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United We Fight 2007-03-17 10:27:32 They gathered once a week in an empty classroom at the only school in the neighbourhood. It had started as a small, personal endeavour by an individual with time and money on his hands. It had grown into another enterprise that contributed to his income. He secretly called the enterprise PFA (Profiting From Anger) but the sign on the door read Overcoming Anger Together (OAT) and their motto was, ‘Sowing An OAT Today Will Yield A Conflict-Free Tomorrow.”
It was hokey and he had only undertaken the exercise as a way to ease some of the guilt he felt for the harm he had caused. He hadn’t expected this, of all his ventures, to be the legacy he would leave behind. He looked around the room taking in the expressions of the others in the session he participated in, the first session of three that ran from 6pm until 9 pm. They tried to limit each session to a middle single-digit number so that everyone could have their say.
The six others in the room that day were:
ANANYA
To look at th Read more:United
Come Away With Me 2007-03-19 04:38:56 She bolted like a scared animal.
He couldn’t understand why. It definitely wasn’t because he had touched her in an inappropriate manner.
He never did that.
Not with the girls he was hoping to take home and not with anyone else. He was almost averse to touching in public.
It was a complaint his ex-wife had always had. She told him he needed to relax a little. It was okay for her to slips her fingers into his. It made her feel good to be able to feel the warmth of his hands. He used to smile and allow it for a few minutes before shrugging off her grip when she was distracted. Of course that wasn’t the only reason she was his ex but it had to be one of the inciting incidents.
So he looked at the young woman with some surprise, “What just happened?” She shook her head, slightly confused and looked at him from under thick eyelashes, distrustful yet confused because he wasn’t really behaving in a threatening manner, “I don’t know. I guess I thought you were trying to put your
Killer Watch 2007-03-18 06:41:45 I’m not afraid for myself. I haven’t been since I was five. The man that rid me of my fear did me a favour even though I had to repay him by watching him die. After all it was the price he paid for kidnapping me.
I was certain he had made a mistake at the time. At least I think I was certain because it’s hard for a man to remember his thoughts a quarter century later. I had other thoughts to occupy me in the intervening period and some of them were way more pleasurable that thinking of the would-be kidnapper who died at my feet.
Ironic that I should be regurgitating memories from a childhood long forgotten at a time like this…must have something to do with the situation I find myself in right now. To say that things weren’t looking good was to put things politely. Things were as fucked as they were going to get for a person without that person actually being dead. You can’t do anything about anything once you’re pushing up daisies or passing through an electric crematori Read more:Killer
Social 2007-03-20 06:13:53 Sameera knew she could control it. She was confident about her own ability to stop at any time. It wasn’t like she was going to be trading sexual favours for her fix like that girl in Requiem for a Dream…hell the only reason she was even trying it was because of how well adjusted she was and how quickly she could stop if she wanted to. She had a life, she had friends who loved and supported her and compared to most other people her age her family didn’t suck as much. She was cool. She was better than cool, she was an iceberg.
Her buddy Rohan got her involved in the scene. He had been into it for so long he couldn’t tell her exactly when he stopped being one of the unplugged. He had it all, the look, the language, the rhythm and the gear. She wasn’t sure at first, about him or the whole scene. When he had just been inducted, in the very beginning, she thought he had turned into a narcissistic pain in the ass who could no longer speak without condescension for those that weren Read more:Social
Nocturnal Suitor 2007-03-21 05:18:41 As disapproval of a woman’s choice of lover goes, Emily had smashed the Disapproval Meter by earning it unanimously from everyone in her life. His name was Stuart and everybody she knew seemed to think that there was something…not quite right about him. She didn’t understand why everyone couldn’t just be happy for her. Sure she had met him while on vacation in Europe. She knew it was considered acceptable for people to go to Europe for flings and sexual adventures. She didn’t understand why it was so wrong for her to have returned with a fiancé.
In moments of quiet introspection Emily was not above reminding herself that Stuart could be a bit odd. He had this way of looking at people that made them want to put a coat on. He seemed to be able to see right into a person’s soul. It was what had drawn her towards him in the first place. She had sensed his eyes upon her from across the courtyard at Notre Dame and once they got talking she didn’t end up seeing the inside. As h Read more:Nocturnal
Paternal 2007-03-22 04:27:00 “In life as in art, pretend.”
Those were the only words my father ever spoke directly to me.
I was thirteen at the time. It was as if he had discovered a new life form and felt the need to impart some wisdom. I don’t exaggerate when I say that my father hadn’t spoken to me before that. He had spoken, around me, about me, for me and near me but never to me.
He knew I existed, he knew what kind of grades I got at school and he knew who my friends were. He knew what I liked for dessert and he knew when I fell down and hurt myself for the first time at school. It was only on that day, when he chose to speak to me, that I realised that my father knew that I existed. It wasn’t even my thirteenth birthday or anything; the actual day had no other significance.
I had long harboured the fantasy that I was partially invisible. Not in the fashion of a floating head or a headless body but in the sense that some people could not see me. Up until that day I counted my father among those peo
Chick Magnet 2007-03-24 05:00:04 “It’s not the matter-of-fact ones I have a problem with. It’s the rest of them that I’d like to smack. I mean seriously, ‘these are my goods, does it look like you could have a good time with them?’ How hard is that to comprehend? No bullshit right? It’s tough enough in the world already without all this cock-teasing that goes on in the name of the dating game.”
He could go on like that for hours; his long-suffering friends would confirm that fact. Most of them thought that he did protest too much, especially since he did very well for himself on the dating scene. The cynical among them thought it had something to do with who he was. He agreed. It was at the core of all his complaints with his life. The fact that his daddy was rich permitted him to have his way with any girl he wanted. The most objectionable stuff he could do became okay when his father’s lawyers visited her parents with a briefcase full of money. It was typical rich kid anxiety.
He feared that nothi Read more:Magnet
Uncomfortable Closeness 2007-03-23 09:52:35 She wanted to know what he thought of when he got all quiet like that. She said it felt like a chill had descended over the room. She told him she didn’t like it. She told him it made her feel like she was alone even though there was another person in the room. She made it seem like he’d done something bad when in truth he’d simply allowed himself to become comfortable.
It was a thing with him; he remained completely focused on a task when it was new and unfamiliar. Like driving. He was really nervous about getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, something about not being certain that he could actually tame and steer a beast so much bigger and heavier than he. So he paid attention to the rules and best practices and almost before he’d realised it he could handle wide open highways or narrow lanes with erratic foot traffic with equal ease.
He enjoyed the highways the most because it meant that he was free to cruise, allowing that portion of his mind that indulged in fantas
Chocolate Seduction 2007-03-25 06:58:26 Shaila didn’t understand Carlos. She didn’t understand why he did the things he did and she didn’t understand why it seemed to be okay for him to get away with it all. Several days had passed since she had last been out of their single bedroom apartment. In moments of hallucinatory paranoia she imagined that the whole city had changed. That buildings would no longer look like they used to, that street signs would have changed yet again and that she would be hard-pressed to find her way from anywhere to anywhere else.
“Where have you been all day?” she asked him even before he’d properly come in through the door.
He didn’t immediately respond, choosing to focus instead on taking of his shoes, “Out. Why?”
“I’ve been stuck here all day.”
“Who told you not to go out?”
“What if somebody came?”
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No. But what if the courier came or something…?”
“Are you expecting something?”
“No.”
He didn’t say anything, seeming Read more:Chocolate
The End Is The Beginning 2007-03-26 06:19:37 Look at anything you’ve used for a while from a different angle and you’ll see details that are easily missed from any other perspective. Like if you happened to be lying with your right cheek pressed to the cold hard floor, left eye being the only one capable of recording visual information because its companion is pressed shut. In such a position you might see a pen you’d imagined long lost, when in truth it had merely rolled under a low sofa, to collect dust and become a stepping ground for all manner of insects and whatnot.
It is important to view things from different angles and perspectives. Mine isn’t the dominant position or perspective right now. It’s not just my cheek that is pressed to the ground. My chest hugs the unforgiving floor so hard that it is difficult to breathe with anything less than the greatest effort for the shallowest intake of air. I’m probably getting more dust than air into my lungs. My head is so flat against the floor it may go right through
Conflict Paused 2007-03-28 06:14:01 “There is a saying my son…about light, darkness and man. I am not wise enough to repeat it without making a mess of its meaning. For there are words and there is meaning. If one were only capable of understanding the words, as I was, one has failed. Seek meaning and all else will be revealed.”
He was my father and we were standing atop a mountain as he said those words to me. All I remember thinking at the time was that we were too heavy for that outcropping of rock. I could see ourselves crashing down the mountain side to the rocks below until we lay atop jagged rocks with the water lapping against our broken limbs, washing our blood away into the ocean.
That was the difference between my father and me. He saw triumph in every tragedy, I saw loss in every victory.
We had made battle upon another faction of the Throngs last night and it pains me greatly to tell you dear Mother that it appears we have lost another tenth of our force. This makes it the third tenth of the original f Read more:Conflict
Come Get Some 2007-03-27 11:02:48 He liked to read at every available opportunity. He enjoyed the worlds that were made available to him between the covers of a paperback and he seldom read a book with an eye for narrative style or descriptive content. Once he was gone, lost, in the book of the moment he wouldn’t register them as dark characters on a white page. He didn’t care about paper quality or typographic differences and the only thing that was likely to attract him to one book over others on a shelf was cover art. Once he’d turned a few pages he was so immersed in the environments, so busy imagining the people inhabiting them and so intent on hanging on to every word that he often forgot where he was. He had laughed out loud enough times in public places at something funny in the book he was reading. He missed bus stops and railway stations and he very often didn’t notice when someone was trying to get his attention.
He wasn’t a fan of television as much as he was a fan of cinema and that was nowhere c
Wristcutter’s Ballet 2007-03-29 04:49:28 I slice my cigars with scalpels and I wear a noose as a neck tie. Not because it makes me cool but because of how scared I can feel when I have that thing threatening to choke off my air or that other thing itching to drag a furrow through my veins. I don’t have patience for multi-step programs because they tell me what I already know and I don’t think repetition is the way for me to learn.
That life is beautiful.
That suffering builds character.
That an animated conversation is better than just-lying-there sex.
That the future is what I make of it.
That the past can only hurt me if I let it.
That she loved me once but once was a long time ago and now she loves him and I should move on.
It’s ironic how everything swims into focus in that moment before oblivion. Most people don’t have the opportunity to take it all back. I did because I didn’t realise that the thumping in the background was not a sound in my head. It was the air and pressure and contact of skin and muscle-enca Read more:Ballet
Cross Roots 2007-03-30 08:41:54 If one wasn’t paying very close attention, it sounded like the same thing. There was music, only the event was different. Trouble was, even a cursory glance would have delivered the same impression no matter the situation. The by-lanes always seemed to look the same even though it was clear that the area was morphing, every day. Like a time-lapse of cancer or the haphazard construction of a child at Lego.
This is my neighbourhood, these were my friends and I don’t recognize either as I pay what could be my final visit to the old neighbourhood.
We never realised it, growing up Catholic in India, that we were probably the most misfit of misfits in a nation with a hundred religions. The Persians and the Buddhists had roots here, at some time in the distant past. At least that is what I think. But Catholics…unless we came over on some misdirected boat in some unnamed century we are probably descended from people of a different faith in the not too distant past. I try not to think abo Read more:Cross
Saying Goodbye 2007-04-01 08:01:35 The cigarette smoke was coursing through her like a liquid machine spreading its evil through her lungs and blood stream, intent on doing irreversible damage. If she had thought of it like that she would have wished that it worked faster. Instead, all she did was sit in the chair, dragged greedily on the cancer stick and waited for daybreak.
The rattling of metal against metal, actually the heavy links of a rusting chain caused her to shudder periodically. The only reason she was resting easy was the knowledge that there was no getting away from the chains. Even if the chains proved incapable, the two hundred pounds of iron attached to one end of the chain would ensure against her being disturbed until morning came.
Every time she started to feel the seductive lure of the Sandman she lit up another cigarette. She was not going to fall asleep. Sleep brought dreams and it was harder to do what she had to do when she was allowed to dream.
The lit cigarette went to her lips with decreasin Read more:Goodbye
Catching Up 2007-03-31 08:18:48 They were on the telephone with each other, exchanging news about their respective days. It was a conversation punctuated by long silences, grunts and murmurs. She had twisted the telephone cord around her index finger as she listened to him tell her about college. It was a love-hate thing for to listen to him because she hadn’t quite forgiven him the fact that he had managed admission into the only college she’d ever wanted to go to. She was easily angered if she thought that something she coveted was being taken for granted so she liked it even less that he was blasé about every day he spent in the place. She was glad he was in there because she hoped to absorb some of the aura of the coolest college in the city, by osmosis if nothing else.
They were an almost-at-the-end-of-their-teenage couple who had met in an almost routine suburban-boy-meets-suburban-girl scenario and both of them would have had difficulty remembering the exact day they decided that they were an ‘item’
Behind The Veil 2007-04-02 04:24:44 He was like an eager child who knew all about candy stores and the magic inherent in the products they sold but up until that day he hadn’t actually set foot in one. A friend of a friend took a shine to him and invited him to watch her work. She just happened to work as a stylist for a fashion magazine so he was en route by train, agog with excitement at the possibility of actually seeing a supermodel at work.
As he walked through the door, surprisingly unquestioned, he was a little disappointed to realise that the space they were shooting in, though air-conditioned, looked more like a grungy warehouse than it did like a super chic space where super-chic girls posed in super-chic ways for super-chic products.
His disappointment about the studio space quickly melted away when the people began to mill past him. An impossibly slender girl (not skinny, just slender) in low rise jeans and super-snug sweater wandered past, murmuring into a cellphone that was so new he’d never seen one li
Hard To Do 2007-04-03 05:28:53 “Yeah, fuck you too, bitch!”
It seemed so hollow to have to resort to yelling something like that as the taxi cab pulled away. So he didn’t. Even though she deserved it. Even though he knew he was in the right this time. As a friend of his loved to say, “What the hell kind of difference does it make anyway? A girl turns on the waterworks and you’re the jerk. Doesn’t matter if she fucked the entire football team. Nobody cares if she’s been stealing money from your wallet for months. You get no sympathy for her being a mood disorder-slinging bitch. Hell people probably wouldn’t even care if she went all Columbine on some poor school’s ass as long as she was able to cry about it afterwards…”
He liked to think his friend was a bitter, bitter man. No way was anyone going to feel sympathy for a girl who executes a bunch of her classmates…right?
But this wasn’t really about any of that. This was about a girl whose cab had already been swallowed up in mid-morning traf
The Driver 2007-04-05 05:27:17 Oh great, another guy from a country I know nothing about.
It wasn’t a thought he encouraged too often but it had been a difficult day and there were too many things going on in his head for him to focus on being politically correct with his thoughts.
Where to sir?
Just drive.
In which direction?
Come on man, you showed some initiative when you came to this country right? You did what it took to get your driver’s license and a permit to drive this cab? Now drive!
Okay sir. None of this goes off the meter yes?
Fine.
He watched it all go by. The city, the people, and he remembered a time when he wanted to know more about each and every one of them. Put his arms around the world. Let everybody know that there was one person who wondered about them and hoped they were okay, even though he didn’t know them and they had never heard of him. He thought about babies in Africa sometimes, especially when his life was going to shit. He wondered if he had any right to feel miserable about li Read more:Driver
Mr. Hand 2007-04-04 11:54:00 His name was Elliot Hand. Mr. Hand they called him, from a very young age. Even before he completely understood all the puns that were being made at his expense. Mr. Hand-That-Rocks-The-Cradle, Mr. Handjob, Mr. Handle-With-Care, Mr. Hand-Me-All-Your-Money…only some of those jokes were made by the kids at school. He got it just as bad during his adult life. It did Mr. Hand no favours that he looked like he was forty ever since he was fifteen. It also did him little good that he didn’t seem to understand that people were enjoying a laugh at his expense. The kids said they called him Mister because it seemed right seeing as he looked so old and all. The guys at work said it made them feel weird to call him Elliot. Elliot was a man’s name, like Elliot Ness. It didn’t feel right to be addressing a loser like Hand as Elliot.
By the age of thirty Elliot was a virgin and resigned to accepting that he would never have sex, not with a woman anyway. The idea of sexual union excited him bu
Demanding And Damned 2007-04-06 08:32:33 She liked to say it didn’t matter at all what they did, as long as it wasn’t boring. It wasn’t enough for them to go out and party, the party had to be exciting. He lived in constant fear of suddenly becoming boring. He had to do his share of unpleasant things to be invited to the party on the side of a cliff, the party on a decommissioned submarine and the party on a media mogul’s yacht. He had to promise unspeakable favours for the right to escort her to a party in honour of a visiting royal and he had nearly lost his little finger to be able to take her to the launch of the country’s first race track three states away. It had been life on a knife’s edge but he’d proven equal to the challenge of providing her with the excitement she desired. In exchange she helped him live in the style he’d become accustomed to during the few years he had been a desirable male model.
Her quest for excitement didn’t end with the parties they went to though it was the primary source o
Cloakroom Blues 2007-04-08 11:13:41 It was a very confined space and there was very little room to manoeuvre in but they were managing very well. She was in an advanced stage of undress and they were making out with all the intensity of a first time. His knee pressed down on the flush and they jumped at the sound of litres of water emptying into the unused commode. They exchanged glances over the water raging under them, laughed into each other faces and continued. The washrooms were in a secluded corner of the nightclub and it was very possible for a woman to step into the men’s room without being noticed (especially on a crowded night). It was also possible to make sure that no one was looking at the time of sneaking in but she had to be one bold babe to walk out and risk being caught. The one in the men’s loo was neither bold nor brazen but her passion for the man in her life caused her to allow him to suggest things that made her feel sexy. Several heated minutes later they were both done and they proceeded to r Read more:Blues
Nun Of Your Business 2007-04-07 08:27:18 They were young and not particularly unattractive. Not that people perceived women like them in those terms. Even people outside the faith were capable of thinking it was an automatic sin if they thought of a nun as a woman. It’s hard to imagine what they’d think if they actually knew what the nuns were thinking about.
They were headed north in light traffic. That was it, just two nuns in a MUV, one of them at the wheel and the other one idly looking around from the passenger’s seat. All around them, vehicles were stopped at the same signal and people were finding it hard to avoid staring.
There was just something so Quentin Tarantino about the image of two nuns driving a vehicle most men would have found difficult to handle. There was the motorcyclist who was gaping without any care for the fact that his open mouth was quite the invitation for various insects.
The girl in the air-conditioned car thought it was pretty cool that the nun, who didn’t look much older than hersel Read more:Business
Strange Date 2007-04-09 03:23:04 “If I say I saw your thoughts in my dream, does that make me crazy or just some guy who associated you with random images he dreamt of?”
She didn’t exactly know what to tell him. They had met for the first time a few weeks ago and though he hadn’t been particularly dogged in his pursuit of her, she could tell he was interested. It wasn’t until right then that he had said or done anything weird. She decided to see where he was going with this, “That depends. What did you dream of?”
He seemed relieved and also a little surprised, “Okay, remember that I was really sleepy all right. I mean I didn’t wake up clean or anything. It was messy. It was kind of like a part of me was left behind in dream world and a part of the world came awake with me so I just have these funny images…”
She nodded, “that’s okay. I’m open for anything.”
Her eyes were open, watchful but inviting and he hesitated for just one second before deciding to go in, “I don’t know, you were w Read more:Strange
You Should Be An Actor 2007-04-11 07:27:00 “That’s what I said to him. Not because I was trying to get into his pants. I’m not wired that way. Sometimes I wish I was because it would seem like I would know what to do with all the parts, you know? To think about it, trying to make a connection with another person you have very little in common with (physically) is just as strange as trying to make a connection with someone who is mentally incompatible.”
“That said I like women’s breasts way too much to consider an alternate sexual lifestyle.”
“But enough about me. I told him he should be an actor because of how little he had to say for me to understand what he was feeling. It’s difficult really to ever understand where a person truly is in their head and in their lives. I could send out a text message to a potential work associate and have that person snap at me. Now I could debate whether my textmanship had left something to be desired. I could call the other person a cunt, see how that’s gender-agnostic? I Read more:Actor
Illegal Download 2007-04-10 05:26:59 They were drinking coffee; cheap stuff from plastic cups that served the purpose of putting something into their stomachs without actually providing any appreciable benefits. In their defense, they didn’t know what good coffee tasted like. Their comparative skills extended as far as being able to tell which railway station sold the least milky, most taste-rich light brown sludge. In that respect at least, they were connoisseurs and went for the best they could find.
To look at them was to see two regular Mumbai man-boys, lost in a dream world as their only escape from the reality that surrounded them. In their own lifetimes they had watched things get better and worse. It was a cleaner city than it used to be but Singapore it was not. One of them had actually been to Singapore so he got to tell his friend, show him pictures and help him colour the dream of a city where everything was in order, new movies were actually brand new and the latest gadgets and the coolest toys were legitim Read more:Download
Beyond 2007-04-12 07:51:31 “I am going to look at you like I know what you’re saying to me but let’s never pretend that we understand each other, okay?”
With those words my father walked out of our lives to be neither seen nor heard from for fifteen years. My brother was eight at the time.
I was dead.
We lived in a nice house on a nice street not too far from the cemetery. It was very little trouble for me to climb out of my tastefully simple grave and make my way to the family home. Walls and doors no longer kept me out but I had to remember to leave often enough so that I wouldn’t scare anybody. See a dead person can go wherever he or she wants to and stay for as long as he or she likes. The only trouble with staying too long in one place is that a presence begins to manifest itself around the dead person, a presence that gives the living a sense that they are being watched. If the dead person stays around even longer that presence gains enough substance to become visible to the naked eye.
I wouldn
Force City Warren 2007-04-14 10:18:33 He placed his gun and his badge on the table and walked out, without a backward glance or any hesitation. His captain watched him go as far as the main exit before he picked up the phone and dialled a number, “Warren
just quit.”
Nobody in Force
City wanted to think about the consequences of Chaz Warren’s not being a cop anymore. It was the type of information that gave a person indigestion when that person had been fasting for a week. It was the type of information that, speaking generally, made an entire city uneasy.
Warren had been fourteen years old when he had walked into the precinct for the first time, right up to the Duty Sergeant and said, “I wanna be a cop. Where do I sign?”
He had said it loud enough for several of Force City’s finest to hear. They had turned away from their gossip buddies and looked at the source of the not-quite-man-yet voice. The room had been silent for about ten seconds total before the man he had addressed caught the eye of one of his buddi
Audition 2007-04-13 12:51:39 It was a sunny afternoon in the movie mecca like all the sunny afternoons that had come before it and the ones that would follow. The three men seated at the corner table in the suburban hotel were unremarkable until you got a closer look. Two of them were ugly enough to be noticed for their bad skin and grungy attire. Even the uninitiated would have been tempted to wonder what they were doing in that superficially classy setting. The third looked like he was from a different economic class. His clothes were trendier and he could have passed for handsome in some circles. He was not a star, not a recognisable one anyway. The choice he had made that was certain to draw attention towards him was the fact that he was wearing sunglasses, indoors.
Very little conversation punctuated their silences. They were more likely to sip from their iced teas, check their cellphones for messages or rearrange their hair than they were to talk to each other.
And then she walked up to the table.
Slight Read more:Audition
The Urgent Insurgent 2007-04-16 08:08:28 “They cannot stop us all, even if they try, even if they gun us down before we reach our goal,” with those words the image on the television froze and a fresh terror was injected into the citizens of the City Of Lost Souls. The tiny home that housed the fifteen members of the Mahmoud family reverberated with the words that had been recently uttered by the leader of the freedom cell that operated in their neighbourhood. The news channels would be playing the speech and discussing its meanings through the night. Nobody in the ‘city’ would be able to watch the debates or understand the arguments because right then, as if it had only been important for the people to receive the message, all the electricity blinked out. From the hill that overlooked the haphazard agglomeration of homes it looked like a swarm of bright lights leaving the settlement before a plague visited the residents.
Any eyes on the hill would have had a difficult time adjusting to the darkness because in that pa Read more:Urgent
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