Month: July 2015 (Page 1 of 2)

The lock

July 30, 2015 / DR

The man’s body had given up long ago. It was only his perverse, sadistic mind that made him keep on. He plodded through the desert, lifting one heavy foot after another. The sand sucked at his feet, the sun sucked at his soul. There was no moisture left in him for sweat. He ran a tongue that felt like sand paper over his parched lips. He stopped, swaying a little. This might be a good spot. As good as any. To lie down and die. He looked up for a moment, preparatory to closing his eyes and calling it a life. He froze. There, in the distance, a nearly impossible distance, about twenty feet away, was a refrigerator. It had a glass door, and he could see misty condensed air swirling in it, and row upon row of bottles. Water, mostly, and some coloured sugary drinks too. He reached it, after an eternity. He was going to open it, when he noticed the combination lock. And a small post-it note on the glass alongside the lock.

He was light headed and weak, and it took far too much time, but he read the note:

‘The key: 3 digits.

For the first number, solve this sequence: 7, 5, 8, 4, 9, 3, ?

For the second digit, answer this question: How many toes does a Grioprifiliosaurus have?

For the third digit, what is the 40^th number after the decimal point in the value of pi?’

He leaned tiredly against the glass door of the refrigerator. It felt unbelievably cold. There was only one explanation. He had already fallen and this was a dream, come to entertain him while he was waiting for oblivion. Real life could not be so cruel.

Now he looked up and saw that a new character had appeared in the dream.

A desert dweller, on his camel. He looked down upon the man, his expression unreadable. Then he slid off the camel, strode up to the refrigerator, pushed the man aside, firmly but not rudely, pulled the door open, reached in, took out a bottle of cola, opened it with his teeth, emptied it in one gulp, and threw it away. He looked at the man strangely again, mounted his camel, and rode away.

The man stared after him for a long time. Then he nodded to himself. The desert dweller was unlettered and could not read. That explained it.

Apparition

July 23, 2015 / DR

“Is it always the same?” said the doctor.

“Yes doctor,” said the patient.

“Let me see,” said the doctor, consulting his notes. “A three legged, long nosed, five armed creature with protuberant eyes, and an indigo tongue with which it appears to occasionally lick its long ears, which resemble those of a rabbit. It seems a little perplexed, worried even, as if it doesn’t know what exactly it is doing, hovering over your left shoulder. It is lemon yellow all over and has a slight paunch. It is about a foot tall. You were shaving when you first noticed it, in the mirror. You blinked repeatedly, but the apparition persisted. You have never before in your life suffered from hallucinations. Is all that correct?”

“Yes, doctor, exactly,” said the patient. “Except for the colour. It is a leaf green, rather than lemon yellow, I would say.”

The doctor peered at the air above the patient’s left shoulder. He blinked and leaned forward for a closer look.

“Hmm, I really must beg to differ, Mr. D,” he said. “There is no doubt at all that it is lemon yellow.”

Chronic

July 21, 2015 / DR

The tick tock of the clock divided the silence into tiny slices.

If only the clock would be still for a moment. But the pendulum swung inexorably, the time pretended to pass, the silence was destroyed every moment.

The officious clock parceled the stillness and dished it up in unusable little pieces.

He sat and listened for the stillness, nevertheless. The silence was there, like freedom seen in the gaps between the bars of the clock’s ticking. Quietness, achala, tick, nithya, tock, nothing, tick. If only the clock would be still for a moment. Tock.

The difference

July 20, 2015 / DR

The heads of state regarded the delegation from the alien ship.

Each of these creatures had four limbs and a part that corresponded to the human head, with organs of sight, hearing and c.

They were all in approximately the places one would expect to find them, if one were looking at humans.

The head of earth’s most populous nation whispered to his Caucasian neighbour, putting his head alongside the latter’s to do so. The difference between these two earthlings was stark. Much more marked, really, than the difference between themselves and the visitors from another planet.

“Why they look so much like humans?” said the head of populous nation. “Humanoid, possible, yes, yes? But they look like you, me, what difference? You not wondering if it practical joke?”

“Yes,” said his neighbour. “I mean, I agree the resemblance is uncanny, but no, it is not a prank. We would be able to tell. Their ship definitely came from outer space. From the direction of Sagittarius, which is where you would expect it to come from. Galactic centre and all that.”

The ETs were smiling blandly at everyone, nodding politely, as though eager to please.

“Do you come in peace?” said the head of earth’s most powerful nation, as though prompting them to conform to his conception of aliens, however corny.

“Sure, yes, what, did you expect us to come all this way to fight? Whatever gave you the idea?” said one of the aliens.

They had already uploaded their language and Google translate had no trouble with it. It had no sounds a human couldn’t reproduce.

There was silence, and the several heads of state stared glumly at the aliens. The thing had the reek of anticlimax.

Then the head of the most populous nation started.

He pointed excitedly at an alien. “Six digits. It having six digits!”

The alien held up its hand. It smiled. “Yup. I was born with one extra. They say it’s lucky, you know.”

Vacant

July 19, 2015 / DR

“It’s nice, nice…but a little quiet, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is, nowhere else in city you will get so much peace and calm. Relax after hustle bustle of daily life, you know.”

“I mean, it’s a little too quiet. Oppressive silence. Gloomy, even though there are many windows. And the air…somewhat stultified, as though it never stirs. Speaking of which, there’s no breeze, but that curtain, see, see?”

“The curtain is only one year old mister, I’m leaving it, no extra charge. Sweet water, only three hours power cut, you can keep inverter also.”

“There is a feeling one gets, especially in this bedroom here, whose window looks out on to that vacant ground filled with rubbish, a feeling that one is not alone.”

“Yes, yes, very safe locality, the neighbours all decent, you will make many friends. Any emergency, always people ready to help.”

“This feeling of desolation, this indefinable impression, as of the lingering memories of tragedy, and most unsettlingly, that silent, almost invisible but all too palpable presence, like the blurred, indistinct shape of a person seen in the corner of a room in twilight. There, do you see?”

“All electrical fittings are perfectly working, lights, fans, geyser in main bathroom, plenty of plug points, will install more if you want.”

“Your house is beautiful, sir, has every advantage one can think of, but I fear I cannot take it, for, though you are the owner, someone else possesses it.”

The pregnant pause

July 18, 2015 / DR

That word. The one in a million. It fits like the last piece in a jigsaw. But it….it….eludes, that’s it, eludes the grasp of memory. It is like running to catch a bus in a dream, like a bit of jam in a bottle that the spoon is a millimetre too short to reach, like a…something that is something something. At times, when one is speaking, one pauses and gropes for le mot juste (the French sometimes have just the right words). The pause lengthens. The moments in the pause lengthen. It is not just pregnant, it is gravid (see?), with quadruplets, it is not just gravid (ha), it is four weeks overdue. One’s auditors watch one’s lips anxiously, and their mouths open and close in sympathy. They hold their breath. You could say any old thing and be done with it. But you know there’s a better word in there. Until you find it, er… will do.

The geography of memory

July 17, 2015 / DR

The place you grew up in is more permanent than your memory of it. Memory cells die and go to limbo heaven in mere decades but the streets and the buildings from when you were young are still there. “They are all so different now,” but at least they are more concrete than memory. You can never go back home, but you can go to a vague approximation of it. The playground is there, startlingly smaller than you recall, the streets are narrower, the buildings have acquired extra stories, the neighbours have moved, your class mates and cricket team mates are scattered around the world, but the place is still there, in the eerie twilight of yesteryear.

Dugle Bugle

July 16, 2015 / DR

Mr. A entered the Dugle Bugle corporate headquarters from the Gummadipoondi gate. The other gates were in Vandalur, Mylapore and Singapore. There was a fifth gate somewhere in the Indian Ocean but Dugle Bugle’s official position was that it was just a rumour.

At the gate, Mr.A was required to give his fingerprints, his retinal signature, a stool sample and a blood sample, his clothes and his hearing aid. They explained that his wrist unit would repeat anything that he could not hear. The wrist unit was a green wristband.

He was strapped into an autocart and it whizzed carefully along a path between two parallel yellow lines on the smooth ground covered with concrete. The wristband spoke. “Please don’t attempt to cross yellow lines. They indicate the presence of slicer fields. Slicer fields can slice through human tissue and bones. Please don’t attempt to cross yellow lines. They indicate the presence of slicer fields. Slicer fields can slice through human bones and tissues. You are not cleared to cross yellow lines. You have been warned. You have been warned. Please say yes if you have heard and understood. Please don’t attempt…”

The morning after

July 16, 2015 / DR

An idea in the moon’s cool light,
This night, frolics in a winsome frock
Nymphal freshness clad in vestal white.
At this hour, a small one, says the clock
To bed and to glorious, delirious dreams
Accolades, trophies, cheers and what not.
In the morning, the punctual sun beams
Warmly down upon the scribbled thought
Of the night before, and it is like snow
Like early mist, like an ice cream sundae.
The brilliance, the effulgent glow
The sheer genius of it, all melted away.

Memory

July 16, 2015 / DR

“Since when have you had this problem?” said the psychiatrist.

“I don’t remember,” said the patient.

“How did it happen? Anything specific that caused it? A bump on the head maybe? A violent sneeze?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Does anyone in your family remember? Or any of your friends?”

“I don’t know if I have a family. Or friends.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t remember any of them.”

“The last time you were here, you said…”

“I’ve been here before now?”

“Yes. And the last time you were here, you said…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t remember.”

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