Tag: short story

Colour Blind

It had been a rough day. Judge Marsh had sentenced a teenager for pursuing his high school crush. She, the mayor’s daughter, had complained of his misbehaviour. The judge understood only too well.

“Darkness is in his blood,” the judge shook his head as his apprentice gathered his things. Eager to please, “Oh, yes sir!” echoed the disagreeing lad.

They left, fastening their coats against the snowy breeze. Looking at the team of horses outside, the apprentice couldn’t help but smile.

“Beautiful,” he remarked turning to his boss. “Horses don’t recognize colours do they, sir? Perhaps that’s why they’re inclusive.”

horses-in-snow

A work of fiction for Friday Fictioneers.

Search

They pulled into the driveway just as the sun began to settle in the West. Janet got down from the Porsche to admire the now pink horizon and the lake beyond the rickety picket fence. As far as her eye could see there was nothing more than clear water and the occasional ripple. She turned to her fiancé. While Janet had been memorising the view, Jean had parked their vehicle and was now walking towards her.

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Janet’s eyes sparkled. This would be their last trip as two single women. They had waited long enough, enduring more than enough. And if their parents couldn’t handle it, then so be it. Jean stopped next to her and smiling, slid her hand into Janet’s. They stood looking at the sun, as it sunk into the depths of November’s icy lake.

“Let’s go in.” Jean cajoled Janet into her ancestral wood house. They had decided to pay a pre-wedding visit to the place they’d make their home later. As she walked inside, a wave of warmth spread over Janet. The house wasn’t too big but it emitted an aura of comfort.

On her right was a window overlooking the now darkening sky and the silhouette of the lake. On the left was the kitchen and in front of her, leading away from the hall, was the master bedroom that opened up to life-size windows and views worth of a lifetime.

“Chill out, I’ll whip up some dinner.” Jean pecked Janet on the cheek and went into the kitchen to make, Janet knew, her speciality pasta with fresh cream and marinara sauce. While Jean rummaged in the kitchen, Janet went over to the window, looking out at the lake. It was almost dark now, the pink had morphed into a navy and the moon tried to walk out from behind the clouds.

Trrriiiing…trrriiiing. Trrriiiing…trrriiiing…

Janet jumped before realising that it was just the telephone. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now she saw that the sound came from a small table that lay beside a giant radio. “I’ll get it, J” she called out to Jean and went over to answer. “Hello?” she spoke into the receiver.

“In,
search of skin,
color no matter,
brighter or darker,
tell no one,
I will take someone,
Ssssshhhhh!
– ghost, me!”

And with that, the line died. Janet gulped and clenched the receiver harder. The voice — she couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman for it was a mere whisper— had sent bouts of shivers down her spine.

Sat down on the sofa hugging herself. All of a sudden, the room felt as much colder than it had been when they entered it. Jean’s rummaging in the kitchen had also stopped. “Jean?” She called out without leaving the sofa. She didn’t understand why her brow was sweating or why she shivered so much. And when Jean neither replied nor came out of the kitchen, Janet became scared. That’s when she identified the source of the cold: the front door stood ajar, letting in the chilly night air.

Frowning, Janet remembered shutting the door behind them. How did it open, then? In small cautious steps, she approached the doorway.

Janet screamed. And then breathed a sigh of relief. Jean stood in the doorway. “You scared me!” Janet reproached her. “Why did you go out in the cold?” She added a little concerned. Jean looked white and her smile looked strained.

Jean only shook her head in reply, walking right past Janet. Shrugging to herself, Janet shut the door with a snap. Jean jumped at the snap. “Are you all right?” Janet approached her extending a hand to her cheek. Jean stepped away from her nodding with a vigour that surprised Janet. She stood staring at Jean, her hand still stretched out.

“Jean?” Janet spoke with a firm voice that could convince no one. “Why were you outside?”

“In… search…” Jean started with a whisper and stopped.

“Of what?” Janet asked her voice reaching the near-shriek point.

“In… search…” Jean repeated in the same whispering tone. She sounded coarse. “of… milk.”
And then she smiled. Her warm smile was back, and the colour returned to her face. “Hey, J” she threw her head back and laughed at Janet. “Relax. I went to get some milk. That’s all.”

And then as if someone had flipped a switch, the room felt warm again, and Janet saw that Jean was back to her usual self. They had had a rough ride. Janet smiled too. Her mind must’ve been playing tricks on her. There’s no way Jean would cringe away from her. “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed?”

Jean nodded and hand-in-hand, they walked into the room. Jean smiled. The search had ended.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge-6I’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the sixth day: The Mass Media Challenge. The challenge is to combine the image, the poem, and the word “telephone” in a single post.

Studying Gone Amiss

“You need not answer all the questions! You can just laugh and laugh again.”

David read and read the sentence. When he walked in for the prestigious examination, he hadn’t expected such adverse directions. What do they mean he could laugh and laugh again? Was this some kind of sick game they’re playing on the candidates? His brother had warned him that the exam would hurl unexpectedness at his face, but this was more than what David had expected, even for unexpectedness.

He flipped the page to the first question. It was about fitting quadrangles into triangles. He knew that one, and so he wrote the answer. He moved on to the next: circles and cylinders. Easy. Next: a fraction of Fraction. Next: decoding BODMAS. Next: passive and active voice. Ok, thought David. Weird, but easy. Next: Calculating calculus. Equating differentials. Pi value. And the case of the missing pies.

David closed the question booklet and stared at the board in front of him. What the hell was this? How could such a question paper determine the next generation’s Discipliners?

His brother had written the same test four years ago and was now a qualified Discipliner. He was David’s inspiration. And yet, even his brother had had hard times grasping his job.

His brother’s words rang in his ears: “I am confused at times. Should I sound? Should I echo?” The boss would scream swear words, and he had to react by either repeating or protesting. Being impassive led to the gallows while a wrong reaction resulted in a beating. He told David that he could never understand what he had to do.

Every morning, he’d dress up ready for battle. Some days the Coaches made him rub the floor, and some days they’d hunt aliens. It was a weird job, his brother had said. But it’s worth it; it made their parents proud and the girls all loved a Discipliner.

David was still looking at the empty blackboard facing him. He didn’t know what to do, or how to go on. All of a sudden, a supervisor stood in front of him, blocking out the blackboard. “You done?” He crouched down at David, peering above the horn-rimmed magnifying glasses on his nose.

“I’m just thinking,” David managed a menial reply.

At this, the supervisor threw his head back and laughed long and hard. “Thoughts!” he rumbled so that the whole classroom could hear “— they do what we don’t ask for!” He laughed again, turned around, and swept away to torment a candidate in the next row. David watched as his long robes billowed about his heels.

David looked down at the footer of the question paper: Inter- Intra- Galactic Discipliners — Preliminary Examination. He had thought this would be a tough exam. He had thought the test would test him against aliens, ask about their weaknesses, their strengths, and combat strategies. And instead, the questions were about his high school subjects.

At times, we pretend to think on one and actually think everything else! The voice in his head pointed out like a wise sage. You lied to your parents about studying for your semester exams and binged in Men in Black instead. You pretended to study math but digressed.

David looked down at the footer of the question paper: Mathematic Principles. And then it hit him.

“I knew it!” He whispered to himself, clenching his fists under the table and kicking himself in his mind. “I knew that I didn’t know math!”

And that’s why you should’ve studied, the voice in his head supplied.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge-5I’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the fifth challenge: Not So Quite Quote. The challenge is to write a story including the following quotes:

Quote 1: I am confused at times. Should I sound? Should I echo?

Quote 2: You need not answer all the questions! You can just laugh and laugh again.

Quote 3: Thoughts – they do what we don’t ask for!

Quote 4: I knew it! That I don’t know!

Quote 5: At times, we pretend to think on one and actually think everything else!

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.