Why Do I Write, You Ask?

Why do I write, you ask?

I do not know

I write when I am happy

I write when I am sad

I write to fill in empty spaces

I write to kill time

I write because it sets me free

I write because it imprisons me

I write because everything changes

I write out of compulsion

I write to soothe my desire

I write of castles and kings

And about missing diamond rings

I write about princes and paupers

And sometimes about dogs and cats

Why do I write, you ask?

I write because I want to write

The Bilge Master

The Love Potion Conundrum

There was once a chocolate shop in a small town. The shop had various types of chocolate and anyone who came in, rarely left empty handed. However, there was something special about this shop- it was run by a wizard. The wizard was an old man. In his prime, he had researched various spellcrafts and potions. Nowadays he didn’t cast too many spells but he did keep his old book of potions.

One day, the wizard had an idea. He decided to spike the chocolates he made with potions. A shop that sold chocolate, catering to every need! A red chocolate would make you fall in love, a green one cured colds and so on. Thus deciding on his course of action, the wizard got out his grimoire and started brewing different potions, enchanted with specific spells which he would then sell. The townsfolk saw the wizard’s chimney smoking till late into the night and heard him stirring his cauldrons as well.

After developing a large batch of assorted magic chocolates, the wizard opened his shop. He laid them out on the counter and he waited for his first customer of the day. He did not have to wait very long because just then a handsome young man of about 25 walked into the shop.

The wizard smiled at the man and said, “Welcome to my shop. I have a confession to make to you. The chocolates I sell are not ordinary ones. They each have cores where an infusion of magic is stored. If you were to eat a red chocolate, you’d fall in love with someone. A green chocolate could cure fever and cold. I have here about twenty varieties of such magic chocolate.”

“Is that so?” said the young man. “Well, I was looking to ask you for a favour actually. There is this girl I am in love with. However, she doesn’t pay too much attention to my courtship. I had come here in the hope that you could assist me by casting some sort of spell on her. I did not know you had made chocolate with love potion in the core. I think I’ll take five of those.”

 “I must warn you that should this girl become aware that the chocolate she ate was a magic one or if the spell performs its function then the spell will be broken and cannot be cast again. Tread carefully, son” said the wizard and he handed over 5 red chocolates to the man whose name was Ralph.

It so happened that Ralph told his mother about the wizard’s chocolates and his mother told Mrs Lafette who told Miss Simona and soon enough the entire town was flocking to the wizard’s shop.

“I’ll have three black ones!”

“Give me two whites and one pink!”

“Four blues and two yellow ones”

The wizard could not believe his luck. He would make chocolates in the night and by midday they were all gone. The wizard smiled to himself and continued his trade very successfully.

But we must here pause and turn our attention to Ralph, who had bought five love potion chocolates from the wizard.

Ralph’s sweetheart was called Victoria. She lived just down the lane from the wizard’s shop. Her father was the greengrocer of the town and Ralph taught at the local school. He had seen Victoria on numerous occasions and had become infatuated with her. Therefore he had started paying visits to her house trying to woo her. Victoria enjoyed the attention, but was not ready to commit to him.

So it came to be that Ralph paid another social call with the chocolates wrapped in a small package which was kept in his pocket. He was met by Victoria at the gate and she smiled at him, because she enjoyed chatting with him.

Ralph took out the package and gave it to Victoria

“What’s this?” she asked

“I got some chocolates for you. Try one?” replied Ralph

Victoria undid the wrapping and popped one into her mouth. Her teeth bit into it and something warm came trickling out of the core of the chocolate. She suddenly found herself attracted to Ralph, though she couldn’t understand why. She felt like she was in a dream.

Ralph then pledged his love to her once again, and this time due to the wizard’s potion, Victoria said yes. And so it came to be that 

Ralph began his courting with Victoria anew.

However, after a few days, the magic chocolates did not have an effect on Victoria and sometimes she would be absent minded, sometimes refusing to recognize his paying court to her altogether. Assuming the wizard had tricked him, Ralph stormed off to his shop. It was closed, but the wizard’s hut was nearby. Ralph went to the hut.

“Open up old man!” he hollered, while banging on the door

The wizard answered the door and asked who it was that disturbed him so late at night.

“I am Ralph. You sold me chocolates laced with love potion and they do not work! You have played false with me!”

“I told you if the person becomes aware or if the spell performs its function completely, then the chocolate won’t work. Maybe Victoria is in love with you already, but acts strangely because she’s under the influence of the spell. Let it wear off, which it should by tomorrow and try talking to her.”

“Why should I believe you? You have tricked me!”

“Would you doubt the wizard who made the spell you wanted to cast? There is no one better than me who knows how his own spell works!”

“Very well, but should you have played me false, I will not let you go”

So saying Ralph stormed off and he met Victoria the next morning

“How are you feeling?” he asked

“I feel like I woke up from a strange dream, where you were by my side. We held hands, just as we are now. I do not understand why we are holding hands now.”

“Victoria, you know I love you. Do you not love me too?”

“No. I never did. You were just a friend and you still are.”

Crestfallen, Ralph said his goodbyes and left. He went back to the wizard and called him villain and cheat and scoundrel.

“You told me it would work! Everything you said to me was a lie. You dabble in falsehoods in your mind. You are wicked. Wicked!”

Ralph said his piece and the wizard could not placate him. He stormed off, breaking one of the windows of the shop as he left.

Now, our wizard was in a dilemma. He thought about his shop and the chocolates he sold. He realised he was dabbling in falsehoods, because these chocolates hoodwinked you and were not truly serving the purpose he had intended them to perform. He became sad, and a strange feeling of disgust came over him. He flung his chocolates here and there in fury and closed the shop.

The town did not see or hear the wizard for the next three days. He had been busy with his many grimoires , trying to perform magic that lasted. He had decided to stop dabbling in lies, like he had done with his spiked chocolates. He wanted to do some good for the town instead.

The next night, the wizard started to cast a few spells. He cast one on the town’s lights, which ensured that they glowed for a long time. He constructed a fountain in the middle of the town square. He also met with the mayor of the town and cured him of arthritis.

In this way, bit by bit the wizard repented for his sin. He still makes his chocolate and sells it in his little shop, but none of the chocolates are laced with anything. The next time I go to the town, I shall bring you a bag of chocolate from the wizard.

The Bilge Master

The Kids from Yesterday

This is a conversation between an iPhone and one of the old Nokia phones I had when I was a kid in school

Nokia- Hey there!

iPhone- Wassup man?

N- Wassup? That’s a new one

iP- It’s pretty common where I am from

N- Ah yes, the digital age. You know back in the day phones used to be tethered to a cable and had a cradle? You couldn’t carry a phone in your pocket. It was just too large, not to mention heavy.

iP- Really? All I see these days are people glued to small phones like me and others like me running iOS or Android operating systems

N- They gave you operating systems? In my day and age the only operating systems we knew about were ones on computers. Tell me, have you heard of Windows XP?

iP- Yeah, but that is obsolete now. Windows 10 has come in and it’s a lot more powerful

N- I had heard of this software called...now what was it? Uber? Ola?

iP- What you’re referring to are apps. See over here everything has been compressed into packets of software we call apps or applications if you will. They didn’t have apps where you’re from but here it’s the latest craze. Look at Pokémon Go for instance.

N- I also hear you can access the internet via a phone now.

iP- Every app needs some internet to work, so yes we come with modems or WiFi networking

N- What the hell is WiFi?

iP- WiFi allows me to connect to a router which allows me to access the internet. All through electromagnetic signals, just like radio in your day and age

N- Fascinating. It’s fascinating what they’ve managed to do is so little time. Back in the day I was the zenith of human inventions. I was a phone that functioned wirelessly, something small enough to fit into a pocket. Now I see that in the future, what big computers did, small phones do better.

iP- We prefer to call ourselves devices

N- So this is what I’ve created. I am like the apple of Eden it seems. I was the zenith, now you are the zenith and soon afterwards something else will be the zenith. This wouldn’t have been possible without me.

iP- Yes, it wouldn’t have. I suppose if phones had families, you’d be our great grandfather. I must confess, the way you put your remarks leads me to realise that just as the old Gods are dead, so must I one day die.

N- Well we might as well enjoy it while it lasts, because we won’t truly be gone. Mankind keeps looking back sometimes. Our memories will remain. Anyway, come on. The next round is on me!

iP- Lead on, Macduff!

The Bilge Master

Coming Out of the Tunnel Part Two

“Memory’s so treacherous. One moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights with poignant childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candyfloss. The next it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go, somewhere dark and cold, filled with the dark ambiguous shapes of things you’d hoped were forgotten.”

~Joker in The Killing Joke

Sometimes I ponder about this quote. It’s a perfect description of what I said in the first part of this series. What you lock away affects how you feel.

You see this thing that I have, this bastard in my head, it doesn’t like the light of the outdoors or of a fluorescent lamp. It doesn’t like laughter, cheery dispositions and happiness. All of these things make it weak. So what it does is force its host to lock these things away, sometimes forcibly making the host remember the place that is dark and cold filled with these ambiguous shaped forgotten things.

How does one fight back against such an onslaught? To tell you the truth, I had no idea myself and I was trapped in the vice this thing had put me into. However, thanks to my parents, friends and doctor I have found a way out of this prison and am planning my escape. You see, I know where this thing hurts. It demands attention; it literally begs you for it. Take that away and this becomes nothing but a pile of ashes.

Acceptance is a big part of this fight. Yeah these bad things happened and will happen in the future possibly. But don’t let that take your happiness from you, or your mental capacities. In this battle all you need to do is do something you like doing. For example, I recently opened my textbooks again and they welcomed me like a long lost friend. I cannot study for too long but I can study for a short while. That is where the victory is.

We are so busy thinking about the future and where we will be and scrutinizing the big picture in our minds that we forget the little things-a smile, a laugh, a good song, a great book, family, friends-happiness can be found in the small things, if only you choose to look at them. After all drops make oceans.

As always this quote drives me- “Don’t let the bastard win”.

The Bilge Master

Coming Out of the Tunnel- Part One

It’s been a while since I’ve felt good. I have stated before that what I am going through is somewhat like going through a tunnel and not being able to find the exit, or the hidden dynamite which can make an exit for you.

I may not have the dynamite yet, but I am feeling good. I am searching for the way out. I am getting ready to come out of this dark tunnel I’ve inhabited for so many days and months now.

Remember Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog or Durin’s Bane in The Lord of the Rings? I have battled a similar foe across time. I finally have managed to rescue my mind from it’s grip and start dealing some damage of my own in return. Results are slow however, so maybe I need to find new thought processes.

Our mind is like a cage. It gives us an option to lock memories away. It leaves the choice of memory to us. You can lock away the first time you ate ice cream or you can lock away the first time you got in a fight. You can lock away your 21^st birthday celebration or you can lock away what your mother said to you in your schooldays.

Choose wisely, because if you lock away a happy memory, then all you’re left with is sadness ans Steven Wilson crooning something like Hand Cannot Erase on your phone.

This is a short post, because this story is still being written. I will complete it as I go along. Until next time, take care of yourself and the ones you love. I hope all of you stay happy.

The Bilge Master

Rats- A Guest Post by Rishav Paul

This is a story about a rat with an interesting narrative style. It is written by my friend Rishav Paul who cooked it up for me when I asked. Welcome Rishav to the blog people!

The Bilge Master                                                                      

 RATS!

Is the coast clear? Sniff sniff. It certainly seems so. There’s no light—natural or artificial. The two legged beings must have gone to sleep. Boy, are they scared of me! Talk about scaredy-cats! They’re more scared of me than I am of cats, phew! But it sure is fun to dart around, giving them glimpses, and then hearing them scream their shit out.  The female has a particularly high pitched scream. However, she’s also the one most active with a broom, chasing after me. But they never learn. They used to keep food out in the open earlier, and they still do. Tell me something. If you leave food uneaten, isn’t a hungry chap gonna come along and gobble it up? And seriously, clothes? You’re gonna stop me with pieces of cloth and plastics stuck in those holes and crevices? You know I’m gonna chew through them in, like, an hour or two. My man Aesop wasn’t lying when he wrote that story about some ancestor of mine saving an enormous lion from the clutches of a hunter. King of the jungle, my ass! If you stupid enough to fall into a trap set by these humans, you damn well save yourself, I say.

Anyway, the night’s still young. I got a couple of my friends coming over for a party. We’re gonna polish off a couple of kebabs that the young human didn’t bother to eat. I mean, come on, here we are, hungry and starving, and here they waste food like some lordly kings who live in mansions. I tell you, one of these days, rats are gonna take over the Earth, just off the power of the food that these humans waste.

The other day, I saw a metal contraption with a piece of cheese set in the middle of it. I literally rolled around on the floor laughing. If they think they can catch us mice and rats with these puny shit they call traps, they got another thing coming! I just cut up a few of their plastic water bottles. Just to stick it to them, for wasting my time with those traps. The girls were mightily impressed by my ‘feats of bravery’, and showed off their long silky tails. My, my, they were a sight for sore eyes.

I just have to make a quick test run. See if there’s anything else apart from a couple of kebabs for my friends. Whoops—a—daisy! OK, I’m gonna scamper over to that cupboard. Yeah, yeah, there aren’t any traps tonight. I’m glad I’ve kept myself in shape. I can run faster than ever before over these mosaic floors now. And skidding; now that’s a load of fun! After running for a while, you just retract your claws and slide! Smooth. Oh hello. Its biscuits in a plastic can. Like shooting fish in a barrel, as the popular adage goes. Oh my God, what is that big, hulking animal? Jerry in heaven, that’s a cat! And it looks grumpy! Run for your lives, people! Scamper scamper, left; scamper scamper, right. Zigzag is the name of the game. Whew, I’m outta breath. This kitty just doesn’t give up. There’s a water outlet. Come on legs, move faster. Oh no, those claws are gonna land on me! Full stretch, Stuart! Aaand I’m in. Deep dark place, with a few lizards for company. Humans flush their water out through this. No use swiping your paws now, pussy cat! I’m gonna show him the finger! Yaah boo, sucks to you! Whoops, almost got me. OK, enough for one night. I think I’m gonna stick with the kebabs alone. Gunnyt guys!

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