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| I have decided to draw my own images as googling is time consuming & I am not an artist. |
Best thing about sudden vacations is, people can take small
trips to rejuvenate their scrambled and scattered spirits. When these battered
creatures get magical three days to escape university, they whoosh past their
backpacks and run home to re-nourish their starved body and souls. While some
vacations are gift from the divine, some vacations come into life of people as
double edged swords. Instead of rejuvenating to glorious beauty, one ends up
being errand boy, a job that befalls with birth under right stars on wrong night.
One particular battered soul, decides that expensive
unhealthy junk food is a must for the system after living on green tea and
hot-chocolate diet for a month, when the news of sudden vacation breaks out. This particular creature could never escape the
all reaching, over-loving hands of family. By fluke of birth and authority of
the mother supreme, the power of errand boy got pushed down on this creature. A task
as divine as stealing fire of life like Luka, who was bookmarked inside the red
backpack, was bestowed upon this errand boy.
The task begins when Errand boy attends class on Feminism and curses Woolf with
wholesome thought process and finally rushes out of class to catch train at 1.10 pm.
Eyes glance at watch and errand boy rushes towards the wrong direction at 12.45
pm, realizing the mistake turns around and hurries with small feet. The
kindness of tall stature did not happen to this body. When the crafted bottoms
finally rest on the ‘Toto’(battery operated rickshaw) the heart beat violently in the petty body, afraid
that it will miss the train. Vehicles jammed up, horns blew up like battle
conchs, sweat grew in armpits and the purple muffler muffled up the thoughts
in throat.
But a sigh of relief escaped the pigged up nose, when the big
digital clock assured fifteen minutes were there in the watch to spare. With a
white ticket in pocket errand boy enters well loaded compartment, as the tippy
legs went past blue seats, the eyes suddenly locked up on one of the professor
errand boy studied under. The empty seat opposite the educator meant a three
hours of self-consciousness and betraying dreams.
Luka decided to slow his pace through the pages, Bear the
dog and Dog the bear riddled up conversation between educator and student. Once
silence fell with educator closing the tired eyes, chips seller hindered the
peace, errand boy was asked to eat chips, jhalmuri, cakes and finally the poor
creature had to explain, food was not the favourite on the list. Human blessed with third gender, came to collect
money and wished both luck and success. An art student sat beside and
not-so-secretly sketched the educator, errand boy and Luka began to collect
lives and Nobodaddy grew opaque. A woman with expanded body and aware mind
eavesdropped on professor’s conversation and asked unimaginable question. Errand
boy got worried at the changing expression opposite, but the destination had arrived and “Good day ma’am” left the
lips and tiny feet flew.
Only to be haunted by past which had creeped up like Jo-hua in
the favourite cake shop errand boy decided to stop by. Two hours flew, but the
past decided to remain unchanged and be a dead log. Errand boy wiped the
chocolate of the lips with napkin and told the baggage from another life time, that
somethings fall apart for good and walked away.
Now errand boy could concentrate on the task assigned to the
steeply shoulder. The task to go through human labyrinth and like Luka find the
fire of life. But the task here was fiercer, the task to find cat litter was
more tiresome. Unlike Luka errand boy had no flying carpet to help him zoom
past traffic or skip levels. The bus decided to drop errand boy on the far and
wrong side of right. But courage prevailed, the tippy toes and backpacked
shoulders entered human maze. Target was to locate the pet shop. Proud pushes, loud
mumbles, hard tumbles and frustrating fumbles later our hero found the target, but a fake
target placed by the fates. The first box of cat litter was packed, yet errand
boy felt, there was another lane that had real goal hidden among the glamour dust. The target was soon found the hands and back was balanced by two heavy packages oddly
placed. Errand boy fell like the balancing toy on a pole, swaying east to west, left to right, tumbling back and front.
Like all heroes, on this cat litter quest, awaited an
impulsive romantic interest. All good things come late and all prizes belong to
someone else before hero wins them. A bowl of pasta and fancy cups of hot
chocolates with cream and marshmallow later romance happened, yet there were phone calls and worries
buzzing like flies. The target was acquired but errand boy had to send the bag of sand to
right place. Errand boy’s task was far from over.
The sliver chariots on wheel, had strict guards,
scrutinizing every boarder for bombs, the brown box of cat litter was first refused entrance. But the box of sand passed it
tests and errand boy was swept away in Tsunami of masses and was being tossed
by human waves. The tiny hands could not reach the silver bars and the weight
on shoulders dragged the body down. Waves after waves errand boy was tossed and
pushed. Finally, lovers from different tale caught errand boy from falling down
and found an empty seat for the poor creature who had reduced in size and age. Errand boy earned bonus life which Luka Khalifa never
had chance to earn with that empty seat.
Errand boy at least crumbled on the kind cousin’s bed and
found the body aching. But the inhuman family was demanding and uncaring.
Mother supreme’s concerned remained with safe delivery of the cat litter.
Errand boy was a tool in great circle of selfish love. Errand boy found no
solace from the previous mother supreme either, who chose to remain similarly hard-hearted. National holiday blessed errand boy the next day with no activity of urgent family matter, but that day too
went capturing small catches for mother supreme, friend in need and the
celluloid houses shut their doors on errand boy’s face. Yet errand boy found
little joy when the tame-less mane was trimmed and groomed over, tongue swirled passed chicken in thick layer of cheese and cheap
clothes donned the petty body. That happiness was transitory.
As next day, the third and final day laid the biggest target
of all, safe delivery of the cat litter. The box packed, the address written on it but the stamp hidden away in an old building among many other. Locating the building was easier
but the process of eliminating other errand boys was tough. As the time counter
tickled, six errand boys before, the fatal mistake was pointed out. Costing
time and coins, the address of addressee was on the wrong side of right. Errand
boy and cousin had a mini banter and finally a shop popped up and errand boy
was saved. Half of the cat litter was sent. Luka was far from fire of life, but
errand boy now just had to board the saved safe passage back to the real life
of red soil and dry pages whereas Luka was still fighting rodents.
A successful tale inspires; a hardworking narrative motivates
but a twisted tale warns. Now after achieving the mentioned target above, the
classic lethargy born in a twisted tale passed down by generations of rabbits through rabbit hole
caught up errand boy’s watch. A miscalculation of time proved fatal. The safe
& saved passage was due at 4.40 pm. Errand boy boarded the bus at 2.40, yet
found the same curse catching up that was escaped two days ago at the beginning
of journey. Luka ran, leapt, lost lives in magical world and seconds slipped
out in reality. Luka curled up under the shield on King Solomon's flying carpet and fending off mist of time while Errand boy was trapped in the lethargy of rabbits and sitting
on a bus that moved at tortoise’s speed. Some magic slipped out from pages and Errand boy
reached station at 4.37 pm.
With a five-kilogram luggage on shoulder, non-runner shoes on feet and human hurdles to tackle, saved safe passage was thirteen platforms away. With
strength accumulated from all the non-existent lives, which even Luka Khalifa
could not use, our Errand boy ran. Ran with fight, might and un-shut site. As
the legs reached platform thirteen, like in celluloids reality slipped away,
but in much aggravated manner and crowded version of reality broke on errand boy, who
saw the chariot of wheel leave.
With family calling and interfering, errand boy lost temper.
Every other voice got shut, stopped, yelled and cursed. The weight of cat
litter suddenly doubled up and legs dragged, the non-runner shoes tighten up.
In stubbornness, anger and extreme pride errand boy had decided not return to
the cousin. After irritating, shouting, psychologically poking, creeping the
officials, a cup of coffee and best-friend intervention later, errand boy
booked a ticket. Not a safe passage, but a break passage. After a cup of world's worst Choco-lava cake from the favourite cake shop. Errand boy was on ground
neutral and thousand heads lighter and the weight of cat litter back to original. The
brown rickety chariot of wheels arrived. Errand boy found new spirit in the
feet. The wings of Hermes lifted up the hearts that lay in toes and errand boy
found the compartment of desire.
With hood on and a fluffy, heavy backpack errand boy stepped
up the stairs. When a uniformed hand stopped the shoulder. “Brother this is Ladies
compartment, only women are allowed here and police are here to guard them” the police sighed. Errand boy turned
around and pulled down the hood and flicked the earrings peeping out from the soft ears hiding below the messy bobbed hair and tilted the head. “Boys too wear earrings these days” the police
smiled at the action. Errand boy smiled back, Luka was fifteen pages away from fire of life,
anger had left both and the short leg dangled the little Riding-hood coloured
ballerina pumps at the policeman standing below “Have boys started wearing red pumps already?”
P.S- not everything is truthful nor everything is fiction. Luka and Fire of life is a Must Read for all! Sorry for all the reference in-between.
thank you for bearing with me
paulOaries
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