Nobody recognized her or took any notice. Where had she come to?
And why were there no landmarks?!
Something she could name more than just numbers.
What was this place? Every house looked the same? Everybody looked at the houses that looked the same and soon the numbers, the roads, the people, the houses and the entire landscape seemed to be boxing her in. Her head began to swoon under the scorching sun and the sweat got into her eyes and blurred her vision. The houses began to move and soon the entire neighborhood seemed to have repositioned itself.
Everybody reacted the same way around her. “Help us, please!” they cried. And through the sweat and the tears and the people she saw her car but it seemed to have lost its shine. She ambled toward it. Fumbled with the keys. Opened the car door and drove off.
She tries to take her mind off her experience as she drives.
“Think about work” she tells herself.
“Think about the files on your table!
Think about who was supposed to have the projects in your cabinet filed and ready…
Think about him.
Think about 3 point… 3 point… 3 point who?!
WHAT IS HIS NAME?!
AVY COMMENTS:
This story also has the possibility of becoming a great sci-fi story dealing with both memory (landmarks) and their juxtapositioning/relationship with outer landmarks.
Push it into that space.
There are contradictions within your narrative. The plot is there but you have to flesh it out.
There is a need for some sort of history as to the need for and creation of such a landscape without landmarks. But it raises too many questions – do people ever venture out for fear of losing themselves? What sort of people venture out? Why did she have to get into this mess? What was she looking for? Who runs these landscapes/housing colonies? What do they get out of all this? Etc etc.
Flesh it all out – your story is there and is ready to be revealed – work on it. Memory, mnemonics, control through flattened landscapes – etc – these are the elements of your tale. Work it out.
MUM'S THE WORD - BHARAT HARIDAS
The green room was small. There was really no need for a green room. He wanted to step out. There was a huge crowd waiting for him. He didn’t try to recognize thE feeling. He became more aware of himself and felt the room restricting his flow of thoughts, or was it the strain that his body and brain cells had accumulated so far. He gave a monotonous voice command; his eyes blinked rapidly and closed.
He thought about the last few times he had spoken to that camera, in his own office, from this chair. But then he was only aware of the main receptors that logged into the system to tune into his broadcast. The network security agent utilized most of the computation power to cut public access. There were countless attacks which jammed many hubs. But it didn’t change anything as usual. Somehow he never expected anything.
But today was a different case all together. These thoughts didn’t stay inside for a long time, they just flowed into one another but not arbitrarily as in a day dream. Instead, they moved with a rare clarity and passed on without any further evaluation or emotion . There were no mental notes or pauses in his flow. He repeated the voice command and bit his tongue. That sensation was very important to him.
He remembered his friend who kept tuning into the broadcast.
“Mr. Livingstone, ha ha just joking, your silence is killing me, the broadcast is losing shape, don’t become unfamiliar with the language we speak”.
Someone knocked twice on the door and announced “Uh..uh another 5 mins, and we are on”.
The voice sounded quite hesitant in the beginning. He was used to this by now, but never fully understood the cause. He remembered that experiment where he tuned into fellow members at the lab. That fraction of time was not easy to crack and the code used to crash. Even the storage device refused to record continuously; that pause always lacked resolution. But this wasn’t the only time the storage device refused to show up the data stream.
There were still some of them floating around the underground market. He had never supported the commercial launch. The majority of the council had played it safe. There were no strong opinions nor opposition. Was it some form of censorship or had the representative body become obsolete with the fragmentation? This question was very important to him today.
He could hear a faint humming of the crowd assembling with accompanying echoes that spread throughout the atrium. He quickly scanned the edge of the arm-rest with his cold and shriveled fingers. As the door opened he exhaled causing a small patch on the transparent (what??). The chair moved smoothly on the floor and found its way to the balcony which cantilevered into the main atrium. That movement into a sudden expanse of space and increase in light did not produce any expected feeling of splendor.
He couldn’t wait any longer. His fingers gripped the arm rest tightly.
“To this day, I count two hundred and fifty years and not a single birthday.”
The audience broke into a meek laughter, but he continued “When the Bill of Accumulated Learning was passed I volunteered without giving it much thought. There was a sense of excitement which I can recall without much affinity….”
Every person assembled in the atrium were evenly lit by the skylight 500 meters above . He was known to start without an introduction and it they considered it a joke and a symptom of his accumulated ego. But nobody remembered that peculiar mannerism today. He slowly moved out of the shadow which fell on the platform while he continued speaking. The audience sheepishly pointed towards the cantilever from all directions and a few eyes still searched the expansive interior surface of this renowned building for him.
No one was surprised when they noticed how his lips remained sealed.
Avy comments:
I think there is much here that can be fleshed out into a very powerful sci-fi story. You can take this forward into a tight powerful story.
You have to build the central character better, give him a better history that will lead the reader to an understanding of the denoument.
The first part of it is kind of confusing – if you read Alannah’s story you will find that the strange sc i-fi system has some sort of explanation that satisfies the reader. I feel you are not giving me enough to feel that I am inside your system.
The transition from that broadcast scenario to the people coming into the atrium etc is fine. But again it is kind of vague as to why he chooses to remain silent, his longevity etc.
The passing mention to the bill of accumulated learning or the notion of the accumulated ego, what drives him to silence etc, is vague.
Again, why the green room? If it has some significance, what is it?
Tease out the central plot, and the sub-plot. What is the dilemma that plagues the central character?
There is a great story here – DIG IT OUT, FLESH IT OUT, CONCRETISE IT.
He thought about the last few times he had spoken to that camera, in his own office, from this chair. But then he was only aware of the main receptors that logged into the system to tune into his broadcast. The network security agent utilized most of the computation power to cut public access. There were countless attacks which jammed many hubs. But it didn’t change anything as usual. Somehow he never expected anything.
But today was a different case all together. These thoughts didn’t stay inside for a long time, they just flowed into one another but not arbitrarily as in a day dream. Instead, they moved with a rare clarity and passed on without any further evaluation or emotion . There were no mental notes or pauses in his flow. He repeated the voice command and bit his tongue. That sensation was very important to him.
He remembered his friend who kept tuning into the broadcast.
“Mr. Livingstone, ha ha just joking, your silence is killing me, the broadcast is losing shape, don’t become unfamiliar with the language we speak”.
Someone knocked twice on the door and announced “Uh..uh another 5 mins, and we are on”.
The voice sounded quite hesitant in the beginning. He was used to this by now, but never fully understood the cause. He remembered that experiment where he tuned into fellow members at the lab. That fraction of time was not easy to crack and the code used to crash. Even the storage device refused to record continuously; that pause always lacked resolution. But this wasn’t the only time the storage device refused to show up the data stream.
There were still some of them floating around the underground market. He had never supported the commercial launch. The majority of the council had played it safe. There were no strong opinions nor opposition. Was it some form of censorship or had the representative body become obsolete with the fragmentation? This question was very important to him today.
He could hear a faint humming of the crowd assembling with accompanying echoes that spread throughout the atrium. He quickly scanned the edge of the arm-rest with his cold and shriveled fingers. As the door opened he exhaled causing a small patch on the transparent (what??). The chair moved smoothly on the floor and found its way to the balcony which cantilevered into the main atrium. That movement into a sudden expanse of space and increase in light did not produce any expected feeling of splendor.
He couldn’t wait any longer. His fingers gripped the arm rest tightly.
“To this day, I count two hundred and fifty years and not a single birthday.”
The audience broke into a meek laughter, but he continued “When the Bill of Accumulated Learning was passed I volunteered without giving it much thought. There was a sense of excitement which I can recall without much affinity….”
Every person assembled in the atrium were evenly lit by the skylight 500 meters above . He was known to start without an introduction and it they considered it a joke and a symptom of his accumulated ego. But nobody remembered that peculiar mannerism today. He slowly moved out of the shadow which fell on the platform while he continued speaking. The audience sheepishly pointed towards the cantilever from all directions and a few eyes still searched the expansive interior surface of this renowned building for him.
No one was surprised when they noticed how his lips remained sealed.
Avy comments:
I think there is much here that can be fleshed out into a very powerful sci-fi story. You can take this forward into a tight powerful story.
You have to build the central character better, give him a better history that will lead the reader to an understanding of the denoument.
The first part of it is kind of confusing – if you read Alannah’s story you will find that the strange sc i-fi system has some sort of explanation that satisfies the reader. I feel you are not giving me enough to feel that I am inside your system.
The transition from that broadcast scenario to the people coming into the atrium etc is fine. But again it is kind of vague as to why he chooses to remain silent, his longevity etc.
The passing mention to the bill of accumulated learning or the notion of the accumulated ego, what drives him to silence etc, is vague.
Again, why the green room? If it has some significance, what is it?
Tease out the central plot, and the sub-plot. What is the dilemma that plagues the central character?
There is a great story here – DIG IT OUT, FLESH IT OUT, CONCRETISE IT.
THE THIN LINE ABOVE THE HORIZON - BHARAT CHAUHAN
The rain was falling but only a little. The clouds came and spat at the earth in mockery. What was falling from the sky was only a hint of water but never a full shower. It didn’t do much good and only made the earth a little more thirsty and impatient.
Even at this time of the night, he could feel the heat escaping the earth. It was like touching a sick person. He thought he could hear the heat radiating from the ground. What it sounded like he couldn’t explain, even to himself, but he was sure he could hear it.
He picked up his phone and dialed a number. She still wasn’t taking his calls. He threw his phone at the wall and it broke into pieces. He had had enough. He picked up the razor blade and cut himself across the arm and then flung the blade away as well. Every time he called her, he would make a cut somewhere on his body. He had called her thirty seven times tonight.
He wondered what she could be doing that she wouldn’t answer even one his calls. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t pick up his calls and that was that. After he had broken up with her, they had decided to stay in touch at least till his experiment was over. He didn’t want to do so but she had insisted on talking to him at least once a week. In the beginning he had not taken her calls and whenever he had, he had kept it as short as possible. He didn’t need any news or gossip about anyone and since he had decided to lock himself up away from everything for a long time he didn’t really have anything to talk about except for the story that he wanted this experience to bring out. Not much was happening on that end either.
Maybe she had lost her phone but that wasn’t possible. He had been trying to call her for the past three weeks now without success. She would have surely gotten her number blocked by now or at least told him about it if that was the case. Or maybe she had died in an accident and her phone was still working but three weeks is long enough for a phone to discharge. Somewhere he hoped that she was dead. At least that would explain something – give his unanswered calls some sort of logic.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to him anymore and that thought drove him insane. She knew what he was going through even though he had never tried to show it in his calls. She knew that he had locked himself out from everything in this little house for six months. Four months had passed by now and he hadn’t talked to her in almost a month.
He was remembering how this damned experiment came to be. Almost a year ago, he was struggling with writing his new book. He had spent three months to find the right story but it didn’t come to him. At first he thought it was just a writer’s block and would pass by in some time but that blankness stayed. He was just simply out of stories and nothing really interested him anymore. His publishers wanted new material from him and all he had were thousands of crumpled papers with only a few scratched out lines in each. He decided to lock himself up in a house for about six months and write about that experience. At first, it seemed like an idea that was only a ‘spectacle’ but it interested him and he decided to go ahead with it. He promised his publishers a new book by the end of six months.
And now, almost four months later, he realized it he had come to almost nothing. He really couldn’t turn back from here. The event had been much publicized and people expected a lot from him. He couldn’t just walk out before he finished half a year and even if he did the rest of his life would go down the drain. No one would want to publish him and he was just thirty years old. He couldn’t stay here anymore either.
It was driving him insane to not have anyone to talk to. Even though he was generally quiet, he figured there is some contact even when two people are sitting together in silence. Even that silence meant something. He was tired of staring at the same walls everyday, tired of the same fucking hills that he could see through the window and tired of listening to his own voice. He craved to see something else. At this point, he would rather see someone getting murdered than these yellow walls or the green hills. And now his only touch with any humanity had ceased because that bitch wouldn’t take his calls.
He decided to kill himself.
He picked up the blade from the table and held it against his wrist, ready to slash it open. He tried to console himself with the thought that at least he would die in an attempt to achieve something great. He knew that it was a lie. He was simply giving up. In that moment of madness he would have almost gone all the way if something hadn’t struck him.
He walked over to the entrance door. The passage was filled with boxes in which t he had brought all his stuff. But upon reaching here he had never really opened them. He walked over to one of them, crouched upon the ground and started opening it. He wanted to look at it once. There it was, underneath all the papers and books, still kept in the same blue file. The first story he had ever published, when he was twenty one.
He remembered how he had struggled with it, facing rejections almost everywhere for a long time but he had stuck to it because he knew there was something good in it. But things were different now. Back then he was a nobody, but now he had a reputation to live up to and this place was killing him. He had tasted success and the fear of losing it was too great. He again held the blade against his wrist but he couldn’t move his eyes away from that first story of his.
He picked it up again and stared at it. He was much calmer now. He wondered what would happen if he really was to kill himself. Nothing. A funeral would be held and someone would come and lie about what a great man he was and then they would all go back home. The world would move on. The only one he could talk to had passed him by without even slightest care or concern. Even death seemed pointless now. For that moment, he was suspended in a perfect balance between contradictions and he felt his brain would be ripped apart.
He walked over to the window and looked outside. It was still dark and cold but the sun would be out any moment. He decided to count till a hundred. If he saw the line of light over the horizon by then, he would go back to his desk and write. It would be hard but he would do it somehow. . But if it still remained dark then he would take the drop down the hill. He lit a cigarette and started counting. His eyes were fixed upon the horizon.
Avy comments:
It’s a good story and a great title.
However, the end, though ambiguous , leaves it all hanging. There is another kind of ambiguous end that might be possible. What would it be?
I think you are now ready to write your sci-fi story.
Even at this time of the night, he could feel the heat escaping the earth. It was like touching a sick person. He thought he could hear the heat radiating from the ground. What it sounded like he couldn’t explain, even to himself, but he was sure he could hear it.
He picked up his phone and dialed a number. She still wasn’t taking his calls. He threw his phone at the wall and it broke into pieces. He had had enough. He picked up the razor blade and cut himself across the arm and then flung the blade away as well. Every time he called her, he would make a cut somewhere on his body. He had called her thirty seven times tonight.
He wondered what she could be doing that she wouldn’t answer even one his calls. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t pick up his calls and that was that. After he had broken up with her, they had decided to stay in touch at least till his experiment was over. He didn’t want to do so but she had insisted on talking to him at least once a week. In the beginning he had not taken her calls and whenever he had, he had kept it as short as possible. He didn’t need any news or gossip about anyone and since he had decided to lock himself up away from everything for a long time he didn’t really have anything to talk about except for the story that he wanted this experience to bring out. Not much was happening on that end either.
Maybe she had lost her phone but that wasn’t possible. He had been trying to call her for the past three weeks now without success. She would have surely gotten her number blocked by now or at least told him about it if that was the case. Or maybe she had died in an accident and her phone was still working but three weeks is long enough for a phone to discharge. Somewhere he hoped that she was dead. At least that would explain something – give his unanswered calls some sort of logic.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to him anymore and that thought drove him insane. She knew what he was going through even though he had never tried to show it in his calls. She knew that he had locked himself out from everything in this little house for six months. Four months had passed by now and he hadn’t talked to her in almost a month.
He was remembering how this damned experiment came to be. Almost a year ago, he was struggling with writing his new book. He had spent three months to find the right story but it didn’t come to him. At first he thought it was just a writer’s block and would pass by in some time but that blankness stayed. He was just simply out of stories and nothing really interested him anymore. His publishers wanted new material from him and all he had were thousands of crumpled papers with only a few scratched out lines in each. He decided to lock himself up in a house for about six months and write about that experience. At first, it seemed like an idea that was only a ‘spectacle’ but it interested him and he decided to go ahead with it. He promised his publishers a new book by the end of six months.
And now, almost four months later, he realized it he had come to almost nothing. He really couldn’t turn back from here. The event had been much publicized and people expected a lot from him. He couldn’t just walk out before he finished half a year and even if he did the rest of his life would go down the drain. No one would want to publish him and he was just thirty years old. He couldn’t stay here anymore either.
It was driving him insane to not have anyone to talk to. Even though he was generally quiet, he figured there is some contact even when two people are sitting together in silence. Even that silence meant something. He was tired of staring at the same walls everyday, tired of the same fucking hills that he could see through the window and tired of listening to his own voice. He craved to see something else. At this point, he would rather see someone getting murdered than these yellow walls or the green hills. And now his only touch with any humanity had ceased because that bitch wouldn’t take his calls.
He decided to kill himself.
He picked up the blade from the table and held it against his wrist, ready to slash it open. He tried to console himself with the thought that at least he would die in an attempt to achieve something great. He knew that it was a lie. He was simply giving up. In that moment of madness he would have almost gone all the way if something hadn’t struck him.
He walked over to the entrance door. The passage was filled with boxes in which t he had brought all his stuff. But upon reaching here he had never really opened them. He walked over to one of them, crouched upon the ground and started opening it. He wanted to look at it once. There it was, underneath all the papers and books, still kept in the same blue file. The first story he had ever published, when he was twenty one.
He remembered how he had struggled with it, facing rejections almost everywhere for a long time but he had stuck to it because he knew there was something good in it. But things were different now. Back then he was a nobody, but now he had a reputation to live up to and this place was killing him. He had tasted success and the fear of losing it was too great. He again held the blade against his wrist but he couldn’t move his eyes away from that first story of his.
He picked it up again and stared at it. He was much calmer now. He wondered what would happen if he really was to kill himself. Nothing. A funeral would be held and someone would come and lie about what a great man he was and then they would all go back home. The world would move on. The only one he could talk to had passed him by without even slightest care or concern. Even death seemed pointless now. For that moment, he was suspended in a perfect balance between contradictions and he felt his brain would be ripped apart.
He walked over to the window and looked outside. It was still dark and cold but the sun would be out any moment. He decided to count till a hundred. If he saw the line of light over the horizon by then, he would go back to his desk and write. It would be hard but he would do it somehow. . But if it still remained dark then he would take the drop down the hill. He lit a cigarette and started counting. His eyes were fixed upon the horizon.
Avy comments:
It’s a good story and a great title.
However, the end, though ambiguous , leaves it all hanging. There is another kind of ambiguous end that might be possible. What would it be?
I think you are now ready to write your sci-fi story.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
