The police were meticulously combing the area known as Chettipuniam for any traces of the hidden serial killer. This particular killer had the audacity to show himself in public with his weapon of choice, allegedly a cycle stand composed of wrought iron.
He did not stop there. He had raised the cycle stand high above his head in an inhuman attempt to slaughter an innocent by standing kid, and had screamed, “I’m going to kill you, mangy mutt!” At this instant, the ‘killer’ was indirectly responsible for making that kid perform the impossible mixture of crying, wetting his pants and fainting at the same time; the ladies sitting and gossiping on the road side opened their mouths in terror and closed them with their hands (A rather useless gesture. Why couldn’t they just close their mouths and act surprised anyway?); the men looked upon the killer, an abundance of terror present in their eyes; some quaking in their ill-tailored pants and some took the ends of their off-white dhoties and started chewing on them, for fear of biting off their finger nails in the tension.
Whoa, hold your horses; I’m moving too fast for my own good. Let’s slow down. Na, let’s rewind a little and come back to this picture which I have painted.
Ever since the frustrated software engineer (Let’s call him VBK) had come into the area known as Chettipuniam, he had been under attack by various forces of nature. These included, among other revolting creatures, snakes which gobbled up rapidly multiplying toads, an endless horde of stray dogs which took malicious pleasure in chasing innocent software engineers to the brink of exhaustion (All except VBK’s roommate Don, because all the dogs used to cringe in fear at the very sight of him.. His Himalayan appearance could be better described in another post dedicated to his entirety.)
It was a standard morning – waking up to the scratchy feeling that in an hour more he will be sitting in front of a screen in a zombie like state sipping on some horrid tasting coffee and mindlessly trolling around some pointless code, which is so sensitive that as soon as you touch it, it throws up hundreds of errors. Doctors prescribe something to stop people from throwing up, and software engineers prescribe bits of code to prevent the software from throwing up (errors).
VBK, the veteran of the public forum, also known as BB VBK, was as usual dissolving the BB and drinking it in (Sounds better when translated to Tanglish – karachu kudichufying) when he came across this post-
From: Swapna Sridharan
Posted At: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 10:41 AM
Posted To: ******
Conversation: Need to kick some ass
Subject: Need to kick some ass
Hi,
Any pointers to stress busting – any place where we have full authority to go and break, crack, hit, bite, pull, push, annihilate, burn, crush or grind random objects in frustration, please let me know. I am totally pissed off in life right now.
-Swapna
At this point in time, VBK had the dreaded impulse which would later lead to the series of unfortunate events which was least expected. He wrote –
From: VBK
Posted At: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 10:42 AM
Posted To: ******
Conversation: Need to kick some ass
Subject: Need to kick some ass
CC (Put my name in cc) to my Id. I need to kick some too.
-VBK
It was a really different post which VBK could relate to and he was sure that it would get deleted as soon as the Iron Fist got to see it. And he was right, because in a hurried frenzy, the posts got deleted. But what did not get deleted was the name of the person from VBK’s mind. It was a girl. And a rarity. How many women are violent enough to want such things and also audacious enough to post it on the BB?
That was a real turn on. And yea, you guessed what happens next – it blooms. Here ‘It’ is an unclassified concept which is better off undefined. You know, no strings attached. Just It. But whatever ‘it’ is, I would just like to warn you with a rhyme – If it blooms, then at sometime it will be doomed. Bloom and doom. And the unfortunate VBK had not a clue about this. Very soon that CC to my ID to a random stranger became a
“Hey, let’s go for coffee, there’s a new coffee machine on the ground floor.. Don’t forget to bring your mug!” And so it was. VBK and Swapna Sridharan for coffee outside one of the buildings.
Now many fellow software engineers might have come across this particular post on the BB –
“DON’T KEEP COFFEE MUGS OUTSIDE BUILDINGS, DOGS WILL COME AND LICK”
And that was exactly what happened when VBK and his unclassified date finished their coffee and were chatting up schemes about how to inflict violence on unsuspecting passerby folks.
“Hey, you stray doggie! Get the hell out and stop licking my cup!” She yelled. The dog looked up, puzzled by the sudden outburst. He was just about to lick the cup, when the violent Swapna threw a stone at the poor unsuspecting dog. The projectile of the stone was such that it hit the dog squarely in the middle of the eyes. He yelped helplessly and ran away, but as he moved away, he gave such a menacing look to VBK that ensured, “I’ll take care of you later, you animal abuser!”
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Chettipuniam Nights II
According to the encyclopedic knowledge of Varunopedia, the following defines the bizarre creature known as the multi-tongued-toad –
Multi-Tongued-Toad
From Varunopedia, the vetti encyclopedia
(Amphibious distant cousin of the Babel Fish)
For other uses, see Repulsive Creatures stuck to Cycle Tyres (Disambiguation)
A multi-tongued-toad will prey on your stupidity and translate the language of animals for you. In order to make the multi-tongued-toad work for you, you need to continue making stupid comments and it will then get pumped up and start translating the language of animals into whatever language you made the stupid comments in.
As for VBK, he never runs out of making stupid comments such as ‘Oh, came back from FC huh. Had your lunch?’ or, ‘Hey that car has so much dust on it, I think it’s not been cleaned for a long time!’
Now, it so happened that Mr. VBK chanced upon one of these Multi Tongued Toads stuck to the front wheel of his bicycle. (See picture for reference) He gingerly lifted it, placed it in his pocket and continued walking. Since stupidity was in abundance, the toad automatically powered up and stated translating the language of dogs for him. So now, VBK could comprehend dog talk. (Yeaa baby, another Dr. Dolittle at your disposal)
Just as he was cycling out of Mcity and into the previously described shady area of Chettipuniam, he heard voices talking. The mutli tongued toad started translating in a scratchy voice, and it was then that VBK realized that he was overhearing the conversation between two dogs.
“Bro, check this fool out. His girlfriend threw a stone at Kabali today.”
“Yea? Let’s give him some pain.”
Suddenly out of nowhere, two vicious and sufficiently toothy dogs were running towards VBK, claws out, teeth sharp and glinting.
VBK saw them running towards him with kolai veri (License to Kill) and panicked. He mounted his cycle as soon as he could, but in the process of mounting the bicycle, a prominent RRRIIIPPP could be heard; that was when he looked down and noticed, to his horror, a gaping hole in his pants.
What was worse, the Multi Tongued Toad decided to make a grand entrance through the hole into… Err… Into VBK’s private chambers.
VBK was screaming his head off and pedaling as hard as he could so that he could get away from the chasing dogs and also so that the toad would not move further into the … Forbidden territory. In the process he almost ran over an old man who was walking along the road trying to smell the flowers (But ended up getting stung after a few unidentified insects decided to take a bite at his bulging nose)
Anyway the point is, by the time VBK got away from the dogs on his bicycle, he had reached such a speed that the friction between the road and the tyres had put top speeds of the Need for Speed cars to shame and had busted the cycle tyres. He had no way out. The next morning, he would have to walk. And why did all this start? All because Swapna threw a stone at a dog. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to positively, and literally, ensure that she ‘went to the dogs’.
That night, VBK got some moral motivation from his roommate Don on how to do some teeth smashing, nail pulling and other horrific things in that genre. Now that his cycle was unusable, he dismantled the cycle stand from it and now, armed with this weapon, went to meet his fate.
In the middle of the Chettipuniam road where Lorries flattened the Earth, infiltrated the air with endless amounts of dust and jobless people took refuge, VBK the cycle stand warrior went forth. It was at this time, that the dog spoke and this was in turn translated by the Multi Tongued Toad –
“So, you have come to die. So be it.”
“No, I have come to watch you die.”
“Me, die? I would love to see you try!” Barked the dog.
“I’m going to kill you, mangy mutt!”
FREEEEEEZE! This if you recall, is the beginning of our story. And this, my friends, is the unfortunate turn of events which led to VBK being mistaken for a ruthless serial killer and child abuser. It was his misfortune that a small child had been standing in the way of the dog and VBK; this made people think that VBK was actually going to slaughter the poor kid. This was the picture I had painted.
Now, slowly zoom out and notice the intricate details of the painting. This painting hangs in the middle of Chettipuniam tea shop in the year 2020, because the story of VBK and his adventures in Chettipuniam went on to become legendary, and every time a frustrated young software professional goes in and lights a cigarette to drown his frustration, he looks upon this painting and draws inspiration. The cycle stand which was almost used there lies today in the museum of venerable artifacts, as depicted below. Watch out for more Chettipuniam night chronicles.
VBK's Cycle stand in the museum of venerable artifacts
Multi-Tongued-Toad
From Varunopedia, the vetti encyclopedia
(Amphibious distant cousin of the Babel Fish)
For other uses, see Repulsive Creatures stuck to Cycle Tyres (Disambiguation)
A multi-tongued-toad will prey on your stupidity and translate the language of animals for you. In order to make the multi-tongued-toad work for you, you need to continue making stupid comments and it will then get pumped up and start translating the language of animals into whatever language you made the stupid comments in.
As for VBK, he never runs out of making stupid comments such as ‘Oh, came back from FC huh. Had your lunch?’ or, ‘Hey that car has so much dust on it, I think it’s not been cleaned for a long time!’
Now, it so happened that Mr. VBK chanced upon one of these Multi Tongued Toads stuck to the front wheel of his bicycle. (See picture for reference) He gingerly lifted it, placed it in his pocket and continued walking. Since stupidity was in abundance, the toad automatically powered up and stated translating the language of dogs for him. So now, VBK could comprehend dog talk. (Yeaa baby, another Dr. Dolittle at your disposal)
Just as he was cycling out of Mcity and into the previously described shady area of Chettipuniam, he heard voices talking. The mutli tongued toad started translating in a scratchy voice, and it was then that VBK realized that he was overhearing the conversation between two dogs.
“Bro, check this fool out. His girlfriend threw a stone at Kabali today.”
“Yea? Let’s give him some pain.”
Suddenly out of nowhere, two vicious and sufficiently toothy dogs were running towards VBK, claws out, teeth sharp and glinting.
VBK saw them running towards him with kolai veri (License to Kill) and panicked. He mounted his cycle as soon as he could, but in the process of mounting the bicycle, a prominent RRRIIIPPP could be heard; that was when he looked down and noticed, to his horror, a gaping hole in his pants.
What was worse, the Multi Tongued Toad decided to make a grand entrance through the hole into… Err… Into VBK’s private chambers.
VBK was screaming his head off and pedaling as hard as he could so that he could get away from the chasing dogs and also so that the toad would not move further into the … Forbidden territory. In the process he almost ran over an old man who was walking along the road trying to smell the flowers (But ended up getting stung after a few unidentified insects decided to take a bite at his bulging nose)
Anyway the point is, by the time VBK got away from the dogs on his bicycle, he had reached such a speed that the friction between the road and the tyres had put top speeds of the Need for Speed cars to shame and had busted the cycle tyres. He had no way out. The next morning, he would have to walk. And why did all this start? All because Swapna threw a stone at a dog. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to positively, and literally, ensure that she ‘went to the dogs’.
That night, VBK got some moral motivation from his roommate Don on how to do some teeth smashing, nail pulling and other horrific things in that genre. Now that his cycle was unusable, he dismantled the cycle stand from it and now, armed with this weapon, went to meet his fate.
In the middle of the Chettipuniam road where Lorries flattened the Earth, infiltrated the air with endless amounts of dust and jobless people took refuge, VBK the cycle stand warrior went forth. It was at this time, that the dog spoke and this was in turn translated by the Multi Tongued Toad –
“So, you have come to die. So be it.”
“No, I have come to watch you die.”
“Me, die? I would love to see you try!” Barked the dog.
“I’m going to kill you, mangy mutt!”
FREEEEEEZE! This if you recall, is the beginning of our story. And this, my friends, is the unfortunate turn of events which led to VBK being mistaken for a ruthless serial killer and child abuser. It was his misfortune that a small child had been standing in the way of the dog and VBK; this made people think that VBK was actually going to slaughter the poor kid. This was the picture I had painted.
Now, slowly zoom out and notice the intricate details of the painting. This painting hangs in the middle of Chettipuniam tea shop in the year 2020, because the story of VBK and his adventures in Chettipuniam went on to become legendary, and every time a frustrated young software professional goes in and lights a cigarette to drown his frustration, he looks upon this painting and draws inspiration. The cycle stand which was almost used there lies today in the museum of venerable artifacts, as depicted below. Watch out for more Chettipuniam night chronicles.
VBK's Cycle stand in the museum of venerable artifacts
Monday, October 11, 2010
How I Breached the Gates of Hell - I
I knew I was dead.
Why? I remember pushing in more vodka shots than I could handle and abusing my boss so much that kids and conservative women would commit suicide without a second thought after hearing it; I remember I accosted a random public transport bus; I remember politely asking the driver to get the fuck outta the driver’s seat, and when he didn’t oblige I remember pummeling his head with my ancient Nokia 3100 (People always used to call it sengal, so I thought I would use it likewise), throwing him out and then with an air of Aurangzeb ousting Shahjahan and taking the throne, I ascended the throne of the bus and started driving it in a haphazard manner. It’s not every day that you get to beat up bus drivers and drive buses. And of course, it’s not every day that you die.
That railway crossing I stopped the bus on? Well, let’s just say some stuff on that bus and on that train won’t be the same any longer.
Through the hazy mist, in the bleary distance I observed a cloaked and mysterious figure approaching me. As he came closer, I realized that he was too handsome to be real. His features were carved out so perfectly that he put the statue of David and Michelangelo to shame ten times over. He came over with an air of absolute nonchalance, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Oh wait, I should bite my tongue. I don’t think I’m in the world anymore. He spoke like he was so bored of everything, especially me
.
His tone patronized every cell in my body.
“Ah, welcome, software engineer (SE) number 85,236,574,911,235,841.”
“What?”
“Oh, you’re dead and you’re at the gates of hell.”
“Hell?! What the… HELL?!”
“Yes, now that curse shall acquire more meaning.”
“You gotta be kidding me man. Jesus Christ!”
“Ah, ah, ah. That kind of cursing is not allowed in hell, Mr. SE.”
“Come on! Why am I in hell? I’ve never used f*** and Jesus Christ in the same
sentence, I’ve never …”
“Save your breath while I list out the reasons why you’re here.”
This was absolutely crazy! Why the hell was I in hell?
“For starters, you just parked a bus on the railway tracks. There were 12 people on the bus that couldn’t make it out of there when the train rammed the bus, and the train which came in? The driver and 6 people died on that. You are responsible for the deaths of 18 people. Include yourself. 19 people. That’s worse than most serial killers.”
“But I didn’t do it intentionally! I was just a guy who got pissed with his software job and wanted some fun!”
He shrugged and lit a cigarette with the same nonchalance he had exhibited before. He spoke again.
“Well, as the ruler of this realm, I have nothing to say. I do not sympathize or empathize with you.”
“You are the ruler... You are the devil?!”
“Some call me that, yes.”
“What the… The devil smokes?”
“Why not? And no lung cancer or any other monstrosities associated with it.”
“So how does hell work?”
“Simple. A guy called Coelho said the universe conspires to give you what you want if you really want it. Here it happens in reverse. If you want something really badly, hell makes sure you don’t get it.”
“Err.. I guess that’s how life works for everyone in a non Paulo Coelho world.”
“Whatever. Who cares? So, you’re a software engineer huh. Allow me to outline your duties.”
“Duties?! Nooooooo. Don’t tell me. Please, please, I give you full permission to do anything heinous. Eye gouging, limb pulling, merciless beating with spiked whips.. Anything but please don’t make me do coding again!”
“That’s how hell works. And I take immense satisfaction in informing you that you can do absolutely nothing about it. Hahahahahahaha.”
Well, I had seen and heard thalaivar’s evil laugh in Endhiran (Thankfully I saw that movie before I departed from Earth) and let me tell you. Compound the effect of that laugh a few million, no, a few billion times and even then it won’t even come close to the devil’s laugh. The devil’s laughter made my eyes pop out and reach my tummy, where my stomach was churning at close to ultrasonic frequency.
Wait. Did I even have internal organs anymore?
(To be continued … )
Why? I remember pushing in more vodka shots than I could handle and abusing my boss so much that kids and conservative women would commit suicide without a second thought after hearing it; I remember I accosted a random public transport bus; I remember politely asking the driver to get the fuck outta the driver’s seat, and when he didn’t oblige I remember pummeling his head with my ancient Nokia 3100 (People always used to call it sengal, so I thought I would use it likewise), throwing him out and then with an air of Aurangzeb ousting Shahjahan and taking the throne, I ascended the throne of the bus and started driving it in a haphazard manner. It’s not every day that you get to beat up bus drivers and drive buses. And of course, it’s not every day that you die.
That railway crossing I stopped the bus on? Well, let’s just say some stuff on that bus and on that train won’t be the same any longer.
Through the hazy mist, in the bleary distance I observed a cloaked and mysterious figure approaching me. As he came closer, I realized that he was too handsome to be real. His features were carved out so perfectly that he put the statue of David and Michelangelo to shame ten times over. He came over with an air of absolute nonchalance, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Oh wait, I should bite my tongue. I don’t think I’m in the world anymore. He spoke like he was so bored of everything, especially me
.
His tone patronized every cell in my body.
“Ah, welcome, software engineer (SE) number 85,236,574,911,235,841.”
“What?”
“Oh, you’re dead and you’re at the gates of hell.”
“Hell?! What the… HELL?!”
“Yes, now that curse shall acquire more meaning.”
“You gotta be kidding me man. Jesus Christ!”
“Ah, ah, ah. That kind of cursing is not allowed in hell, Mr. SE.”
“Come on! Why am I in hell? I’ve never used f*** and Jesus Christ in the same
sentence, I’ve never …”
“Save your breath while I list out the reasons why you’re here.”
This was absolutely crazy! Why the hell was I in hell?
“For starters, you just parked a bus on the railway tracks. There were 12 people on the bus that couldn’t make it out of there when the train rammed the bus, and the train which came in? The driver and 6 people died on that. You are responsible for the deaths of 18 people. Include yourself. 19 people. That’s worse than most serial killers.”
“But I didn’t do it intentionally! I was just a guy who got pissed with his software job and wanted some fun!”
He shrugged and lit a cigarette with the same nonchalance he had exhibited before. He spoke again.
“Well, as the ruler of this realm, I have nothing to say. I do not sympathize or empathize with you.”
“You are the ruler... You are the devil?!”
“Some call me that, yes.”
“What the… The devil smokes?”
“Why not? And no lung cancer or any other monstrosities associated with it.”
“So how does hell work?”
“Simple. A guy called Coelho said the universe conspires to give you what you want if you really want it. Here it happens in reverse. If you want something really badly, hell makes sure you don’t get it.”
“Err.. I guess that’s how life works for everyone in a non Paulo Coelho world.”
“Whatever. Who cares? So, you’re a software engineer huh. Allow me to outline your duties.”
“Duties?! Nooooooo. Don’t tell me. Please, please, I give you full permission to do anything heinous. Eye gouging, limb pulling, merciless beating with spiked whips.. Anything but please don’t make me do coding again!”
“That’s how hell works. And I take immense satisfaction in informing you that you can do absolutely nothing about it. Hahahahahahaha.”
Well, I had seen and heard thalaivar’s evil laugh in Endhiran (Thankfully I saw that movie before I departed from Earth) and let me tell you. Compound the effect of that laugh a few million, no, a few billion times and even then it won’t even come close to the devil’s laugh. The devil’s laughter made my eyes pop out and reach my tummy, where my stomach was churning at close to ultrasonic frequency.
Wait. Did I even have internal organs anymore?
(To be continued … )
Thursday, September 02, 2010
The Case of the Curious Dr. Cupid
It was unfortunate indeed that nature had decided to paint the sky in pleasing shades of grey and black, dotted with stars lined up in beautiful patterns and the moon’s presence further intensifying the romantic nature of the night. Oh wait, why then did I term this unfortunate?
Because on top of a water tank on the terrace of a five floor residential apartment sat our hero Lucky, crying his heart out. The volume of tears coming out of his eyes gave serious competition to the Mumbai floods and he held in his hand a letter, written by a feminine hand. This particular piece of paper had the words which tugged at the heart strings – “Together forever and ever, my darling.”
And on such a romantic night, our hero was crying because his girlfriend was no longer his girlfriend. He was just another star in the sky filled with millions of stars, and his ex girl was the moon. She didn’t care about just another star in a million.
“How could you do this to me? I want to die! I am going to jump! God, this is your fault!” He pumped his fists towards the sky, accusing the almighty of negligence and unsteadily shaking back and forth on the water tank; the culprit responsible for this shaking was a beer bottle. Ah, the beer bottle – the least prescribed and most effective medicine for love failure.
At this point in time, Dr. Cupid was standing right behind Lucky and speaking to him –
“Girlfriends are like that beer. They intoxicate you, but leave you with horrid hangovers.”
Ah, the past –
It was 12.02 am. In a bedroom adorned with rather provocative posters of Madonna and Trisha lay snoring peacefully Lucky’s brother. Next to him, an entity wriggled around excitedly under a blanket, covered from head to toe. From the interiors of the blanket were emitted some strange lights and some murmuring sounds. One might’ve thought that some black magic ritual was being practiced there and yes, that was true– Love was performing black magic on Lucky! Dr. Cupid was standing there with a scorn on his face, right outside the window. But Lucky did not see him there; he was too busy talking to his darling.
Let us zoom in on the blanket and zero in on the conversation –
Girl on the other end of the line childishly chimes –
“Darling I want you here, NOW!”
Dr. Cupid mocked her – Here, I will send you your boyfriend right now – see his bare hairy chest and him in his undies and wish you were in hell!”
Lucky was sighing romantically. “Will you be there for me always?”
“Surely da chellam! Forever and ever ok? I promise!”
Dr. Cupid was tearing his hair apart in anger. “You idiot! Same lines I have heard a million times! For a guy, forever = forever! But for a fickle minded girl, the time period ‘forever’ is directly proportional to the patience of that girl. Forever may be defined as one year, two years, or till she gets sick of you! Now you are sickening me out!”
But our man Lucky was too mesmerized by his chellam to notice anything.
It was Valentine’s Day, the day when hearts throbbed faster, birds chirped, flowers bloomed, and the sun shone. Well, thought Dr. Cupid – Birds chirped even on normal days but people found it irritating. Flowers bloomed even on normal days, but people never stopped to notice. The sun shone brightly every day, but people just said it was too hot. That one factor – Love – added more beauty to everything. Was it a boon or a curse?!
In a coffee shop which was bursting with couples, Lucky and his girlfriend were holding hands and exchanging mushy lines. It was at this time that Lucky took out his gift for her and presented it – A silver bracelet which was way out of his budget; she screamed in delight but while she was putting it on exclaimed – “Oh I would have liked gold better!”
Then she took out a rather battered looking book and gave it to Lucky – “This was my favorite children’s book when I was in 5th standard… Noddy tales! See my friend and I have even drawn some cartoons on it!”
Dr. Cupid was seen banging his head against the wall and saying – “Aiyayo.. You stole from your dad, sold your brother’s DVD s, volunteered to go shopping for your mom so that you could steal the change… And finally amassed enough to buy the silver bracelet, and what does she give you? Not a paisa she spent in giving you that crappy child’s book, which you are sure to fling in some corner and hide it from your friends because if they see it, they will kill you by just making fun of it for eternity!”
“Ohhh sweetheart.. Thank you so much!” murmured Lucky.
Cut back to present –
Lucky is still crying over his loss. The reason for the breakup which she gave was so complex, Lucky thought he had to do a PhD in Integral mathematics and differential physics just to decipher the collective meaning of the reason she gave.
Suddenly, his mobile phone beeped. He took out his mobile and thought to himself – I used to expect messages with a song in my heart because I knew it would be a message from her.. But now I am sure it’s just some mokkai forward from my friends. But to his surprise, it was an SMS from HER.
His heart beating faster, his hands trembling, he opened the text message.
“Please return my Noddy tales book. Give it to my friend.”
Dr. Cupid stood there, just polishing his nails and whistling. “What did you expect you dumb ass!” He shouted.
“Love is not hanging out in coffee shops. Love is not buying expensive gifts. Love is not chatting at 2 am in the night and turning up in a zombie like state to the office the next day!” Cried Dr. Cupid.
“What the hell IS love?!?! How did it suddenly disappear!!” questioned Lucky.
“It’s what you think you had before you broke up.”
Lucky wasn’t listening. He decided something had to be done. He called his friend Bajji over the phone… Bajji picked up the call.
“Machan, so your girlfriend dumped you huh?”
“What?!?! How the hell did you know da!”
“Oh well.. You haven’t called me for a year or something, ever since you started dating her… Now that you’re calling, I just know!”
“Ya da… Bloody she dumped me da!”
“Oh well, Wait machan, I’m coming over. Is there beer over there? I’ll get some. I’m bringing Sandy along too.”
In a few years Lucky realized how amazing it was being single. No tantrums at 1 am. No “You don’t trust me anymore!” accusations. His wallet didn’t get lighter and lighter each time he went out. It was the carefree life. It was just – peace. Lucky himself didn’t know he was such an amazing story writer and in a few years, he had written about 72 stories and was working on a novel. Wow, he thought. I finally found myself, hiding behind layers and layers of “Love you forever” which never did work out.
When she messaged him again about the Noddy book, he just coolly replied, “Return the silver bracelet first!” and he had not heard from her ever since.
Dr. Cupid watched all this, a much happier person.
“Well, as I always put it, behind every successful man, there WAS a successful woman! ;-)”
In the meantime, Dr. Cupid suddenly heard another wailing sound somewhere nearby. It was another guy, Ramu, crying his heart out… “Oh, why, WHY did she break up with me? She told me she would NEVER break up with me no matter what!!”
And Dr. Cupid sighed. “You incorrigible guys! Here we go all over again….”
Because on top of a water tank on the terrace of a five floor residential apartment sat our hero Lucky, crying his heart out. The volume of tears coming out of his eyes gave serious competition to the Mumbai floods and he held in his hand a letter, written by a feminine hand. This particular piece of paper had the words which tugged at the heart strings – “Together forever and ever, my darling.”
And on such a romantic night, our hero was crying because his girlfriend was no longer his girlfriend. He was just another star in the sky filled with millions of stars, and his ex girl was the moon. She didn’t care about just another star in a million.
“How could you do this to me? I want to die! I am going to jump! God, this is your fault!” He pumped his fists towards the sky, accusing the almighty of negligence and unsteadily shaking back and forth on the water tank; the culprit responsible for this shaking was a beer bottle. Ah, the beer bottle – the least prescribed and most effective medicine for love failure.
At this point in time, Dr. Cupid was standing right behind Lucky and speaking to him –
“Girlfriends are like that beer. They intoxicate you, but leave you with horrid hangovers.”
Ah, the past –
It was 12.02 am. In a bedroom adorned with rather provocative posters of Madonna and Trisha lay snoring peacefully Lucky’s brother. Next to him, an entity wriggled around excitedly under a blanket, covered from head to toe. From the interiors of the blanket were emitted some strange lights and some murmuring sounds. One might’ve thought that some black magic ritual was being practiced there and yes, that was true– Love was performing black magic on Lucky! Dr. Cupid was standing there with a scorn on his face, right outside the window. But Lucky did not see him there; he was too busy talking to his darling.
Let us zoom in on the blanket and zero in on the conversation –
Girl on the other end of the line childishly chimes –
“Darling I want you here, NOW!”
Dr. Cupid mocked her – Here, I will send you your boyfriend right now – see his bare hairy chest and him in his undies and wish you were in hell!”
Lucky was sighing romantically. “Will you be there for me always?”
“Surely da chellam! Forever and ever ok? I promise!”
Dr. Cupid was tearing his hair apart in anger. “You idiot! Same lines I have heard a million times! For a guy, forever = forever! But for a fickle minded girl, the time period ‘forever’ is directly proportional to the patience of that girl. Forever may be defined as one year, two years, or till she gets sick of you! Now you are sickening me out!”
But our man Lucky was too mesmerized by his chellam to notice anything.
It was Valentine’s Day, the day when hearts throbbed faster, birds chirped, flowers bloomed, and the sun shone. Well, thought Dr. Cupid – Birds chirped even on normal days but people found it irritating. Flowers bloomed even on normal days, but people never stopped to notice. The sun shone brightly every day, but people just said it was too hot. That one factor – Love – added more beauty to everything. Was it a boon or a curse?!
In a coffee shop which was bursting with couples, Lucky and his girlfriend were holding hands and exchanging mushy lines. It was at this time that Lucky took out his gift for her and presented it – A silver bracelet which was way out of his budget; she screamed in delight but while she was putting it on exclaimed – “Oh I would have liked gold better!”
Then she took out a rather battered looking book and gave it to Lucky – “This was my favorite children’s book when I was in 5th standard… Noddy tales! See my friend and I have even drawn some cartoons on it!”
Dr. Cupid was seen banging his head against the wall and saying – “Aiyayo.. You stole from your dad, sold your brother’s DVD s, volunteered to go shopping for your mom so that you could steal the change… And finally amassed enough to buy the silver bracelet, and what does she give you? Not a paisa she spent in giving you that crappy child’s book, which you are sure to fling in some corner and hide it from your friends because if they see it, they will kill you by just making fun of it for eternity!”
“Ohhh sweetheart.. Thank you so much!” murmured Lucky.
Cut back to present –
Lucky is still crying over his loss. The reason for the breakup which she gave was so complex, Lucky thought he had to do a PhD in Integral mathematics and differential physics just to decipher the collective meaning of the reason she gave.
Suddenly, his mobile phone beeped. He took out his mobile and thought to himself – I used to expect messages with a song in my heart because I knew it would be a message from her.. But now I am sure it’s just some mokkai forward from my friends. But to his surprise, it was an SMS from HER.
His heart beating faster, his hands trembling, he opened the text message.
“Please return my Noddy tales book. Give it to my friend.”
Dr. Cupid stood there, just polishing his nails and whistling. “What did you expect you dumb ass!” He shouted.
“Love is not hanging out in coffee shops. Love is not buying expensive gifts. Love is not chatting at 2 am in the night and turning up in a zombie like state to the office the next day!” Cried Dr. Cupid.
“What the hell IS love?!?! How did it suddenly disappear!!” questioned Lucky.
“It’s what you think you had before you broke up.”
Lucky wasn’t listening. He decided something had to be done. He called his friend Bajji over the phone… Bajji picked up the call.
“Machan, so your girlfriend dumped you huh?”
“What?!?! How the hell did you know da!”
“Oh well.. You haven’t called me for a year or something, ever since you started dating her… Now that you’re calling, I just know!”
“Ya da… Bloody she dumped me da!”
“Oh well, Wait machan, I’m coming over. Is there beer over there? I’ll get some. I’m bringing Sandy along too.”
In a few years Lucky realized how amazing it was being single. No tantrums at 1 am. No “You don’t trust me anymore!” accusations. His wallet didn’t get lighter and lighter each time he went out. It was the carefree life. It was just – peace. Lucky himself didn’t know he was such an amazing story writer and in a few years, he had written about 72 stories and was working on a novel. Wow, he thought. I finally found myself, hiding behind layers and layers of “Love you forever” which never did work out.
When she messaged him again about the Noddy book, he just coolly replied, “Return the silver bracelet first!” and he had not heard from her ever since.
Dr. Cupid watched all this, a much happier person.
“Well, as I always put it, behind every successful man, there WAS a successful woman! ;-)”
In the meantime, Dr. Cupid suddenly heard another wailing sound somewhere nearby. It was another guy, Ramu, crying his heart out… “Oh, why, WHY did she break up with me? She told me she would NEVER break up with me no matter what!!”
And Dr. Cupid sighed. “You incorrigible guys! Here we go all over again….”
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
The Spider of Fear
Warfare. How we rape the Earth and send into her bowels the remains of the heroes who fight for their country. Characterized by hunger for blood, the metallic agents of death christened bullets fly from guns, pierce into flesh and bone and nullify the human and what he has ever stood for. Years of growing up, making memories, developing character, all nullified by that simple metallic bullet.
Yes, I am a war hero. I became that by making my enemies die for their country. I became a hero by creating martyrs. Colonel Anantha Krishnan – War veteran of Kargil.
Now, years after Kargil is over, fear engulfs me and torments me. Fear which was not there on the battlefield comes to me after the battle. A soldier’s fear is never unjustified and even for me, the reason is clear. Pakistan is sending out hit men to terminate me even as I speak.
Evening descends upon the serenity of Mylapore and I see the various mamas and mamis sporting expensive sports shoes and walking briskly towards the park for their evening rounds of exercise (a little) and oodles of area gossip (Did you know about my daughter-in-law’s first cousin’s father-in-law’s only brother? He is going to Americaaaa.. States!)
How my heart yearns to join them… But then Pakistani spies will unearth facts pertaining to me and my routine and kill me without sympathy.. Yes, I showed no mercy while shooting them down in the war, why would they show any while killing me?
Oh, ohhh… Dear Lord! There my observant eyes spot a man with a white hat asking someone for directions.. Shit that person is pointing towards my apartment! That is the Pakistani spy.. I need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible!
---
My name is Farid ul Hamid. I am a devout Muslim and I want to go to Mecca. My childhood memories are bleak and I do not recall if my parents ever took me to Mecca. All I remember is the sand, the camels. I have this fear of sinning. We should never sin, because God will punish us.
Powerful and Merciful he is, and in his name I terminate all the unholy filthy beings that populate this planet. Some people tried to brainwash me that killing was a sin, but killing in the Lord’s name and doing his work is not, which is why I do it.
I never know who orders it, or how it works. But it just happens – When I wake up, I find the name of the person I am supposed to kill, along with the reason why they should be wiped off from the face of the Earth.
Most of these people fought in the Kargil war, where they killed many of my brothers. Even now, I have been sent to terminate one man, Colonel Anantha Krishnan.
I have been unable to locate this person so far; and now the entity called fear is tightening its noose around my neck; if I do not find him I will fail as God’s harbinger, which means I have sinned. If I sin then the almighty shall smite me and make me wither with just his will.
---
Woeful winds wash over the foe’s withering lands.
Willful subjugation of the enemy is in our hands.
Wandering greedily across the Earth, we wonder how we can grab more.
Wasting lives without remorse, the soldiers of death march across the borders,
Wistfully I wait for an end, but will it ever end?
Yes, I am scared of soldiers. They torture us, loot us, kill us, rape our wives, enslave our children and erase our footprints from the annals of history. Somehow I needed to eat the fear. I will do it by killing a soldier.
Oh yes, killing a soldier will help me understand that they are not demons who can be killed. It will help the world of civilians understand that they can kill a soldier too. And very soon, no country will have soldiers left to fight with! Ha! Erase the pawns of battle and what are you left with?! Dust!
In this area there lives a man who is a soldier. Anantha Krishnan is his name…
---
Dr. Manamaruthuvar
Army Psychiatrist
Inside a room above which this board was hung, Dr. Manamaruthuvar was speaking to a timid looking man.
“Mr. Skanda, you did right by bringing us this case. Your neighbor whom you had told us about is indeed suffering from a strange phenomenon. He is afflicted by post war stress and he hated his war experience so much, his brain split itself into two parts – both expressing hate for his profession.
After following him for the past one week, we unearthed the facts – He becomes a Pakistani Muslim who kills soldiers. He also morphs into a rather charming and poetic writer who is afraid of soldiers.
What makes this case most peculiar is the fact that both his alter egos are out to kill his original personality. From this we can deduce that a part of the poor man hates and reprimands himself for every moment that he was in the war. We could not determine whether he has any more of these personalities…”
Mr. Skanda wiped the sweat trickling off his brow and spoke.
“Doctor, such a man is dangerous to have around. I fear the safety of my kids – especially because one of them keeps saying he wants to become a soldier one day.”
“Fear is like a spider, Mr. Skanda. It crawls into your head silently, weaves a web and traps all your thoughts within the web – and then every thought is stuck in the web of fear. Look at this man – even his alter egos are afraid of something!
But you have no cause for worry, Mr. Skanda. We will send out personnel and take him to the rehabilitation wing as soon as possible. Thanks again for your concern.”
As Mr. Skanda walked out, he couldn’t help noticing that the doctor sitting in front of him, if he removed the mustache and snow white hair would look the same as the balding and clean shaven Colonel Anantha Krishnan who lived next door…
Yes, I am a war hero. I became that by making my enemies die for their country. I became a hero by creating martyrs. Colonel Anantha Krishnan – War veteran of Kargil.
Now, years after Kargil is over, fear engulfs me and torments me. Fear which was not there on the battlefield comes to me after the battle. A soldier’s fear is never unjustified and even for me, the reason is clear. Pakistan is sending out hit men to terminate me even as I speak.
Evening descends upon the serenity of Mylapore and I see the various mamas and mamis sporting expensive sports shoes and walking briskly towards the park for their evening rounds of exercise (a little) and oodles of area gossip (Did you know about my daughter-in-law’s first cousin’s father-in-law’s only brother? He is going to Americaaaa.. States!)
How my heart yearns to join them… But then Pakistani spies will unearth facts pertaining to me and my routine and kill me without sympathy.. Yes, I showed no mercy while shooting them down in the war, why would they show any while killing me?
Oh, ohhh… Dear Lord! There my observant eyes spot a man with a white hat asking someone for directions.. Shit that person is pointing towards my apartment! That is the Pakistani spy.. I need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible!
---
My name is Farid ul Hamid. I am a devout Muslim and I want to go to Mecca. My childhood memories are bleak and I do not recall if my parents ever took me to Mecca. All I remember is the sand, the camels. I have this fear of sinning. We should never sin, because God will punish us.
Powerful and Merciful he is, and in his name I terminate all the unholy filthy beings that populate this planet. Some people tried to brainwash me that killing was a sin, but killing in the Lord’s name and doing his work is not, which is why I do it.
I never know who orders it, or how it works. But it just happens – When I wake up, I find the name of the person I am supposed to kill, along with the reason why they should be wiped off from the face of the Earth.
Most of these people fought in the Kargil war, where they killed many of my brothers. Even now, I have been sent to terminate one man, Colonel Anantha Krishnan.
I have been unable to locate this person so far; and now the entity called fear is tightening its noose around my neck; if I do not find him I will fail as God’s harbinger, which means I have sinned. If I sin then the almighty shall smite me and make me wither with just his will.
---
Woeful winds wash over the foe’s withering lands.
Willful subjugation of the enemy is in our hands.
Wandering greedily across the Earth, we wonder how we can grab more.
Wasting lives without remorse, the soldiers of death march across the borders,
Wistfully I wait for an end, but will it ever end?
Yes, I am scared of soldiers. They torture us, loot us, kill us, rape our wives, enslave our children and erase our footprints from the annals of history. Somehow I needed to eat the fear. I will do it by killing a soldier.
Oh yes, killing a soldier will help me understand that they are not demons who can be killed. It will help the world of civilians understand that they can kill a soldier too. And very soon, no country will have soldiers left to fight with! Ha! Erase the pawns of battle and what are you left with?! Dust!
In this area there lives a man who is a soldier. Anantha Krishnan is his name…
---
Dr. Manamaruthuvar
Army Psychiatrist
Inside a room above which this board was hung, Dr. Manamaruthuvar was speaking to a timid looking man.
“Mr. Skanda, you did right by bringing us this case. Your neighbor whom you had told us about is indeed suffering from a strange phenomenon. He is afflicted by post war stress and he hated his war experience so much, his brain split itself into two parts – both expressing hate for his profession.
After following him for the past one week, we unearthed the facts – He becomes a Pakistani Muslim who kills soldiers. He also morphs into a rather charming and poetic writer who is afraid of soldiers.
What makes this case most peculiar is the fact that both his alter egos are out to kill his original personality. From this we can deduce that a part of the poor man hates and reprimands himself for every moment that he was in the war. We could not determine whether he has any more of these personalities…”
Mr. Skanda wiped the sweat trickling off his brow and spoke.
“Doctor, such a man is dangerous to have around. I fear the safety of my kids – especially because one of them keeps saying he wants to become a soldier one day.”
“Fear is like a spider, Mr. Skanda. It crawls into your head silently, weaves a web and traps all your thoughts within the web – and then every thought is stuck in the web of fear. Look at this man – even his alter egos are afraid of something!
But you have no cause for worry, Mr. Skanda. We will send out personnel and take him to the rehabilitation wing as soon as possible. Thanks again for your concern.”
As Mr. Skanda walked out, he couldn’t help noticing that the doctor sitting in front of him, if he removed the mustache and snow white hair would look the same as the balding and clean shaven Colonel Anantha Krishnan who lived next door…
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Red Shirt Blues
He rubbed his eyes again and again. He found it very hard to digest the fact. Already his stomach had been misbehaving with him in its function of digestion for the past few days due to the hotel food, but this fact – well it was harder to digest.
The fact was that he needed to grab a contract from a client for painting a building, and he had asked his wife to pick up a new shirt for this purpose. He failed to understand what nefarious intentions she had in mind – but she had picked out a RED SHIRT for his meeting with the client. RED.
Though he carried out a thorough analysis of the shirt from various angles, rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes and even put on his glasses – he put the glasses on and stared at it, he took off his glasses and attempted in vain to flap out the color, but no. A red shirt is what he had. Bright, stubborn red.
He sighed and put it on. In front of the mirror, he looked like some out-of-work clown who wanted to scare the pants off the elite fashion designers in town.
“Wow, you look phenomenal!” Cried his wife cheerily.
“Phenomenal enough to be arrested for blinding a few unsuspecting humans on the road!” he grumbled.
“Oh, come on! It’s not that bad. Red is the color of bricks. And you’re the one who’s going to paint the bricks right?”
Wow, if there ever was an award for crappy logic, there would be no second guesses to whom that would go to, thought he.
With a worried disposition he mounted his bicycle and wobbled unsteadily. But as the breeze conditioned his face, he soon forgot about the monstrosity that was personified by the red shirt.
The leaves that passed him by as he looked skyward while cycling; the fresh breeze; he could see the leaves disappearing, then as he pedaled on the sky appearing from the greenery of the leaves.
Suddenly, he saw a blob of white descending towards him at high velocity. Before his nature-enjoying mind could comprehend what this might be, the black, feathered creator of the white blob (commonly addressed ‘crow’) had delivered a small lump of white substance (commonly addressed as bird shit) on to his red shirt.
The angle at which the crow had delivered its stuff was deadly in its accuracy and now, the red shirt sported a tinge of white on it.
Now this really perturbed our hero; he was not too happy with the red shirt to begin with, and now his shirt also sported a rather freaky white stain, adding to his out-of-work clown façade. As he stopped at a local tea kadai to get a water packet to try and clean off the stain.
In the meantime, a mama whose house happened to be right opposite the tea kadai was eagerly anticipating someone to drop by… He was talking on his mobile phone –
“Aan, Shenbagam mami, where is your son? I have been waiting for him for the past 20 minutes. I want to introduce him to my daughter.. As I have been saying, they will make a very good couple.”
“I know mama, he is on his way. He is so eco friendly so he will be coming there by cycle. You can identify him by his Red Shirt. He might initially be scared about the whole concept of marriage. Please talk to him slowly and make him understand the importance of all this!”
“Yes sure… Oh I think I see him now! He is wearing the red shirt and coming on a cycle! I will go and bring him in!”
Saying so the mama rushed forward and grabbed our hero, who was just buying a water packet to cleanse the crow shit.
“Come come maaplai! Oh dear, this is not good.. These crows are always a menace! Come in, come in! We’ll get it off in a jiffy!”
Now our hero was dumbstruck and in the beginning, his reaction was limited to – “Err?!?!?!?!” but then he realized that some nutty guy was actually offering to get the stain off his shirt; so he followed the mama.
“Here, here, have some fresh filter coffee. My daughter only made it!”
The coffee turned out to be extremely sugary, horrendous tasting, nearly tongue eliminating. God save the guy who marries that girl, thought our hero. And then the mama spoke and threw in a bombshell which was far worse than the coffee –
“Your mother and I have decided it’s time for you to marry my daughter.”
Our hero choked and writhed uncontrollably; the coffee cup fell from his hand; he was almost shivering. The prospect of two wives was making him dizzy.
“Maaplai, maaplai! What happened!”
“Err.. I am not a maaplai. In fact, I’m already married. Not happily married or anything, but married nonetheless!”
“Oh, you can’t wriggle out so easily maaplai. Your mom told me you might be fickle minded about this…”
At this point of time, our hero was fuming over the ancient practices of our ancestors and swearing. The women had the yellow thread and toe ring (thaali and metti) to prove that they were married. How the hell do men prove it?!
“Mama, whatever it is, I need to take your daughter out for a drink together and have a one night stand with her before deciding if she can be my life partner.”
Mama suddenly entered palpitation mode. It was his turn to give the drama like reactions.
“What? Drink ah? Night ah! Abacharam, abacharam!” (A classic tamil expression ruthlessly condemning all things sweet and pure such as drinking, smoking, and other enjoyable activities)
“Yea, think about it and let me know. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Saying so, our hero made a hasty exit.
Just when he was still worried about the white stain on his red shirt, he was accosted by a couple of villagers who were pretty excited to see him.
“Ayya!! Vanakkam Ayya! You are the champ right?”
Oh dear, here we go again. What is it this time?
“No, I am not a champ. I am probably the champ of Loserism, but hell, I’m dead sure that’s not who you are looking for.”
The two village get up guys were talking in strange dialects excitedly.
“Saar, you are the champ! Red shirt, white mark… They are the colors of our organization!”
“What freaking mark you doofus! This is a crow shit stain!”
“No no, you are coming with us now! We are going for the Jallikattu! You are the Jallikattu champ right… Yes, yes we were told that you didn’t like publicity. Saar come on, come with us!”
Amidst cries and protests of “You bunch of thick headed freaks! Let me go or I’m gonna ensure a bull’s butt is thrust in your face!”, our hero was carried into a cleverly concealed ground, where about six to seven others were waiting with eager faces. Villager number one mumbled with reverence, “Wow, did you hear our champ abuse us? Even his abuse is related to bulls!”
In the midst of the illegal jallikattu ground stood our hero, dust gathering at his sweaty forehead. He had to admit that this gave him a very tamil hero like feel, though how he ever got himself into this mess was beyond comprehension.
The bull looked like he was going to do some serious damage. Our hero wondered what sin he had committed in his past life. A small lump was forming in his throat. With an unmatched suddenness, the accursed bull charged towards our hero in the red shirt; this was when our hero realized that he was wearing the color RED!
Hero quickly took off his shirt and threw it far away. Bull followed the flying shirt for a while. In the meantime, our hero was rapidly trying to make an exit from the other side. The villagers were grumbling amongst themselves…
“Isn’t it shameful that our champ has a potbelly? It doesn’t look like he is a champion at all! And to think we came all the way to the city for this! Look how he is running from the bull!”
It was then that some background music seemed to be emanating from the ground.
“Eh like a lion, like a lion my darling grandson is walking….” Some old hag seemed to be singing…
A heavily muscled individual with attitude entered the ring. The TRUE CHAMP had arrived, much to the cheering and applause of the crowd. Now this was a champion!
Just 15 minutes later, our hero was given back his crow crap stained shirt, and the champ who had just tamed a bull was laughing in his face…
“Hahaha! How could they think someone like you was the champ? You don’t even have the qualities to be the guy who cleans out the bull’s dung!”
“Err.. Thank you? I’ve really got to go, Mr. Champ. Thank you for the timely entry, failing which I would’ve made an exit from the world itself!”
“What, where are you going? You need to have lunch! Come here man; try some of this fish kozhambu. It’s unbelievable!”
“No, no, I’ve got to be leaving…”
“I insist!”
“No no, I’m leaaaaaaavvvv” At this point of time, the degree of ‘horribility’ of our hero’s situation deepened. The fish kozhambu had spilt on his red shirt. Our hero’s life suddenly started moving in slow motion; “Nooooooooooo!” He cried.
Rrrrrrrrrrr…. (Reel is winding at normal speed now and Fast forwarding)
Location – Client’s building site.
One of our hero’s competitors was wearing an expensive business suit.
Another was wearing a well pressed formal shirt.
And our hero, well, nothing can be said about his impeccable red shirt with a white crow crap stain; it was exquisite in its design. And while the other competitors smelt of expensive perfume, our hero’s scent was unmistakable and unmaskable – the scent of the fish kozhambu on his shirt!
The client came outside adorned with a white dhoti, white shirt, heavy gold chain, ridiculously huge gold ring and an uninterested attitude. The competitors lined up… They would be questioned in depth about their quotes separately. But wait! What’s this? The client suddenly sniffed something so divine…
Something so familiar… Something out of this world… His grandmom’s Fish Kuzhambu?!?!?! But how was it possible here? Oh my God, that man in the red shirt… He was the man!
The client’s eyes were watering.
“Thambi, come here. Thambi, let me get a whiff of you. You smell brilliant!” Saying so, the client hugged our hero.
“My granny…” He said and sobbed!!
Rrrrrrrrrrr…. (Reel is fast forwarding)
“Wife, you are not going to believe what happened.”
“Who cares? Did you get the contract or not?”
“Yes I did, and through the most unbelievable series of events!”
“Thank God you clinched it! See I told you the RED SHIRT would work! What color did the client want you to paint the building?”
“RED.”
The fact was that he needed to grab a contract from a client for painting a building, and he had asked his wife to pick up a new shirt for this purpose. He failed to understand what nefarious intentions she had in mind – but she had picked out a RED SHIRT for his meeting with the client. RED.
Though he carried out a thorough analysis of the shirt from various angles, rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes and even put on his glasses – he put the glasses on and stared at it, he took off his glasses and attempted in vain to flap out the color, but no. A red shirt is what he had. Bright, stubborn red.
He sighed and put it on. In front of the mirror, he looked like some out-of-work clown who wanted to scare the pants off the elite fashion designers in town.
“Wow, you look phenomenal!” Cried his wife cheerily.
“Phenomenal enough to be arrested for blinding a few unsuspecting humans on the road!” he grumbled.
“Oh, come on! It’s not that bad. Red is the color of bricks. And you’re the one who’s going to paint the bricks right?”
Wow, if there ever was an award for crappy logic, there would be no second guesses to whom that would go to, thought he.
With a worried disposition he mounted his bicycle and wobbled unsteadily. But as the breeze conditioned his face, he soon forgot about the monstrosity that was personified by the red shirt.
The leaves that passed him by as he looked skyward while cycling; the fresh breeze; he could see the leaves disappearing, then as he pedaled on the sky appearing from the greenery of the leaves.
Suddenly, he saw a blob of white descending towards him at high velocity. Before his nature-enjoying mind could comprehend what this might be, the black, feathered creator of the white blob (commonly addressed ‘crow’) had delivered a small lump of white substance (commonly addressed as bird shit) on to his red shirt.
The angle at which the crow had delivered its stuff was deadly in its accuracy and now, the red shirt sported a tinge of white on it.
Now this really perturbed our hero; he was not too happy with the red shirt to begin with, and now his shirt also sported a rather freaky white stain, adding to his out-of-work clown façade. As he stopped at a local tea kadai to get a water packet to try and clean off the stain.
In the meantime, a mama whose house happened to be right opposite the tea kadai was eagerly anticipating someone to drop by… He was talking on his mobile phone –
“Aan, Shenbagam mami, where is your son? I have been waiting for him for the past 20 minutes. I want to introduce him to my daughter.. As I have been saying, they will make a very good couple.”
“I know mama, he is on his way. He is so eco friendly so he will be coming there by cycle. You can identify him by his Red Shirt. He might initially be scared about the whole concept of marriage. Please talk to him slowly and make him understand the importance of all this!”
“Yes sure… Oh I think I see him now! He is wearing the red shirt and coming on a cycle! I will go and bring him in!”
Saying so the mama rushed forward and grabbed our hero, who was just buying a water packet to cleanse the crow shit.
“Come come maaplai! Oh dear, this is not good.. These crows are always a menace! Come in, come in! We’ll get it off in a jiffy!”
Now our hero was dumbstruck and in the beginning, his reaction was limited to – “Err?!?!?!?!” but then he realized that some nutty guy was actually offering to get the stain off his shirt; so he followed the mama.
“Here, here, have some fresh filter coffee. My daughter only made it!”
The coffee turned out to be extremely sugary, horrendous tasting, nearly tongue eliminating. God save the guy who marries that girl, thought our hero. And then the mama spoke and threw in a bombshell which was far worse than the coffee –
“Your mother and I have decided it’s time for you to marry my daughter.”
Our hero choked and writhed uncontrollably; the coffee cup fell from his hand; he was almost shivering. The prospect of two wives was making him dizzy.
“Maaplai, maaplai! What happened!”
“Err.. I am not a maaplai. In fact, I’m already married. Not happily married or anything, but married nonetheless!”
“Oh, you can’t wriggle out so easily maaplai. Your mom told me you might be fickle minded about this…”
At this point of time, our hero was fuming over the ancient practices of our ancestors and swearing. The women had the yellow thread and toe ring (thaali and metti) to prove that they were married. How the hell do men prove it?!
“Mama, whatever it is, I need to take your daughter out for a drink together and have a one night stand with her before deciding if she can be my life partner.”
Mama suddenly entered palpitation mode. It was his turn to give the drama like reactions.
“What? Drink ah? Night ah! Abacharam, abacharam!” (A classic tamil expression ruthlessly condemning all things sweet and pure such as drinking, smoking, and other enjoyable activities)
“Yea, think about it and let me know. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Saying so, our hero made a hasty exit.
Just when he was still worried about the white stain on his red shirt, he was accosted by a couple of villagers who were pretty excited to see him.
“Ayya!! Vanakkam Ayya! You are the champ right?”
Oh dear, here we go again. What is it this time?
“No, I am not a champ. I am probably the champ of Loserism, but hell, I’m dead sure that’s not who you are looking for.”
The two village get up guys were talking in strange dialects excitedly.
“Saar, you are the champ! Red shirt, white mark… They are the colors of our organization!”
“What freaking mark you doofus! This is a crow shit stain!”
“No no, you are coming with us now! We are going for the Jallikattu! You are the Jallikattu champ right… Yes, yes we were told that you didn’t like publicity. Saar come on, come with us!”
Amidst cries and protests of “You bunch of thick headed freaks! Let me go or I’m gonna ensure a bull’s butt is thrust in your face!”, our hero was carried into a cleverly concealed ground, where about six to seven others were waiting with eager faces. Villager number one mumbled with reverence, “Wow, did you hear our champ abuse us? Even his abuse is related to bulls!”
In the midst of the illegal jallikattu ground stood our hero, dust gathering at his sweaty forehead. He had to admit that this gave him a very tamil hero like feel, though how he ever got himself into this mess was beyond comprehension.
The bull looked like he was going to do some serious damage. Our hero wondered what sin he had committed in his past life. A small lump was forming in his throat. With an unmatched suddenness, the accursed bull charged towards our hero in the red shirt; this was when our hero realized that he was wearing the color RED!
Hero quickly took off his shirt and threw it far away. Bull followed the flying shirt for a while. In the meantime, our hero was rapidly trying to make an exit from the other side. The villagers were grumbling amongst themselves…
“Isn’t it shameful that our champ has a potbelly? It doesn’t look like he is a champion at all! And to think we came all the way to the city for this! Look how he is running from the bull!”
It was then that some background music seemed to be emanating from the ground.
“Eh like a lion, like a lion my darling grandson is walking….” Some old hag seemed to be singing…
A heavily muscled individual with attitude entered the ring. The TRUE CHAMP had arrived, much to the cheering and applause of the crowd. Now this was a champion!
Just 15 minutes later, our hero was given back his crow crap stained shirt, and the champ who had just tamed a bull was laughing in his face…
“Hahaha! How could they think someone like you was the champ? You don’t even have the qualities to be the guy who cleans out the bull’s dung!”
“Err.. Thank you? I’ve really got to go, Mr. Champ. Thank you for the timely entry, failing which I would’ve made an exit from the world itself!”
“What, where are you going? You need to have lunch! Come here man; try some of this fish kozhambu. It’s unbelievable!”
“No, no, I’ve got to be leaving…”
“I insist!”
“No no, I’m leaaaaaaavvvv” At this point of time, the degree of ‘horribility’ of our hero’s situation deepened. The fish kozhambu had spilt on his red shirt. Our hero’s life suddenly started moving in slow motion; “Nooooooooooo!” He cried.
Rrrrrrrrrrr…. (Reel is winding at normal speed now and Fast forwarding)
Location – Client’s building site.
One of our hero’s competitors was wearing an expensive business suit.
Another was wearing a well pressed formal shirt.
And our hero, well, nothing can be said about his impeccable red shirt with a white crow crap stain; it was exquisite in its design. And while the other competitors smelt of expensive perfume, our hero’s scent was unmistakable and unmaskable – the scent of the fish kozhambu on his shirt!
The client came outside adorned with a white dhoti, white shirt, heavy gold chain, ridiculously huge gold ring and an uninterested attitude. The competitors lined up… They would be questioned in depth about their quotes separately. But wait! What’s this? The client suddenly sniffed something so divine…
Something so familiar… Something out of this world… His grandmom’s Fish Kuzhambu?!?!?! But how was it possible here? Oh my God, that man in the red shirt… He was the man!
The client’s eyes were watering.
“Thambi, come here. Thambi, let me get a whiff of you. You smell brilliant!” Saying so, the client hugged our hero.
“My granny…” He said and sobbed!!
Rrrrrrrrrrr…. (Reel is fast forwarding)
“Wife, you are not going to believe what happened.”
“Who cares? Did you get the contract or not?”
“Yes I did, and through the most unbelievable series of events!”
“Thank God you clinched it! See I told you the RED SHIRT would work! What color did the client want you to paint the building?”
“RED.”
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Psychoware -I
The software engineer had his intense, intelligent eyes fixated on a leaf which was being propelled around helplessly and aimlessly by the wind. He reveled in this simple sight by comparing his life to the course of this simple leaf – directionless, controlled by external factors, drifting without a sign into the nothingness…
‘Token number: Five, Zero.’
‘Token number: two, seven, eight.’
‘Token number: four, number: eight six … ‘
The metallic voices in the food court irked him like his ears were being torn apart by hot spikes. Droning on and on in his head, he detested these voices as they were inhuman, they were tormenting, monotonous and ruthless – how much ever you shouted they would never stop or they could never be outshouted, they could not be drowned. You HAD to submit to the power of the voice coming from the loudspeaker. In short, the whole thing reminded him of encounters with his boss.
He sat in front of the machine that had come to mean more than half his life. His PC. This is where the pointlessness of life began to raise its ugly head and entangle him within it. What was his life beyond the sickening lines of endless code? Meaningless mails which promised employees a great working experience and which fooled them into believing that they were living a great life flooded his inbox. He shift deleted every mail, and opened the forwards. Hahaha, the forwards. Now that was some fresh lease of life… By the way, how could life be so sad ass that forwards meant salvation?
What had he ever wanted in life? He didn’t know. He never did. He had been a wet sponge full of energy, ready to get into a literary career right after barely scraping out of school. Four years of engineering had squeezed this sponge dry; life’s juices, life’s essence had been squeezed out of him.
Lunch. The wind was still blowing hard, and the leaves were still flying around. Then his eyes fell on the tree. The tree which stood its ground irrespective of how much the wind howled. That was when he decided – he would be the tree. He would cease being the leaf.
‘Token number: four, one, six’
‘Token, two,:number, nine.’
‘Number: Token, six, … ‘
That was it. He could take it no longer. In front of him stood a bespectacled young chap, waiting for his token number to flash on the screen. He tapped the guy on the shoulder and when he turned, Rudran laid a resounding punch right on the bridge of that unsuspecting guy’s nose.
“AAaaaoouuu!” Wailed the guy in pain. Blood sprouted from his nose and by the time anything else could happen, shocked people moved away from the counter and kept watching what was happening. This gave ample time for Rudran to get the hell out of there without second thoughts.
He was panting and his lungs, greedy for air, kept him gasping till he regained composure. He was thrilled. Adrenaline pumped through him and gave him a powerful feeling, like he was the Lord of the world. That was how it all started.
The next day. Around 8 pm. The Food Court was deserted save for few. Even though the people were few, the token machines droned on. . .
‘Token number: eight, four,
‘Token,number seven,three, number.’
‘Token Nambarrr, eight, five, six, … ‘
The Psychoware had been booted in his head. His face acquired a contorted glow. His whole presence filled up with malicious satisfaction. He needed a place to perform his operations... Aha! He had spotted it. The broom closet which was conveniently pocketed away in a remote corner– you wouldn’t notice it if you were just walking by. This was the venue where he would take them.
“Err.. I would like to show you something really interesting!” Rudran was addressing a gullible looking guy.
The guy looked at him from head to toe, unyielding.
“I have to catch the last shuttle…”
Rudran placed a hand on this guy’s shoulder in an aggressive fashion.
“No no, shuttle doesn’t matter anymore. You HAVE to see this interesting thing.” He said, clamping his hand on the guy’s shoulder and applying pressure.
“Ok, ok I’ll come!” The other guy cowered.
Hahaha, just the typical kind of guy – eats like a pig, looks like a huge bull, and still scared of me because I intimidate him, though I am smaller than him. What a sucker.
“It’s just in here man, come on in!” Called Rudran pleasantly. A broom and bucket happened to mark their presence in that closet.
Ah, the tools of the trade!
“See, this broom… It has qualities which you can never imagine. It’s usually used to wipe the floor, but I’ve ascertained that your head would function better than this mop. And I’m not going to waste phenyl on this. I’m going to use blood which oozes out. You pathetic fuck! “
THWACK!
A resounding sound echoed against the walls of the small broom closet. A totally unwary and unprotected skull came into contact with the thick, heavy plastic of a rather sturdy broom, resulting in the cracking of the former.
Hahaha! Take this you over- eating, ass-glued-to-seat, eyes-glued-to-system bastard! You deserve every blow from this thick plastic. Yessssss …
The plastic cracked, and this was when Rudran ceased the pounding.
Rudran announced in general -
“Victim number : Zero, Two… “
‘Token number: Five, Zero.’
‘Token number: two, seven, eight.’
‘Token number: four, number: eight six … ‘
The metallic voices in the food court irked him like his ears were being torn apart by hot spikes. Droning on and on in his head, he detested these voices as they were inhuman, they were tormenting, monotonous and ruthless – how much ever you shouted they would never stop or they could never be outshouted, they could not be drowned. You HAD to submit to the power of the voice coming from the loudspeaker. In short, the whole thing reminded him of encounters with his boss.
He sat in front of the machine that had come to mean more than half his life. His PC. This is where the pointlessness of life began to raise its ugly head and entangle him within it. What was his life beyond the sickening lines of endless code? Meaningless mails which promised employees a great working experience and which fooled them into believing that they were living a great life flooded his inbox. He shift deleted every mail, and opened the forwards. Hahaha, the forwards. Now that was some fresh lease of life… By the way, how could life be so sad ass that forwards meant salvation?
What had he ever wanted in life? He didn’t know. He never did. He had been a wet sponge full of energy, ready to get into a literary career right after barely scraping out of school. Four years of engineering had squeezed this sponge dry; life’s juices, life’s essence had been squeezed out of him.
Lunch. The wind was still blowing hard, and the leaves were still flying around. Then his eyes fell on the tree. The tree which stood its ground irrespective of how much the wind howled. That was when he decided – he would be the tree. He would cease being the leaf.
‘Token number: four, one, six’
‘Token, two,:number, nine.’
‘Number: Token, six, … ‘
That was it. He could take it no longer. In front of him stood a bespectacled young chap, waiting for his token number to flash on the screen. He tapped the guy on the shoulder and when he turned, Rudran laid a resounding punch right on the bridge of that unsuspecting guy’s nose.
“AAaaaoouuu!” Wailed the guy in pain. Blood sprouted from his nose and by the time anything else could happen, shocked people moved away from the counter and kept watching what was happening. This gave ample time for Rudran to get the hell out of there without second thoughts.
He was panting and his lungs, greedy for air, kept him gasping till he regained composure. He was thrilled. Adrenaline pumped through him and gave him a powerful feeling, like he was the Lord of the world. That was how it all started.
The next day. Around 8 pm. The Food Court was deserted save for few. Even though the people were few, the token machines droned on. . .
‘Token number: eight, four,
‘Token,number seven,three, number.’
‘Token Nambarrr, eight, five, six, … ‘
The Psychoware had been booted in his head. His face acquired a contorted glow. His whole presence filled up with malicious satisfaction. He needed a place to perform his operations... Aha! He had spotted it. The broom closet which was conveniently pocketed away in a remote corner– you wouldn’t notice it if you were just walking by. This was the venue where he would take them.
“Err.. I would like to show you something really interesting!” Rudran was addressing a gullible looking guy.
The guy looked at him from head to toe, unyielding.
“I have to catch the last shuttle…”
Rudran placed a hand on this guy’s shoulder in an aggressive fashion.
“No no, shuttle doesn’t matter anymore. You HAVE to see this interesting thing.” He said, clamping his hand on the guy’s shoulder and applying pressure.
“Ok, ok I’ll come!” The other guy cowered.
Hahaha, just the typical kind of guy – eats like a pig, looks like a huge bull, and still scared of me because I intimidate him, though I am smaller than him. What a sucker.
“It’s just in here man, come on in!” Called Rudran pleasantly. A broom and bucket happened to mark their presence in that closet.
Ah, the tools of the trade!
“See, this broom… It has qualities which you can never imagine. It’s usually used to wipe the floor, but I’ve ascertained that your head would function better than this mop. And I’m not going to waste phenyl on this. I’m going to use blood which oozes out. You pathetic fuck! “
THWACK!
A resounding sound echoed against the walls of the small broom closet. A totally unwary and unprotected skull came into contact with the thick, heavy plastic of a rather sturdy broom, resulting in the cracking of the former.
Hahaha! Take this you over- eating, ass-glued-to-seat, eyes-glued-to-system bastard! You deserve every blow from this thick plastic. Yessssss …
The plastic cracked, and this was when Rudran ceased the pounding.
Rudran announced in general -
“Victim number : Zero, Two… “
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Zephyr
It was another one of those dark and rainy nights.
Water droplets born from the clouds started kissing the Earth gently at first, and then more passionately, and finally the force was so much that the kiss morphed into a tormenting, piercing pounding.
In the eeriness and the sepulchral silence of the graveyard where soulless corpses took refuge, stood a man, the rain bouncing savagely off his black umbrella. Cold lines cut across his face, hardening his visage; but the coldness of his heart far surpassed the coldness on his face.
He looked grimly at a singular line of graves, all identical save for the numbers engraved on them. They bore no epitaphs or announcements like ‘Here lies…’ On the tombstones were just engraved a number, and a date. There will be just one more tombstone, and after that I’m done, Zephyr told himself.
He looked at the long line of identical tombstones – the people he had killed. He never cared who they were, what they did, if they had kids; it was his job to kill, and it was something within him which told him to bury them; No names, no status, no discrimination; all those meaningless entities perish with the person and they were all buried together in the same soil, subject to the same maggots, and ultimately crumbled to the same dust. Death was the inevitable unison which bridged everyone irrespective of anything.
Zephyr had only one person left to kill, and it only made things easier that he hated that person. All his deaths had been for the living, for the job; his last kill was for himself, because hate was consuming him and he could bear with it no longer. He had tried to relate to this person throughout his meaningless existence, to seek refuge, to understand what he was all about, but he could never figure out. Whenever this person stood in the graveyard of soulless corpses, Zephyr always thought that this person didn’t have a soul either and that the only difference was that this person was a walking corpse.
There had never been another side to this guy except the killer side; there was only cold calculation, colder feelings and of course, the coldest heart.
The rain was now ceasing its relentlessness; Zephyr shook the raindrops off his umbrella and with haste in his strides, reached the undertaker who had been doing the business of engraving the tombstones of Zephyr’s victims.
“This is your 110th, Mr. Z” Stated the Undertaker.
“The next one will be my last one.”
The undertaker was not precisely happy to hear this, because the business of burying murdered people and keeping the whole thing under wraps was an extremely productive business. But the whole foundation on which he had been given the contract was the usual ‘no questions asked, none answered’ one, but now since the contract was going to terminate, the undertaker could take it no longer.
“Who were all those people you killed?” He queried.
Zephyr too, had no obligations anymore as this was going to be his ultimate assignment. He took off his coat, pulled up a rusted chair, and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. The undertaker looked at the cold angles on Zephyr’s face and shuddered. The whole room was dimly lit by a few dull bulbs; Zephyr wondered - was this because the nature of the undertaker’s job was like that or was it because he didn’t want to see how weepy or ugly his clients were when they were grieving someone who died; but then, you can’t exactly expect freaking colorful neon lights on the display at an undertaker’s.
“I killed them because I was asked to, and the dough was good. I am as clueless as you are about their identities. It was just look at this picture, go kill him, take your money, shut your fucking mouth and get the fuck outta here.”
“Why did you do it? You would’ve annihilated so many families and you would’ve destroyed a large number of people who could’ve made a great difference.”
“What’s done is done” stated Zephyr, taking a contemplative puff at his burning cigarette.
“Now how come you’re stopping?”
“Well, you’ve been my only friend and you’ll soon find out.” And with an air of enigma about him, Zephyr turned to leave. As he shut the door behind him, the undertaker wondered- I didn’t even know him and he says I’m his only friend. What a sad ass life he must lead.
Perspiration drenched his palm as he clutched his faithful GP-100 Ruger Magnum pistol. For the first time, his heart was throbbing and adrenaline was pumping as he cocked his gun. He could see his last victim in front of him; Hate bubbled up inside him and threatened to cause an unprecedented internal explosion. This had been the advantage of not knowing any of his other victims. They were just meaningless faces and there were no connecting roots. Here the roots ran so deep; they were welded together and nearly indistinguishable.
His last victim- Victim Number 111. A nice note to end it on, he thought. He messaged his undertaker – Collect it at the usual place.
Zephyr saw his last victim for the last time, and pulled the trigger.
The undertaker went to the usual place and saw the victim; in front of him was a mirror.
The undertaker buried the last victim in that sepulchral row of graves. The only difference was, this tombstone read differently –
Here lies Zephyr, the man responsible for this entire row of graves including his own.
Water droplets born from the clouds started kissing the Earth gently at first, and then more passionately, and finally the force was so much that the kiss morphed into a tormenting, piercing pounding.
In the eeriness and the sepulchral silence of the graveyard where soulless corpses took refuge, stood a man, the rain bouncing savagely off his black umbrella. Cold lines cut across his face, hardening his visage; but the coldness of his heart far surpassed the coldness on his face.
He looked grimly at a singular line of graves, all identical save for the numbers engraved on them. They bore no epitaphs or announcements like ‘Here lies…’ On the tombstones were just engraved a number, and a date. There will be just one more tombstone, and after that I’m done, Zephyr told himself.
He looked at the long line of identical tombstones – the people he had killed. He never cared who they were, what they did, if they had kids; it was his job to kill, and it was something within him which told him to bury them; No names, no status, no discrimination; all those meaningless entities perish with the person and they were all buried together in the same soil, subject to the same maggots, and ultimately crumbled to the same dust. Death was the inevitable unison which bridged everyone irrespective of anything.
Zephyr had only one person left to kill, and it only made things easier that he hated that person. All his deaths had been for the living, for the job; his last kill was for himself, because hate was consuming him and he could bear with it no longer. He had tried to relate to this person throughout his meaningless existence, to seek refuge, to understand what he was all about, but he could never figure out. Whenever this person stood in the graveyard of soulless corpses, Zephyr always thought that this person didn’t have a soul either and that the only difference was that this person was a walking corpse.
There had never been another side to this guy except the killer side; there was only cold calculation, colder feelings and of course, the coldest heart.
The rain was now ceasing its relentlessness; Zephyr shook the raindrops off his umbrella and with haste in his strides, reached the undertaker who had been doing the business of engraving the tombstones of Zephyr’s victims.
“This is your 110th, Mr. Z” Stated the Undertaker.
“The next one will be my last one.”
The undertaker was not precisely happy to hear this, because the business of burying murdered people and keeping the whole thing under wraps was an extremely productive business. But the whole foundation on which he had been given the contract was the usual ‘no questions asked, none answered’ one, but now since the contract was going to terminate, the undertaker could take it no longer.
“Who were all those people you killed?” He queried.
Zephyr too, had no obligations anymore as this was going to be his ultimate assignment. He took off his coat, pulled up a rusted chair, and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. The undertaker looked at the cold angles on Zephyr’s face and shuddered. The whole room was dimly lit by a few dull bulbs; Zephyr wondered - was this because the nature of the undertaker’s job was like that or was it because he didn’t want to see how weepy or ugly his clients were when they were grieving someone who died; but then, you can’t exactly expect freaking colorful neon lights on the display at an undertaker’s.
“I killed them because I was asked to, and the dough was good. I am as clueless as you are about their identities. It was just look at this picture, go kill him, take your money, shut your fucking mouth and get the fuck outta here.”
“Why did you do it? You would’ve annihilated so many families and you would’ve destroyed a large number of people who could’ve made a great difference.”
“What’s done is done” stated Zephyr, taking a contemplative puff at his burning cigarette.
“Now how come you’re stopping?”
“Well, you’ve been my only friend and you’ll soon find out.” And with an air of enigma about him, Zephyr turned to leave. As he shut the door behind him, the undertaker wondered- I didn’t even know him and he says I’m his only friend. What a sad ass life he must lead.
Perspiration drenched his palm as he clutched his faithful GP-100 Ruger Magnum pistol. For the first time, his heart was throbbing and adrenaline was pumping as he cocked his gun. He could see his last victim in front of him; Hate bubbled up inside him and threatened to cause an unprecedented internal explosion. This had been the advantage of not knowing any of his other victims. They were just meaningless faces and there were no connecting roots. Here the roots ran so deep; they were welded together and nearly indistinguishable.
His last victim- Victim Number 111. A nice note to end it on, he thought. He messaged his undertaker – Collect it at the usual place.
Zephyr saw his last victim for the last time, and pulled the trigger.
The undertaker went to the usual place and saw the victim; in front of him was a mirror.
The undertaker buried the last victim in that sepulchral row of graves. The only difference was, this tombstone read differently –
Here lies Zephyr, the man responsible for this entire row of graves including his own.
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