»
Main Forums
»
Passions in Prose
»
Dead City
| Passions in Prose |
|
Dead City |
|
|
Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium 
|
There are a few in this town that find sleep - the small few that have the strength to search for it. There is no explanation for this situation. There can’t be. Bodies don’t live here anymore. Only skeletons do - hanging on other similar skeletons each distinguished from another by a differential lump of flesh that remained. Like memories. Reminders of then unbroken spirit. The spirit of mind when the stomach use to be well looked after. Nothing remains. No flesh, no body, no life, no spirit. Where is the Perserver when you need one? Unfair! Years ago, this was the town that boomed. Full of vibrant industries and trees that offered shade to every passerby wihout discrimination. People smiled with no hesitation. Happy thoughts were easy to come by. Jokes could be easily told and even more easily spread. One could smell festivities in the air, almost throughout the year. Children played, mocked, rocked, ran, scampered; so much that their’s was the most spoilt lot in the entire district. Today, nothing remains. Things, it seems, change. But this is beyond change! It could have been a wager well doomed at the odds of a billion to one if someone a decade back had predicted that boomtown would turn into doomtown. Life, they say, is nothing that you ever know, dream or imagine. Time is the king. Time is the ultimate God. There is no other. There can’t be. Deprived. Famine. Deprived of that ultimate miracle. A miracle that never came. Dead city is here, impatiently waiting to be created. |
||
| © Copyright 2002 Sudhir Iyer - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
He arrived in a flurry of light landing like an optimistic balloon settling after a flight confidently dealt. Like all stranger to a new place, he looked around making a map of the place in the back of his eye. His eyes were taking each feature in, like a photographer checking out angles, acute and obtuse; some even right angled. In those right angles, he noticed that there was no movement around him in any of the three dimensions. Where had he landed? Where had he landed? What time was it? He tapped three times at his belt as if to recheck his status. He got his homing sound; a sound that one seems to hear when it is known that one is at the right spot at a wrong time. He stepped ahead, looked straight. Then he turned around, looked straight. He took a perfect left turn, looked straight. Finally he turned around, looked straight. All this looking straight, but no change. The scenery looked as dead as it were. He recorded two words Dead City in his journal and adjusted the focus of his eyes, his helmet and waited.. And about three hundred million light years away, eight letters appeared onscreen “d e a d c i t y”. These eight letters updated their data base which had earlier said earth city, earth year 2300, our time 9009. And the voices in his head said ‘Please continue to discover the place and time’. ‘There is nothing to search’, he screamed in an agony likewise to that of a lone limping soldier behind the much acknowledged enemy lines. ‘There is nothing here!’ |
||
|
Decaflame Senior Member
since 2001-05-11
Posts 1635 |
I think I would like to see you do more in prose, Sudhir, and this is off to a good start. So get with it already, and give us some more. |
||
|
Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
She stood on a single rock, a rock that also formed a mountain. A well structured body, perfectly shaped, perfectly healthy. With dark flowing hair of medium length that dropped as far as as a few inches below her shoulder. She was beauty of the relaxed kind, not like any other woman on earth, very special. She was ethereal. She was definitely godsend, with a definite prupose. Like a little girl, she twirled. In the crimsoning sunset, her shadows grew taller by the minute. She was amazed by that sight, as if she had never seen that happen before. They seemed to scale the length of the land, at least as far as she could see. ‘What a beautiful city!’ she said to herself as she aligned her shadow with a distant church and smiled. Taking a few deep breaths, she began to climb down the rock. That was done briskly, and she broke no sweat over it. That was easy as a pie, so she thought, as she reached the bottom of the mountain. Once at ground level, she looked over her shoulders. It’s beautiful, she thought, as she wrote two words ‘great rock’ in her journal, and then added another as an afterthought, ‘beautiful’. Then, as she began to turn around to proceed in her already charted direction, she heard a whizz. First a whizz and then a loud bang, one with a might of ten volcanoes exploding. And there was fire everywhere, and a tremendous heat that her body couldn’t stand. She began to run, and run she did at a most amazing speed, jumping over shrubs, over little rocks. The obstacles were too little, and they were not to deter her as she covered about 5000 metres in less than a few minutes. She was fast, yet no sweat. Then she turned around to see and guess what happened. And far away she saw two roaring fighter jets tearing the sky and dissapearing into the horizon like speckles of dust on a canvas. They had apparently bombed the city, and hit the rock by accident. Maybe their radars mistook her presence for a stratgic radio tower. After all, if there could be one person on the rock, there could be a thousand hidden too! She opened her journal and after the word ‘beautiful’, she noted ‘lost’. Then in an urgent move she struck out all the four words and wrote ‘great rock – lost beauty’. And about three hundred million light years away, twenty letters appeared onscreen ‘great rock – lost beauty’. These eight letters updated their data base which had earlier said earth scenery, earth year 2000, and local time 11/12/009009 10:31:04. And about three thousand kilometres away, it was reported ‘enemy position attacked, 100 enemy fighters dead, no own casualties, collateral damage not expected. Bravo soldiers for a job well done’ And there she was, quite confused at what was happening and why it was happening. So she quizzed, ‘What should I do? Get me out of here!’ But the voices said ‘Stay around for a while longer and learn what you can. Please’. She touched her chest and the words ‘To learn while you explore’ appeared in the screen on her eyes. She let out a heavy sigh at the still burning piece of rock. That single thought tired her. Nothing good remains! |
||
|
Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Sudhir - I've every intention of digging up the time to read this this weekend. Haven't forgotten about it.  Chris |
||
|
Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
Thank you Decaflame very much for your support... I do intend to continue as I am doing so with whatever time I get... Chris, did you find the time over the weekend then? thanks, my friendRegards to all, Sudhir |
||
|
Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
The black beast of a telephone was ringing in a monotonous drill as I continued my attempt to ignore the sounds around me. Finally there came a point when I could no longer shove off the noises in the room anymore. Muttering meaningless words to myself, I picked up the phone and barked a “hello?” towards the instrument. And from miles away, my friend spoke “Where the hell have you been? I have been trying to contact you for an hour”. And rather feebly I replied “I have been right here in 2002. It is 2002, is it not?” “What are you talking about? It is of course 2002. April the 10th to be exact! What the heck are you doing, you seem to be lost. Are you sane? Look outside it is sunny and bright. And don’t you drink that stuff any more. It takes you to those purple hazes that Hendrix sang about. …” Lectures. Speeches. She managed to talk for the next 10 minutes unabashedly throwing advices. And I thought “Where the heck indeed am I? What did I say? 2002?” I instantly felt like agreeing with my friend. It must have been the drinks from yesterday. I t has to be. There can be nothing else. The phone call had just confirmed my existence. I thanked my friend and arranged for a meeting in the evening. I began to believe myself again till I saw what I had written. Dead City. |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
