Wall

Theme: Wall

"This is genius!" she said. "You can see through walls with it!"

I read stories to Audrey sometimes. She could read Braille, but she said it was difficult to maintain the pace of the story that way. And I didn't mind at all. I loved spending time with her. Her favourite painter, she had told me, was Edward Hopper. She said she didn't have to be able to see his work to know that he was her favourite. He just was. I don't know any other eight year old who had a favourite artist, let alone a blind eight year old.

"See through walls! It is genius, isn't it? Isn't it?" She insisted.
"I suppose it is. I just never thought about windows that way."

Motherland (Prologue)

Written for Joe Haldeman's class. First few pages of a novel.

Motherland

Prologue

The last ship passed through the Arch, bringing the total up to twenty-four. The fleet arranged itself into a phalanx seemingly of its own accord as it entered the alien system. No signals, electromagnetic or otherwise were exchanged. There was no way anyone could’ve said that they were there. The ships were completely invisible to most of the electromagnetic spectrum, possibly the first machine in the universe to achieve that, though you could never quite tell what technology a world was hiding. Building the fleet had exhausted the world’s known reserves of Rhodium. Maximilian Waters cringed at the thought. What a terrible waste of such an extraordinary material. But now was not the time to think of such things. It was not becoming of one of the 24 to cast aspersions on the operation at this critical junction. One moment of hesitation and all the months of training that they had undergone would all be for naught.

Twenty four of the brightest young women and men in the world had been assembled at the Military High Command exactly two years ago. For 24 months they had trained together. 24 months of waking together, training all day and sleeping together had bound them into a seamless unit. It was required, of course, for this operation. There would be no communication between the ships. No encryption was secure, and they could not risk the enemy catching wind of the smallest detail of their movements. Not before the operation, not during it. Hopefully there would not be an after. Hopefully, the Military High Command knew what they were doing. A lot was resting on the war plans of men and women who had never been in one or trained for it.

Max gave his head a hard shake. He needed his head to be clear for this. The fleet was almost at the gas giant’s orbit now. Thankfully, it was on the opposite side of their sun right now. Not that it would have mattered if it hadn’t. Nothing could’ve detected them save for very fine precision cosmic ray detectors checking the flux at every point in the sky. Hopefully they didn’t have too many of those installed on any off-planet sites. Planets were a problem, you could install all kinds of surveillance devices on them. But technology hadn’t advanced enough yet to build megastructures capable of supporting the same kind of devices.

They were past the gas giant’s orbit now, and fast approaching the Asteroid Belt. This is where the first alarms would go off.  187.. 188.. 189.. the phalanx rose above the invariable plane and diverged. The mission was going to be tough enough without having to dodge rocks as well. It all depended on how prepared they were for this attack. There was no way the puny 24 ship fleet of Terra could take on the mighty Earth armada. Larger fleets had tried and failed -fleets that had sieged Sol’s system for decades in the hope of gaining access to the mineral rich moons of the system. Terra didn’t have that luxury. These 24 ships were all they had. This was a do-or-die mission.

The first pulse came out of nowhere and bounced off Max’s ship, leaving it unharmed. But the game was up. There was doubtless a receiver somewhere behind him which would complain to its controllers about a signal it didn’t get. Shields would be going up on Earth just about now, and their various destroyers being deployed. 2 minutes. That’s all the time they had. 2 minutes in which to destroy Earth, the capital of the world, the cradle of civilization. The fate of two worlds rested in the hands of Max Waters and his comrades.
238.. 239.. 240.. It was time. Max Waters turned his boosters on, and dove.

Flight

Theme: Real Life

The story ends with Icarus' fall. Not the actual fall, mind you. Just a declaration that he fell. When hubris has been shunned, and the virtue of moderation exalted, and the kid listening to the story has learnt his lesson - to always heed his parents' advice - the story ends. What they don't talk about, is the actual fall.

A limp body fell through the sky. The supple flesh struck against the jagged, rocky mountainside, and erupted in a mass of bone and guts. And then it lay there - still, in a pool of blood. Nobody bothered to come near. Nobody, except the maggots. They came in large numbers, feasting on his innards. Until it was so putrid that even they didn't want anything to do with it.

But they don't tell you that.
Because that's not an image you want in your kid's head.
Because real life is ugly.

His brother slapped him on the back, breaking his chain of thought, and asked, "What are you thinking about, Will?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
Then Wilbur Wright crawled into the tiny compartment, and strapped himself in.

On Reality

As I lay alone, on my back, flat
I wondered if there's an app for that

The Racket

Since Eeshan made the f1rst post, I guess it falls on me to contribute the first story. That, incidentally, is what this blog is going to be all about. Stories. Eeshan and I are going to write stories, for you, dear nameless, faceless reader. I'm not quite sure who you are yet, but we'll figure that out as we go along. If you happen to come across this, it's probably because one of us sent you the link. In that case, do let us (me) know what you think of our (my) stories.

But what kind of stories? - I hear you ask. I'm going to try to write stories inspired by things that happen around me - in real life, so to speak. And Eeshan is going to write stories on the theme "Real Life".  They will not be too long. The blog is called "Andheri Raat". If you want to know why, see the title of Eeshan's other website. Now that we have all that introduction business out of the way, here's my first story, titled "The Racket", in honor of a $2 Wilson tennis racket I purchased recently.

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A sizable crowd had built up in Martha's front yard. Around fifteen people, walking around, trying not to bump into each other or the tables. She should put up a "If you break it, you buy it" sign somewhere. But she didn't care too much. The sale was going fine, and she would probably be able to get rid of most of her stuff by the end of the day.

She struggled to drag a potted plant across her porch. The pot, as resolute in its old age as its master, refused to budge. After a couple of hopeful tugs, she gave up and decided to head back to the yard.

She spotted a young man, standing, straining his neck, presumably looking for someone in charge. That would be her. She hobbled over to him, drat her knees, and tapped the man on his shoulder.

"How can I help you, sir?"

He held up Andy's tennis racket.

"How much for this?"

How much for this? She thought back to the day she had gifted Andy the racket. It was his 10th birthday. He had been so happy. She hadn't seen him indoors except at mealtimes for the next 2 weeks. She remembered his first tournament. They had driven 3 hours to get to the tournament, only to lose in the first round. It had been a nice trip though. Andy hadn't been too thrilled about his dismal show. But how else could she have gotten him to spend 6 hours with his mother? She remembered his last tournament. That had been in his senior year at high school. He had won that one. But by that time it had become something of a habit. She remembered him returning from it, speaking in awe about the Colonel who had been the chief guest at the prize ceremony. She remembered ironing his brand new uniform. How handsome he had looked in it  She remembered saying goodbye, trying not to cry as she watched her only son go ten thousand miles away. She remembered the box that had arrived at her house last week. It had the uniform, a medal, and a few other things.

How much for this?

She looked at the young man. He looked to be around 20 years old. Barely a young man. Just about as old as Andy.

How much for this?

"That will be 2 dollars." 

F1rst Post!!

Lorem Ipsum, Yada yada yada.