Storieo

Author: Annesha Das Gupta

  • Dead

    Dead


    Ah! Another night has come, my shrink will probably tell me to drag through somehow. No. Isn’t it what the woman said?
    Hmm. I wonder! That woman speaks quite a lot actually. I don’t keep track. I have others things to do, you know!

    The room is dark, the small light from the electric mosquito mat burns bright. Though it is, really just a tiny orange spot. Like an eye of a monster. Adorable isn’t it. The Monster. The Monster of death is watching me. That is at least what I will like to believe.
    Time to go a bit back in the memory lane.


    Let’s see, when it all started! Yes, yes. The night, that lovely night when I got raped. No? You say nothing like that actually happened to me.


    Oh, you naughty, naughty person. Can’t this creature even imagine something by her own-self. You, all of you, always tries to invade my thoughts. You say, I always talk of death!


    Oh, why! Yes, I do.
    I don’t know what is wrong with that. You say, it is gruesome. Dear, but it is gruesome and I like it.

    Good! You are beginning to get scared.
    Ah, where was I again?

    Night, night. Yes, that night. Oh, no no! It was actually a morning. My wrong. Oops!

    What was the name of that hospital? Let me think. Ah, yes yes. Something with ‘D’. Death again. Ooh, my darling does not want to leave me alone.

    Okay, okay. No distractions. No distractions.

    The ambience was so sterile, so clinical. I draw the breath deep within myself. Smells of fresh death. Oh my, I can make a joke.

    Fresh and death. Fresh and death.
    FRESH.
    DEATH.
    Dead, may be.
    Oh, no no. I was lost in my reverie again.
    Concentrate! Concentrate!

    The time was 10:30 AM. Good Morning. Morning. Or may I say a very bad, rotten and dead morning to you. I will smirk. Yes, I will.
    Mother, Father and I, were waiting outside the chamber. Waiting to meet my new psychiatrist. Someone has gone inside before me. Hmm, I can hear a vague whimpering. Something about, no someone to asking another politely to speak. Can they remember, Ranji is her daughter? 

    “Ma, it is me. Rajni.”
    “Ma.”
    “Ma.”

    “Rajni. It is okay. Let me write in some more medicines for her. Please check in with the hospital before leaving.”

    “What will it matter? She is already half dead.”
    I felt good. I felt happy. Dead. Dead. She is half dead.

    Oh, no. I feel sad. Very sad. She is only half of the dead. Not full. Not full.
    So not happy. Sad. Very sad.
    My turns come. Mother, began to cry. Father, wrapped a hand around her shoulder.
    I smiled.
    I love to see my mother crying.
    Drop! Drop! Drop! The tears fall.
    So beautiful. She felt a sharp pain. I know she was.
    I love pains. Especially sharp, aches, piercing, gushing. 
    Drip! Drip! Drip!
    I am happy.
    She prescribed me some medicines too.
    I am happy. Is that meant, I am half dead too? Lovely.
    No! No! I am not able to conceive the thoughts anymore. I has been three weeks.
    Sad! Sad! I am very sad.

    I stop taking the pills.
    Bad. Bad pills.
    Back to the present. Back to the present.
    Adjacent to my room is my parents. Mother and father are lying on their bed. Still. Very still.
    I put them to sleep. They will never wake up again.

    Lull to them to death. See, there is my sense of humour again.
    Oh, what is that? Yes, yes. The sound of a heavy truck. One often goes by the street next to our house.
    Whenever they pass by our house. I imagine, my body, naked, bare lying on the tarmac. The truck comes. My head gets crushed under its wheels. Blood, brain, organs, eyes popped out. No. No. Not figuratively.
    Literally.
    Ding! Ding! Ding!
    Time is 1 AM at night.
    Deep in night.

    The clocks strikes and the pendulum goes mad. Like me. So, silly me. I can make myself laugh.
    Time to close my eyes.
    Dark. Everything got dark.
    I raised my right hand. A knife is clasped in that hand.
    Shiny blood is coverings is sharp edge.

    You ask whose blood is this?
    Not is. It is ‘are’.
    Oho. Of course of my mother’s and father’s.
    Silly, you.
    Now! Now!

    I brought the hand with the knife down on my chest.
    Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
    Pain. Unbelievable pain.

    And I am loving it.
    Not half dead. Not half dead.
    Full. Full.
    DEAD.


     
     

  • Listen to the monsoon songs

    Listen to the monsoon songs

    I heard the katydids singing in the trees, the owls making their hoots, the waterfall climbing down from my rusty tin roof and saw the paper boats swinging themselves in the city floods far somewhere a drain was clogged with things no more needed, the manhole was blocked. Dreams, aspirations and desires and lastly failures conglomerated there, but none to pick them up, again, and none to dare.

    I heard the children through the water logged streets, laughing jolly showing their teeth, the water parted by the force of joy from their ever running feet, cutting the air and the aqua in two like Noah but with no Bible to read. God left their side, but their hearts show no spite.

    I saw the wind blowing the drizzle growing, making it rain rain, washing away stain and the alley cat’s pain.

    I felt the smell of water polluted, soil well soiled and the coiled, and the trash floating around.

    Look there is me and look there is you.

    Something burnt the sky and it screamed, was it the one we call God?

    Or was it just us scared to hear our own yells?

    The ceiling fan stood still, the bulb faded its light, but still I smelled the electricity, somewhere deep inside.

    The water is seeping through, now it is my turn, it rot the bed, the cupboard, grazed the mirror. I could not see my own reflection, there is no candle to burn.

    Die away, rot away, o human heart, o human body, o human soul.

    Die away, rot away, close your eyes let us not see anymore, let us not dream anymore.

    Die away, rot away, but yes with music still reaching your ears, as your last parting gift from your feeble life.

    Listen to nature play her last beat.

    Listen to the monsoon songs.

  • Escape To Darkness

    Escape To Darkness

    Now every lamp-post in her street is lighted. So much light, but no darkness.

     

    It is five in the evening, the sun will set soon.

    And she, she has to go back to her house. Back to her room. Her cell.

    She is not, what one will call a beauty. Society will mark her as obese, brown skinned and with thick lips. No one, she thinks will desire her. But why not, she desires her own self? The question often comes to her mind. She contemplates it. She dismiss it.

    A man, of medium stature, came on a cycle, brought out a stick and clicked on the switch. It turned the street light on. He, the man, comes daily around this time, in the evening. And he always come on his cycle, always with that long, rusty stick. She does not know what his name is, where he lives. She does not want to know any of this. All she wants to know is that how he got this job, of switching the lamp-posts on? What does this job called? And how does this job makes him feel? She contemplates.

    The man leaves on the cycle.

    Now every lamp-post in her street is lighted. So much light, but no darkness.

    The kids are returning to their houses, after having a good match of cricket. She knows this group of children. They play in her ‘gully’, every evening. They always create so much noise; cacophony, so much laughter with their voices, lighten up, all of them. After that they go back, all of them, to their own rooms, but, she reckons, not cells. There is no silence, no piece. No darkness.

    She knocks on the main door. Her mother opens it. She goes inside her room. Her cell. The light is switched on. She wants to believe it hurts her eyes, but it doesn’t. Why it doesn’t hurt? Why is there no darkness?

    It is seven on the clock now. She is doing her homework. Her mother comes inside her room. Her cell.

    ‘Ruma, will you go and get some rice from the shop?’

    The shop is just three lanes away. Local people, are always there, hanging out. All men, middle-aged. One can hear their talk and laughter, from a distance. The shop-keeper is good friends with them all. Her father comes here often as well, to have a chat and drink tea. Just beside the shop, there is a tea-stall. Men came here every evening. All talking, mostly smiling. All full of lights. Yes, it is surrounded by lights everywhere. Bulbs and tubes. No darkness.

    She asked the shopkeeper for rice. She waited. She received the packet and started walking away. She did not talk to anyone. But their talk did not leave her, it still reached her ears. And the lights did not leave her, she still could see them. No darkness.

    She came under one particular lamp-post, which the medium statured man always light up first. She contemplates why does he always lights it first? Why does it need to be lit? Why no darkness?

    As she was stepping away from the lamp-post, each and everywhere became blank. There has been a power-cut. Still there is something wrong. She couldn’t find peace.

    She looks up. Her mouth became slowly wide. The lamp-post was somehow still on. There was still light.

    No darkness.

    She came back to her house. It was lighted all over by candles.

    No darkness.

    She handed the packet back to her mother. She grabbed a long stick from under her bed, in her room. Her cell. It used to be a rod for hanging curtains. Now it is rusty,and full of cobwebs.

    But it will do. Yes, it will do.

    She went back, to the still lighted lamp-post. She saw the switch, put the stick up, switched it off.

    She whispered: “Darkness”.

  • A Strange Bourgeois Dream

    A Strange Bourgeois Dream

    HAS ANYONE OF YOU READ RUSKIN BOND’S THE NIGHT TRAIN AT DEOLI? I’m quite sure many of you have and many of you have not. For those, who have they can relate to what I am going to ‘pen’ down now. I have a dream to explore the whole world; but Paris, that place will be special. There, I want to sit outside a small street café, have a cup of coffee, sharing it with a total stranger; she or he, doesn’t matter.

    There, I want to sit outside a small street café, have a cup of coffee, sharing it with a total stranger; she or he, doesn’t matter.

    We will talk about the books to buy, when to shop at the local grocery store, to shop for tonight’s dinner and how my stranger like having their coffee! As for me, it will have to be pure, black and steaming hot, no sugar, no nothing; blank, yet rough. Then a light drizzle will start to fall and we will hurry inside the small street café, take our seats by the big glass window and hear the rain drops knocking on the glass, as if to join our conversation, but meekly, soothing. We will notice, at the same time a big brown cat crossing the road to the other side and an old man smoking a cigar, the smoke will whirl from the lit tip and ascend to the grey clouds; mixing, adapting, vanishing.

    We will notice, at the same time a big brown cat crossing the road to the other side and an old man smoking a cigar, the smoke will whirl from the lit tip and ascend to the grey clouds; mixing, adapting, vanishing.

    There will hardly be any pedestrians on the road outside and the night will slowly began to wrap up the city. The electric light bulbs in the street lamps will flicker and will become stagnant, one by one, in a row. The sun will set in the horizon without being conspicuous and the queue of cars with their head lights in the front and in the rear will merge into a blur, congested, yet peaceful. No sound will reach us, the big glass window will protect us, and the small street café will protect us. My stranger will look at the watch, smile at me, will say, “IT IS TIME FOR US TO DEPART”, but no words will form in his or hers lips. I will rise from my seat and my stranger from hers or his. We will shake hands, leaving indelible marks in our palms and hearts and its beats.

    We will shake hands, leaving indelible marks in our palms and hearts and its beats.

    I will come out of the small street café and stride down those cobbled paths of Paris never looking back. The sounds of the heels of my boots will reverberate the empty foot-paths, the empty street with now, no cars but with the still lighted lamp-posts. And back to now, empty and closed, the small street café. I will be walking with now a reduced pace. I will remember the woman with her dark nail-paint which did not seem even a bit acrylic and her pristine bluestone ring. Or else the man with deep wavy brown hair and a black muffler wrapped tightly around his neck. As for the rest of the attire and other facial and physical features, they have not formed yet, they lay in wait in the distant future. They are now grey, in a grey zone. A blood red umbrella will be raised above my head, its shiny wooden handle clasped tightly in my gloved left hand with its glossy smooth black leather. My mind will tell that, maybe you are no soothsayer but this is the first and the only time you will be setting eyes on your stranger’. My eyes will drop, I will hold my tears back. I will still be hearing the rain drops hitting my umbrella from above.

    My eyes will drop, I will hold my tears back. I will still be hearing the rain drops hitting my umbrella from above

    THE DRIZZLE HAS NOT STOPPED YET.