Timeliner

Land Ahoy!’ young Wayne Roswald exclaimed.

‘How is that possible?’ Aileen McCarthy retorted.

‘Yes I see it too but it looks so different?’

‘What re those tall structures?’

‘I don’t know I don’t have a precedence to refer.’

‘Should we stop?’

‘I don’t think so?’

‘Where are the others?’

‘I don’t know – they must be coming behind’

‘What a night it was, isn't it?’

‘Yea, I didn’t notice the iceberg at all.’

‘Oh so you saw it?’

‘Yes maam right in front of my eyes.She ran into it like a charging bull.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, after that I…I’

‘Well go on – why did you stop?’

‘Uh um I don’t seem to remember.’

‘What do you mean you don’t remember – we hit the iceberg didn’t we?

‘You were there too –‘

‘Yes I was, but on the lower deck – so didn’t see it coming – just heard a loud noise and that was it.’ Aileen said lowering her eyes.

‘What happened after that?’ Wayne pushed.

‘We ran out of the lower deck and then…’

‘And then what?’

‘That’s odd- I too don’t remember what happened next?

Just then…

‘Look there is a strange looking boat coming right ahead.They seem to be saying something…’ Wayne said.

‘Captain – I see a man and a woman on a boat – they refuse to identify themselves’, seaman Ron Mitchell shouted.

‘Are you kidding me? Must be a rocking honeymoon on a boat in the middle of Atlantic!’ Captain Cork giggled.

‘This is the US coast guard patrol service, identify yourself’ the loudspeaker blurted.

‘Wayne Roswald and Aileen McCarthy on board sir.’

‘Which port are you coming from?’

‘Southhampton sir’.

‘You traveled two hundred and fifty nautical miles on that boat?

‘No just the last few miles – our ship hit the iceberg sir’.

‘Well the last time something hit an iceberg was a hundred years ago’.

Wayne and Aileen shivered, as they saw the date on a wet torn newspaper lying on the floor of their boat –April 10,1912.













Gyanban Thoughts - this fiction is dedicated to the centenary of the Titanic voyage.April12,2012 is when the unsinkable sank.So many lives,so many stories, so many hopes and so many prayers drowned that cold night.I guess God was busy saving someone else that night.This story is laced with optimism albeit in another timeline. Somewhere the Manhattan experiment crossed my mind while creating this fictoreal story.The story travels back and forth in different time lines.Who knows someday we just might see the the Titanic that made it to New York.


This also happens to be my 200th post.

Viewfinder

The lens zoomed in on the curls arching over the forehead. His eyes waited patiently for that perfect moment, and as if the gods were listening, a gentle breeze brushed her forehead. The locks swayed to the lyrics of the breeze and the music of the gods. Her eyelashes arched back in full glory.

 His index finger circled the shutter button slowly; his breath took a break and the world around him stopped for that fraction of a second. That perfect moment had arrived. As the index finger depressed the button, a moment in time was captured forever. For him it was the essence of his existence. Stitching together the moments in time and reliving them all, over again, and again. The party went on uninterrupted; he quietly slipped out of the room, and slowly walked up to the attic. No one really noticed.

He opened the door to see his only friend - familiarity, waiting for him ever so patiently in every form shape and size. The same single cot, the tired bed lamp, the thirsty jug, or the ragged rug, the lonely glasses or the squeaking chair and the aging album. They were all there for him and he for them. He was mostly attentive to all his friends, but the album was close to his heart.

He had it the longest beside him, though he never remember the date it was born, but its contents went on to capture the moments that shaped his life. As he did every time, around this time, every year, he went back in time flipping pages of history. The first page had captured the smoke billowing from the hull of a ship. A vessel that shipped him to the best memories of his life from the troubled past. Those were the golden years of his life, which of course he didn’t know then but would realize later and loop back infinitely. The photograph was in monochrome and sunlight had created a perfect shade on his smile. The background was oblivious of his joy as he was of theirs.

The foreign breeze must have been just perfect, as the curl on his forehead added to the glamor of the picture. The tie knot and suit contrasted, and the leather handbag completed the perfect picture. The love of his life had taken that beautiful photograph. So many years passed before his eyes in a flash. As he took his eyes off the photographic past, his present snapped in and reminded him of today.

 It was his granddaughter’s birthday. Her mother, and her mother, was no longer part of the picture. Their last moments were captured by the doctor’s words and not on his camera. He felt a shooting pain through his heart as tears welled up in his weary eyes and burst out uncontrollably. He yearned for one last moment with his loved wife and daughter, one last moment to capture or be a part of. It never happened. He was late, a memory that haunted him to this day, exactly fourteen years now. Today was no different. It was ironical that there was a birth to celebrate and deaths to mourn on the same day. Over time, the balance tilted from somber to celebration for the day.

 People had new photographs to cheer. He rarely left the attic but for today, every year, to capture that face, which reminded him of her presence around him. His granddaughter had inherited all the looks from her grandmother, specially those eyes. He would make it a point to capture those beautiful eyes, in their various moods that day and go back to his abode in the attic.

 In the party hall below, Emily suddenly felt a bit uneasy. ‘What’s the matter honey?’ her friend asked. ‘Nothing its just that I felt something strange inside – I am not sure what but something’s wrong’ ‘Do you want to lie down for a bit?’ ‘I think so, maybe I am just a bit tired, I guess age is catching up, I’d like to be on my own for sometime’. Her friend looked on disconcertingly as Emily walked away from her.

 Emily walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She noticed that the attic door was open.  She was drawn to the attic and slowly walked up towards the door. As she entered the room she saw a single cot unkempt, as if someone had slept on  it, the bed lamp was switched on, the water in the jug was still circling, the rug was lying half folded, the glasses were broken and the chair rocked back and forth as if someone had just got up and left. Her eyes wandered on to the aging album lying on the side table.

As she flipped the transparent thin paper over the photograph she saw a picture of her grandfather standing on a port with a camera hanging from his shoulder. The date on the photograph was 4th April 1905.






 Gyanban Thoughts - this is a short story, flash fiction, based on some true events.I  have tried to capture the loneliness and pain in the form of objects, be it the camera,the attic, or the album.This experimental piece focuses more on the scene construct, so the detailing is by design.The original thought was to write a tragedy,but eventually it wrote itself out as a suspense with a twist at the end.I am trying hard not to do this,but find it very difficult.So maybe the next one I will focus solely on not having a twist. Having said that, I really enjoyed the twist in this one,somewhere I felt there couldve been multiple twists in terms of the narration and the conclusion but I settled for the least complex.I hope my readers enjoyed it too.



image courtesy: here.

Wassail

The winged horse stunning white,

Eyes glare under the shadowing hood

The dark feather blends in the night.

Flying hands and braclet wood,

The magic conjured is never understood.

And as fortunes are told

Love is not weighed in gold

Hope inside a rock gilded,

Her eyes witness spiraling stories,

Wind carries the nomad memories.

Moonlit woods and a crimson fire,

Rocking lanterns and a serendiptous lair,

The dancing flames and a mystical glare

Reality suspended and dreams revel

A wasaail candle and the lurking devil.

Gyanban Thoughts - Wassail means  ~ a salutation wishing health to a person, used in England in early times when presenting acup of drink or when drinking to the person  or a festivity or revel with drinking of healths. liquor for drinking and wishing health to others on festive occasions, especially spiced ale,as on Christmas Eve and Twelfth-night.I took this prompt and tried using it in a different mystical setting leaving reality behind.A secret lair lying hidden in some corner and a magical world lives there. 
There is an element of love and fortune introduced in the second part, this is narrated by the gypsy woman.Finally the poem ends with a surreal devil lurking in a corner, waiting, perhaps attracting the moth to the candle.


I was fascinated with this word because there are multiple connotations that can be applied. the poem is written keeping a gypsy night merry making scenario, with  a touch of darkness.




Written for One Single Impression Prompt: Wassail.

Bakers Dozen

‘Yes, yes, yes he is a murderer!’

 ‘I remember correctly, clearly and precisely.’

 ‘I closed my bakery at 8PM sharp that Friday,and  as I switched off the lights, I heard a loud scream and went to look at the window.He hit her with the baseball bat, looked up into the light and that’s when I saw his face.’

'Are you sure Mrs.Nelson you are not missing any more details?’

‘Well not really,she wore a pink night dress,with a ribbon tied to her hair.She’d put cream everyday and arrange her bed and tuck herself in with a book, every single night. That night was no different.’

‘Mrs.Nelson, look carefully, your testimony could be tested here'.

 Mrs.Nelson looked around the courtroom; the woman was alive sitting in the audience looking directly at Mrs.Nelson.

‘How could that be? She did not have a twin I know for sure’.Mrs.Nelson blurted.

 ‘You’re right – she didn’t – so how did she get away?'

 The courtroom was in pin drop silence, the whirling fan above the judge's head made its presence felt.

‘B-But how is that possible – I saw it in front of my eyes.’

 ‘That’s because you did it Mrs.Nelson’ the lawyer said coldly.

The court ruled Mrs.Nelson guilty.

 Many years later in the federal prison Mrs.Nelson got a parole for good behaviour.

 As she stepped out of the prison,the impressed guard at the exit gate said  ‘never come back here again- I am sure you didn’t want to kill her in the first place’

 Mrs.Nelson stopped to look back and sighed  ‘I should’ve been a bit more careful – she was the unlucky thirteen’.

 Gyanban Thoughts - a short fiction - with an unusual character sketch - a lonely baker Mrs.Nelson is the serial killer with twelve prior murders hence the title Bakers Dozen was quite apt I thought. Must say the original idea came from Graham Greene's  classic Case for the Defense.I thought that was one the best short stories ever written structured around crime and providence.

image courtesy : here

Clawstrophobia

The memories of that night,
a slightly lit hope and smoke
The darkness cloak fighting light,
rubbing hands and a fiery stoke

the flickering faces and those hazel eyes,
the drying water and parching throat,
shivering hope and involuntary fingers
rushing blood and an unfamiliar coat.


Splattered passion and faceless walls,
knocking fear and blind windows,
flighted stairs and grinded hope
Locked life and closed doors.

Pounding skin and a gagged heart,

stretched fear and sweaty calves,

moist nape and clawing mark

choked love and a life halved.

Gyanban Thoughts - This poem, if I may call it so, is written keeping key elements of fear,and love in juxtaposition.This experimental and probably does not confirm to any poetical norms, not that i care or understand much.But the point is that I enjoyed writing it,especially the dark claws and hence the title claws - trophobia. Perhaps someday this will or might be considered for a movie caption or title while using the poem as a narration. And if it doesnt, i ll still feel ok.

image courtesy : here

Underground

The reminiscent path of a lonesome teardrop

Of feelings buried and passion unstopped,

Cloaked  beneath the smiling lips,

Of forgotten shores and empty ships.

The careless wind and heedless locks,

Of the wandering keys and still clocks.

Cold waters and snow blinds,

Of memories and milestones left behind.

All that remains today in the deep underground,

Some silent smiles and lost tears unbound,

Of buried love you will never unearth,

The Eden underground & the barren land above.









Gyanban Thoughts - some lives are never found, buried deep within, some feelings are never unearthed lost somewhere deep underground.As time passes us by and end comes close the heart yearns to find the un found and bind the unbound.

Written for Onesingleimpression prompt :Underground
Image courtesy : here

Vital Signs

Street lights blink,

Life walks by silently,still

Hurt speeds by the curve,

Unknown fate meets the violent blood,

Stolen screams of the muted eyes

Reminiscent  breaths of a fleeting soul,

Yet a joyous birth tears away,

and yet again love awaits

at the crossroads,

Looking for the vital signs.








Gyanban thoughts - Life is about moving,even after we die isnt't it ? Love is unending , untiring in spite of the most savage attacks that death has to offer.Hope keeps us alive as love replenishes it time and again.This world needs love,a lot of love,and peace will come if our hearts make space for hope.Believe it to see it.This poem is for all those people who have lost their good friend "hope" somewhere behind in life and miss the vital signs of love.

written for OSI

image courtesy: here