Reassurance

“One is livelier when they’re afraid or mortified!”

“The hair on the nape rises with a sharper thrill.”

“And the wind, the wind itself brings memories in a flurry, in a randomly woven fabric of misfortunes, gruesome reminisces and shameful recollections!”…

… Bellowed the televisor in front of Ralph, flashing images of soldiers trapped in combat; of helpless mothers pressing their children closer to them, awaiting the bomb. And of a solemn man with a melancholy face, hanging on the foot-board of a train, one foot let loose in the air, breaking into momentary snivels with each passing electrical post.

“The power of abject fear, of remorse and sadness itself is such that it forges a thick association with the person who undergoes the tribulations of such sentimental turmoil. They remember it much more vividly than any occasion of paramount glee. A violent, hot headed partner sends stronger chills, than any ideal lover can make one ticklish. Hence it is convenient to become fond, or in other words, a prey of demonic memories.”

The screen got cut off at this point with a static, and darkness spread out as a shrill whirring sound faded. Ralph’s face became tense but in a second, the booming sound of drums filled the room. On the televisor, a line of smartly dressed men walked single file. They were in dark blue uniforms, jaded around the collars, pockets and sleeves. Each had a gun tied around their waist in newfangled arsenals. But all of them wore the same expression of disregard for everything, but their servility to the man in front of the line.

“All the men! Take stance!” he shouted out. All the soldiers, in unison, taking the same angle of deviation, turned and faced the mesa to the west, where the sun was now descending. Dusk was still ripe, yet the light was going fast, as the eastern gusts brought grey clouds, tar-esque black on the fringes. The man in front of the line, broke away and tracing a geometrical path, walked along the monotonous, boring faces of his lapdogs.

Stopping at a young lad of about sixteen, with tufts of ginger hair and pock-marks across his cheeks, he stomped his left foot on the ground and retreated five paces behind. He drew his gun, and without word or signal or even the honour of a moment’s glance, shot him right in the chest and sent the instantly lifeless body, jerking into the ground.

The televisor then faded into an image of a luscious garden with a strong fledging tree. The fruits were big and seemed succulent. The sunlight in that garden was soothing, with a calm breeze and the view had a soul comforting pinkish tint. It would be the sort of ranch where you could start your own animal farm and live life peacefully forever after.

“Hopelessness or vilification of hope is as good as conveying a very strong message of accepting such a defeat, one that comes with no valour,  pride or reprieve, but one that haunts with pain, servility and impotence. Why a mother trapped in a war torn region, awaiting the bomb, the tiny, trifle speck in the sky, draws strength to face the impending doom from hope. That is how she has the strength to clutch her children close to her, muttering a pointless prayer and enjoy the final cheerful moments with them, to ease them into death.”

Just around the tree, there are swivel chairs installed, that look upholstered for the greatest of comforts. A group of women enter and lounge on them. They chatter and giggle, albeit powerlessly and with a lack of vigour, uncharacteristic of the activity as conducted by the generations before them. Silence befalls the garden as a stinging whistle pierces through the otherwise magical land.

Old women, with faces strewn with contours and chins sagging for the absence of teeth enter with some complex equipment, enter. The head of this group, retrieves a packet, apparently containing some pills from her small purse. Now walking through the festoon of the younger women lounged varily on the said comfortable chairs, she hands each one half a tablet of the one milligram dose of ‘Lactation X’ chemical.

As the women submissively pop the pill, the other women rush to connect tubes to their nipples- part of a comatose body now- which are then collectively connected to a giant, monstrous metallic box, which makes a funny mechanical noise, as it vainly tugs away the milk from their glands. The camera cuts to a shot of a label on this mammoth machine. It reads “BABY”.

The televisor adds, “The women, unless a century ago ardently hoped for equal treatment in a society politically and a reality biologically- and unjustly so- dominated by men.  And now they wallow as humanity’s servants, being in truth, an even part of it. Because all hope in them was forfeited.”

All the women fade into disappearance and the heavenly garden remains on the screen. Chirps of different birds form a melodious choir in the background, and a herd of young deers comes near the tree and runs about carefree.

“No matter how preposterous it may seem, the possibility of hope, it still breeds bravery in people. It helps us preserve our identities in face of extreme adversity. It is what keeps a mother alive, the hope of reconcile with her estranged son. The glimmer of hope, of a future prospect that takes a man out of narcotic vices. It is hope that keeps people together, in their blissful union, in a peaceful arrangement of mutual benefit. Hope the world doesn’t lose it.”

The screen faded to black and the televisor was automatically shut a few moments later. Ralph stayed put in his chair.

The room around was dark and solitary, lest for the mellow light coming in through the window at the back. A pot was kept near the window, one with a blithe design. Its radiance glowed in the background of mild light. The lone chrysanthemum in it, fluttered gracefully in the breeze.

Streams of penitent tears flowed down his cheeks. Ralph was sitting in a room at the “Psychology Aid for the Defeatists Center” in Hutchinson, a research town to maintain the balance between dystopia and anarchy.

 

Award

Not a silent whisper passed between them through the day. Bhaumik sat at the diwan by the window, as he usually sat by the window, reclined against a pile of cushions, reading a book. It was routine, the cold absence of interaction between his parents.

When his father entered the living room, his mother was forced to retreat to the narrow hallway passage. She used to sit curled up on the floor, idly comforting herself to the chill of the bare wall. Whenever he entered the kitchen, he would growl, and she would hurriedly scuttle out of there, in a clumsy state of panic, often stubbing a toe on the corner table.

Grown accustomed to this prostate equation between his parents, Bhaumik was apathetic towards it. He just spent the entire day, sitting by the window, like he sat by the window, reading a book- lost in the world of three men on an adventure and in the jolly conquests of their dog Montmorency. He was intentionally oblivious to the rasps that left red marks on his mother’s cheeks, and even the tendency with which tears would start trickling down her face, uncalled for, every now and then.

And when his eyes would grow tired of the reading and he could not lounge by the window anymore, he would just call out for dinner and at once his mother would fetch him his plate. Without as much as a croak of gratification, he would snatch the plate from her hand and gobble down the food hungrily, his mother’s much toiled after preparations, the ones his father often loudly tasteless.

With as much indifference he would restore his position by the window and shout out for water, and his mother, with a smile of friendly approach, hidden under the trauma of a black eye, would readily fetch a glass for him. She waited for him until he had gulped the entire of it, maybe secretly wanting to converse, but he would send her off with the empty glass, in a wordless dismissal.

When his father would be done with dinner, his mother tended to the used plates at the sink, in the far removed corner of the house, distant from every nook, lost in an oblong reverie of her own. His father would finish watching the day’s bulletin, half dazed by the technicolour effect of the tele-screen, and call out for his mother, in lieu with the receding static of the entertainment set.

Bhaumik sat by the window, now his bed made there, without him even realising. At his father’s call, petrified creases would engulf the wistful face that his mother always wore. One. Enter. No. Two. At once. No. The deafening, violent connecting bark of palm to cheek.

His mother would quietly enter his father’s room, and the man himself would take his time, in following after her, shutting the door behind them. A momentary thought would cross Bhaumik’s mind, something very vague, perhaps something he had seen at the Opera. Maybe he had even resonated with it, then. But the previous Opera show was last week. And at the moment, he busied himself in updating his insouciant friends about the plot devices he had managed to master through the day over the phone.

His one sided dalliance with his digital buddies would be interrupted by the hasty opening of his father’s door, and his mother rushing out of it. She would hurry to the bathroom right at the corner, and douse her red face with frantic splashes of water. He would always wonder if she were weeping even then.

She would come out, wiping her face with the hem of her saree, and give him another glass of water that he didn’t ask for, but he had for long craved. She would lay a mat next to the diwan, drifting off to sleep as her head hit the pillow.

He would steal an affectionate and proud glance at her barely peaceful face, but before either emotion could fully grasp his mind and heart, he would resume reading his book, sitting at the window, like he always sat at the window.

 

Pain

Curse you! — Winnie, you devil… I’ll…

“Bah!” He shook her off, roughly, and she fell, a crumpled heap at his feet. Oliver Creed saw it all. — Saw his own wife thus treated by a man who was little more than a fiend. — His wife, who, scarcely an hour ago had kissed him, as she lingered caressingly over the dainty cradle cot, where the centre of their universe lay sleeping. Scarcely an hour ago — and now he saw her, the prostrate object of another man’s scorn; the discarded plaything of a villain’s brutish passion.

She rose to her knees, and stretched her delicate white arms in passionate appeal toward the man who had spurned her.

“Steven, don’t you understand? You never really cared for her. It was a moment’s fancy — a madness, and will pass away. It is I you love. Think of those days in Paris. Do you remember when we went away together, Steven, you and I, and forgot everything How we went down the river, drifting with the stream as it wound its way like a coil of silver across the peaceful pasture lands. Oh, the scent of the May and lilac blossoms that morning! The songs of the birds, the joy of watching the swallows sweeping across the river before us — Steven, you have not forgotten? It was the first day you kissed me. — Hidden in that sheltered sweetness where only the rippling sunbeams moved upon the myrtle-tinted stream — Steven, you have not forgotten!”

The man crossed the room, and leaned upon a table, not far from where she crouched, gazing down at her with a look from which she shrank away.

“No,” he said bitterly, “I have never forgotten!”

Still kneeling, she moved nearer, and laid a trembling hand on his knee:— “Steven, don’t you understand? I must leave England at once. I must go into hiding somewhere — anywhere — a long way from here. I killed her, Steve, for your sake. I killed her because she had taken you from me. They will call it murder. But if only you will come with me, I do not care. In a new country we will begin all over again — together, you and I.” Oliver Creed saw and heard it all. This abandoned murderess was the woman who had sworn to love and honour him until death should part them. So this was — yes, and more than that. But Oliver made no movement.

Was he adamant? Had the horror of the scene pained him?

Or was it just that he realised his own impotence?

The man she called Steven raised her suddenly, and drew her to him in a passionate embrace.

“There is something in your eyes,” he said fiercely, “that would scare off most men. It’s there now, and it’s one of the things that make me want you. You are right, Winnie. I am ready. We will go to Ostend by the early morning boat, and seek a hiding place from there.”

She nestled close to him, and their lips met in a long, sobbing kiss. And still Oliver Creed gave no sign — raised no hand to defend his wife’s honour — uttered no word of denunciation — sought no vengeance against the man who had stolen her affections. Was it that he did not care? No… not that, only… don’t you realise? He was in the second row of the stalls!

 

 

She

Standing at the edge of the wide table, she takes in a long drawn breath. Puff! And the irrelevant faces of her lackeys- those boot licking fawners- escape from her mind. She rules them all and she rules them good. Sitting at the table, they do nothing but nod and are, in general, capable of nothing outside her bidding.

Manfred ‘Manny’ Boris, with his thick bulbous nose and pointy jaw, Karen Burke with her round arms and ugly hair and Luther Reigns with his part handsome, part timid countenance all sat under the shadow of her commanding frame.

She gave in the day’s brief, and just like the whistle from a factory, her final word was cue for them to file out of the room, gathering their papers in neat bundles. Now the identity of these individuals might be wrongly conceived as her opinion of them. But in truth, she was kind and even friendly with them. She seemed to enjoy her time with them at coffee breaks and the office as a whole had undertaken many trips and treks together. She was indeed thick with the entire clan.

Boris in particular had at one point grown really close to her. They had shared conversations over coffee, exchanged books, gone out for a couple of movies and had even spent a magical evening at the opera. But he had mistaken her companionship and had irredeemably fallen in love with her.

The discovery of his feelings was nothing short of startling for her and what followed was nothing less than disappointing. Even before she herself could be comfortable with the revelation, Boris started being a prick. But she didn’t want to lose out on a dear friend and hence she tried inwardly, to imbibe upon herself, an even level of fondness as Boris appeared to bestow upon her.

It tore on the inside- the inability to reciprocate the feelings, for she herself had known rejection very well. It had been her dear succour for years altogether. She would go to bed aware of the fact that despite of whatever she did, she would be a rung below the dolls that were only endowed in places that seemed to matter to them. She had braved apathy from peers and withstood leers from dud boys and decrepit men.

The beauty of the body didn’t lure her as much as success at the ball game. But there too the coach derided her and sent her off for the ‘Ballet- Spectacle’ selections, something that she wasn’t naturally inclined to excel at. Hence inevitably she failed. Every time she conquered one diversion set in her path, she fell flat on her face under the weight of another.

The icy claws of the bloodless rejection followed her home. Often she would be entangled in a scuffle with her father, because to him, she had wasted every opportunity he didn’t get. After every such fight, she would rush to the window and gazing at the stars, the folk symbol of our ancestors, she would wish death upon her father. And her lips would involuntarily spread into a triumphant grin at this shameful thought, and in a moment tears would start pouring down her cheeks in embarrassment.

All this pain had shaped her into the person she was. She had survived and hence she would not settle. Boris would’ve to console himself. She was a leader and a successful leader. If a man had to come by, he would have to be someone forged into the same gold as she was.  Someone whom she would fancy and who would fancy her back. Fancy her, and understand and respect her journey.

Boris would have to console himself.

 

The Edge of Sanity

Nine   –  Legos scattering!

Eight  –  Gouts of hair swiveling!

Seven –   Scrabble letters not cohering!

Six      –  Tea vessels in the basin!

Five    –  Crayola scrawls on the fridge casing!

Four    – Eggs on the pan scrambling!

Three  –  Children shrilly tottering!

Two    – G.I. Joe’s in rattles sparring!

One    –  Cooker whistling!

This perfectly articulates a day in the life of Rose. But her days were no cherry Christmas Carols, not by a long shot. The days could be best described as a song having both soft chords and the hard. High pitches and low pitches. Every morning when her husband left for work, she would be thrilled and blessed to have the next couple of hours before school alone, with Tom, with Ellie and with Max; the three jewels she cherished more than all her husband’s infinite wealth. At the same time she would be terrified and hysterical about having them to herself.

Sometimes her heart would be so full that she would feel that she might burst. And at moments, when the hustle and wavering pace of her days would become an assault on her senses, she would be certain that she’d burst. The two would at times prevail even in the same three minute span.

After hours of bawling and playful banter with the kids, she would pull out Ellie’s thumb which Ellie had so very relishing stuffed in her mouth, get the three dressed, and would see them off to their respective school buses. And then came the real hard part- the solitary part of the day. It was when she would reflect on her life, delve on her past, and think about her marriage.

It was when things took a grip on her, when the thoughts came unglued and unbidden. High-low-High-low-low-low-high-high-screech! At that point all she wanted was to topple the couch and their beds over, scratch the paint and varnish off the wall, shatter the mirrors that did nothing but let her diminishing charm show, and shatter the pots in which life did grow. She wanted to dig her finger nails deep inside the flesh and peel her face off. But a single, isolated veto of rationality always held her back. Trying to stifle her indelible sniveling, she would usually do knitting work instead, which was in itself a rather unpopular activity for a woman in her early thirties.

She knew about them. She had known about them since not long after her marriage. She had read the papers and read his text message conversations. On her unannounced visits, early in the marriage, she had even seen the girls sneaking out of his office, securing buttons and fixing ruffled hair.

“Fortunate are the ones who marry a husband with great fortune”, her friends always told her, sometimes almost begrudgingly. But a successful husband had only bought ruin to her life. He barely gave the family time. Her children could well be termed bastards for the little time they saw their father, for the little they knew of him. And the little she could answer their questions about him. Their bed had grown cold but for the warmth from her tears. His constant and blatant denial of there being any sort of adultery; and the bruises he’d leave on her face after such confrontations had slipped her into an abyss- what many call emotional hell. His philandering, his being distant in all senses and her long forsaken ambitions made her feel the walls closing in on her, pressing her harder- minute by minute, second by second; yet one day…

*

Basilio Antonino, father to Thomas, Maxim and Eleanor Antonino and spouse to his American wife, Rose Antonino, sat at the VIP Lounge of the Casablanca Hotel Bar in Paxterville, miles away from home. Sat at the lounge he did, with a puta perched on his lap. She was stroking his gelled-back hair in between tongue clashes and meanwhile another one was servicing him under the table. Nothing that money can’t buy he reflected.

Far away from home he was and far away from home he always is. Far away from his three lovely little children and from the wife he once so deeply loved. And maybe he still does, he just couldn’t say. But there had always been a strange sort of attraction that he felt towards unknown women. The idea of putting it in a stranger’s flesh was always alluring to him.

His father had essentially been a perro– a wretched creature, yet he remembered him slinging in with an array of women outside of Mama’s knowledge; Mama’s own sister included. Maybe he had taken after that, but he was different. He was no perro, he was a pezzonovante of the show biz. He would never visit a whorehouse under the pretext of office. When he said he was in office, he was there in office. Then if he did feel one of his urges, he would just bank in on one of the many aspirants that lined up outside his office every day, in hopes of making it big. He was a cheater but an honest cheater at that.

Climax. He signaled the putas off and lit a cigar. He did feel the guilt though. Each and every time. Yet when another such situation popped up, desire overpowered guilt. And maybe it was this guilt that kept him distant from his family, why he violently shrugged off all his wife’s allegations and bleating.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a fleeting glimpse. It was the glimpse of a woman- a voluptuous brunette- stealing looks at him from the bar. He shifted his gaze towards her. She must’ve been of age with his wife, which took him back to his first time with Rose. His eyes turned hungry. He wobbled up to the bar, ordered a martini quarter to be delivered to his room at midnight, scrawled something on the slip handed to him, and flicked it across to the woman in his nonchalant fashion. The woman took it and stared at him as if introspecting. He flickered his right eye side to side at her as only he could and she smiled a sensuous smile in response, depositing the slip in her hand bag. The agreement was made.

*

His phone screen lit up and rattled, flashing notification of a new text message. He shuffled hastily under the linen and frisked the desk adjoining his bed for his phone, all the while still half asleep. Opening the eyes took almost all the efforts of his hung over body. His head was pounding, as if being repeatedly dashed against a wall. He had passed out.

Blew gasket with the drinks tonight now, did I? And then it struck him like a bolt of lightning. He was expecting company at midnight. Was it midnight? He realized he had his phone clutched in his hand. There was still a quarter to twelve. Brilliant. He opened the text message. It was from her…uh… the mystery woman with whom he had left his room number. Where did she get my phone number though? His mind supplied an answer immediately: Maybe they printed it out on the slip for the martini. It said he was to expect her in five. Now he was awake and alive.

He opened his door and looked around, scouting the corridor for any intrusion. There was not a sound to be heard. The lights had been dimmed for the night, just enough for one to make out the outline of the objects around him. And then he heard distant footsteps.

He hurried back into the room, making sure to shut the door behind him softly, out of her earshot, if it had indeed been her. He didn’t want to seem desperate. He slid out a drawer from under the wardrobe and took out a bottle of mouth freshener and sprayed it in his mouth. Hastily he spilled a little bit of it. It dripped off his chin and trickled to his neck. That should surprise her when she gets there he thought, sneering childishly at the bad taste of the comment. There was a rather heavy rapping on the door. He took his time in opening it, to suggest that he had been pretty casual in anticipation.

As soon as he slightly opened the door, she forced herself in and shut the door behind him, leaving not even a frame of glimpse in the dark. He quickly locked himself in a wet kiss with her. It was not long before he realized that her lips were rather too rough for a woman. The body that he now embraced was brawny and still, as if chiseled out of stone. That notion was warded off when the muscular arm flexed and tightened a secure grip around his neck and another one scooped him off the ground from around his shin. He was slammed on his bed, torso first. And he almost screamed when he realized what was about to follow, but his assailant tackled that by stifling it with a pillow and landing hard blows on the back of his head. That made him dizzy and gloomy.

The victor of the ‘Hardly a fight’ then tore up his pajamas, and entered him on the back side. The pain of it was blinding and it felt that had added a couple of additional inches, and not where he would’ve liked them. After the third or fourth shove, he lost all feeling in the lower half of the body. Only momentarily though. A stab of pain went through his lower back. He flopped around, in a struggle to find out the source of it. He saw the hilt of something rising from his back, as if marking the brawny man’s conquest over him. Was it a knife? Or was it a cleaver? He could not tell. But what he could tell in those final moments of his life was the feeling of being compromised; of being outraged.

Letters by The Lannisters

It is blind, it is selfless,
The bravest of hearts, the souls of warriors ;
Brute things as such wallow in its pristine mess.
Love is for all and true love is one,
I loved my sister, what wrong had I done?

For love is abstract, but not as vaguely as ties and relations;
It sees no time, it sees no place-
Swaying into the abyss,it works its horrid incantations.

A sister, a mother or the wench next door,
In the end they’re all women at the core;
Easy to fancy, grinding to adore.
But my sister O’ my sweet sister is a filthy whore!

– Jaime Lannister

Oh brother, my one and only succour,
For you three children I readily bore;
Health be to them, health be to you
I answered my needs, what wrong did I do?

Fair is the world, its norms don’t seem;
For all the names upon me you deem.
War wenches and bastards in the realm galore;
Then how does a womam with pride become a filthy whore?

I trusted you, from our time in the womb;
Stroking my hair, in whispers you’d assured,
That hand in hand we shall lay beneath our tomb;
In your embrace the world’s sickness seemed cured.

A price for my endless trust,
By your words my heart’s been crushed;
There’s nothing more to do but find a lover another,
‘Cause it’s hard to be pleased by a crippled brother.

-Cersei Lannister

Essay #1- My first Ruthless Murder

Green, red and blue lights were flickering off my eyes as I was watching a midnight showdown between the two soccer teams I root for. Lounging on the couch- boy could I lounge there or any place else in the house tonight? Yes sir, and undisturbed at that– my hands involuntarily moved to my legs, kneading the fatigue out of them. I could feel the spasms in every muscle and fibre of my body; it had been a long and tiring day after all. But then again, the night and the house and coming with it: the solace was all mine. My,mine, mine and only mine!

Just then I heard a slow yet turbulent thumping from behind the kitchen door which was shut for the night. So tonight I’m destined to meet my Jason Marley came the unbidden salute to Charles Dickens. THUMP THUMP!!. And then a squeak. Snapped out of my whims I reckoned that it must be the rat mummy had been talking about since a couple of days. Upon this uncivil outrage of my tranquility, I gasped- How dare he?!

I rapped at the kitchen door- gently at first, and then landed three loud and heavy strikes, to ward the rat as far away as possible from it. I heard the squeak receding in a few seconds. Coast cleared.

I went inside the kitchen. Blinded, first by the darkness and then by the acute flourescence of light, I shut the door behind me promptly. Leaving no room for a lucky escape for you, little whisker- biscuit asshole you. It was scuttling along the far end of the wall, the one with the window, also currently shut.

I latched the kitchen door, almost on an impulse, although that random,awkward moving creature couldn’t have opened the door with all the strength in the world-latch or no latch. I measured the filthy rodent with a long, hostile yet tired gaze. It was stoic against the wall, stunned by my sudden onset.

Too easy, I reflected. For a moment, there was no sound. For a moment, there was not a rustle. For a moment, we froze our stare at each other. You could almost see the tumble weed rolling out, testifying this perfect Texan Cowboy-esque stand off.

Now you shall taste your own medicine, for all those poison cakes you’ve turned down over the days. Your ears are stiff, you are alarmed. Oh now you are scared, as we all have been, knowing you are in somewhere. Watching, waiting for your chance to steal, chip and ruin whatever you find worth nibbling. Eager to spread the filth you wallow in, you think you can just waltz around the house, MY house ,as you please?  Uneasy stillness. Too appalled even to move now are you, you slimy fuck? The ticking of the counter clock.

Too easy, I insisted, albeit in a soft murmur. The rat as if taking that for cue, started scurrying frantically.That’s better. With a murderous rage I stomped at it, connecting the very first time. The rat began squealing in terror and misery, almost an equivalent of the human wail. I didn’t stop at that. I couldn’t stop at that. With the third or fourth stomp the rat grew limp, and after a moment or two,it burst out, sputtering blood on the floor and on the sole of my slippers.

I slowly withdrew from the spot. Hooking the straps of my bloodied slippers together between my fingers, I picked them up and  rushed to the washroom. After cleaning myself and washing the slippers, I carefully wrapped the corpse in an old newspaper and packed it in a small, unattractive plastic bag. Two tasks to end the chase. Wait,three actually.

I wiped the floor and fetched a deodrant from my room-check. The odour and order of the spot restored, I carried the rat to a nearby heap of garbage at the end of the drive- a funeral as honourable as suits a rat-check. That and two seconds of silence; for our conscience bears a certain, unexplained mental accountablity towards animal lovers we know, towards the humanities, and to PETA. Check and clear.

I turned and started walking away, both with wings of triumph and a load of guilt and disgust.

The Demons unDead

“She had a box that she used to keep to herself. It was a square, metallic box,whose colour was flaking and the bottom was completely mottled. But then she was always like that- Mama was never keen on making anything appear good or even presentable at the least. Her own hair stayed matted most of the times, her eye shadow always smeared on her cheeks.The collar and the hem of most her dresses hung loose, barely covering the flesh where it was necessary. Ofcourse this would change on the evenings when she would finally get out of the house, only to replenish the contents of her precious box. On those evenings she used to wash herself with scented soap, and paint her face with rouge and mascara. She used to comb her hair until it was as indulging as the ripples and crests in the sea. The clothes would still fall short at every needed place, but at those times, that seemed intentional. The box contained some sort of chocolate from what she used to tell me. It was forbidden fruit for us the kids. If she found her dear box had been mingled with, she would start throwing a fit and bring down the house with her fury. The chocolate was powdery, like the ones that crackle and pop when you rest them upon your tongue. The funny thing about it was Mama never put it on her tongue. She always ate it through her nose, that too with a straw, thinner than usual. She never told me its name; So I started referring to it as Mama’s funnies.”

There was a brief pause as Jesse slid out a B&H and lit it, holding it at the corner of his mouth.

“Mama’s funnies must’ve been some expensive confectionery. She always implored my brother to ‘lend’ her some money so that she could have enough of it, the next time she went out. Well implore is what it would appear to be at first. Later she would yell, shout, kick and twist brother, in hopes of getting the money out of him. My poor brobum! He worked multiple shifts at various spots as an attendant-opening doors, handing out flyers, and work of that sort. He always made sure that I had food to eat,and books that I needed and that my school fees was paid on time. More often than not, he also used to give into Mama’s so called imploring. And when he wouldn’t budge, she’d momentarily stop forcing money out of him and quietly stand leaning against the bed room door, her blood shot eyes commanding him to walk in, like a factory whistle blowing smoke as a signal for the oppressed to report. Initially he used to resent, the resentment later changed to hesitation and then hesitation changed to expressionless indifference and with that he used to walk in. Once the door was locked,there would be a few cusses occasionally. Else there used to be soft and subtle shouting and howling from Mama, as if she were ecstatic about tormenting and whipping him. Then as if with carelessness, she’d suddenly thrust him out of the room and lock the door behind him. Brobum used to walk dull and gloomy to the couch,his cold indifference retained. He would then bury his face in his hands and cry, sobs stifled. His waistbelt used to be undone,so maybe she would use that to whip him, though I never really heard a whack. More usually than not, parts of his shirt used to be torn,revealing deep gashes and nail scars. Once he even had a bite mark on his neck. O how that made me wish he would’ve given her the money. I wish he always had the money.”

Jesse gave out a faint wisp of a smoke ring, in an almost churlish fashion, albeit to cheer the mood up. There was no response. He stubbed the cigarette, realizing it had almost reached the filter- a sort of cue to go on.

“That evening was oddly different. There was a peculiar calm that had settled on our otherwise tense household. Both Mama and brobum seemed happy and there was an air of excitement about them. A parcel had arrived. Brobum tried to open it ,meddling with it for quite sometime. Upon seeing his ordeal, Mama offered to open it instead. Brobum held it out for her in wishful surrender.Almost briskly she snatched the parcel and fled for the door. With an athletic precision, highly uncharacteristic of brobum, he intercepted that and pounced on her. His stick went flying across the couch and rattled before settling on the floor. Both of them struggled for a while, backed up against the wall. Mama tried to squirm out of brobum’s grasp, but today he had newfound strength. Mama sweeped the floor under brobum. While falling down, he caught hold of the fruit knife kept near the basket, and tugging Mama down with him, he stabbed it right into her throat. He rolled her over on the floor, and sitting on top of her breasts, he continued stabbing her, until the oesophagus and the apple gave in. The skull and the neck were almost apart but for a few connecting nerves. Brobum collapsed on the floor, snivelling and kissing the floor, now spattered with blood. I went over to Mama’s grotesque corpse, and retrieved the parcel from her now limp clutch. As soon as I grabbed it, a cheque and a glossy paper flew out. I don’t exactly remember the number of zeroes on the cheque, but the glossy paper read:
The lucky winners of The Gray Matter Technologies lottery draw are :
Skylar White
“Flynn” Walter White Jr.
Holly White”

“Will you be able to save brobum?” asked Holly, almost pleadingly. Jesse studied her, sipping the bland, community home coffee. “Brobum isn’t really bad. That evening was an isolated incident. He is the sweetest of men you’ll ever come across.” She couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13, yet she had sounded way ahead of her years to him;but she had an innocent absence of rationality in many regards. Maybe a junkie mother, a rascal brother and four years at this dingy community home does that you. “I know just the right man to bail him. He’ll be out in no time. See that bill board there?” He said pointing at a picture outside the window opposite them. It was a picture of a laughing Saul Goodman, Albequerque’s response to feng-shui. “He is the guy. But you’ve to keep in mind. A man can be set free, in every meaning. But his demons always stay behind.”