Tyger Tyger

Genre: Slice of life
Word Count: ~1200
Rating: PG

Aahana came back and threw the keys at his face. Ravi grabbed the keys before it hit his face and gave her an amused look. Having failed at hitting his face, her face turned red with anger.

"Why the hell did you not tell me?" she asked as calmly as she could.

He gave her a fake look of shock and replied, "Why would I? You are asking this question after knowing me for so long!"

Yes, she knew him. They have known each other for as long as they could remember. They grew up in neighbouring houses and both were as close to each other as siblings. What is also true is that Ravi is a prankster and Aahana has bore the brunt of many of his pranks.

She jumped on him like a tigress in fury. Ravi, who was sitting nonchalantly so far, did not see this coming. Aahana has gotten angry at his pranks before and stopped talking to him for few weeks. Then, he would just make up with her and everything would be alright. But never before has she been physical with him.

Aahana, while jumping on him, pinned him down with his shoulders, then she curled her legs around his arm to put him in an armbar hold. Ravi was writhing in pain without knowing how to get out of it.

"I told you that I had to meet this friend who was coming from America. I had told you that she was so smug about her doing well in America that I had to show her that I was doing well too. And all I asked you was if I could borrow your car and call it my own for a few weeks. That's all I asked. I told you how important it was to me, didn't I?"

She gave a tug to the arm as she said those final few words. Ravi wimpered in pain.

"I told you it was important to me and yet you went ahead and did that. You stuck a sticker at the back of the car before you gave it to me which said

HONK ONCE FOR LOVE,
AND TWICE FOR SEX

Hahaha, it was so funny you know", she twisted his arm while saying this. Ravi let out a welp.

"Every damn guy who passed by me, honked twice and sent a flying kiss. At one point, there was a horde of bikers surrounding me and honking and honking and honking and honking ..."

"Do you know how scary that was?"

"On top of it, my friend saw the sticker and tells me I will do really well in America and winked at me. That damn slut called ME a slut - do you even realize how scarring that was for me?"

She started pulling his hand and Ravi was in much greater pain now. "I am sorry, Aahana, I am so sorry, please let me go"

"Oh no no no, it is not your fault Mr. funny man. It is the fault of that brain of yours. But I cannot hurt your brain, since I like your mother a lot. I am just going to damage this hand of yours, that allows you to pull off these pranks."

Ravi realized that he might have gone too far this time around. "Wait, wait, wait, I have some information about your friend from America that you will really find useful."

She looked at him with disdain at his poor attempt at escaping from her.

"No, I am really serious. Your friend's name is Sunaina right. I have really found some interesting information about her."

"Proceed." she said while still holding Ravi's arm in armbar hold.

"You will have to release me, the thing I have to show you is on my laptop."

"Hmm, I don't trust you"

"Aai shappat (Promise on my mother) I am not lying."

Ravi is many things but he hasn't ever taken a promise on his mother in vain. So, she decided to let him go.

"In the morning you were telling me so much about this American friend who is doing so much better than you in America and how you feel that you are falling behind her, that I had to check out who this person was. It was easy to figure out that her name was Sunaina from some of your facebook comments on random posts. I found Sunaina on your facebook friend list then I took her photo to find out more about her on the web."

Ravi sneaked a glance at Aahana to see if she had calmed down, but there was only contempt on her face. He sighed and continued,

"On her facebook profile, she has written that she is a marketing executive. In a way that is true, that is if you consider Amway as a 'marketing' company."

"Amway! She couldn't make the kind of money she makes at Amway!"

"She is not. Do you want to know her true job that pays her bills?" Ravi then quickly brought up a picture on the web that was full of hooter girls and showed it to Aahana.

"What am I looking at?"

"Look carefully at the faces, particularly the one on the far right."

Aahana went through the faces carefully and found that the third girl from the right looked familiar. She had quite a bit of make up on, and her hairstyle was different, but that was Sunaina. Aahana gasped in shock.

"Hahaha, I knew how you would react. But you gotta admit, she is definitely hooter worthy" Ravi said as he lasciviously looked at Sunaina's curves. Aahana slapped the back of his head.

"Wait, that's not the end of it. Do you want to know what she really wants to do?"

Aahana looked at him quizzically.

"Hooters is just a temporary job for her. What she really wants to do is ..." Ravi pulled up a profile page from a website.

"This website is a social networking site for people trying to become actors and this is Sunaina's profile page on that site. This is freaking gold mine, she has put up some head shots and modeling shots and audition videos up here. The audition videos are damn hilarious." Ravi then proceeded to click on one of those videos. Aahana watched the video and could not help but giggle at it, that's how bad it was.

"So, Aahana, what should I do with it? I could release it anonymously to bunch of your friends and that bitch cannot continue to be snooty towards you anymore. How about it? Then we are even right!"

Aahana went quiet and closed her eyes for a few seconds. Then, she replied, "delete all this stuff and never speak about it ever again.

"Wait, why?"

"I thought I had fallen behind, but its not too late." She stood up, turned around and began to leave. But as she was leaving, Ravi felt fire in her eyes, he could almost hear a faint sound of heartbeat and her back looked like that of a tigress with her ponytail flitting from one side to the other.    

Him and Her

Genre: Drama
Rating: 13+
Word Count: ~3300

She put on her track pants, then her tank top and jacket. She clipped an ipod shuffle to the jacket, then plugged her ears with ear phones that barely work. It became a routine for her, these days, to walk in the nearby park in the evenings and listen to songs along the way to drown out the noise surrounding her. She got quite used to the park, enough to simply close her eyes as she walked. Her legs would automatically carry her around the park, in the route that got programmed into them over the past few months. Thus, she cut off her eyes and ears from the world, feeling all alone in the world, comfortable.

Now, one would think that closing your eyes while walking in the park is a recipe to bump into people. In the past few months, she has not once bumped into someone. Her senses were possibly acute enough to avoid bumping into people. Either that or others simply avoided bumping into her. Either way, she was glad for it. But today was different, she just bumped into a person and it was an ugly bump too. Their shoulders had hit each other, the ipod attached to her jacket got unclipped, fell out and it dragged the earphones along with them. She was suddenly taken away from the slow rhythmic tunes that coloured her world and brought back to the din of the real world. That created a sense of shock that was visible in her face as she fell down on the ground on her rear. She turned her head towards the brute in front of her who was cause of this. The brute was a shortish man with a slight plump face and body. He was wearing jacket and a track pants very similar to hers, and he was listening to songs playing on his phone through his bluetooth headset. His face showed immense panic that subsided her anger towards him.

"I am so sorry!", he said while picking up her ipod and earphones. While he picked them up, he noticed that he could not hear anything from her earphones. He took the earphones closer to his ears to confirm them.


"It seems I may have broken it, I am so sorry! I will compensate for this. I don't currently have my wallet with me, but if you wait here for a while, I can quickly bring my wallet and pay you", he said with an apologetic face that looked sincere enough.

"It's ok, do not worry about it." she said as she slowly got up. The man held out the ipod shuffle and the earphones and she took them from him.

"Still, I don't feel right not being able to compensate you for this."

"As I said, don't worry about it. They were barely working to begin with. I have been asking my husband to buy me some new ones for a long time. Maybe, he will finally buy me one now."

Looking at how she was not angry with him, the man's panic slowly ebbed and for the first time he actually looked at her face more clearly. He found himself speechless for a while as flashes of bollywood scenes went through his head where a hero and heroine bump into each other and fall in love. He quickly brushed aside such thoughts, gave her a bow, an apologetic smile and left the place as quickly as he can.

She looked at his receding figure for a while, let out a sigh and started on her walk back home. She opened the door to her house and saw that her husband was still watching TV in the living room. She went into the bedroom without saying anything to him. In the bedroom, she removed her jacket and her tank top. Her body which was covered in sweat was finally breathing again. She went on to remove her track pants and stood in front of the mirror, just in her inner wear. She ran her hand along the waist, feeling the soft flesh. Then she grabbed onto her slight flab on the waist, closed her eyes and for a brief moment pictured ripping it out with her bare hands. She, then let out a sigh, and ran her hand across her face. It was a bit plump. Her eyes then met her own in the mirror, reminiscing her time in the college. It was merely seven years ago, that she was one of the most sought after girl in the college. Many guys had asked her out multiple times and she had refused them all. She was sure that any of them would have felt blessed to accidentally bump into her. None of them would run away as fast as that guy did today she thought. She put on her vintage maxi dress with rose floral patterns and again looked at the mirror. She was satisfied as it showed none of the flaws she wished to see. She made her way into the living room.

"My ear phones are not working any more, can you buy me some new ones?" she said to her husband while gently sitting by his side. "Yeah, ok, let me just watch this game for now and I will buy them for you later".

Later - she has heard this word often enough to know that it means that he will never get to it. If she fought, he will simply complain to her parents and then she will have to listen to a long lecture from her parents about how she should behave. She had gone through this cycle enough to have given up on fighting for what she wants. She simply rose up and went to kitchen to start preparing for dinner.

---

He was sitting on his computer. The long walk in the park had tired him out but today he was not feeling it in his body. All he could recall for the day was how he had bumped into that beautiful lady in the park. He was feeling a little giddy like the kid in college who accidentally bumped into the most popular girl in the college. He went to amazon.com and looked up a few ear phones for ipod shuffle. After going through multiple products and reading several reviews, he finally chose an earphone that looked good. His mouse at this point was hovering over the add-to-cart option. He slunk back into his chair and looked up at the ceiling for a long time. Then, he simply closed the amazon window and went to facebook. Just as he got connected to facebook, he received a message from his friend Anurag.

"Anurag: Yo! Finally you are online. I am planning to go watch Logan with my wife at CineMAX. However, she is planning to bring another friend along with her. So, I need a company. Will you please come with me? :-("

"Me: Hmm, I do want to watch Logan, but somehow I suspect that you and your wife are trying to play matchmaking again. :-?"

"Anurag: Heck no man, she is way out of your league"

"Me: :-|"

"Anurag: What? you seem disappointed"

"Me: I dont want to be matched with anyone, but I would still like it if my friend had little more faith in me :-|"

"Anurag: Hehehe, sorry, but if I said, she is perfect for you or something, then you would be doubting me anyway. As I said, I just need a male company with whom I can geek out about X-men and speculate the next movie. Will you come or not?"

"Me: Yeah ok, but remember no trying to make me sit next to your wife's friend, or making me go buy some food along with her during intermission or making me sing songs playing antakshari during the car ride ..."

"Anurag: What is wrong with playing antakshari?"

"Me: :-| you know what is wrong with it"

"Anurag: Hehehe, alright promise. So, I will book tickets and send a copy to you by email tonight. See you tomorrow evening."

"Me: Yeah ok"

As much as his friend has promised that this is not a matchmaking session, he was quite sure that the friend's wife is trying to set him up with one of her friends. He is used to their meddling, they mean well after all and besides he really wanted to watch Logan. He opened his phone, went to the gallery and opened a picture from 3 years ago. It was a picture of him - younger, slimmer and with a beautiful girl in front of CineMAX theatre. They both looked very close to each other and the poster behind them said, "X-men: Days of Future Past". He remembered how he used to discuss and explain various plots of the movie to her and although, she was not a huge X-men fan, she fancied Michael Fassbender. It used to irk him, because Michael Fassbender was Magneto and he would have been far happier if she fancied James McAvoy instead, who played Professor X. As he recalled these memories, he was slowly getting gripped by a strange sense of helplessness. He simply closed the gallery and went to youtube and started browsing through a bunch of animal videos while munching on Lays chips and drinking Coke - which has been his dinner course for a while.

---

The next day she put on her usual attire and went for a walk in the park. This time, however, she did not have her ipod on her. She still closed her eyes and tried to isolate herself from the people around her and find her solitude. And again she bumped into someone. It was the same guy. His face had the same panicked expression it had before. In some ways, she found it comforting and amusing.

"We got to stop meeting like this", she said with a smile. "You may not realize this but I am the one who is always falling down and having a sore back".

The man settled down and gave a grin, then gave her a hand so that she can help herself up. She did not refuse. He noticed that she did not have her ipod today.

"I know you had refused it before. But I would truly like to buy you an ear phone, I found a really good one online with good sound quality and noise cancellation. Please, if you would allow me, I would really like to buy it for you."

That sudden change in conversation set her aback a bit. It has been quite a while since someone wanted to buy something for her. During her days in college, boys would often offer buying her things, of course, with the ulterior motive of getting close to her. Is the guy in front of her same as those boys? Does he want to get close to me? He realizes that I am a married woman doesn't he? - such thoughts swirled in her head.

Seeing her hesitation, he responded, "I guess you still don't want it, I am sorry to put you in a spot and truly sorry to have broken your earphones earlier".

"Yes, you can buy me an earphone", she responded. In her heart, she was a little shocked at what she was saying and yet she was quite happy about it.

He smiled and asked her if comes by this park everyday, to which she responded in affirmative. He said he cant be here tomorrow because he plans to go watch a movie with his friend, but he will definitely get her the earphone the day after. They both nodded towards each other and resumed their walks.

---

It was a dull evening near CineMAX theatre. He got there on time but as usual, Anurag and his wife were late. But they managed to catch the show just in time. As suspected, the entire evening Anurag's wife attempted to get her friend close to him as possible. He obliged without complaint, which surprised both Anurag and his wife. He obliged not because he gave in but because he mind was occupied with the park, and the woman that walks in the park, finding comfort in loneliness just like he does. Even when Anurag wanted to geek out with him - discussing how cool Logan was and how awesome and cute X-23 was, his responses were absent minded at best.

---    


The next evening, he waited in the park with a newly bought earphone. She came as usual and on time. They both sat down and he offered her the earphones, she was quite happy to receive it.

"Thanks for the earphone"

"Please do not mention it, it was my fault after all. I am quite happy to repay you, a burden off my mind."

"I told you before that it was already at its end, so you didn't have to feel like that."

"The other day when I saw you without your ipod, I felt that I had taken away something important."

"Thanks." and after a short pause, "Oh yes, how was the movie?"

"Eh?"

"You said you were going to a movie yesterday."

"Oh right, it was just a comic based movie. Not sure if it will be of interest to you."

"Oh did you go watch Logan?"

"Ah yes, you know of it?"

"Of course, I may not be a super comic fan, but I love the comic artwork and definitely interested in the adaptations."

"Are you an artist?"

"Well I have an arts degree, but I don't work as an artist. I got married right after the bachelors and that was such a huge change in life, that it took all my focus and efforts." she said looking far off into the distance.

"How long have you been married?"

"For about 6 years now."

"Well, by now, you must be used to your marriage, I think it is about time, you give art the required priority", he said with a smile on his face.

She was dumbstruck at this response. It was true, although the initial parts of the marriage were new and she was getting used to them, but later one she never tried to get back into arts.

"You are quite right, I should start giving some time for art. By the way, what do you do?"

"This is bangalore, so take a guess at what I could be."

"Software Developer"

"Bingo - A profession of which less said the better"

"Hehehe, maybe you can help me setup some computer software, since you have now urged me to give priority to art again." she said with a cheeky smile on her face.

"If there is anything I can help with, without a doubt, I will try to help." he said with a slight bow.

"Alright, I need to go now. See you later" and they both bid their goodbyes.

After walking a while, they both realized they never asked each other's name but at the same time, they both felt it was unnecessary.

---

Soon they both began to meet regularly at the park. Their accidental meetings now got converted into planned meetings, where they both walked together around the park. They both had their earphones and headsets respectively, but they preferred talking to each other. Right now, they could only hear each other and the din of the outside world was drowned away without requiring any noise cancelling headsets.

Soon, their innocent relationship turned into an affair. It was inevitable, since they both had developed feelings for each other. It began with him inviting her for coffee at his house. This invitation soon turned physical. They stopped walking in the park and instead regularly meeting at his house instead.

The park and the activities of people around it continued. The absence of these two had made no difference whatsoever. They were after all always in their own isolated world and now are simply in each other's world.

She was lying in bed next to him, and he lied next to her gently hugging her. She felt happy and contented, but that also made her sad.

"I think we should stop seeing each other", she said with a heavy heart.

He was quite taken aback and confused. "Why? Where is this coming from? I thought we were doing so well!"

"We are and that is what is scaring me."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You do realize that this relationship has no future. We cannot go on like this, at some point one of us is bound to get hurt."

"I told you that if you divorce your husband, I will marry you."

"My husband is a decent man. He is negligent towards me but not abusive. There is no reason why I must divorce him."

"He is a control freak who controls every part of your life. I believe that counts as abusive."

"Most woman would be fine with such a husband."

"You are not most woman."

"You know that's not what I mean. Mine is arranged marriage, that involves the respect of my parents as well. A divorce without a good reason would hurt their image in the society and I cannot sacrifice their respect for my happiness."

"If they truly love you, they would be willing to give up on anything for your happiness"

"As would I ..."

He looked at her and he realized that as much as this frustrated him, it is also one of her qualities that he appreciates. "Goddammit, if only I had met you sooner, things would have been so much better."

"I know, if only ..." she leaned to kiss him. If there were any parts in them that had not become one during their earlier intimate moments, they surely became one now as they both could feel each other's happiness, sadness and frustrations.

And they stopped seeing each other and they stopped walking in the park as well.

---

The park and the activities of people around it continued. The absence of these two had made no difference whatsoever. They were after all always in their own isolated world and now are simply in each other's world but separate.

Two old women were sitting on a park bench. Park benches were often occupied by the older people who attempted to socialize with each other often over gossip.

"Did you hear about the suicide in the nearby building?" said one old lady to the other.

"Yeah, I heard that the man was quite young." said the other old lady.

"Must be (because of) some girl and indeed the suicide note was strange."

"Oh yes, I heard that it was written on the wall with blood which read something like 'If rebirth is true and there is another life, you can bet that I will find you before anyone else does.'"

"How strange? Kids these days do not really value their life much. If they only listened to their parents and get married to the spouse they find for them, they could easily live a stress free life."

"Indeed."

---

A year had passed since his death. She drowned herself in housework and artwork. She had already completed 7 paintings. She approached a gallery to ask if they would be willing to show her art there. After a couple of meetings, they agreed. In th exhibition, her art was a tremendous success. Particularly, one of the paiting was deemed to be excellent. It was a painting of Icarus flying towards the sun. The strange thing about this painting was the sun was shaped in the form of a woman and both icarus and the sun looked at each other lovingly. Icarus had a smile in his face even while his wings and body were burning. The painting was titled, "Meeting in the park", which baffled the audience as to what it might mean.

After the success of her exhibition, she stood standing at the balcony of her house and looked at the ground 10 storeys below. She could see icarus flying towards her, so she reached out to him.    

The Stand-In

Genre: Absurdist fiction
Rating: 13+
Word Count: ~1400

The bedroom was not entirely dark, but dimly lit only by the screen of the computer. A young man in his late twenties sat in front of it. The facebook page on the firefox browser refreshed itself, showing some new updates from his friends. A friend of his got married and had uploaded his wedding pics. He clicked on the pics and browsed through the album, liking each one of them at the same time. He stopped at one of the pics that showed the groom. His friend looked handsome, smart, thin, with a bright smile, in that picture. He ran his palm around his cheeks, feeling the thin layer of beard on his face. His hands then slided over his tummy grabbing his love handles. He tried to smile, but the faint reflection on his computer screen disagreed with his own sense of aesthetics. He proceeded to like the picture in the album and move on. Just then rays of light broke through the curtain on the window. The time was 6 AM. He stood up sluggishly, and he moved his body without any real sense of purpose towards the large mirror kept in his bedroom.

The reflection was thin, handsome looking and he gave a bright smile. The reflection even waved at him, but he wouldn't acknowledge it. He simply walked into the mirror and the reflection copied his actions and came out. After they switched their positions, the mirror began to show cracks in many places. The reflection began to stretch its hands and legs. Then it moved to the bathroom, brushed its teeth, shaved and had a bath. After it came out, it made some breakfast for itself and ate it, before it went to work. The reflection came back home at 7.

"Yo! Hows your day been inside the mirror?", the reflection asked.

He came near the mirror but did not respond.

"Do you want to know how awesome a day I had today?", the reflection continued.

He stood there motionless, expressionless.

"Well, let me tell you anyway. The project that I have been working on for the past 5 months, well, its finally launching tomorrow. Not only that, I am also expected to give an investor presentation of the project tomorrow. If all goes well, we could be seeing promotion both in title and salary. How cool is that? By the way, do you remember Susie from finance. I think she is a little bit interested in us, as she asked me out for coffee today. She is smart, bright and was fun to talk to. We discussed about the latest novel from ..."

"Can we just switch places already?", he interrupted, his face still expressionless.

The reflection gave up and stepped inside the mirror, and he came out. After they switched, the cracks in the mirror disappeared. He went back to the computer, and placed an order for pizza online. He went to his company site as he waited for his pizza. He searched for the employee named Susie. Susie from finance was first on the list. She was cute and from the picture he guessed that she was quite well endowed. His pizza arrived and he had a specific routine with the delivery boy. The delivery boy would place the pizza on the doorstep and collect his tip from jar kept beside the door. After the delivery boy left, he would come out and grab both the jar and the pizza. Both him and the delivery boy went through this routine. He opened the pizza box beside his computer and began eating, as he continued to read Susie's profile on the company website. Then, he searched her on facebook, twitter and other social media websites. He found several of her pictures online and also several posts and blogs that she had written.

After dinner, he went to youporn, browsed through the many genres in the selection list and finally chose one. Among the many videos, he selected one that had a female who looked quite like Susie. He went on the grab the tissue, as he played the video while imagining an interaction with Susie. After the deed, he washed up and began browsing netflix to binge watch some tv shows. And another night spent. At 5.30 in the morning, he heard some children being noisy outside. He peeked outside to see some children playing cricket early in the morning. He went to his computer and clicked on his calendar to find out that it was state holiday but not a national holiday. This meant that the schools were closed but its not a company holiday. Just then, a cricket ball came through the window and smashed into the mirror. The mirror cracked. He jumped out of his chair and moved quickly towards the mirror. The reflection in the mirror looked chubby with a beard, a bad hair and a gloomy face. He tried to get inside the mirror but couldn't. He slumped down in complete shock. Before he realized it was already 7 AM and he was going to be late for office. He quickly put on some clothes and went to office.

As he walked around, he could feel stares all around. The stares that wondered who this person was. As he went and sat down in his cubicle, his neighbour slid his chair towards him.

"Dude, is that really you? God! you look awful, what happened?"

"N.. Nothing", he responds with his face down and trying to start his computer up.

"Nothing? You look way worse than when you began to work here. I thought you had really brightened up in the past few months. This is a complete reversal in just a day. Wait! Don't tell me! BREAK-UP!", the neighbour began nudging him with a smile as he asked, "Did some one turn you down or something? Dude, you shouldn't get so serious about such things".

Just then the manager swung by, the neighbour took that as a cue to return to his cubicle.

"Hey! How are you?", the manager asked. "You don't look so good. Are you ok?"

"Y.. yes, I am fine", he responds again with his face down.

"I hope you are. By the way, you better clean yourself up before the presentation, I don't want the investors looking at you like that", the manager warned.

"P...presentation?", he had a puzzled look on his face.

"Don't tell me you forgot! Today's the big day, you will be in line for promotion so better not mess it up! I will see you at the conference room later" and the manager walked away.

The conversation with the reflection yesterday slowly dawned upon him and he realized what the manager was talking about. He continued to feel the stares from around the room. It felt uncomfortable, stuffy and it was increasingly becoming harder to breathe. He ran out to the corridor. As soon as he reached the corridor, an elevator opened and he jumped into the elevator. He felt far more secure in that narrow elevator than he did inside his office. The elevator stopped at the roof top. The door opened to an empty roof. He stepped out. The loneliness at the roof top, away from all the gazes and expectations had the cold warmth that he sought. He also knew however that this won't stay for long, as he will be soon found out and pried away from this heaven back to that hell. He pulled out a small paper out of his pocket and wrote something on it with a pen. Then, he walked close to the rails, climbed over them. He took a look below. He could see the mirror there down below without any cracks and his reflection waving at him. He was elated and he jumped towards that mirror.

For the better half of the day, the area outside the company building was abuzz with sadness and confusion. Police had cordoned off the area near the body. The chalk outline on the floor marked the spot, while the body was already taken towards the morgue. The police waited for the autopsy report, but they were fairly certain that it was a suicide. However, the interview with the colleagues was strange. Everyone of them thought that the victim was doing quite well within the company and was up for promotion. And even stranger was the suicide note that they discovered that simply said, "I can't be Me."

The Story of the Hero

Genre: Nonsense, breaking the fourth wall
Rating: 13+ (Slight profanity)
Word Count: ~1100

Chapter 1

Here we are folks. We see the hero, our protagonist facing off against a villain of the world.

(Arun, where are our hero and villain fighting? What? It doesn't matter? You just want to start the story with a fight? What's the point in that? Adrenaline rush? and it looks cool? What kind of a writer are you anyway? Yes, yes I will get back to narration.)

So, our hero and villain are facing off against each other in this place which we know nothing about and thus there is no way to know whether someone has an advantage or a disadvantage. I mean, at least the terrain of the fight place should be made known, but our writer is too lazy to do that.

(What? I am going off on a tangent? You are fucking right, I am going on a tangent. What, you will fire me? There are laws against such things you know. Huh, not in India?)

But the place and terrain doesn't matter for a fight. What matters is the heart and our glorious writer, praise be to thee, knows very well about the heart.

"So you are the hero, is it?" the villain said with a smile on his face.

"Yes." replied the Hero with a boring look.

"I guess you are fighting for something like justice. But let me tell you there is no such thing as justice in this world. If you came to know my backstory, you will know that ..."

The hero ran with blinding speed and kills the villain in a single slash with the sword.

The villain is gurgling blood through his mouth. "You are supposed to listen to my backstory and fall into a moral dilemma before making the decision to fight."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I have to go meet someone so I am in a bit of hurry. Bye bye."

(Arun, don't you think our hero is a bit weird?)

Chapter 2

Here we are folks. We see the hero, our protagonist facing off against another villain of the world.

(Oye Arun, we are not giving any backstory even today? The reader knows nothing about the hero you know and what he did to that poor villain in the last chapter doesn't necessarily give a good vibe about him. What? You are going to fix that in the next chapter? Oh ok.)

"So you are here hero! I have been waiting to fight you for a long time. Let's go Pikachu!" shouted Ash Ketchum.

(Wait, wait, wait! Won't we have trademark issues or something here? Oh, since this writing is non-profit, you think you won't have to worry about trademark infringement. That might work you know. Wait, if this work is non-profit, then how am I going to get paid? Oye. Hello. Hello? Hello? Are you there Arun? Crap, I have to get back to story)

"Pikachu use Thunder Shock", shouted Ash Ketchum.

The hero ran with blinding speed and kills Ash Ketchum in a single slash with a sword.

Ash Ketchum is gurgling blood through his mouth at this point. "Aren't we supposed to fight with our Pokemons? Also, shouldn't we be shouting our fighting moves before making the move?"

The hero goes silent for a while and then replies, "Single Slash Sword".

Ash looks at the hero confused, "that's too damn late you idiot" and then takes his final breath.

(First we made the protagonist of a popular anime as a villain. Then we killed him in an unfair fight. Why is the hero even fighting a 10 year old kid? Why is the 10 year old kid even a villain in the first place? And we are ending this chapter here? What was the point of this chapter anyway? Wait, you wanted to introduce the name of the killing move. I am speechless.)

Chapter 3

Here we are folks. We see the hero, our protagonist is standing together with a cute young girl.

(Phew, at least you changed something in this chapter.)

The cute young girl is a childhood friend of our hero.

(Wait, what? By the way where are they even meeting? Which city, town? How did they even come to meet? What, you are leaving it all to reader's imagination? That's too much man, just too much.)

The young girl is called Masoko.

(Why is the girl japanese? Why are you giggling, Arun? I will come to know the meaning behind the name later? Oh ok.)

"I heard that you are going around killing villains. You can't go around killing humans you know. You need to bring them to trial, so that we all observe due process", started Masoko as usual lecturing the hero in the ways of justice.

Suddenly from nowhere, a cockroach appeared near Masoko. Masoko shrieked and jumped. She shouted, "Hero! Look, its a cockroach, kill it! kill it! kill it!"

The hero looked at her with cold eyes, "that cockroach did nothing to you. All it wants to do, is get some food and live a happy life with its cockroach children and cockroach wife. And you want me to kill it. At the same time, you ask me to not kill those humans who hurt others for their own benefit. People like you disgust me!" The hero looked at Masoko with disgust.

Masoko hung her head and then looked up at him. Something inside her had changed. She looked deeply into eyes of the hero, held his hand and said, "Please insult me more!"

(Oye Mr. Arun, your perversions are coming through your writing. Wait, is her name a conjunction of Maso and ko? Stop giggling, that's just stupid. By the way, wasn't this supposed to be a story about hero and justice, why do I feel like we are digressing into a strange territory. What? You want this story to be your Lolita? You render me speechless)

Chapter 4

The hero and Masoko walk off into the sunset and lived happily ever after.

(What? Are we ending the story here? What's the point of this chapter then? What the hell about the backstory? What? You got bored? Do your job properly, damn you! Quick slacking around and give a proper backstory and ending. Don't glare at me like that, you know you are the one in the wrong here.)

Backstory:
Our hero at the beginning was jobless. He would live at his parent's house playing video games all day. One day, his mother asked him to buy some stuff from the grocery store. Usually, she wouldn't ask him to do anything because he was useless. But she had so much work that day, that she was forced to ask him. So, our hero went out for shopping. On the way, he found this very cool sword. He picked it up and then on that day decided that he will be a hero.

(I am sorry I asked for a backstory. Let's just end it, I can't take this any more)

The Man from C.A.B.I.N

Genre: Thriller
Rating: Safe
Word Count: ~2600

August 8 2012, Convocation Hall, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India.

It was a sunny day and on any other day, Sundar would have appreciated the weather but not today and certainly not inside the closed hall. His senses were not functioning and his mind was completely blank. The silent beating of the heart and the emptiness of the mind was offset by the slow murmurs in the hall where Sundar stood on one side, just near the dias, with few other PhD students of IIT Bombay who were graduating this year.

The hall was a rectangular shaped auditorium with stadium seating arrangement. Sundar looked around, watching the students seated in the hall. All the male students were dressed in white kurta and pajama and female students were dressed in white salwar kameez or white sari. All the students were wearing variously coloured dupattas (uttariyas). The colors indicated the degree with which the student was graduating. Sundar was wearing a peach coloured uttariya. If someone were to look at the hall from the top, it would probably look like a white canvas peppered with colors of the rainbow.

The session began with the institute song -

Antar mama viksit kar
    Antaratar hey

Nirmal kar, ujjawal kar
    Sundar kar hey

Jagrat kar, Udyat kar
    Nirbhay kar hey

Mangal kar, niralas kar
    Nihsanshay kar hey

Yukt kar hey sabke sang mein
    Mukt kar hey bandh

Sanchar kar sakal karm mein
    Shaant tumhara chhand

Charan-kamal se mera man
    Nispandit kar hey,
    Nandit kar
    Nandit kar
    Nandit kar hey

This song, which is translated from Bengali, was originally written by the great Indian poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore. The song asks the divine one to grant the virtues of enlightenment, diligence and fearlessness. These three form the essence of a strong academic spirit. As the song was being sung by a student in the most melodious voice, Sundar closed his eyes and the five years he spent at the institute flashed in his mind. In the last five years, he had faced his own weaknesses. He had to push through when the chips were down and continue on despite repeated failures. After several struggles he had published a few of his works and finally submitted his thesis titled, "Models for Precise Aggregates and their Applications to Trend Predictions". The words of the song entered through his ears, into his soul and resonated with his experiences. For a brief moment, he was overwhelmed and a drop of tear appeared in his eye. But he quickly wiped it away and kept his emotions in check. He had always dreamed of this day, to be a scientist and the dream was about to come true.

June 23 2015, Aryabhatta Labs, Kroogle Research, Hyderabad, India.

The computer displayed a Fedora desktop with a gnome terminal. Sundar typed in a few commands into the terminal to execute a program. What followed was an array of numbers being spit out at intermittent intervals onto the display. The program finally ended and an image popped up displaying a graph. The graph showed 1% improvement in advertisement prediction. Sundar had just created a new model which would increase Kroogle's advertisement revenue by at least a million dollars. Sundar leaned back on his chair, and took a look around. His colleagues were all sitting in their cubicles with their heads buried in their computer. When Sundar graduated three years ago, he expected himself to do something exciting in his life, not just make several million dollars for an MNC. He has very little to complain though, because the job paid well and with this new model, he can certainly expect an increase in salary and a bonus. However, as a child, he had always envisioned scientists in their white lab coats saving the world and over the years, he very well knew, how far was reality from his dreams and yet these three years have played a part in burying them entirely. He sighed a little and went back to looking at his computer. He opened the Thunderbird email client and began checking his email.

He saw three emails from his father and he could see that there were image attachments with all these three emails. He surmised what these images were. He had strictly told his parents that he is not interested in getting married for at least a few more years and despite that, his father would keep sending new photos every few weeks or so. He simply skipped over those emails. Then, followed a series of emails from the technical discussion group from within the company. He noticed a C++ question asked in this discussion that he could probably answer. He immediately wrote up an answer to that question and send it as a reply. Then there were a bunch of emails congratulating one of his colleagues who recently announced his wedding engagement. Then there was another thread discussing what gift to give the colleague on his wedding. Sundar had earlier suggested gifting a cactus plant with a passport size photo of every member of the team stuck on the thorns. The team simply replied back saying, "we know now what to gift you on your wedding".

The next email was titled, "Your thesis on Aggregate Models and Trend Prediction is interesting!" Sundar was a little startled and pleasantly surprised. He opened the email:

Hi Sundar,

I recently came across your thesis on Models for Precise Aggregates and their Applications to Trend Predictions. I must say I found it quite fascinating. The fact that one can look at a set of joint distributions and then characterize prediction tasks on them with some simple assumption is pretty cool.

The email then went on in detail about what the person found fascinating in the paper and the technical aspects and assumptions that they found to be somewhat restrictive. It finally ended with,

We are looking to apply your models in the work that we are doing. Unfortunately, due to several constraints, I cannot exactly disclose the organization I am associated with, nor can I disclose the nature of our work. But we are very keen on hiring you. If you are curious, then please drop an email soon, so we can schedule your interview this weekend itself.

Sundar checked the email of the sender, it was simply 'manandsuperman@kroogle.co.in'. It was a plain email id, although, Sundar did like the reference to George Bernard Shaw. He dismissed the email as a hoax, but hesitated to delete the email. He opened another application called texmaker and began writing a latex report on his new model and attached the graph which supported his claims. He then attached the report in an email titled 'I just made a million bucks' and send it to his manager. He checked the time, it was ten past twelve. He looked around and his colleagues were all getting up to leave for lunch. So, he screenlocked his computer and went along with them.

The lunch discussions at his company were usually were active. Anything from sports, films and politics would get discussed over the lunch table. Sundar would actively participate in them whenever he could. However, today he was distracted. The spoon he held in his hand grabbed a clump of rice from his plate and took it to his mouth. The hand worked like a machine and mouth chewed reactively, but his mind was somewhere else. Precisely speaking, it was still on the email he had read just before sending his report and coming for lunch. Although, he was almost sure that the email was a hoax, but the details with which it was written suggested otherwise. He could not help it, his curiosity was piqued.

"Sundar, are you ok, you have been quiet for a while now", his colleague asked him while poking him with his finger. Sundar quickly turned around and replied, "Oh, I am fine, just thinking about a minor issue, but its nothing". Soon after, he joined in their discussion and put that email issue at the back of his head. As soon as he returned from lunch, his manager came up to him and shook his hand, "Awesome work dude!" to which Sundar smiled and replied, "Thanks".

"How long before we can launch this model into production?", his manager asked with a querulous look.

"There are some technical challenges to overcome but if I sit with the engineers and work alongside them, we should be able to push this into production in a week!"

"Fantastic, are you free now? If the engineers are free as well, we can set up a meeting and go over your model and come up with list of things to do."

"Yeah sure, I am free."

"Ok, I will talk to the engineers, set up a meeting and send you an invite."

"Sounds good."

The manager walked away and Sundar returned to his desk. His manager worked fast and the meeting was soon set up. Sundar spent the rest of his day in the meeting, going over the details of his model with the engineers and addressing the technical challenges involved in implementing it. When the meeting ended, it was already close to the time, he leaves office. However, just before he was about to leave, he opened his email client, clicked on the email sent by manandsuperman and sent in a reply,

I am interested.

Soon enough, a reply came back from manandsuperman,

1. Attached are your air tickets to Vizag on the weekend.
2. Our driver will pick you up at the airport and take you to the meeting place.

Sundar just stared blankly at the screen for a minute wondering what exactly happened in those few minutes.

June 27 2015, Vizag Airport, Vizag, India.

It was 8 in the morning and Vizag had a pleasantly cold climate. As Sundar stepped out of the airport, he saw a man holding a placard with his name on it. He moved towards that man and indicated to him that he is the one whose name is written on the placard. The man smiled and guided him to a car nearby and they drove out of the airport.

Vizag was being developed as a smart city by the Government. So, there were several ongoing constructions that were visible as the car made its way through the city. Soon, the scenery got boring and Sundar fell asleep. When he woke up, he yawned and stretched his hands. With eyes half open, he noticed that he was still in the car. Then, he looked outside for a bit, only to be surprised by trees that surrounded the car. His rubbed his eyes and fully opened them to realize that they were in a forest. He got shocked and scared and asked the driver, where they were. The driver coolly replied, "Sir, we are in Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary". Sundar got so scared that he immediately tried opening the doors, but they wouldn't open. The driver looking at his passenger through the rear view mirror told him to take it easy as they will soon reach the destination. Sundar curled up in a corner and sat motionless.

After half hour, they made their way to a cabin near the Kambalakonda lake. The driver stopped the car, got out, and opened the back seat door to let Sundar out. The driver pointed out the cabin with his finger. Sundar, who was still in shock and fear, thought about running away. But he was too deep into a wildlife sanctuary to pull this stunt safely. He decided to rather move towards the cabin and figure out what is going on. He slowly moved towards the cabin and as he moved towards it, he noticed that it is shoddy, and looked as if it was not cleaned for a long time. Soon, he began to wonder if this is some elaborate prank, but if it was, it certainly was an expensive one. For a brief moment, Sundar thought that this could be some serial killer, but he actively pushed such thoughts away from his mind and soon found himself in front of the cabin door. Sundar took a gulp and opened it.

The inside of the cabin was empty, except a table two chairs and a man sitting in one of them. The man was reading a binder in front of him. As soon as Sundar entered the cabin, the man looked up from his binder and stood up to greet Sundar with a wide smile.

"Mr. Sundar, welcome, welcome. How was the trip? I hope there was no trouble reaching here.", the man said extending his hand to shake it.

Sundar just shook his hand and looked around. His eyes wandered towards the window that showed the still water of Kambalakonda lake and his mind contemplated thoughts of how to escape from this cabin through the lake.

"I imagine this must be a shock for you. I am sorry that we have to be so unconventional, but that's the nature of our organization. I am sure you have several questions, but before you ask any of them, I want you to sign this NDA."

Sundar took the NDA form, read through it. It was an ordinary NDA form which every company gives, so he took out a pen from his pocket and signed the NDA. As he gave back the form, he asked, "Where am I?"

The man looked puzzled, "I was sure your first question would be, who are you? But well, to answer your question, you are at Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary."

"No, I mean where am I? What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" Sundar started reeling out his question, partly in frustration, partly in impatience and partly in fear.

"Well, well, before I answer all those. What did you think about the email I sent you and my criticisms about some of the assumptions in your model."

"You are manandsuperman?"

The man nodded a yes.

Sundar sighed and replied, "The class conditional distributions being same is a simple assumption. It holds in several applications that we were thinking of at the time when we created that model. We could not find any reasonable applications where our assumptions did not hold.",

"Well, we have applications where your assumptions don't hold and we have data in which your models can show interesting improvements, if you can make it work. Will you be interested in working on such data?"

"I am here, aren't I?" Sundar spat out in frustration. He plumped on the chair in front of him, without being asked to and held his forehead.

The man chuckled a bit, "Of course, Mr. Sundar!" The man held out another form in front of him and told him, "This is an employment offer. If you are still interested in what we do, you can accept this employment offer right now or you can reject it. You can accept this offer and reject it later as well. Of course, you will be still under our NDA, so you can't tell anything about us to anyone. The consequences will be dire if you do so. However, the work is exciting and very important, I can assure you that. I would accept this offer if I were you, Mr. Sundar."

Sundar lifted his head to face the man, grabbed the offer letter and signed it and gave it back.

The man checked the signature and turned towards Sundar, "We are an organization that work directly under RAW. Mr. Sundar, welcome to Crime, Assault, and Breach Investigation Network a.k.a C.A.B.I.N".

cue stylish music
tadat tadat tadat tadat taadaa
tadat tadat tadat tadat taadaa
tadat tadat tadat tadat taadaa
tat tat tat ta daa

The Child Reaper

Genre : Horror, Fantasy, Thriller
Word Count : ~1800
Rating : PG

January 3, 2016: Denver, Colorado

If there ever was a stereotype about how a 15 year old boy's room looks like, this was definitely not it. As Elle tiptoed into her older brother's room, she cannot help but be impressed by how cleaner it was than her own. Books neatly stacked on the shelf and those he was currently reading are on the desk. They were closed and the page he is currently on have a bookmark placed in them. Elle was happy to see that her brother was using the bookmarks that she had made for him a while back. His used clothes are in the laundry basket and the fresh ones are neatly folded in the drawers. There is not a speck of dust or rather anything lying around in the floor, which made the tiptoeing really easy.

Things were not always this way with her brother. Just a few months back, he was hanging out with the wrong crowd, skipping school, failing exams. He was indifferent to everyone in the house. Would never listen to her parents and hardly acknowledged her existence in the house. And yet, just one day, he drastically changed. He cleaned himself up and stopped hanging around with his old "friends". His grades got way better and in these last few months, Elle found herself growing closer to her brother than anyone else in the world.

As Elle tiptoed into her brother's room where he was sleeping in his bed, she suddenly jumped on him. David woke up startled, looking around trying to figure out what happened. As he looked around the room with a confused and shocked face, he found his sister puffing her chest and then shouting with a loud voice,

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!"

David let out a groan and then checked the clock, it was 6.30 AM. He usually wakes up at 7, so he lost half an hour of his sleep. He looked at his sister and simply replied,

"Thank you, thank you, now please leave me, so that I can have some sleep."

"Come on, its your birthday! Look what I made for you!" she said, as she stuck out her hand and showed him a card.

David delicately took the card in his hand. In the front it said, "Happy Birthday to the Best Brother in the World!" with generous use of glitter all over it. It made him a little happy, but he wouldn't show it. "Too much glitter don't you think?"

"Oh, psshhh, stop complaining and look inside!", she was looking at him all excited.

He opened the card and it had a drawing inside. Elle was good at drawing, but she was never confident about it. A month back, David had coerced her into entering into a competition after looking at her drawings. She managed to win a consolation prize to which David's reaction was, "I thought you were good for a second prize at least, those judges wouldn't know art if it hit them in their faces". From then on, she had been even more hard-working and dedicated towards improving her drawing skills.

David looked intently at the drawing. It had a small timid girl and in front of her was a knight in his armour. Facing the girl and knight were several nasty ghosts and monsters. The knight was extending his hand as if he was motioning them to stop. The entire drawing had a background that depicted hell with a sea of fire and corpses floating on them and several mountains spitting lava.

"This is really good. Elle, you should really enter this in the next competition."

"It is good, but no, I won't enter this one. Do you understand this drawing?", Elle was a little fidgety as she asked this question.

"The knight is saving the girl from hell", David replied staring at the drawing again to see if there is anything he missed.

"The girl is me, the ghosts and monsters are the bullies who were bullying me and the knight is you"

David looked at the picture again and he noticed the faces for the first time. Indeed, the girl resembled Elle. The ghosts and monsters had faces too. And the knights face did look like his own.

"Thank you", Elle squeaked, "I wanted to say this before but thank ..."

David flicked her forehead and she whimpered in pain. "You don't need to thank me. It's what families do."

Elle hugged him and gave him a quick peck in the cheek, "Come down, we have a surprise for you!" and she left the room hopping like a bunny.

After she left, David closed the card and checked the clock again. It was close to 7 already, so he placed the card on his desk, went to bathroom to wash himself and get ready. Then, he came down to have breakfast, his entire family stood there,

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY", they chorused.

His mother and his sister both had awoken early that day to bake him a cake. As David came down the steps, his mother approached him, clasped her hands around his head and pulled it down so that she can kiss his forehead.

"Mom, I am old now, you didn't have to do all this", he said with a smile on his face, which was getting harder to hide.

They split the cake, between them and happily ate them. David praised his mother and his sister for the delicious cake and looked at his father with a querulous look, "no gifts from you?" His father threw the car keys at him and told him, "You are old now, you don't need gifts. You need to learn responsibilities, so I am going to teach you how to drive." As he finished, his father grinned at him. David could not hide his astonishment and went ahead and hugged his father.

His father then turned on the TV. There was on-going interview with a serial killer expert on the morning show. They were discussing the latest serial killer who has hit the headlines - the "Child Reaper".

Interviewer: Child Reaper has killed 7 children of various ages across the country so far. Do you think we will be able to catch him at all?
Expert: The child reaper is a very elusive killer. The time between his kills are quite far apart. He is also killing at different locations. Even though so far his attacks have been on children, they vary in their ages from 7 to 14. 14 year old being the last known victim. So far, we haven't seen a discernible pattern to his killing, except for the fact that he leaves a note for the parents to tell them where he has buried their kid. It looks like a difficult case, but someday he is bound to make a mistake and when he does, we will catch him.
Interviewer: Speaking of the note, according to the latest information release from the police, there is some mystery around that, isn't it?
Expert: Yes. All the families of the victims tell the police that they received the note the day their child disappeared and yet when the bodies were dug out from their burial place, the time of death was several months prior to receipt of the note.
Interviewer: How does one explain that?
Expert: We don't have an explanation for it as of yet.

"Must be god's angels", David's mother blurted out while she picked the plates from the table. David, who was lost in thoughts during the interview, suddenly stood up and began helping out his mother to clean up. Elle followed her brother to help clean up as well.

"What do you mean god's angels?", David's father asked.

"Angels must be with their family so that they don't have to deal with their son's death. That is why, these families have been finding the note much later, so that they get to spend some time with their kids before they get the news. That must be the explanation.", David's mother said with an enlightened face and the conviction of a true believer.

"You should be on this show," replied David's father half jokingly.

Elle and David got up, waved their parents goodbye and went to school. It was a normal uneventful day at school for both of them. When school ended, Elle decided to walk home with her brother. They were passing by an empty park on the way to their house, when an unimaginable pain coursed through David's hand. It was moulding itself and changing its shape. David screamed out in pain. Elle ran up to him to see, worried by what she was seeing happening to his hand. David turned around to look at Elle. However, what Elle saw was not David's face but a face she did not recognize. She got scared and fainted right then. The changes that were happening to David's body stopped after a while. David looked around to ensure no one was watching, then picked up Elle in his two hands and went home quickly before anyone spotted them.

When Elle came back to her senses, she found herself tied to chair and her mouth was gagged. She looked around and recognized that she was left in the shed of their house. Somebody opened the door to the shed and came in. It was her parents. They looked scared and were relieved to find their daughter safe and sound.

"Where is Dave?", Elle asked worriedly. Her parents went quiet. Her mother began to cry uncontrollably as she continued to hug Elle. Her father lifted his spectacles and rubbed his nose. It was then that Elle had noticed a note in her father's hand.

January 16, 2016: Salt Lake City, Utah

David was sitting inside an abandoned factory lot with another kid his age and they were smoking cigarettes. This David looked nothing like that David from Denver Colorado. So, none of the kids recognized him from the picture of the dead kid that made the TV news as the latest victim of the Child Reaper.

"So David, how do you find our terrible city?", Renny asked.

"It's not bad, I have been in worse", David replied non-chalantly.

"Man, I would love to hear those stories. This city has no ambition. Look at my father, he is a fucking pinko. He helps out everyone and tries to 'share' with the community, even if it comes at the expense of his own family. And my mother does charity work in the church. But nobody fucking helps when we need them. You know what I realized, these goodie two shoes won't make anything of themselves in this world. I never regretted turning towards a life of crime. I got 300$ just by pawning a stolen PS4 and it was only too easy." Renny brought his tirade to a halt as he waved 300$ in front of David. "Sorry, I went off on my own there."

David leaned in, "No, I am quite interested in hearing this. Do tell me more about your family."

Strength

Genre: Drama
Word Count: 466
Rating: Safe!

I stood there watching him. The blood dripped from his nose. His left eye was slightly swollen. His legs curled up and his hands heavily bruised as he protected his body from their kicks. He was losing. But that’s ridiculous, my brother is the strongest, he can’t lose, how could he? There is just no way.

My big brother has always been so much stronger than me. Our father has problems with his legs. Whenever at night he would come home, he would smell funny and he would have trouble standing straight. My brother told me that he had a disease called “drinking”. I feel sorry for dad, but the disease causes him to get angry at us for no reason and start beating us. My brother would come and stop him. My father is strong, his beatings would hurt but my brother is even stronger than him.

My brother is so so strong. He can go without eating for several days, but I can hardly go a day without eating. He can transfer a ton of bricks on his head from ground floor to fourth and then at night he would still have enough strength to pull a cart filled with heavy things all on his own. He could pull the cart even when I would sit on the cart, he is so much stronger.

My brother is so strong that adults come to our house to talk to him. They don’t even talk to our father. They always talk about taking things, giving money. I don’t really understand all that, but adults are talking to you, then doesn’t that mean my brother is as strong as an adult?

Then, how? How can he be beaten like this? I just scratched their car a little bit. I didn’t mean to. But they are beating my brother for it. My brother is so strong, why doesn’t he fight back? And as these thoughts swamped and swirled in my head, I found myself standing in between the two tall guys and my brother,

“Ae buddhu! Galti apun ki thi, bhai ko kyun maar rela hain? Apun se baat kar na jo bhi karna hain!” (“You idiot! It was my fault, why are you beating my brother? Talk to me, whatever it is”)
“Oye chutku, chal kat le yahan se” (“You little runt, get out of here!”)
“Apun kahin nahi jayega, jo ukhaad na hain ukhaad le” (“I am not going anywhere, do what you can”)

As the two guys walked away visibly frustrated, I turned around and looked at my brother angrily,

“Do fatka kahe ko nai diya?” (“Why didn’t you just beat them?”)
“Arre woh sambhaal nahi pate re” (“They couldn’t have handled my beating”)

Then he just smiled and messed up my hair. I knew it, he is so strong. I will grow up to be strong just like my brother.

Look Who's Talking : An Anthology

Genre: Mixed
Word Count: ~1300 words
Rating: PG13

Story 1

I am waiting for my girlfriend. She is late and I am worried out of my mind. We met a year ago at the funeral of my previous girlfriend. She has been a rock that supported me through a very tough time and I cannot stand the thought of any harm coming to her.

My previous girlfriend was such a support too. When I used to be down, she will try to cheer me up. Her gentle smile would brighten my day. Her eyes would make my heart flutter. A single kiss from her gentle lips would make any pain go away. I remember the warmth of her bosoms as she would hug me when I would get upset. I could still smell the strange intoxicating smell of her hair whenever I close my eyes. The touch of her hands would convey the gentleness in her heart. She meant everything to me, but did I meant everything to her? I wanted to find out. So, one day I disguised myself and strangled her from the back. The sound of her screaming my name for help, still deeply resonates within my heart. And I could see that even in her dying moments, all she wanted to do was to see me just once. Oh, how much I wanted to jump in front of her and show my face, but no. I wished that her last love should be me. And as she breathed her last breath, the feeling I felt was indescribable. I wondered if this is what they call - love?!

"Oh sorry, I am late, the traffic took forever to move, I am so sorry!", my girlfriend exclaimed with a slight bow, clutching her earlobes.

"Oh, its OK, I am just glad that you are alright. Waiting for you has made me realize how much I need you in my life!"

Moved by my words, she hugged me tightly. The warmth of her bosoms, the intoxicating smell of her hair - oh she means the world to me, but do I mean everything to her I wonder.

***************************************************

Story 2

The puff of smoke formed a cloud and then dispersed into nothingness. As I sat there in the smoking section of the restaurant near the glass window, I could not help but blankly stare at the cloud as it dispersed - it conveyed the state of my mind. My editor has asked me to write an article for the Op-Ed section and I am drawing blanks. I lazily peered through the glass window at the outside world like watching an uninspiring crowd of actors on television. Just then my eyes caught hold of a young girl at an intersection. As I looked at her, I don't know what got hold of me, but I took out my note and began to write:

Darkness is defined by the absence of light. And thus, the darkness of a city can only be measured by how much light it lacks. I am not talking about the road lights that light up the road making for a beautiful spectacle when viewed from the sky on an airplane, but I am talking about the light in the hearts of its inhabitants - which create some touching moments that go viral on youtube reminding everyone to touch base with their humanity once in a while. I witnessed a young girl barely of 12-13, standing at the intersection of a road. Her clothes were tattered and through the holes in her dress, the bruises on her body peeked out as if they were shy to show the abuse this young body has suffered. The shyness of those bruises being even more evident from her body language, as she tried to hide the holes in her dress and stood their squirming, trying hard not to be noticed. Mind you, this is a very crowded intersection and she was visible to everyone just as she was to me and yet, there was absolute indifference to her state from those around. People walking around were either looking at their watch, talking on their phone, browsing on their phone or simply having fun with their friends. Their attention was too absorbed in themselves to care for another. But then, this is not just the story of that young girl, but thousands of other children, who in an overpopulated country with finite resources were simply unfortunate to have been born at the wrong place, at the wrong time or ...

Just then, a sedan stopped at the intersection. The glass was tinted and the driver invisible. A shady looking man creeped up behind the girl and money exchanged hands between the driver and the man. After which, the girl got into the car and they drove off.

... or simply unfortunate to have been born. For those born in darkness and never to have known light, how would they even know what they must seek? Will the girl ever find her hero, get on a horse and ride into the sun? For she is now used to finding a stranger, getting into a car and ride into the darkness.

With the subject matter of my article having left the scene, I decided to call my editor and ask for an extension of the deadline for the opinion piece. Then I turned away from the glass window and towards the food that had just arrived, and the whole event that happened apriori just tuned out of my head as if I had just turned off the television set.

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Story 3

Yulin is a small prefecture in the Guangxi region of China. Searching on the internet leads to some interesting information about this prefecture. It is rich in natural resources especially iron and gemstones. It also has many mineral hot springs. But apart from this, it is not really well known for much else. That is, until I came to know about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival. When I read about this festival, I could not believe what I was reading. This festival is celebrated in the summer solstice in June by eating dog meat. It is estimated that roughly 10000 dogs are eaten during the 10 days of festival. The localites believe eating dog meat wards off the heat of the summer months. I did a quick internet search to confirm some of these reports. This was abomination. How could anyone eat dogs?

I immediately sat down on my computer and started an online petition against this festival at change.org. I had found a youtube video where a chinese man caught a roadside dog in preparation of this festival. I thought it was imperative that people see such videos and attached the video along with the petition. Soon enough, the petition went viral and thousands and thousands began signing and voicing their dissent against the festival on the internet. I also wrote a blog about the same and ensured that it got views by hotlinking it on facebook and twitter.

In a few days, the issue caught enough attention of the world, so that millions of people joined me in my protest against the festival. My faith in humanity was restored. To see people eagerly joining me - a lonely voice on the internet was a humbling and yet a powerful experience. I laid back wondering how much the internet has empowered individuals to make a difference in this world.

Then, I went on thedailyshow.com. I watched Jon Stewart making a mockery of Chris Christie for supporting a bill which allows pig breeders to continue breeding pigs in tiny crates. This animal cruelty enraged me and it was suffocating. I went outside to get some air and as I walked by a Burger King, I decided to get something to eat.

"Good day Sir, how may I help you?", asked the person at the counter.

"Good day to you too", I smiled, "Umm, can I have a pork sandwich please?".

As I sat eating the sandwich, the thoughts of all that happened in relation to the Yulin Dog Meat Festival came flooding and I started feeling a little better about the world again.

Simulation Hypothesis

Genre: Science Fiction
Word Count: ~2400

The analog clock alarm rings for no one but an empty room. It's ringing is magnified by the resounding silence - and not just that of an empty room but of the entire world. Just then, one can hear the thumping footsteps of a man who coomes into the room, stops the alarm. Then, emptily stares at the dial which showed the hour hand on 7 and the minute hand on 6. Who needs an alarm in this world - is a question he never asks. For him, it is a routine he simply follows. Little did he realize that today, 6 years after that incident, he is going to come to terms with the reality of the world and he was going to begin a journey he never imagined.

Bid Dable was an inventory manager at a local warehouse. He was 31 years old and had been working as the inventory manager for the last 10 years. And every day of those 10 years have been the same - waking up at 7.30 in the morning, getting ready and checking in to the warehouse by 8.30, work until 8.00 in the evening, go to a mall and get some pre-cooked food, heat it in an oven and consume it, then go to sleep at 10.00. During holidays, he would never get out of the house, except to get some food. For the rest of the time, well, he worked as a carpenter. Nothing fancy, just some stools, teapoys, simple chairs etc. Something he knew he could make in a few hours. His customers were charged for the actual wood purchases, but his own work charges were quite small compared to professional carpenters. So, he used to get quite a few orders on a regular basis. He had assigned a small portion of his house as wood work-station and worked on these small jobs during the day, ensuring the neighbours are not disturbed during the night. He would also commit only to as many orders as he knows he can finish during weekend or holidays. Although, some of them did not mind delays because his workman cost was quite cheap. And thus every day of his life when he woke up and until he slept, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

And then it happened. It was 6 years ago from today. Bid was checking inventory in the warehouse as usual. There was a loud thunder, the earth shook and even some shrieks were heard. He surmised that it was probably a co-occurrence of earthquake and a thunderstorm or he would have, if he cared about what just happened. He cared more for the boxes that fell out of the shelves and thus, his next step was to place them back where they were. Soon, it was 8 in the evening and he was about to leave the warehouse, he saw nobody, none of his co-workers were around, the manager wasn't around. He checked that their cars were still parked. A normal man would have been intrigued as to what happened, but for Bid, these were things he need not bother with. He simply took his car and left for the mall. He took his usual pre-cooked food, and waited at the counter for someone to appear but no one was to be seen. No one, as in, not the cashier, and not even people who usually frequented the mall were to be seen. He waited for a while, but then he simply placed the required cash amount on the counter with a note and left. This continued for the next few days, no people were seen around but he continued to live on as if that did not matter to him. The first weekend after the incident arrived and he finished some of the orders that were left over but no one came to pick them up and pay for it. The next week, continued in the same vein, he carried along his routine at work. Until the second weekend, he had no carpentry orders. For the first time in the last 10 years, he did not know what to do. He sat on the sofa, then tried to sleep, but nothing worked for him. He got up, put on his work clothes and went to the warehouse - it was OPEN! He simply went inside and began to work as if it was just another week day and this continued for the next 6 years. In all this time, he never questioned how he was able to find food at mall and never got over or how he never had to fill the gas tank of his car. These things were irrelevant, as long as he knew what he had to do.

On one night when Bid was going to the mall in the evening as usual. Suddenly a wall of liquid appeared in front of him, which forced him to suddenly brake. He got out of his car - it intrigued him. He went closer to the wall and started examining it. It was oval shaped, it was not too wide, but it was not too thin either. He felt as if he could walk through this wall quite comfortably if he so desired. As he continued to examine it, the liquid suddenly shimmered and showed the road behind the wall. There were people, he could see people. People who were not there if he looked around the wall, but he could see them through the wall. He instinctively approached the wall, but then it disappeared and another man came flying from just behind the wall to hit Bid.

Both men were hurting from that impact. The man quickly got up and offered his hand to help Bid get up.

"Are you alright?" the man asked Bid. Bid shook his head in affirmative.

"Good." The man said and quickly took out his phone and started entering something into it. Bid just stood there staring at him. He had not seen another human being in the last 6 years and now that he has seen one, he has no idea how he is feeling. The man caught Bid staring at him and suddenly started,

"Oh sorry, where are my manners? I am Wate, Adick Wate. I am a computer scientist specializing in prediction models." Wate then took a quick look at Bid and claimed, "Well dressed, neatly shaved and how did you manage to cut your hair? Anyways, you seem to be doing lot better than most people I have come across."

"I am Bid, Bid Dable. Ah, I work in inventory management. Do you mean to say that there are others?" asked Bid.

"Hmm, yes, why? you haven't come across any?"

Bid shook his head in negation.

"That may not be such a surprise, it may not be that many people but the way things are going, you might see a whole lot more in this area and to be honest, that may not be such a good thing." said Wate as he continued to fiddle with his phone.

"What do you mean?"

"Few people, and nearly abundant resources. It is a situation almost out of a fantasy book where a man is consumed by his thirst for power. And such is case right now. They talk about recreating the entire human kind with themselves as its leader. But of course there are many with similar ideas and they all claim that they have been chosen by God and this world has been given to them as their reward or some nonsense like that."

"They are fighting?" asked Bid, almost surprised.

"Oh yes, there are small skirmishes between different factions happening right now as we speak."

"You look unconcerned."

Wate was taken aback, "You speak without holding back, don't you?"

"I am sorry."

"No, apologies are unnecessary. It is true. Because I believe this is not our world at all and that gaining power is just idiotic." then Wate looked at Bid and asked him pointedly, "Did you see through the portal?"

Bid looked back confused, "Portal?"

"The wall of liquid like material that was in front of you. Did you see through the wall of liquid?"

Bid shook his head in affirmative.

"Did you see people through the wall?"

And then the images of people walking by, cars honking on the road flashed through his head and his almost instinctive unexplainable reaction to touch the wall resurged again.

"I knew it, your expression says it all. Its a shame you didn't try to go through the wall"

"Why?"

"You would have been back to our world by now, if you had", Wate was excited as he said this.

"Our world? Then what is this place?" enquired Bid. There was a certain enthusiasm in his voice that he had never experienced before.

"You are asking a difficult question. Initially, I thought it was some strange abduction experiment, corporation conspiracy, government conspiracy, but over the years even though I haven't had clear evidence one way or the other, I have a strong belief in the following answer -" Wate looked at Bid as he came to this point. "You will call me crazy, if I tell you this."

"No, I would consider your answer seriously. Whether I would believe it or not is something I can't say, but I would consider it seriously."

Wate felt a sense of gratitude towards Bid. "There is a hypothesis in philosophy known as Simulation Hypothesis. In 2003, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom claimed that our universe could be simply a simulation in some giant computer."

"What does that have to do with this world?" asked Bid.

"Well, that is the basis and everything I tell you now is just my speculation." Wate looked at Bid again, but Bid's eyes were serious and paying complete attention. "Have you worked with computers Bid?" he continued.

"Yes, at work."

"Good, if you have some important document and your computer is behaving strangely, then what do you do?"

"I just take a back up."

"Exactly! This world, haha no the entire universe, my friend, might just be a backup!"

Bid considered this carefully and answered, "but why do you think that?"

"How else can you explain the things that happen around you? The food you use is automatically replenished and it is exactly the same as before. You use that car right? I am sure you haven't refilled your gas tank in all these years. Why do you think that is the case?" and as Wate continued Bid recalled all the events, his daily routine, things he saw but did not think about and slowly realized how bizarre world the was.

"And what's more things that get broken, gets fixed automatically."

"What?" Bid got up almost startled.

"Don't tell me you haven't broken anything in the past 6 years? Seriously?" Wate took out a new notebook and tore a page from it and Bid saw, that in front of his eyes, the page was being restored, as Wate still held the torn page in his hands.

"This is amazing!"

"You know what the messed up part in all this is - the same rules don't apply to us. If the same rules applied to us, we should not be aging or our wounds should heal", then Wate pointed to the small wrinkles on his face and several bandages on his body. "If God were behind all this, He certainly thought that our accomplishments were more important than us. We are not wanted by this world! We are the pariahs, the Others of this world! In fact, I believe we shouldn't have been here in the first place. And I believe that the strange behaviour of the 'giant computer' that created this backup must have had some problems which pulled us into this universe and that very same behaviour is also creating these walls of liquid that you saw and I believe they are a way back to our world."

"That's", Bid looked a little uncertain as he said this, "a little far-fetched, don't you think?" He looked at Wate, hoping that he wouldn't take it the wrong way.

"True. But I have to get back and I will take any explanation that allows me to get back to where I was 6 years ago."

In the last 6 years, Bid never wished for anything, he went about his routine as if that's all that mattered to him, but right now seeing this man in front of him striving hard for the past 6 years to get back to whatever it was he had, stirred something within him. "Where are these portals created? I had never seen this wall of liquid around these parts before."

"They are almost random. But I have been tracking them for a long time and I have built a prediction model on my phone that helps me predict where the next portal will appear. Good thing, its batter power does not go down, but a phone is slower than a computer, but with none of the power stations running, it will be difficult to use anything with electrical input."

"Look. I don't know how much I can accept the whole - universe is a simulation thing. But I do know what I saw and I did see people on the other side of the wall. And if possible, I would like to help ... "

"That is fantastic!" Wate held Bid by his shoulder. "That would be great, if there is one more person looking for the portal, it would help reduce the time it takes for me to find them. If you have something that you would like to take with you, please do so right now. It will be a few hours before my model can predict the next location. But as soon as it does so, I would like to leave without delay."

Bid went back to his home, as Wate sat in his car near his apartment building. Bid looked around his house. He looked around for things that he would like to take. Finally, he just took his analog alarm clock and his carpentry toolbox with him. He bid adieu to his house and left with Wate on a journey to find their way back.

Journey of Endymion

GENRE: Drama, Thriller
WORD COUNT: ~3500
RATING: Safe! (Well, some profanity, so be advised)

Its been a year since Karthik came to US for his graduate studies. A star pupil, securing a position with a very reputed scientist, came to US with two goals: become a renowned scientist and get a girlfriend. He was all of 22, with no overbearing parents and a burning ambition. But the graduate experience had gently pressed its wet fingers on the wick of his ambition. Rejected by girls and unable to keep up with the requisites, both his goals at this point looked like stars - shining, beautiful but unreachable. A few days back he gave his qualifier examination - which decides whether he can continue his studies or get shipped back to India. Sitting in his rental car outside of Whole Foods Market with a grocery bag in the backseat, his mind was distracted with negative thoughts. He came to get groceries near closing hours, so it was getting pretty dark outside. However, he still did not budge from the parking lot - his mind too distracted to drive.

The door on the passenger side opened and a woman entered. He could not properly make out her face because his gaze was firmly attracted to the nozzle of the gun she was pointing at him. "Now, start the car and move", ordered the woman. Karthik frantically took out his keys, managed to place the key into ignition after fumbling with it for a while, started the engine, pressed the accelerator and slammed the car into the front wall.

"Are you kidding me?", the woman exclaimed, "Reverse! Reverse! Calm down and hear me!" and a after brief pause she reiterated, "Reverse!"

Karthik put the car in reverse and pressed the accelerator hard again and this time hit a car parked behind him. Usually the commotion by now would have caused people to look at what is happening but the parking lot was dead silent and there was nobody around.

"Just my luck, the one car I tried to hijack... And people say women drive badly!", she got out of the passenger seat, came from outside to the driver seat and signalled him with her gun to move to the passenger side and she herself sat in the driver seat.

She kept her gun pointed at Karthik as she started driving. And all the while Karthik kept curling into a ball and could not even raise his head to take a look at her face. After a while, he calmed and wondered who she was and who she was running from. His question was soon answered as he heard police siren gradually increasing in volume.

"God Dammit, looks like I was bugged." said the woman as she searched her pockets, then threw away her mobile phone and anything else she could find except a USB flash disk. "Look, we are being chased and I need two hands to drive better. I am going to put this gun on safety and place it near the seat. Don't try to take it, because I don't want you to accidentally shoot yourself or me, especially me. Do you understand what I am saying?" Karthik shook his head up and down. Indian headshakes are one of the most complicated head shakes in the world for many people to understand, so much so that Youtube videos have been created so that people can understand how Indian head shakes work. But at this point, the woman realized that he was acknowledging that he understood what she said.

Soon, she grabbed the steering wheel with two hands and began driving even faster weaving through the traffic like a race car driver. And like it happens in movies, she immediately moved onto the opposite lane and started driving the car in the direction opposite to the traffic. The police however did not give up and continued giving chase. After a while, she managed to lose them but accidentally drove into an alley coming to a dead end. It was over. Getting out of this narrow alley would take too much time. If she tried to ditch the car and make a run for it, one of the police cars might spot her soon enough. Even if she stayed in the alley, one of the patrol cars is bound to spot a car hanging around in the alley. Resting her head on the steering wheel, she turned to her hostage and told him, "Look, soon we will be caught by the police and when they ask you about the situation, simply tell them that I was holding you at gunpoint and I gave you no choice and that you had to comply with my demands. Do you understand?" Karthik shook his head in affirmation again. "Good." then she continued to stare at the blank wall in front of her.

For the first time, Karthik had calmed down and was getting a good look at his captor. The woman was probably in her early thirties, but she was gorgeous. Her grey eyes matched her auburn hair. She had a glowing visage and a body so graceful that her tight jeans accentuated it brilliantly. If he had to describe her, then to him, she looked like diamond eyed venus, if venus had auburn hair, wore tight black jeans and a blue tank top. And even before he realized, his body moved on its own and grabbed her hand and pulled her outside of the car.

"Hey, what are you doing? What do you want?", she almost screamed.

He still did not have enough courage to speak out, so he simply pointed out the fire ladders at the top. She understood and followed him.

Karthik was gifted with advanced spatial memory abilities. He can visit places and can create a complete mental map of the area he visited and not just places but also patterns like traffic patterns and even patrolling patterns of police cars. In the one year, he has stayed in this city, he has spent several hours walking and driving around several places and has a mental map of the entire city. He knows how to best avoid getting spotted by the patrol cars.

Karthik took charge as they both weaved in and out of couple of buildings and they finally came out on the streets. She immediately wrapped her arms around his, so they looked like a couple walking along and did not garner attention. Karthik felt happy even if it would last only for few moments, but soon quietly remarked to himself, "my hormones are going to get me killed, aren't they?". Karthik finally stopped near a shop named "Couch Gaming". The proprietor gave Karthik keys to Room 11. The small room had a large TV, couple of console stations PS3 and XBox, a computer with a large screen monitor, a chair and a couch.

"What is this place?", woman enquired appearing quite intrigued.

"Oh, this is a gaming cafe. People come here, rent a room for a specified duration and play as many games as they want. They have many latest titles as well as the classics. So, everyone, young and old enjoys their time here."

"And you seem to be a regular customer here", the woman looked at him with a smirk. Karthik was visibly flustered at the comment. He admonished himself for rambling too long about games and was disappointed at the prospect of her thinking of him as a loser. The pause that continued afterwards only made him even more uncomfortable.

Ignoring his condition, she continued to look around and asked him, "Does the PC have an internet connection? And also does it have Journey of Endymion?"

Karthik was surprised. Journey of Endymion was an old MMORPG title, one of the classics which was partly based on Keat's book. It chronicles the journey of endymion through his phases of love for Diana upto his love for the Indian maiden and it is peppered with fictional quests and situations to make this journey realistic. The company that made the game however did not make much profit and went under. However, the game gained lot of cult following. The code of the game was soon open sourced and people started creating their own servers to play the game. Over the years, this game gained immense popularity among hard core gamers. However, before he quickly began losing himself in his own thoughts, Karthik gathered his wits and replied, "Yes, it has JoE".

"Sweet!" the woman sat on the computer, started JoE, logged into an account. Karthik, who was standing beside her and looking at the screen was startled that her game character had a level of 519, which was a very high level. Even his own game character which he has been nurturing over 4 years has only reached level 103 and he was struggling to proceed beyond that. However, instead of playing the game, she instead went to the in-game email program and sent an email.

"WLL B W8NG N CAFE"

Then, she logged onto a message board and went a very specific chat room called "Cafe Booty". As the chat room opened, the wall of the chat room was immediately filled with fanart images of various female characters from the game showing off their impressive derriere. And as if none of it bothered her, she simply folded her hands and stared at the computer.

"What are you doing?" Karthik asked perplexed.

She looked at him and replied, "I am waiting for someone in the chat room" and then she looked at the screen and then again at Karthik, "Are you into this stuff? I mean those buttocks look mighty impressive. My contact won't arrive for a while, so I can get out of the room, give you some privacy and you can do your business." There was a glint of mischievousness in her eyes. Karthik shook his head and glanced sideways, which she inferred as "No". "Wait. Do you mean? You want me to be here while you do it?", Karthik shook his head again with visible frustration indicating "No". "Oh! Do you bend the other way? I mean there is nothing wrong with that, I am just asking", she was clearly a getting a kick out of teasing him at this point.

Karthik wanted to ask her so many questions, starting with who she was and why she was running from police, but forget about explaining the situation, she is not even treating him as an adult.

"Do you want to know who I am and what is going on? Even if I tell you that knowing this information can get you in big trouble?"

Karthik wondered if she could read his mind.

"Now, come on. At least be a little courteous and introduce yourself first!"

He was taken aback and started to shuffle about as he introduced himself. "Ma.. My name is Karthik. I am a graduate student in CMU."

"Hmm. A graduate student eh? Well, then you must have heard of conspiracy theories about Area 51, right? About how they research on aliens and alien technology in that area. Well, what if I tell you that it is all true and I have evidence for it?"

The woman gave a pause, so that the listener fully registers the impact of her statement.

"My name is Eliza Shapley. I am a military private. Well, they call me a private but all I do is run menial errands. But once, while I was delivering some documents, I overheard something I shouldn't have overheard. I, soon, began to seek out hard evidence."

"And how did you obtain it?"

"Seduction." Then, she looked at Karthik with alluring eyes that made him hot in the ears. Then, she continued, "Well, you see the research was partly contracted with a private company. I managed to make contact with a guy, a bit old, in his late forties, who was pretty high up in the ladder. A little bit of flirting and he opened up to me like can of tuna. Initially, he was a bit reserved to show me the data. So, I nudged him a little more and then just spending one night gave me access to his laptop and everything on it." She leaned forward and waved the USB disk at Karthik. "I have been on the run ever since. Cannot leak it on my own, has to be done by someone more proficient. So, do you believe me?"

"No." replied Karthik.

"Why?" Eliza asked curiously.

"The part about se.. seduction." and he bowed his head so low, that if he lowered it anymore, one would clearly see the back of his head from the front. After a brief pause, Eliza laughed and her laugh was boisterous. It was so loud that the neighbouring rooms began banging the wall indicating that Room 11 must lower its voice. She began controlling her laughter and she remarked while still chortling, "I am sorry, I haven't laughed like this in quite a while".

Karthik was deeply embarrassed, and just at that moment, a sharp bell ring came from the speakers. Dune522 had just IMed "I8N008S4BRKFST". That was Eliza's ID, read as "I ate noobs for breakfast". Karthik was now convinced that she was a natural bully. Eliza after exchanging few messages, turned to him and said, "Well, I have a new destination but I still have two hours before I leave, so let us talk about JoE". And for the next two hours, they both talked about JoE. She talked passionately about how much she had to work to get her character to level 519 and she also give him tips on how he can go beyond his current level. A honest and straight-forward conversation.

Two-hour limit was up, Eliza stood up and faced Karthik, "Sorry, I will be borrowing your car. I will return it to you somehow." Again impulsively grabbing her hand, he asked, "where is the destination?" Eliza felt his firm hand and replied with some hesitation, "Near Public Market".

Both left the cafe. Karthik carefully drove her to the Public Market while avoiding any detection. They stood near a square for few minutes when a hooded man approached the car and knocked on the window. Eliza exchanged her USB disk and hooded man left the way he came. Eliza, now got out of the car and asked Karthik to go back. Just then, a shot was fired and Eliza was bleeding through her stomach. Karthik, picked her up, placed her in the car and pushed the pedal hard to the nearest hospital. The cop who shot her, had already intimated others. However, Karthik reached hospital much faster, soon Eliza was admitted to surgery. The cops who reached the hospital left couple of officers to monitor Eliza and took Karthik into custody.

For the next 12 hours, Karthik was extensively interrogated. They soon got his background details, made him realize how precarious his situation is, being a non-US student. After several such hours, he finally broke and told the officers everything. The interrogating officer on hearing his testimony banged the table in disgust and shouted,

"ARE YOU FUCKIN' KIDDING ME?!"

Karthik shrunk back and cowered. Words tied up inside. The officer soon realized that he was telling the truth. "Let him go. This idiot does not know anything." said the officers to the guards. Karthik, then took a cab back to his dorm - his rental car impounded for investigation. Tired body, worried mind and a heavy dose of self loathing were a destructive combination. All he could do now was get some sleep.

In the next four days, he heard nothing from the police. He tried to meet Eliza, but the police kept a tight watch on her. Fifth day, he received an SMS from the University about the results of his qualifier exam. He had been so worried about Eliza that he almost forgot about this. However, right now, he didn't have the courage to look at the results. He plonked down on the sofa and turned on the TV.

BREAKING NEWS: In a story of incredible heroism, freelance journalist Alice Cooper has managed to obtain evidence for a secret deal between Citizen First firearms manufacturer and several rebel groups in Somalia. There are opinions among many experts, that this might be a factor for the rising violence in several regions of Africa. Miss Cooper (picture shown in the side) was almost shot by police officers while acquiring this evidence. A separate investigation has been convened for the alleged involvement of police in this matter. Miss Cooper who was shot is now recovering in St. Mary's Hospital. The surveillance on Miss Cooper has now been removed. More on this later, as we go for a break.

Karthik recognized the picture immediately and set off for the hospital. He grabbed a bouquet on his way and peeked inside her ward. He saw Eliza lying back on the bed, next to her was a tall gentleman who was holding her hand and she was looking at him with eyes so lovingly. Karthik retraced his steps and placed the bouquet in an empty vase near the reception and went back to her ward. He knocked on the door and entered.

"And there he is, my lucky charm.", exclaimed Eliza. "I was hoping you would come by and meet me." Then she went onto introduce the gentleman next to her, "This is Sam."

"Hi, my name is Samuel Beckett. Alice told me quite a lot about you. I almost felt that she might cheat on me.", said Sam as he shook Karthik's hand.

"Why not? He is young, cute, innocent. I can mould him into the man of my dreams. My own boy toy."

"Why did you lie?" came an angry voice. The dissenting voice could not face Eliza however, "I know you lied to protect me, I wish you hadn't though. I know I am being stupid and selfish here, but still ..." No, That was not what he wanted to say, "No, I am a coward. I gave you up. I am sorry, so sorry."

"Isn't he an adorable puppy dog?" Eliza to Sam.

"I see what you mean now." said Sam in an agreeing tone.

"I would like to feed and pet him." Eliza being querulous. "Ah! I know, forget about your graduate studies. Join me as my personal lucky charm assistant!" Eliza cheerfully looked at Karthik.

However, this attempt to lighten the mood did not have the desired impact. They looked at each other and Sam nodded as a sign that she should face him more honestly.

Eliza looked at Karthik and began, "As a child, I was a crybaby. Children used to tease me. My parents got me a small puppy dog, named turbo. He was timid and would hide behind me when anyone approached. One day, the children teased me and I began to cry as usual. Turbo, who was hiding behind my back, came to the front and growled at the other kids. He was still a puppy though. They pelted stones at him, and he began to bleed but he did not move. Then, the children simply left. I picked up turbo and ran to my mother. He was severely injured but he survived. Turbo and I, then, spent 16 happy years together and I felt lucky to be with him."

"When you drove me from Cafe to Market, your eyes were fierce and determined. You reminded me of turbo. And you were my lucky charm." There was a deep caring smile in her face as she said that. Then, sheepishly looking away, "And yes, I know I put you through a lot and I lied to you, but you know .. its past, water under the bridge and all that, right?" Eliza extended a hand to Karthik. Karthik looked from her face to her hand repeatedly.

"Take it Karthik, that is the closest you will get to 'I am sorry' from her." Eliza glared at Sam for saying that, to which he simply shrugged his shoulders. She then felt a tug at her hand. Karthik shook it, all the while keeping his head low. Then he took his leave. Sam followed him out and called out,

"She is tough, but she needs support. I am glad you were there. You saved her in more ways than one. We owe you for that. If you need our help at anytime, don't hesitate to call on us." he presented two cards as he said this. "And yes, she has written down her JoE ID at the back of her card and she wants to play JoE with you as a group, if you are interested." He took Karthik's hand, firmly held it and then went back in. Karthik looked through the glass to see Sam leaning in to kiss Eliza's forehead and he gently clasped her palms between his. Karthik turned around, and placed the visiting cards into his pocket. Then he picked up his phone and checked his results:

QUALIFIER EXAM: CLEARED. CONGRATULATIONS!

"Water under the bridge," mumbled Karthik to himself.

---

CARD 1
Alice Cooper
Freelance Journalist

CARD 2
Dr. Samuel Beckett
Medicins sans Frontiers