Of Mothers and Names

The boy didn't know his name. To be fair, he had a number of epithets to his credit - The traffic policeman who monitored the junction where the boy sometimes begged referred to him as "that little ****." The sisters at the convent who had tried, briefly, to reform him, had thrown up their hands in exasperation with this "satanic imp." The shopkeeper with whom he had been apprenticed, before he was caught, red handed, secreting away a packet of Good Day biscuits, had called him "Shaitan." But on reflection, the boy decided none of these grand sounding titles really served as a name.
To the best of his knowledge, he didn't have one, he informed the little girl with pigtails at the park.
He had spied her from across the street, playing by herself on the see-saw in the children's corner. Intrigued, he had crept closer, fascinated by the shiny spectacles perched on her little nose. He hadn't seen a child, so young, wearing spectacles, and had never discovered the magical purpose these gleaming, transparent pieces of glass, glinting and sparkling in the morning light, served.
The little girl had tossed her pigtails proudly, and had informed him that her brand-new spectacles were on account of her weak eyesight. She told him this, as if it was an honor conferred upon her for some outstanding, meritorious deed.
The boy was indeed awed. The little girl, struck by such admiration in a child older than her, had invited him to play with her. But before he could take the opposite seat in the see-saw, she had asked his name.
She was astonished, when he shrugged his shoulders and told her he didn't have one.
How could that be? She exclaimed. How could one not have a name?
The boy scratched his head, and shrugged again.
We...ellll, she had lisped, in a condescending tone, she had a name. And was extremely proud of it - "Natasha Mehra. "It's spelt - N-A-T-S-A" she haughtily informed the boy, having just learned to spell her whole name. She frowned at the end, something wasn't quite right - had she spelled her name properly?
But the boy didn't realize her mistake, not knowing how to spell himself. He was far too occupied pondering the significance of having a name, moreover - having a name that one could spell.
Unimagined vistas were opening up before him.

But the little girl had grown impatient. Folding her chubby arms across her chest, she had told him that she didn't think it was possible to play with someone who had no name.
For the first time in his short life, the boy felt an intense sense of loss. It squeezed his chest, hammered at his ribs, twisted in his stomach. He was different, and being different meant that this little girl, with her pigtails, glasses and pink frock, wouldn't play with him.
He started to argue, but suddenly, a grown-up intruded on the scene - a large, matronly woman, with greying hair, a number of chins, and a bosom that merged with her large stomach.
"Jannooo," the woman had called shrilly, "Jannooo, come here at once! What are you doing there talking to that dirty ruffian? Come here!"
The woman had come closer, and glared fiercely at the boy. "You," she said, stabbing a finger in his direction, "go away now! You shouldn't be here, little beggar boys aren't supposed to be here! Go away, or I'll call the police."
The park was a public park, and the police couldn't do much to the boy for frequenting it, but these were not points that he wished to raise. He had been yelled at before, countless times - but for the first time, the boy felt hurt, sad and angry.
Still fuming, the woman had led little Natasha Mehra away. Natasha, pulled away, had waved bye.
He had burst into tears then.

Later that evening, perched under a flyover, he struggled to come to terms with all the questions and feelings the encounter in the park had incited. The traffic policeman, coming on duty, had noticed him. "Why you little *****, I've told you not to come here again! Go away now!"
The boy had raised his tear-stained face, and suddenly the policeman was at a loss for words.
"What's wrong?" the policeman asked gruffly.
The boy asked, "What's a name?"
The traffic policeman felt old and weary, all of a sudden. Was it part of his job to explain to a little beggar boy, what a name was?
He struggled for words. "A name is....everyone has a name. It's given to you when you're born, so that people can tell who you are...call you...." he gave up then. "Don't you have a name?"
The boy shook his head.
"Didn't your mother give you a name?"
The boy shook his head again. "I didn't have a mother. At least...." he frowned, suddenly, because he knew this much - everyone, every child had a mother, every child came from a mother. "I don't know her....can't remember her."
The policeman had sighed, and then moved away, leaving the boy alone with his thoughts. The boy chewed his lip, as he tried to remember another time - a time when he was not stealing, or begging or being chased.
He couldn't remember life being any different.
There were holes in his life - the absence of a name, of a mother, of memories. And now there was a hole inside him too, a growing emptiness.
He had always been alone, but for the first time, he felt alone.

He cried himself to sleep that night, under the flyover, as cars and motorcycles whizzed past.

The next morning, he was determined to make a change.
He picked a name.
For a while, he called himself "Company." He had crept into a cinema, stealthily, when Ram Gopal's masterpiece was playing, and swept away by the film, had christened himself "Company." But the other children, who frequented the junction under the flyover, had scoffed at his choice.
"Company isn't a name," said Raju, the blind beggar boy who could, in truth, see very well. "It's a thing. It's not a proper name."
Then what is a proper name, Company had asked.
Padma, the ten year old magazine seller, replied - "Salman, Dino, John, Saif, Vivek, Shahrukh.." reciting the familar littany of film stars, figuring on the covers of the magazines she hawked during redlights.
Company then, after careful consideration, selected "Amitabh" as his name, after his favourite filmstar. For a while, he did imitations of the Big B's husky voice, and donned the sunglasses that Amitabh had sported in AKs, which he procured, through questionable means, from the shop window of G B Opticians.
Amitabh liked to tell people that one day, he too wanted to be a filmstar. And Amitabh felt, for the time being at least, a new name warranted a new profession, a new start in life. He started scalping tickets at the local cinema.
Occasionally, during the crush of people queing for a sold-out show on the weekend, Amitabh would dip his light, quick fingers into the pockets of unsuspecting cinema-goers, and emerge from the crush clutching a wallet, a purse, a few loose notes.
It was a step up from begging at traffic lights.

Years passed. Amitabh became Jai, then Abhishek, then Mustapha, Raja, Ismail. Then Thomas. He was a tea boy, a gangster, a blind beggar, a pimp and a paan-seller.
Now, he is Karan, a taxi driver who lives in a one-room flat with Rosie, a former dance-bar girl.
But that hole remains, inside him, threatening to swallow him.
Every night, he is visited by the same dream that's haunted him from the time he first learned of mother and names. He dreams of a tall, exquisitely beautiful woman, so beautiful that it hurts too look at her. Walking away from him, the white pallu of her sari fluttering.
She turns to look at him, opens her arms and smiles.
Her lips part, she is on the verge of calling to him.
But before he hears the name on her lips, he awakens, always. He feels his heart squeeze, his veings constrict, hears his own breathless panting echo around the small, one-room apartment.
He curses, turns to the other side, and slides into into a nameless, dreamless sleep.

MITOSIS

It's screaming inside me. My heart. It's splitting into two. Where there was one heartbeat, there are now two. I feel flesh wrench from flesh, muscle tear, bone divide.

When it is over, I see with two pairs of eyes. There are two tongues, two noses, four ears. It's too much for my brain to handle. I see double, feel double. My bodies crash into each other. There are four sets of hands, twenty fingers to manipulate. I move my right feet to take a step forward, but I trip and fall over myself.

Again and Again.

It's a battle to master two bodies. My mind is buzzing always. What do I call myself? Sam 1 and 2? Who came first? Which body, which mind takes priority?

And then there is desire. Sam 2 is hungry but Sam 1 wants to sleep. To be awake and yet asleep? To eat and to not eat? To walk and to sit?

Contradictions.

I pick up things with the wrong hand. I tie my shoe laces wrong. I put the wrong shoes on the wrong feet. I eat with the wrong hands. My sari pallu falls on the wrong side. The fork ends up in my right hand, and the knife in the left. Across the table my mirror image smiles at me, grasping the right implements in each hand.

Wrong, wrong. Wrong.

I read my watch wrong. It's 11:40. I rush to a meeting scheduled for 12, hoping that I won't be late. But I land up five hours late. It's actually 5:10.

I want to sleep. But I can't sleep. My dreams are brief, my naps fitful. There's always one brain awake, buzzing, while the other sleeps. I watch over my own dreams, I curb my own desires, I wake myself before a nightmare seizes me.

A shadow. A mirror.

I know my features better than I have ever known them. I have seen my face change. I know how others look at me. I know more about myself than I ever wanted to.

I hate myself.

Now I never dream, never sleep. I stay awake at nights. My hands twitch, uncontrollably. I'm losing control. I try to stand up, but only one leg stretches out. I can't sit. I'm never alone. I stare at myself - my other self, the shadow who bogs my dreams, my steps.

But which is me? Which me do I hate?

A story in Eleven Parts

I. A foetus, no bigger than a fingernail, was growing inside her womb. Kadru knew this, vomiting the insides of her stomach, hunched over the white porcelain sink. She pushed her hair back and peeked into the grimy mirror. I hope It's not a girl, she thought, staring back at herself.

II. The doctor peered over his spectacles at Kadru, fixing her with a cold, disapproving glance. What you ask of me is wrong, he meant to say. But he didn't. She slid the money across the table. He tucked it away into his shirt pocket.
He spoke, breaking the heavy silence that hung between them. "It's a girl."
Kadru went home. She closed the doors and windows, pushing out every last bit of light. She lay on the bed, sweating in the stuffy darkness, as her heart and mind fought. What to do? She fanned herself with the edge of her pallu. The air was heavy, fetid. She counted the minutes till her husband would arrive from the office. What to do, what should she do, what did she want to do?

III. Kadru closed her eyes and pressed her fingernails into her palms. She gritted her teeth. Blood poured out between her thighs, and the foetus slipped out - tiny, no bigger than the palm of one's hand. The abortionist picked up the tiny scrap of flesh, a frail, delicate thing. Like an albino alien. She tossed it in the garbage dump outside.
But it wasn't dead. In the darkness, when dogs howled and cats shrieked, a tiny figure peered out of the shadows. It opened it's miniscule, blind eyes and stared at the night.

IV. Dawn broke, and light flooded the thing's eyes. It slouched back into the dark shadows, observing the street as it awoke. It watched the nieghbourhood dogs fights, the milkman go by on his cycle. The day pressed on, cars and trucks and scooters sped by. Housewives came out of their homes, still attired in their long, frilly night dresses, to harangue harassed vegetable sellers.
And as night dawned again, the foetus began to think. What am I? Who am I? What am I to do?
It tottered into the night, on its small feet. It passed a crow, pecking on the scraps of garbage thrown in the street.
The foetus asked, What am I?
The crow cawed and shrieked in revulsion. I don't know. But you look like a tiny man thing. A very tiny man thing, that hasn't been fully made. Like you shouldn't have been hatched yet. Sick. I haven't seen your kind before.
The foetus quavered. I'm a monster, the foetus thought. An abomination.
Minutes passed. The crow ruffled his feathers, shamefacedly. I'm sorry.
You are still here?
Yes, the crow cawed, tossing a half-empty packet of milk to the foetus. Drink.

V. In the years to come, strange stories crept through the neighbourhood. About a demon, a spirit, a tiny half-human thing, that could be spotted flying through the skies, astride a crow.

VI. I was a man once, the crow said. I think.
You were?
The crow ruffled his feathers. There is a house at the edge of a city. A dark house, with twisted mango trees in the front, blocking out the sunlight. Strange things hide in the shadows and dark corners of this house. Ghosts and spirits. A magician lives there. He is impossibly old. He turned me into a crow.
Why?
The crow was silent for a moment. I can remember the sound of children splashing, on a hot summer's day. I can remember the smell of perfume, of over-ripe bananas. But more than that I can not remember.
The foetus pondered this.
Could he make me, you think, what I was meant to be? A man-thing?

VII. There was house still, and crooked stumps that dotted the garden. But there was a big hole in the roof, and rubble, pieces of cement and plaster filled the house. The steps were worn, the windows broken. There were queer shadows, that seemed to move, even in the absence of light, but there was no man there. In the backyard, they found a pile of broken bones, shards of glass, and a human-sized skull, picked clean. Here the grass had been scorched, as if by fire, and nothing grew.
There's no one here, a squirrel told them. No one for years.

VIII. The foetus was left with a dream. And impossibly, it began to hope.
I want to be a man, it told the crow.
And the crow sighed.

IX. The foetus peered in through the window. A man sat, spectacles perched on the end of his nose, rifling through the pile of papers that cluttered his desk. The foetus carefully crawled through a crack in the window pane.
The man looked up. He heard the sound of a dull thud, as the foetus scrambled past the pane, and crawled onto the ledge.
The man heard a voice.
What are men before they are born?
The man looked around, amazed. But he saw nothing.
What makes a man?
The man turned his head. He failed to see the scrap of flesh on his window ledge, clinging to the curtains. The man knelt on the carpet, and bent his head.
He began to pray.

X. The foetus wept.
The crow pecked at a loose feather. Men see only what they want to see.
The foetus raised his face, his tear-stained unformed face, to the sun. We don't belong in their world.
And for the first time ever, it laughed.

XI . For many years after, in that town, there were stories, of an invisible angel that visited men and spoke with a human voice. Stories of food and books that went missing. Tales of black feathers found behind an altar, between the pages of a book. Of a half-man, half-bird that a child once saw on her windowsill at night. These were tales that men of science and reason scoffed at; but old women and children whispered to each other behind closed doors.
Stories of magic. Stories, that for some strange reason, gave hope.

Madness

I live with Madness. We are two, trapped in a cell with walls that reach to infinity. Smooth walls, that we can not scale. There is no way out. We turn to each other, our nails grown long and gnarled, our stomachs and minds hungry. We tear and rent skin, we snap at flesh, we crunch on bone.

I clutch Madness. She, protean, changes in my grasp. I hold an old woman, a moment later, a snarling child slips my grasp. There are feral glints in her eyes. In seconds, she matures into a full-grown woman. She walks with pride, there is beauty and grace in her movements. But I see jealousy, I smell anger, her tongue flicks out, like a dragon, and her breath is hot with fire.

There is a flaw that beats in her brain, like a pulse, polluting her blood, infecting her senses. She sees black in white, and darkness where there is sunshine. Where there is beauty, she sees ugliness, where one finds pleasure, she is tortured by pain. Her moans poison the air, fill my ears. I clutch my head, press my fingers into my ears, to block her sound. But some particle slips past and swirls into my head. I am infected, Madness blossoms inside of me. I hear her laugh, her manic laugh in my brain, and I feel her fire burn my insides.

I douse myself in cold water. Madness retreats. It is now just a slow poison that blocks my brain and leaves me sluggish.

Meanwhile she has changed. She is a starving, wide-eyed child. Her skin hangs off her bones, her jaw falls slack. She looks at me, but doesn't see me. When I approach, she shies away. When I touch, she bites me. I stare at flesh, blood drips - she sucks at my wound, and the madness is borne away.

I hammer at the walls. There is no way out. Every day, the walls move closer. I cry, I shriek for help - but no one comes. I hear nothing of the outside world. There must be world, beyond this - I think - beyond her and me.

She is dying at dusk. How do I know it is dusk? The sun is too far overhead for us to see, this walls stretch to infinity. But the shadows darken and lengthen. She lies on the floor, her flesh weak.

I force food down her throat. She struggles but I pin her down.

She falls asleep. I wonder if perhaps, we are the only two in the world. I have never seen anyone else. Perhaps it is just us.

I scream. A hand seems to grasp my heart, squeeze my breath out. The walls move closer, the ground seems to tilt. She sits up now, stares at me. She pulls me away from the wall. My nails are bleeding - I stare at them. I hear howling. Her mouth is closed. I am howling.

She smiles. She places her hand over my mouth. I bite her palm. She jerks back in surprise. There is anger in her eyes, in the twist of her mouth. She bares her teeth, and wraps her hands around my throat. She presses down, choking me. I struggle, my vision blurs. I kick, I ram my hands into her soft, child-like body. I dig my nails into her arms.

Finally she falls off. Now she lies, spent, on the floor.

We both lie, unmoving.

Night comes.

How will it end, I wonder? I can not remember how it began. But we have always been here, her and I, in this cramped space, in this windowless, cell.

I wonder if there is a God. A demon. Good and Evil. Sometimes, I think, if there is only two of us, one of us must be God, one of us must be the devil. One of us with the power to create, one of us with the power to kill. But here, trapped in this space, our powers cancel out.

A vision visits me. I am clothed in diamonds and black, she is wearing pearls and white. We stand next to each other. I wear a crown of blue feathers, she wears one of red. I smell blood. I look down. There is a headless body before me, sprawled on the ground by my feet, blood staining the edge of my robe. I touch my hands to my face, there is blood dripping down my mouth. I spit out a bone. I look at her, her mouth is red, her teeth sharp and pointed. She opens her mouth wide, I glimpse an eyeball on her tongue.

A moment later we are running through a dark forest. A herd of townspeople follow us, crying in rage, bearing pitchforks and torches. A sorcerer leads them, he weaves a spell and flings it at us. We are caught, in his spell, and around us, jagged boulders rise, like teeth, from the earth. We are trapped. The sorcerer laughs, and the spaces between the stones disappear. We are imprisoned in a room, with high walls.

I wake up, screaming. She is leaning over me, her mouth open. She grabs my hand and brings her mouth down on it. Her teeth pierce my skin, graze my bone. I scream and shake her off. I throw her against a wall. A bone snaps, and she lies, broken.

Was it a dream or a memory?

Madness lies asleep, her bones have healed. I try to dig the ground, but it is hard stone, and refuses to budge.

I wonder what I look like. Do I look lke Madness? Is my face the same as hers? Sometimes, when I look at her, I feel like I am staring at a mirror. But I do not know what I look like. I have forgotten. I know only the shape of my hands, the shape of my body, but I do not know what is on my face.

When Madness awakens, I take hold of her. I push down her. She wraps her hands around my throat and squeezes. I look at her face. I am suprised. There is no anger, no fire. Her eyes are tired, pleading. There is a question, a word - that eludes me. But I think I know what she means. She tightens her hold. I tighten mine. We both squeeze, strength ebbing. I do not let go. Her hold slakens for a moment, but then, from somewhere, she finds the strength to go on. I can not breathe. My vision turns pink. I can not see Madness, I can barely feel her....there is numbness spreading across....I hope, I hope so much...I hope that...

this
is
how it
ends

THE LIFE OF A CITY

In the mornings -

Men and smart young women walk briskly to offices, laptop bags slung over one shoulder, a leather handbag or brief case clutched in one hand, a mobile phone clasped in the other.

School buses shudder across roads, crawl past manholes, and jolt over speedbreakers. Screaming children hang out of the windows, waving soot-spotted handkerchiefs.

In the afternoons -

Old women sit by their window sills, parting curtains covered in soot and grime, drinking weak tea, watching cars and cycles pass below.

The sound of a hundred rival soap operas playing on a thousand television screens, the sounds of snores, of love-making, of phonecalls and barking dogs push past closed doors, and merge into a blurred cacophany.

In the evenings -

Mothers bring their children out to the parks. They sit silently on benches covered in pigeon droppings, and watch their children play. Their hair is pinned up, hap-hazardly, in a straggly bun. There is something strange in their gaze - at once abstracted and familiar. They look as if the world is passing them by. They sigh, absently, and move a lock of hair back, as the wind stirs.

In houses, husbands and wives glare each other. A heavy silence hangs between them, full of unsaid things. A door bangs, a tear falls, a car speeds away.

A child sits, by a window, watching the sunset. He jumps up, when he hears a car back into the garage. But it's the neighbors. A maid comes in, with dinner on a tray, and leaves it on a nearby table. The child pushes the tray away.

In the nights -

Lovers meet, for a tryst, but they are tired and fall asleep.

The beat of a nearby night-club keeps a secretary, living alone in a squalid, one-room apartment, up the whole night. Unable to sleep, she gets up and crouches by her tiny window, watching beautiful, rich young men and women cue outside the night club. A glint of gold jewellery catches her eye. She turns to see a young woman, her age, dressed in a tight red skirt, with stiletto heels. She is laughing, one hand wrapped around a handsome man. The secretary recognizes the man - he is an actor from a prime-time soap.

A car drives past, stops and blocks her view. When the car passes, the couple have disappeared.

She sighs, and tries to go back to sleep.

Past midnight -

The city is asleep. Men and women toss in their beds, in the clutches of Dream. As one young man, writhes. He moans, he sweats. He grimaces, asleep, in pain.

Finally, he awakens. He rolls across his bed, opens his drawer, and pops a pill. He sinks back into bed, and falls asleep. A dream uncoils from his head, slides out in a whispery, grey vapour from his ear, and drifts into the sky, to join a poisonous Cloud of Dreams, hovering above the earth.

The cloud shrieks, flashes, and moans. It rolls across the sky, and goes to torment the sleep of others.
.
When the young man awakens, he can not remember his dreams.

And so the days -

Are changeless, mornings fade into afternoon, lapse into evening and slip into night. The months march past, patterned by such days, the seasons move in a steady progression, as the stars slowly shift their places in the night sky.

Thus years pass.

The people of this city live their lives in this constant, unvarying fashion - a life of mornings, evenings and nights, a life of absent dreams, pregnant silences and forgotten longings.

The Laughter of God

The first time

It was a black day, when it first happened. Dark, heavy thunderclouds, pregnant with the promise of rain, rolled across the sky, blotting out the sun. Lightening flashed, followed by the dull roar of thunder, and a moment later, the first raindrops began to fall.

I sought shelter in the doorway of a bookshop, standing beside a woman, with lank, greasy hair. She reached inside the pocket of her oversized, battered leather jacket, and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She was polite enough to offer me one, but when I declined, she shrugged, and lit a cigarette. The smoke rose from her mouth, from the glowing cigarette end, and hung in the air for a moment. In that moment, it seemed to me, the smoke took on the semblance of a form - a grinning horned sprite, with red eyes. The sprite opened his mouth, to reveal a flickering, snake-like tongue, and rows of pointed, sharp teeth. He began to laugh- a horrible, mad sound.

The sound of terror, the sound of chaos.

How can I describe the sound? It was the sound of horns blaring, sirens wailing, children laughing and dogs barking. The sound of the universe tearing.

I shivered, trembling, my palms slick with sweat, my heart beating hard in my chest.

The woman next to me, the one who was smoking, tugged at my sleeve. "You okay?" She asked, a little concerned. "You look like you're coming down with a fever." The wind rose, as she spoke, blowing away the mad, grinning face of smoke.

I shook my head, stunned. She turned away, and took another long puff on her cigarette. I watched, mesmerized, as she exhaled, waiting for the smoke to transform into another strange, animated vision. But nothing happened this time, the smoke remained smoke, ascending in a slow, sleepy spiral towards the heavens.

The next time

I was sitting at a coffee shop, alone. In the table in front of mine, a man waited, watching the clock. Minutes passed, he grew more agitated. He pulled out a cellphone, flipped it open, and scrolled down for a number. His finger hovered above the green call button, and as the seconds ticked by, his indecision mounted. Finally, he flipped his phone close, and laid it on the table, in front of him, watching the LCD screen.

Nothing happened, no one called. He pulled his phone towards him, and repeated the same ritual over the next fifteen minutes, innumerable times. The last time, he stared glumly at the glowing LCD screen, before pocketing the phone. He moved to rise, but just as he did - a woman strode into the coffee shop, breezing past the waiters and the other customers. The man's forlorn face broke into a smile. She
reached him, and pecked him on the cheek. They sat down, and he reached across the table, to hold her hands, as he whispered to her.

A look of confidence spread across her face. She looked like a cat, with a rat in her grasp, and as she smiled, at her lover, her tongue flicked across her lips, a serpentine, flickering tongue.

My coffee came. I read my book, drank my coffee. When I finally raised my head to summon the waitress, the couple in the table in front of me had left. The waitress came, took down my order, and removed my coffee cup.

There was stain, where the cup had been - a faint, wet ring on the table cloth. Even as I watched, the stain shifted and changed - it was now a face, a grinning, horned face. A smile writhed across the face, and lips opened. Laughter sounded - a sound so loud that it blasted my eardrums. I raised my hands to my ears, to block out the sound. I stumbled across my chair, in an effort to escape the grinning face, the horrible laughter. I shut my eyes.

Moments later, I felt a pair of soft hands on my shoulder. I turned around, and looked up into the waitress' face. She murmured something soothing, and grasping my hands, led me away. As I turned, I saw the table had been overturned, a plate had splintered into pieces on the ground, a chair had been toppled.

Was this the beginning of madness?

The next day

I took the day off from work, and stayed at home, watching clouds sweep over the sky. It was a bright day, the sky was blue, and the clouds looked soft and fleecy, like sheepskin.

A solitary crow flew overhead, giant winds spanning the breadth of the cloud, and darkness descended, as he flew past the sun. I shuddered, suddenly cold, and wrapped my arms around me. A moment later, warm sunlight streamed down again. I smiled, and turned my head, as a black shape flickered at the corner of my eye.

The crow sat on my window sill, watching me.

I was paralyzed by fear, because there was intelligence and menace in his fierce, bright eyes. I was suddenly aware of his sharp beak, of it's capacity to inflict damage. I could imagine, that sharp beak, diving into my soft skin, bright red blood dripping.

But the crow simply opened his beak, and a violent noise filled the air. It was the sound of manic laughter - the sound of chaos and horror, fear.

Was this what the Gods sounded like? What language was this?

I screamed the crow to stop, to shut up. But he cawed, even more fiercely, and I closed my eyes and tumbled into darkness. But even there, in the darkness behind my eyes, the laugh continued to sound.

An eternity passed.

When I opened my eyes, my hands were covered in blood. There was a bloody mess of black feathers on my lap, and there were feathers in my hair, on my hands. Here and there, were sharp, incisive cuts across my hands.

But there was no crow.

What had happened?

Sometime Later

I sat at my desk, in my office. Colourless, blank walls rose about me, and I was confronted with a blinking white screen on my computer. Letters danced before my eyes, I rubbed my face, and the letters and numbers settled back into sentences and phrases.

What was I supposed to be doing?

I frowned, shook my head. Grabbing my mug, I headed for the coffee machine. A pair of lovers - a secretary from Supplies and an accountant from the Fourth Floor hovered by the coffee machine, faces wreathed in smiles, giggling. Their laughter stopped, as I walked into the tiny cabin. The silence was tense, and the accountant left first, hands in his pockets. The secretary left a moment later, after directing a fierce, intense look at me. There was hatred in her eyes. Why?

I returned to my narrow cubicle, and my blinking computer screen. Moments later, a telephone rang. I started, and turned to my right. There was a bright red telephone on the right side of my desk. It was a strange thing - an old-fashioned telephone, the kind with a rotating dial.

I stared at this foreign object. I had never seen it on my table before.

It rang again, insistent. The noise was deafening.

Slowly, I reached for the phone, and picked up the handset.

"Hello?" I ventured, cautiously.

There was silence for a brief instant, and then there was the sound of that same, fiendish, black laughter. It flooded my ears, and paralyzed my brain. And even as it did, the letters and numbers on my computer screen rearranged themselves - into the black form of a grinning, laughing, horned face.

The sight of that face, the sound of that laughter.

I screamed, trying to shut out, blank out the laugher with my scream, but to no avail. I shut my eyes, stoppered my ears, plunged sharpened pencils into my ears, to pierce my eardrums, to stop the sound.

The blackness came, finally, soothing and peaceful.

When I awoke

I was in a white room. There were white walls and white ceilings and white floors - whiteness spreading into infinity. There was no one else here, just me. At first, I didn't mind it, because there seemed no way that the face and the sound could follow me here.

But I was wrong.

Now, I shut my eyes, because even my shadow betrays me, and shapes into that grinning face, with that horrible mouth, and the terrible, earth-shattering laugh.

But I can not shut my eyes forever. And there is nothing here with which I can pierce my eyes, gouge out my eyeballs.

When I open my eyes, the face is in front of me, as large as the entire wall - it's mouth huge and growing. The face spreads and grows, and now it is the size of the entire room, and the mouth is before me, longer and taller than me. The mouth opens, and I see a red, wet tongue, and rows of sharp, pointed teeth, the size of trees. The walls dissolve, and then there is only the face, as big as a mountain, before me.

The tongue slides out of the parted lips, and wraps it's long, sinuous length around me.

I hear the laughter of the Gods, for one, last time.

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Once, as a princess slept, she dreamt. It was a beautiful dream that she dreamt, and as the night wore on, it grew more exquisite. The princess cried in her sleep, tears staining her soft white pillow case - so beautiful was the dream.

A magician, living leagues away in dark tower, smelt the wondrous fragrance of her dream. He followed the scent to her window, and saw that she dreamt the most wondrous dream ever in existence.

He wanted the dream.

He uttered his most powerful incantation, and slowly the dream uncoiled, unwrapped itself from the princess's mind, and drifted into his outstretched palm. He grabbed the dream and locked it in a charmed locket. Then, he fled, with the dream into the darkest part of the night sky, never to be seen again.

The princess died, weeping in her castle.

Poets have written odes to this dream, philosophers have debated it's contents, scientists have searched for it, and sorcerers have cast webs of magic into the night sky, hoping to catch this dream.

But no one has found it.

I am still looking for the dream.