Barking up the Wrong Tree.

He had known that he could punch through walls since he was in kindergarden and his best friend had blamed him for stealing his brand new pencil. He had punched through the playground boundary wall when he ran out with indignant tears spilling out behind him. His face was a testimony of his surprise when he realized that if he had punched his best friend as he wanted to in his mind it would have caused a lot of pain. He wasn't sure how to deal with this strength and being a kind child he blamed himself and felt god would punish him for such bad deeds and he stopped giving into his impulses since then.
As a teenager he was as maladjusted as so many others grappling with self confidence and growing up that he didn't stand out. he was ignored for most of his teens, his quiet manner intimidated people; adults didn't know how to deal with him and other kids just pegged him 'weird' and no one bothered him because he was huge and while no one had ever seen him being violent, most teenagers have grand imaginations and can imagine pretty much whatever. This meant that growing up he didn't have friends, he closed in with each passing year to an extent that most people didn't even know what his voice sounded like.
He wasn't even sure what his voice sounded like. The last time he had heard his voice was the night he had gained consciousness and seen his mother, father lying in a mangled heap some distance from him. He was strapped to the back seat of their hatchback and he couldn't run to them. There was fire all around him, the burning smell of metal and flesh made him nauseous but it was the despair clutching at his thumping heart that gave direction to his hands and he ripped the seat belt from its groove in the chair and ran towards his mother.
As he slid to her side and put out the fire which had caught her clothes he saw that her eyes were frozen and even in death she looked worried about him. His father was still in the driver's seat attached to the burnt car and his back was bent in an unnatural fashion and the steering wheel seemed to be lost inside his chest. He was still alive. He looked at his father and saw him smiling at him, with his last breathe he tried to say something to him but he lost his words in a cough, spitting blood. He walked closer to his fathers tattered body and saw life seep out of him as he smiled at him. He had screamed that night. It was a scream which cut through the night sky and in a melodramatic the fire around him was put out by heavy rain. He was rescued from the accident site. He was eight years old and the people who rescued him realized him to a NGO which took him to several sessions of therapy and it was then that he realized that he didn't have anything to say.
His father was a smart man, some newspapers called him a genius. He missed out on all the drama post the accident but he caught up to all the drama when he was thirteen and when for the first time he was addressed as an orphan by  a new kid who wanted to establish himself as the class 'Toughie' by taking on the freakishly tall and silent kid, needless to say, the new kid learnt that he like everyone else in the class would be ignored. But the new kid hadn't altogether been ignored, that one remark had wanted him to learn about the kind of a person his father was, who is mother was and he had then devoted every waking hour about finding everything thing about himself. He had also discovered the reason why he wasn't with a foster family or with other relatives. His father had made sure that he would continue to live in their family house in his will, he was taken care of by the staff at the house and he never did think how over the years things remained the same at the house like they had when his father and mother were alive. It made him curious why his father would think that he would have to be alone at that age but he never could figure it out. And this question frustrated him to continuously punch holes in walls around him. No one ever found out about his punching because after that incident in the kindergarden he made sure that he ran a great distance before he could find a  solitary wall and then he let his frustration and wrath lose on the concrete and bricks.
But after he was done and the wall was just  a pile of rubble behind him he still didn't feel the agitation ebb from him, he felt like an addict.
One evening when he was returning from a field after crumbling yet another wall he found a pup following him. As always he decided to ignore the pup and continue to wallow in his unresolved agitation. He reached home late and found his dinner waiting on the table like everyday. He shoveled it quickly and carried the plate to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink, it was then that he heard the patter of small paws in the dark corridor connecting the kitchen to the hall, alarmed he turned around to detect the source of the sound and heard the whimpering fur ball staring at him. While, they were both eyeballing each other, the pup got bored and decided to follow his nose and get something to eat in the kitchen. He was surprised even shocked at the impertinence of the puppy but he guessed it didn't know any better. He pulled out a chair and sat down to observe the antics of the puppy, scampering all over the floor. He broke out into laughter when he saw the puppy bemused after bringing the trash can down with a crash. It had been ten years since he had last laughed and his laughter echoed through the dark house and the pup joined in with his barks.
The laughter and barking was heard by another person keeping a watch outside the dark sprawling mansion.

To be continued...

GAGGED!!!

The first time he banged his head the mirror above the sink cracked, the second time he heard the satisfying crunch of bone on cracked mirror. This time the pristine white sink was filthy with his dark blood. The third time he willed his neck and head forward towards the jagged reflection of his bloodied face, the slam brought with it silence. As he slithered to the floor, a filthy, bloody mess, he realized that his nose had broken and his right eye was blind with some glass sticking in his it.

He had never felt pain like this before. His laughter echoed in that small bathroom. The pain made him realize the truth, that soon the pain would just be a throb and then it would be gone. And he already missed the pain as he experienced at the point of contact. He laughed again but choked with cough as he spat out blood on to the decomposing plaster on the wall. His teeth and bone slid to the floor and turned into a sliver of a stream. He tried to laugh some more but only ended in a fit of coughing and vomiting blood.

HE was a mirage. People believed in him only when they felt like and gave him up for a hoax as they walked through him. He wanted to feel if he was a person, a human...

As the pain ebbed away, he could feel the blood drying and a felt a fly frolicking on his squashed face. All he could think of was that, of some use at last!

But his chest still felt as though it would burst with emotion and he didn't want to feel it no more. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to care no more. He wanted to not feel the load for even a second more. The realization brought smile to his eyes but his lips or whatever was left of them just quivered as fresh blood slithered down his throat and the yellow T shirt which said the biggest lie created by the human race 'THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE'

For a moment he felt uncontrollable rage as he shrieked with all his strength and started slamming his fists on to the floor, the wall, the plumbing. He stopped when he could no longer hold his fists and laughed incredulously as he looked at his hands, a mass of torn flesh and blood with traces of bone. He needed them to function. He had to type. He could imagine the keyboard of his computer coagulated with blood after he was one typing. He didn't know what he wanted to type, could any words hold any importance at this point?

He used his elbows and knees to move. He could feel the fresh cuts as he pushed himself forward on broken glass and plumbing. He passed out half way through and his head banged hard on the threshold as he lost consciousness. The glass in his right eye crumbled and a more blood flowed out on the marble flooring of the room he was staying in.

He came back with a start and coughed out more blood. He had to get to his desk.

He got to the base of his desk. Blood trailing him as he lay in a mess trying to get his shattered hands to grip anything so he could pull himself to his computer. Using his mouth he pulled on the power cable of the laptop, his mouth slipped off the cable because of the blood and lack of teeth. He tried again and again till he felt the laptop crash to his side after bouncing of his head.

It still worked! God damn! Mac, it can survive anything. Can't say the same for myself and laughed but couldn't as he just wheezed out more blood. After some more struggle he managed to get managed to get his broken fingers on to the key board and typed out 'IT'S OVER........

and slumped on to the floor in a pool of blood, listening to the flies amusing themselves in the mess he had made.

His eyes shut and his lips froze in an unnatural eerie smile. All he could hear in his head was 'IT'S OVER'

But his phone buzzed at that very instance and his eye opened and the only thought in his blank head was 'OR IS it...'

Shriek!!!

He was unsure again. He was quite a shadow reflected of his small TV screen. In the depths of that grey reflection he didn’t see the act he knew he really was.
He could have been otherwise. He knew so. But he liked to think it was a choice. He said he would stop being what he was if she wasn’t with him. He liked to believe he had stopped being because she has chosen not to be with him.
This state though was beyond what he had bargained or believed in. He had attempted being otherwise. Laugh a few laughs. Act nonchalant. Be something he wasn’t. But then wasn’t all that it entailed being someone else if she chose to be absent. And it was about choices.
What did he think? Did he hate? Did he not?
When he was trying to go over 100 kmph, was he thinking of thrill or the hate in him? Was he only cautioning him to be careful that he could be in an accident or did he want to be in one?
He always knew he was a pessimist but he always was an optimist when it came to anyone else. He wanted to be depended on. Though he just couldn’t. At least not anymore.
He built his affection around the things which couldn’t act of their own accord. Which couldn’t think or feel. These would be machines. Only capable of physics…
It was easy to be detached though he knew he wasn’t. He felt exposed having confessed everything to her. He hoped he hadn’t been honest but he was a born fool.
Every thought every emotion every feeling every desire every dream every hope started and ended at her.
Though he knew he was weak but he had never known to feel weak. So it felt strange of being unsure and weak. She kept coming back to him.
So he set her on fire. And while she was burning he realised that it wouldn’t change anything… so he put his hand into the fire where his diary was smouldering and held her. The smell of skin was over powering him. He bit into a pillow while his hand burned. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to use that hand in loo the next morning, he choked trying to laugh while stifling his shouts. He lost consciousness at some point. He woke up shouting with pain and her ashes in his roasted hand…
He shrieked knowing that it wouldn’t change anything… He would remain in pain… She had ripped her pound of flesh.

Friday the 13th!!!

Click to see original pic

Music...
Songs...
Words...
These rip out the heart and make cringing a lifetime.
Hands deep in pockets and head taking the complete view of his worn out sneakers. He limped and with the realisation of the pain he forced himself to walk normally and he felt the entire essence of a sharp blinding pain. He knew the rupture would render him a limp for the rest of his life and that he shouldn't be a lot of things to his bad knee but he didn't care.
The next step forced him to grip the railing for support. A car zipped past him on the other side of the railing. He stood up angrily and the pain shot up again. He was sweating now. He told himself it was a hot day. He knew he was trying to pretend to himself. He hoped that if he could only act and fool himself in believing that the pain was nothing but a...
Friday the 13th...
That's what it is today. He used that day to fill the DOB section.
He hummed Happy birthday to ...
He was surprised. He allowed himself a smile grudgingly. He scratched his unshaven gaunt face and realised that he was another year old but just as lonely as ever. He didn't mind though. He pretended a lot anyway. And since he was alone he could despise in peace.
He had been standing at that sidewalk for a long time. The breeze bringing him back to acknowledge the pain.
He started running. If he had to lose the knee what better day than Friday the 13th?
a couple of meters was all he lasted his leg pulled away under him and he started falling. He went down face first with no attempt at breaking his fall the smashing of his nose didn't come as a surprise. Lying on the asphalt he tasted blood and dirt of the sidewalk.
He kept lying there. and hummed happy birthday and laughed and laugh turned to cough.
He licked his torn lips with his bitten tongue and and spat out a tooth.
A stray was inching towards him cautiously, with a bright wag on hopping on three legs the fourth one dragged behind in a rot.
He thought ludicrously in his head it would be something to have himself be eaten by a dog. He looked hungry enough. Poor Sod!
He? it! He always had addressed dogs as people. And he laughed aloud as the dog started licking his bleeding smashed face...

Drowning...

"There are moments which you would not rather exist in. Hating is terribly exhausting."
Walking along the cold Thames, he was kidding himself. He kept telling himself that he would rather not exist in certain moments but he knew he would rather be able to live through all of them.
You see, he loved to think of himself as a survivor. Flatter would be right word.
His hands shook a lot. Shiver would be the right word.
He wasnt ever a smoker. He detested the stench of it in his clothes. But hating is a full time job and on overdrive. It can consume you.
A cold smile cracked on his unmarked below ordinary face. Lips were chapped and He bit his skin of and tasted blood. He was laughing his head of at what he just thought. Hate can consume... He hated his talking crap to himself.
He wanted to shout. He tried and tried but didnt. A scream, just one scream.
He stood on the railing of the bridge. He was terrified.
He took in a deep breath. The steady drizzle didnt bother him as he saw people all around him running for cover or running with a cover.
He had been living with a constant ache for sometime now. No matter what he always had it. Each time he sneezed it felt that his head finally cleared. That half a moment his face would rid itself of the constant frown.
The drizzle had grown to be rain. He was shivering with inadequacy more than the cold. His long unruly hair were all over his face plastered.
It felt like he was in a vacuum.
Thames is quite dirty, he thought.
He let himself fall into the mucky black rain spattered surface of Thames thinking
it cant be close to Ganga's toxic flow.
It was cold. It was breath taking cold. It wasnt a very high drop but it hurt. As his limp form broke the surface of water he realised that he had never heard of any swimmer having drowned. May be I can prove the world wrong. But he wasnt here to drown.
He didnt attempt to keep the water out. His eyes were stinging. his lungs were burning but there was absolute silence. Complete silence.
He could see the pattern the rain was making on the surface while he was going deeper. He would be coming up soon. Wasnt it something to do with physics?
A naked guy ran to his king and that fame...
He opened his mouth ina scream as the water rushed in he could feel the bile come up and greet the dirt. The loudest silent scream.
He walked back on the side of the Thames. Drenched and stinking. The sun shining bright as if it had been here all along.
Hating is a full time occupation. A dead smile plastered on his forgettable face. A shiver, a sigh.
He left a trail for the sun to dry.

CUT!!!

pic by Mal Rasurado click the pic to see in flickr

Chewing gum and bitter coffee didnt go well. Chewing loses its point and he never could see a point in coffee. It had been two days since he had given up on smoking or rather it had been other way round. He was without a paise to his name. He always wondered why he had a foolish pride? What good was it? He hadnt eaten for nearly five days but atleast he had beedis for three of them. It wasnt as if he was going crazy without a stub at his lips it was just that he didnt have nothing to distract him with and slowly hunger was gnawing at him. The chewing gum was the last of what he had picked of from his publishers office when three days ago and it finally dissolved in his mouth with the coffee. The publisher had warned him yet again to turn in the manuscript of a novel he had no inclination to complete. He wanted to kill the characters in a brutal massacre but he had just been sitting in front of his comp since he had returned.
He moved only to delete the four hundred pages he had written word by word, character by character. Chewing on the gum and halting when his jaw could take no more only to resume instantly. The coffee mug which he had picked to spit the gum in went to his lips unconsciously and he tasted some really old coffee and gulped it down first slowly and then earnestly even hungrily though he would never admit it.
Samarth, That's what he was called. He never did understand why?
When he became a writer and then a journalist and then a novelist he had now forgotten. The problem was that he, Samarth, had started losing the understanding or the need to be anything anymore.
"Oh shit!" his reverie broken by the sudden buzz of the mobile on his desk. He stared at it. Sweat had broken out on his brow. He had been jumpy lately. Why? Lack of food, sleep...
He wasnt going to check the SMS. What was the point? He wouldnt be able to respond in anyway.
He looked back at his screen at the empty page and recalled how he had taken apart every bit of his novel which could have got him a way to manage his life.
He had been unsuccessful and He didnt want to change it. He didnt mind. He never could ever be better than people around him and some years back he had withdrawn and later realised that he had to quit kidding himself. He had wasted his body and he was now in the process of complete destruction. He had isolated himself. Moved away...
He turned and saw his reflection in the window. He saw a heavily bearded defeated and gaunt face. Involuntarily he touched his face. The hand was trembling. He tried to control it but the tremors of his hand continued.
Only one word came to his head... Wasted!!!
He blinked at the reflection.
-----
Whew! Some character this wasted writer. If only I can act it out now thought Samarth and to top it all he and I share a name.

Requiem of a dream

Thrashing his way through the foliage with branches whipping back at his face with sharp precision and an all mighty sting. He continued to run. Nothing else in his mind except to keep running in a straight line. There were images zipping through his head. None vivid enough for him to pause his mad pursuit of a void. He stumbled and fell headlong through the dirt, dead leaves and thorns. He tasted the filth in his throat.
He got up with an urgency of one who was trying to escape something sinster...
Lungs burning... filth running down his neck... Blood and filth make a startling beverage! for a reason untold his mind let him ponder over that...
And he vomited and fell flat on his back. Breath knocked out of him. But he got up again and started on a mad pursuit. Something was crawling and gnawing at his right leg and it let out sharp sensation every now and then. His eyes were burning now.
Just a silence, broken by the pant of a fearful, petrified animal...
Why ? Why?
Why was he running?
He tried to look back and the ground ended under him.
He could sense how quickly he was nearing impact... He was shouting in a silent scream. He was scared, he was terrified. He struggled with nothing. Every bit of him revolting against his end which seemed in that instant too prolonged, too delayed.
He realised he had shut his eyes tight and that when he opened them with hands infront of his face...
------------
Yah!! With that I sat up on my clammy bed. Again the same one. I was drenched in cold sweat. I got up quickly and stumbled to his toilet.
Blood shot eyes. that's all I could see without the lights.
Splashed water on my face and spat into the basin.
Blood!!!
I quickly let my tongue inspect in panic.
Snapped the lights on. Dried blood lined my teeth...
I was disturbed.
Took the brush and brutally brushed my teeth...
Damn!!!
Cut my gums...
Spat out more blood but atleast now i knew where it came from.
Why do I see that dream? Freud might help me there. Yeah he would figure out you were a twat.
I managed to notice it was raining. Fun day!!
Why was the dream bothering me so much it wasn't the first time.
Some stubs were still smothering in the ash tray. I held one and sucked in all I could. I could never say whether it was nice but it sure burnt me quite a bit. There was relief in that pain. Burnt my fingers on the stub.
F@%&!!! It wasn't as if it was unexpected but I just needed to hear myself.
I could hear my phone ringing somewhere...
I let out some air... Time to get out and get drenched...