DABBLER SCRIBBLES

                                              The warmth of the sharp beam of sunrays brightened the aura beyond his closed eyes and his diaphanously opened eyes flinched at the brightness of the rays after the night’s storm. He was lying with his face down on the sand and his black hair were muddied. His smooth Virginian face which had the growth of the most inconspicuous facial hair despite his 23 years of age was buried in the sand. The sea Gulls which pecked at the fishes were now swirling above his head. He tried getting up but his swampy clothes felt heavier than ever. The sun flinched him and he realized that he has managed to survive the ghastly night, though he remembered nothing of how he was flung out by the waves on a piece of floating wooden plank from Isabella and how the waves cradled him through the storm while he lied soullessly unconscious on it.

         He thrust his hands on the ground and pulled himself up. He was on the shore of a desolated island. The rocks that arranged themselves between the palm and shrubs were taller than him. He could see the shore take a curve on his either side. The tress that covered the entire island were not familiar to him except for the coconuts and the banyan. He saw the gulls tear snatch the dead fish and a crab slid to his feet with the wave.

                     A sudden noise caught his attention and he turned around to see a pack of swallows soar high clamoring above an antique house on the edge of the cliff. The house looked tiny from the shore but he could tell by its air that it was not inhabited by anyone anymore. A sudden cloud of smoke rose from the roof after the noise and he kept staring at the house in amazement. A man with a similar built as his stormed out of the house to see the cloud of smoke rise above it. A rush of bliss ran across his veins when he saw the structure of a human on the cliff. The man who was staring at the house, now shifted his gaze on him.  Zack was already waving his both hands to grab the attention of the man. He screamed but soon realized it was all in vain. The man waved both his hands in synchronization and before they could exchange any more signals, Zack rushed into the thick bushes to climb the cliff.

                      The palm trees stood at the entrance of the forest and he had to push his way through the big leafed bushes that hampered his advancement. It was a small uphill climb but the marshy soil made it hard for him to do his best at running. He pushed every branch, torn open the creeper coverings, jumped over the rocks to finally reach the top of the cliff. From the top he saw the ocean stretch till horizons in every direction. His gaze fell on the house at the edge of the cliff where he saw the man from the shore. He rushed towards it to look for help. He was panting breathlessly for air and when he reached at the door of the house, he halted to smuggle some air into his lungs.

                              The house was an antique built one. With the scribbling of some gibberish and the texture of an art that felt like that of Mayan era, it was nothing less than a haunted place. He flung open the door and threw a quick glance in every direction to find anybody. He also shouted “anybody there?” to be left with no response while his voice echoed in the dark house. The windows were blocked by a pile of planks and the little light that smuggled in from the roof top fell on a string hanging from the roof. Mistaking it to be some kind of a pull switch, he pulled the string hard. A loud noise burst out from the chimney of the house and he could hear the swallows scream and flutter away in fear. He stormed out of the house to see what had happened. He saw a cloud of smoke rise from the roof top and the swallows soar high. His gaze immediately shifted to a man standing on the shore with his both hands waving at him. He looked a lot familiar, for he had the similar coat he was wearing and his built was same as his. He thought he was the same man he saw a little while ago on the cliff and before they could exchange anymore signals he rushed down the hill from the other side.

            He threw himself to slither down the hill like a plank slipping down a soft elevation. He crossed the thick bushes and dodged the branches to finally reach the bottom of the hill. He ran out of the thick bush across the beach to reach the point on the shore where he saw the man. It was exactly the same place from where he saw the man on the cliff. He looked around desperately but found no one. He suddenly heard a loud noise from the cliff. A cloud of smoke rose from the house and the swallows soared high in fear. He again saw a man storm out of the house to look at the rising smoke. He started waving with both his hands again but now he could make out a bit that the man looked exactly like him from far. A chill flowed his spine and his heart rushed blood so ghastly that he felt dying when he realized it was none other than him and he was struck in a loop of situations. His lips trembled in fear when he realized he was caught in the mystifying Time Warp of the Blues. 

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(And yeah this was the ending of the series.....hope you enjoyed it)

He knew he should not have trusted Philip this time but it was too late for him to repent his decision. Philip was long consumed in the waves and now, for the obvious omens of ill fate, he knew it was his turn. The sails of the mast fluttered with the fierce winds and the high tide waves of pacific were gigantic enough to swallow a small town. The storm stirred another gigantic wave and it lifted the ship and pushed it behind to have it slip on its back like a sudden drop on the roller coaster. While reaching the turbulent surface, the bowsprit of the ship pierced into the ocean and bounced out like it was taking a dip in the freezing waters of pacific Novembers. The storm had no mercy for the lonely sailor, Zack Foster, and the rumblings of the thunders lit the sky like an ephemeral twilight. A splash of waves has already destroyed the bridge on the deck and the wheel, that he used to control the ship’s direction, was struggling to drown in the never ending blue. He was still holding the stem of the mast with the sails mercilessly torn away, still thinking of the time when he urged Philip to drop the idea of sailing after he saw the black clouds lining. Philip, who now lie deep in the womb of the furious pacific, never believed that the weather forecast of Zack can be an accurately reliable one.

                      The rumbling of the thunder snapped him out of his thoughts and it was so loud that he could not hear his own screams of fear. The screeching rain fell like a never ending blanket of water from the cloud which managed to cover the view of everything beyond the stern of his ship. His rug textured overcoat and the soil brown trousers were swampy in the water and the frequent splashes of waves from the either sides of the deck were slapping him hard.

                       The wind was howling with all its might and the diabolic waves hinted clearly that he was going to drown soon with Isabella, that which he called his antique ship. Isabella came to him in legacy and the first thing he did after gaining the ownership of the ship was to change her name from the pirate sounding Decrotos to Isabella. The pride of his father and of his father before him, Isabella was the member of his sailor family since 5 decades. Her rusty iron cables and the anchor were polished and the mast was painted blue before his father, Granther Foster, handed it over to him for sails and trades.

                Her brown wood body bearing the texture of a cross knitted fabric with the vintage royal craft bulging out on her upper half of the body ended well in a mannequin of mermaid on the bowsprit. The sails of ivory color fabric had the rather disturbing family sign of a fork piercing a fish painted in gold and black. The deck was a huge plank of rare tree from his grandfather’s time who always boasted about the grand trees of his era. The wheel to control the ship’s direction was homed at the back towards the stern. The wheel had similar designs as of her body and on the façade of the mast’s stem two letters were engraved in depth, HF, which stood for his grandfather, Hugh Foster. She was an iconic beauty and when she anchored at the port people would linger around to touch her bulging engravings of royal vintage designs. She also acted as an inspiration to the vagabond artists who dwelled there to capture everything they see on canvas.

                    Another thunder rumbled and he saw the ghastly sky whipped by a great white lash. His cold lips trembled in fear and his freezing palm could no longer hold the mast with excellent grip. The deck was flooded with rain and the constant splash of waves. It was not far before Isabella would give up the fight and succumb into the depths of the furious blue. A wave of vicious intentions rose like a dead from sleep and before he could raise his head to see the height of the devil, it came to swallow him with uncanny powers. Isabella pierced into the façade of the wave and he saw the waves swiftly consume every bit of her. He was dragged with the ship and before he could do anything he saw himself covered in a blanket of cold blue water. His eyes started slowly shutting down and his body was freezing in the icy waters. He could not breathe but was released from the pull of Isabella, which before going unconscious, he saw drowning deep into the beds of the ocean. His eyes closed and he felt nothing anymore while the storm kept screaming on the surface of the ocean.

 CHAPTER 2

( Thank you for reading.... If you liked it comment your views here.... this is chapter 1 of the series... )

(The first half of the story was contributed by a friend, Snigdha, who by herself is an excellent freelance writer)

SHE:

       The blazing sun shone like a diamond. Its rays were so bright that humans flinched at its shine and in those sunny rays was a man of magnificence. His robes shined as the rays tell on it. His eyes were so black that you could tell the empty void just by a glance. His wispy golden hair dazzled and swayed with the wind. But it wasn’t any of these that defined his magnificence. It was a pair of black wings that were attached to his back, like a shroud that covers a corpse. His gaze was fixed at something that no one else could see. His eyes, filled with loneliness, began to fill with hope he wished he never had. He quirts his gaze in frustration, but he couldn’t do for a long time because his eyes seeks that one thing he can never have, a woman. His eyes, his heart, his body and his soul seeks that woman. A woman so different from him, in mind, in body, in soul, aura, that it ached just to look at her. He hardens his gaze and turns away from her, trying to be go unheeded from everyone and most importantly from the woman, he loves, for he was not there to love her but KILL HER!!!!

ME:       

      But how could he hurt the one he now loved the most. Guilt filled his empty eyes and the aroma that the wind carried, seems to kill something inside him. He caught a last glance of her from the corners of his eyes. The glance that would suffice for the rest of his oblivion life and her smell would keep him alive till his last breath. The little withered leaves at his feet rustled and the sun hid himself behind the clouds in fear as if it knew what his masters would do to him if he left the woman alive, the angel that fell from heaven. With his serene disposal and chaotic heart he widespread his wings for once to fly away and embrace what may come, for life or death did not matter to him anymore because he was already leaving himself with her.

                                     But the fate has scripted a whole different story on the universe’s psyche and what it withheld was unheard of. She swiftly moved towards him amidst the rustling leaves. Everything fell silent and the sun peeped from the corner of a cloud, still apprehensive. His dark wings embraced him more as she neared, as if they fear they would part from him. She reached him and drew her petal soft palm from her white gown to place it on his shoulder. The touch felt like a long craved cupid’s arrow and he felt a deep sting till his nerves. He felt dying. He felt destroyed.

                            He stooped on the ground, screaming inside as his wings fell off on his sides. His eyes glowed like a diamond with her aura in it. He peeped up to realize that it was this touch that was going to break his curse, make him human again, allow him to be in love. HE WAS REBORN.

(Thank you for reading)

                                                “Sir, would you like to know your day? What your fate holds for you today? I will tell you what the stars want to tell you and you can avoid all the obstructions to reach zenith. Come to me”, the astrologer urged while arranging his tarot cards under the same banyan tree. For the past 3 years he has always placed his cage of parrot to his right, just beside the red stone which he got for himself when he was learning his art of astrology from Rajasthan. His “dhoti” that has the shade of cream shone as usual in the dim beacons of sun rays that passed the leaves dangling along the branches to finally fall on him to light his aura. The blue bag that holds his tarot cards and the little cloth carpet, was hung adeptly to one of the low lying branches of the banyan tree. His parrot doesn’t seem to get startled when something corporal passes the small lane of Asavgunj, a small town in Uttar Pradesh. But when the street dogs make a claim of property, the parrot would withdraw itself to the rear end of the cage until Athyarth, the astrologer, scared them away with a pebble or two. Athyarth always came by 8 am and proclaimed his spot by the banyan tree to tell the future of the people and earn a bit of fortune.

                    “Sir, would you like to know what the future holds for you? Please come and know what your stars are up to”, he signaled an invitation to one of the two merchants who seemed to have given a glance at him. But they walked away. He drew a long breath and looked at his parrot, who seems to enjoy the joblessness for quite some time.

                    “Sir, you should be extremely careful today”, he pitched his voice loud enough for Vedyansh to hear, the mediocre clerk at the office of a dogmatic landlord. Vedyansh has always believed that he shared a rather unpleasant relationship with his stars and that it was his stars and luck which failed him in his metric exams and made him succumb to a mediocre life to live with his ailing mother, his only parent left.

                    “What should I be careful of?” he drew himself nearer to Athyarth’s display and sat himself on the little evened granite stone that Athyarth picks up every morning from the nearby municipal dump yard and places it  back beside the wall in the evening.

                 “Sir, I feel your stars are conspiring against you. You should be careful today”, Athyarth tried to sound as dramatic and convincing as possible. “What sort of conspiring? Please tell me”, Vedyansh sounded perfectly convinced that the stars have gone against him again and since the astrologer was declaring the fact, he has all the proof to blame his failures on the stars. “Please tell me”, he urged Athyarth.

          Athyarth pulled a deck of tarot cards and adeptly placed them at the left corner of the carpet holding them beneath his palm. He then spread them towards the right in a straight line until every card earned a place without overlapping each other. He then stretched his arm and opened the cage. With the least desire to fly away and earn freedom, the parrot walked like a dwarf from the cage. It walked past the seven cards before picking up the eight card, the card of fortune. Athyarth pulled the card from its beak and it walked back to its cage placidly and withdrew itself to the rear end as if the fortune telling was nothing sort of excitement anymore for the little featured one.

              “Sir, this card will tell you you’re fortune”, Athyarth raised his brow and the old age wrinkles that seemed to make him knowledgeable and convincingly adept at his art just disappeared for a little while. “Sir, this card says that you are financially broke with a very little fortune to spare.” It did not require a tarot card to tell that. His bedraggled blue shirt and his black trouser which possessed a good number of stiches and patches screamed for themselves. “Tell me more. Am I going to loose my job? What does the card say?” Vedyansh was more desperate to know his luck today than look at his watch to realize that he was running 15 minute late to office which was going to reflect on his wages.

            “Sir, today you should not give anybody even a dime. It will angry your stars to see you spend today and the only way to avoid the wrath is to donate a fair amount of money to an old Brahmin who owns a parrot”, Athyarth was sure that no other Brahmin in the colony owned a parrot except for him. He made his signs clear enough to plant the thought of donating him a handsome revenue in Vedyansh’s head.

“An old Brahmin who owns a parrot!” Vedyansh murmured. “Who in the colony is an old Brahmin who also owns a parrot”, Vedyansh kept himself involved in his thoughts while Athyarth drew himself to rest against the façade of the tree.

          “Oh! Yes, Muthyarth swami has been recently gifted a parrot by his grandson and I also owe him a fair amount for the financial aid he provided for the repairing of my house”, Vedyansh spoke while starring in to the empty space above Athyarth’s head.

          Athyarth was startled by his murmuring but soon wiped the expression on his face to avoid suspicion of conspiracy. “Yes sir, you must know it better”, Athyarth tried to sound non-differing with the idea.

           “Thank you panditji”, Vedyansh folded his hands in formal Namaste, picked up his bag and pulled himself from the granite stone to walk away.

 “Sir!” Athyarth sounded surprised. “Sir what about my fee?” he was more perplexed than concerned. Vedyansh looked back at him, adjusted his bag strap on the shoulder and blatantly whimpered “Sorry panditji, you have asked me to not spend a dime today. I cannot afford to angry the already wrathful stars for you”. Athyarth could not utter a word but watch Vedyansh walk away.

“This is the report on the sculptures we have excavated at the Mayan excavation site”, Stanius drew the little blue file, from his bag that he packed for the flight at the moment he got a call for the sudden meeting at the departmental office at an hour ago, and handed it over to Mrs. Herlet.

                    A 25 year old workaholic, Stanius was one of the few on the excavation team who have earned their degrees in Archeology. Not sparing a moment for life he has managed to earn a lot of money and a huge team for the Mayan excavation.

         “Ma’am these are the 2 drawings of the sculptures we have managed to excavate so far. They seem to be related to the CHICHEN ITZA, the flying serpent”, Stanius beamed as he told about the drawings. Mrs. Herlet opened the file and glanced through the paper. She flipped the file close and signed Stanius to take it from her and read the content in it. Stanius reached to grab the file but was hesitant as the look on her face was not pleasant at the moment. He opened it and gasped to fall silent. Mrs. Herlet urged him commandingly to read out to her, adeptly hiding a smile on her stern face. Stanius took a deep breath and pitched his voice loud enough for her to hear it. He read”, Dear Jane, of all the people in this world you have understood me the best. I am a workaholic and I also screw up things very often but falling in love with you was the sanest things I have ever done and before I screw this up too I want to ask you….. Will you marry me? PS. this is the gift I promised you for the New Year “He whispered the last three words”, I love you”. Stanius sunk his head into the file and blushed.

            “Stanius you screwed up again”, Mrs.Herlet bursted into a laugh while he wondered about the Mayan papers he mistakenly left wrapped for Jane by the Christmas tree. He blushed and whispered with a smile " yes ma'am i screwed up again".

“You get the documents and I will wait here”, Arnav urged Faizaan to get the college documents while he waited for him in the dim light of the mosque near his house. The mosque that seemed calm suddenly broke its silence by the “Adhan- prayer calls”. The little steps that walked the muezzin to the Minaret top was beautified by the green flags. The little boy who was reading the Quran Suras just peeped once to glance at the calm and dim aisle. Arnav looked at the Mosque’s entrance which beamed with the lamp at its foot. He played with the pack of sweet and rice that he got from the temple few minutes back.  It was Saturday and Arnav was agnostic enough to offer his prayers at the temple and the pundit often gave him a pack of sweet and rice after offering it to the gods. He was still humming the chants from the temple and the clanks of the bells ringing in rhythm with the prayers in his head.

                           “Excuse me sir, can I have something to eat?” A woman scooted out from the dim aisle of the mosque, covered in her dowdy Burqa, the black cloth that covered the Muslim women from the unworthy eyes of the world. The small patches of green cloth pieces on her Burqa screamed her poverty. The faded mud lines on her face told about her tears that flows more often than she can wipe. She now slithered coping up with her old age and reached closer to Arnav! “Please sir give me something to eat, I am very hungry”, she pointed at the rice pack with Arnav. Arnav looked at the pack of rice and pitched his voice with compassion to speak, “I could give you this pack of rice but this was an offering made to the god at the temple and I was told that Muslims don’t accept the offering from the temples…. Aren’t you a Muslim?

              “I am sir, but before that I am a poor helpless woman who is hungry. What lines of code from religious book can satisfy my hunger except for a pack of food?  Sir my hunger does not see if the food is coming from the temple or the mosque or from the church or a Gurudwara. It is hunger sir, what religion does it have?”

What a shame! Our culture has gone down the drain. Look at the way she is dressed! Mr. Dutta was all over the case of “diluting Indian culture” again. Sipping a cup of Assam handpicked tea with ½ spoon sugar owning to the fact that he was diabetic and munching on his favorite Osman biscuits that I got him over my last visit to Hyderabad, looked troubled again over the exposure of oneself through the decreasing dress lengths which was rampant now among the colony girls.

                                  I sat with him in his balcony, a projected space on the third floor of the apartment, secured by the iron railing which were adeptly decorated by the creepers planted by Mrs. Dutta when they moved in five years ago.

                           Mr. Dutta was a bank employee, a man from old school and an orthodox to a large extent with a little flexibility to allow his daughter, Aakruti, to go to Hyderabad to pursue her engineering from a reputed college.

                 “Do you think our Indian culture has really lost its roots? With all the westernization and adulterating of morals, Nudity in the first place, I am more than worried about the course of our culture in the country”, he picked up the last biscuit from the plate and stared in the open space over his balcony, expecting an answer.

                   “Nudity is in the thinking”, I pitched my voice loud enough to smuggle these words clearly in his ears while placing back the cup of Assam tea. “It has always been a part of our culture since long but we seem to have adulterated our thinking over it”, I continued. “What are you talking about… been a part of our culture? What do you mean by that?” Mr. Dutta was demanding a justification of my words now.

         I pointed at the replica of a sculpture of nude pairs from Ajanta and Ellora caves that hung elegantly in his hall. “India is the mother of art that celebrates the beauty of nudity and freedom of expressions. Kaamasutra, the compilation of urging desires between two bodies and souls, the sculptures of Ajanta and Ellora, the elaborated depictions of nude divine figures at Khajuraho, few of the paintings of Raja Ravi Verma, have been the pride of our culture. People then did not adulterated their thinking but rather celebrated the creation of beauty and appreciated it. Doctors do not see the patient’s exposure as nudity and forsake treatment. Children are never ashamed to expose themselves infront of their mothers. Nudity is in the thinking Mr. Dutta and it has been a part of our culture but what was not is the fact that we adulterated our thinking over it”, I proclaimed clearly.

It was Rudra’s 5^th gaze at the building today. He comes every day to the park with his umbrella and gaze at the 7^th floor of the Mortan Apartments at least once, but today he was all stuck there.

                                  Handling the company’s marketing, he earned great and had all the luxuries one can mention. He had no regrets but a pile of flashing memories and now that his friends moved to other state except him, he craved for those days more…and today he stood there wishing for the old days to return.

        5 years ago while studying in the state engineering college Rudra managed to make few acquaintances and eventually friends for life time. Arnav, Neel and Alok shifted with him to the 7^th floor of the Mortan Apartments and lived there for the rest of the college years.

      It was already drizzling now and Rudra drew his umbrella out while still staring at the balcony of his room on the 7^th floor. A tear fell from his eyes and soon disappeared in the rain.

                    5^th of July, the same day as today when he heard few noises of people talking in his locked room while he was trying to open the door. Arnav, Neel and Alok have all suddenly gone out for various reasons and Rudra had none to share the bliss of his birthday, his 19^th birthday.

                                      He never celebrated his birthday, neither at the orphanage nor at the community school. It was his scholarship that allowed him a study at the state college and he was always more reserved than rest. But today he craved for a companion… he swiftly inserted the key in the door lock and twisted once, the noises calmed, and he twisted twice. He grabbed the door knob and opened the door.

             “I wish they were here”, he muttered while turning the lights on………

                               Happy Birthday to you,

                               Happy Birthday to you,

                               Happy Birthday dear Rudra,

                              Happy Birthday to you!!!!

                                   Arnav, Neel and Alok sang their lungs out with a little cake in their hands. 

                    A tear rolled down his cheeks and he hugged them with a smile and all the bliss he can.!!!!

 He snapped out of his memories.  “Miss you guys”, he whispered while still staring at the building!! Miss you!