Tag: postaday

A Perfect Match

Think brothers, sisters, and friends since childhood. Think Sponge Bob and Patric, some nuts and spice. Think Pisces and Scorpios. Or  Apple and Steve. Think Holmes with his Watson, rum and some raisins. Think PB and jelly sandwiches, or mac and cheese for dinner. Think red think  full, think white and light, and wine while you dine. Think chocolate with chocolate, pumpkin in a pie, or just tea and cake. Think toddlers with paint, and teenagers with selfie sticks. Think plays and  Shakespeare. Think Wyatt and Surrey, and a cupboard underneath the stairs. Think blueberry and pancakes, bacon and eggs. Or, just you and I — the perfect match.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge-1

I’ve signed up for Prakash’s Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the first challenge: Phrase a Paragraph.

Making the Meaningful Meaningless

So many of my friends had told me about the wonderfulness that’s 1984. The book, I mean.

big-brother-1984

I, however, never had the chance to read the book, until now. I started reading it a while ago, and as much as I’d love to get through it in one sitting, reality keeps distracting me. Nevertheless, every chance I get, I try to sneak in a page or two in the least. And with every page I turn, I turn over a new perspective.

I haven’t even crossed a hundred pages yet, and yet every statement hits me hard in the face making me glad I’m not in 1984. To say that Orwell has a way with words is an understatement. He twists and warps simple words to suit his needs and instills fear and aversion in the reader.

As a lover of words myself, when I took in words that claimed it was a beautiful thing to destroy the words themselves, I felt my deepest horrors renewed.

After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words?

That’s a way of looking at words, unlike any way I’d come to accept. Words, for me, are not just means of expression but also means of expression in every wild way imaginable. It’s wonderful that we have so many different words describing the same thing; it’s what gives rise to rhyming words and rhythmic prose and just plain readable writing.

In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words — in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?

I don’t. I don’t see the beauty of it, and instead, I see only the barrenness of it. What’s the point of communication if you can’t communicate as you’d like to? If we could strip down the English language to a mere handful, then that would become the end of human interaction. We’d speak to convey messages and not ideas. We’d talk sense but wouldn’t talk from our senses. We’d think we’re free to speak, without realising we’re free from language itself.

The book throws terrifying ideas. It outlines everything that could go wrong with the world, and everything that could happen as a consequence. And shocked though I am, it makes me want to keep reading.

Flash news

“Hey, Jude! Did you hear? Hilary lost, Trump won!”

Oh hey, Jason. Trump won, you say? That’s such a surprise. When did this happen, anyway? I must’ve been living under a rock or something. I can’t believe I didn’t know he won. Well, it’s not like I had stayed up watching the three debates live or had discussed with my friends in the US about Trump’s chances. No, thanks so much for letting me know that Trump won the election. You’re my only news source. I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

By the way, how’s that project coming along? Do you realise that our client doesn’t care about the outcome of this election? How far are we on that?

Oh, we haven’t started yet? That’s brilliant. No, that’s fine, we can tell them it’d take a while. After all, we were busy watching the US elections and so was the whole world — our Russian client won’t mind at all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my email.

What’s that? Oh, you just watched Trump’s speech on YouTube? Cool. Huh, the comments say he was high? Well, I don’t know. And you know what, maybe I don’t care. He was scary, you say? Sure, it’s not like I watched his speech live or anything but whether he smokes or not is his problem. Nope, I did not watch the recorded version. You think it was better than watching him live?

Anyway, thanks for the chat. I had been working for ten minutes straight and needed a fifteen-minute power break. By the way, since you know so much about the elections, do you know when Trump’s signing in as president?

Well, that’s weird. How come you didn’t know that there would be an official peaceful transition of power? You’ve been so religious about the election news so far today that I thought you’d know. Anyway, never mind. I guess it’s on the 20th of January. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, check your mail. The client just emailed us asking for the report. Would you reply to them? And don’t forget to tell them you were busy with the elections.

A Walk Down the Memory Lane

Alethea chanced a glance at the large clock on the wall. It was ten AM. She had packed the husband off to work and the kids off to school. She had woken up at 5 am to make sure the kids got solid breakfast. They were going on a field trip that day and had to be at school by 7 am, which was much earlier than the usual 9 am.

As she shuffled around in the kitchen packing some extra sandwiches for the ride and her kids’ friends who couldn’t resist her homemade peanut butter and jelly, Alethea’s husband walked in with red swollen eyes. He had had a rough week at work, and it was disrupting his sleeping patterns. She whipped up another pair of sandwiches for him and tried to coax him into taking the day off. And when that didn’t work out, she resorted to making some soup to soothe him.

After making sure everyone she cared about had had a good morning, Alethea decided to clean up the basement. It had been on the to-do list for far too long now. She and her husband had talked about turning the basement into a smaller recreational room, and he had volunteered to do the cleaning himself. However, given the state of his work pressure, Alethea decided to do it herself. A decision she came to regret soon enough. As soon as she opened the door to the basement, she came up with a sneezing fit.

Once the air around her cleared a bit, she looked around at the mess and slapped herself hard on the head. It had been fifteen years since she and her husband had graduated high school, and yet, she still preserved her old school notebooks and scrap papers. It had seemed important at the time, but now when she looked at them, she wanted nothing more than to kick herself. She spent over an hour sorting out her things from her husband’s. They had both been complete idiots, she told herself over and over again. And when the clock struck ten, she knew she needed a break. She picked up a couple of old notebooks from the pile and went up to the kitchen.

Letting a pot of coffee brew, she sat down at the table and opened one of the notebooks which hadn’t had her touch in over 15 years. The pages had frayed in the corners, and she felt them stiffened by the coffee stains of a lifetime ago. One by one, she turned the pages, unable to recollect why she elected French because she had gone on to teach German. She kept turning the pages, smiling as she looked at the little drawings she had done in the margins. She couldn’t contain herself as she recognised a rude caricature of a teacher she hated in school.

By the time she took a large swig of her black and sugarless coffee, she had reached the end of the notebook. She looked at the scribble on the last page and realised her kids’ notebooks had similar scribblings. No matter how many years passed, some things never change, she mused. And then she noticed something. Sketched in the corner, hidden behind a bunch of meaningless pencil strokes, was something she had revered back then. It was her and James’s names written one below the other and the common letters in both their names scratched off. Next to their names was the word “FLAMES” with all letters but “M” scratched out.

James had died in a car crash the next day.