Pangs of Separation - Part 1

The sun came up, lazily rising, reluctant to resume normal duty as if after a holiday break. The streaks of sunshine spread tentative fingers across the clear blue sky, lighting up the wisps of clouds like a bulb switched on inside. As the sun slowly but surely walked across the streets of the city, it passed one other reluctant window where the day was not yet welcome. The window was not particularly different from any other, housed as it was in a structure seemingly entirely of glass just as many others that were housed in that part of the city. The window itself allowed a peek into an apartment, very similar to many others in shape and size except that this one looked as if it was in a state of flux, caught between a major turbulence, a sea of change. A set of suitcases lay, some partially opened and some still to be explored, a new set of curtains lay unopened in their covers, closets looked as if they were either being filled or being taken down entirely. It looked like an apartment where people were moving into or was it moving out? And in a corner was the bed on which the man lay. He was still asleep, his deep breathing filling the room, arms akimbo and face turned sideways into the pillow. He was dreaming …

Something about the dream made him frown in his sleep, heavy eyebrows bridging that short gap between them. And then the frown dissolved, just the way the breezy sunshine clears the clouds, and a smile stole across his face. Starting from his lips, the smile spread across his whole face like someone had just taken a spoon and spread it out across his face. His face creased up entirely and made him look years younger than he actually was. Just then a noise from somewhere around intruded into his dream and threatened to wake him up. He resisted, turning his face almost entirely into the pillow, lest his beautiful dream be lost. But the noise was as persistent, forcing its way into his thoughts and blasting out the cobwebs of sleep one by one. Finally, he reluctantly gave up. The eyelids opened once and then shut again, almost as if the reality they saw was no comparison to the dream they had come from and they wished to go back. Another thought then stole into his mind, this thief being the most daring of all, for what it made him do.

The thought stayed as he reached out to the other side of the bed. His arm flailed for the warmth that he knew would be there, seeking and searching. Not finding it, he turned his head and opened his eyes, a quizzical look on his face. The depression in the bed told him that she had been there, the pillow and the mattress shaped with her form. He lifted the pillow that she had lain on and brought it to his face. He could smell her on the pillow now, that unique smell that was only hers, like bright sun shine in the garden on a spring day.  That smell was always hers, a smell that he had first thought came from a bottle but soon grew to realize was her. He could remember her lying facing him, her hair falling across her face, dark as a crow’s wing, partly hiding her eyes, making him want to brush the strands up and away and yet holding back, somehow hesitant to even touch the image for fear that it would disappear. He remembered the way her hair felt, softly tickling his cheek, the errant strands caressing his face as he held her close, enveloped in a cloud of her. And the way it felt as he ran his fingers through it, soft and yet gently gripping, not letting go.

He felt a sudden pang at her not being there then, a murmur that was completely out of place, a blot of black on a snow covered mountain top. Where could she have gone this early? She must have woken up early to make some coffee, he thought. He half sat up in bed, thinking he would sneak up and surprise her. She didn’t like him doing that, he remembered. The last time he had done it, she had gone crazy in fright and almost started trembling. Okay, so he wouldn't creep up on her. He sat up on the bed trying to think of how he would surprise her. Suddenly, he realized that he couldn't hear any noises at all from around the apartment. He stopped and listened carefully, trying to pinpoint where she was and what she was doing, smiling slightly at the thought. After a couple of minutes, he gave up, the silence around strangely unnerving.

A weird feeling descended on him, like a cloud that had suddenly blotted out the sun. He called out her name, once, twice and then with increasing sound until he realized that he was almost screaming for her. And yet, there was no answer. No sign of that familiar face that had grown so quickly dear to him, no sound of that voice that suddenly switched things on for him when he heard it. His eyes grew wide with the realization that she might actually not be there in the apartment at all. For some strange reason, he didn't react well to the thought. Of course, she was a literate and well traveled woman who would be able to find her way around a place. So why was he reacting so strangely, an inner voice asked, in a mocking tone. His practicality seemed to have deserted him as well as all reason that he normally took pride in.

Another inner voice, starting out feeble but growing stronger with his acceptance said that she had only arrived here yesterday and would not know of any places or people around. He thought back to the conversation of the previous night, where they had stayed up most of the night talking about what they would do the next few days and how they would do up the house. In between all that, he could not remember talking about the apartment or surroundings or any details that she would have been able to work with to go anywhere. With that thought, he got out of bed, struggling to figure out what to do, but goaded into some sort of action.

As he stepped forward, he felt a sudden sharp sting on his foot, as if something had pricked him. He looked down and saw that it was the ear ring of hers that they had spent over an hour searching for immediately after they had reached. It had fallen out of her hand as he had grabbed her and held tight as soon as they were home, within the walls that they henceforth would call their own. After her loving hug back, the missing ear ring had resulted in a veritable hunt. It was a sentimental piece of hers gifted by her mother. They had both searched around the room but were not able to locate it even after shaking out the bedspread, stomping around on the carpet and looking on the floor. They had missed the spot on the carpet right next to the inside of the leg of the bed, where it had somehow rolled. He remembered her sadness then and then the child like attempt at smiling as she tried to make him feel better that she would anyway be able to find it with the maid the next morning.

He wanted to call out to her to tell her that he had found it. And wanted to put it on her that very moment and see the joy back in her eyes. The way they would light up when she had got a thing she wanted, and this ear ring was something that she cherished and so the lights would on in full force. He wanted to see the child like joy that surged behind the practical smile that would make her lips curve upwards, stretching till they ended in the dimples that so endearingly adorned her cheeks. On those rare occasions that she would actually succumb completely to his wit, the way her face itself brightened and brightened and the dimples on her cheeks danced in tune with the sparkle in her eyes, her laugh like the peal of bells that rung in the spring merrily.  The very same dimples that he teased her about mercilessly and she turned away in mock irritation, trying to hide the fact that her eyes were dancing still.

He wanted to hear her voice, that husky tone given to high pitched laughter, a combination so incongruous that it would have been funny if it weren't for her. It made her what she was. He could go on for hours listening to her voice, the inflections in it. She was given to not revealing herself too much but he could now read that tinge of disappointment in her voice when he had to go off the phone to a meeting and the reluctant goodbye which made him want to stay on for a few minutes more just to try and bring the joy back into it. He could read that hidden excitement when she had done something and she called him in the middle of everything just to tell him first, and then she actually wanted him to find out without her telling, leading to a series of questions and guesses. He read the joy in her voice when he called her every morning and evening, just to hear his hello. The wistfulness when they talked about the future, like last night. That note brought reality crashing back in, a realization that she was not home.

He kept the ear ring on the side table next to his clock and then changed his mind to keep it in between the pages of the book that she was reading. He wanted her to find it as a surprise, wanted to see her reaction. The book had been something that she had picked up at the airport before she had boarded the flight and when he asked her about it as he met her at the arrivals gate, she had launched into an animated explanation of how it was a wonderful combination of mythology and science and romance. She went on and on until she suddenly realized that he was barely able to contain his laughter and then sheepishly admitted that she had got carried away, the blush sweetly darkening her cheek. And he, the occasional reader of the current affairs and business section, who preferred to get his news on the television and entertainment on screen, finally burst out laughing at how she had been trying to convince him to read a thousand page book on the intricacies of the evolution of science. And then, in her unique way, she told him that she would explain it to him and he knew that she would – in her earnest way, hands moving with and describing every word, punctuating every sentence. He had teased her about her talking with her hands, about how, if he were to hold them still, she would not be able to speak.

The thought made him want to hear her voice. And he turned away from the bedside table to go to the hall. As he was stepping out of the room, he saw that her suitcases had been opened and some things were missing. It seemed like someone had hurriedly opened the suitcases and taken some things out and left the rest. A couple of her dresses lay partially open on the floor next to the suitcase as if whoever had been searching the luggage had pulled out things and dropped them in their haste. He saw her favorite peach dress lying rumpled on the floor and a sudden stab of worry went through him. It was completely unlike her to simply leave things on the floor and in disarray and go away to something else. For the first time that morning, he felt a vague sense of fear creep into his thoughts.

Yesterday's Newspaper Club

Welcome all you brothers and sisters, to our clan of Yesterday’s Newspapers. It is a rare honor bestowed on us, for we carry the tradition of creating history in the name of news. It is our sacred oath to record and carry the tidings of the days gone by. Of course, there are those cousins of ours who are part of this sacred blood oath, that carry tidings of Page 3 and the advertisements for massage parlors. However, we do not discriminate. The bond between us is strong and we will not let the newspaper barons segment and subdivide us. We will stand strong and united, my friends, and we will fill the archives that the generations to come will pore through to learn about history as it was reported.

Why, it was only yesterday as I had stopped to exercise my elbow at the Typesetting Pool, when one of the tabloid cousins was talking about their circulation going down with the increasing prevalence of the internet and television. As if that monstrosity will ever replace the dignified and time honored habit of news reading. What would ever replace the joy of waking up to find the newspaper on the doorstep and opening it to read about the world? And even if there were 24 hour news channels as one of the new fangled magazine cousins was rudely pointing out, I am certain that nothing will ever replace the experience of reading the morning newspaper with one’s cup of tea or coffee.

The magazine cousin was also pointing to the dwindling addition to our numbers, now that digital newspapers and archives have started taking over. I mean, how rude and ignorant can one get? But what would you expect from a magazine or a tabloid anyway. Where is the pedigree, the breeding and the social grace? They are uncouth, that is what they are. A couple of us were so put off that our noses went up in the air and we would have cut them down with a fine choice of scathing criticism. But, better sense prevailed and we let them be, drawing into our own corner, with the high brow of publications. Who wants to really mingle with these yellow types anyway? Would be getting down and dirty now wouldn’t it?

There in our corner, we discussed the history that we had helped create. We remembered the time when newsprint was so expensive and rarely available. That was the time when it used to take more than a day to reach newspapers to various parts of the country; the time when the people could only read news of the day before, at best. That was the time when only one copy of the newspaper would reach a town and the arrival of the newspaper was such a momentous occasion that all of the men folk would gather around the town chowk to hear the most learned of them read the paper out aloud and explain it.  And then the debates that used to ensue from this, they were so splendid that those of us that belonged to that era felt proud of the views and movements that they helped propagate and fuel.

That was the day and age when yesterday’s newspaper was veritably the hero of the times. That was our heyday. The age which we heralded in, where we shaped the future, the way things happened and how people understood what was happening all around them. We raised many a toast to that particular memory and many of us got goose bumps recounting incidents that they had helped spread word off or movements that they had helped spark off. And then someone had one too many and spilt their drink, all over the first page of the August 15^th edition of the nation’s pride, can you imagine!! The top right column was washed away before we could get some blotting paper and stop further damage. What a disaster! That incident kind of sobered us up.

We hung around there for a while, remembering how archives of us were created in local libraries and we were indexed and stacked up, neat as the day we were printed. And the locals and the school teachers who came to refer to us, searching by the date of events for the exact details of what we had reported and kept alive, making copious notes and taking this back for their work. The environment wasn’t always friendly, stored as we were in dank and recessed shelves where the older publications soon succumbed to the termites sating their hunger and seeking to build new nests while the more recent ones developed terminal allergies of mould and fungus. Those were trying times indeed, where one had to really fight to survive. And those of us who actually made us out of these times were considered the survivors and we proudly recounted our tales like we were doing at the Pool.

That was also the time when newspaper cuttings were a way of keeping records of things that happened. People took the pages out of the newspaper and carefully cut out the sections that they wanted using a pair of paper scissors and then stuck them onto the pages of their diaries or memoirs with gum. Oh, what joy it was for them to read and re-read these columns and relive the memories and the moments. And though it was painful for us to give up a part of ourselves, it was always a proud sacrifice that one made, in the larger interests of society’s need for keepsakes. After all, how many people have gone under the scissor willingly and smiled through the operation, living to show a gaping hole in the middle of oneself? The worst of them were those who, after cutting what they wanted, simply discarded the balance sheet. How rude of them, how uncouth? Don’t they even care for the sacrifice that the poor brother made? But these uncivilized kinds did not society make and the larger population valued our contribution surely.

Then came the really trying times when distribution of newspapers became more efficient. And the cost of newsprint went down and the people could afford a newspaper each. Then the people could read yesterday’s news that day and everyone had a newspaper at home each morning. And our place in the sun was taken over by the latest print. Though, there was still that Sunday tradition when the men folk would take out the week’s newspapers and pore through them, reading and re-reading them until they were more dog-eared than could possibly be imagined. It was a way of keeping track of the changes that were happening around the people said one of the distinguished lots. One of the back benchers unwisely chose that moment to retaliate and yelled back that there was little that passed for entertainment on weekends in those days. After all, the magazines had not yet started making a popular entrance. We chose not to respond, simply holding our peace until the raucous laughter had died down.

One of the barkeeps joined in the fun and mentioned how the only use for us yesterday’s newspapers in those days was the weight in paper that they would fetch by the kilo. The newspaperwallas that used to come by once a month and weigh the newspapers with their crooked scales and the horrid negotiations that would ensue and finally the money that would change hands and off we went into the garbage where we would be put into multiple other uses. Imagine, the newspaper that proclaimed India’s independence, being used as a wrap for a measly 100 grams of peanuts off a side street thela or even more horrid, the same paper being used to hold the hot oily bhajias served down to the eager grasping hands. The very hands that would scoop out the nuts or the bhajias and then uncaringly, unseeingly, drop the prestigious purveyor of news down on the ground where it would be trodden upon by so many feet.

Though this comment drew a snicker from the back benchers, it hushed up almost all of us. This was not the elite vs. commoner’s battle; this was an issue that affected all of our existence. Ah, the ignominy of it. Gone were the days when paper used to be considered holy, never to be touched by foot and revered. Those days, we were only worth our weight – literally. And we were considered junk that needed a place to be kept in, and when the newspaperwalla would get late, we were cursed and complained about until he finally blessedly came and took us away. And then the whole resale bit where all sorts of shop keepers and sellers would come to buy us in bulk. Again weighed and doled out like scrap, like we weren’t worth anything but the paper that we were printed on.

And then, we were kept in a dark storage room in stacks that were of no significance, rubbing shoulders with all sorts of dates and types, waiting for the next step in the journey to oblivion. Till the man came and took out bunches of us and tore us up into bits of the size that he wanted, with no care for the section margins or the news items which were torn up in the process. And then off we went to the street side shops where we would await our fate in silence – to hold the nuts or fried stuff for human consumption. And when the purpose for which we had been bought had been completed, we would just be crumpled and thrown, often wiped hands on. Lying on top of a garbage heap, soiled and oil stained, the only thing that could have been worse was to have garbage dumped on oneself. And that happened too, with unfailing regularity, adding insult to injury. Lying there, with all that much, one had to be really strong to carry forward the tradition.

But there were exceptions. Limited they were but they did exist. Like the odd boy who would try and practice reading under the street light with the pieces that he found thrown about. Opening up the crumpled balls of paper and smoothening out the creases to make it more legible, he would peer down at it and try to read past the stains and dirt. Haltingly, he would piece the letters together and get each word out, the reading a labor that he would persist in. It made us proud to think of how we helped that boy and any others who would still read us and learn from us. We swelled our chests at that thought and the barkeep proclaimed one on the house for the noble task that we had performed even as we perished. Some of us were far too gone to continue and those of us that did, willingly made up for their share of the free round. The mood was distinctly somber, Times typeface distinctly prevailing. No italics and no exclamation marks around.

That comment somehow seemed to set off a distinct downturn in the conversation at the watering hole. Some of the oldies left the bar and wandered down to their respective slot shelves. Some of the more recent editions left along with their groupies, those plagiarizing tabloids that hung onto their every word and mimicked their actions perfectly, fawning over them and almost falling over themselves in the haste to keep up. The attendance really thinned down by then. Only some of us old timers, dated sheets, yellow with age and type fading, were left around. Even though we were still going strong, we found the mood completely downhill after that episode. And the drink continued to fuel it all, the liquor fumes swirling around the bold headlines, almost making them bleary and fuzzy in the smoky bar lights.

Talk revolved around the modern times and the move towards news and information on the tap. How it had gone to a point where there was breaking news every minute. Whatever happened to the headlines and the privilege of waiting for the news? How could anyone want news on the tap and even if they did, how did they have the time to even read it as soon as it was broadcast? Besides, how could you even bear to listen to someone else reading the news? For the moment, let us ignore the wisecrack from the back about the old practice of the learned man reading at the village chowk. Just imagine tuning into the television any time of the day and finding out what happened! What would people do while they drank their morning cup of coffee then? Watch TV? Impossible!!!! The current day and age sure gave people a lot of time besides their work and personal lives. While the wise men among us shook our heads knowingly at this, even the back benchers were in agreement on this change in trends that was affecting our very livelihood.

One of the financial publications remarked that space being such a premium in this day and age, everything had become digitized. Even newspapers had become digitized, the “e-paper” taking over those people who actually wanted the pleasure of reading a newspaper but without the paper edition. How could anyone actually open their tablet or laptop and flip through to the sports section along with their morning coffee? Or read the editorial, with its mocking wit and keenly discerning perception at the breakfast table, hanging on just that little bit longer after the coffee? Or split the sections among the family and trade the sections over the long drawn out breakfast, arguments erupting in which member would get which section next. Those were the traditions that made newspapers what they were. All of them simply thrown away with the e-paper? How tradition itself could have such little relevance now-a-days, one wondered.

Added to this, the digital archives and e-papers took away the need for the newspaper cuttings and stacking of old. Anyone who wanted a particular section only needed to use a few key words to “search” and then could copy the article or section that they wanted. Why was the world in such a hurry, we wondered. How could you ever replace the joy of looking at the yellowed, faded newspaper cutting in your diary with the experience of looking it up on your tablet or PC? Would the digital copy be yellow and as authentic? Though one of the smart alecks did mention that with modern day science, even this was possible. But then, would they be able to give the same smell as old newsprint, I ask you. Or even the same crispy crackly feel as old newsprint?

One of the back benchers quipped that the value of the newspaper itself was almost the same that it was at twenty years ago and even dropping below. He said that the newspapers were getting advertising revenues that had helped bring down the costs. But then the newspapers of today had become almost full blown novels, with two or maybe three supplements each day and pages after pages of advertisements that most of the people barely saw. One cynic who had been down in his pegs, remarked that if the people did not pay a price for the newspaper, they would not value it at all and that the only way to make them value old newspapers also was by charging more for the paper in the first place. A host of encouraging “Hear Hear” shouts egged the speaker on and he continued denouncing the degradation of quality of the newspapers. The content had gone to bits he said, with the air of an expert. Most people today did not read the full newspaper, he said. They only read the bits that they wanted to. One would actually need a full day to read the newspaper from end to end.

With all this happening, how would anyone place value on the newspaper itself, leave alone on yesterday’s newspaper, asked the barkeep. It was true enough; most houses did not get newspapers and even those that did, barely read them fully. In the brief fifteen minutes that they had, they barely glanced through the paper while gobbling up what passed for breakfast these days. And they barely had time for the important headlines before they realized that it was time else they would get caught in the traffic and get late. Some of them bravely took the newspaper along and tried to read this in between hours of waiting or breaks at work.

If this was the treatment that was meted out to that day’s edition, what could you expect to happen to the previous day’s paper? And then they were in a hurry to get rid of the old newspapers. There was no space to keep the old newspapers. Where before, there had been a shelf dedicated for this storage, today, there was hardly some space on one shelf where the newspapers could be placed and which soon overflowed if not cleared. Which is why, people considered old newspapers a nuisance, being of little value in the first place and then occupying precious space next. So, they couldn’t wait to get rid of them, giving them off at the first chance, not even bothering with the money that came from this disposal, most of which was done and pocketed by the maid anyway.

And in the meantime, look at what yesterday’s newspapers were used for in the house. Lining the shelves was an age old tradition, choosing the glossiest paper to put on the shelf and regularly replacing it. Today, the shelves were not lined at all and things were kept as it is on them. Most of the times, the newspapers were used for odds and ends. Why, the disgust of it! The latest was that used baby nappies were being wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper to throw. How demeaning it would have been for that cousin to be treated this way? These and other horror stories were traded around the bar. One heard episodes of the newspaper being used as blotting paper to mop up a spill (shudder!), to mop up the waste from the floor, to prevent the floor from being stained when the walls were being painted or when nuts needed to be mashed up. What value for the newsprint within, what respect for the service to society that we perform? A collective nod of disapproval went around the bar at the treatment meted out to our society at large.

One of the latest trends was recycling, something that held promise for all of us. A noble end, giving birth to the next generation of newsprint, this was something that all of us felt was the way to go. No more peanuts or baby diapers. No more cursing for occupying space. No more callous disregard or ill treatment. We all resolved to die for the cause of the next generation, as martyrs that would proudly go to the crushers, giving up our identities to become a collective defaced mass, our typeface obliterated and our total selves mashed to pulp. And this would then go to the making of the next generation. Let us forget for the moment, the glorified paper bags and even tissues that are now being made out of the regenerated paper. Why dwell on exceptions when the cause is so noble and pursuit worthy? It was closing time then and we all shuffled out, careful not to get our page bottoms wet in the puddles of rain on the road. Some of us teetered and tottered on our heels down the road to our shelf spots, the bar keep reminding some of the regulars to pay up before the week was over, who knew what would happen to them the next week?

However, this is not all, my brothers and sisters. The society of Yesterday’s Newspapers rules large. We are still a dominant force in the society and our numbers swell in ranks in spite of all the threats. We come in many shapes and sizes, but one single thread binds us all - the honor and the pride of being the carriers of information and ready to serve up so many alternative purposes to the human population. We have our annual convention coming up the next month on the eve of the New Year, at the place where it all began. Come one and come all of you, let us make this an occasion to be remembered for all of us Yesterday’s Newspapers.

The Train Journey

His eyes grabbed your attention first. Wide and framed with a degree of fear that you know comes out of the multiple stones that life has thrown at him. And a fixed stare, like a deer caught in the headlights, crazed into inaction, until the next sound or sight jerked him around like a puppet on a string. Any sound around would produce a jerk of the head in the direction and a temporary suspension of breathing, like he was expecting the next big rock to be hurtling down at him. A vision of a scared, timid little mouse he should have been. Only he was very far from it.

Crow feet deeply creased the corners of his eyes until they seem to be webbed at the ends. Along with the furrows between his eyebrows that came from constant frowning and squinting, they gave you an impression of a man who had to concentrate intensely on his work. His dark brown face from which his wide open white eyes stared made you believe that he worked in the sun. And then you looked at his hands. The skin was tough and cracked like old leather which someone had neglected to wax and polish. Calluses formed and reformed until the ridges on his palm were a dirty blackish brown. The veins lining the back of his hand stood out like taut wires. He worked with his hands alright, hard physical work that came nowhere near a pen or paper or a keyboard. These were the hands of a man used to hard labor and endless hours under the sun. Usually, with this profession, there comes a sense of equanimity and patience, the hours they keep and the kind of back breaking work they do make these men stoic in their outlook. And this was all at odds with the deer in the headlights that one first saw.

The monkey cap that he wore did little to keep back the confused mess of hair that crowded his head and peeked out from underneath the cap. Drops of sweat kept running down his face but he seemed oblivious to the sweat or the cap that was causing it, so much that the discomfort causing cap was completely forgotten. And the cap was even more out of place considering that he wore only a faded khaki that had certainly seen much better days. Frayed at the ends from too much washing with the brush, it now bore sweat imprints all over as the Chennai heat took over. Buttons mismatched spoke of many a darning and sewing to keep the shirt going and a closer look revealed a darned patch near the shoulder as well. This must have been a proud possession or probably the only possession of the man that he wore it so often and so well. The dhoti that he wore added to the darned faded look while it revealed its age with the yellow brown color acquired over time.

Eyes went to the bag that he held with a death’s hand grip – almost afraid to even set it on the floor. The bag itself seemed to have been stitched out of assorted bits of cloth that had been gathered over time with no thought to patterns being matched or any other aesthetic sensibilities that one often sees around. A functional handle made of the same cloth and a button down top gave away its home made nature. The possessiveness that was being exhibited towards this tattered, worn out specimen of a bag gave away the fact that the man held some prized possession – probably his life’s cash - in it. As the crowd built up in the train, he seemed to shrink into himself until the bag was almost inside him, secure from the prying eyes of his co-passengers and protected from wandering hands.

Every once in a while, he would turn around and look at something behind him and to his right. With the growing crowd, whatever he was looking for was quite hidden from view and this made him agitated, as if he had lost his touch with a reality that he was tied to. At one instant, his agitation grew to a point that he dared to take one hand off his bag and tried to push aside some of the bodies that pressed up against him to create a passageway for his eyes but to no avail. As time passed, his agitation grew and he started fidgeting with the bag, looking for an escape back to his tether or whatever it was that bound him to the spot on the floor. His breath rasped from an open mouth as he mouthed words of protest and discomfort and yet no sound was heard. There was a mighty struggle going on within this shell of a man, one that the crowd around him either saw and ignored or completely missed. Either ways, his struggle grew more intense and pitiful as time passed.

At one point in the journey, the train halted at a major local station and the press of bodies evacuated the compartment in seconds. The man nearly jumped up in his attempt to check whether whatever he had been searching for was still there. As one followed his desperate eyes, one caught sight of a woman and a child and the whole story then fell into place. The woman smiled at him and the man smiled back, almost instantly calmed into a peaceful state, and gone was the frenzy, the panic and the anxiety. The man visibly relaxed in his seat and sank back into it, almost as if he had been holding himself up in his anxiety attack. The furrows in his brow smoothed like someone had smoothed over an uneven surface of sand with a flat palm. The eyes creased up and the crow feet gathered up as if the bird were ready to fly, the lips which had gone parched in the heat drew upwards in what seemed to be the start of a smile. The hollowed out cheeks creased and a deep line formed as the smile widened, starting from his lips and his eyes and then spreading to his face and then his whole body.

The woman was a picture of calm, a perfect foil to the nervy man. A gamin face framed by her saree drawn across her head in a traditional fashion, wide forehead that was accentuated by her hair drawn back tight with a large red bindi, large eyes outlined by kohl and a pixie nose that pulled up while she smiled. A long neck and a slender frame completed the picture but with a toughness that comes from having worked her way through life daily and without asking why. Her saree too had seen better days but was obviously a special one that she had saved for the times she went out with her husband. One hand held another bag which must have carried most of their clothes and other belongings, a tattered specimen that fought for antiquity with the bag that the man held. And her other hand cradled her child that was busy drawing imaginary castles in the air with saliva from a finger that returned unfailingly for a refill into his mouth every few seconds. The child was dressed in his Sunday best, new clothes that the parents had spent on while skimping on themselves. The woman’s hands were full of glass bangles of varying hues, green, red, yellow and violet, from wrist to elbow. The bangles clinked and clanked every time she moved her hands. She was squatting on the floor of the compartment with her back to the wall, obviously used to sitting that way for hours and seemed perfectly at ease. Her feet peeped out from beneath her, bare and dusty with a silver toe ring on the second toe that was surprisingly clean and sparkling.

It was obvious that she was the man’s sheet anchor, the calm placid lake soothed and comforted the nervy jumpy fish that leapt out of the water every now and then but returned to its comforting depths soon after. For every tough hand that life had dealt him, she had been there, resolute and enduring in her calmness. Her smile was sufficient to bring the sun out from behind the clouds. The day began and ended with her smile and in her ever giving warmth, he slaked his thirst. The hard day out in the sun was forgotten and so was the measly money that the contractor never paid on time, all because of her smile. It made him run back home every day, only to see her smile. It was his one special treat that life had bestowed, as if to make up for all the other things that it had thrown at him.

She smiled that same reassuring smile at the man and went back to feeding the child a soggy biscuit. The child only interrupted his masterpiece to take a small bite of the biscuit and then returned to his art. After a few minutes, the child tired of his castle and decided he wanted to take a walk. The woman tried to restrain him but to no avail. The child tried to march on his wobbly, stubby feet, both hands now firmly stuck into his mouth, not in the least fazed by the motion of the train as it sped along. Two steps later, he had found himself close to the open door of the compartment which would normally have been choked with people but now was completely empty. He took one look at the road side rushing past and swerved and made straight for the door. The woman screamed his name and reached out but the child was just outside her reach. He ignored her calls like he usually did and wobbled his unsteady way to the door. The man heard his wife scream and took all that happened in one look. He dumped the bag that he had been holding for dear life onto the floor, uncaring of what happened to it and jumped to reach the child who was barely a couple of steps away from the door now. Flailing hands managed to catch the child’s legs and the man hauled the child in unceremoniously by the hand and leg.

Relief at the disaster being averted was soon overcome by anger and the man set the child down and raised his hand to strike the child. The child, blissfully unaware of the drama that had been enacted, took one wet dripping hand out of his mouth and pulled on his father’s unruly hair. The action broke the tension and the man shook with laughter, the release triggered by his son’s one act, and gathered him in a hug. The woman who had moved close and was standing by ready to stop the man’s hand if he were to strike, took in the scene and simply gathered her two men close. They stood that way for moments, completely isolated from the world around them. And then reality closed in. The man looked for his bag which he had dumped onto the floor in his haste. It was no longer there. He broke away from his wife and child and went to the place he had been sitting and searched around there. Not finding the bag, he then tried to ask the people sitting nearby in his own language. No one understood him and even if they did, they did not bother to reply. Unnoticed by the man, his neighbor had picked up the bag and had moved to the forward door of the compartment. As the man frantically tried to communicate his question to people around, the train pulled into the next station and the thief stepped out with his prize and escaped into the crowd unnoticed.

Completely unnerved at losing what must have been his life’s savings, the man finally gave up in defeat and tears ran down his eyes. Sobs choked his breath and shook his thin frame with their intensity. Life seemed to have dealt its most cruel blow yet and that too at the most opportune time. The last straw seemed to have been reached and the man sank down onto the floor in abject despair. The woman, his wife, who had been silently staring at the goings on, now moved close to him, gathered him close and held him to her chest, rocking him and murmuring soothing words of relief while tears found their way down her cheeks. The child continued its play with a string from the bag that had caught his attention and at the sounds his parents made, he raised his face up and pulled on his mother’s saree. The woman, torn between her sorrow and her need to comfort the man, mustered up her smile, a beaming beauty that satisfied the child. And he went back to his thread while his parents struggled to find the next step in this morass of life that they had stepped into.

 The train blew its horn and sped through to the next station while time and maybe life itself had stopped for a couple of its passengers ….

Unspoken

Thoughts flew around like cannonballs in the empty spaces within his head,

thudding into the walls that created the order; brick by brick that he had built,

tearing out chunks of stone in some and leaving gaping cracks in others instead,

threatening the precarious balance of sanity that seemed to be held up on stilts.

The only outlet, the words he would have spoken; the feelings they expressed,

but there was none around; no warm inviting, open glances he could even trust,

for miles around all was desolate and barren; a silent graveyard that stretched,

where every word spoken disappeared into the mist of silence and turned to dust.

And so the demons that he had hid away carefully behind the walls broke through,

and roamed unchained through the alleys of his mind leaving darkness in their wake,

forcing their way to his conscious like bubbles rising on the surface of the swamp do,

their pungent and cloying odor similar to the swamp gas; a thirst no drink could slake.

His eyes the only sign of the raging battle inside; dark tunnels that led deep down,

to the fiery volcano that burned within; fueled by the thousands of words unspoken,

riveted and tacked down under layers of concrete constraints laid over time unknown,

that were now steadily giving way; breaking loose and letting the lava flow unbidden.

Oh for that luxury of the words that could be spoken; willingly sent into the open,

the satisfaction of a thought expressed; an impulse given into whenever it occurred,

and the joy of someone to share with; that could listen and maybe understand even,

the one that could cast away his inner demons and maybe even heal his soul battered.

The Tail Tales - Chapter 6 - The Guardian

Through the rest of the night, Andy sat, holding Ael in his lap. At occasions during the night, he would put his ear next to her nose to check if she was still breathing. Her deep sleep showed no signs of breaking as the night wore on. Pitch black darkness was both an ally and an enemy. Strange noises and sounds of breathing carried through to Andy, noises of creatures shuffling about and then stopping perhaps when another predator came close by. He felt that he was going crazy with the riot of activity happening in an otherwise empty night. He had had enough excitement to last him for a lifetime and longed for the comfort of his mother’s hug and the warmth of the kitchen back at home.

But, this was not to be and he continued to sit there staring into the black inky pool around them, peering desperately for some sign of help. At long last, his frayed nerves gave him away and he slumped in a deep doze. Around him, the inky blackness began to slowly withdraw as if the night were slowly and stealthily withdrawing her blanket. An ashen gray sky lay underneath, sickly in hue and weepy in its outlook. The orange yellow sun was late in coming up and hid shyly behind the thick tapestry of clouds that framed the horizon. The leaden yellow day watched Andy doze with Ael in his lap, the little boy in a world that he did not at all understand and was not prepared for.  The clouds sighed in regret as their hearts were heavy with all the rain they were carrying. They drifted in low as the weight dragged them down and as they drifted lower and lower, they started crying their regret for the events that had passed before. The drops were just a few stray ones and fell at random.

One such droplet fell down below into the clearing where Ael lay on Andy’s lap. The drop spiraled down, grape sized and clear, seemingly headed straight for the two of them. A drift of breeze caught it and tried to swing it away but the drop was resolute and held steady to its course. It fell straight and true to catch onto Ael’s right eye lashes. The drop tangled for a moment in the lashes and then seeped through to form a pool in the corner of her eye. Suddenly, the pool was shaken violently as her eyes opened and her clear green pupils stared up at the sky. Her eyes looked confused and disoriented as she struggled to figure out where she was and what had happened. And then she happened to look to her left and saw Andy’s slumped form and the confusion gave way to concern. She rose; half sat up and tried to shake Andy awake. The first couple of times gave no result as Andy seemed to be completely dead to the world. Finally, the third time, she shook him a little hard and he woke up with a start, a violent look in his eyes as if he was expecting the worst. He looked around a little wildly and then at her, his eyes softening at seeing her awake. He did not say anything and just leaned forward and hugged her in relief.

He got to his feet, a little uncomfortable about the show of emotion and as she tried to follow, she found that her feet were still a little unsteady. She almost fell and then finally, balanced herself with a lot of effort, still very wobbly on her feet. Andy asked her to lean on his shoulder and they set off up the mound, away from the field of the deadly flowers. The drizzle continued, feeling strangely refreshing as the water washed them down. As Ael struggled forward and covered some distance, her legs became better until after about a kilometer, she was able to walk on her own. By then the drizzle had slowed down to just a few droplets and the sky had cleared up. The weak yellow sun now surveyed the land as if deciding what to do next. They had almost reached the pool where Andy had drunk the water the previous evening. Both of them were thirsty and drank and washed their faces in the clear cool water.  Andy realized that he was very hungry and thought of going to hunt for the berries again. He asked Ael to sit there by the pool and went deeper into the shrubs searching for the berries. With the sun behind his back, he still stepped cautiously forward, half expecting some large creature or beast to make an appearance from behind a shrub. His breath coming quickly, Andy found no signs of the shrubs that he had seen yesterday. He decided he must have taken the wrong direction and tried to retrace his path back to the pool, looking for signs of his passing and heading back using the sun as a guide.

Suddenly, a huge cloud seemed to come up over him and the sky darkened almost instantly. Andy thought there was going to be further rain and started running back towards the pool so that Ael and he could find shelter. There was a complete silence around for some reason, like the calm before a storm. An uneasy tingle started in his spine and Andy quickened his pace. As he did, a sudden whoosh sounded some distance above him. Andy immediately remembered the happenings of the previous night and almost froze in panic. It took him an enormous effort to lift his head to look up and then his worst nightmare came true. Yellow Eyes was peering down at him like he was a morsel that needed nibbling and was starting to swoop down to get a taste. Andy then did the only thing that came to him in his panic, he hid. He ducked behind a rather large shrub and curled himself into a tight little ball underneath it. He could still see Yellow Eyes through a few gaps in the leaves. Yellow Eyes had stopped mid air at his sudden disappearance and was now turning and dropping down to where he had last been. In a couple of seconds, the beast was on the ground, its massive legs settled down among the shrubs, trampling a few of them like grass under its feet. One of its feet landed close to Andy and its talon came to rest right at the shrub under which Andy hid.

The claw, though small in comparison with the rest of the creature’s body, was about half of Andy’s size. It was dirty brown in color and looked sharp enough to tear him into two with a flick. Andy was mesmerized by it and watched it intently as the claw tapped the ground and then dug grooves into it as the creature shifted its weight and stepped around, searching for him. He glanced up to see that the creature was now bending down, sniffing as if searching for a scent of him. He held his breath, sure now that it was only moments before he got a very close look at those curved teeth. Suddenly, he heard a high pitched girlish voice screaming “Heeeyyyyyy”. Not once but several times, as if calling the attention of the creature. The creature must have heard it too, because, it immediately swung its head up and looked for the source of the sound. Andy realized that Ael must have come out into the open and screamed to draw the creature away, thinking that he was in danger. He cursed her stupidity while his brain explained that she had obviously done it for him. The creature must have seen her for it began to move away, each step of its massive feet causing the ground to tremble and shake and its wings flapping and raising a large cloud of dust.

The dust was everywhere and Andy started choking in it, unable to even see anything. He could only hear the creature moving away, gather pace now. Ael must have still been some distance away but not too far as the creature chose to run on the ground and not take flight. Andy stepped out from the under the shrub and started running in the direction of the sounds knowing full well that he could never outrun the creature and that it would get to Ael far before he could. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Ael had stopped screaming. Andy prayed that she had the good sense to hide herself, knowing that neither of them had a chance of any kind against this creature.

All of a sudden, Andy heard a different kind of noise, a curious buzz, almost as if it was a high pitched scream. The air seemed to vibrate with the sound which seemed very powerful though obviously not so loud. It almost seemed like the warning growl that a very large dog gives before it attacks. Andy glanced over his shoulder as he continued to run behind Yellow Eyes. And he caught sight of the creature that looked like the one that had saved them the previous night. Only, this one was much larger, almost as if it had grown to about two times its size in the night. Powerful wings pushed it forward as it was swooping down, aiming at a little distance ahead of Andy, roughly the spot where Yellow Eyes was. Andy could see now that Yellow Eyes had sensed the presence of the second creature and had stopped and turned around as if preparing for a fight, raising itself on its hind legs, forelegs pulled up for attack and tail on the ground, steadying itself. Whatever it had been preparing itself for, Yellow Eyes did not expect what happened next.

The black creature simply launched itself like a missile streaking towards Yellow Eyes, not trying to stop or descend to the ground. Yellow Eyes must have realized this late as it started to turn and run away. But by then, it was too late. The black creature had slammed into Yellow Eyes, the impact causing a shock wave that threw Andy back clear off the ground.  He fell and lay there in a daze, shaking his head. Sounds of the two creatures still rolling came to him and he got to his feet, taking cover behind a shrub, hardly realizing that it was of no use at all. He saw that the two creatures were locked in a fierce embrace, forelegs gripping the torso of the other, hind legs kicking and tearing at the other’s belly while the jaws snapped in attempts to bite off portions of the other’s body. Yellow Eyes was clearly the bigger of the two and was heavier as a result. But the black creature was definitely more powerful, its legs easily deflecting away the other’s attacks and then tearing away. Its jaws too began to find weak spots on Yellow Eyes.  As the two massive creatures rolled around on the ground, they flattened everything around like a bunch of twigs in a carpet of grass that they trod on. Suddenly, Yellow Eyes let out what sounded like a scream. Andy could see that the black creature had buried its fangs deep in Yellow Eyes neck and was now pulling and tearing away. Yellow Eyes now struggled grimly to dislodge the hold and threw itself around on the ground. Finally, the both of them landed on a set of trees and the impact loosened the black creature’s hold. At once, Yellow Eyes took flight, flapping its wings a little weakly and desperately pushing away from its attacker.

Andy expected the black creature to take flight and follow Yellow Eyes, to go and finish what had started. But the creature simply got up and shook itself off. It then sat there, like a massive statue carved out of some ancient black rock, except for the rise and fall of its chest as it breathed. Andy suddenly thought that it had sighted Ael and was now shifting its focus to the girl. He broke into a run, desperately thinking of any way in which he could fight the creature. As he got closer, he realized that the creature was simply looking at something close to its feet and not even glancing up at him. He stopped and yelled at it, waving his arms about, trying to attract its attention. He did manage to briefly distract it, for it looked up at him and then quickly looked back down at its feet. Andy was now sure that it had found Ael. He suddenly came into the clearing where the creature sat, all bushes and shrubs around flattened into a green carpet by the mammoths struggling. And he saw Ael lying down at the creature’s feet. He ran to her and tried to lift her and speak to her, only to realize that she was unconscious. There was no visible sign of any injury and Andy thought that she must have been hit by a branch or a shrub during the tussle.

Andy looked up and saw the creature simply looking down, its red black eyes not showing any signs of attack. He tried to pull Ael away from there but he was too weak after the entire struggle and could not move more than a few feet. He finally sank down to the ground, holding Ael and almost sobbed in frustration. At that instant, the creature moved forward and grabbed hold of them. Andy screamed as he felt the powerful claws go around him and Ael, thinking that this was it and that they were going to be crushed. But the claws simply held them like a cage, not squeezing but holding. The creature then simply pushed itself off into the air with its powerful hind legs. One flap of its mighty wings and it was airborne, high above the ground. Andy felt the wind rushing past him as the creature simply glided through the air, only flapping its wings occasionally. A few seconds later, he realized that they were descending. And could see a pool of water far below on the ground. It looked like the pool where they had drunk earlier. The creature descended swiftly and once on the ground, simply set Andy and Ael down on a patch of grass. It then sat back and once again watched them motionlessly.

Andy realized that the creature had brought them to water thinking they would need some. It seemed to be helping them in some way though Andy could not think of any reasons why.  A flood of thoughts ran through his head, starting from the earlier episodes of the stone and how it had always shielded them or protected them. How he had imagined seeing a tail inside it. And how, during the previous night and just then, the creature had fought off Yellow Eyes. As he struggled to understand what had happened, he realized that in this hostile and unknown land they were in, they now seemed to have a guardian of sorts though by the looks of it, the guardian could well change its mind and snack on them in a minute. The sheer relief of having someone on his side was too much for Andy and he just sank his head to the ground weakly. An instant later, he felt a warm moist breeze pass over him and looked up to see the creature breathing down on him, close above, as if enquiring whether he was OK. The rows of sharp curving fangs stretched backwards just a few feet away from his face. But they oddly did not seem threatening or scary any more.

Andy stood up and walked down to the pool of water, gathered some in his cupped hands and walked back to Ael. He splashed some on her face and as she sputtered awake, her eyes filled with alarm at the sight of the creature that loomed over them. Andy then reassured her of the creature’s intentions and proceeded to brief her on the sequence of events thus far and more importantly, share with her the fact that they now had a guardian. The creature was certainly no angel but for now, that seemed far less important. As Ael stared at the creature, still not believing anything that Andy had said, the creature simply extended its fore leg with its claws. The claws now stood inches away from them. Andy grabbed hold of a claw and on seeing him; Ael reluctantly took hold of one too. The creature then simply folded its claws, back to the cage hold that had brought them there. It then simply pushed up in the air again and in seconds, they were soaring high up in the air, the ground rushing past them. The creature continued to soar and Andy saw that it was heading for a mountain like land formation up ahead. For a moment, he felt uneasy at the memory of having escaped from one such mountain with a cave where he had nearly been cooked to death. Then, shrugging the memory off, he simply closed his eyes, letting the wind brush off all his unpleasant memories and clear up his brain. 

The Tail Tales - Chapter 5 - The Hatchling

Andy became a statue, almost stopping his breath in sheer fright. He dared not move even a finger and sat in what he hoped was an absolutely still, frozen position. He almost heard the next movement before he felt it. A sort of a whoosh that drove the air before it and there it was again, that little touch, somehow hard, bony and pointy, like someone had brushed his back with a rather large stick. Whatever it was had not yet attacked him and it had had enough opportunity to do so. He decided to chance a movement and turned his head in what he hoped was as small a movement was possible. And then he strained to see something, anything in the dark. He could now sense a very large presence behind him, dangerous and powerful, and yet could see nothing at all in the darkness. He moved his head just a little bit again. This brought his stone into view. And what was earlier just warmth that came from it had now become something close to heat. It was glowing orange red, becoming almost red hot. If he did not know better, he would have thought that the stone had become angry and was giving out a warning.

Soon, the heat that came from the stone was strong enough to make him flinch and the stone was pure red, almost as if it was in the middle of a roaring flame. And yet the grass and twigs around it were untouched by the heat.  The grass on the mound where he had placed it was not smoking or burning, though the shoots reflected red in the light from the stone. Another startling thing that hit him was that the stone had somehow grown and become larger. It now was almost triple its size and still growing, at a speed that was visible. As it grew larger, the area around it became red with its light, casting aside the darkness like a boy throwing aside a blanket on a warm night. Soon, the light grew closer to where Ael had been lying down and Andy saw she was no longer there. Again, there was another of those whoosh sounds, though nothing brushed against him and somehow the sound itself seemed to come from slightly further away.

The stone, if it was still a stone, was nearly Andy’s size now and was still growing. Now, the reddish light from it was casting shadows at the far end near where the slope started and where the plants were. Andy turned his head slightly more and now his gaze fell on Ael. She seemed to be still in a trance, her eyes were open and staring wide unseeing. But, she was not lying on the ground or even standing. She seemed to be floating about 5 feet off the ground, completely horizontal and not supported by or holding onto anything. She was bathed in some kind of a blue cocoon, her metallic skin glowing blue in the light thrown off by the stone. Her arms were held straight away from her body and her legs were sticking straight out, not even a slight bending of the knee was visible. The blue cocoon seemed to have enveloped her completely, a foot thick around her and leading off above her. His eyes followed the imaginary path of the cocoon’s tail and he suddenly froze in fright again, his entire insides suddenly turning into a mushy liquid that seemed to be fighting to get out. For, high up in the air above Ael, there were a pair of eyes, narrowing like slits at the end and yellow, glowing evilly in a light of their own. They seemed to be staring down at him and the stone. He had not seen the eyes so far simply because they were too high up, he guessed almost fifty odd feet above the ground.

His terror was suddenly broken by a loud cracking noise. It came from the stone which was by now about three times the size of a normal human being. He could see that the inside of the stone was in some curious way stirring and moving around, as if some hand with a spoon was actually stirring this pot. The inside of the stone was moving in a continuous whirl that seemed to be gathering speed, like the eye of a hurricane framed by a severe whirling storm. Suddenly, Andy saw a long black tail like thing whipping around inside the stone followed closely by what seemed like a clawed foot. Only, this foot was bigger than Andy’s arm. The liquid sensation inside Andy seemed to have just become worse. Another cracking sound came from the stone as it seemed to grow impossibly large, like a balloon stretched to its breaking point. A curious buzzing sound seemed to come from the stone, almost as if the stirring inside was causing a noise.  The reddish light coming from the stone, now seemed to be dropping, growing quickly to become orange and then in the next minute or so, settle down to a bright yellow glow, almost like daylight lighting up the entire area. Now, Andy could see clearly a large form, jet black in color, flexing inside the stone, almost as if it were fighting to get out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he corrected himself that it was an egg and not a stone. He had been carrying an egg that he had picked up off the ground in Kirkmichael and here, in the middle of god knows where; it had turned out to be an egg.

The yellow light now reached far across the clearing and threw shadows on the side of the mound. Andy had now thrown caution to the winds, there was simply too much happening around him and in any case, he did not seem to matter even a bit in all that was happening. He turned around and looked at the whole scene. One clear detail that he had missed so far; caught his eye and held it. He noticed at the far end of the clearing, beyond the plant line, in the middle of the field, a pair of thick trunk like shapes now stood, some distance apart from each other. They looked like trunks of a very old oak tree he had seen, knotted and twisted in a shape that had stood the test of time. When he had tried to put his hands around it, he realized that he could only span about a quarter of its circumference. These trunks actually looked larger. In Andy’s mind, they were somehow connected to the yellow slit shaped eyes up above. Certainly, they looked like a massive pair of legs. As he watched, one of the trunks moved and actually uprooted itself from the ground, rising to reveal a huge foot that would have dwarfed him had he been standing underneath it ending in a set of claws and talons that were as long as he was tall. The foot moved away from him and set itself on the ground again. As it did, there came the whoosh sound again and this time Andy could see what appeared to be a wing tip with a talon at the end of it, pass close by him. The sheer size of the creature made him cold with fright.

While Andy had been realizing all this about the yellow eyes, the egg had now cracked open and lay in two halves. The creature that emerged from inside the egg now stood some distance away from it. Though it seemed to be smaller in size, the creature seemed more dangerous and deadly in some way. A large webbed frill neck seemed to frame its face, the frill completely flaring out in an unmistakable warning. The frill was jet black in color with the webbing almost transparent and the tips and back of it was reddish in color and made the face of the creature appear impossibly large. The red coloring somehow added to the dangerous feel of it all. The face of the creature itself was like a giant lizard except it was nothing like he had seen before. It stood facing upwards as if challenging the much larger yellow eyed creature. 

It had a high pair of eyes, the pupils a vertical slit, framed by clear pools of white, the pupils glowing red in color and staring upwards at the yellow eyed creature.  The eyes seemed to be smoking slightly or maybe it was just Andy’s imagination going into overdrive. A snout seemed to grow from in between the eyes and stretch down to end in two slits, glowing red and slightly smoky again. Below the snout was the mouth or what should have been the mouth. Except that this one had a pair of jaws that resembled the crocodile at the local zoo. Resembled was not quite the right word since this one seemed like a giant version that would have nibbled the crocodile as a tasty bite. The jaws spread wide open and a double rows of fangs as big as his hand, bristled inside, each pointing at a slight angle inwards except at the front where they poked outwards. A forked tongue darted out again and again, twisting this way and that, like a snake with a mind of its own. Andy could see into the back of its throat and saw the same reddish glow there. It was almost as if the creature had a full fire going inside it.

Now that the egg had cracked open, it simply lay there giving off a weak yellow light that grew weaker. The creature seemed to be exuding the same bright yellow light that had come from the egg and lit up the whole area, bright as daylight. The creature stood there and its sheer size hit Andy. It had a short pair of forelegs, if you could call them short; that ended in a paw with claws and curved sharp talons. The forearms were raised as the creature stood up in the air and they seemed poised to attack. The claws were thin and pointy with even longer talons that looked like they could tear open anything. Behind the forelegs was a pair of large wings similar to bat wings, each point on the wings ending in a similar fang shaped talon. The wings themselves stretched out to almost 6-7 times Andy’s size and had the same transparent webbing as its frilled neck, with the same reddish tips and back. The creature had a crested spine, each crest ending in a sharp tip curved backwards, the tips now standing out in full attack mode. 

Its belly curved inwards, long and muscular and led towards the hind legs which were resting on the ground. The hind legs were as tall as Andy, the claws stretched and talons out, slightly crouching as if readying itself for a spring forward. It seemed to be supported by a tail that was itself as long as the creature was tall, resting on the ground, crested like its spine. The creature was very powerful and dangerous, a fact that was not lost on the much larger tree-trunk-legs-slit-yellow-eyes. Yellow eyes seemed to be clearly stepping back. As it stepped back, the cocoon that was holding Ael seemed to grow weaker and thinner. Ael had dropped closer to the ground and hovered about a foot off the ground. Yellow eyes had retreated into the field of flowers and stood there, waiting. Suddenly, a jet of reddish yellow flame shot out towards Yellow eyes. The jet headed straight towards the yellow eyes, reaching all the way up there. The flame came out of the black creature’s mouth. Rearing its head in head in alarm, yellow eyes turned away. As it did, Ael fell to the ground, the cocoon completely vanishing. Yellow eyes then took flight with a flap of those mighty wings, creating a wall of air that blew Andy away with its sheer power. Andy fell flat onto the ground and lay there winded. In a couple of whooshes; the yellow eyed creature had left the scene.

Andy lay there for a few moments recovering. As he stood up, he saw that the black creature now stood over Ael, its forelegs close to her shoulders, its snout close to her face. He thought that it was attacking her, now that Yellow eyes had left her behind. Anger got hold of his brain and he stopped thinking at all. He looked around for something, anything, with which he could attack the creature, forgetting that it was several times his size. His eyes fell on a branch lying on the ground and he picked it up. Much like the medieval knight wielding his lance, Andy charged at the black creature, screaming in his anger. He saw that it seemed to be sniffing her to see how tasty she was and its tongue flicked out to her cheek as if tasting her. As Andy approached the creature, its size registered in his brain. But by then it was too late and he continued his charge, a Don Quixote against the largest windmill he could even imagine of. Andy came within striking distance of the creature and brought the branch down on its back with all his might hoping that it would get stunned. The branch could have been made of paper or grass for all that it mattered and it shattered into tiny pieces on impact. The creature felt the blow and turned towards him. Andy prepared to be stomped upon or burnt to crisp in the next second. But the creature just seemed to give him a hurt look, its pupils now cooled down into a dark red, widening in their clear pain. It made no move to attack him or burn him down and just stayed there just looking at him.

Andy’s anger had vanished as quickly as it had come and he stood shivering in fright at what might happen to him. He was vaguely surprised by the creature’s not attacking him and stood rooted to the ground, not sure of what to do next, and not even running away from there. The creature continued to simply look at him, the frilled neck now having been folded away, its arrow shaped head clearly visible. The crest in its spine also had subsided and was no longer standing on end. Its tail swished gently a few feet away from him, but not moving towards him. As the both of them simply stood there staring at each other, there was a muffled sound from the ground beyond the creature, where Ael lay. Hearing this, Andy almost stepped forward as if to go to her help but stopped short as he realized that he had to cross the creature to get to her. The creature, seeing his hesitation, seemed to make up its mind and spread its wings to full span and simply leapt into the air. In the dark, he could only hear a couple of whap-whaps and then nothing. It had simply left him there with Ael. With it, all light around disappeared and the place was completely dark again. Andy ran towards where he had heard Ael’s voice and then, in the dark, dropped onto the ground and crawled forward. He bumped into her lying there and grabbed hold of her. She was shivering as if she was very cold, though the place was warm.

He could not think of anything that he could do and finally, just held her and sat there. In some time, her shivering stopped and she seemed to fall into a deep sleep. Andy continued sitting there holding her until the orange streaks peeked over the horizon, as if to check whether the night had gone and then slowly stole out, announcing the arrival of a new dawn. Andy could now see that Ael was still sleeping deeply, but breathing evenly. She seemed to be actually sleeping rather than being frozen like she had been before. The spot on her cheek which had been red and swollen had now grown back to normal. As Andy ran through the events of the past hours, a sudden doubt rose in his mind. Had that black creature in some way cured Ael? What if it had been sniffing or licking her face to cure her rather than attacking her like he had imagined? Was that why it had seemed hurt after his “attack”? Andy suddenly felt sure that the creature had been trying to protect them all the while, even when it was in its egg. And he had stupidly driven it off. He now desperately wished that the creature was back with them, protecting and shielding them in this weird world that seemed to be out to get them. 

The Mirage

It was like any normal day. He was on his way to work, driving across the city, one of the rats waiting their turn to move forward. The newspaper served as company during the long dreary traffic lights and the never ending inches gained each minute, the newsprint telling him the latest news or what passed for news nowadays, in its muted baritone. He almost drove the car on auto pilot, his eyes busy scanning the newspaper. He caught sight of the car ahead moving forward in his peripheral vision and eased his foot off the clutch gently, folding up his paper with one hand. A sudden movement ahead made him jam his leg down hard on the brake. The car jerked to a shuddering standstill and there was a heart stopping thud from behind. He looked again to see the lady who had crossed in front of his car, still walking across, apparently oblivious to what had happened. She was short by any standard but the purpose in her stride more than made up for stature. As she approached the pavement, she turned as if feeling his glance on her, her heart shaped face framed by a halo of hair, her high cheekbones framing the gently upturned lips that gave him a smile and made his heart skip two whole beats.

An insistent pounding on his car window dragged him back like a reluctant cat to his current problem as the irate driver of the car that had bumped into his made it appear that the car had been totaled. The argument see-sawed back and forth and by the time he convinced the other driver that he would be covered by insurance and exchanged cards, he realized that he was going to be late for his meeting. He inched the rest of the way to the office, driving more with the horn and earning nasty stares from passersby. But he did not care, his force field made stronger by his distaste for being late. When he finally made it to his parking slot, he was about half an hour late – an event that was so unusual that it caused a murmur when he entered the floor. He went straight into the meeting, muttering an excuse about an accident.

As he sat in the meeting listening to the client describe their requirements, his mind unraveled and traced its path back to the instant when the cause for his accident had smiled at him. The completely open smile that traveled all the way up to her eyes kept getting replayed in his mind. A sharp tug on his sleeve and a quick whisper of “they are asking us for our approach” blew away his dreams and he stood up and launched into his presentation. The rest of the morning passed predictably without incident, safely tucked away in the meeting room. The client was suitably impressed with his pitch and was ready to sign on the dotted line and only the formalities needed to be completed when he finally rose and shook hands. As he made his way back to his room, concerned colleagues asked him about the accident. Their curiosity was more out of the fact that he was probably the most careful driver around than from their concern for his safety and he soon grew tired of explaining. For some strange reason that he did not care to explain to himself, he left out the lady completely from all his explanations.

The day drew on with a conference call and a review. He grabbed himself a coffee and was making his way back to his room when he suddenly turned to look at the reception for no rhyme or reason. The reception was at the far end of the hall but was clearly visible through the glass paneling. A matron of a lady who was almost as old as the company itself, she was a fixture of the office. And he came to a sudden stop when he saw the “lady” of the accident talking to the receptionist. Without even realizing it, he had changed direction, his mind having directed his feet towards the reception automatically, his eyes fixed on the woman bending down in conversation across the counter. Suddenly, he felt something slamming into his shin and went sprawling on the floor. The cup of coffee had drained itself down his shirt front as he now lay in a pool of loose papers and files that had emptied out of the open filing cabinet he had banged into. When he finally stood up after disentangling himself from the files and papers, the reception was empty save the matron. He ignored the ugly brown stain on his shirt and the stinging gash on his shin as he went up to the receptionist and asked her about the woman who had just been there. Meeting a blank stare, he almost started describing her when he caught the receptionist’s interested looks and stopped himself. It was the second time that day that the lady from the scene had caused him to come completely undone. And he wasn't enjoying the feeling. Neither was he enjoying his obvious interest in her. It wasn't like him at all to be behaving like some lovesick puppy.

The way home was uneventful enough, the routine trudge back home. He was scheduled to meet a couple of friends at a pub a short distance away from his apartment and he walked down there. His mind soon switched off the day as he got into the familiar routine of trading stories with his friends over beer. Waves of their laughter washed the day’s events out of his mind like their erasing patterns in the sand on a beach. The place was a favorite of theirs and they were Friday night regulars. After what seemed like a couple of hours of horsing around, he excused himself to go to the washroom. Checking his phone as he walked back to the table, he saw a missed call from a client. He found a quiet place away from the music and called up the client. As he stood there talking, he glanced back at the table and his brain stopped short in mid stride as he saw “her” talking to his friend. He stood there staring blankly for a couple of minutes and then the cogs in his brain started whirring again as he heard a “Hello, hello, hello”. The irritated client had realized he had been speaking to thin air and was trying to reestablish contact. He placated the man and told him that he would sort out the problem soon. He finished the call in a hurry, his eagerness to do so almost bordering on desperation, and he looked up only to find his friend alone. “She” was nowhere in sight. In a mindless panic he ran outside and scanned the street desperately but could not find her.

He went back to the table and sat down, feeling slightly restless. Trying to appear casual, he asked his friend who the lady he had been talking to had been. Faced with a “Which of the ladies are you asking about?” and a guffaw, he simply said “The short one in black trousers”. His friends then started poking fun at him and for the rest of the evening; he became the source of their entertainment for his seemingly apparent attraction to short women in black trousers. So much so that, they would call out to him whenever some woman passed by in trousers, asking him what color he thought it was. When his irritation became visible, they stopped. It was nearly time to wind up anyway and they made their way out after paying. As he waved his good bye and turned to walk back to his apartment, his friend called out “There was no one with black trousers that I spoke to this evening. It must have been the waitress.” He simply shook his head at that and chose not to reply. The walk back was short, the breeze cooling his thinking down and trying to create rational explanations for what had happened. By the time he reached home, he had almost completely succeeded in explaining the whole episode away. His sleep that night was troubled, with visions of smiling eyes framed by high cheek bones and a heart shaped face floating in and out of range.

The next morning, he resolved to put what he now called his stupidity firmly behind him. Reaching office early, he threw himself into a frenzy of work to make sure that he had no time to sit and think, almost afraid that he would start thinking of “her” again. He made sure he was tied up in some meeting or the other and was in company through the day, but was obviously on the edge, losing his temper at small things, growling like the proverbial bear with a thorn in its paw. Most of his team was quite upset to hear his edgy comments, something that they had never experienced before and ensured that they ran clear of him after the first encounter. By about 4 PM, he had completely run out of things to do and was now searching desperately. Some members of his team politely suggested that he take the rest of the day off and faced with the lack of an alternative; he chose to leave office and walk to the nearby cafe and ordered a coffee. While he sat there sipping his coffee and staring out of the window, trying to concentrate on the drink, his mind traveled unbidden to his first sight of the woman and her smile. The path it had to take was by now familiar and it found its way with ease. As he absently sipped the coffee, he tried to imagine who she would be and what she would be doing.

Her dress sense was excellent and the fact that it was a definite work dress would make her a young executive. She wore her hair long, as opposed to most women who cut it short, choosing a soft feminine look over an efficient short style. Her strides seemed to eat the ground up, showing a definite sense of purpose and aggression. He was musing at her name and background when the sour taste of coffee dregs told him that the coffee was long over. He asked for the cheque and happened to look out of the window as he waited for it. And there she was, on the other side of the road, in a white summery dress this time, her hair and the dress softly billowing in the strong evening breeze. The traffic, the crowd, the distance, all melted into nothingness as his entire being suddenly sharply focused on her. She was walking away towards the next intersection, her strides eating up the ground. He had no memory of having got out of the chair and run out of the café but he suddenly found himself at the intersection waiting for the light to turn green. The boy from the café was at his elbow asking him to pay for his coffee and in his hurry, he thrust the first note that he could take out of his wallet into the boy’s hands.

The light seemed to be taking an eternity to turn green, each second stretching endlessly. He could see that she was already turning into a building. He decided not to wait and made a dash across the road. Cars honked their displeasure and a few jammed their brakes just mere whiskers away from him. But he was past caring. He made it in one piece across and continued to run, making straight for the building which she had entered. He went in and found that it was an office complex of 15 floors. He had no way of knowing which office she had gone into. Riding on an unreasonable flash of inspiration, he decided to take the lift up and simply stop at each floor and look out. He made it into the first lift and to the extreme annoyance of a couple of co-passengers; he pressed the buttons for all 15 floors. The lift was a glass cage and he kept looking upwards through the sides while waiting for the next floor. It seemed to take an hour between each of the floors and at each stop; he stepped out for a moment and looked around on the floor. There was no sign of her. As he crossed the 8^th floor, a movement caught his eye. Another elevator was coming down and sure enough, there she was in it, riding the glass cage down like some mythical enchantress of yore.

He got off on the 9^th floor and ran down, trying to outrun the elevator. As luck would have it, the elevator did not stop at any floors and was heading straight down. He could not keep pace with it and as he reached the 6^th floor, he saw that it had reached the ground level and the woman was heading out of the front door of the complex. She stopped for a moment and asked something of the security guard and then walked out. He continued running down and reached the ground floor, his chest on fire and breathing like a steam locomotive as his lungs screamed their protest at this rough treatment being meted out to them. He ran up to the security guard and tried speaking while the breath wheezed in and out of his throat. When he finally managed to make sense of the question about the woman, the guard simply replied back “What woman in a white dress? No one stopped here or asked me anything.” He thought that the guard was trying to protect information and tried to cajole him but to no avail. After a few minutes of trying he gave up, feeling uneasily that the guard actually was telling him the truth. A question suddenly appeared in the dark recesses of his mind – had he actually seen her or was it just his memory causing hallucinations? He brushed the thought away as instantly as it came, his rational behavior taking over and dismissing the possibility.

He simply decided to go home after that. At home, not wanting to be by himself, he decided to go over to a friend’s place. He spent the evening playing with his friend’s son and making small chat with his friend. He was relieved as he got home, relieved that he had not hallucinated or seen any more visions of “her”. Exhaustion soon took over and he sank into a deep sleep. He woke with a start realizing at once that he had overslept. He hurried through the motions and finally got into his car. Turning the key in the ignition, his heart sank as the engine made a dull thudding sound as it turned over but did not fire up. Several attempts later, he realized that it was not going to start though he could not find anything obviously wrong. A phone call to the service station got him no reply. They were probably not yet open. He walked out into the street and hailed an auto rickshaw. He got in and joined the queue of vehicles, trying to jostle their way down the street, fighting for space at six impossible lanes on what was otherwise a two lane road. About fifteen minutes and a kilometer later, he passed the subway entrance to the metro railway station near his house and realized that it might be much faster than going by road.

It was definitely a good decision though he felt like a complete sardine jammed between a heavy set man in a suit and two teenage boys discussing girls at their school. He wished he were someplace else but had to make do as this seemed to be the only way to reach faster. He reached office on time though he had started a half hour later than normal. But the day seemed destined to go wrong. He lost his presentation for a client, his sales manager called in sick, the laptop ran out of battery in the middle of the client meeting, lunch was cold sandwiches that dripped mayonnaise making a nice white patch on his pants and the package he had been expecting was delayed. By afternoon, he was one bundle of nerves, expecting the sky to fall on his head. As he sat there with his head in his hands wondering why all this was happening to him, a heart shaped face with a heartwarming smile floated in his mind. With a visible effort, he shook the thought out of his head and stood up, wanting to simply get out of there. The cafe seemed to be a good idea and he headed out to it. He got there and found himself surprising hungry and ordered himself a sandwich. He chose to sit in the same seat as yesterday and stared outside the same window. He told himself that he was just looking outside but there was a small voice inside that mocked at him and insisted that he was searching for her, hoping that she would turn up today as well.

Half way through the sandwich, he turned around to look for the waiter and was shocked to see the very lady sitting at the table behind him. As the initial shock of discovery wore off, another thought slowly made its way through to the surface of his thought pool, that maybe he should go up to her and strike a conversation. Just to try and get to know more about her. He ran through various conversation pieces in his mind, rehearsing his lines and trying to anticipate what she might say. He felt very much like a gawky teenager himself at that moment. Finally, his mind made up, he stood up and walked back to her table and asked her if he might join her. She was wearing a pastel shirt and khaki trousers, looking quite like the first time he had seen her. The heart shaped face looked up and smiled, exactly as she had done when she walked across the traffic that day. Taking that to be an invitation, he sat down and introduced himself. Still getting just that disarming smile and no other response as she sipped a tall drink that looked refreshingly chilled, he asked her what she was drinking. Again, that smile which seemed to not reveal anything but also said a whole lot. He decided to not let her silence faze him. After all, she was still smiling, wasn't she?

He called the boy over, the same one that had chased him down the road yesterday for the payment. And he told him to get the same drink that the lady was drinking. The boy looked at him weirdly for a moment and then across at her and then back at him. Then the boy looked uncertain and almost walked away, taking a couple of steps and then inspiration seemed to strike him as he walked across to the next table where there was a couple sitting and looked at what the woman was having. The boy then came back and said that the woman was having a cappuccino. By now, impatience had got the better of him and he almost screamed at the boy, “Not that woman you idiot, I want the same drink that the woman sitting opposite me is having”. The boy now retreated to his manager, clearly confused. The woman was still just sitting there, the smile still playing on her face, almost quizzical and he thought mocking his losing his cool. He could now hear the boy conversing with the manager. The boy was telling the manager “Boss, this is the same guy who gave me Rs 500 for a coffee yesterday. Today he is asking for the same drink as some imaginary woman. He seems to be cuckoo. Should I just give him a coffee and pretend to go along?”

Hearing this was like a dunk in a bucket of cold water and he simply got up, kept a Rs 500 note on the table and left the cafe. He walked out as if in a daze, realizing that the whole episode had been his imagination and he had made a complete fool of himself over some woman who did not even exist. He walked aimlessly for a while not realizing where his feet were taking him and then simply decided to go home, not feeling like working any more. He called up office and told them to lock his cabin and walked into the metro station. As it was not yet rush hour, he was able to get a seat on the train and sat there, still in a complete muddle about what was happening to him. He almost felt betrayed by his own mind for having played such a huge trick on him. The train stopped at each station and passengers got on and off while he was blissfully unaware of them, lost as he was in his own misery, staring at some spot between his shoes, almost boring a hole into the floor of the train with his thought waves. Suddenly his eye fell on a pair of legs in khaki trousers ending in tan heels.

Shock turned into disbelief as he looked upwards to see the same disarming smile, the eyes looking straight at him. For a moment, he responded despite himself, a smile making its way across his face. But just after, the fact that it was just his mind playing tricks sank into the puddle of his conscious and he willed her away. Try as he might, he could not shake her away, she was irrefutably there. He would normally have stood up and given his seat to a woman. But, knowing this was just a hallucination, he did not stir from his seat. He turned his face away and looked around, resolutely ignoring her. An old gentleman in the opposite row stood up and she then sat down in his place. His mind explained this as just a coincidence as the old man proceeded to get off at the next station a couple of minutes later and there was just a couple of people standing in the aisle now. He took out his phone and went through his emails, finding solace in the comfort of his work and trying to shake her from his mind. At the next station, a few boys got onto the train as soon as the doors opened and stood at the doorway. He heard a soft husky voice that was almost ethereal say, “Will you boys excuse me?” He turned his head to see the woman of his vision make her way out of the train and the doors close behind her.

She stood there and looked back at him, the smile still there but tinged with sadness that had crept in, almost as if she was upset at his having ignored her. But that was not possible, his mind screamed. She was just a figment of his imagination, was she not? But then suddenly, a cold thought arose in his head. This was the first time he had actually heard her speak. And the boys had moved to make way for her. A wave of panic rose in his throat as he jumped up and tried to jump through the doors, only succeeding in banging against them to the complete amusement of the boys. He stood at the door watching her recede and shrink in size and then quickly disappear as the train swiftly picked up speed. He stood there by the door and waited for the next station, almost jumping off in a run as the doors opened. He ran out and crossed the road, hailing an auto rickshaw. Telling him to go to the next station, he was met with a quick refusal. Refusing to take no for an answer, he thrust a 100 Re note in the man’s hand and asked him for help as there was an emergency. That was impactful enough and the auto surged forward with a new vigor. It was just a few minutes later, but it seemed like a lifetime later, when they stopped with a screech at the previous station.

He ran outside onto the street and stood there, wildly staring, searching desperately for a sight of her. Finding no trace of her, he suddenly became aware of a never ending line of vehicles that started almost immediately outside the metro station. Acting on a wild hunch, he started walking down the line of vehicles, peeking into taxis and auto rickshaws that stood there, patiently waiting their turn to move. A couple of choice curses from some indignant women and a fist shaken in his face later by an irate boyfriend later, he stood up frustrated. He suddenly felt drained like a sponge that had been squeezed out of every drop of energy. He felt he could not move even a step further and just stood there. Waking out of his reverie as the traffic started moving slowly forward, he slowly walked along the traffic, just desultorily looking around. The vehicles stopped soon enough but he just continued walking, searching for any sign of her.

After about half a kilometer of walking, his legs buckled wearily and he almost fell onto the road. Grabbing vehicles for support, he made his way across to the pavement. He sank down on the edge of the pavement, his head almost sinking on his knees, staring blindly across the road. An auto rickshaw stopped almost in front of him, the driver’s legs blocking his vision.  His eyes automatically moved across to the passenger section and disappointedly moved away. A moment later, his brain registered a heart shaped face looking at him concernedly and his eyes skittered back to the woman he had grown so used to seeing. He almost smiled his relief and the answering smile was like a drug that swam its way across his veins, creating an incredible sense of well being as his world righted itself. She simply moved over in the auto as if she were making space for him to get in.