The Phoenix

The little boy had gone to the old story teller on the hill again. He loved the stories the old man had to say. Sometimes he would tell of wars fought, sometimes he would speak of the adventures of the Greeks.

But, the boy’s favourite story was the one about the Phoenix

The Phoenix was a bird of splendid beauty, and it was also magical. It had the power to heal people with its tears. It could transport you easily across time and space. The phoenix was the bird of the nobles and the aristocrats. People were in awe of the bird. It’s most important trait was that it was immortal and would burn in a bright flame when the time for it’s death came; and be reborn from the ashes.

Thus, spoke the old man of the Phoenix.

Here below, I have constructed a diorama of what the boy thought the story actually meant. It is the boy’s opinion that the Phoenix teaches us something. It burns up in flame, but always rises from it’s ashes. Maybe the burning is synonymous with the hardships life has thrown at us and the rising from the ashes in nothing but our strength egging us on to master the difficulties. Perhaps what the phoenix means is “never give up, no matter what happens”.

I liked what the boy said. And you, dear reader?  

The Bilge Master

On the Edge of a Rainbow

There was once a girl. She was in her teens. She liked to draw. She also liked graffiti a lot. She always had doodles in her mind and in her notebook. She’d draw Disney characters or comic book characters. Sometimes she would draw herself, either standing or sitting, surrounded by graffiti lettering.

The girl lived in a small town on the outskirts of New Jersey. The town boasted a library, a medicine shop, a small cafe and a bookstore. The girl used to go to the local community school there. Whenever she got a chance, she would graffiti in her school. She used felt tip markers to doodle, so they were removable. The entire building was her canvas, and bit by bit, her art got better and better.

She started to move out of the school building and paint on the walls of the bookstore. She would draw Hemingway, or a scene from a Batman comic or she would use bright colors to initial the walls.

Our artist had soon painted the entire town with some graffiti or the other. Her drawings ranged from lettering, to pictures of the President and scenes from movies were also thrown in for good measure.

In this way, the teenaged girl passed out of high school and went on to study art in Chicago. Seven years passed. Four years of college and three years at an art gallery. She didn’t think of going back. Until one day, her father sent her an email saying that her mother had fallen sick. She took the first train out.

Upon seeing her, her mother was overwhelmed and insisted on talking with her about her new life and how college was. Slowly bit by bit and brick by brick, her mother got better.

Meanwhile, the girl carried on doodling in an exercise book. One day she went out. She went to the bookstore. On her way out, she saw the graffiti she had painted still on the wall she had painted it on. It seemed to have been cared for. It had not faded or been blemished. It had lasted seven years.

The girl felt immensely happy that the town had kept these graffiti decoration she had drawn so well. She also felt at home again in her little town. It was like a trip down memory lane. She was the girl standing on the edge of the rainbow once again; just as she had drawn herself seven years ago.

The Bilge Master

Sandstorm

It was huge. Well over ninety feet in height and spinning around it’s own axis like a vehement top. The noise it made could be heard across two cities. In the center of this wind was a man.

The man had been swept up, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and was now at the exact center of the sandstorm. He was being lashed about left and right. He had slowly made his way, spiralling with the wind to the center. Now that he was here, where the circles originated from, it was agony.

His muscles screamed in pain and it was quite obvious that his left arm was broken.  He looked up, at the light at the top of the wind and he prayed he would get out of this alive.

They had been going for miles now. He could see a few trees and sometimes a building or two through the swirling sand. The strange thing was that this sandstorm was travelling on the asphalt of a highway and yet was made of sand.

The man closed his eyes and he went on praying. He could not open his mouth in prayer because the sand would get into it and suffocate him. So he had to resort to praying with his mind. He recited the verses of the Koran he had been taught as a child. He remembered what his guru had told him. He could change any situation for the worse or for the good. He had not understood the words of the guru at the time.

As he prayed, he asked for power. He asked for the ability to regain control or the strength to get out of the sandstorm. He saw a white light in his mind’s eye. He concentrated on it. He invited it in and he let it fill him.

The man woke up. His mother had just opened the curtains and his room was flooded with white light. The man shook his head to clear the sleep away.

“Everything okay son?” asked his mother.

“Just a bad dream mother”, he replied.

The man walked out into the rising sun. It was a brand new day. A day that demanded to be enjoyed.

The man began to laugh. He had not laughed in a long time. It felt amazing.

The Bilge Master

Along Came a Spider

Inspired from Neil Gaiman’s novel “Anansi Boys”

In the era of animals, before the homo sapiens had come to exist; there existed a spider. This spider was large and black, and used to make the most geometrically accurate webs. Legend has it that the webs he spun could even capture mammoths and dinosaurs. But, nobody knew when the spider spun his webs. Nobody saw the spider in person. All they did see was the effect; viz. the webs he spun.

The animals realised they could do nothing about the spider and so they began to tell stories of the spider around their dens and their lakes and trees. The legend of the spider grew, almost like a web. 

Time passed. Nobody saw the spider, yet the webs showed up.

Then came the era of man. The discovery of fire. The wheel’s construction. The webs that the spider had spun seemed to have vanished. The men did not fear the spider. They were not even aware of its existence because they did not understand the language of the birds and the beasts. To them, the animals were food. It was not necessary to talk to them. Had they listened, perhaps they would also be able to appreciate the legend of the spider.

The humans evolved. They started to compile histories. In those histories, webs were mentioned. Fossils of animals that had been trapped in the webs surfaced. A group of humans calling themselves archaeologists and chemists studied these webs. The webs were strong, spun like gossamer and able to withstand pressure.

And, just like that our spider was back. People wrote poems about spiders. They wrote about a young group of boys going into a forest and meeting spiders. People also introduced giant spiders, who cocooned their enemies and hung them up as bait. Stories of mutations from spider bites surfaced.

In the coming era, the archaeologists and chemists were called programmers. They connected and interconnected large devices called computers. They created something called the World Wide Web.

And so, at night when the children want to hear a story, often their parents look it up on this World Wide Web.

At the centre of this web, sits a large spider

The Bilge Master

Haunted

The little boy walked towards the figure he saw in the distance. The five foot ten man inside whom he resided seemed afraid of the figure and kept glancing over his shoulder at more of these strange figures which had suddenly appeared all around him.

The man closed his eyes. He saw a large figure, waggling a finger at him and shouting something. He cringed. The figure wouldn’t stop shouting. He tried to attack the figure. But he was overpowered and pinned to a bed.

The little boy was confused. His host wasn’t listening to him. They could not communicate. He felt the host’s pain. He wanted to help but he could not.

Behind the curtain of his eyes, the five foot ten man shuddered and cowered. Now there was another figure in the room, also indiscernible; but shorter than the figure that had pinned him down. 

The man screamed “Don’t shout at me”.

Over and over, he screamed the same thing.

Suddenly, the figure pinning him down was whispering. A few seconds later he was made to lie down and told to close his eyes. 

The large figure spoke to him softly, but once again the words were indiscernible.

The little boy wished his host would listen. He felt chained. Wanting to help, but not being allowed to.

Meanwhile in the real world, the one of wakefulness; the man walks on towards the horizon. He sees indiscernible shapes to his left, his right and his front and rear. They form a sort of wall and cordon him in.

Internally, the boy screams. The man merely opens his mouth. No words come out.

The Bilge Master

Two Girls

 The post below is written by a pen pal of mine and her friend Jenny. Kestrel van der Mark and I met on Omegle of all places from where we swapped email ID’s and have been in touch since. In this world of technological marvels, people like me sitting in India can connect with someone like Kestrel in America.

So please welcome Kestrel and Jenny to the blog everyone!

The Bilge Master

The Girl Everyone Hated

I was the girl that everyone hated. They were jealous of me, and I knew it. Perfect grades, loving family, nicer calculator, you name it. But I was untouchable, both in the caste system karma type of way and like a god. Maybe that's why they never showed how much they despised me to my face. I didn't give them a single reason to justify their hate, so they couldn't call me out on it. But I wish they had. I wish they had said hateful things like I never belonged, or I should kill myself. I wish I were the target of blatantly hateful comments. Because if I had been, I would laugh. I would see the confusion and fear on their face when their "victim" couldn't stop laughing like a full blown maniac at their insults, and they would just stand there wondering why. 

But I would have thought it was funny that THEY thought they were the most hateful ones. They gave it their best effort to be hateful and they still didn't come close to the person who hated me most. Myself. I would have thought it hilarious that while they were building themselves up by tearing me down, it would never come close to how each passing second, my mind tore itself apart bit by bit until all that was left was the shell everyone saw on the outside. I would have thought it ironic that while they saw the beautiful facade, I couldn't find a single redeemable quality about myself. But they didn't indulge me. Instead they gave their fake smiles and were friendly without being friends. That was way worse than any hurtful words. Because that allowed my mind to do what it does best. Twist reality. I could imagine what they were thinking as I walked away. I could almost hear their mental conversations. I knew what they thought about me, and that just fed the cycle of destruction ripping through my mind. I was the girl everyone hated. They were jealous of me, but they shouldn't have been.

******

The Girl Everyone Loved

I was the girl everyone loved. The looked up to me, and I knew it. Perfect grades, good advice, supportive parents, you name it. But I was untouchable, in the way people don't know if they're allowed to touch a ancient artifact or expensive painting. For fear they might mess it up...or worse, be yelled at. Maybe that's why no one ever was close to me. I presented myself as an open book, but so many of the pages were stuck together and therefore illegible, that no one bothered trying to read them. 

I wish they had touched, though. I wish they had messed me up. I wish they had pried the pages apart and tried to translate the language that floated in my words. Because maybe then they would have understood how imperfect everything I am was. Because if they had, I would not have been their leader, their role model. I would not have the one they turned to. I would have instead been looked at with pity and I would have smiled. Because had I been closed and replaced on my shelf, I would have become dusty. I would have become static. Had people understood the literature of my being, and been revolted as they would, reviling me in my disgusting thoughts and morbid curiosities and broken suicidal distortions, perhaps then I would not have been held to the same high expectations. I would have gleefully succumbed to the dark shroud that would accompany failure. 

I would have gracefully closed my eyes and relished the disgrace of mediocrity. I would thoroughly enjoy my stream of easy contentment and low achievement while others, those who strived to be like me, instead strived for their own low level dreams. 

But they didn't read me. While I climbed to the top of the stairway to heaven, I artfully used illusion to distract those around me from the pieces of myself that I tore from within and placed under my feet as steps. What they didn't know, but would have, was the way I bottled my tears and drank them instead of water, the way I forced my own blood into the ink of my pen, and the way I held my breath for fear of disturbing the universe. As I suffocated, my cheeks gleamed, and their words crashed in waves of delight at the porcelain statue in their presence. They smiled glittering shards of admiration and I drank it in as one does a poison, with knowledge enough that it would kill me, but with ignorance enough to proceed. And as they applauded me and my efforts and my elegance, I beatifically accepted their praise with open arms, silently begging someone to take my hand. I brushed mistakes under a mountain-like carpet and smiled with my mouth closed to avoid letting the secrets of my self-terrorism reveal the cipher that my pages depicted. I was the girl everyone loved. They looked up to me, but they shouldn't have

*****

 K (@Kestrel_LAOD) and J (@Jenny_LAOD) 

Eulogy

In Memory of my Grandmothers Nilima Mitra and Reba Dam, whom I miss.

There is a house somewhere in this town,

Where two ladies and a family used to live,

The family lives there now,

And the ladies are gone,

One of them was an exceptional cook,

The other had a wonderful collection of stories,

The cook also liked to read and had

A grandson who loved her,

The other lady ran out of stories in 2014,

Now, the family lives on,

And so does the grandson,

But,

The house isn’t the same

Without these two ladies of quality

To save it’s heart and soul