The Bridegroom

A shriek, followed by a scream, and then a furious clawing. Teeth biting into skin, nails raking through soft flesh, droplets of blood, streaking a rose path. The slither of sweat-stained bodies, fingers wriggling into soft, wet crevices. His face, pressed against her, her legs, splayed over him. A shudder, that ran up the length of their bodies, a cry and then - release.

They fell apart, panting. And there, sprawled across the gleaming white ceramic tiles, legs tangled near the porcelain basin, fingers clutching the towel rail, they watched each other warily.

She was the first to get up, pushing back the sweaty, strands of hair. She viewed herself in the mirror, hanging over the sink, straightening her dress, pain-stakingly wiping away the errant smears of lipstick and mascara. And then, carefully stepping over him, she left.

He watched her leave, hips sashaying under her tight dress, stilletoes click-clacking across the tiles. Then slowly, he rose, tucked in his shirt, pulled up his trousers, smoothened his hair.

Outside, the party was at it's peak - a crescendo of noise - gossip, flirtation, music blaring through the odd silences in the midst of loud, raucous conversations. A fat man, with heavy jowls, passed him as he entered the garden, clapping him loudly on the back. "Great party isn't it?"

He nodded, caught a whiff of alcohol from the man's breath, and made his way across. He saw her, by the pool, next to a elderly grey-haired old man, her head bent to catch his words. He saw her elderly companion look up, notice him, watched the old, grey eyes narrow in disdain, long, elegant fingers grip her arm in a possessive way. And even from where he stood, he saw the gleam of gold between her fingers, a marriage band.

His cellphone rang, he reached for it. A girl's voice poured out - soft and seductive, slightly accusing.

"Where are you?"

"At the party of course." He laughed.

"Really? I've been looking for you all over!"

"I'm right here, by the pool."

There was a short silence. "Stay right there. I'll be over in a second."

He smiled, put the phone away, and grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, as a beautiful young girl made her way to him, her black halter-neck dress swirling as she reached up to kiss him.

She frowned though, smelling an unfamiliar scent about him. Something was amiss; a slight crease formed between her delicate, arched eyebrows, her eyes watchful. But a moment later, they were overwhelmed in a press of people - uncles, aunts, cousins.

"Congratulations, both of you!" An elderly aunt reached up, to pat his cheek, and pressed a gift into her hands. "Such a lovely couple."

When they were free, he noticed the other woman, still by the pool, watching them. "Who is she?" He asked his bride-to-be.

"My sister." She smiled, and pulled him along. "Come, meet her."

She dropped from a height of forty storeys. And as she spun down, through the air, past glittering windows and flowerpots - she thought, This isn't the way it happens it movies. It should be quicker.

She had thought that she would ram head first into the pavement, and her body - would be smeared across the pavement, bones and flesh turned into jam. She had imagined, with meticulous detail, the startled faces of the pedestrians, stunned to find a body hurtling towards them. She had imagined a young child, bursting into tears, hiding her face in her mother's skirts, while the mother turned deadly pale.

She had enjoyed it.

But now, she was worried - the normally busy intersection was bereft of people. No one would witness her self-slaughter.

Maybe I should have waited, she thought, until more people came out onto the street.

She sighed.

It was a bit too late.

Random Bad Story I wrote

A few days ago, as I walked home, I noticed a child in the playground. Nowadays, even during the day it is dark - as if some enormous beast has swallowed the sun, and I only dare venture out during the hour of noon, when the darkness fades into a grey haze. But yesterday, as I neared the playground, I could see that the swings have rusted, and the slides have crumbled to the ground. But there was a little girl, forlornly staring at a broken see-saw. She started to scratch the paint with her fingers, and even as I watched, a black shape hurried across the street, to the playground, a torch in hand.

It was a young woman. I could see relief break across her face, as she spotted the little girl. "Come," she cried out to the child, "I've been worried about you. You shouldn't be out, not when it's this dark."

"But it's always dark, mummy," the child asserted. "Where have all the other children gone, mummy?" The child asked, her voice plaintive now. "Where do they play?"

The woman gathered the child into her arms. They sat together, huddled on the platform of a rusted merry-go-round.

"Once upon a time," the woman crooned, the ritual words that began a story, "there was a sun and a moon. The sun was a bright, beautiful, shining thing. The moon was weaker - just a delicate, wan, fragile light. And, so what do you think happened?"

"The moon was jealous of the sun, because the sun was so much brighter," the girl exclaimed.

I stopped to listen, even though it was growing dark. The woman went on, her voice soft and crooning, and she told the child that the moon plotted with the stars to steal the sun's light, and the conspiracy of stars approached the Grand Sorcerer, the most powerful magician in the world. In his lab, he developed a darkness injection, which a comet, the brave child of another star, bore on his back and flew into the sun. The sun, felt a prick, just like a mosquito bite, and watched with horror as darkness began to spread across his bright, shining body.

"But how do we make the sun better?" The child asked.

The woman shook her head and drew her child closer. I walked away, feeling a slight tinge of disappointment. What could I have expected, I asked myself, a reason, an answer? But the truth is - no one knows why these strange black clouds rolled across the sky, and blotted out the sun.

But that was days ago. The power stations have stopped working, bereft of sun light, and our cities have begun a slow, unstoppable, descent into anarchy. Batteries are prized now, and so are matches and lighters - but in a few days, perhaps even a few hours, they will run out.

I reached my apartment and paused. At the end of the street, I can see a few youth, knives flashing in the light of a dying noonday sun, surrounding an old, aged woman. She reaches into her pockets and hand a few things over. There's a quick flash, and the youth move swiftly away, black shadows racing through the dark. The woman, crumples to the ground. I watch, horrified, and run over. Blood spills through her sari. In a matter of seconds, she grows cold.

Another casuality.

It is dark now, and I am safely sequestered in my apartment. The darkness is too much to bear. It is maddening. I stumble over a pile of books in my living room. Sitting on the floor, I finger pages and spines in the darkness. But it is too dark to read.

Once, there were many of us in htis building. Now, there are fewer left. My neighbour has disappeared in the last two days.

It has been what - five, six days - since the darkness came. At first, it was a time of companionship, we all drew closer together. We had lit all our candles the first evening, to banish the darkness. I shudder to think of that waste - now that I savour each match, each candle, each battery. But on the second day, depression has begin to set in. I remember some one saying that - "It is a great step for humanity, this darkness. It is a great gift. It frees. It resets civilization - makes us begin once again." He had laughed then, a manic laugh.

I hear the same laugh now. And I wonder if it is my imagination. But no, I hear it a second time, and - I also hear a rhythmic thump, comming from above, as if some one is dancing in the flat above me.

I am curious now, and I grope my way upstairs. The door to the apartment above me is open, and I push through. I hear the thumping, louder now. A light burns in the distance - a strange, jumping, dancing light. I come closer, and I see a man, a mad grin twisting his face. A lamp burns still, and as he dances around it - it throws macabre, shifting shadows on the walls. The man holds something in his arms, and as I come closer - I see it is a dead body, the body of a woman.

He begins to dance faster and faster, oblivious to my presence, spinning around the light. Shadows and light leap across the wall, and the strangeness of it all clutches at my heart. I feel scared. And then, I leave, creep back downstairs.

Later that night - or is it day? - there is a bright gleam in the horizon. It spreads quickly, and I realize that the eastern part of the city is in flames. It is horrible - but it is also beautiful. In the fire, I can make out tiny black figures darting about. I wonder if they are sane or mad. Does it matter?

Today, it is darker still. I know it is dangerous, but I must go out. I can barely make anything out, and at the end of my street - I see a strange squatting shadow. I come closer, and I see two men, hunched over the body of a wounded dog. The dog is alive, his eyes watch me, but he is bleeding. And even as I watch, the men reach into his torn body, and pull his intestines. They begin to eat. The dog tries to stir, but he is wounded, and the light fades from his eyes.

I run back, towards home, and retch. Nothing comes out, just saliva, and for hte first time in days - I realize that I am hungry. I look back at the men, eating a live dog, and for a second - I am tempted.

I count my matches - here are just three left now. The batteries are dead. In the kitchen, there is a can of kerosene - and for a moment, madness tempts me - to see everything, the whole room, go up in a flash of light. To have light. I start to cry.

I sit in the darkness. I feel like I am waiting - but what am I waiting for?

Sometimes in the dark, I see phantoms. People from my past, long dead, rising from the floor, reaching their hands - dead hands, with grotesquely elongated fingers, like the hands of figures in El Greco paintings. The fingers reach towards me, wrap around my neck. I feel cold, clammy, a sweat breaks out on my forehead. And suddenly they disappear. Pinpoints of heat explode across my body.

It is cold now. I go upstairs, to the terrace - and watch the dark sky. I have not talked to anyone in two days, I have not heard a human voice - except for the queer laugh of my mad neighbour. I stack my books in a pile, and douse the pile with kerosene. i use my last match to set it alight. Brightness explodes, and the brightness fills my eyes, banishes the dark. At least, the darkness is gone.

It is beautiful. And it is then that I know what i must do, before the fire dies. I walk into the fire, and my body explodes in pain. THe flames dance over my skin. The pain is immense.

But there is light.

Out of mud

He came, rising from the mud.

First his mouth, filled with razor sharp teeth, then his neck, bloated and long, snaked across the cracked, fissured earth. He rose, fashioned from the bones of the earth, a skeleton of stone. He reared his head once, and the water drained from the nearby rivers and ponds, a swirling mass of water filled the spaces between his bones. He reared his head again, and this time, the leaves fell off the strong, straight orchard trees. The trees withered and bent, spines, once straight, now supine, hunched like old men over their roots. Fruit fell, from their branches - heavy, ripe fruit fell....but withered, dry skins touched the ground....all the succulence and flesh sucked out.

Threads of flesh coiled around his bones, weaving and layering into a multi-coloured, dazzling skin. Now complete, he smiled, white teeth flashing, putting the sun to shame. He took his first step, and the earth bent, shook under his enormous weight. He reached the edge of the cliff and then bent low to observe the realm beneath. Fields of green flecked the landscape, filled with tiny black figures, scurrying industriously through crops of rice and wheat. In the distance, black clouds of smoke hovered over a city, a soaring, dark city.

He laughed. And as he laughed, his body shifted and changed - grew smaller, tiny, transformed into the shape of a man. A handsome man, with flickering red eyes, and tiny, pointed teeth.

He spoke now, for the first time, a language of war, words sounding like the thrust of bayonets, the sound of bullets racing through darkness, the squelch of blood, the crying of women.

He spoke quietly, but the tiny, black figures, hard at work in the fields, stopped to listen. The city stopped too, cars braked, lights flickered off and on. In a dark alley, between piles of garbage, a criminal, a young, hunted boy, stopped and listened. A few yards a away, a plump, perspiring policeman, hot on the trail of the criminal, paused and dropped his gun. In a room that overlooked the dark alley, a pair of lovers, burrowing and clawing into each other under white, sweat-stained sheets, stopped their fierce lovemaking.

They all stopped, and listened.

The words of the newly born man on the cliff, borne by the wind, filled their ears and wormed into their brains.

He spoke, and then stopped.

The policeman looked around for his gun, but it was there, in the tiny hands of a young child. The policeman smiled at the little girl, pretty in her blue frock, and gestured towards his gun. But she frowned, and shot the policeman. The bullet tore through his chest, and embedded in his soft, fleshy heart.

He died, a look of surprise frozen on his face.

In the room over the alley, the man stared at the woman, dark and sweaty, hovering over him . He gazed at her neck, at a mole on the side of the neck, a loop of black hair curling over it. He frowned, something about the mole disturbed him, repulsed him. Without thinking, he reached out his hands, and caught her neck in his strong grip. She gaggled, she whimpered, she tried to scream, but he strangled her.

The man on the cliff, with red eyes and sharp teeth, smiled. He strode off the cliff, into the air, towards the city.

He is coming.

Another story that never went anywhere

He awoke, the scent of sweat heavy in his nostrils, the taste of cigarettes lingering on his tongue. Awakening again, here, in this small dark, stuffy room. He rubbed his eyes, blinked, hoping that the darkness would fade away, dissolve into something else - a woman, a bollywood mansion, trees...something else, but not these grimy, crumbling walls.

Anything else.

He turned, and grimaced. The pillow still smelt of her. He traced the wrinkles on the greying sheets, imagining the curve of her hips, the twist of her lips as she smiled at him.

But she wasn't there. She had left days ago, stuffing her clothes and cosmetics into a battered, grey suitcase. She had paused, and they had stared at each other, minutes dragging by. She stuffed her last pair of panties into a sequined handbag, and then turned, curls cascading over her shoulder, and marched out the door.

Or had she? He frowned. Had she been less than a memory? A figment of his imagination?

His cellphone was ringing. "There's a story - you better get there at once, the van's waiting," the grating, nasal voice on the phone informed him. "Some big car accident. A big actor too, don't know who as yet...he's been rushed to the hospital - could be dead." The voice paused, speculating the outcomes death could bring . "If he dies," the voice continued in an awed, hushed tone, "it could even be a headline piece."

He pulled on a shirt, a pair of trousers, slung his bag over his shoulders, and headed out to the van.

On the way, he leaned out the window, feeling the wind whip through his hair. The clouds were gathering over the sea, and he spied a tall, slight, figure, negotiate the treacherous rocks of the Bandstand Beach. Her white sari flapped in the wind, a radiant, blinding white - the dazzling, ethereal shade of detergent commercials. A smaller figure, a child, waved to her from further off. She smiled warmly, tenderly, back. He turned away, as the van wriggled through the throng of traffic. But he still felt the brilliance of her smile, her dazzling white smile, warm on his face.

He dozed, and dreamt of his own mother. He had always been embarrassed by her - by her gaudy nylon saris, haphazardly worn, splattered with sambar and chutney stains. By her bra-strap, poking out underneath her ill-fitting blouse. By her feet, rough and callused, and her thick, ungainly ankles. He had been relieved when she had died, finally, after a long illness. Even then, she died indecently, clinging onto life - long after any decent, self-respecting person would have. She had been stubborn, for his sake, she had whispered, on those long hospital nights, as she lingered on.

He awoke, as they arrived at the destination, and quickly clambered out of the van. He spotted a fellow reporter, puffing on a foul-smelling beedi. "No headline story here, yaar," the reporter informed him, "actor is expected to make a full recovery. Page 4 or 5 news, at the most."

Damn, Veeru thought, just my luck. A headline piece, almost, on my hands, and the bugger decides to live. Damn it.

Later at home, he dreamt of his imaginary paramour, of her wicked hips and bee-stung lips. He awoke, sweating and hot. It was time to start hating her, she was taking over his mind, he thought as he opened the door of the ancient fridge, but there was nothing there, save for a solitary milk bottle, half-full of curdling, yellow milk. Instead, he lit a cigarette, opened his notebook and began to write.

A story that never went anywhere

I sit here, alone, in a coffee shop. All about me, pairs of doting lovers engage in the business of flirting and wooing - the business of love-making as it exists in India. Because that is all it ever amounts to - stolen moments in coffee shops, furtive touches in parks, purloined kisses in the dark recesses of some alley or shadowed doorway.

I watch these lovers, cocooned in my own loneliness. I watch one girl, beautiful in a fleshy, opulent sort of way, bat her long, glitter-lined lashes at her male companion. She wears a gaudy, floral-print shirt, and her long hair carries the tell-tale signs of having been subjected to some rough, chemical straightening technique. An office worker, probably corporate. Her lover leans closer, murmuring, I imagine, something flirtatious, stretching the fabric of his cheap suit. His crew cut glints red under the coffee shop lights, the result of a heinous, tasteless dying technique. It looks like an office romance - an attraction birthed among the cubicles, flirtation near the printer, and finally - thrown together in the narrow, steel-and-glass confines of an elevator - the discovery of their shared love for brash hair-styling.

You get the idea.

I imagine the matrimonial classified - female, 24, well-placed in boring, monontous office job invites alliance from similar background. Must have bad haircut and a taste for vulgar dyes. Cheap, tasteless dress sense preferred.

Another couple near me sip their coffee placidly, darting occasional, lust-filled looks at each other, over the white porcelain rims of their coffee cups. They sit in silence, filmy music blaring through the silence that hangs between, like a corpse. No conversation or banter. I watch them, and their furtive romancing, and wonder where the attraction lies. They are dessicated husks of people - dry skin stretched haphazardly over thin, rickety bones. In simultaneous, mirrored motions, they unpin their BPO office badges. Voice accent trainers? Do they pretend foreign identities during night shifts? Basvaraj or Bill? Naina or Nancy? By what names do they call each other?

I can imagine their matrimonial night, when they clasp each other in a rigid, clinical fashion, skin barely touching, and he thrusts (just the smallest, littlest bit) of himself into her. He murmurs her name - "Nancy," he cries, forgetting her real name, her birth name. Afterwards, as they lie apart, on the white sheets, smelling of disinfectant and plastic, her eyelids drift down, and just before she falls asleep, she wishes "Bill" a good night...

"Bill" and "Nancy" look up, catch me watching them. Ashamed, embarassed I look away.

A new song blasts overhead, a shrill-voiced songstress screeches -

"This is a hip-hopper...
Come Hip-hopper, come and love me."

I gag, over the sheer horror of the lyrics, which sound even more atrocious in Hindi. I look up, and catch a man ogling the song-stress on screen, shaking her derrière to the fast beat of the song, so fast that her short skirt, barely covering her ass, rides just the teensiest bit up. I watch him, nursing his expresso, salivate and crane his neck, hoping to see just a little bit more - even though the image is a flat, recorded image.

I laugh, and he whips about, surprised and panicking, offended at having been caught.

Another voyeur, like myself - except I prefer live objects to observe.

I look away, searching for a fresh object to observe. I catch a woman beside my table, in the act of twitching the pages of her newspaper open. The front spread obscures her face, as she holds it up to read.

And then it slams into me.

Sam dreams she is an armour-clad knight. Steel kisses her skin, sweat drips down her face, stinging her eyes. She tightens her grip on her lance, it's weight heavy in her hand. Through her visor, she squints at her challenger, a dazzling steel-clad figure. His helmet, burning white under the fierce sun, blinds her eyes. He breaks into a run.

Sam urges her horse forward. Their lances clash, the loud ring of steel-upon steel deafens her ears. Head ringing, she feels her bones melt, her tendons scream, her muscles shriek in agony. Yet she clings, desperate, to her seat, barely staying upright, as her opponent, dazed, tumbles into the dust.

She has won.

Sam dreams. Of a spider, crouching in the shadows, edging slowly towards her, it's black, pincer-like limbs reaching for her. Stunned, she is still for a moment, until the hideous, enormous, black appendage brushes her skin. The spider's touch is rough, like sandpaper, coarse hair prickling her arm.

The spider hovers above her, it's huge, cavernous mouth just above her, saliva trailing from it's jaw.

Sam shudders and awakens. She stares at a blinking white computer screen before, letters dancing before her eyes, a slow dance that is killing her mind.

She shudders again. She remembers the arm-wrenching joust, the enormous spider. She yearns for something else - for pain, excitement and adventures.

Anything. But not the hypnosis of the computer screen, seeping past her skull, crawling through her neural pathways, infecting her brain cells with boredom, slowly, indidiously. Anything else.

Even death.