Nothing Special or Something Else...

Disclaimer : This story has been used and mildly edited without asking, but since it's so good, it's been put without the permission of the author. If the author has qualms, it will be removed immediately. So read it while you can. Inspired by a true story....

One Night

- By SoulBlighter

He looked up to the sky. It was raining.

And when I say it was raining, I mean it was pouring. From where he stood it looked like someone was shooting down at them with a cosmic machine gun. Except, instead of little bullets they were using little drops of freedom. It was like the liberation of water that had been trapped in the clouds. The little raindrops were like freedom fighters sacrificing themselves for a greater cause and the ground stood like an expectant mother, waiting for what had been torn from her to be returned. With open arms, terra firma welcomed her children back, there was going to be room for them all.

As he sat there with his mouth open staring at the sky, he greedily lapped up the drops of water that were lucky enough to land on his tongue and absorbed their energy, enthusiasm and refreshing nature. It felt like being born again

He looked around; there were the trees and leaves braving the downpour while their roots made merry in the ground, the sand around him which seemed to jump for joy every time a raindrop hit its surface, frogs and toads were out in their season of glory...

...And next to him she was sitting there... In the rain...

Who was she he wondered… He wasn’t delirious or anything in the cranial sense, he very much knew who she was and how they’d come to be there but the real question was "who was she"?

Did he really know her? Did he really know why she was here? Did he really know why they were there in this moment?

He looked at her as she stared into the abyss ahead, her wandering eyes looking into the darkness of the night. They said nothing, a look that was blank yet conveyed a feeling of confidence and being relaxed. That’s the magic about eyes, they say anything and everything. It’s like in a “give” in a game of poker, when you want to keep something to yourself, the eyes always give you away.

He wondered what they were doing there; they’d just come back from a sumptuous meal and as they headed back the skies had poured open and blessed them with their gift from the heavens. Truly they both loved the rain, it was something to revere, and it was pure magic. Thanks to him being totally insane and out of control (something he had somehow reflected onto her a bit), they decided to sit out and be blessed by the Gods. It felt great; the rain was like taking a bath in the Fountain of Youth.

He looked at her all huddled up in her dupatta, with her hair pulled back and wet with the rain. She looked like a little teddy bear all waiting to be hugged, but he practiced some restraint. Last time they were together in the rain, he’d kind of lost control and he thought that was being disrespectful to a woman. It was like pinching her bum, hugging someone without their permission. He was going to stay away from it this time. It didn’t matter whether she minded or not, in his old school head it was impolite.

They sat there under the open sky and talked about everything. What he’d been up to, what was happening with her, what was upsetting her, why he was so high always. He realized that conversations of this sort were rare. It was totally uninhibited, undiplomatic, no nonsense face to face talk. It was great and time always flew when they were talking. In fact he wondered if it went by too fast, like God was yanking his cord by making time run faster when they were together.

He sat there with songs going off in the back of his head. They were contrasting in song styles and the lyrics were varied but they all had one common thing, they all inspired the same emotion in him. Those were songs he couldn’t hear without thinking about her, and those which he’d always associate with this moment.

He wondered how they’d reached here; it had been a long trip. In his first look itself he thought that he’d met her before sometime and it felt weird when she belied those doubts, he was actually pretty convinced. Still it took a while before they really got to even talking and the closeness they’d developed over time was envious. In fact people around totally misunderstood them. But the important thing to him was that she understood him and he hoped that he understood her too. Of course there had been highs and lows all along the way, but that was just natural. He didn’t care, she made him feel comfortable to be himself, hell, she was his secret keeper, she knew more about him than anyone else. And he knew he’d never be able to explain to her why she was such a valuable gift to him, just her presence in his life was good enough for him.

As he sat and pondered about all these great doubts permeating his brain, she looked at him and said she wasn’t really too comfortable with the skies flashing their lights. He laughed in his head at her child like innocence, "2^nd innocence" she’d said a while ago. He knew she’d been through worse in her life and emerged victorious every time, yet she was afraid of lightening. Still he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable so they headed to the nearest shelter.

And as they stood there under the cover, she slipped her hand into his and put her head on his shoulder as he leaned on the wall. It felt magical. And at that moment it struck him, he didn’t care anymore about the questions, he didn’t care about the fickle doubts in his head, he didn’t care what anybody else thought, he didn’t care if they were doing the right thing or not. He realized that he didn’t care about it, he didn’t want to care about it, maybe it wasn’t rational but it didn’t matter to him. This was perfect…

He turned to his shoulder and saw her with her eyes closed nesting her, he smiled to himself and as he turned to stare blankly into the sky, he sighed… He was happy.

He was a boy, she was a girl... Can it be anymore obvious that this is a love story?

He liked her and she liked him and love was just waiting to reveal itself to those two; when doubt played spoilsport and seeded itself in his head. So he really didn’t think twice before sending a text message relinquishing his so-called mistakes and asking forgiveness for leading her on... She did what most girls did when faced with a situation like that. She cried. She cried her heart out and made sure he knew that when they met. And as he turned to leave, albeit forever; in her anguish, she blurted out a bitter question, "Why does it sound like you're trying to end something that hasn't even begun?!"

They’re happily married now and at times, even after 25 years of bliss, she still reminds him of that question.

Labels: weak attempt at story

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

- SoulBlighter

“Beautiful, Simply beautiful…,” he said to himself as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “Such honest emotions, what an artist, his soul was so exposed by his music!” he felt, with this weird emotional fracas in himself. He wondered what had gone wrong with Kurt Cobain. Cobain had come out of a broken family, lived a broken childhood, dropped out and was a janitor in his town’s school; a place he should have been studying in, instead of cleaning its hallways. He formed Nirvana with one of his friends and from there they went on to create a musical legacy that was unmatched by anything else in the history of music. Their music was honest, full of pain and it was easy to see that these were the experiences of Cobain as he went through with his life. However the pressure got too much for Cobain, he despised the mass appeal, the popularity and the fakers that come along with any movement that becomes to big for itself. He tried to commit suicide once and then finally died in his house with R.E.M. playing and his suicide note saying “…it’s better to burn out than fade away…” …A quote from Neil Young.

“Weird, but then who isn’t?” he thought to himself as he got up from the bed and turned off the computer. He’d just finished watching this Documentary on Cobain followed by Nirvana’s last performance ever at the studios of MTV Unplugged. It was really a good combination and one of those rare things that happen in life that makes one feel glad to be alive.

As he light a cigarette, he stared at it and wondered how much these had contributed to the demise of Cobain. After all despite all the emotions Cobain was going through, it was probably his addiction to these death sticks and his mind altering substances that may have finally pushed him over the edge. He felt a shudder down his spine as he took a long drag and then jammed the cigarette butt into the ash tray.

He headed out to the lavatory to get ready to take on the world. Another day of misery, patients who had no idea what their complaints were, nurses who were more concerned about their 8 hours shifts than the patients, and medical students who thought they were there on a picnic. It was weird, everyone knew there was something wrong with this system and this didn’t work, but like the Indian democracy no one wanted to get up and make a change. Hell, even he didn’t want to make the effort to make the change, he could go on rambling treatises about what could be done and should be done, but, when it came down to getting down and dirty he knew he’d be the first person to take out his handkerchief and walk away. Was he a hypocrite? Maybe he was, but it was easier to be that than to make the change. After all isn’t that what life is all about, making it easier for us?

He reminisced. Since the day we are born we look to make life easier to live. Clothes, Houses, Cars, Electricity; all creations of man in an attempt to make living on this planet an easier experience. Society had only re-enforced and force fed every child ever born on a regular dose of the need for comforts, the need to grab as much money as you could from the moment you could till the day your soul left your body. It was a rat race; yeah that was the right term.

Have you ever seen a huge gang of rats running between walls? They all run in the same direction, they flow like a river, till you can’t see the individuals that make up the flow. The characters of the individual are lost, and the whole mass appears as one dark moving flurry of desensitized units. Any rat who dares to stop or change his direction has no option, but to get swept away in the flow. So the rats that were best off were the one who ran the fastest or the ones who could run consistently, there was no place in this mass for the rats looking to run any other direction or those rats who couldn’t run consistently. There wasn’t even place for any rat who wanted to walk there instead of running. They all ended up the same, trampled, demolished, and left out.

He breathed down a heavy sigh as he finished shaving and entered the shower. The shower had always had a magical effect on him; it calmed him down and cleared his head out. Since he had been a kid, the shower always had that sort of effect on him, it felt like it was his place in the world, he felt protected and pure. It washed away his dirt, frustration, and pain; it made him feel like it was good to be alive if only for a short time. Maybe it had to do with his Sun Sign being Aquarius, the water carrier. But he didn’t care as he let the cold, crisp water flow from head to toe, making him feel like a god.

As he stepped out all relaxed and relieved he got ready in his stereotyped pants and white shirt. This was one thing that irritated him to no end, some stupid sod decided one day that doctors look professional only in pants and shirts and this led to such an assault on our frail human psyche that now people started believing that the smarter your doctor looks, the better he can manage your ailments. What if they’d all worn anti-fit jeans and t shirts, would that mean that they cared any lesser. It was one of those issues which didn’t really matter to anybody, but he refused to understand why it bugged him so much, maybe inside him the punk was still alive after so many years of being oppressed and locked away. Or maybe because it was easier to make noise about problems that didn’t exist and affected no one, than to worry about real issues and do something about. Or just make an issue out of everything because you’re lost yourself. Like Marlon Brando once said in one of his movies when someone asked him “What’re you rebelling against?” and he turned around, cocked his eyebrow and replied, “What’ve you got?”

As he looked at the watch he realized he was running a bit behind schedule. He was always preaching to people to be on time. So he decided to give breakfast a skip and grabbed some chocolate milk from the fridge and poured it out into a long glass. He realized that thanks to his addictive personality he had recently become addicted to chocolate milk himself. Anything with warm milk in it, coffee or tea it always upset his gut. But somehow defying all medical knowledge he’d come to the conclusion that he was only hot lactose intolerant.

He thought that maybe if Kurt Cobain had known of the vastly addictive properties of chocolate milk, could things have been different, every time he got bugged of the world he’d turn to coffee instead of heroin. It would have been his comforter and the only effect of an overdose would’ve been a stomach ache or obesity in the long run. How things would’ve been different then, grunge would be very much alive and the Foo Fighters would’ve never existed. But those were one of those things that always seem better in hindsight; such was the power of hindsight, it made everything else seem like it could’ve been better.

And then he heard his carpool pull up and honk twice for him. He shut the lights, locked the door and went on to the car, and said the pleasantries, which was nothing more than a ritual. As he tried to read the morning newspaper he tapped into the conversation going on around him. “Thousands dead in famine” the paper shouted on the front page as he heard some burping contently in the backseat. While someone complained how his boss wouldn’t let him take the Saturday afternoon off, he read “Bring our troops home, cry Americans”. Another cursed her cold and sniffed away; he read “No drugs available for HIV patients in Africa”. Yes this was the real world was it not, or was it just him being overly critical of everything. He brushed away his mind as he geared up to get ready to face this day at the workplace.

His workplace was a successful hospital. Being a doctor was on his list of possible professions right from the start. But as he grew the list got smaller and smaller and eventually it was the only survivor on the list. He loved his profession, he loved helping people out, and he loved the fact that he had the power to help them. But he also hated the system, and the way people behaved in it. Sometimes he wondered whether he really liked his profession, maybe his mind just kept telling him he did because otherwise he’d go insane. It was one of life’s mysteries that could never be solved and sometimes a dilemma of such a persuasion was best left untouched.

It was a relatively peaceful day, nothing much to push his boundaries. In a hospital, it’s very important to have your boundaries, because the place deals so much emotion each day that if it all got through to you, you wouldn’t last too long there. In fact he was constantly taught as a student to stay human and feel the emotions of the patient, but once you reached higher up in the hierarchy you realized that it was just another teaching, like the value of truth or the power of justice.

He headed back to the carpool and he didn’t say much till it dropped him off at home, when the social pleasantries were exchanged. As he dragged himself home, he saw that the maid had been by and cleaned the place, in his mind he made a mental note to thank her the next time they met, probably over the weekend. He saw that there were some messages on his answering machine, he’d got disgusted of his cell phone and threw it away. It was like a GPS tracker, a privacy and intimacy killer. He didn’t feel like knowing who the messages were from. He didn’t care. He didn’t like anyone anymore anyway.

As he turned on the water in the bath to take a warm soak he wondered, how did things get so messed up? In college he had always been the fun guy and liked to be with people, hell, they liked having him around. He was like pure energy, bubbling, happy; he had the power to cheer up anyone. Now he didn’t even feel like talking to his closest friends from college. He hated talking to his family now. It was really weird and he didn’t want to think about it.

As he lay down in the hot water relaxing his muscles, he lowered his ears below the water level to cut off all the noise from the world. His eyes fell upon his razor lying on the shelf and a weird but creepy feeling went down his spine. He smiled and drifted off under again. He realized he finally knew what was going on in Cobain’s head when……

Labels: Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, Seven Ages Of Rock, Short Story

Seated on the park bench, he sighed as he watched her pass by... She gave him a passing glance as she briskly walked past, a small smile of recognition starting at the corner of her lips, but she turned her head back and kept talking on the phone… He almost picked up the courage to walk alongside her to chat with her, but the rush ebbed as soon as she turned her face. He cursed the person on the other side of the line, wishing he was talking to her instead.

He smiled a sad smile and let out a deep sigh while stretching out as hard as he could, hoping the effort would get rid of the heaviness in his heart. It was a futile effort.

He had loved her for close to five years to date. It was a hard fought five years, and he had had no luck in life professionally and in love, just scars of battles he could have avoided or tried to run away from too late. Perhaps if only life had been easier, richer, better, or if only he could have turned back time and change a lot of things.

It was common knowledge that she’d never fall in love with him and she had told him as well, but that wouldn’t stop him from loving her. After all love didn’t need any receipt to be called love, did it?

He wasn’t a stalker. No. That wasn’t something that he’d bring himself to do. He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t want to scare her away. He was plain happy just to see her every other day, silently watch her pass by, keeping his best friendly smile ready just in case she turned his way.

To him, she was perfect, the answer to his prayers, the bombshell of the place… She was a goddess. He had loved her on first sight. Even before her makeover in college which further increased her oomph. She was the epitome of the dream girl in his mind and he would do anything for her.

He wished that they’d at least be good friends but their normal conversations never went beyond a few words or sentences. They could have been better friends, but circumstances led to a misunderstanding and they reconciled only after over a year of status quo’ed silence. He could never fathom what she thought of him, but which idiot tried to read a girl’s mind?

He was certain she knew that he still loved her. He had told her so, every time they actually skipped past the uncertain formalities of greeting each other, and had a decent conversation… Those times were so few; he could count them out using the fingers of only one hand. She was special. She took his breath away by just walking by, didn’t she?

He knew her smell… Not the smell of her perfume… But her personal smell… Her pheromones, if you like. And he could guess it anywhere, whether mixed with her favorite perfume or not… He was ashamed to know such detail, but he attributed it to the fact that everybody knew it but never committed it to mind and nose. But he did. He loved her, didn’t he? There were times he realized this love was foolish, but one look at a photo, and he’d go back to square one.

Photos, photos, photos… He had lots of her snaps. Ones of her taken with friends, in a group, alone, but none with him because he could never get the courage to ask her to pose for one with him. He had them all. Ones he got of her when he shamelessly asked her best friend for negatives. Ones he got by scouring all the million digital photos of the many idiots who owned digicams in the class… Ones of her arm-in-arm with other guys and ex-boyfriends, etc. And a meager few with him too, in a group. None with him alone. He should have just shut off the embarrassment and asked for one, he chided himself. Maybe next time... If the chance ever came. He gazed down at the snap of her he always carried around… What was it about her that made him so crazy?

He loved her hair. He loved her lovely shaped head. He loved her perfectly proportioned, beautiful face. He loved her eyes which were like amber compared to his dull gray eyes. He loved her smile, he loved her tantrums, and he loved everything that she said or did even though he never agreed to quite a few things she did.

Why did he cringe and turn the other way each time as he watched her walk past with one boyfriend or the other? Was he jealous? He hated the way she frequently switched boyfriends, like she was the judge and winner of some unknown secret dating game held underground somewhere every year or so.

He hated her for breaking up with her last guy... But then, he smiled because she had actually made that guy work and sweat, something which the guy, who was inherently lazy, could not be made to do. She had had him on a leash, or rather, by his family jewels. He used to watch them closely when they used to go around. He knew when they were having a good time, a rough time, he knew everything. He knew that she treated the guy like an ATM machine, and the dude being a blinded fool just kept on giving. All good things do come to an end, so did that, because even bad things have to stop at some time or the other, right? He pitied the guy, but it was just desserts… He had been warned that she could be a leech if she tried, monetarily and emotionally. The dude still had a bad hangover, and perhaps would have one for a couple of years more. You see, she had done a complete job of messing his life about. She had that power. She was that beautiful. She was Cleopatra-like.

Not like he expected her to come running someday into his arms, he’d love for it to happen but he’d have to say no, like how she immediately did when he had asked her out. He knew that life wouldn’t be too happy for them together. They were different, like chalk and cheese… She loved money. A lot of money. And he didn’t have it. He couldn’t even pay off his bills on time; he sure as hell couldn’t take care of a princess like her. A princess… He didn’t know whether he meant it sarcastically or in actuality. What kind of love was this?

But somehow, when she entered the room, he immediately sat up straight, tucked his tummy in and stared at her, hoping that she’d notice him, hoping he’d catch her eye just once more, hoping she’d condescend to look at him and just smile. Ruefully he thought, if he was a dog, that’d be the equivalent of wagging his tail off. She had that effect on him. He loved and hated it at the same time. If love was a many splendored thing, this version really sucked big time.

He didn’t like this thing. This senseless yearning for something he didn’t want. So he made another never-able-to-keep-promise to himself to try and get over this vicious ending cycle. Then he remembered that this was the umpteenth time he had made one, and gritted his teeth in frustration.

Helplessly shrugging off his dilemma, he got up, brushed his coat and started walking home. Looking skyward, he sighed.

It was going to be a long night again.

Labels: love, senseless, Short Story

Rahul stepped into the pouring rain wondering what would happen if he just kept walking on home instead of stopping to take a taxi or an auto. The rain came on harder, each drop falling stung his face like a million needles at once, but not once did he let it bother him. Instead, he kept on walking home.

He couldn’t make out much in front of him through the constant downpour. He didn’t exactly have a sense of direction, it had been long since he had visited his home town and he had long since forgotten the byroads and shortcuts and walks his friends and him used to take to get home faster.

Of course there was the matter that he had no friends remaining in the city, all of them had left for other places, seeking jobs and better opportunities abroad and in other places. He silently cursed his decision to go down south to learn Medicine, he realized half of his friends were making money while he still had a few years to go before he did that.

Of course he used the age-old argument of the fact that Doctors were more respected and earned more and the rest of the brouhaha. But He was never convinced and decided not to dampen his spirit this day as he trudged through the muck on the footpath. So much for it being the cleanest city in the country, he wryly observed to himself.

He decided to stop and look around and make out what other people were doing. There was no one else out walking, but many people were just staring at him bunched under the shops’ over covers, wondering what he was doing getting drenched.

Suddenly he realized he needed to break free out of this shackled, straitjacket kind of life. He needed to do something that could liberate him from the endless labyrinthine circles life was leading him into and move ahead. The traffic was minimal, the roads were empty.

He took one foot off the pavement and stepped onto the road.

Inspired, he walked to the middle of the road and looked around. People were trying really hard not to notice the short, cute guy on the road in the pouring rain, but they couldn’t, being huddled together with strangers taking refuge from the deluge, and having nothing else to do otherwise.

The stage was set. Rahul felt a moment’s indecision, he really didn’t want to do it, but in the end, his misgivings were smothered by the adrenaline rush.
He started moving to the groove in his mind. Indecisive at first, he kept at it, and gained confidence, and got moving in the flow. He jumped, he head banged, he flailed his arms and legs around, and he danced as if his life depended on it. He felt great and nothing else really mattered. He knew people were intrigued, he could sense their curious and piercing eyes.

A pretty girl with a sad face walked up to him, and stood close, observing him. Rahul paid no attention to her inquisitive eyes, but smiled, and silently and quietly pulled her by the arm closer to him. The girl smiled, and it was the most beautiful smile he had seen. To have two strangers meet and smile is the Universe’s way of keeping the cycle of life alive, and Mother Earth smiled at the two feet becoming four feet dancing together lost in the beat.
He didn’t know the girl, and she didn’t know him, but there they were dancing like nothing else mattered, and soon another person joined them, then another and another.

People joined in one by one, embarrassed, wondering why they were doing this, but they were all caught in the moment, they each knew what he was doing and they realized they needed to do it too to feel alive.

They relived their pasts, of walking in the rain shyly holding hands with their loved ones, of jumping into puddles as a child, of smelling the beautiful ethereal essence of the earth after the rain. People tasted their tears of joy and sadness, of memories past and new, mingled with the rain on their faces. They felt free. They didn’t know the person jumping next to them, but they knew they had a bond. Hugs went around, and laughter and shrieks of joy as people splashed into puddles and splattered water on others.

Rahul kept dancing, taking in everything happening around him, he had also lost sight of the sad faced beauty who had joined him, but somehow, it didn’t matter. He knew he had made a difference however small, and that’s all that mattered. The popcorn, the coke, the movie, the electricity, nothing mattered. It was about a smile from someone, anyone that mattered.

He slipped and fell right on his ample bottom, and there were 20 hands stretched out ready to lift him up. His eyes welled up with joy and he staggered back on to the pavement, and took a few deep breaths leaning against a wall. People were smiling at him and someone gave him a glass of hot chai. Politely refusing, he started walking home.

At the lobby of his building, he spied a familiar face waiting at the elevator, and he ran as fast as he could to it, and stuck his hand into the closing elevator doors. The doors reluctantly opened. And he came face to face with the girl.

The rest they say is history. Luckily, she also had a cold the next day, and thus exchanging numbers, and house “visits” wasn’t a problem. She also had a broadband connection and a Gmail ID; so keeping in contact wasn’t that difficult. Marriage, children and a successful career soon followed.

They still talk about the day they met, and wonder if he hadn’t had the epiphany to just let go that day, would they have gotten to know each other.

He wondered. He also wondered about all those people who might have gotten sick, dancing in the rain, and their smiles and tears. He also knew this dream had to stop. So he stepped back.

He put back his foot onto the pavement, and almost tripped.

Shrugging off the embarrassment, he walked into a group of people huddled under a shop’s entrance and joined them in watching the rain falling mercilessly on the street.

Sighing, he wished he was in Vellore.

Labels: Carnival, Short Story