Flight of the magus

In the beginning, there was a Universe, lush and abundant, a paradise inhabited by the opportunities of boundaries and ragged pathways and winds that blew this way and that without giving pause, a world where a man could understand wakefulness and fatigue both, satisfaction and deprivation both, because it was a world that put his will to the test again and again. With the assistance of a memory that moved forward whilst its head remained turned to the past all the time, men knew where they did fall and where they did sprint under the light of dispassionate stars, and within the strange bounds of disappointment and elation men understood who they were, as if they had looked into mirrors and seen faces, as if they knew what the world knew of them.

A time came when the world began to fade, when the ground was no longer what those who still walked upon it had known it to be, when lay dust was picked up by the raging winds and whipped into the skies above, when ultimately the moon was red and bleeding. Trees began to be stripped off their leaves and rivers flowed far from their courses, gouging valleys and gorges out of the world's floor, and before long, mountains lay prostrate on the ground, flattened into a dismal stretch of boulders and soil that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ugliness they had boasted of before. Men were beginning to lose direction, walking in search of what they knew was dying and dying in their presence and yet, both knowing and unknowing what lay beyond the horizons once guarded by an old face of nature: they strayed into unknown territories that contained no borders, no sense of progress but the moon and the sun that traversed the skies for ever and on.

The unwillingness to embrace fatigue against the threat of permanent change, the hopelessness that consumed victory each time they looked behind their shoulders to a world they knew had once been, men kept walking. It was akin to toil, nay, it was toil itself, but the memory of the world's knowledge moved them into newer lands. The Universe was closing in around them, bringing them closer and closer to their brothers; they constantly found themselves in each other's company whether they turned north toward the cold or south toward the warmth. And when hope and will began to walk together, to take measure of the treacherous plains stretching before all their eyes, they were one in murdering an identity that had once existed, that had once known walls. Where did the walls go? Who pulled them down? Why did the world have to fade at all?

The answers lay in the hidden memories of their feet, beneath their leathery, distance-worn soles, in the pedestrian muscularity of their shins and knees, which could still recall the thousands upon thousands of miles that had been tread: the world had changed to change man with it, and significantly yet, had changed because it knew the face of man thoroughly and withdrew its restraints and laws, its pervading sense of order, to a womb within itself, so they may gestate their until the day came when man would be lost again, so that the face he had befriended would fade and recall the Universe to its original duty, to a preternatural body that would nature nature. It was a cycle that lasted for days one time and centuries on another, but the cycle moved through space, time and the mind, where everything else took proper shape.

Almost forgotten between these two entities, perpetually depressed under the burden of their strange purposes, lay a span of time incredibly short and hungry, as if a fold that had been fighting a tenuous battle against whatever held it there, be it hope, be it will, or be it a memory of ice. What lay there, so, was a monster, a beast brought to lay dormant until a moment was upon some chosen ones by an expedient force from history, burgeoning with power and, therefore, open intentions toward dissonance, it resounded like echoes from the future, seeping into the present through impudent doubts. Some called it the Oldness, others the First Form, the aging skein of the first mountain that man had clomb, impugned within its soul the first evening they had spent together, man and nature, loss and possession, light and shadow, a memory upon which was founded a necessary darkness that sought to steal faces.

There was no way it could resurface and survive; its place was within the earth whence it had first come, and it had returned, awaiting the return of a friend, so that, once more, they may know the embrace of the earth.

Azurus

The world was ablaze; slick rafters hung limp from the ramparts, fire-glazed and oozing heat, while charred bodies adorned the turrets and towers lining the inner wall, garlanded along its entire length. Azurus was an orgy of burning gold in the aftermath of the assault, the pungent odor of sulfuric vapors thick in the nighttime air, stilling a dozen gazes that cared to look anywhere.

Attacks were unheard of after sunset, but the Council wouldn't be persuaded: the camp reeked of sorcerous intentions, spells so powerful that they had to be cast over time, locked with moments, fermented for weeks before they could gather the momentum necessary to fell the ancient stronghold. In the sky, a murky green storm swirled around a spinning black vortex, a wound in the empyrean that had bled the darkness that came before the blight, and now throbbed gently with a festering pus of decapitated limbs, falling gently instead of a freshwater monsoon.

A few feet from the metallic pedestal upon which they had been bound, the generals of Azurus looked on from behind the capricious, but altogether serving a simple purpose of their own, jute ropes that hung limply from their wrists and ankles. The undersides of their feet were already covered in blisters scorched onto their pale skin, but the pain of their flesh was nothing against the pain of their losses: the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had decided to camp with them for the night were all dead; a deathly mist still susurrated over the ground gathering within its phantasmagoric embrace the remnants of a hundred thousands souls. They would be drawn into the ground, the soil made rich with their visions and memories, and the power would accumulate until it could be drawn again by their sorcerer.

Their sorcerer! Where was he, their mighty sorcerer? He had warned of some perils earlier, but none had heeded him, not even himself - unmindful as he had been with the confidence of a thousand warriors standing guard, even the most conspicuous of threats are ignored when knowledge of resurrection, victory and salvation is secure.

The general named Hundar was the first to give voice to their fears, stepping onto a mound of the dead in front of him, and shouted, loud and clear, "Valan!" There was no response, if the stirring of winds could be discounted, and those around him stiffened: Valan was their strongest sorcerer, a man invested with such skill that he rivaled the gods themselves, and if Valan had fallen with the culling, then their hopes stood for nothing.

While Knath and Del raised their arms skyward and prepared to conjure a mana of rejuvenation, Hundar continued to shout into the young and weeping world of aurum, looking for his brother. Quivinen, a shapeshifting huntress, quickly sprinted away on the swift paws of a giant wolf to scout around the perimeter, perhaps to look for anything that might help their cause that dreary night. A moment or two after she had disappeared from sight, a dull and argent glow began to spread around the grounds, a Healing Tide, that would awaken those still alive from their merciful stupors of injury, as Knath would prepare the Ankh of Resurrection. A hundred, perhaps two hundred at best, would be released from lifelessness and into life, a journey that would leave them dazed and disoriented, but they would be released nonetheless.

Just then, a form stood up, erect, on a ridge to Hundar's left that banked the subterranean transportation corridor that spanned the barracks from the armory, aubergine in texture, a grease-soaked loincloth in place. It was Valan, great Valan, screaming in agony, his skin devoid of all moisture and beginning to peel off to leave exposed his bankrupt flesh, his eyeballs having long before abacinated with the incubating heat.

It was an arresting discovery for the three generals simply because Valan, though resurrected, was blind, deaf and, in all likelihood, mostly paralyzed, and his screams were completely the depiction of all his pain, neither chamfered nor muted in any measure with any emotional persuasions. He was like an infant doused in a greedy acid, one moment nestled in a blanket of contentment and the next, tugged back quickly into the depths of his failures and left to face...

No, left not to face all that ordeal and torment on the road to freedom once more but something else much simpler, the torment of conviction. If he could have bawled, he would have until he had fallen to the floor once more. Hundar ran to his side to assist him as he stumbled on the loosened and sifting soil, and the moment Valan felt those hands on him, he sunk into unconsciousness.

Nuclear monsoon

There was no meaning in the amassed legions of grieving clouds along the horizon, gathering lost wisps whose their mindless desperation found guidance in the open arms of a trusting friend, and vindication seemed close at hand. A storm was being brewed that would last for years and years, erasing the purpose of the pulsing tides on the grayest shores of the sea and leaving the cycle of seasons capricious, an abandonment that stung less of betrayal than of sensibilities, and they were drowned.

Under leagues and leagues of water, they lay embalmed in the arresting embrace of water and weed, caked slowly into stone.

As the first droplets splashed at the feet of trees and hills, a subtle eloquence in the silence could be discerned but became quickly susceptible to loss and decay, the uniform and artless patter of precipitation chasing it away. Soon, water was sniping through the air, like shards of glass ripping through skin and flesh with undeterred proficiency, and over everything that lay gazing at the sky that day was a patina of age and a realization of struggle, a call to arms.

It rained.

When we are drowned.

The rain poured—not in sporadic busts of the clouds but ceaselessly, day and night, and by the time he'd reached the shack, the mud path he'd been tracking for days was dissolved, drowned under four feet of water. Water was everywhere, coursing rivulets down abandoned sheets of asbestos piled against a fence, dripping from rafters and rain-slicked girders with an unmistakeable splash that stood out resiliently, even flowing over gutters and puddles and ponds with a noiseless turbulence that rekindled memories of the sea.

But he knew his place well enough because the seagulls weren't there, because the sand wasn't there, because the wind wasn't there to bring respite from the humid evening. Vapours condensed on his spectacles, and they wouldn't be wiped off despite however hard he rubbed them on his shirt. That the shack hadn't been whipped away by the storm surprised him; he would have enjoyed the sight of planks and splinters of wood coursing through the guts of an airborne whirlpool of dust and grime, his arms and legs flapping around like... well, a duck caught in the guts of an airborne whirlpool of dust and grime.

No. It stood there, as irascible as ever, little waves lashing against the platform, lolling and roiling around aimlessly with a moronic obedience to the laws of nature. Adjusting his knee-high boots, he stepped out of the car and carefully planted his feet on the ground, cautious not to slip or slide against the slush.

For a moment right then, the sun shone out through a patch of flimsy cloud cover, the single shaft of light reflected on millions of raindrops in its path, scattered eventually into nothingness, or perhaps into rodents that scrambled into the shadows. And as quickly as it came, the light vanished from the faces of the raindrops, the residual warmth fading from the skin of his arms, his face... he could remember her pulling away, backing away, walking into the clouds, into another man's scar-kissed arms, into another man's booze-drenched world of free-trades and unabashed bargains. If only she'd asked, he'd have given it to her, but even though she knew that, she'd left him.

It made him feel cold for the first time, his body naked, stripped off all the man he'd adorned through years of a tragic marriage, left to stand with an ageing soul right from under which a cushion of a thousand happy memories had been stolen. A bloody ritual would set it right, he knew, and he held the hand of a colder steel in his pocket, and started to walk. He could feel the water fighting his advance, pushing him back away from the door; the impudence!

Quicker steps that he thought would slide through the water found them retarded by small vortices that curled around his thighs. Could he swim? No, that would be foolish. Only a few tens of metres more, a short distance to whit; he could and would make it.

The Space of a Player

Seen from one end, the rectangular table becomes a trapezium, broader near the player's waist and tapering as it moves away. The challenge is clear to the players as soon as they take their positions: they each play from an area of strength and against a weaker opponent. They each know that the opponent, though he may be weaker, has a larger space into which he must hit the projectile, and therefore has just as much a chance to win as does the stronger player.

An even playground—an even battle.

He holds the paddle harder around its pommel, the grip tightening toward the hilt, and a sole finger outstretched to enhance the torque he would provide whenever a swivel was necessary. There being no particular stance, he moves into one. Bending his knees, he looms over the table, as if ready to quell his opponent at the earliest opportunity, beads of sweat already glistening at the ends of his brows. The infinite space before him—a space within which he can move his arms, within which he can choreograph his legs—confuses him. He is no longer a soldier governed by rules; he is a psychotic killer on the loose, and the simple power of his weapon frightens him, beats into his skull his need for responsibility.

But what can only responsibility do? Nothing. Responsibility requires discipline to be meaningful. Within that infinite space, the player must find discipline somewhere, and tame it to his will. That the weapon is an extension of his hand is worthless information. More than anything, he knows he needs a hand that is not connected to him at all, physically or telekinetically, but a hand which he can and will abuse. That is how the player sees the weapon—the fear of the weapon he has turned quickly into the weapon's fear of him. Responsibility can and will only reside in the presence of that fear.

As the first volley is fired, he flails his arms, his feet shuffling along the concrete floor, the beams of light from the halogen lamps shredded into shadows. He misfires once, twice, and then he misses altogether. The quick injection of failure into the psyche is the greatest reward of sporting participation, and the injection animates the player. The ignominy of failure is compounded by his enemy having witnessed his efforts—the more skill the player has armoured his body with, the more naked he becomes. And the enemy is always watching.

The game must continue.

There is more aimless dancing, more misdirected attempts at connecting with the speeding bullet, and all is in vain. At the same time, the infinite space is shrinking, slowly and steadily, because the enemy has borne down upon the belligerent. If there were guns and bombs, and if there were human lives at stake, and if bodies were lying strewn on thousands of battlefields across the world right now, the player would have had the option of disarming himself and have his people spared by the forces that be.

The game, on the other hand, must continue.

And now, the player plays from between walls immediately to his right and his left—and at that moment, his arms and feet are arrested, and the player's dance becomes a luxury. He must accept what his enemy, now the overlord, tosses out to him, and he must feed upon to it to sustain himself, and when he is done with it, he must toss it back. Quickly, he will receive more and more tosses, more and more opportunities for him to be humiliated, more and more reasons for his enemy to encourage the disdain he wishes to harbour.

The only way the player can emerge successful out of his labyrinthine proposition is to secure a small victory—even so, he mustn't worry about the smallness of it at all because it will be large as soon as he secures it. The overlord, playing from quite an advantageous position, will be shocked into facing his reality once more, a reality that cannot afford the substitution of humility with disdain, although both are equipotentially subversive.

At that moment, the player will have one opportunity to sink the injection deep into his enemy's veins—only one opportunity, not millions, not infinite, and that one opportunity will discipline him. That one opportunity will bring him within kissing distance of the two walls, and he will be addicted to their touch, a reminder of his enslavement to their promise of salvation. Soon, there is a new overlord, one who will have the opportunity to reign as emperor for all eternity, but will soon himself succumb to the rewards of success.

The game, after all, must continue.

Where men hide

Here, men walked, under the concrete and metal girders spanning the roof, in their ancient wombs. It'd never been calculated that they would get here, nor was it foreseen as a circumstance substantiated purely by accident. It was the way it was. They waited for the train to arrive in silence, neither each standing alone nor in a few throngs, but they stood speckled on the banks of the tracks. It was the picture of nonchalance. The ocean might as well have been a few meters from their feet, and the water might as well have easily been lashing at their feet with poetic gusto, but they wouldn't care. They just stood there waiting for the train to arrive.

One man looked at his watch; I remember, I was standing right next to him. He pushed the sleeve of his very-old jacket back and looked at the dial of his watch, and when he was satisfied, he pushed the sleeve back down with a jerk of his arm and leaned on his other leg. Not a sigh had been heaved in the hall all this time, not one expression of mild consternation, not even of frustration. Some of them carried grocery bags: the orange bags were unmistakeable under the halogen lamps, the customary thumbnail of a butterfly sewn onto each face that meant they were made of downcycled plastic.

Others were getting back from the football game. The sweat glistened on their skin like the sweat on the foreheads of anxious and drooling devotees come to meet the sage, and He would walk in their midst seeking out the one He could at least trust. They would chant His name and they would pack His purse with coins in return for blessing, and when He taught them, they wouldn't listen. After all, they had purchased a lesson, and he had better give it to them. And I did, and I did. Say what you will, it was a glorious world filled with men, each the nucleus of my fantasies. And that one trustworthy disciple? He would end up in the sewers, curiously.

Finally, in the distance, there was a bright light visible, circular and white, and approaching with intent and steadily toward our platform, the low rumble of the perfunctory horn accompanying its enlarging. The men looked up from their News Todays and the concrete floor, slowly moving forward as if they going to grapple with it like it was a woman they had sighted and now yearned for.

They all yearned for a woman and I knew they no longer cared if she was fat or thin, if she was beautiful or grotesque, or even if she was healthy or carried in her loins a disfiguring fever. By the time the locomotive was a hundred metres away, they were in two barely distinguishable groups, one each for the two doors each compartment would have, and they would hurry to enter it like they did on every night, hurry to enter it, finish first, and discard the weight of loneliness. They would push the woman away and go home to be absolutely lonely. And in the dark confines of that room, their solipsistic hopes would be realized.

The train came closer, and as it did, they huddled closer, their shoulders so close that they almost touched. Nobody wanted to get too far away from the light descending from the office upstairs, its window the only window discernible in this cavern we stood in, the cold and mechanical glow quickly disintegrating within the spaces coveted by corners infested with rodents and disaster-blown fissures.

At the same time, nobody wanted to touch each other because nobody knew what would happen then, because someone might feel something, a strange sensation, and something might happen. They were so scared. So scared! I could laugh with pity.

I jumped in with them, deliberately pushing my shoulders against the brawniest men in the crowd, and they would grimace at the silken touch of my wonderful hands, and they would move away, and I would follow them. Some of the men gave me stern looks, attempting in vain to push me away with their eyes, while some others would look downcast, grunt something under their noses and walk away.

I liked the ones who used their eyes. The men who walked away were men, too, but they were a different kind of men. They were men with fathers who had worked in cities and had owned a small house in the suburbs with a wicket gate, and they were men with mothers who had doted over them when they had been young, and they were men who had never lost a sibling to a stalking paedophile or a psychotic serial killer or a maniac hopped up on acid and convinced he was carving the cross on a piece of bark and not on a baby’s head.

No, these were good men, men who understood decency and so had been cheated on by their former wives and girlfriends, men who believed in the goodness of other men, men who believed in such things as leading by example. I wanted the men who had been emotionally raped by their abusive fathers, who had awakened quickly enough to hit their wives and girlfriends, men who wouldn’t be afraid to be men.

Looking around within the packed compartment, my pity evaporated and into its wake condensed a fatigue that I had hoped would set in much later, a terrible world-weariness that removed from my indulgence, a reminder that I did have other things to do. It was already three years since the Emasculation and these men had no idea they were absolutely lonely in this world in their turmoil.

Should I have told them then? I don’t know. I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure. Anyway, as the train snaked its way through the city, I seemed no longer capable of enjoying the drove of jostling men, as if the night had become more colder – Had it? Someone must have opened the windows – and the airs drier, as if all the moisture had been expunged out of my brain and I seemed to stand in the middle of a large and empty field, the stalks of tall grass dark-blue in the darkness disappearing beneath my feet.

A foreboding beat of realization began to thump in the distance. I could remember my father, the railway engineer, sounding the three-step foghorn to signal danger for inbound trains at the station, I could remember him changing signal lights frantically before anything untoward happened, I could remember no train arriving at all as I looked to the east, and I could remember him collapsing on the bench in tears. I was almost 20 when I realized I was the child of a madman. I wished then that he was standing next to me so I could hold him upright and that we could enjoy this train ride together.

He was a man in his own right, a third kind, an invincible one.

As this and other odd images passed through my head, I stood standing in the train even though more and more seats became empty as we journeyed on, and at one point, I was offered a seat by a man who was getting off – how polite! After another hour, my stop was come, the last on the line, and I alighted, mentally drained from yet another evening of loafing around the city soliciting men who were the same universally but never seemed good enough for me, for my vainglorious body, a ritual that I called an ordeal.

Why did I play it out, then? Because I was hopeful, but don’t ask me what I was hopeful for or hopeful about because I have no idea. As the doors shut behind me with a plastic secularism, I paused for a moment’s wonderment as I always did, looking down at the street in which all the houses were mine, whose windows were all open and through all of which flowed a dull, orange glow of a mob of halogen bulbs, the abundance reeking of decay and death.

I decided I would sleep in the third house on the left tonight, the one I called Jacopo after Jacopo Belbo, poor conflicted Belbo. Then again, it didn’t matter: after the women had died, the men had moved to other parts of the city, slowly but with a steadiness that was both geographic and consistent. When I came across this street, I found all the rooms empty behind all the doors, and decided to stay on here, in these tombs, secretly wishing my increasing fatigue would push me to do something about my plight, an undead man-woman.

Mostly, I wondered what it meant to be anything less than a man in a world without any women. Beyond the walls, womanhood meant conflict simply because it meant a lot of things, and each choice therein was mired in conflicts both social and political. Within the ambit of these walls, on the other hand, it meant some kind of loss to not be a whole, and that oneness of being was lost to me because I was both and neither: I was trapped in the middle of a fight, and the fight was flaking, like a magical fog that was slowly disappearing and my sword was gnashing nothing, my shield blocking nothing, and soon, the enemy had deserted me. I was an unworthy opponent.

All the men were at a loss to understand what was really going on while some of them sincerely believed the aliens were finally here; none of them know that they were completely isolated and destined only to die, not unto any greatness or martyrdom but just death, myself included. They surrendered their will to the city itself, no longer incentivized to initiate anything, their hearts parched of any kind of freedom, and they walked the roads like zombies, as if simply to get from one point to another.

The shops were all shut for business and opened for rationing and all the supplies were tallied and stocked in a warehouse, away from fire and water, guarded by a small group of police officers. At the beginning of each week, queues would form outside the building for the next seven days’ supply of food, beer and chocolate; there were other small establishments that still sold anything, but when money wasn’t going anywhere or coming from anywhere, it ceased to mean anything.

Death, of course, was the greatest nullifier.

The eunuch named K. and his-her mustache.

I know how the smart mind fears stoppage.

Against the clear and blue Bangalorean sky, the buildings stand still, the chafed facades of concrete meaningless against the still yet depthless waters in the empyrean receptacle. Flakes of clouds seem imminent in the western distance, and their approach is slow, graceful, and all such and other things lost from the weakened mind. The eternal struggle diminishes its distinctive flavor and grinds it constantly along the edges; it lies now like a chamfered ingot of iron that pushes itself, sans any intelligence whatsoever, a metallic zombie, pushes itself toward construction and contribution.

Then again, there are no footholds in the clear and blue Bangalorean sky. It slips over the mountains in the East and slips into the sea in the East like a satin bedspread unfurled across the lands within the horizons and let to lie there like a vast stretch of discarded canvas. I digress: it is not my place to comment on the performative genders of dreams. Do you see the struts, K.?

The struts. The struts are essential because they hold up the whole structure, and the struts are essential because they give you some meaning to work with. When the structure's up, you can lean on it. Lean? Why is there any leaning? Let the structure stand, I say, and let it grow toward the heavens. That's the point of this task, to let them grow and flaw so that I may know wherewith to grant on my remedies, my solutions, and know that I'm on my way to manhood. To know that I've long since crossed puberty, and that a mustache is imminent, and that the man will flower and give birth to another young man, and young men will abound for the joy of the creator! Who?

The creator! The dreams of our nights when the canvas' weave breaks at odd places and starlight shines through like the very, very distance edge of a cosmic scissor. A trimmer! A trimmer? You've lost it. You've lost me. You call yourself an agent, you narcissist, you! You're a pimp! A pleasure-monger, and if I let you, you will make a product out of my dreams, a package of intellectual gibberish. You will call it a construction! But it is a construction!

Oh, no, no, no, no, it is not a construction. It was constructed but it is not yet in possession of a completion, and in lacking that completion, it lacks everything it possesses, you abacinated man! Move that place from in front of your eyes and throw it away into the skies, and let it quench, that malleated veil. Oh, it's electric, but it blinds with its metallic will, its metallic will. The mustache will never come not as a matter of destiny, no, it will reject invitations and it will reject prospects because mustaches have no dreams, and it will choose to languish as a eunuch in that womb whence I came, and it languishes in the comfort of my joy and my pleasures that I left behind. Oh, the cavernous orphanage! Not the orphanage! Why the orphanage at all?!

I will become a man, I swear to you, I will become a man and I will do it by climbing up onto the terrace of that building, the one with the chafed facade of pink paint and very old concrete, and from there, I will traverse the skies. I know how the smart mind fears stoppage, and hidden twelve feet under that moment of stoppage is my manhood, the pause-and-think, the pitch-and-toss-and-never-worry-about-my-loss endeavour that we all know stands in my way, S.

We all do, don't we?! Assumptions! Pshaw! And from there- Pshaw!- from THERE!, from beneath that vast pit that opens only into the skies, I will not lean but climb all the stairs it proffers for my climbing. There, on top of the world, I will become a man. A child will be born and he will descend from the heavens. Do not kill him.

Listen to me, O Cosmic Builder, O! That was fantastic but you must know that I will leave now, your much-impressed creator, and I will leave now to create this Universe in your image, in your contorted image. Be warned, father, you who cower in the darkness and run unclothed under the white sun, listen! You must lean upon your construction and push against it with all your masculine strength for if you keep building and building, you will be a mason, a constructor, and never an artist, never a performer except for the pleasing of your own self, and there, look therein!

Look to find that you don't want to be a man, and if you never will break and only birth all the while, you will never be a man. A eunuch, a half-man, but never the full one. The mustache, then? Precisely.

Fin de siècle

The sky was on fire. In the west, a violent orange glow blossomed out from a point that seemed just beyond the horizon. Black clouds were climbing out, erupting into petals of grey that gently floated to the zenith before disappearing into insignificant wisps of rain.

A giant fetus was descending down from the sky. From beneath the bridge of steel, I could see only its body; its head and legs were out of sight behind the buildings to my left and my right. The hue of its skin was a golden yellow, but it was an unpleasant sight, the skin of its form draped with dripping eidolons and an unspeakable horror exploded to life behind my eyes.

Men ran screaming in all directions. Some of the women fainted; they were forgotten, left behind by a madness ripe with sourceless fear, a disbelief that stretched their consciences toward puerile humor, to laughter. A rejection of this real and unborn child into a pus-filled boil, and a "pop!" later, it would be gone with it, too. And they would all be left standing, laughing, and then they would pick up their wives and go home to television sets.

The children themselves stood and gazed, but it was a silent and voiceless agony that rooted them to their spots, the picture of the prophet reflected brightly in the tears in their eyes, a form moving slowly but steadily to meet them. It was an encounter and they were meeting their creator.

I shuddered to think what might happen if the child landed. There was no way to know, of course: never before had such a thing happened. There was also the chance that other such fetuses were descending from the empyrean around the world, over large cities, overs people, over running men and swooning women, over praying children, over me.

I ran. I didn't run away from the monster but I ran to get under it. In a moment of brilliance, I positioned myself right under the approaching form and waited with a knife held up towards it. I waited. It seemed to come closer and closer. After an hour, I was sure it would fall upon the knife and bleed to death. But no, it covered the entire sky, blanketing all humanity beneath a shroud of half-alive and surely malformed skin, the stench of it disgusting, filling my nose with the pungent indulgence of sulfurous and sulfidic gases.

The world was dark. Humankind was tottering on the brink of extinction. I had given up all hope when the fetus awakened from its strange sleep. It woke up and began to cry, to bawl. It was the last mourning.

Charter city

Moran is a creation of mine, a massive, albeit fictitious, city that functions as a dump of my imagination. Anything I write that doesn't find a place elsewhere finds itself chamfered to fit within its walls. There's science fiction, too, hidden beneath layers and layers of magic - which I tend to desist and instead reconfigure as something scientific. The following is only an archive of the most basic ideas surrounding the city. If you think you could make a story out of something, feel free. It's an OpenSource city.

Creation

The walls of Moran descended almost the length of a league before quickly plunging into the dark-brown soil of the Peruhn marshlands. Its once-white walls now sported stains of ochre that rivulets of dirt and grime carried down daily from the lifeless ramparts. Of course, that was only to the north, wherefrom assaults in the city's recent history had been all but absent, while the other three quadrants remained heavily and persistently manned hour after hour, a clear signal to the hardy settlement's neighbours about its attitude.

The city itself began a hundred yards from the superstructure, the concentric proclivity of its roads emerging as one moved centripetally. Not surprisingly, they also designated the formal contours of wealth accumulated by those living in the quarters flanking them, as if emanating from the quatral mines at the heart of the city. The metal itself was precious simply because it weighed almost nothing but could resist damage for periods much longer than a blade of steel.

Administration

Halfway between the innermost ring and the outermost row of soldiers' lodgings toward the southwest, the sprawling ministerial conclave housed the Moranian senate, called the Padun, and the council's meeting chambers. A short but rather bloody 700-year old history had ensured that power within Moran didn't rest in the hands of one man or woman, but a group that was somehow always skilled enough to disrupt daily life but conduct wars with clinical precision.

At this juncture, it becomes necessary to understand the city's design for what it is: with the slaves working at the mines at the center of the city, the necessity for them to pass into the more affluent areas becomes eliminated, in effect making Moran a huge prison populated by hundreds of thousands. At the same time, before condemnation is heaped upon the ministers, it must also be noted that Moran was, overall, a traders' establishment. If not for the quatral, there was no reason for such numbers of people to settle down next to a marshland.

Now, the members of the council, known collectively in common parlance as Dryjhna, "the veiled ones", were sixteen men, women and eunuchs, in no fixed numbers, who presided over the goings-on of the city. Although all of them effectively represented the merchants, the blacksmiths, and the marketeers of the city, the relevance of a ruling council as such became significant only in the face of pestilence and/or war. The first priority was to regulate the export and price of the quatral, and quick to follow was the sustenance of an ambition to forge an empire around the only quatral mines on the entire continent.

Politics

Moranians had rivals everywhere. The harbor on the southern tip of the city serviced a bay that banked the smaller Borean tribe and a colony of the much-more formidable Tarthenal, a race of barbaric warriors who had settled down on the continent more than two millennia past, the building of Moral thus only serving to spurn them. Even though trade flourished between the three, diplomatic relations were cold with no solution in sight. The Tarthenal wanted the Moranians to go; the Moranians wanted the Tarthenal to leave them alone.

Toward the east and the northeast, the Me'avulo Empire laid claim to all the lands, including the Karp mountain range that rent the kingdom in two. Ruled by the Lord Kulpath, the kingdom was passive in every way and, consequently, relations with the Moranians were peaceful. However, despite the monarchic polity, Lord Kulpath ruled in the name of the deity called Nuhe, notorious on the continent itself for the rumored cannibalistic rituals and other ritualistic excesses surrounding its worship, Nuhevin. Of course, these were all practices keenly guarded.

On the northern front of the landmass were the remains of the Shattered Dwellings, a mysterious stretch of rubble and hubris that seemed to all have been blasted to the ground by unimaginable forces, for the pillars that still stood seemed of immense girth and even greater resilience. Swathing an area of almost 2,000 leagues to a side, the vast rectangle reeked of godliness and immortal conflict. However, a more important cause for concern presented itself in the form of the Dwellings' destruction: who? And how?

More soon to follow...

Arrival of the unpunctual

Even his outstretched fingers couldn’t reach the first vestiges of the bleak winter sunlight falling from the window. The floor was cold and hard, and the insides of his palms and knees singed with pain. How long he’d lain that way, he’d forgotten. A crushing weight pressed down upon his mind and all he could think of was the infinite and eternal loneliness, the closing in of a vast emptiness that pushed out both friends and enemies. He was not cared for. Pushing himself toward that final effort, at long last his fingers found the beam of light on the floor, a gentle warmth flowing through them as he embraced it. The cold was still not gone, though, but when or whence the cold had come, no one knew. Waiting for a knock on the door had proved terribly futile. The timber-legged chair had crumpled down with him when the clock struck six. He wished that the finality of death had befallen them all, that were they not here upon his doorstep and awaiting his welcome, much rather the truth be forgotten forever than hang between fact and fantasy!

When brothers are born murdered: An experiment with stream of consciousness narration

He takes the gun firmly into his hands and peers down the barrel. Satisfaction. Clicks it back into place-

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He stands there, smoking out of his head, the gun still pointed at his temple. The evening is just as startled, it kicks up the dust and swirls orphaned leaves around with the wind. The town is fortunately empty this evening, families making the monthly shopping trip to the city and the noblemen housed in their castles hosting tea parties. In the town square, we stand in silence: it is both disbelief and terse finality in the air, the smog-tainted drizzle pattering down on terracotta rooftops bringing relief and detestation and peace at the same time.

He starts to cry, the dry sobs haunt me, a reek of guilt. The gun clatters upon the pavement, it seems it will stay there until I decide to move my feet and close the distance between us, the least I can do for a start. The hollow tinnitus of empty tin cans suspended from my father's crucifix on silken ribbons clatter and clamour with greater vigour when the feeble wind rises from beneath the valley, but tin cans don't have to feel guilty. I do. The mercy of the Lord be with me, this man is my brother, but I have sinned. He moves quickly, sensing my hesitation and he hugs me. I hug him back, the war is over. The sounds of bombs going off in my head is dying out, one baleful ring of thunder at a time, until they're hanging suspended in mid-air beyond the valley of shell-charred tree stumps and dandelions. But the bombs will fall once more, after this evening.

He asks after father, whose life he saved almost a year before. Father is keeping well. And- So is mother. I'm curious. How did you survive the war? They couldn't kill me, but I didn't let them know. So I joined them. That was when he left us. Mother was weeping, a traitor had prayed with her in the town church, a traitor had enjoyed her blanquette de veau on the rare Saturday when she made them. Father was livid. Join after the murderers of your brother. The fury was alive in the air, we felt it in our skins returning from the fields that day. I wish father was alive now. I wish he hadn't died with one son and two daughters. I wish and I hope that beyond the joys of this renewed brotherhood was the joy of a father seeing his son return victorious from battle.

Lessons from a plate of spinach

"Here, have this."

"What's it?"

"Spinach and rice."

"I hate the taste of spinach!"

"Do have it! It tastes good!"

"How! How do you know it tastes good?"

"Because it tasted good?"

"Because it tasted good for you!"

"Yeah... so?"

"How do you know it's going to taste good for me?"

"Well..."

*

"What is this?"

"It's spinach curry."

"You know I hate the taste-"

"Yes, yes! But I've cooked it different this time."

"What's the difference?"

"Now it tastes better!"

"How do you know-"

"Because it tastes for even me!"

"Because the spinach tastes better for you?"

"Yes, it does! Taste it!"

"I didn't like it when it tasted one way. Now, you've made it a better way."

"Yeah?"

"So, I didn't like it when it was just fine. Now you think I'll like it when the spinachness of the dish is enhanced?"

"Well..."

*

"Here, have this."

"What's this?"

"Spinach."

"Again?"

"Yeah!"

"Why so often?"

"Because I like it."

"Why do you like it?"

"Because it tastes better than most other stuff I eat."

"So you make spinach all the time?"

"Yeah?"

"Because you found out you liked something, you're going to make sure you keep liking it."

"If you have to put it like that..."

"Did you enjoy finding out you liked spinach?"

"Oh, yeah, it was at that dinner-"

"OK, OK, OK. So, you found something you liked, you enjoyed the feeling, and now you're happy to be stuck with that feeling?"

"Well..."

*

"Here, have this."

"Is it spinach?"

"Nope."

"Oh! How come?"

"I took your advice. Made beans instead."

"Ah! Smart choice. You liking the beans?"

"Not. One. Bit."

"Making a note of it?"

"Oh, yeah!"

"So... no more spinach?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Gotta find out more likes."

"You found one thing you liked and then you dumped it?"

"Well... yeah! I found something. Score! Let's move on. You taught me that!"

"So, you're essentially betraying your association with spinach."

"What?"

"Don't you think you owe it to yourself that you stick to something you know you like rather than go after something you think you'll like?"

"But you said-"

"I know what I said."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"You're the one who likes spinach."

Lessons from a plate of spinach

"Here, have this."

"What's it?"

"Spinach and rice."

"I hate the taste of spinach!"

"Do have it! It tastes good!"

"How! How do you know it tastes good?"

"Because it tasted good?"

"Because it tasted good for you!"

"Yeah... so?"

"How do you know it's going to taste good for me?"

"Well..."

*

"What is this?"

"It's spinach curry."

"You know I hate the taste-"

"Yes, yes! But I've cooked it different this time."

"What's the difference?"

"Now it tastes better!"

"How do you know-"

"Because it tastes for even me!"

"Because the spinach tastes better for you?"

"Yes, it does! Taste it!"

"I didn't like it when it tasted one way. Now, you've made it a better way."

"Yeah?"

"So, I didn't like it when it was just fine. Now you think I'll like it when the spinachness of the dish is enhanced?"

"Well..."

*

"Here, have this."

"What's this?"

"Spinach."

"Again?"

"Yeah!"

"Why so often?"

"Because I like it."

"Why do you like it?"

"Because it tastes better than most other stuff I eat."

"So you make spinach all the time?"

"Yeah?"

"Because you found out you liked something, you're going to make sure you keep liking it."

"If you have to put it like that..."

"Did you enjoy finding out you liked spinach?"

"Oh, yeah, it was at that dinner-"

"OK, OK, OK. So, you found something you liked, you enjoyed the feeling, and now you're happy to be stuck with that feeling?"

"Well..."

*

"Here, have this."

"Is it spinach?"

"Nope."

"Oh! How come?"

"I took your advice. Made beans instead."

"Ah! Smart choice. You liking the beans?"

"Not. One. Bit."

"Making a note of it?"

"Oh, yeah!"

"So... no more spinach?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Gotta find out more likes."

"You found one thing you liked and then you dumped it?"

"Well... yeah! I found something. Score! Let's move on. You taught me that!"

"So, you're essentially betraying your association with spinach."

"What?"

"Don't you think you owe it to yourself that you stick to something you know you like rather than go after something you think you'll like?"

"But you said-"

"I know what I said."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"You're the one who likes spinach."

A story

11.26

Dialing...

"Hello?"

Hey!

"Hey!"

What're you doing?

"I'm outside with-"

Oh, OK! We'll talk later!

"Yeah, sure!"

Bye!

"Bye!"

12.24

Dialing...

"You don't have enough credit-"

12.31

Dialing...

"The person you are calling has not responded. Please try-"

14.10

Picking...

Hello?

"Hey buddy! What's up!"

Hey man... how's it going?

"Awesome! Listen, me and C planning a trek. You wanna come?"

When's it?

"Tonight. We're thinking of catching the 8 o'clock bus and-"

Not tonight, sorry. Have some work.

"Saturday night?"

Dad's coming online, some work to do with the bank, something.

"Oh, OK! Next time then!"

Yeah man, sorry. Call-

"Bye!"

14.33

Dialing...

"The person you are calling has-"

15.04

Signing in...

"L. is online."

Laptop?

L: "Nt yet happened."

Damn. :(

L: "Yeah. I'm fucked."

Sleepover at S.'s place and finish the assignment?

And then tell me about the pillowfight?

L: "Heh. She lives all the way across town!"

Fine. P.?

L: "Uh. No."

K.?

L: "Oh wow."

"Hahhahahahhaha its K.!"

:D

What doing?

L: "Painting."

"Ur sheldon from big bang theory."

I'm Sheldon?!

That guy's stiff, a creature of habit and annoying!

I'm not annoying!

L: "You're stiff. Creature of habit. A know it all. ALL."

Sheldon Cooper is annoying and unforgiving. I am neither!

And he's not interested in sex. He's NOT interested- THAT'S ANTI-ME!

L: "Okay :P"

":P"

"Okay. And that."

The place here's a huge bungalow with no curfew and careless watchman.

L: "Fancy :P"

"Ur outside? Not with family?"

No, any studying requires the hostel experience.

Can't study for nuts from home - even this.

It's going to be crazy!

L: ":)"

"Did you make friends?"

This chick

L: "Really??"

Yeah!

But she's off FB for a while.

L: "Ahaan"

You are no longer signed in to send or receive messages.

15.55

"Hello?"

Sir, I'm calling from the south-

"Yes, sir, we're sorry sir. It's an area-wide cut, sir, there's a fire in the grid."

When will-

"In about 4 hours, sir."

16.16

Opening...

Yes?

"Sir, delivery from Amazon?"

Oh, yes!

"Sign here... and here."

Thanks!

"Thank you, sir!"

18.01

Dialing...

"The person you are-"

19.29

Wireless network... connected.

19.31

Signing in...

"L. is offline"

Hey! You there? Sorry, there was a power cut. I'll catchya soon, have a nice evening!

19.44

Coming.

"Good evening, sir! Delivery from Dumpling Queen!"

Oh yeah, how much is it?

"A round... 60, sir."

Keep the change.

"Thank you, sir! Enjoy your dinner!"

Yeah.

20.34

Dialing...

"Hello?"

Hey!

"Hey!"

What're you doing?

"I'm on my way!"

Oh, when'll you be here?

"In a coupla minutes, max. How's it going there... you OK?"

Yeah... I'm fine. Just missing you.

"I miss you, too."

Couldn't you blow off the late night shift?

"Aww! Look at you!"

I'm serious!

"You know I can't do that! Plus, it's Saturday... you know how busy the streets get!"

Yeah, yeah, OK. Get here faster.

"Yeah, I'm almost there."

OK.

23.15

"It's getting late."

Hmm...

"I'll talk to you tomorrow!"

I hate you.

"Me too! G'night!"

Yeah, whatever.

07.14

Picking...

Hmm... who's this?

"Hey!"

Yeah?

"It's me! You just woke up?!"

Yeah...

"Please tell me you've the script ready!"

Yeah... almost-

"Almost?! What's almost?!"

Gimme an hour.

"Are you sure? Because if you haven't finished it, you should tell me now."

No, no, one hour. You'll have it.

"OK, I trust you. Don't lemme down, man."

Hmm.

07.19

Somewhere in the south of the great City, curled up within layers of poverty, rebellion, filth and convivial skulduggery, in a building dotting the ramshackle landscape of the miserable shores, a young man strode up and down upon an old carpet, one of the few things of value in his otherwise poor excuse of a residence. At this juncture, the reader may not be surprised to discover upon my utterance that he was a writer - he still is - and took away from the denial of luxury the luxury of denial, a self-imposed lesson on the art of inspiration, coveting lovers and dodging them, befriending strangers and salvaging himself from the hubris of his own madness. Right then, as the first droplets of rain struck the glass in the windows, he called a young woman he was attempting now to love, and she spoke: "I'm outside with-" Goodbye, he screamed! Despair! On the philanthropy of despair it seemed he would feed first...

08.03

Picking...

"You done?"

What if I'm not?

"Man! I trusted-"

Relax! I'm done.

"Hmm... what's it called?"

The Art... of Inspiration! You like it?

"I think I do... I do, I do."

When geeks aspire

On the first day of school,
A geek was born in class;
The kids made fun of him,
Burying a fear inside that math just got harder to pass!

When the words fall down,
His stories are made:
It's a tale with a moral
That'll teach you humility and the will to never fade!

When the slut whispered that
For her homework he'd have her flower,
He did it all knowing anyway
That once the time came he'd have to finish in the shower!

When it's time for DotA-
Get high on frame-rate thrills-
Immortal guts and glory:
It's not over until they're all m-m-m-monster kills !

When the card's on the table
And the bet's are on hold,
He's got no poker face;
Smart kid'll teach you what isn't stupid but bold!

When geeks aspire,
The game doesn't end that way!
It plays itself, on and on,
Until he's got a Wikipedia page on his name some day!

When Kap Fynncraft woke up on Tuesday morning.

When Kap Fynncraft woke up on Tuesday morning, neither he nor anyone else knew that it would be different from any of the previous days. He walked to the bathroom, washed his face, brushed his teeth, had a bath, brewed some coffee, toasted some bread, boiled an egg, breakfasted, dressed up and locked the front door behind him. When he reached the last rung of the ladder he had to climb down, he seemed as if he forgot something, and climbed all the way back up. Wedged in the window grill above the first rung was a folded-up white sheet: the newspaper. He stuck it in his mouth and climbed back down. Adjusting his cap, he stood at the bus stop. It was 07.40.

As always, Chip Ramirez stood to his left, and as always, Ark Eiwen stood to Chip's left. They had nothing in particular to speak about, but a decade-old habit of waiting at the bus stop for 10 minutes in each other's presence made the silence anything but discomfiting. At 07.42 precisely, The Man In The Green Helmet would ride by on his scooter. A minute later, The Two Men With Their Briefcases would open the store on the other side of the street. Just as they reordered everything inside the shop and turned the sign to "Open", a red bus could be seen driving up and down the mounding road on the horizon. At 07.50, Kap, Chip and Ark boarded it.

The bus ride to the factory took precisely four minutes everyday because the amount of traffic between 07.50 and 07.54 was the same on any given day. In fact, the amount of traffic at any point of time was the same on any given day. In fact, nothing else about the city had changed in the last 10 years. As he rode the bus to the factory, he also knew nothing would ever change either because the smoke rising from the smelting factory a few miles in the northeast was always of the same hue, density and emotion. Sometimes, he'd look at it and wonder. Sometimes, he wouldn't look any way at all but the paper. Sometimes, he thought what it would be like to jump out of the bus onto the pavement and shatter his head. The telltale jerk brought him out of his reverie on that Tuesday morning, and a minute later, he alighted.

It was winter. The westward wind was strong and cold, unrelenting against his thin woollen shawl. He drew it tighter around himself, although it had never been of any help. But he'd had nothing else to complain about all year, and something like this was all that he had to keep himself from thinking of different ways to kill himself. He signed elaborately in the register, and as always the clerk looked up at him queerly. Before he went to his seat near the drill, he looked at the calendar. It was March 17, 2144. The celebrations were exactly a week away. Exactly 10 years ago, on March 24, 2134, the country officially declared it had nothing significant left to achieve. The standard of living was appreciable, nobody was poor, no wars seemed possible, diplomatic relations presented no challenges, research output had been steadied, diseases had been eradicated, consumption was regulated, the surplus was sold at fixed rates, the weather was shielded against, and state-sponsored festivals provided distraction from the melancholy.

Kap Fynncraft had been a journalist. When The Threshold was breached, he was reporting a story on a woman giving birth to quadruplets at the capital's government hospital. A few days later, he had been promoted to sub-editorship with the newspaper. A week later, there was nothing to go by except a repeated declaration of the government's accomplishments. A month later, the paper had shut down and he was forced to find work in one of the factories. A year later, in 2135, his wife died when she slipped on the ladder outside his door. He had tried to instigate a revolt in the factory: when they asked him what the problem was, he had said something about wages. The next day, he was arrested by the police. A few days later, he was forced to admit there was nothing he could do about it, and when he did admit it, he was released. When he went back to work,  he found they'd also increased his wages. When he tried to look intimidating, they reminded him of his wife. "This is for you to spend as you wish, Mr. Fynncraft. We've a feeling you loved your wife very much."

At 16.00, he lined up near Gate 2. The queue for the bus was two labourers long, and he joined it as he always did as the third man. At 16.06, the bus started on its six-minute journey. On that Tuesday, it took more than an hour: just as they passed the Presidential Boulevard, they were stopped behind a few other buses, some cars, many cyclists, and what looked like an upside-down truck, its underside charred and smoking. Kap Fynncraft, somehow, had sunk back into a reverie. He would be home late today, dinner would be late, he'd have to eat as he watched the game tonight. He smiled. Maybe he'd annoy that old woman downstairs by walking around at 22.00. Maybe he'd miss the bus in the morning and hitch a ride. Maybe-

Before he knew it, the bus was on its way again. He could no longer see the plumes of smoke on the southwest, the inky blue of the late-evening sky had swallowed it in its entirety. The streetlamps were lighting themselves one by one, as if they knew Kap Fynncraft was coming, as if they knew he'd want to alight and, somehow, not want to break his head on the pavement on a night that involved a postponed dinner and an angry old woman. A moist film of water had condensed on the windows of the bus, and he waited by the door lest he missed his stop. Under the bright white glare of the streetlights, he could see the patterned tiling on the pavement whip by in the oblong shadow of the vehicle. He knew they were somewhere near his house, he remembered the hexagonal patterns from a terrible day when he had reached the bus stop early one morning and had decided to look down.

Black, white, black, white, black, white, black... the lines between the colours trapped his eyes, and he could feel himself moving through the Universe one coloured tile at a time.

Ghost Wilkie

As soon as they found out that Father Ribisi was insured, they also found arsenic in his tea.

After deciding to leave the cabin, momma and poppa fighting, we drew lots and then drove east.

The city was magnificent but dull, something and nothing: people wore flashy coats but no smiles.

Leka was born on a wintry New York night under no moon but many stars.

That was the night pappa walked out with the bounty, plunging us into poverty.

Momma was having more and more drunk men over to tolerate lonely nights.

The farm was not doing as well as she thought it was.

She discovered that I was the one cutting up the roosters.

Church was the place for me; my family ditched me.

Embracing religion would be necessary to inculcate disciplining habits.

I had diarrhoea from drinking the holy water.

I was given morphine to be silenced.

The doctor groped me all over.

Wild electric shocks underneath skin.

Acidic taste on tongue.

Tincture of opium.

Golden bitch.

Laudanum.

No Candy For Right. Lesser Candy For Wrong.

Enough has been said over the last 10 years about the deluge of information on the web, and on the TV, the radio and the papers. All of it has contributed – one way or another – to change the way we look at the world around us; significant bits of it have even gone on to dictate newer with which we can interact with it. Unsurprisingly, however, there is also in place a different protocol, an upgraded one, that includes a new set of mistakes we could commit, a new set of implications and an altogether new rewards program, speaking as such, for not committing those mistakes in the first place.

Amongst them, there is a certain “mistake profile” that strategically underlies a lot of mistakes committed by unifying them with one principle: “doing it right makes no difference, doing it wrong makes a world of it”, and this kind of mistake has become more common; so common, in fact, that in some institutions, of investigations and reportage to be specific, they have attained the critical pedestal of being called systematic simply because they are not corrected even if exposed glaringly.

[caption id="attachment_317" align="aligncenter" width="386" caption="The Indian division of CNN"][/caption]

Commas once held the privileged position of inducing the most of such mistakes in writing. Using the commas in the right place leaves the reader with a smooth flow of thought, although he or she would ultimately take away the point being made at the end of the reading session. However, once the writer uses a comma in the wrong place, that sudden jerk in the flow of thought leaves the reader only with a dissonance that lasts the whole time – and he or she is bound to leave without giving a damn about your ideas. So also in reportage: just today, I was watching CNN-IBN cover the story of the Indian Navy capturing a pirate vessel off the coast of “Lakshwadeep”. If the presenter had pronounced it right, it would have gone a very short distance, if at all, in corroborating the care taken by the presenter to pronounce it correct. However, the moment she pronounced it wrong, it gave away a sense of journalistic nonchalance - especially when there is no hurry associated with covering the piece.

As long as the media is under the scanner, there is a critical difference between “showing” and “telling” that needs to be discussed. In order to understand this, consider the genre of creative writing: when such a piece is being constructed, the author needs to state something to the reader, not declare it. Similarly, facts need to be presented separately wherever possible, and not as cause and effect. This ensures the utmost neutrality even when an extremely suggestive event is unfolding. Such is the difference between statement and declaration. I principally address the contexts of writing and reporting first because they address a larger audience and quickly. However, there are other industries that face significant challenges in the long run because they didn’t look before they leapt.

---

The writer, at this point, was struck by a writers’ block arrow and regrets announcing that the article is done.

A Story Through Ten Images

An old draft, warm with all the years of our acquaintance, edged conveniently off the table. Outside, the world was up to something, it was always up to something, but I never bothered. It was up to no good anyway. Such evenings always made me smile, not in the cocky way some old fart smiles when his midlife crises hits him in the face, but in the cocky way an old soldier is allowed to feel, is entitled to feel. Those were the days... when the world was up to worse.

[caption id="attachment_146" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Of all the many journeys I was a part of, the Kohrin Expedition comes to mind now - not always, it's too special to be wondering about on any evening except this one. The Kohrin were an ancient people who civilized slowly, deliberately, accruing for themselves a foundation for their future so strong, so unshakeable, that they automatically threatened anyone they dealt with, whether by accident or by measure. In the fourth year of the twelfth solar cycle, a secret expedition was sent forth by an affluent Kohrini thug named Brull; I was conscripted along with four other pilots to deliver resources to rebel factions coming together to topple the ruling council of ministers. Brull wanted the crown for himself, the kingdom for his house."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_149" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A 17-hour journey later, I was at SR-71 to meet with the faction titled Bazlac. To cut a long story short, they weren't there. The place was desolate, the wooden struts had been blasted off with undue force, pocks littered the face of the earth. Some of the spots were still smoldering and a wet track led away from them, deep in the squelch, a heavy vehicle of some kind had been here. Keeping the shuttle low, I followed it north for as long as it lasted. Then, in the distance..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_148" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A Citadel of Light, unmistakable from this distance, with its rounded ramparts and domed crowns, with the blue flames of necromancy climbing into the sky out of the blast-capillaries, hot as Hell, cold as Hell, webs of some strange silken cord hanging in strands from its facade. The mound of land on which it stood seemed still loose, which meant it was new, a "fresh" acquisition. The Drasil were cannibals, morally decadent spawn detested by the kinds of Brull even. The Bazlac were done for, I knew, but what the Drasil were doing so far outfield I didn't, so I decided to pay them a visit. A secret one."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_151" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The Drasil were very religious, which meant taking to the skies was equal to defying the airspace of the "Gods", so getting to the other side was easy. Perching atop a hill shrouded in mist, I found a vantage point after cloaking the shuttle, took my post and waited. Beneath, a sea of green light, within which boats were being scuttled. This was strange, there was no enemy army in sight, no threat, no chance of one either as a great army encircling the camp came to be seen under the dim light. Why were the boats being scuttled? I heard a noise behind me, and turning to look, saw it was a dunkke."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_152" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A dunkke was a proselyte with the Drasil camp whose arms and legs had been cut off and substituted with electromechanical limbs that enhanced speed. They argued that, over the years, this left the brain to focus more on other activities, such as strategizing or backstabbing. Two red bulbs glowed bright on the bosom of this woman, which meant she had been deactivated. Her activation signals would gradually die out, leaving her immobile and starving to death. I walked up to the figure, dragged her to near the craft, and fed her some energy from the engines. She was obviously a traitor to the Drasilhani cause."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_153" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The first words out of her mouth and I prepared to disconnect her, but her arms were exceptionally strong. She was some kind of a warrior, absorbed into the cult through blackmail and torture, to dive beneath the seas and awaken the Purge. Brull had not sought to bring down Kohrin, at least at first, but instead sought to repel the Drasil. The Bazlac were planning to awaken the Purge themselves to quench the fire of the Kohrin and the Drasil had intervened. But why? The Drasil needed life to kill, fertility to blight."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_154" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The Purge was an antediluvian cabal buried midway between the outer crust and inner mantle of three planets in the entire galaxy, conceived and gestated since time immemorial by some Kohrin overlord, commanded to rise and be born as a machine with unimaginable power, with the sole purpose of melting and consuming whole planets within days. The one in SR-71 was named Red Hand. The three Purges were the ultimate weapons of the Kohrin, unstoppable, reckless in their hunger for metal and stone. Now, I understood the answer: the Kohrin had allied with the Drasil to eliminate fringe rebels, but the Drasil had grabbed the chance to reactivate the three Hands of Oblivion... against the Kohrin."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_155" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="This here's the construction site behind my home. They're building some sort of an office, although for what I don't know. My planet's exactly one parsec away from SR-71, which means it will be another six years before Red Hand gets here. They don't know yet, or they'd be over their sorrow already and holding some sort of celebration, calling for world peace and brotherhood, what melodrama! I can't stand that. If they let me be, I'd let them be. That looks impossible all the time. Cancer's going to take me in another four months, so I figured, hey! Let's not tell them anything. Keep the mystery alive, that sorta thing, get me? After all, anything's possible!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_157" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Anything at all."][/caption]

Nasty Naiccus: A short story

The light from the lantern he was holding flickered whimsically, alerting us to a reordering of drafts within the narrow tunnel. It meant a train was going to pass that way soon; it also meant that if I didn't alert him about it, he wouldn't be able to stand up straight in time and save his spine from being splintered. The uneven texture underfoot made it all the more harder to stand, just stand, and hold the lantern aloft, succintly guiding the light onto the surface he cast a shadow on. Sometimes, it was this way, and the very next second, it was that. He would grunt if I was late in the catching up; he would mumble about some accidental explosion in his valley that had destroyed half a town; he would mumble about me stepping on the long fuse-wire next if I so much as shifted the weight on my feet. Even while working in the mining shafts on either sides of the valley, he was an ill-tempered anarchist, complaining about something or the other. He wasn't wholly to blame: anyone would if their wife cheated on the husband with his boss on the same day her mother-in-law died. Naiccus Arpath did not shed a single tear or bellow a single curse, he just stopped talking about the world the way he did and started going to church. There, all the Rev. Ross Punter had to do was preach his soggily religious drivel into Naiccus' infecund skull and here they were, two of the best men on the fuse about to blow up a railyway line.

The flame trembled and Naiccus caught the movement before I did, standing up in time to look at me with bloodshot eyes, the little windows shooting past not before they cast a seemingly flickering gleam in his eyes. He grunted his disapproval, I could only stare straight ahead with as much straightlacedness as I could muster. It was not right to argue with Nasty Naiccus, everyone knew that. As soon as the locomotive had exhausted its thundering advertisement of promise and opportunity in this side of the world, he went back to checking the fuse for one last time. It was proper; of course it was, Naiccus Arpath had fixed it, and when men who have a grudge not against their wives or bosses but against the world rig railway lines to blow up when innocent people are passing overhead, it is more often than not that they WILL blow up.

I handed him the lantern and set about gathering the nails and pieces of paper strewn around - of course, an explosion of this magnitude would mercilessly eviscerate all garbage from within this tunnel and this tunnel from within this mountain, but seeing as how the fuse was set for two hours, we didn't want any other loafer in the area to stumble across across our brainchild. We didn't have to be told much when it came to legal explosions: we knew the logistics like the back of our hand and we knew we didn't have to bother about which poor sod we blew up on the other side of the mountain. When it came to planning such a big deal on our own accord, it took us a month to work out the supply-chain links and another month to survey the lands and hit upon a spot at which to shine the bright torch of deliverance into the unsuspecting faces of a thousand children of this land, a thousand children of a thousand brothers who had stolen our lives from us. It was white man versus white man, not something you could hold back with civil war nor make legal with trumped up laws... I'm not sure I like myself when I drift off like this.

After a final confirmation from Naiccus, I turned around to leave, slowly marching up the gentle slope towards the lamppost at the foot of which Faffie was supposed to have stashed the escape route from the reserve about an hour ago. Seeing as how the last train had just passed us, I didn't have to look back every minute or so to check the height of the flame. That's also why I didn't realize how Naiccus had decided to stay back with the one thing that had gone right in his life in the last two years. That's also why when I looked back from the lamppost, I knew the next train through this mossy crawlway was going to be pieces of train as soon as it crossed it half-way. That's also why I knew I was a dead man, too, because the map showed that I needed to take the second train from now to escape the reserve. That's also why I knew Naiccus hadn't forgiven me yet for bringing him to this place six years ago. That's also why I decided to walk back to him and ask him for his forgiveness before we departed together. That's also when I knew Naiccus wouldn't forgive me easily. I had hesitated. I had taken time to read the map without him. I had gone all the way without looking back at him. I had been clearly selfish, and death would not deter Nasty Naiccus from being Nasty Naiccus.