the bully

~

you're just not good enough
gently now all together
you are just not good enough
a daughter a son a lover a friend
a life form

are you hurt, sorry darling
i'm only trying to help you up

BUT . YOU'RE . JUST . NOT . GOOD . ENOUGH

a worker a thinker a druggie a drinker

too weak too strong too tame too wild

which kind of worthless, i'm trying to decide

never worry

I am here to show the way

bleed for me down on your knees

and all this shit will go away

are you hurt, sorry darling
i'm only trying to set you free

(repeat)

~

the dawn of solitude

The day will come that you are truly alone. A seeker in pre-arraigned chaos, a nerve mansion blown by the slightest wind into violent jingles in every direction, like a Chinese ornament near the doorbell. Every new input will add to your riches as you sweep over the illusory in bold strokes and colors. A strange calm will fill your ears, a quietness that overpowers you like a force field, suddenly in the midst of your chaos, it will come, and you know it has come to stay.

Sounds will slow, deepen into whale song, then cease to exist, you now live in a vortex, a destination and the beginning of your mind, where solitude finds its own reflections, and in them, a cradle of rest and renaissance.

And when that day comes, you must walk quietly, for this storm that blows inside around it cannot be understood or explained, nor the calm that it brings within. Because the world is too slow in its movements, it cannot comprehend speeds faster than light unless it sees and hears and scrolls through pages of data. You are not data from this day on, you are an infusion of chaos that calms you, a contradiction of forces spinning you out-of-control, yet holding you still in a miraculous balance of probabilities, you are one with yourself, in a way no other person can ever be, with you.

You are now still, always ready, forever alone, no longer hovering uncertainly at the fringes, listening for sounds of the meaningless, no longer joining unhappy cabals. Instead you stand untouched deaf and mute in the midst of cacophony, bliss a sudden and silent conqueror

You feel the sliding ebb of past powers you had blundered into, destroyed for, wittingly or no, they leave the same means as entry, your awareness heightens as they dissolve and you remember, what they did not mean, then forget in grateful release. Other powers you gained with sacrifice and loss, they stay on, because they have understood every side of the void divide, and feel no need for validation, or empty enforcements. These powers they cannot be stopped, cannot be denied, they can only be slowed by mortal means, this knowledge fills you with conviction and the silent will to be

Every battle you fight from that day on will be silent and within, as the most magnificent battles of the worlds inevitably are. Some will be won, some lost, none will matter. They are all the facets of you that must come together, then apart, then together again, until they connect and merge into the someone else that is you in all dimensions, too many to ever need defining.

These battles you will fight again and again until their meanings seep into your bloodstream, become a part of you, no longer needing conscious thought, articulation, explanation, justification, because the next battle already shimmers, you are waiting, arms drawn

Your solitudes are now many living entities, who grow by your side, and are yet one, seamless in who you are and who you want to be, and you simply cannot ask for any more

You will shy away from the world, not afraid, not unsure, merely detached, and the world would have freed another child of chaos, that is ready to burst out of its careless cocoon and form an entity of its own, a seed that came to fruitition. You no longer worry, over why you are unable to join back, for you can see the whole merry-go-round in crystal clarity, and it goes too slow, musics too stilted, you know today that you are an entity, a primal force, that you must forge, not follow.

From this day on, you no longer seek voices from outside to drown yourself out, for you will have your own silences, that you can command from within your head, to still you and to orient you. The world becomes a distant dream, ignored with the predictability of ungrateful offspring, sought only for moments of comfort or love, not clung to under pain of fear or death. And the universe, it will be proud of you, for you are whole and independant, perfection in the image of itself, a step forward into the everlasting,

In the silences of the vast, you will be reduced to nothingness, in their simplicity, your skin will fit, all around you, rising and falling smoothly with your heartbeat, which no longer distorts, over him or her or them or they. You will know intimately that core of you, that holds the unbreakable, the unthinkable, the unloveable, and you will guide your immortal spirit to its true home, calm and unerring

Fate

Someone of childhood's enormous significance, had held you in her waters when you were very young and she was very young, a baby and a stream, gently lowered into a perfectly concentric ripple, and you have both grown in size and strength together, You grew in her womb, as she became a second mother who would bear you eternally,

You are now running in the stream, alone and easily navigated, after years under the stars, because of the path she has cut, the gurgle she makes. She twines around the visible world, she has a horizon. That, you say, is enough, what more can there be? Simplicity being the mark of something arcane, precious you say, it must be, it is part of everything, so...you follow, the stream, your tread, it gets feebler as her twists become more capricious. She leads you almost to a promise, when a door slams shut somewhere behind you, or perhaps beyond, and you don't know how or why or where and don't want to know, because then you sense dissatisfactions will grow.

You know her intimately now, you indulge all her little ways, you fear so respect all her big waves, your eyes no longer seek inwards for what you want, what you need, you look to her to know what is right for you, you are now her in another form, your will hers, your life hers, for the taking, you know, you know her to be a dutiful mother, as much as you can know being immersed within her forever, you must believe,

Somehow it is always dark in her path, night blackening her every move, beautiful, stark, catching random flecks of light, everything looms around her in a gathering mist of uncertainities, ephemeral definitions, instinctively negated, impulsively clung to, layered on with conveniences, push and pull in simultany, reminiscent, the act. Somehow you know, in the midst of the tortuous chain, you will last it out, she will be there to see you through, as you carefully unask, be she cause or effect. Logic always drowns in immediacy and largesse, in the delusions of the unstill drifting deluge. Somehow...

You follow her about, no longer conscious of being a landling, growing back fins, and fighting through her in earnest. She makes an excellent mistress, she has a way and a hopeful song to sing down it. So you sing as you swim around and away, searching, searching for another stream, afraid of going back for how long it was and how uneventful, unremembered, yet somehow sure that ahead would be different. there would be a stream joining yours someday that led to promised lands as huge expanses of riverbanks whoosh by, still unnoticed. She gurgles, you join her, its just so compelling a happiness reminiscent of another's childhood

Her and you together, bound for a comforting somewhere, where she makes the path and you take it, all, she purrs a little as you lay back in harmony and decides to throw a fork at your head, and there you are till the last minute, waiting to twist and dodge and run, somehow it is critical to discover the better turn, with blurred meanings of better, yours or hers or just instincts? There is a noticeable blur now, mist thickening to fog in the darkness. At the last minute, you plunge down the right fork, immediately conscious that left was the choice to have made, and then it is too late, there is more on and on, dance and choke, the excitement of the fork carries you a while longer, then there you are again, drifing, just that hint less likely

The river has widened a few feet along the way, but you forget to notice the sameness of the excitements, there are more doors opening and shutting all around you taking on African drumbeats in the woods pulsing with meaning and urgency, but you have been hypnotised by the water, drawn in by the sparkle and the movement you feel in your body and out of it, you only go through doors today that she has slammed through for you, or worn through for herself over the years. and the now river has made you hers, you struggle daily to win her approval, to be worthy of her direction, you cannot live on the utter stillness of land, using all your muscles to run or fight daily, now you only use them to play and parade, you cannot risk opening doors that everyone else is already running away from and forewarning each other in harmonious clamors,

She is a capable teacher, you have learned how to flow effortlessly around big obstacles, power through the little ones with her, to be one with the path, indivisible, indefensible. She is a builder for the eternal, you a tool in her gnarling fingers, there is honor in being one building block of a legend raised by her, there is history and art, all ready created

You have already built a dam in your head to hold a bit of her waters always, as your debt to her ways, her kindnesses, her blindnesses, as you did what you could in the secure helplessness of her arms

You were the stream, the river, the salty sea, now you are the mighty ocean, in various stages of progression, a non-linear persistence of the unknown, hopeful of life and little else, underwater, spreading your kind, aspiring in brick and gold, they come easy they who will never be used, left in piles by the shore, mountains are just inverted abstractions in your shimmering world, illusions need never be climbed, your imagination runs into an ubiquitousness that fits a bowl, builds an effortless map for the rest of your life, bound to the things you wear away, indestructible, lonely is a word that does not bother defining itself inside your mind, confident it never will be understood

You start seeing many small forks in the water, little tiny swimlanes but you can no longer see their charm, they dismay in their sheer numbers, not to mention their shape, size and sheer lack of meaning, they are simply fanning out of control, little signs of something enormous that approaches, that you can never be prepared for the water is all you ever knew, ever want to know, her hands gentling all blows, her body giving in so swiftly to your every want as long as you have the wisdom to want in her waypath, which you always did,

At the faint horizon dividing darknesses of different shades, you can see the distances she has carried you, the distances ahead in the mighty ocean, as her salt lacerates your scars, today in her embrace, you can see the endless, can you feel the endlessness...

Alakazam

He made a pass at me
today, he did not pass me on
today, he did not pass me by
I passed on from his second sight
I traded up I passed outmost
But here I am and there he was
*sigh*
my passport to another life
great hallucinating helvetica
they have happiness in the menu here
borderlined and bargained with fear
all I do is shut my trap
and he will stay like glued up crap
all i need to hold him here
is stand on my head
and he will cheer
the blood rushed up into my face
dripping out one seashell ear
i cannot recall that ripe moment
when i welded love and pain
but i know that he was near
and I turned on up my own disgrace
self esteem is a laugh at screams
in lonely wretched nobody town
they go together, love and need
when need come first, love accedes
they go together, love and hate
when hate come first, love accedes
ain't no one prettier than me
He taught me how to take them down

Ingratiating

The monster and the myth
Sidling and sliding,
partly crude, partly concealing
slipping by sideways
with the ordinary face
flashes of subnormal
subconscious in passing
the sickness in the stomach
involuntary, revealing
the morbid revulsion
ingratiating in feeling
sickly sweet the mask
a bad taste, a creeping
the cruelty opaque
the kindness so fake
the innocent are waiting
at the brink of outbreak
where lies the rising stake
or maybe when?

The Life Industry

Just supply and demand, no?

Mood Capsule

Lavender and a curtailed smile of bliss inside a drunken monkey stupor playing a curving song of the hips and a praying mantis with the feet tugging at the umbilical cord with the universe where nothing goes to waste with a nowhere song and dance of a senseless mind and body opening up in spirit and camouflage embracing that which it will not understand rippling at that which is too still to be true, loving with arms and minds and eyes and ears and heart and wide open in wonder and waiting not expectant not disappointed not hurting not hungry not angry not resentful not anything just. nought. for the ever empty cup to be filled with a song of hope and heat and a rain of promises and eternal running wisdoms free wind blowing over unhappy sores and eddying around edifying ground truths and long forgotten happinesses of the DNA twisting and turning in unchained abandon with color and purpose in shades of pure joie'de'vivre and breaking dawns and violet winters and northern lights incandescent and unknown my life from today fading into light my life till dawn unsure unwise unready yet brightly planned lovingly played sinfully laid out honestly waged uncharted waters and unwilling tomorrows together spinning unlikely waves and indiscreet longings and pushing pushing pushing ahead relentless like gravity never giving up everything is special as it grows in wisdom and turns in another miracle of unconscious enormity blasting out new portals into the unknown and the parallel and the wishful and the craved storming bastions of the unknowing enslaved the first taste of freedom like honey and lime, the second pure chocolate just that hint of depraved that makes life ring out in different keys and perjure itself for more marching protests of pain making love in the rain lurkings past shadow gently dissipated sweeping unexplored hungers gloriously sated respect for the wise and the wild willingness to change warm unwary unexplained endless free fall into waiting arms forming a limbo where nothing is and everything can be morphing into a rushing river of joining minds and hearts emptying into freely expanding oceans of forward thought breaking through into new dimensions popping control mirages like iridescent soap bubbles ages of dark and light facing forward together drifting along and away as the future beckons with its swishing siren song leaping carefree from oasis to oasis leached by the desert accepting untamed singing like a cuckoo bird declaring its passion unreigned devotion to its mate screaming in tune with thunder laughing like a maniac deep inside the soul at the ridiculous and the insane and the tugging undercurrents and the fears and the honesty learning listening loving with every single heartbeat of this fleeting life with only one conscious wish taking grandstand centerstage, let there be more times like this freeze framed and enamelled and shared freely like nature food water healing love peace word art

wayside blur

I looked up from my morning cereal and tea and saw her outside. She woke up and stretched, a small dark lithe waif of a girl-woman. Then with a few lightning hand waves she coiled her hair up into an expert coiffure, that would probably have cost thousands at the salon Sarika patronized. Sarika is my girlfriend, a vision of expensive perfection, poetry in measured motion.

I wonder what this waif-child would look like if they stuck her in a salon for hours. I shuddered at the thought. The waif-child-child woke up and started toddling around. He was around one and a half and he never cried. The most philosophical infant I have ever seen, he took things as they came. He smiled at everyone and made friends with man and beast alike with an endearing lack of his own consequence. If his dad showed up, he was happy, if he didn't, he still managed to get by smiling.

Waif-child and her family caretook the property next to ours. There was another girl that waif-child had apparently also borne, around three and precociously outspoken. It was amusing to watch her as she lorded the whole land around, her little tummy stuck out, an expression of permanent supercilious disdain on her face. The little terror was still asleep.

Waif-child turned to see me watching her, and threw in a few more stretches for my benefit, that I duly admired. Then Sarika came in, trailing waves of nightcream into the tiny living room with a bright good-morning and I dropped my eyes abruptly to the newspaper. Sarika did not like the family much. The husband ran an auto during the daytime, and came home some nights and disappeared others. There was some woman who used to keep coming there to yell at them to return her money.

I always felt bad for waif-child. She did the caretaking, and raised the kids when she was only a little more grown than them, did a few odd jobs for pin money, and got yelled at regularly by their various creditors. The bastard she married had gotten himself a nice deal. He seemed like a okay guy otherwise, but somehow I couldn't quite like him, he had a face that didn't look like it had been etched from a lifetime of good deeds.

Apparently the family was in debt to the tune of Rs.50000 and sundry. Husband made a decent living and thankfully didn't beat waif-child or the kids, but they always had loud cash and other problems. And Sarika hated anything loud, it gave her migraines, and then me. Besides she sensed my fascination for the waif-child. I imagine she caught me staring sometime and women always manage to produce a seventh sense for these things.

Thankfully, we never discussed it, Sarika knew how to pick her battles, she was really as ideal as it got, I have no idea why she threw her lot in with a dickweed like me. I made a happy survey of her body, everything was intact and magnificently assembled. I smiled at her and thanked unseen providences for my luck

Waif-child had disappeared. Sarika and her were like Superman and Clark Kent, you can never see them together at the same time. I broke my reverie abruptly as I noticed the ticking clock. I was late. I kissed Sarika hurriedly, threw on a shirt and the cleanest pair of pants I could find, laptop, deo stand-in for bathe, breath mints. I hoped Carrisys Connections, the company I was going to make a presentation in, had air-conditioning

Palki, our pet pomeranian, came by as I was putting my shoes on. She growled a little at me and pranced straight to Sarika. I am not fond of her, to be absolutely frank. My idea of a pet is more a menacing wolf-hound or a Doberman than this dolled up abomination. But Palki and I grew to tolerate each other as we fought for Sarika's attention.

I turned to Sarika

"Should we lend some money to the neighbourhood family? Yesterday those two kids had barely anything to eat, and that foul woman was yelling again for her money at them all afternoon. It would have an unhappy influence on the kids" I carefully refrained from making any case for the waif-child

Sarika's poise cracked a little and a little furrow appeared between her eyes "Those people make enough money, they just waste it. If we lend them money, they will never return it, simply spend it and keep preying on us for more"

"But we have enough, whats the big deal? We can afford to give away a few hundreds, at least help send the kids to school?"

Sarika's eyes softened patiently and I knew the battle was lost. She stood up to fetch biscuits for her coffee and said with finality "It is better to give to the needy than to these parasites. They should simply learn how to manage their money better, a little hardship will do them good"

Sarika bit into a perforated Marie biscuit, and arced the rest to Palki. I watched entranced as the biscuit spun in the air one way, and Palki the other. The dog caught it neatly mid-air and stood with it in her mouth, waiting for us to appreciate the feat. Sarika made the due fuss, and Palki growled between bites as I snorted a little in the back of my throat. I felt an unaccountable rage and an urge to growl back and kick at the damn yappy narcissistic thing.

Sarika stood up and gave me a hug and a bonus kiss. I returned it absently and took off.

----------------

It had been a brutal day. There was one long meeting all day with different departments, each with only a vague idea of what we were offering, with the exact same questions. It was tiring to think how every person is so like every other. Give them a little information and the obvious dawns on them in a brilliant flash I could practically see. They have to share it immediately to whoever is around. Which happened to be me, their paid admirer. I loathed myself by the end of each day, but hey, it paid the bills

I caught my train in a rush of relief and started to walk home, declenching all the frustration as I looked forward. I barely noticed my surroundings in the falling dusk, I had already reached the comfort of home and Sarika, warm and waiting, with a drink in one hand, and a magazine in the other. Then I noticed a vaguely familiar shape in front of me. It was Waif-child, sans the kids, talking to a couple of guys in the street, labourers at the big apartment house being constructed a few streets away from home. They were having some kind of back and forth, when Waif-child noticed me coming along and her manner became abruptly constrained. One of the guys tried to put a clumsy arm around her, but she sidled away, throwing me a blurred look. I was suddenly boiling mad, I wanted to knock their teeth in, but this is a civilized society, I can't do that and last a day here.

I settled instead for turning my head and glaring at them as I walked by. The other guy made an elaborate show of taking out a wad of money in hundreds and counting it. Waif-child avoided my eyes and gestured to them to follow her as she walked away. I stared irresolute as night fell on their retreating backs for a second or two, then swallowed them whole, Then I continued on my way. Tears prickled and my head curved down. All I saw was gravel from then on.

Mancase

A showcase of The Man
naked and not alone
in all his shuddering splendor
crawling along on all fours
dragged and dragging unseen woes
deafen muted in discourse
begging indisposed
all one towering blear in the night
zigzagged twisted bouncing rooms
gaily tripping round the scene
fits of stillborn giggles
and ravaged edges of throat
hoarse marks of the sitting duck
almost missing discordant cues
returning bowed to sit again
impatient not eager
patiently beleaguered
don't touch, why would I?
turned away ready to sprint
get a hint
hell is undercontrol
what the ....

Keeping Secrets

I am not much of a fact fan. I believe in what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose"

I'll extend this gratuitously to assume he meant women too. The computer and internet are my favorite inventions of all time, because they free the mind from the necessity of enormous quantities of fact storage and allow it vastly more interesting worlds of existance. The fact pride parade need not intrude anymore in the garden of possibilities.

My idea of ideal life is more like a video game than a Hun conquest. Moving from virtual region to region in a leisurely stroll or liquid dance, uncovering every secret by sheer exploration, regularly saving the most precious ones in my mind, then relinquishing all possessions and moving on.

Secrets are the only things in this fleeting life I call mine, they will stay and go with me. I don't collect stuff or money or even experiences. I collect little fragments of time that are the most interesting and mysterious, and treasure them. Little glimpses into forsaken lands.

There is something about a secret I just love. Memories and thoughts saved as passing whispers of songs and spells, never shared, never forgotten. Secrets are another dimension of my psyche, that walk alongside me, laughing delightedly at things everyone else has failed to see or is busily pretending not to.

I keep secrets like a museum keeps masterpieces, I love and preserve them, guard them closely, and display fakes for the viewing public. It is not a conscious thought process that allows me to be secretive, it is a primal pleasure. I love everything about mystery.

My favorite secrets are those flashes of ideas that emerge from passing thoughts. They come to me in fleeting imagines of pure magic. I am afraid of even articulating them for fear of taking something away from their perfection. I hug them to sleep with a delicious joy of existence, grateful for being allowed them

I try to invest every spare inch of my mind in a reality I found, far richer than the hologram of ourselves projected to a parched world, Clear vast quantities of room to allow the free rush of an uncensored river of consciousness to flow where it will. There is so much room for error in everything that they all join together to form a seductive parallel world. I thrive on these various illusions mistaken for solidities and vice versa.

I don't ask for trust, it is not easy to trust keepers of secrets, they are the unknowns of a paranoid world. I understand. But it isn't cheating or lying, that is misdirection. I simply don't direct, its not my role in life. My role, it is a secret. I love that

Yet Another Conversation with God

Me : God, I don’t see the way ahead. I am afraid. Help me!

God : Forget everything else and look at me, child. Follow my finger and I will guide you to safety

Me : What is safety?

God : Safety is whatever it means to you

Me : How do you know what my safety is?

God : I am omnipotent. I know everything.

Me : Why should I trust you? How do I know you won’t lead me false?

God : Because I am leading you only where you want to go. How can that be false?

Me : Why do I need you then? And what if I change my mind?

God : You called me because you were afraid. When you change your mind, I will change your path. Omnipotent remember?

Me : How does it work? How do you allay my fears?

God (laughs) : YOU should tell ME that. It’s because I show you only one finger to follow and block out other needless worries. I also don't pass judgements about your character or value based on what you tell me. I am a figure who loves you no matter what

Me : So you give me focus and self-esteem?

God : In a way. And also freedom from being overwhelmed by your burdens

Me : But aren’t I supposed to be carrying my burdens?

God : You are anyway. I am just helping you not worry about all of them all of the time

Me : So you are a tranquilizer really?

God : In a way. I am also a handy explanation for the unexplainables

Me : You mean like wars, disease, Bermuda Triangle and stuff?

God : In a way. Wouldn’t it be much more comforting to you if it all happened for a grander purpose that only I know about and I am capably responsible for?

Me : Yes. Does it?

God : It does if you believe it does. Or if you believe in me.

Me : Is that the same thing?

God : Not really. The GRAND PURPOSE goes by many names – Nature, God, Evolution, Alien Farm. I am just one faith

Me : And if I don’t believe …

God : Then you are forced to face the possibility that humans are just another species in a crowded planet, created by happenstance, battling for resources and survival. While humans are the most evolved at the moment, that still doesn’t have to make human life any more important than that of an ant or a crocodile by any scale of measurement. Your importance could be just as random as an earthquake or an ice age. You may simply lose respect for your existence and any significant will to live or make an effort

Me : Is that the real truth?

God : That is “a” truth. Your real truth is mostly unique from anyone else’s and constantly changing

Me : Is that your purpose? To paint the world in a color that people want to see? So you are responsible for providing clarity and motivation and blocking out unpleasant ideas?

God : In a way. For the sake of your sanity and well being, you need to believe your life is precious and has meaning.

Me : So it isn’t really precious?

God : YES it is. What am I trying to tell you?

Me : WHY is it precious?

God : Because I said so.

Me : And if I asked you what YOU thought of life?

God : I would say Life is like Art. Life is for Life’s own sake

Me : We are anyway wiping out many species on the planet and our species is now the biggest. Does that not mean we are winning the race for survival?

God : Yes.

Me : Is that a good thing?

God : In a way. How do you think humans became the biggest race in the world?

Me : Evolution? The Sixth Sense?

God : How does that help better survival?

Me : We think and plan for the future?

God : Exactly. The animal kingdom survives on instinct. They don’t manufacture bomb shelters during a nuclear peace talk

Me : So does that mean we will succeed because we planned ahead?

God : Plans are made for success. They are likely to fulfill their destinies

Me : And what is human’s destiny?

God : It doesn’t matter. Just focus on my finger

Me : Did the humans of the past have more answers to these questions?

God : How does it matter to you? What you are, no one ever was, no one can ever be. The odds against it are astronomical. So why not just enjoy what you are and how much you know? The sixth sense is a two edged sword, just like everything else. You must choose which edge you want to see or not see. I am only here to help

Me : I don’t have enough faith in my race right now. I am afraid.

God : Very well. I will provide the faith

Me : Truth is, my parents are splitting up. I was suspended from school today because they found some LSD’s in my schoolbag. My parents have refused to send me back to school, blocked out all my friends. Now I am at home and I have to hear them fight all the time. It feels like my life is over and I don’t know what to do.

God : And how does that make you feel?

Sincadinna in Thrall

Sincadinna felt restless that day. Sunlight was going to last another three months and he felt hot and sticky. His legs itched to run around. Or perhaps skip or jump. It would all depend on the scenery. He yawned and stretched, knocking over a table with a teapot, a palm tree giving shade to the teapot and a squirrel that was taking a constant-morning nap on the tree. The table clattered as he toppled over, the teapot clinked and giggled before making an agile landing the right side up. The tree made a graceful fall with a thud and a rustle. And the squirrel, woken up rudely, chattered at him some fluent prestoran* curses. Some King of the Worlds!


Sincadinna, head-rushed and flustered with all the graphic prestoran, bowed to apologize to the squirrel, flinging out a generous hand eloquently, thereby knocking over the table again. The table now hit the wall with one bounce, and groaned. The squirrel jumped back alarmed and ran away, afraid he might try more peaceful gestures.


The teapot cooed to him "You wanted to take a walk, sire?" Sincadinna stared at the teapot annoyed, he had forgotten she could read his mind. It was like having a damned wife! But she did pour good tea. Standing up had drained away most of his energy and he actually wanted to take another nap, but he didn't like the arch insinuation in her voice. He wobbled indignantly


"Don't use that tone with me!" he growled


The teapot shimmied in a chuckle. A bit of tea came out of her spout and she raised her pitch to the high seas.


"Oops! Sorry, mighty lord and master, is this tone better? I didn't mean to offend you, I would bow but I'm nearly full, as are you." Her spout gestured meaningfully at his generous jelly midsection


Sincadinna muttered under his breath about the syltinac imastofaric insubordination you had to put up with these days, turned and stalked out of the orange web his head held high.


He stood on the edge of the cosmos and looked down moodily. The World below was all dark and dingy, like an art movie. People wailed sorrowfully in exactly the right key. The key that made you want to kill yourself, and then them too. There were tears and blood running in the streets like rivers, all pooled into a lake in the center that was filled with a reddish liquid. Sincadinna made a face. Gross. Deletrina again.


Seemed like Deletrina was the first World he saw every time he stepped out these days. Maybe his mood had something to do with it, after all. He made a mental note to consult with Humtrifin, his personal mad scientist about this. He reached down into his skirt and pulled out a sticky pink Cosmote.


He pushed Next on it. The World changed into a bright colourful field filled with balloons and party festoons. The whole World was crisscrossed with multicolor handkerchiefs knotted and tied end to end. Clowns roamed the streets with more handkerchiefs, tying and retying knots, changing directions and making and breaking handkerchief paths in one huge confusing medley. A tinny high-pitched music ran through the World.


He shut his eyes and winced. Slaptickus. Too loud. Too happy. Too busy. He vowed to try and get Slaptickus and Deletrina together somehow and have them learn from each other. All this paradox was really annoying. P...S... He thought laboriously, as he made a mental footnote to his earlier mental note to Humtrifin.


Sincadinna pushed the Random button this time on his pink sticky Cosmote. Maybe something new would show up. Something bouncy and skippable. He looked down. There was an unfamiliar World below, covered mostly in green grass. Or something that looked like green grass. Sincadinna was not a shy guy. He bent down and shouted


"AARE YOUU GRRRRRAAASSSSS?"


The green spread below waved and murmured "Mmmmayybee"


As he looked closely, Sincadinna saw a few boulders through the green grass. Not boulders exactly, but elevated buttresses with a smooth top in the midst of the field, that formed a rough path in some direction. In fact the tops looked very like trampolines.


Sincadinna could not figure where they led but they looked eminently jumpable. He rubbed his claws together in glee. A carefree jump across a green field on trampolines sounded just about right!


He scrambled up to his feet, raised a pioneering claw to the skies and with the warcry "OOOOOOOTHECAAAAAAAAAAAAA", he leaped off his home-planet, his skirt billowing magnificently in the nitrousy breeze. He looked down, he had remembered to wear his spotted knickers today, thankfully. He didn't want another Ugh Indecency Awareness Seminar with the Grand Excellent Amazing InterWorldary Sartoria Guidance Council


He looked down. Planet Benzofluoranthene (Sincadinna liked to think of silly names for new planets) was approaching rapidly.


By some miracle, Sincadinna landed squarely on the first plateau, which reeled under the unexpected pleasure. He was right, it was indeed a trampoline-buttress. The trampoline was dark and of a supple elastic mattressy material that felt supremely comfortable. He landed with a smug thulp and then went flying back up to the cosmos again. The new planet had quite an atmosphere. Purplish-yellow gases swirled around it in mystic patterns. The air smelled of a smooth combination of seashells and green Chimatsu*, with a hint of cabbage. Sincadinna's stomach grumbled. His favorite!


Finally, after bouncing Sincadinna's squealing behind for a while, the tortured trampoline huffed and puffed and lay still. Its precious cargo was busily actionizing his next scheduled nap, as he looked around. The trampoline was blank and black, and barren. There were no sights or sounds or lifes on it, it was completely empty.


Sincadinna edged to the edge of a buttress and looked down at the green grass. He noticed smaller trampolines sprinkled in the landscape, too far away to make out clearly. The grass was gorgeous and stunningly green.


The next buttress caught the corner of his eye and riveted it. He turned up fully to look at it, sucking in his ample tummy and he whistled in wonder. The buttress itself was a tree not a lump of plateauing rock like his current buttress. But that wasn't the wonderful part. The tree looked exactly like a money tree.


Currencies of every planet hung from its branches like washed underwear. Some of the fruits actually WERE underwear(washed and otherwise) which happened to be the currency of Yeast Funga. It was fabulous. The tree bore fruit of every currency from the big salted glaring fish of Jerifendomil, to the chattering flying squirrels of Serdifisten. He recognized the currencies of Slaptickus, Hemsnutfis, Blatteranty, Deletrina, even the flimsy pieces of paper that a few obscure throwback planets still used.


There were many currencies he didn't recognize like Bleating husbands, Vindanium birds, strange, unusual and uneasy objects all hung in uniform randomness around the giant tree that seemed to be blossoming in high season. Denominations, early editions, the tree simply hung the fortune of many Worlds, all splendidly attractive and temptful.


On top of the tree was another trampoline that was filled with citizens of all the Worlds. There were water lights, foods of many lands and flowing Chimastu in multi color flavors, and everyone was having the time of their lives. Fowl, furniture, men, women, children, electricalities, technicalities, creatures from every World and description all jumped together in perfect harmony and utter bliss gorging, drinking, playing and napping. It looked like the party of the seminallium. And he hadn't been invited.


Incredibly offended, Sincadinna crossed his hindpaws and forepaws, and uttered a dignified "HEY" which contained exactly the right quantity of offended, but uncaring, outrage. No one took any notice. Now Sincadinna lost his temper. The King of the Worlds had spoken. How dared they! He stomped his foot hard, preparatory for another eloquent "Hey" at them, when the trampoline promptly bounced him into the air. Still no one on the money tree took any notice of him. A squirrel and a chest of drawers were getting very cosy indeed in front of his very eyes, everyone was cheering them on, but he was royally ignored.


Incensed and muttering loudly now, Sincadinna started bouncing on his buttress, higher and higher, until he had enough momentum to jump on to the evil Money-tree-party-trampoline and he went flying and crying again in slightly hurt overtones "OOOOOOOOOOThecaaaaaaaaa". He looked down, he was going to land squarely on the chest of drawers, as it opened up its uppermost drawer for the leering squirrel. Hore!


When Sincadinna landed, he had his eyes tightly closed. If he landed on something squishy or slimy, he didn't want to see it coming. He landed on the trampoline itself and thankfully, nothing tingled him. He unfurled one bulbous eye cautiously. There was black trampoline all around. No party. He edged to the edge of the trampoline and looked down. It was a plain buttress, no money tree. He rubbed his eyes with a disbelieving paw. Still nothing, though his eye itched. Just rock and trampoline.


Sincadinna looked up at the trampoline he had just vacated. His breath caught in his nostrils and he made a sniffle in wonder. In place of the black rock and trampoline, was a huge spiraling corkscrew made completely of polished silver mirror. It was twisting rapidly into the air, erupting from the earth with an imagined whirring and rotating up the World reflecting light from every direction. Every instant of every inch showed a thousand views of the World.


Then he saw a fox on it. A red gold fox with a long sharp pointed snout. Sincadinna fingered his own blunt noggin enviously. The fox seemed to be climbing up the corkscrew mirror faster than the mirror itself could turn. Sincadinna made a loud whooping cheer for the fox. Then he looked more closely, and it seemed like the fox was chasing his own tail. He peered into the mirror screw every now and then, and seemed convinced that his tail was just around the corner and faster and faster he ran.


The little fox was now very close to the smooth top of the mirror-corkscrew-buttress. He reached it with one last mighty heave and dropped down dead. Sincadinna bowed deeply in respect and took off his hat before remembering that he didn’t have one. When he looked up, the fox was gone. He looked down, the fox was alive again, and chasing his tail up the corkscrew mirror again. Or maybe this was another fox, he seemed more orangy gold…Funny...


Sincadinna hopped up and down his trampoline meditatively. His last heroic brain cell woke up with a shudder and thought about the whole thing. Then he got it!


It was all one giant illusion. That, of course, satisfactorily explained why they ignored Sincadinna the Lazy King of The Worlds. ZANKY! he thought to himself with a wide grin, although he did feel a fleeting pain at the lack of the money tree. But the illusions were still awesomeness. He pulled out his pink Cosmote, as he stared at the second fox die on the mirror. This planet was definitely going on his Favorites clacklist.


He then turned around and made in a dignified wobble to the other end of the trampoline to look at the next buttress. It was an incredibly complex fountain of jet black water. The water wove in and out as black thin jet streams in many directions at once, and seemed to have no beginning or end. The water also had a heaviness about it, as though someone had mixed plenty sugar in it. It looked stark and magnificent in the intensely green backdrop. On top of the fountain where it shot out to form a uniform mushroom top, there were all kinds of living things, drinking from it, bathing in it, and doing all manners of fascinating, disgusting and clever things. But the fountain never seemed to run out, it ran on and on like an eternal dynamo.


He peered closely at it. It was not black water, it was oil, dark, viscous and shiny. Oooth, it was a long time since he had an oil bath. He bounced on his trampoline and made a leap into the fountain. And landed, predictably, on the next trampoline. The kaleidoscopic oil fountain was gone, and the money tree party was back on the trampoline he had just vacated. He searched in vain for the squirrel that was just about to hit the chest of drawers, but they were nowhere to be seen.


He stared at the glittering party for a while, and lumbered to the other edge to look at the next buttress. It was a pure pink replica of a Worwishness*, the worship site of Worwish* World. It was much bigger than the actual Worwish model and intricately designed and built.


The Worwish religion was the superclass of every other religion in the World, although some obscure pagans like the HuppHuppers* practiced multiple inheritance that diluted their purity. The Worwish Gods were bigger, better and cleaner than all their child religions, and everyone who was anyone in the Worlds, practiced Worwish. Sincadinna himself wore a Worwish armpit flower, although he found himself dancing involuntarily to the HuppHupp religional songs sometimes. But of course, as King of the Worlds, he was required to be Worwish.


Sincadinna stared at the beautiful Worwishness, handscaped in the placidest of pinks. On its top was a big soft beautiful pink cloud on which all manner of living things were lying down together, with an expression of utter bliss on their bodies.


He traced back to start a bounce onto the peaceful Worwishness cloud when he realized he was utterly exhausted with all the staring and jumping and there was probably just another illusion there anyway. He strained to look at as many more buttresses as he could, but the others were distant specks and he couldn’t make them out, even with his long-sight eye. There were many many of them, high, low, wide, thin, big and small. There was one more he could see though, far far away, it must have been huge to be visible from where he bounced.


It was a cold metallic nuclear warhead, whose tip was a faint pin point. Around the tip flew a circle of white handkerchiefs. Sincadinna rubbed his eyes and looked closely. They looked more like white doves. He would love to try that jump just to see if he could balance his graceful body on the tip of that conical head. He looked away sadly. It was nap time, and there was nothing more to be said about it. He peered down. The grass was waving again at him. He waved back "Goodbye for now"


"Whoooeeee" murmured the grass back at him


He looked down over the edge of the trampoline tried to see the end of the World, but it was too far away, and the horizon was pure green. There was grass everywhere, except for the paths made by the trampolines. He sighed and began to bounce back to the money tree party as he wound his way home.


Sincadinna pulled his pink Cosmote as he reached the first trampoline and hit Home. His World appeared cozily on top. He bounced up and landed on his porch, and fell asleep.


Much much later, Sincadinna summoned Humtrifin. Humtrifin heard Sincadinna’s whole narrative, punctured with hazardous waving gestures and waggling belly and spoke in a warm throaty bedroom purr. The teapot shimmered appreciatively, and Sincadinna glared at her.


"Sire, if I may, Benzofluoranthene is not a suitable name for anything! Besides, the World you have visited already has a name. It is called Thrall. She is one of our more obsolete worlds, a very dangerous and addictive one. Those trampoline plateaus are called Conclusions. You can bounce around in Thrall for years, and never want to come back. Your nap has saved your life!"


Sincadinna patted his belly satisfied "I always knew my naps were critical for the Worlds" The teapot snorted.



****


*Prestoran - The hydrochloric tongue of old Prestora. It is said that the really vile Prestoran curses could kill a target instantly by sending him/her/it/them into an eternal shame spiral. Prestora itself was destroyed by its own shame spirals that had gathered enough centripetal force to consume the whole planet. There are still some last Prestorans left today who exist in some obscure worlds, but no one can talk to them and live to tell the tale, except of course, politicians and condoms.


*Syltinac imastofaric - Some examples of Prestoran curses. Their meanings have been lost forever in obscurity, but they still evoke instinctive intense shame and disgust in the cursee. The curse at hand here probably had something to do with a rabbit and a few severed fingernails


*Chimatsu - A drink often called the Mead of the Heavens. It came in many colors and flavors. Some of its common names included Dorinde, Perrimarum, Vodka, etc.


*HuppHupp, HuppHuppers - The religion whose Gods demanded dance sacrifices and huge quantities of jewelry. The planet HuppHupp was one of the most twisty places in the Worlds

Dense clouds

 

When you’re shutting up and closing down
Strapped up, choked and buckled down
With dense clouds of seething pain
Trapped with force, fiercely restrained
With a painful lump and prickling eyes
The weakest link of the strongest mind
Let me light
A candle in your night
Be your guiltless sink, a reason to smile
Your beast of burdens, your bird of flight
Let me hold your hand tonight

 

The Glass Pane

She sat on a rock at the edge of the running stream, her legs in the water. She was thinking serious thoughts, making up her mind about life and other very serious things. A giant square glass pane materialized in front of her. Across the stream. She sat looking at it. It was entirely transparent and she could see the trees on the other side of the glass.

Yet she knew the glass was there, a huge square pane of freshly cut glass in the middle of nowhere. A window to nothing. It was strange in the midst of the woods but strange never bothered her. She was used to strange things that her mind made for her. Strange and beautiful things.

She stared fascinated as the moonlight and the running water made a very faint rainbow with the glass. The rainbow was the point at which reality and madness met. Her still functional logic told her the glass window was clearly madness, and the brook and the moonbeams were clearly real.

As she took in the almost rainbow, a faint thrill ran through her. It was exciting to be a part of something fantastic, that was also a little real. To be touched by the insane and know it. To feel it.

Pure insanity is such a waste. People don’t know they are mad, they just accept madness as sanity. But the rainbow phase, it made her want to sing a little. An involuntary smile was upon her lips and her eyes stopped blinking for fear the rainbow would disappear and turf her back into the dull monochrome world.

She transferred her gaze back to the glass pane after a while. Everything that is fixed becomes a little dull. Her eyes bored at the glass as she tried to reach her serious decision. It shattered without warning. Into many hundred pieces as if someone had thrown a rock at it. Not a bullet, a bullet would produce only a neat hole, her logic reminded her.

She stared at the glistening fragments of dying glass that lay on the grass. It was her, lying there, shattered into multicolor shards of glass and painted that way. As a bright jagged collage of pain. It was breathtaking. Her heart caught in the beauty of it all.

She reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt and pulled out a tiny red shellphone. She dialed a number and listened for him

"Hello"

"I think we should break up"

His voice did a double take "What? What? Why?"

"Because it will be beautiful"

There was dead silence at the other end for a long long time. She didn’t interrupt it. Then he spoke

"Okay" The phone went dead in her ear

She put the phone back inside her pocket and looked across the stream. The glass pane was intact again. She stared and stared at it but it wouldn’t shatter. Silently she started crying.

Lies lies lies

wielders of myth wands inside the mind
not magic mongers, they're the sleep deprived
prodding green sneaks into private lives
no convictions, just the will to thrive
nothing needs proven in sordid kind

schools of small pale colourless lies
pilot bloods of big brave guiltless lies
half-off, half-wit, habit, similies

watch those enigmatic eyes
batting barbecued cinematic lines
orgiastic thrusts and mournful cries
the ugly, the real, beautifully entwined
like fledgling jerks poised for flight

d.i.s.t.o.r.t
d.e.l.a.y
d.i.v.e.r.s.i.f.y

when the truth went out of style
where the hell was I

Exhale

I believe that the spiritual and instinctive in each of us is unleashed when we undergo something life altering. As someone said, anything that doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, I believe in karma, that the good or bad you do in one lifetime, accumulates and passes on in your genes to future generations.

Last week, I had a near death experience. Nothing dramatic happened, I wasn't in any danger, just, someone walked on my grave. No other way to say it. The feeling lasted for a good 10 minutes. In the beginning I was terrified. Of how painful death might be and of all the things I still had to do in life and how I might never get a chance to do them.

Then after the initial panic attack subsided, I started itemising my future plans and I realized there is not one single thing that I would put under "must do" with my life. There were lots of "good-to-haves", but on the whole the world would get along just fine without me. It was an incredibly liberating realization. I was never so sure of myself, never so sure I was ready for death.

Well obviously, the bad news is I lived. The good news is my life flashed before my eyes. Its not a feeling I have ever had before, and quite frankly, I enjoyed it. Frozen frames of happy remembrance and blurring sadnesses.

I am an original, positive and life affirming person. I believe in people, even when they fail to believe in me, I don't hate anyone, I don't lie or cheat, I give credit where its due, I go miles out of my way to be helpful and nice, I try to never hurt anyone innocent, I also get angry very quickly, I am monogamous by conviction, I have zero tolerance for emotional blackmail, injustice and foolishness, I have an ego the size of a small planet, I can sink to any level my opponent sinks just to win a battle...

But on the whole, I am a good person. I am as good as it gets. Oh yeah baby, I said it! I am on the side of the angels, although, as Alistair MacLean said, I don't see the angels being too thrilled about it. I have no use for false modesty or oblique self-congratulation. I have no time for needy. I know who I am and its as simple as that.

Often in my past, I have chosen logic over instinct, and just as often, I have regretted it. But now slowly I am beginning to trust my instincts more often, if not blindly, and more importantly, I have stopped questioning them. With time, I have also stopped with explanations to everyone. My life is really nobody else's business, and from now on, it stays that way.

Right now I believe my slate is clean. I believe I have paid dearly for the sins of my ancestors. I haven't enjoyed it, but I have no gripe with the world or its citizens for what they owe me nor do I feel persecuted or "why me" or whatever. After all, it had to be somebody. Why not me? However as of this day, I am free. Today I am a fully grown adult, a female of the species, and I love it. From now on, I start writing out my own karma for future generations, if ever any. I intend any legacy I leave for the future to be either happy or non-existant.

A day of reckoning

Today, I look back at my past till birth, and I wonder...

Who do I want to be?

The kite, soaring high
with a guiding tail of hangers-on
anchored to a playful hand
on the ground holding steel string


Or a rolling stone,
at intermittent strife with the ground,
facing destruction any second,
yet unfettered, hardly used


Not an easy choice, no...

For Macadamia The Nut – With Love and Thanks

I am not very good at compliments (Insults are more my specialty :), so bear with my rather naïve attempt to thank a comrade for all I owe her,

Macadamia is one of the few complete strangers I know who invests time to willingly read all my blogs (NO coercion whatsoever, I swear :) and leave her feedback.

She has encouraged me through many times when I barely believed in myself, and I cannot begin to tell her how much that means to me! I might probably have given up and stopped writing a long time ago if it weren’t for her and a few others, whose opinions I trust with my eyes closed,

I think of Macadamia in my head as a beautiful person with talent, sensitivity, impeccable taste, surging positivity and indomitable spirit,

Keep flying, girl and don’t look back!

Monster Ahoy

I turn around. A flash pirouette to judge how far behind you are. Close, too close, you loom large, until I see double, or perhaps a trillion. I run on. A roaring floods me. Fear in my heart and blood in my head. Adrenaline in my feet.

“SET ME FREE” I scream, for me, more than you. I need to hear myself in my head and on the outside. To know that I’m still alive. God knows for how much longer. Blood breaks out from my nose and ears as the pressure in my head escalates.

I swerve as I almost hit a tree. Precious seconds as I skid, pick myself up and try to stop breathing, straining my ears and every other nerve I have on the job. You’re too close. I can hear you pant now. It spurs me on, I pound furiously on the uneven ground. Destination nowhere. Away from here.

A dead run away from death. Dead leaves crunch underfoot and the landscape blurs in my eyes, darkened masses of shadows looming everywhere at dusk. Death is everywhere around me.

You are more an imagined predator than real. Imagined enough to frighten the living daylights out of me. Almost. Real enough to get me screaming for help. To set me screaming for life. Screaming to be allowed to exist.

Then I stop. I am all out of everything. I’m ready. You no longer pound after me. You stalk me with lascivious anticipation in the darkness.

You execute a slow sweep up an invisible red carpet. A red carpet I have laid myself for you. How do I know it’s red when I cannot see it? Because it sounds red as you creep up on it. Do you know what red sounds like? Like screaming metal at the end of civilization.

Chaos was already all around me, but there was silence and state inside my head. Till now. Till I see you creep up in apparent covert strike. Then you’re in my face, screaming and shaking, pointing fingers to intimidate. About as subtle as an elephant in a tree. Where, if at all, DID you learn dissembling honey? I coulda taught you for free, if it weren’t too late for you and me.

I wait for you, sweat blinding my sane vision, red creeping up in my head in tongues of flame, a slow burn to chaos. My brows are gathering with thunder more than usual, a throwback to my cro-magnon ancestor, who would be proud to see me now. A red vein pounds in my temple as I create wrinkles for posterity. It ain’t a sign of age, its a sign of rage.

A monster’s a monster only if there is a victim to appreciate it.

Don’t cry at night darling, I will be with you here
Extinguish the light darling, the shadows will disappear…

To the Gods of Spam

I was doing a cleaning up of my gmail account after an eon today and was suddenly struck by the number of spammers courting me. I’m not sure where they got hold of me from, but they are all unanimously certain I’m a guy. My biggest gripe is I don’t get any Wonderbra and Quick Slim spam, I get Viagra! WHY :(? I ask you…

The most prolific spammers are of course, the obscure copulators. "Look no further, sexual growth awaits you here" "Wanna be strong at bed?" "Did you know the big bang theory began with…" (I was too afraid to find out WHAT :() …

There are even philosophers among them - "Make your thing as big as life - theories of history, and in time, theories about finance, Soros anchoredfrom life than success in the investment world. Since he was no hedonist" … The secret of life is in here somewhere, dammit!! I am sure of it!

One spammer made me a covert offer about jazzing up my Anaconda… And I thought I had heard it all :D! I have an Anaconda someplace? Is it alive? Is it contagious? Can it play chess? These are some questions that spring to mind immediately

My involuntary conversion from a female of questionable veracity/delicacy to a male of questionable taste started due to a traumatic event in my childhood -circa 1985 – My parents (or possibly relatives) gave me a doll wearing blue pant shirt. This affixed the male stereotype in my mind and I was irreversibly scarred by it (The doll also had white skin and golden hair but somehow I never thought I was Caucasian. How DOES that work?)

Now with all these generous offers, I have been completely genderbrainwashed. Thank you Spam Lord, for showing me the light! Today, in the words of the great Napoleon, N am man.

Other popular spam categories include the self help enthusiast “Start a sadistic dictatorship for just $19.95! One concentration camp absolutely FREE. Join TODAY to change the world” “Are you depressed? Does your life go nowhere? Specially for you, here are the 10 most original ways to commit suicide for a rock-bottom price of $.01/solution. Sample videos and Obituaries included with loads of extras! Come today and turn your life around!”

Then there is the test your blah peddlars who help you get in touch with your inner soul… "Are you getting enough styrofoam in your noodles?" "Is your mustache itchy on weekends?" "What does your poop consistency say about your personality?"

My favorite type of spammer is the one who pretends to send me an email from my own mailbox. That's rather neat really, if you ask me. The enticement of reading my own poop is quite irresistible :). I would like to shake the hand of the guy who thought this one up. Pardon the stereotyping, but I will bet my toothbrush (hardly used) that the majority spammers are guys.

Anyway, I wondered what they are like, these spammers. I am going to bring out a whole series on Planet Spam, unless ssomebody sstops mee!

Which country do you think they may come from mostly (Dilbert urges me to suggest Albania) How much are they paid for their creative abilities? Do they also have a day job or is spamming fun as well as lucrative? Is spamming outsourced too? What would a spammers resume look like? Does spamming have a cult following? What about wives or girlfriends? Do they dare tell them what they do for a living? Are spammers cool? Or hot? Or Klingon?

There is one thing I love about spamming though. It's the ideal subterfuge. Today, in the information revolution, if I had to disguise some sensitive data, I shouldn't lock it up with an MD5 or SHA or whatever latest encryption goes on, I should bury it as an attachment in an email with title Viagra and a body with links to 5 helpful sites that have links to 5 other helpful sites that each have links to 5 other helpful sites…No one would touch that attachment with a ten foot barge pole (Or an Anaconda :) … You get the idea… Flood the ocean… Anyone after information would give up wading through all the data in all the emails and go watch some TV… I know I have…

Flitterbug in an inkwell

Life is like a bottomless well. The deeper you go, the darker it gets, more bitter it smells. The harder it gets, to swim back out. Out is where the sunlight and happiness lies. Where we are allowed to stay unless we choose to dive. Searching for the bottom of the lifewell. And when we find the bottom, we drown.

I am a flitterbug, easily distracted by bright things. So while I am all noble intent in finding the bottom of the lifewell, a hint of glitterdust crosses my gaze like a Snitch or a Speck and I go – Ooooo Shiinnyyy and I chase it madly out to the surface again.

I think perhaps this is what has kept me afloat in the poisonous lifewell that injects daily trauma and ennui relentlessly into uncaring homogenized billions. Bludgeoning each other in a desperate battle for space, love, hate, money, pleasure, or just by accident, waiting eagerly with wet blankets for a smile to peep out

That’s how I live cheerfully through the Rwandan genocide, the decimation of the Indian girl child, the unbearably boring candy fluff lives, of the haves and the high flies, the dramatic struggles of the have-nots, remorselessly advertised, dumbfuck economics and mindless wartimes, religious maniacs and egregious godguys, bombs, earthquakes, tsunamii, the underoriginals, the overpopulars, the infrareds and the ultraliberals, the designs of the Mata Haris and the propaganda of the Pseudo Normals, it runs on…

As I watch them swirling in the lifewell from the corner of my eye, my golden friend pulls me back to the surface with a mighty tug of the mind, and I’m back, to the peaceful surface lapping gently at my feet. I look down fearfully wondering when its my turn to go back there again…

The trouble with empathy

Empathy in large quantities is spontaneous self-destruct. Because, I feel the pain and fear and dull hopelessness of the young naked girl being thrown down a flight of stairs at the same time as the gloating perverse sexual pleasure of the monster performing the deed. Often at the same time. If I do not distance myself forcibly, I would be deranged in days. Maybe I am already.

The trouble with feeling someone else’s pain is that there is a sensation of being conjoined with them at some level. The pain, the pleasure, becomes too real to be imagined. It becomes more intense every time I feel it.

You, my dear friend, might be feeling heart break for the first time. For me, I have broken my heart every time I empathized with someone’s heartbreak. So their experiences meld with my own and now yours to produce a sympathy heartbreak in me that is sometimes more acute than yours. Of course, for me the empathy is temporary whereas your heartbreak is permanent. Doesn’t make it any easier for me.

I have come to realize that empathy is something that can be controlled with time and maturity, but I still suffer the aftershocks of someone else’s earthquakes months, years, after they happen. And I am cursed with an excellent memory. An emotional scar is not easily erased unless it can be forgotten. Its worse if its not your own scar. You suffer and you don’t know why, or how to stop it.

My auto defense mechanism is to distance myself from unhappy people, literature, art, and movies so as to take in as little destructive input as possible. Maybe someday I will be able to control my empathies enough to read and watch them without sinking clean into depression myself. But till then, I have to stay positive and this is how I deal with it.

Its not all bad of course. The pleasures, the exhilaration, the vicarious thrills, they too are mine without moving from my figurative armchair. A much bigger high than any drug can be. But my biggest fear is jumping off a high-rise building someday, hard wired into somebody else’s head and forgetting to pull the plug before I splat onto the sidewalk.

The Warrior

When we think of warriors, images spring to our minds, of men and women in ages gone past and present, with swords and shields, guns and grenades in hand, twisting and turning to the deathly music of steel and screams. They are proud and brave, are allowed no ties and carry no burdens. They are trained to fight and to kill.

Somehow the idea of a Ninja, sneaking in on noiseless feet, slitting a throat for servitude or revenge, does not invoke a warrior’s image. A warrior fights to the face, takes on endless enemies, and is not afraid of death. He fights for the fight, for the glory, sometimes, for the money. A warrior does not care if his side is right or wrong. He is loyal to his side, always, anyways, in every way. A warrior does not fight to win. He fights to kill…or die…

They are called the peace keepers of a land. There are times in a world when a warrior is needed, when any group of any land gains too much power. The “good” group or the “evil” group or even the “deadbeat” group.

When the peaceful are powerless against a force that has grown beyond its harness. Any force. Be it a political, economic, social or cultural force. The warrior steps in to restore the precarious balance of peace.

We fill the place of the warrior with men and women of superlative physical fitness and the alertest minds. The warrior does not need to be young, or fit or inordinately bright. He needs to be the most effective counter for the force that is gaining ground. A social menace must be fought with a healing warrior. A cultural menace with a scientific warrior. A scientific menace with a spiritual warrior. A political menace with a mental warrior. An economic menace with an emotional warrior. A physical menace with a physical warrior…

And yet as a civilization, we train our warriors with sub-machine ultimatums and stun guns to raze the populace to the ground as a solution for all evils.

Smoke and Mirrors

open your dreams and look inside
for a flash of smoke on a lonely night
a fleeting hope, a guiding insight
sometimes the same, from the other side
sometimes, just a place to hide

just an ordinary soul, in a paper hat crown
saving the world with a melancholy song
just a gilt French window, against your searching face
sparkling silver darkened, to a shadow effaced

don’t hold your hand out
no, dear heart, it isn’t me
you’re looking for,
its answers, the promised key
to life, the twisted mystery
it’s you, you want to see

Today

wild wonts on an iron will
still alive, still bleeding, still
a warcry for every windmill

shaking like a raindrop,
chanting for a sweepstake,
surging on a pain wave,

howling to the night sky
bars are in the mind's eye
blink, they rust, now I fly

hanging on a silk thread
down upon the endless
breaking out of bondage

climbing down a steep hill,
closer to the fountain,
away from the treadmill,

water on a weighbridge,
torsion for a temptress,
running all directions,

laughing like a madness,
peace without a fortress,
revelling in randomness,

my freedom is a love song,
fleeing in a rainstorm,
no sir, I will not conform

carried through by sunshine,
dreaming into starlight,
happy for a lifetime,
today

More about me

Well, I insist :D! Macadamia is responsible for this!

The rules say that you’ve to post five bits of information about you which you have never shared with your blog readers before. No "I plan..." or "I hope..." here - lets look at what has already happened.

1. I am very fussy about shoes – The ideal shoe must have the following qualifying criteria

a. It must be absolutely flat heeled (NO platform, plzkthx)
b. In winter, it must cover foot completely, in summer, it must have holes in front to let air in (poking winter shoe with holes is ok)
c. It must have a strap of some kind to secure it to the feet (like an airplane cargo hold)
d. It must be lightweight and comfortable, and have rubber soles so I can walk in absolute silence on any flooring
e. It must be black or brown. Design not a consideration.

2. When it comes to matters of the heart, I am very slow on the uptake.

“He’s looking at you”
“Who?”
“The guy over there”
“There are a billion guys over there” (Oh I exaggerate too)
“Only one fool enough to look at you!”
“Ah! I see the guy you mean”

And that’s that. You see, I have been at war with the gender for so long, I have no clue how to conduct peacetime negotiations. A friend once advised me that I would do well to tone down the scary, but hey, where’s the sport in that :D?

3. I can pick a subject, any subject, study it for two hours, and have an informed discussion with people who have worked on it for years, and fool them completely. In short, I am a mighty efficient word-weasel. But when it comes to subjects I really know my way around, I find it hard to talk about them with any degree of confidence. The curse of knowledge :(

4. My right foot has been run over by a car twice. Once an Ambassador, once a Santro. Didn’t feel a thing, both times

5. I used to read at the rate of five 400 page books a day. My first every book was Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree at age 6.

I tag – all of you’ll who wanna play… Come join us…

Popfil

Human, worlds a cruel place
A magic mirage, a tandem race
A unique vital creature of space
A miracle, to guard, a spinning keepsake

Human, world's a little bleaker
Than our cradle of yesterday
Human, world is still the same
Just faster still, the merry-go-round
Further the still underground

Human there was an ugly face
An idol for sin, an evil parade,
That dealt in blood, scarred, defaced
To scare lil children, to mend their ways
But our evil is no single image
It flickers, it morphs eloquent every day

Human when you be a seeker
Of that which can never be found
After the shadows of the daily watch
Human see you both night and day
Under the veil, the ugly face,
Right and wrong, the right of way
Ain't one without the other, always

Still, Human, ask every minute of every day
Am I the solution, or am I the face
There's always time to learn and change
But Human, there's no time to waste

Insubstantial

Insubstantial

Like the moans of the wind, like the reasons for sin,
Just here and its gone, like a flickering song,

Insubstantial,

Like the marks on the wall, of a pain too close,
To the bone, to recall

Insubstantial,

Like the fear of defeat
Holding you back on a lingering leash

My first claim to superstardom...

... seems like my very own stalker :D :D ... WOOHOOOOOOOO

Folks, I found this website, erhm, by accident... Can anyone tell me precisely WOT one does in cases like these ?? I am amused and a little angry but not quite sure if this is a legal transgression or not:( ?? Any thoughts??

http://www.google.avnirani.net/
redirect/aboutmaddyshowsee.html

--- Update update

Ok peeps, I must regretfully announce this is just spyware and probably malware ... My heart is broken, but I will endeavor to continue :(( ... Dont click the link or click at your own risk... Just keeping this post on so dat someday in the future if this site turns out to be questionable, there is one more online vote against it...

Unin-ten-shuns - Holy Pun-ish-ment (Thats a Metapun :)

Tagged by Macadamia the Nut... Here we go...

10 Things I Miss In My Life Right Now:

Ideally I would fill this with people, there aren't many things per se, that I really miss, but things it say, so things it be ....

1. Work (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA...gotcha)
2. Rain
3. Raviraj Lending Library, T.Nagar - The place had a smell of some popular oodhuvatti(incense) and induces a broadside nostalgia attack wherever I smell it
4. Watermelon - This year, the season was barely there
5. A bicycle - I use to love cycling around for fun
6. A sombrero (Just an exotic touch there :D)
7. The masala chai of another office
8. A pet - we're skating on thing ice here
9. The beach - Irony acute, because I live in shouting distance of one
10.A swing

10 Things I Want To Achieve Within A Decade:

Ummm, WANT being the operative word presumably... If anyone remembers and holds me to them later, fi on you :(!!

1. Organize my photo gallery (YES, it'll take me 10 years)
2. Learn to drive a damn car (YES, this too)
3. Write 5 books (Per book - 1.5 years procrastination,0.2 years static determination, 0.2 years desperate brainstorming, 0.1 years actual work)
4. Learn Mexican cooking (Say CHEEEEEEESE)
5. Create a world (Dunno dontask)
6. Run a marathon (5k plzkthx)
7. Finish one oil painting - The last one I started was 1 year ago, I dabbed a bit of green paint (for tree), it has still not dried
8. Visit Egypt (Mackie, temme if ur going to Peru, I will piggyback on your wish :D)
9. Learn how to build an operating system (the geekbone)
10.Climb a rope

10 People I Hate:

I know you asked for 5 darling, but what can I say, I'm full of it :D...

1. People who follow the people in front (or possibly side) of them and don't have their own opinions
2. Those too scared of everything, and needing constant hand-holding and ego-massaging (Get over it kindly!)
3. Those who take advantage of others. The Default Users.
4. Those who can never admit a fault, and would rather pretend nothing happened than say "Sorry". These are also the kind who will use your apology against you as emotional blackmail
5. Those who get unbearably nosy under the slightest provocation and cannot be diverted in any polite manner
6. Those who have loyalties to suit every occasion and mostly themselves
7. Passive aggressors - Who dont come out and say what they mean directly but make a lot of random white noise near you, in the hope that you will figure it out.
8. Those who gather together in groups and whisper and point at another person. This is also the category of people who use language/caste/creed as a weapon against what they don't understand/what they fear.
9. Those who have suffered a lot in life and think it only fair to pass on the suffering to future generations
10. The handle-with-care types whose egos cannot survive an insult

Having said that, I am most of the above people (and then some :() most of the time, so well, it passes :))

I tag

Vibra
Navin
Veenapponavan
Madhu
Pearl
Kavitha
Meera
i-7
Shri Padwad

Do play if you wanna!!

The Incomplete Bridge

The little girl stood on her platform with a small earthen lamp in her hands. The Aatman. It fit into her tiny cupped palms perfectly and emitted a feeble flame. She wore a shift that had once been bright yellow in colour, but was now ragged with burn marks and streaking dirt. She was barefoot. Her eyes were compelling, shining, darkness, the exact shade of a moonlit night, rounded and tilted at the corners. Those unforgettable eyes were also deeply and sadly adult. With her pointed ears and frail frame, they gave her shades of an elven ancestry.

Her shoulders were hunched as if carrying a great weight and she held the Aatman close to her body so it wouldn't die out in the relentless wind.

She faced the path ahead with more than a little trepidation. She had been standing there apprehensively for a while now, gingerly shifting from foot to foot, slowly gathering courage to make the walk across.

The frail silver bridge stretched out in front of her. It looked about as secure as a cobweb, as glowingly intricate as a filigree necklace spun from stalactites. It faded into nothingness just a few feet ahead of her. But she knew it was much longer than it appeared. It had to be.

She shuddered when she thought of the alternative. Her eyes focused onto the sides of the bridge where endless darkness stretched its hands out to her. It looked like nothing at first sight. Just black. But then the hands crept into the eyes. Impersonal hands, seeking, menacing, frightening, grasping, tearing, moaning, hungry, imploring hands. Insinuating fingers of disease in the mind.

First came the physical oppression. The heaviness that seemed to press into her like a crushing pile driver, from every direction, hunching her thin shoulders over the tiny Aatman she was protecting. After that came the depression, a sweeping sadness that sucked in every happy thought with a satisfied burp and begged for more. Third came the unbearable stench.

The darkness had a smell. An overpowering stench of hate and bone deep disease that rotted flesh and bred vultures. The smell of a dead animal left around for too long. The advancing decomposition that was beyond death.. The decay that was the closest stage back to the elements in the cycle of life. Centuries of grief stricken madness slavered there, carefully salvaged into a ghastly parody parade. It smelled of longing and an unquenchable sadness, from a place that had never seen love in any of its myriad forms. It beckoned to her, the darkness

Give ...in ... Give ... up ... Give ... it ... up ... give... give ...

She stared frightened, entranced, as they whispered in her ear, chanting, enchanting. She extended her palms out together slowly, in unconscious obedience of the voice, even as her nose wrinkled involuntarily at the scent. The scent of everlasting carrion. It seemed to expand into her, until it would become the only smell she would ever know. It would become the smell of normal.

The voices whispered on, relentless, hypnotic, hopeful...

Give ...in ... Give ... up ... Give ... it ... up ... give... give ...

She was about to fling the pitiful Aatman at the void when other noises joined the darkness. Other hands. That waved her away desperately

Walk away little girl. Only death lies here. Walk ... away... Walk ... away

Her trance broke abruptly and she blinked, searching for the other voices. Perhaps she could help them. The darkness leered back at her unabated, reaching out hands that looked like helping hands, only their palms did not supplicate, but curled into faintly clawed talons of a desolate evil that deluded itself, an evil that defeated itself

The little girl shrank back as the hands came towards her, turned and started walking blindly across the bridge. Her hands clutched the Aatman as close as she dared without burning herself.

Her eyes that had slowly become accustomed to the darkened scenes that preyed on either side of the bridge, now focused on the bridge itself with a burning concentration, blissfully blinded by the silvery light that led nowhere. But she could not afford to be afraid of the incomplete bridge any longer. The darkness laved too close for comfort. The bridge had to lead somewhere, she repeated to herself, after all it was suspended...

Was it her imagination or did the oppression recede slightly as she set foot on the bridge?

And the voices grew louder. Heartrending cries of guilt and pain flooded her mind. Envy and hatred. A marrow deep sadness that had never seen the light of day. Never hoped to. Never wanted to. The little girl's eyes prickled with involuntary tears as her heart tried to comprehend the magnitude of the pain that flowed there. But she looked ahead steadily all the same. She could see no bridge inside the darkness. No bridge away. No way out. Just an unending abyss. A sorrowful cul-de-sac.

Her first step on the bridge felt of cool metal, untouched, uncaring, but rock steady. Perhaps it would hold after all. As she set her other foot on it, it sagged, and she pitched forward crazily. From the darkness, the voices and hands went berserk with joy,

Please ... Please... Please ... Fall ...Please ... Please ... Give ... Give ...

The voices came alive with elation and the hands grasped, closer and closer, swishing coldly against her heels. Sheer fright made her regain her balance with a few hasty steps forward, and she clutched the Aatman to her chest now, regardless of its scorching heat.

The darkness receded sulkily. She understood now. While it could beg and plead and charm and urge, it couldn’t snatch the puny lamp away from her by force. She extended the Aatman towards the seeking dark hands experimentally, wraithed hands reached out to take it, but stopped short of snatching it out of her hands,

Give ...in ... Give ... up ... Give ... it ... up ... give... give ...

The Aatman glowed peacefully in her palms, callous and unaffected by the blowing winds, the twisting bridge, the beseeching hands. It burned small but remarkably steady in her hands, that sweated and had started a relentless trembling now, under the strain. The voices never stopped chanting to her. A relentless monotone that waited and watched with a frightening optimism.

She turned to look back at the way she had come. The beginning of the bridge had disappeared. She was now suspended on a silver walkway with no visible beginning or end. Immersed in a tiny pocket of reality shrouded in vacuum from all sides. Where time and space shrunk to senseless in the enormity of the emptiness around. She felt very small, helpless and utterly alone.

A new voice now joined the cries from the darkness, extending its hand encouragingly. A deep familiar voice.

Come, darling ... don’t be afraid ... let me help you

She dropped to her knees in wonder and hope, straining into the darkness ...

Appa?

There was a faint cackle, quickly stifled. The deep disembodied voice, spoke again

I will fulfill your every wish, my darling

Her eyes filled with tears

I’m coming Appa

Give ... in ... my ... little ... one... for ... your ... own ... good

She stared in hypnotic fascination as the hand drew closer to hers. It had changed again, from the extended palm, into the hooked grasping claw. The smell grew unbearable and her body heaved and retched involuntarily. Her vomit made no impact on the void, it ceased to exist, the minute it crossed the bridge. Inexplicable unease moved her a step away from the beckoning hand. Would she cease to exist too, if she touched the hand?

Propelled by a suddenly callous iron instinct, she pulled her hand away and screwed her eyes in a vain attempt to shut out the guilt and pain the voices evoked.

The bridge swung again, as if stretched and rocked by unseen hands. The world blurred in front of the girl, and she felt the motion and the smell in her every cell, swelling forth a wave of nausea. She tilted her head in slow motion to try and see it right again. She was no longer sure which way she had been heading. Panic rose in her suddenly dry throat, and she tried to swallow it down, her eyes darted around desperately for some clue, some sign, some way out, any way, even the one she had come...

The Aatman burned on, unconcerned. The icy hands in the darkness prodded intrusive columns through the bridge’s lattice even as they pleaded in their grotesque parody of submission.

The little girl shuddered in revulsion and dragged herself on tiredly. Her head twisted around in a vain attempt to decipher which way she had been heading. She had stopped caring why she was on the bridge in the first place, and merely prayed for deliverance. The apathy of exhaustion shook and drained her.

In a last desperate stand, she gripped the Aatman tight with burnt fingers and ran ahead full tilt. She stumbled and slipped almost immediately and one leg slipped through the lattice of the bridge. She swung there at an odd angle, able to do nothing but hold on for dear life. Icy fingers slowly crept up around her ankle in melancholy menace, slowly, more imagined than felt, caressingly

Come ... darling ... you’re ... home ... now

She screamed in sheer terror, a keening desperate sound, pulled her leg up with the remaining shreds of her strength and ran on.

At some point, she realized there was no longer cold metal lattice underfoot, but sand, soft and grainy, full and yielding. The smell had receded into a balmy breeze. She stop abruptly and looked back and just like that, the bridge was crossed. She was ashore. And in the right direction, by some miracle. She looked back at the whirlpool of eternal sorrow.

It cried and flung curses, like a thousand mad women torn apart by grief. The little girl returned to the edge of the incomplete bridge, drew her right hand back, and in one smooth motion, flung the Aatman at the waiting recriminating hands

She then turned and ran away from the bridge. Behind her the voices shrieked in the ecstatic crescendo of their own destruction. She did not look back. After a few minutes, her heartbeat slowed down to a walk and then a carefree skip. She began to hum a happy tune, as the Aatman reappeared in her cupped palms.

From Rammstein’s Spring (again), with shades (no pun intended :D) of Robert Jordan’s Shadar Logoth