Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla · 2 Comments

Halos and horns

halos and horns

Kabir tossed onto his side and tried hard to ignore the desperate knocking on his window. When it did not go away even after several minutes he opened his eyes to see a cupid flapping his tiny wings hard while he carried a large hamper in one hand and was tapping the window with another. Kabir groaned and opened the window, “Thank you for shopping with us…” the Cupid tried to say in a cheery voice but had to stop to catch his breath, “please rate me!” He placed the hamper on the windowsill, pulled out his mobile from his tiny diaper like pants, rated Kabir five stars and flew away. Kabir closed his eyes, but it was no use the roar of traffic from the street would not let him sleep.

He looked at the hamper, and flared his nostrils, “You are wonderful, but you do stink sweetheart. Take a shower and I promise you will remember tonight. S.” He threw the hamper in the direction of the bathroom.  It was one thing to receive a hamper from his girlfriend, it was another thing when she was a demon. And she always ended up charging it to his own account! Well, was she a demon?

Technically she was a Nagin, but he was not sure where she fits in in the new social order. She was not one of the divines for sure. He couldn’t stand them anyways: Angels, Elves, Devas or Gandharvas…pompous asses all of them. Still, it would do him well to know his girlfriend’s social standing, whether she was classified as an Asura or a Danava or a demon or if the Nagas had a separate class of their own. Right now all he knew was she definitely classified as a hot ass.

Kabir yawned and stretched in front of the window as a minor demon flew by carrying a small packet, it’s eyes glinting red. He leaned on the window sill and looked at the traffic. He saw a few orcs marching to the armour manufacturing factory downtown. He should get his armour checked soon, never knew when he would need it. A small delegation of Angels flew by singing hymns, Kabir closed his eyes and listened to them, it was a guilty pleasure he wouldn’t admit to even under a necromancer’s spell. A golden chariot weaved its way through the traffic glinting like a new dime, the Deva at its helm unheeding if he ran over anyone. Kabir watched a few asura teenagers flip him off. A minor demon slinked closer to them and flipped the Deva off, and tried to sell them something. It had been two years since the quantum wardrobe malfunction had ripped the celestial fabric apart and all the dimensions of the multiverse could suddenly see through each other’s skins. Everything had changed all of a sudden and then everything was the same again. Kabir scratched his ass as he walked to his bathroom. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

Ignore that voice

 

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[What if the characters in a story realized they were in a story? This is a metafiction story in which the characters decide to stop listening to the writer.]

Ed closed the door to his room behind him and pulled Bella into his arms. She gasped as if a shock of electricity had passed through her. He held her by her shoulders and pulled her closer to his chest, “I can no longer spend a day without seeing you…” he whispered in her ears. Bella looked at his intense brown eyes and felt herself go weak in her knees, “I know what you mean, Ed…” she pouted her lips offering herself to him.

He pulled her closer to himself and kissed her with the passion of a wild animal in heat. They kissed as if they were thirsty and their lips had the only water in the world.

Their clothes flew all over the room as Ed moved Bella closer to his bed.

When she was down to her lingerie, Ed stared at Bella like a leopard stalking his prey. He ran his hands over her supple body, picked her up with one hand and threw her on his bed. With his other hand, Ed ripped off his own t-shirt to reveal his chiselled body. “Oh, Ed…my body is literally aching with desire for you…” Bella licked her lips.

Ed dropped his pants, Bella gulped hard, “take me, Ed…Oh great, we are doing missionary again.”

“I want you so bad Bella…” Ed said, “wait…what did you say?” Ed has stopped and is now looking at Bella.

Bella is up on an elbow, “I said take me, Ed…”

Ed has cocked his head to the side, “no right after that…”

“I said oh great we are doing missionary again… did I say that out loud?” Bella is now sitting up. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

The evolution of a belief

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The sun dragged itself lazily over the horizon. The ocean seemed to yawn as a large wave crashed loudly on the beach. The wave receded into the ocean to reveal a small fish, it pulled itself on the sand with the help of two fins. It opened its mouth wide as if gasping for air and finding that it burned its gills. It looked around itself with large wet eyes.

There was a long low noise that sounded like the electric farts of a artificial intelligence that couldn’t digest its own thoughts. A large rip appeared in the air of the beach, and when it was large enough several hooded figures stepped out of the rip. These figures wore long robes that covered their whole bodies and hoods that covered most of their faces, around their necks were chains from which hung insignia of their religions and they chanted in a low rumbling voice.

After the hooded figures a chair emerged from the rip, it floated effortlessly in the air and seated on it was a man in a black flowing robe. He was bald and dark-skinned, his eyes were bloodshot, his brows furrowed and he looked like he was about to yawn. Behind the flying chair, a head poked out of the rip, it had curly hair and eyes that looked magnified behind glasses with lenses that belonged on a microscope. The head looked all around itself, sniffed the air took a gingerly step out of the rip and finally stepped out. He was wearing a white label coat and carried a flat device that he constantly checked.

“There it is…” one of the hooded figures shouted pointing at the fish.

Everyone stared at the fish, the fish took a step back into the ocean.

“Indeed…” said the scientist, almost to himself and took a step closer to the fish, he adjusted his glasses to zoom onto the fish, “fascinating…” he clapped his hands.

“Your honour…this is the fish that we intend to destroy…” one of the hooded figures said.

The judge squinted at the fish hard, he sat back in his chair and yawned, “ tell me again….why do you want to destroy it…”

The hooded figures huddled closer to each other and whispered, then one of them said, “this fish is what led to evolution…” Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

The new man at the zoo

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Ravi woke up before the simulated dawn in his enclosure. He had hardly slept that night. He had overheard the zookeepers say that he was going to get a new mate today.  He jumped with joy. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a human being. Actually he did, it was exactly two thousand four hundred and fifty days ago, when he had knocked on his neighbour’s door and told them to decrease the volume of their party. And the next day he had woken up in this house like enclosure being gawked at by slimy slug like aliens.

He had asked for a mate for a long time now. He just wanted to talk to someone human. But his display was not the most interesting one in the zoo, hence he was mostly ignored. That was until month ago,when he had had a nervous breakdown and thrown things around his enclosure and shouted at the slug like aliens. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla · 1 Comment

No monsters under the bed

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Timmy woke up with a start, it was those noises from beneath his bed again. He wanted to run to mommy’s room and cuddle up near her. But he knew the strange man would scold mommy and mommy would scold him. And he would be back in the bed and the noises would continue. Timmy was tired and sick of the noises. He got out of the bed and pulled his wooden sword out of his mattress. He scrunched his face to make it look scary, held his sword hard and pulled up the bedsheet and peered under the bed. There was no monster there. But there was a door and it opened onto darkness. Where had the door come from? Timmy took his flashlight and pointed it at the door. There was a wooden staircase, he climbed down. After a long silent climb down he reached the basement floor. The basement was huge, his flashlight could not find the walls or the ceiling.

Timmy heard muffled sounds. There was a small light far away in the darkness. Timmy walked towards the light. It was a single bulb that cast a small circle of light. In that light was a steel table and the strange man and mommy were tied up on it. Mommy’s muffled sounds increased when she saw Timmy. Timmy ran towards her. Even before he reached the table Timmy could sense him, the boogeyman, lurking in the darkness just outside the circle of light. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

The last wood nymph

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Yesterday, the last square kilometer of forest on the earth was destroyed, to build a mall. It was sad on several levels, we humans were no longer people of the earth, what we were going to be we still did not know,but we were no longer of the land . It was sad but few people lamented the loss of the last bit of forest. Several people were happy because the new mall would be air conditioned and would have a casino. I was the saddest person though, contrary to what Bhoomi believes. She feels an immense sadness wrapped in her loss , but I also feel responsible for her sadness, because maybe indirectly but I have been responsible for it. Bhoomi was a wood nymph. Sadly that sentence ‘she was’ is grammatically correct. She was a legend to me in the days when I was surveying the forest for my company. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

Hide and seek

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“No, no, no…” Kavita screamed as she opened her eyes and planted her legs on the floor with force. He feet were glad to touch the threadbare living room carpet. She could feel her fingernails digging into the varnish of the sofa. She looked at the balcony, not that she wanted to. Her neck just seemed to turn on its own. The balcony was empty. An angry orange sun was setting below the railing of the balcony. She forced herself to look away. To look at her son.

Her five-year-old son was staring at her with wide eyes. His lips were puckered up, his chin ready to quiver. He was leaning against the coffee table to support himself.

Kavita’s hand trembled as it rose towards him, “I am just afraid for him…” she told herself. She pulled Ravi into an embrace. “Did I scare you? I am sorry…” she whispered as she kissed his forehead, “Don’t be afraid.” She was not sure to whom she said that.

“The police inspector is at the door…” Ravi said in a small voice. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

Cow on call

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Mohanlal grinned wide like a yawning cow as he entered his office premises. The cow sheds behind his office building were already abuzz with activity. He could hear the cows mooing, the copious amounts of cow dung valuable hitting the floor, the litres and litres of holy gau mutra being splashed into special containers. He could hear the calves mooing for their mothers. And he smiled wider, all the sounded like soaring share prices to him.

He had come to love the smell of cow dung in the mornings, it smelt like quarterly profits to him. He bowed to the large statue of Lord Krishna that stood in front of his office and of course the cow that stood behind the lord. He would come back with a Pooja thali to offer a proper prayer in some time.

Mohanlal entered his office, switched on his computer and played the video that he played every day to start his day. It was a video of a reality show called shark tank from five years ago. It showed a naive Mohanlal, wearing the simple white dress of a farmer, pitching his idea of a start-up to a panel of venture capitalist judges. He had called his startup ‘Ghar Ghar Gau’. His idea was to supply cows to houses in urban areas. The customer would download an app and order a cow, the cow would visit the customer’s home and deliver milk, cow dung or the holy gau-mutra. There would be special packages for special occasions such as marriages and housewarmings where the cows could make a guest appearance. Oh, how the judges had laughed at him, how the hall had resounded with the audience’s’ laughter. Mohanlal also laughed with them now, as he watched the video. It had taken him five years but having the last laugh was indeed priceless. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla

The scavenger

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‘It stinks…’ the voices whispered in Aryan’s ear.  ‘I can’t breathe’ a voice choked in his throat, Aryan bolted upright in his bed, trying hard to catch his own breath. It was way before sunrise, the sky outside his window was covered in a thick carpet of dark clouds and the carpet was leaking. It wasn’t a strong rain, the sky wasn’t weeping and shouting at the earth, the sky was murmuring obscenities and threats. And it had been going on all night long. And that meant the ground was overflowing with the rainwater and that meant the drainage was clogged. Read more

Posted on by Pavan Kumar Rambatla · 2 Comments

A glitch in the matrix

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“Dude, how long have we been best friends.” Akhil wiped the sweat off his brow.

“Since forever, what’s up?” Prakash said.

“I need your help…” Akhil whispered.

“Let me guess, it is to bury a body?” Prakash laughed.

After a few minutes, they were in the basement of Prakash’s building, staring into the bonnet of his car at what looked like a body wrapped in a gunny sack.

“Are you fucking serious?” Prakash soured and looked around the basement.

“I told you I was in deep shit…” Akhil said.

“Why would you bring it here though? You could have just called me home…” Prakash stared at the body again.

“I panicked…” Akhil shrugged, “will you help me or not?”

Prakash kicked the car tyre, walked around the basement and looked back at the body, “who is it?”

“No, the lesser you know the better,” Akhil said.

“Ok…well I am already involved. Might as well see to it you don’t screw this up…” Prakash closed the bonnet and got into the car.

Half an hour later, they were on the outskirts of the city in an old graveyard, hip deep in a newly dug grave.

“That should be deep enough…” Prakash said. They pulled the body out of the car and carried it towards the grave. Read more