We are the mashup of all the things we let into our life.

We are the mashup of all the things we let into our life.
The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more ---William Wordsworth

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Reign of Dilemma


A beaten up phone in the entrance hall was ringing. It could have been just a junkie in need of a fix, but it turned out to be something more sinister than that. Its incessant ringing created painful vibrations in the depths of my brain and what happened next was a blur. Flames and violent shapes appeared from every direction of the hall and slowly engulfed the whole restaurant  the laughter of Hades becoming prominent one moment and then fading away in the next. The sequence never changed, and the scenes kept repeating themselves like a reel stuck in the cassette player.

      
The nightmare was always the same. Violent shapes moving in darkness, old and ugly. The killer's mad laughter was a riddle filled with wicked innuendo. Somewhere the baby was crying.

"Hades's restaurant" had seen better days. The night groaned with cold, the garden lights flickering nervously. In their light the falling snow was dead white before the darkness ate it up. The numbing cold of the broken night followed me in, the pistol was now a frozen lump in my hand, piercing the skin, gnawing at my hand. The door slammed shut behind me like a prison gate rattling on it's rusted hinges, shutting me inside. The air inside had a sickly, sweet smell, like that of incense. Silence reigned in the room and amidst my confusion, i saw some tarot cards strewn on the floor. Perhaps i had come to the wrong place, this wasn't the place where Alex wanted to disclose the details of the case. Definitely not. I gripped the pistol firmly and coughed loudly to announce the inmates of my presence...if there were any inmates there. Something really is demented here, i  thought, and took a step forward but the muffled ringing of a phone in the hall rooted me to my spot. The incessant ringing of the phone slowly increased in its volume and broke the silence. The lights grew dim and i recoiled in horror. "Oh God, not again", i thought, and tried at the door handle. Beads of sweat accumulated on my forehead, my arms and legs became powerless in the frenzy of fear and with no other alternative, i raised the gun to my temple and pressed the trigger. The gun coughed once and i sank to the floor, eyes staring into oblivion.

The orange ball of fire slowly rose in a bell-tolling sequence and heralded its advent by shooting its rays in multiple directions. 

"All's well that ends well, my friend. Ha-ha-ha". 

This was the only sentence he heard before being dragged into the abyss..again.

Monday 22 October 2012

Tears of green-eyed angels


They were all dead. Love kills. Did i love her? Was there a choice? The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. 

Entrails of burnt omelets and fried eggs in the fry pan, broken crockery and bottles of beer and cigarette butts strewn on the floor, altogether completed the picture of a house without a woman. Her laughter and inaudible mutterings came, like a distant hoot of a train, then died away and ceased. Like a cricket's trumpet dwindling swiftly into silence. He sighed explosively and stared into his beer as he sulked in his sofa with his shoulders hunched, his eyes inward. It is time, he thought with a smirk, and drained his beer in one big gulp. The cops arrived, sirens singing in the off-key harmony of a manic-depressive choir. The rain was still drumming on his roof with a mob-like ferocity and the growling of clouds and thunder heralded the coming of another storm. Zeus was angry on him alright. Taking all the necessary stuff he needed, he plunged into the darkness of the night. Freezing wind and rain was tearing at his face, like sandpaper and razors, he thrust his hands deep into his coat and kept walking, every sense of his alert and vigilant. Bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair, a frown that now became a part of his normal expression, and a scar that ran from the corner of his eye to the bridge of this nose completed the picture of a man on the run. Running from his life. Was it past midnight? He had been walking for almost 3 hours...or so he thought. Footfalls in the darkness, a glint of a knife, echoes, screams of pain. Schizoprehnia almost became his next sense. A  cold, hard, stabbing pain at the small of his back roused him from his stupor, he reeled around and found himself in a dead-end street. His temple throbbed, his heart hammered like wild beast in a cage, and staggering a few steps he hit a wall and fell on the floor, lying unconcious.


"Why are vampire movies always set in L.A or New Mexico? They cant even get a tan! If i were a blood sucker, i'd move to the North pole. Winter's one looong night"

"What would you do for food? Suck blood from penguins?"

"Naw. Eskimos, man. Eskimos."

The cold, frosty air whispering in his ears woke him up with  a start. He felt the earth vibrating beneath him and saw to his surprise, places flashing by him in a second. He was on a train. Craning his head back he discerned two people clad in an overcoat and jacket, holiding a .32 Smith and Wesson revolver. His blood ran cold and a rush of  adrenaline flowed through his veins. Regaining his former position he listened intently. 

"God, you're sick, man. I'd rather go for the flesh of fallen angels, ha-ha-ha. That would be more fun."

'The flesh of fallen angels'. Something clicked in his brain and disordered images of people, places and talks started revolving in his head without any bearing. Unclenching his fist he saw in his hand a long, shiny, syringe with a green liquid in it and a picture of a green letter 'V' with a syringe in it's between. He dropped the syringe which fell down with a loud thud. He kept replaying the sound of that thud in his mind.  A sound he had heard many times.

He wasn't out in the wilderness, no freezing wind tearing at his face, like sandpaper and razors, no wail of sirens or the city howling after him anymore. 

He was safe.

A menacing smirk danced on his lips and lifting his head, he laughed loudly, oblivious to the clicking sound of boots and shoutings behind his back. Rivulets of tears streamed down his face. Tears of mirth. The Tears of green-eyed angels.


Sunday 21 October 2012

Routing my Synapses


The storm was a screeching duet with the approaching prowl car sirens. I leaned over the parapet of the rooftop and discerned in the blinding snow the sea of revolving red and blue lights. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point, i released my hand from the trigger, and then it was over.
      
 Every story has a turning point, the climax before the credits roll. And that's where the fun starts. Pulling the trigger is a binary choice, you either pull it or you die. The light, when it came, was blinding. Blinding as snow. I leaped at the crouched figure and felt myself falling down. Down into the shadows of my past. Echoes, memories, time, all flashed by. To wake up was to die...indefinitely.

THREE YEARS AGO,

In the backseat of the moving car, i am cut loose from the city, as it watches me pass with neon eyes. The night has turned the skyscrapers into silver hands groping into the sky, and every brick-wall covered with graffiti are like a thousand menacing eyes watching my every move. Its funny how everything, living and non- living, seems to cower in its shell when you are forced to step into the darkness of your own pain. The life outside seems to be dead-still. The trees stand lifeless with their arms folded, the myriad of eyes cast a furtive glance at you and then crawl back into their homes. Life is cruel, i thought, but then every rose has its thorns.

The car stops in the traffic lights. Outside, the light paints snow red, like the whole city was in flames. But inside, the shadows of the car, its all done in blues. I know i'm lying to myself, no amount of medicine can keep this ache away. No lie can hide it. I'm not really in the backseat of this car, and i haven't left my room since. The killer dead at my feet on the ground.

Especially now as the city presses close the windows the car, it's monstrous heartbeat under the tires. My squinted eyes in the rear-view mirror. My hands numb and held awkwardly behind my back, everything that happened next was a kaleidoscopic, chaotic swirl, rising nausea that tastes like rust in my mouth.
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