Author’s note: This story was inspired by a post by Petra Jacobs about the Mysterious Magical Death-Weed Seeds on her site Inkbiotic, and the follow up discussions in her comments section.
The story is now part of a short-story collection available in black-white and coloured prints and as an ebook. I will share the links soon.
I’m sure, the quill had lost its potency, or may be it’s the fancy ink I had purchased at the Witch’s Supplies store. They had guaranteed that anything written with the quill and ink will be accepted for publication without fail. But I should have known better–these readymade spells wear off after a few readings, and I, myself, had reread the manuscript at least four times.
Was that why it had felt rather bland in the last reading?
Now the entire thing has returned from the publisher and I had to pay for the return Owl as well. And to think, I had spent three months writing the entire thing with hands.
Once Paa hears of it, I’ll never hear the end of it. Over and over, he had offered me his spell-operated typewriter with the secret homemade Publication ink–the one he had used for all of his 18 published books. But I had been too proud to accept the favour. And now he’s busy writing his 19th, so typewriter is busy.
May be I’ll beg him for his secret ink recipe…anything for the elusive Booker Prize…
Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash
The book is not part of a short-story collection available both in print and as ebook. I will share the links soon.
Authors note: I am trying a different genre now inspired by the Ellen’s Wonderfuss Faeries. You can visit her blog for a good laugh combined with Scottish mythology. I am fairly new at the genre though. Also, I am painting after 15 years. So, bear with me.
Meet Bagula Saheb, our resident delivery guy, He brought my daughter home three years back. For many years, he had been handling local deliveries on his own (Cranes usually manage the intercity stuff.)
But lately, he had been looking a little grumpy. I guess the constant work-related travel and the increasing pressure on his time was getting at him. I tried to talk to him but he just won’t stop, always crying “Busyyyyy! Busyyyyy!” Lately, the lockdown has locked the humans in their homes, and birds and animals have a free reign outdoors, more work seemed to be coming his way. So, I wasn’t surprised when I saw him approaching the higher-ups for help.
The result was heartening. He was instantly provided with a female colleague. Together, they were promised a brood of tiny apprentices to train in the coming months. Once ready, these apprentices will take most of the workload off his shoulders.
He seemed to be over the moon by the arrangement. I could hear him cackling with delight all night, earning him some very sleepy, grumpy and puffy-eyed neighbors. But well, who cares! Woohoo!
He (looking in her phone screen): Cool birds! Where did you find these rare birds to click their pics?
She: They throng our rooftop. The tree they sit on stands next door.
He: How is it possible? I have lived here for 10 years and never seen one.
She: Seeker Finder…
He: What?
She: Ask the right Guru (religious teacher) and the answer might turn your life around. Though, it may cost you a thousand bucks stay at an Ashram (religious home-school).
He: What do you mean?
She: Ever read Hellen Keller’s Three Days to See?
He: Whatever…
True incidents from my crazy life…
I have always been a TV Aerial, too receptive to things unseen. And having lived in 25 houses means that I received too many signals.
If you think it is funny, consider sleeping in your room for several years with the constant knowledge that someone is lurking in the next room; that your house is built on a demolished graveyard and the resident will most likely visit you in your dream; or that your dog is crazily barking at the ceiling of your room, which looks like it is made of water.
Only, you can’t see him…her…them…
You can’t ask them, however politely, to move their arse away. You can’t tell them, “Hey! Why don’t you go haunt Mrs. Snubnose in the house down the lane?” You might try exorcism, but it doesn’t always get the expected results, and failure will lead to a rebellion of the ‘permanent residents’ against you.
So, you get the idea.
Whenever faced with situations like these, my first response was to run to another room where my parents or my friends slept (depending on the location of the ‘incident’). But there are only so many times I could do that without raising suspicion.
Do you think I should have told them?
What response do you expect from them? If they were easy on me, they would have brushed it away by saying, “I don’t feel anything.”, “I think you are watching too many horror movies.”, or “You need to reign in your imagination.” Or they would have put it down as me “being a woman”. But, gradually, they would have begun questioning my intelligence. In the end, if they really loved me, they would have moved me out of the haunted house into a mental asylum.
So, telling my family and friends was a strict ‘No’.
Hence, most of the time, I would sit up late at night alone and try to discern what I was dealing with.
I would usually begin with questions like ‘how many?’
I know for sure that one of my houses had at least three. One of them lived in the room upstairs and tried to strangle me on the first night (I never went to that room at night again.). When I moved to the spare room downstairs, I felt another who liked to lay in the bed next to mine quite often. The third one used to simply cross the room at a certain time of the night and, if I blocked the path by placing my chair a certain way, it would begin muttering threats under its breath (Irony, I know!).
I would wonder what they were and if they could hurt me.
But there were too many possibilities: Ghosts, Poltergeists, Djinn, Ghouls… Since I couldn’t see them, I wasn’t sure. Their powers could also differ from the time they landed the job and the practice they had. They could have been around since before my great-great-great-grandfather was born or someone fairly new at the jig.
Did they mean to scare me?
Did they get paid for scaring humans like me or did they just exist as we do, and I just had a sensory overload by their presence? Aren’t lizards scared of me? Does that make me scary? (In case you are wondering, Lizards don’t scare me–I have lived in government-built houses half of my life.)
Did they mean to hurt me?
In most cases, they seemed to be just going on with their lives. Maybe they were late for their jobs but I blocked their path by strewing my stuff around. What if they were raising their kids in the house that (according to them) I decided to break in? I slept in their beds and ate from their bowls. Of course, they wanted me out. I wonder why only three tried to strangle me, especially since I was playing Ghazals around the house (Pure torture, I know!).
After my last encounter, I realized that in most cases, I can co-exist with them like lizards with me. So, now, I carry on with my life and let the Djinn in my spare room live in peace.
I was waiting in the old barn where we had spent our childhood plotting mischiefs. It had been twenty years!
But I knew she will come today. There was no where she would rather be and nothing could stop her now—Becoming ghost had its merits!
It was difficult to start a conversation while our families milled around us. We had only ten minutes to decide.
She took out her phone ‘replying an urgent text’. I received a message from an unknown number, “Let’s run away from them all!”
She was smiling!
Sometimes some pieces of art leave an everlasting impression on you, specially visual media. I once saw a ‘piece of art’ on internet that influenced me for a lifetime: Taher Shah’s Eye-to-eye.
👁️2👁️ 😱
I am sure all 20-40 year old Indians know about this 5-minute video. If you don’t, consider yourself lucky. 😉
It was something my friends had forced me to watch by trapping me between my desktop and chair. 💻Since one of them was my senior who had to review my work, I believe it was some kind of a payback. 😋 I was in physical pain from the efforts to jump over the desk to avoid the video.
😐😑😶😯😮😵😥😫😨😰🤒🤢
Best part: Taher Shah’s Eye-to-eye is a ‘serious romantic’ song that should not make you laugh. 😵 Only, the guy is seriously in love…with himself…or it seems, since he was the only one in the video and his ‘angel eyes’, ‘mesmerizing eyes’, ‘enchanting eyes’ were featured too many times in the video.
👁️👁️💓 👁️👁 💖 👁️👁 💗
Now, why am I remembering it after four years of the ‘incident’? 🤔 I should have got over the trauma by now, or so I thought until yesterday. 😕
When I sat down to write my blog “Eyes”, I had difficulty concentrating and kept having fits of laughter 🤣🙃 remembering all the words he had used to describe his own eyes (with too much love).
💕💕💕💕💕💕
I also actively tried to avoid using the adjectives he had used for his own eyes. It was rather difficult because when he wrote the song, he definitely had Thesaurus on.
So now, I have a lifetime dearth of adjectives… I will have to learn creating new words… SIGH!
– I am not giving a link to Taher Shah’s Eye-to-Eye because I don’t want to be responsible for a similar fate of another human. But you can look him up on Google at your own risk. You have been warned!
Hi, I am rebloging one of my older pieces from my earlier site. Apologies to those who already read it.
Long time ago, there lived a woman who used pigeons to send mails. She spent all her day sending and reading her mails. She would draw pictures of ‘Aloo salad’, ‘Kadhai dal’ and ‘Chulha roti’ and send it. People would, then, tell her that they liked it or loved it. She, in turn, would do the same for them. Once an insect bit her lips and she sent her picture to her friends. This inspired others to post their picture with a pout as well.
All this made her feel important and happy!
She kept her precious pigeons in a cage and locked them when not delivering emails to ensure no one stole them. One fated day, she lost the key of the cage. No other key would work. Locksmith tried different combinations, even tried breaking it but the lock would not budge. He gave up in the end.
A week later, the woman passed away of a broken heart…
Unlikely story? Weird story? Stupid story?
I don’t think so!
Most of the people on Facebook or Twitter spend all their free time on it. They post pictures of what they cooked or wore, where they went and how they are feeling. They wish their own spouse and children a ‘Happy Birthday’ on Facebook or Twitter, even though they live in the same house. And the rest of the world likes and loves it.
They call their friends to ask why they only posted a like and did not comment on a particular picture if they really liked it.
If needed, they would even suggest a good comment.
First love, first kiss, first baby and first soiled diaper… They are all on Facebook for the world see, like and comment on.
If you didn’t post it, it never happened. If you didn’t ‘like’ it, you ignored them. If you didn’t post a comment, you never cared about them.
Facebook and Twitter are not websites anymore. They are oxygen cylinders. Lock people out of their account for one day, they will suffocate. Lock them out for a week, they will be as good as dead. If they lose their password, they will spend the rest of their lives resetting and securing it, or die trying.
That reminds me… what was my Facebook password?
…Where did I write it?
…Oh no! Where did it go?
…Gawd! What do I do now?
…OH NO! (Gasp) Can’t breathe… Need air…
…HELP!!!
-Dedicated to the Dimpy Angel and all my friends on Facebook
Short Stories 