Saying a lot, saying a little… who cares?
staying.creative
orison
May 3rd
Posted by SEV in staying.creative
Her arms aching from the weight, her back screaming in protest.. she made her way up the last step and set the water down. For a second, it seemed as though he had called out to her.. impatience overcoming the usual silence at this time of day. She shook her head: she was imagining things. Before carrying the water in, she tidied herself up: hair neatly pinned back into the bun, her sari re-arranged around her waist, the pallu coming round and being tucked away neatly. He didn’t like it if she looked awry first thing in the morning.
She quietly stepped in, glancing around to make sure that everything was in place.
It wasn’t.
Tut-tutting under her breath, she set the water down again and started clearing up. The washcloth in the corner was pulled out to wipe out the remains of the previous day.
“Its such a beautiful day outside, the sun has just come up. Down by the river, I could see the clear water for miles around...”
She continued her commentary on the early hours of the day as she usually did, with quick glances in his direction to see if he was listening, annoyed, sleepy.. or worst of all.. angry.
The smile on his lips only served to quicken her movements; she didn’t want the smile to be inverted due to her tardiness. There was a limit to listening to a servant prattle on, even for someone as patient as he. She stopped by her pail moments later to survey her handiwork with pride. Washcloth back in the corner, she stepped over to him with the water. She paused a second with head bowed, and then quickly pulled out the bowl for the foot-wash.
His feet in place, she used the smaller pitcher to pour the water over his feet, while wiping away the dirt and grime of the past day.
She felt his gaze on her, and paused to look up.
She was mistaken.. his sculpted eyes looked, as they always did, away into the distance.
Stone they may be, but they could see all. She could feel their omniscient gaze as she lovingly wiped away the water from his feet.
As with every morning, she could feel the song coming unbidden to her lips.
“krishna née bEganE baarO…”
speed
Mar 10th
Posted by SEV in staying.creative
It was time.
His left foot depressed the clutch, his right the accelerator, one hand grasped the steering wheel in a vice 
while the other manipulated the gear box in a frenzy of movement. 0-1-2-25-3-40-4-55-5-60… gears at max, his hands both clenched the steering wheel as the car barreled down the road. The road in front of him was crystal clear, the sidewalk a blur as trees, bushes and other objects whipped past.. well under the 1/20th of a second required to register an image on his retinas. Every slight adjustment of the wheels was more a matter of instinct rather than reaction – he knew the car, he knew the road, he knew his skill. There was no stopping this time. He was going for broke.
The road dipped. The road he was on seemed to extend into nothingness.
He was going downhill now, the plateau of highway over.. he knew he should have pressed the brake a little harder when he hit it, played with the gears just a little more. The turns were still to come, the wicked bends a little after them, and he was still barreling down the tarmac well in excess of any speed limits that might have existed. Ahead, he could see the first of the curves coming.. coming.. closer..
The emptiness yawning in front of the bend ahead seemed to beckon.
At just the fraction of a second that it was necessary, the wheel was twisted impossibly, brakes locked.. released, and acceleration increased again. The rear wheels had inched close enough to the border of the road.. any sharper a bend and he would have swung himself off the cliff at the speed he was maintaining. His hand had flicked the gears almost too quickly, the engine had whined in protest as it was throttled, and revved again. Either the car would fly off the mountain, the brakes would give way, or the engine would blow if he tried that stunt again. A straight stretch of road until the next turn – a wicked one – nearly 70 degrees in angle. If you wanted to continue driving downhill you had to pay respect to the road at least here. Else, there was always time to explore flying options – which might be tough in a huge hunk of metal crashing down to earth.
He continued depressing the accelerator. The needle jumped the speedometer, but there were limits it could go to, too.
The car reached the bend almost too quickly, he timed his brake-jam as well as he could.. but it is tough to beat the laws of basic physics. The car skidded almost perfectly into the 70 degree angle, but then the wheels edged too dangerously close to the edge.. he fought the wheel to rock back and continue zooming down the angle.. precious seconds of uncertainty as the wheels kicked up dirt, fought for purchase, fighting.. fighting..
He was still yanking the wheel to the right when the car toppled over the edge of the cliff. And fell. Almost too slowly compared to how fast it had gotten there.
The car fell.. fell..
********************************
The ‘kachink!’ of metal near my head shook me out of a reverie. Turning my head to one side I could see the tiny metal car that had doubtless fallen from the armchair rest above my head. Even as I reached for it, tiny hands scrabbled around mine and caught it up. Turning my head the other way, playful eyes and a wide grin on my two-year-old nephew’s face came into focus. I reached out to grab him, to teach him a lesson for “driving” so fast.. he twisted, giggled and clambered back up onto the armchair.
Znnn..mmmmm….zunnnnnnnn.. the car started going back uphill.
it is better to finish than to begin
Jan 14th
Posted by SEV in staying.creative
The man in front of her cowered. Literally. When she visualized the word ‘cower’ she could see a person shaking, bowed head, on his knees, hands clasped in front, the body bent over with the burden of fear. This was the exact picture presented to her right now. But then, it was to be a tad expected: he had a gun lightly touching the area near his hairline. A soft-nosed bullet would spray the wall behind him with the innards of his skull, a hard nosed bullet would simply rip apart the head. Even moving very quickly, the cower-er would probably die. The safety-catch on the gun was on, she released it with a resounding click. For the person in front of her it was the first sound in 5 minutes, and probably had the effect of a thunderclap. The involuntary shudder was testament to this. The tip of the gun never wavered. The shudder was precursor to the first set of tears.
“Why?!”
She did not touch him, and continued looking down at him. The man hunched over a little more as the tears flowed more freely. The body was racked with silent sobs; her only reaction was imperceptible: to release some of the tension in the arm wielding the gun. The after-effects of gunshot recoil can be pretty bad when you hold a taut arm while firing. She rolled her head from one side to the next, pondering the man who was fast turning into a wreck as she watched.
He looked up. Red eyes pulsated on a teary face contorted with emotion as he yelled “Why?!!” His eyes searched her face, her body, her stance for a reaction. Nothing. He opened his mouth to yell, and stopped before he started. The pointlessness of the exercise had been realized. He had also probably realized that he was going to die. Her finger curved around the trigger. One involuntary twitch and it would be done. Emotion was replaced by wariness. The question remained in the eyes. Why?
“Whatever I have done, is it worth killing me over?”
She remained impassive.
“I deserve at least a final word. Something.”
The questions in his eyes were gone now, they glazed over as memories came back. He would probably stem the tears, and smile ever-so-slightly as the good memories came back. Takes about 30 seconds of remembering. Bang on cue, he responded. She waited a while longer. She wasn’t cruel. Merely unemotional. A few minutes later, she rapped him on the head. His eyes re-focused on the gun, and the fear returned. His mind was racing now trying to put everything together. She gave him another 25 seconds, and opened her other hand which had been innocuously hanging by her side in a balled-up fist. Lying slightly off-centre her palm was a signet ring. He squinted while trying to stifle the indubitable fear and dread rising through his body. Expectedly his breathing grew harder, as he shuddered and clasped hands tighter in an effort to calm fear. The dread was unstoppable, and when he next raised his eyes to her face it was there. It was all that remained. He knew.
It was time for someone to say something.
His face now mirrored his sagging spirit. He remembered the times in university, the near-playfulness. At the time it was not something to worry about, only something that was done. Illegal enough, but also cool enough. As time went on, it was forgotten. Until now, when he had decided it was a part of him that he didn’t need. He was powerful enough to ensure that most of them disappeared. Most. Not a smart move, thinking that most meant all. Especially when it comes to a group of people. All she had to do was wait. There was no use trying to stop him. Or ‘out’ him. Terms such as ‘justice’ mean little to those who have the power to decide what forms ‘justice’ and ‘law’. Her waiting had paid off. Now, on the pinnacle of the ultimate seat of power, she had managed to get to him. And here he was. On his knees. A gun at his head.
She nearly opened her mouth. He never noticed, the thoughts running through his head had obviated everything else. His eyes slowly dropped back to the ring even as her hand closed it.
Nothing needed to be said.
She put the ring in her pocket. A decision was reached. His eyes went back to searching her face for a reaction, to know, to understand her final decision.
She smiled.
His shoulders sagged with relief. His hands unclasped and hit the floor palm down. He raised his face and looked her in the eye as she shot him point-blank in the centre of his forehead.
She watched him fall ever-so-slowly face first on the ground and his body twitch as muscular control was released. Blood and fluid intermingled and flowed out of the hole. Another shot, this time with the gun touching the centre of his head; skull and bone and brain and blood further splattering her and the ground below as his skull rapped against the floor in reaction. She dropped the gun while looking down at him.
After all this time, he had forgotten that she, his wife, was the first person he should have gotten rid of.
He would have always been the last person she would have taken care of, after all.
beginning at the beginning
Dec 25th
Posted by SEV in staying.creative
Eons ago, while people were still wondering about whether the world was indeed a world, or just a stage… things happened for a Reason.
They happened because someone Wrote them down.
Someone had the inclination and concern enough to observe events closely enough (or just think them up)…and then take the pain to sit down and Write them all out. Along the way they might have embellished them a little, but it is a small price to pay to learn of the invincibility of Hercules, or the relative immaturity of Tutankhamen, or the sheer flirtatiousness of Krishna. All of these very human tendencies needed to be Written down; and once Written down, the manuscripts had to be taken care of (but not too carefully: history is more believable when discovered on parchment than crisp yellowing bond paper), and passed on. All the while ensuring people did not assume that the Writings were just a good source of fuel. Or, later on, toilet paper. There is a reason that it took years for the Vedas to be written down.
Parts of our magnificent epic history that we do not want to completely believe as true – such as Rama being a goody-two-shoes – we call mythology. This does not mean it does not exist, or did not happen. The way it was Written was the way that things ended up happening. Life gets placed in a retroactive continuity in this manner.
In short: being a Writer meant something once upon a time.
Then of course, one of the Writers had to go and focus on a carpenter who could bring the dead back to life. The fact that the said Writer actually had the hots for the said carpenters’ girlfriend has never been talked about.
Who’s to talk about it? The guy in charge of that Wrote the story. And now, we have had at least four religious wars, as well as another two political ones. Not to mention the thousands of wars people have with a so-called “conscience” everyday thanks to a religion based on it.
Now, the concept of Writing is normally known to be a tad risky. In the past, when people didn’t really understand it, Writers were mistaken for janitors, which could get very irritating after a while. The number of rulers in India who have been killed within a few years of ascension is well documented. There were also a number of palaces in the old days that had to be demolished due to the janitors quitting, and rulers made quite a profit by claiming insurance against “pillaged” palaces. Today, this type of insurance is non-existent, thanks to companies finally catching onto rulers actually having a hearty meal with their pillagers, post-pillaging.
Writers shape reality. Being able to talk about history as it happens is a risky business, and Writers are always very carefully trained. The screening process was more rigorous than most marine exercises. There was no waking up at five in the morning, or jumping as high as you can off a smoke stack… but there was a lot of screaming and yelling and trying to come up with the most creative method of dancing naked around a fire.
It was not so much a fire as green muck on the ground, but nevertheless. Tough.
How does any of this relate to the creation of the carpenter religion, one may ask. How does this relate to the current apparent disarray in the Writers, one may wonder. Once the aforesaid Writer completely rewrote some history, as opposed to mythology, and made his carpenter a saint, the shape of the world changed. One of the changes that were wrought was that the Writer was killed in one of the many stoning events that were to happen. This was in part because he wrote the stoning event to have occurred in the very location he was sitting in, and missed the minuscule detail of exactly when. Not having such detail means that things start happening in natural progression; ergo, the Writer died even as he Wrote of interring the carpenter. It is said there were to be details of necrophilia… but those are mere rumours. Not having a trained novice meant that, for a time, the art of Writing was in the hands of untrained novices.
Which, as has been seen in Fantasia, can have deep, dark results.
On an unrelated note, it can be pointed out that any kid knows when its babysitter is incompetent. This usually leads to the child taking matters into its own hands. Eventually, the babysitter is found sitting on the couch with a slightly bemused expression on the face, surrounded by a blaring TV, a few broken plates, and a gigantic mess which will take about two days to clean up… the child will be found far away from such destruction by the time of such discovery.
We shall now relate this to the next thing that happened. History had to start writing itself.
History is no kid when it comes to Writing, but having never been given a chance with a pencil; now that it was presented with a near-empty canvas, a lot of ink, and no babysitter…suffice to say, Rorschach would have gone ballistic with the results. Time was a bully, but even bullies pale in front of headstrong kids. The scene was psychotic. One kid with a lot of ink, one inky bully biding his time to get back, and one very messy world. On this very real, very existing world, between the wars and the “discovery” of things that had existed before its inhabitants, people remained acutely blissfully ignorant. Some, of course, tried to continue Writing. The lack of yelling in front of green muck had its toll on the quality of such work, and very soon there were a whole lot of Writers in the world. A bunch of different things got written, parallel universes came into existence, Elvis was born, a few world wars were made to happen due to cosmic interventions, while Time kept mucking around with what was once well documented history. And mythology. He had hit puberty now, and a lot of his mucking about was with Nature (who was getting pretty hot and slutty, what with global warming and pollution).
It suddenly becomes very obvious why scientists are so obsessed with naming the start of everything the “Big Bang”.
Humans, however, continued to notice nothing amiss. They remained obsessed with why Brad and Jen broke up; and previously, whether Elizabeth I was ever going to marry. The universe was getting into rough times; the world was going for a toss. Writing had all but become an art for the large majority, and this was how it was getting to be used as well. People talked about all sorts of things in writing, never realising that an ancient power was looking to rediscover its outlet, which had been pretty well stopped up for centuries, Time’s misdemeanours notwithstanding. Most of the people this ancient power had tried to use so far had ended up blabbering about the world being a stage, or even about the answer to everything being a random number.
The law of averages was waiting in quietly in the corner. Two thousand years of not being old enough to have fun with Time and History, plus fifteen of not being able to play around with quantum anything would get frustrating for anyone. Every kid knows just when to have its existence felt at the most inconvenient of times – which mostly happens in movie theatres, or, as in this case, around the time Time and Nature were alone in a dark room – and thus, the inevitable finally happened.
A Writer was born.
Physicists also realized that strings could have something to do with the universe.
Excerpted from my never-went-beyond-10000-words novel from last year. Yes, I know its Pratchett-ized.
causation
Oct 9th
Posted by SEV in staying.creative
A thought. A word. A twinge. A smile. A shake. He went through them all, sitting outside in the afternoon sun. The sun beat down on him, but not hard. It was the changing seasons that were causing this.
A mild sun, golden-green trees, and a slightly chilled wind. Not uncomfortable. He sipped the coffee, wincing at the boiling hot liquid swirled in his mouth, and shot down his throat. He could actually feel the heat hit his stomach, sending bolts up his arms and down his legs. He didn’t know why he was out here, he was probably better occupied inside, in front of papers and computers. It was a deep sense of frustration that was causing this.
The mind rambles when left well alone especially after being forced into thinking about one problem, over and over and over… he let it wander. It probably deserved a break. That was it. This was a break. A hop, a skip and a jump and he was free of the world, the strappings, the problems waiting for him. The world passed him by; the student on the skateboad zooming to class, the girlfriends giggling over the fact that he looked lost, the frat-boy gang laughing and hitting each other. This was no break. It was the loneliness that was having him be out here. The loneliness that was causing this.
A faint smile came to his lips. He could remember a time when he would sit out in the open and everyone who passed him by greeted him. Then a time when all he wanted to do was never sit in the light again, only in the dark, no-one should ever see him. Now a time when such things did not occur to him, but no-one knew him either. Many things had changed, many things were going back to staying the same as well. Time always went full circle. It was the time that was causing this.
His mind couldn’t care less for the last thought. It was amazing how many trivia, how many inconsequentia had accumulated over the years. Facts he had no use for, and never would. But they were good old friends to have around now. Following them, applying what he knew, seeing a true explanation for what they represented. Each one was more interesting. Each one took lesser time. Would there come a time when he wouldn’t have anymore? Would he have to go back to that problem waiting for him? The one that drove him out here? Was it the problem that was causing this?
He jumped down off the wall, picked up the cup, and strolled back in. The doors closed behind him, and he sprinted downstairs. A last thought:
At the end of it, he had no idea what had caused him to go out there.
He had no idea what had caused it.
Or what it would cause.
tracker
Mar 20th
Posted by SEV in staying.creative
Standing there, waiting. The time ticked by. An eternity. Forever.
A movement. Lights were coming on.
Shadows surrounded him, the spot he was in was shielded even in the scorching sun. The merest shadow of a smile crossed his face.
It would soon be time.
Flashes.
The final rays of the sun illuminated the space nearby. His position was perfect, neither the rays, nor the probing eyes.. none of them would be able to find him. He moved his hand, the first movement in nearly an hour for him, and checked his side. All good.
The slamming reached his ears, this was standard procedure. He peeked in the direction of the sun. Soon, very soon.
He watched the rigmarole unfold, as it did every night. The light snapped off at each window by the steel gates slamming closed… the next… the next, they were all done. A barring sound coming as the gate closed. Security was above all.
He had vague memories of it not being thus. Memories of not having to wait, not wanting to wait, of the roads being asphalt and not grass.. of red not being the most important color around, of light not being hated, of a life that did not revolve around the next meal, of smiling, laughing… what was the word?… talking even. His fingers curled in towards the palm, leaving the thumb sticking up – that was a good thing. The thumb went in, the middle finger extended – that had been a frequently used thing. He stood staring at the semi-darkness that encompassed his hand, mouth not a little open… and the silence deafened him. He looked up at the house. It was time.
The prey in the house had it all wrong. They still had organization, albeit loose, albeit wild. They still knew that some things in the house were worth saving, even just to be hunted again. They had warned him when he had captured one of them. They knew that the carnage from one night ago had started here. They had sent him to follow, they had stationed him, and now they had come.
He moved… pattering on the stones as he had been trained to… the signal given, he moved closer to the house. The pattering was carried by the sound of a thousand feet pattering the same asphalt… running toward him, the notice was given, the game was afoot. A tinny sound from the house… warning!
It did not matter. The prey was not to survive. He passed a crudely painted sign. The scrawl would have meant something, once. ‘Dr. Robert Neville’ was savagely broken, and thrown.
It was time to feast.
Inspired by ‘I Am Legend’
