Blahsphemy

Will you take off today? The body pleaded with the brain. I will someday, muttered the brain. Deep inside he knew that someday was not there on any calendar he had come across.  

You are doing a brilliant job my boy. When you walked in through that door, you were that, but now you are this. You are that as well. You are blah, blah, blah. That's why we had taken this deliberate decision to underpay you. So that you will always remain hungry and foolish. You are the best.   

All the contents of my mind were strewn around. I panicked, was there a burglar lurking somewhere in there? Or did my mind explode? As I stood there contemplating, my alter ego emerged and consoled me. It seems, he was just cleaning up my closet.

There is that nagging spelling mistake again. You make that even after being aware of it. Maybe it's hereditary. Your DNA has messed with your brain big time. Now swallow your pride and correct that word. He couldn't believe that his computer could be so harsh on him. After all, he was the one who set the autocorrect function to full-sarcasm mode.  

The lizard was sunning itself on a branch. His body was the colour of the leaves. His tail was the colour of the bark it was resting against. His eyes were two alert pinpoints which scanned the surroundings. That's when he noticed me gaping at him. He turned his head away in dismay. I don't blame him as for him a big dumb human is nothing compared to the juicy tiny flies he might miss while looking at me.   

He lay there motionless watching the ants marching on the ceiling. Right from his childhood he had this fascination for ants. He never used to get tired of the ant and the grasshopper story. He tried remembering the various types of ants he had come across in his life. The red ones, the black ones, the tiny grey ones, the big black ones, the sour ants, the hard stingers, the ticklers... the list went on and on, just like the ants on the wall. Later that day, when the cleaner lady found him lifeless on his bed, he had ants of every shape and size coming out of his brain.    

For the first time I wrote the title before I keyed in a single word of my story. Isn't it usually the other way around? Or had I got it all wrong? While I was grappling with all these, I figured that I had reached halfway down my story. You must be wondering what I am talking about. I am talking about the story that will be unfolding soon in your mind. The story about writing the title before the story. Think about it. Is there really a theory behind this whole process? Something that can help me write better? Or will. It help you read better? Think.

Dear Owner, I have been working at your esteemed residence ever since I was taken out of my original packaging. I have ensured that not even a single day passes without me giving 100% to the job I have been entrusted with.   But, of late I have been called a laggard, a good for nothing, a pain in the god knows where and a host of other expletives by you and your family members. I want you to have a one-to-one with me and explain if there is something wrong with me. It would be great if we could do it while your wife is not around. For I suspect that she's the one who has brought about this predicament. I have seen her drooling over advertisements of some futuristic model that claims that it can run circles around me. I strongly feel such magazines should be banned for your monetary stability if not for anything else. At times I feel I am an unwanted member of your family. I don't deserve to be insulted and ignored like this. I request you to look into my c...

I am off anaesthetics. The synapse cheerfully declared. Me too declared another. Soon there was a chorus. They were celebrating their victory. But, on a dentist's chair a poor patient was wriggling with pain much to the chagrin of the dentist who had administered a double dose of Morphine. 

No this isn't going to be easy. You can't write any random thing and expect the audience to lap it up. How can you write something like this? You guys decide for yourself, here's what he wrote.  Letting go wasn't that easy. The fear of what might happen gave him a vice like grip. He had to really work hard to pry loose the digits one by one. He could see it plunge down an abyss without an afterthought. Suddenly he felt light like a feather. He was defying gravity. All that he had worked for and hoarded had gone with it. Will you read any further? I don't think I would. That's precisely why I think you should focus on telling stories that can move your readers. The writer listened to every word of what his agent had to say. He slowly got up and tore the manuscript into two and walked out in search of a better story.        

Have you ever seen a lizard stuck on wet paint? At first, it will be confused as to why it can't move. Then slowly desperation and hunger will set in. Finally death creeps in. As soon as death pays its visit, the ants rush in. They are there to eat up whatever they can. Soon there will only a skeleton remaining. A grim reminder as to how our world can kill us, before we know what's wrong.   

The ghost was there. He could sense it the moment he entered the room. He didn't feel  frightened at all. He had always lived with it. It was the ghost of his past. He was in fact missing it. But today, he found it staring at him from the front page of the newspaper.     

The other woman is back. Today she landed up out of nowhere. Like an unexpected gust of wind that rattles the windowpane. Tomorrow when you tiptoe down the alley, if something crumbles under your foot do take a second look. It might be a fragile heart bleeding love or the broken shards of the window pane.   

Two down three more to go. The tables were turned. The hunters became the hunted. He had caught a glimpse of them when he entered the room. One of them drew blood when he was distracted. He finished him off with a deft blow. The others were there somewhere. Waiting for him to drop his guard. He knew that they were crazy for his blood and that will lure them out into his trap. He waited for them patiently. From the corner of his eye he saw a speck moving, with the swift precision of an ace tennis player he whacked the life out of his opponent.  

The bridge was in a real bad state. It had held on for a couple of decades. It was the only connection reality had with fantasy. But today as he was skimming the headlines, it gave up. The mere fact that the wide chasm separating them had shrunk made the bridge redundant. Otherwise what does cars that drive on their own, phones that can detect your moods or for that matter organ transplants mean.  

It was a cold winter night. The soldier dragged himself in through the broken door. He looked around, there was no sign of any inhabitants. The whole place was covered in soot. The resident spiders didn't much like his intrusion. The soldier was too tired to notice anything. He plonked himself on the dusty sofa and put his feet up on the broken stool. He wanted to sleep and wake up in another world where there was no war. Little did he know that 20,000 ft up in the sky a nuclear missile was seeking it's target.   

The music was blaring in the background. He could get whiffs of perfume, whisky and toenails. How did I end up here, he asked himself. That's when the bottle came crashing down on his head.

My conscience went for a stroll yesterday. The timing was a bit unfortunate. I was sprawled on the couch and my shrink was at hand. Armed with her dictaphone and razor sharp brain, she was ready for the assault. That's when he, my conscience, decided to walk out of the room. Maybe he felt it was unnecessary to hang around when the brain rattled out past incidents of guilt, happiness and sorrow. Knowing that she will be deducting patterns to prescribe whatever the pharma firm pays her to peddle. As he wasn't around, I could feed her with the juiciest fiction my brain could squeeze out and the rest they say is ecstasy.  

Today was rather uninspiring. She couldn't think of a better line for her story. The real inspiration behind that line was her cat. He didn't drag anything in today. He seemed content with his milk and didn't venture outside at all. Strange for a cat who used to wait for an opportunity to explore the neighbourhood. She sat there looking at him. That's when she heard the familiar meow from outside her window.