The last words

Another of my 55fiction works:
She held his hands. It felt warm and nice. How she wished she could have married him! Even now, he looked so handsome. She realized she could never live with him again. After much trouble, he opened his mouth to speak. "Why did you kill me?"

Game over (Part 1)

"Welcome to Indianapolis!", the driver announced as the shuttle entered the airport. Though it was the second time I was going to Indy, something about the place looked unfamiliar to me. Maybe it was the weather? I didn't know. It was kind of chill and foggy when I got down from the shuttle. There was the scent of rain, but I hoped it wouldn't rain, at least not till I get back inside the safety of my apartment.

I walked towards the exit gates of the airport. The bus stop was a little further away. I had been told that a bus arrives exactly at 12.30 pm, so I figured out I would have at least ten minutes before the bus arrived. My mind started wandering towards the happenings of the last two weeks. Everything had been a blur. I wondered for the umpteenth time whether I was living in a dream, and when I wake up, everything would vanish. But I knew without pinching myself that I was indeed in reality. And I had some serious work to do.

Everything had started during my flight two weeks back. I was excited about traveling in a jet, because I had never been air-borne before. Add to it the excitement of a new place, new country, and new-found freedom, and you have got a hyper-excited guy. It was supposed to be the beginning of an important phase in my life. A ticket to all my dreams. Higher education in the United States. The first leg from Chennai to Brussels had been smooth. I got a window seat, and there was this pretty Indian girl sitting next to me. There was a mutual unspoken understanding, which meant we ignored the existence of each other. I tried not to sit too close to her, as much as possible, and she tried the same too. No problems whatsover. I was perfectly fine with the arrangement.

Trouble started during the second leg of the flight. After a one-hour stop at Brussels, it was hardly fifteen minutes after take-off towards New York, when she puked on me. It was so sudden. I didn't know what to do. I kept staring as she kept on vomiting on my shirt and my brand new pair of jeans. I tried to react by avoiding the path of flow, but it didn't help. In the matter of seconds, my clothes were ruined. She looked at me with a look I could only classify as apologetic. I still didn't know what to do. She spoke first.

"I am so sorry. I don't know, I have been feeling sick for the past two days, and now this turbulence during take-off. Before I had time to control it, I just vomited. I am extremely sorry."

I kept glaring at her. But the gentleman I was trying to be I told her, "It is okay. Are you feeling okay now? Do you need medical attention?"

"Oh no, I will be fine. God, look at how badly I have soiled your clothes! I am so sorry! I feel so bad I did this!" she moaned.

Actually she looked kinda cute when she said that. But I tried not to show any emotion. I just said, "No it's alright. I have a couple of tees and some pairs of jeans in my cabin bag. I guess I will just change and come." Saying that, I stood up and tried to retrieve my bag from the overhead compartment. I felt that a lot of people were looking at me. But I tried to ignore them, and concentrated just on taking my clothes from the bag. When I finally managed to do it with some help from the girl, I rushed to the rest room and changed. My clothes were stinking from all that liquid.

to be continued...

Images in the rain

It had been an unusually hot afternoon. So, it was no surprise that it grew dark and cloudy by late evening. With hardly five days left to start, I had to get a photocopy of all the important documents. But by the time I decided to step out of my home to do my task, I started to drizzle a lot. Therefore, I went back home, ditched my plans of going to the photocopy shop by my bike, took an umbrella and decided to walk all the way. Not that it was too far away. It was hardly a ten minute walk.

I had hardly walked a few blocks away from my home, when it started to rain quite heavily. I had the documents safe inside my shirt pocket. The road I was walking on criss-crossed one of the many slums in Chennai. It was amazing how rain causes different reactions from different persons. People who had so far been sitting on the roads and chatting aimlessly, rushed inside their respective shelters. A nearby tea shop, which I had noticed as always empty before, was teeming with customers. The shopkeeper appeared to be thanking his lucky stars, or rather, his lucky clouds. I had every reason to believe that by the time I would come back home, he would have earned enough for at least a couple of days.

A little further down the road, another shopkeeper looked as if he had been completely shattered. And he had every reason to believe so. He was dealing with construction materials, and it seemed that he had no time at all to prevent all his cement stock from getting wet. So, there he was, looking completely lost and sat staring at all the wet cement bags from inside his small and dilapidated showroom.

As I walked a little more, I saw that a lot of people had left their motorcycles on the road and were seeking refuge from the rain near the entrance of a small temple. On one of the bikes was written 'Masha Allah'. Well, rain knows no religion nor caste, does it? A small kid was riding his bicycle, enjoying cycling over the large puddles of water. I envied him, for he had no worries about tomorrow or the day after.

The rain had become heavier, and soon there were strong winds too. I positioned the umbrella in a position that would counter the effect of the wind, but it didn't prevent me from getting completely drenched. I had completely forgot that my documents were still inside my pocket. I rushed inside a nearby ATM, and took them out slowly. All I recovered was shreds of paper. Amazing isn't it, how rain can affect a person's life so much.

A very funny story

I just found this story on the internet when I was browsing casually. Thought I could share it here. The author is unknown.

Rajinikanth was bragging to Jayalalitha one day, "You know, I know everyone there is to know.

Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."

Tired of his boasting, Jayalalitha called his bluff, "OK, Rajini how about Tom Cruise?"

"Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it" Rajini said.

So Rajini and Jayalalitha fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door, and sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts

"Thalaiva! Great to see you! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!".

Although impressed, Jayalalitha is still skeptical.

After they leave Cruise's house, she tells Rajini that she thinks Rajini knowing Cruise was just lucky.

"No, no, just name anyone else" Rajini says.

"President Bush", Jayalalitha quickly retorts.

"Yes", Rajini says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington".

And off they go. At the White House, Bush spots Rajini on the tour and motions him , saying,

"Rajini, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a cup of coffee first and catch up".

Well, Jayalalitha is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, he implores her to name anyone else.

"The Pope," Jayalalitha replies.

"Sure!" says Rajini, "My folks are from Germany and I've known the Pope a long time".

So off they fly to Rome. Rajini and Jayalalitha are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Rajini says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope."

And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican. Sure enough, half an hour later Rajini emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time Rajini returns, he finds that Jayalalitha had a Heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics.Working his way to Jayalalitha's side, Rajini asks her, "What happened?"

Jayalalitha looks up and says, "I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, 'Who's that on the balcony with my thalaivar Rajinikanth?' "

The trip to somewhere

The bus finally screeched to a halt by late evening. We were starving. It had been a nine hour travel, with no stops in between. The roads had been terrible, and the bus equally pathetic. All of us were suffering from backache, and we badly needed food and some sleep. We set off in search of a hotel.

We started walking along the crowded and noisy road that seemed more likely to have a hotel. Though we were going to spend the night in the house of Sanjay’s distant relative, we decided to eat outside because we thought it would be too much to expect from a distant relative.
The so-called town market consisted of not more than a couple of streets. And it was nearly empty. There were shops of all shapes and sizes, right from the vegetable selling old woman on the road to the quite big electronics shop near the bus stand. But one thing I was happy about was there were more mobile phone shops than any other kind of shop, as I was worried whether there would be network coverage in such a small town within the interiors of Tamil Nadu.
After at least five minutes of tired and slow walking, we decided that we had come the wrong way in search of a hotel. We were just about to turn back when Ketan cried out as if he had seen something very scary. Then we saw it. In the complete darkness, almost hidden from view, was a sign – ‘Hotel Ashok Pure Veg’.

We proceeded towards the entrance of the hotel. When we looked inside, there was not a single soul sitting and having food. There were a couple of waiters sitting idly in one of the tables, but not even one customer. I was having second thoughts of going in to eat, but it was Akshay who pushed us in (which he paid for dearly later). A guy passing by, noticing that we are entering the place had a look on his face which said. “Where the hell are you people going?”

The moment we entered, the waiters jumped into activity. We took the table nearest to the entrance. It looked a pretty decent hotel, and looking at the menu, it was quite cheap as well. But we decided to play it safe, and ordered a couple of parottas each. Amazingly, the food was ready within 2 minutes, and it was deliciously hot and spicy. We were thrilled, with the very low expectations we had of the place, we were more than satisfied. We ordered more, and ate till we had enough food in our stomach for at least a couple of days. We tipped heavily, and left the hotel wondering why it was deserted. We didn’t have to wait too long.

Some 15 minutes later, we reached the relative’s place. Sanjay introduced us to his uncle.
“Uncle, this is Akshay, Ketan, Karthik and Naveen.”
“Hello uncle.” We greeted him in unison.
“Hello boys. You want to eat something? Dinner is ready.” His uncle asked us.
“No thanks uncle, we already had our dinner in a hotel.” It was Naveen who replied.
“Hotel?? Don’t tell me it is Hotel Ashok!”
“Oh it was the same hotel uncle. The food was really great!” Akshay replied.
“Really? Oh fine then!” But his facial expression didn’t seem fine at all.
“What is wrong uncle?” Sanjay asked him.
“Well I don’t know how to put this. Ten years ago, the hotel caught fire and all the people inside, including the owner and the waiters were charred to death. Since then I have heard some people say they had seen ghosts at night. May be it is true then.”

We stood speechless. The first thing we did was to rush back to the hotel. But there was none. Only the ruins of a burned-down building.

The Lilliput

Saturday, July 11 2009

It was nearly evening when I reached Senate Hall where the specimen was to be kept for display. The place was crowded with so many people such that it looked as if there was a carnival going on. The excitement was understandable. The discovery was amazing, almost next to impossible.

Before this, people had discovered fossils of new dinosaurs, a few Jurassic age insects, and stuff like that. But a new species that resembled Homo sapiens, preserved in an amber fossil? Too much to resist. The media had given full coverage of the discovery, with every news channel and newspaper in the world making it their headline. It was even nicknamed ‘The Lilliput’ by The New York Times. Being a biologist myself, it was quite hard to believe that such a species should exist. But the news was released only after a dozen genetic tests had been conducted by the best genetic engineers in the world. It was indeed a new species. Quite astounding.

After moving past the huge crowd at the entrance, I entered into the heavily guarded hall, thanks to the visitors pass given to me by my good friend Roberts, who was one of the engineers who did the DNA tests. I learnt from him the full details of the genetic makeup of the organism. It closely resembled the human genome, with about 99.9% similarity, he had said. I also learnt that it was planned to name the new species Homo lilliputiens. And it was a male. As I entered the hall, the first thing I noticed was the heavy air-conditioning that was in place, because I started to shiver in the cold. The hall was filled with scientists from different parts of the world discussing about the latest sensation to hit science.

I searched for Roberts, and after a brief search, I found him talking with a beautiful young female scientist. As soon as I went near him, he saw me and excused himself from her and came towards me with a face with worry written all over it. Before I could ask him what was wrong he himself said, “The specimen is alive.”

I couldn’t believe what he said. It was impossible. An organism preserved inside an amber fossil, alive? But before I could voice my protests to him, he caught my arm and took me inside a heavily guarded room at the back of the hall with a powerful laminar hood at the entry to remove the dust and microbial particles from the visitors' body. The door led to a room that was dimly lit, with a couple of armed security men standing guard. In the centre of the room was a glass hood with the specimen inside it. The room was more heavily air-conditioned than the hall.

I heard Roberts say, “See for yourself”. And as I approached the hood, I could make out a miniature organism inside the amber fossil. When I finally reached the hood, I saw it. It was indeed a miniature human. The face was distinct, with eyes, nose, ears and mouth clearly visible. It also had the limbs of a human. But it wasn’t moving. It was as still as if it were dead. A couple of ultra-thin wires were connected to its limbs. The wires led to an ECG which was showing read-outs. It was indeed alive!!

“How is it still alive??” I asked

“That’s a good question. The problem now is we don’t know if the organism is safe enough to humans. Actually we tried killing it as soon as we knew it was alive. We tried all the methods that will instantly kill a man - poison, high voltage, and all other stuff. But it is still alive. That means it is almost immortal.”

“What do we do now? What have you guys decided to do?” I wanted to know.

“We plan to postpone its display to the media and the scientists by another month. And we transfer this to a high security storage area and study it more closely. We don’t want the world to know that it is still alive.” He said.

I just couldn’t speak. The enormity of the situation was astounding. I just stood there watching the Lilliput. It was clearly a man in miniature. As I stood watching it, suddenly many things happened at once. It started wriggling, as if it wanted to break free from the amber fossil. Suddenly the amber cracked and the organism fell out. Then, it started shivering and shaking and then everything stopped and it became still.

Sunday, July 12 2009

It was almost noon when the report came. Roberts studied it for a moment, smiled and handed over the report to me for me to read it. I wondered what was amusing in it as I studied the report.

“After the autopsy, it is clear that the organism died of oxygen poisoning. This can be possible because the atmosphere in which it lived was almost devoid of oxygen and was predominantly carbon dioxide. So, as soon as it got exposed to the high oxygen concentration environment, its respiratory system failed and it died instantly.”

Valentine's day

My first attempt at 55Fiction:


She watched as her love crossed the road and came towards where she was sitting. She knew he was going to propose today, the 14th February. He looked tense. Understandable.

"I wanna tell you something."

"Yes?" She waited for the three words to come out of his mouth.

"I am gay."

The Story of Muthu

Muthu was an ordinary individual. He was as ordinary as you and me, and all other ordinary human beings in the world. Muthu was a trader. He was always honest, and never tried to cheat any of his customers. He wouldn't even think about it. All his goods were of top quality, and so all the people flocked to buy his wares. He sold them very cheap, and so didn't get much profit. He, therefore, still remained a poor man, since the earnings were hardly enough to feed himself and his family of a wife and two kids.

Muthu had beautiful hair. It was pitch-black, long and wavy. Though many other men in his town had started to lose hair by his age, he still had thick hair. His hair was his pride, and dearer to him than anything else in the world. He spent almost two hours each day taking care of his hair.

Years went by. Muthu still remained a poor man, even though he had a lot of customers. But he never increased his prices, since he never wanted money. But one night, just when he was about to sleep, he noticed that there was a stranger inside his bedroom. He got scared, and was about to raise an alarm, when the stranger spoke.

"Don't get scared. I am your friend. I am here to help you." The voice was sweet and mesmerizing. Muthu lost all his fear and started believing that the stranger was one of his best friends,
"Why do I need help? I am happy now. I don't need anyone's help." Muthu told the stranger.
"You are wrong, Muthu. Look at you. You are still in the same level you were years back. Don't you want to improve your standard of living? Don't you want more money?" he whispered in the same silky voice.

If Muthu had been in his senses, he would have instantly said no. But the voice was so mesmirizing that Muthu started to think. It would do no harm to anyone if I had some more money, he thought. And said yes.

"That is good. Now do as I say." The stranger told Muthu all that he needed to do, and Muthu nodded his head to all of it like a faithful dog. The very next day, Muthu raised the prices of all his goods. The customers were shocked, but most of them took it in their stride, since all the goods were of excellent quality. Some of them, stopped coming to his shop, sensing that greed had at last taken over Muthu. He started to earn more, and soon earned enough to buy himself a bigger home and a two-wheeler.

But he noticed something queer. He always had very thick and black hair. But he started losing some of his hair, the month he raised the prices. Though not by much, but he was still very worried about it, and hoped they would stop.

The stranger returned again one night.

"I see you have done well." he told Muthu with a smile.
"Yes. I have earned quite a lot. I think this is enough for me and my family." Muthu told him.
"Fool. Who would take care of your children when they grow up? Now listen to me."

Once again, the mesmerizing voice instructed Muthu what all he needed to do. He still nodded his head like a faithful dog. The next day, he started adulterating all his goods. He tampered with the weights and almost everything he could tamper with. He started to earn more, but the customers stopped coming to his shop one by one due to the decreasing quality of his goods.

And interestingly, he started to lose more of his hair. He started worrying more and more about it, and he lost more hair. And before long, he lost all of them, and became bald.

He could live no longer, since he lost all of his hair, which was dearest to him. He decided to ask the stranger, but he no longer came to visit him. He got irritated and frustrated, and decided to ask God about it. And the only way that was possible, was to kill himself. So he committed suicide.

He saw himself going up towards the skies. He flew across the skies for many days, and finally saw the gates to heaven. There was a long queue in front of him, and again he had to wait some days before he met God himself.

"Who was that stranger who talked to me?" Muthu asked eagerly.
"Oh, that was the Devil himself. " He replied.

Muthu felt ashamed that he had listened to the devil. Now he was sure the devil took his hair.

"And is that why I lost my hair?" Muthu wanted to know.
"Ah, for that you must have visited the doctor, or tried an anti-dandruff shampoo. You had dandruff." God replied.

I am a Snake

My pleasant salutations to all the human beings out there. My name is Raven, and I am a King Cobra. Yes, I am a snake.

For all those intelligent humans out there who think we snakes cannot communicate, I am here to prove all of you wrong. We may lack a ear to hear stuff, smell through our tongues, and may lack the ability to talk in various languages like you humans do. But we can still communicate, and it is by far the best mode of communication that any one of you can even imagine. But I will come to that later.

I was born as one among many children to my lovely mother. I say lovely because she took good care of me and my siblings, until we were old enough to hunt on our own. She taught us how to fool our predators by feigning closed-mouth strikes. We learnt how to respect our predators like the mongooses, which are very experienced in dealing with cobras. I was the quickest to learn to use my venom to attack prey and predator alike, but my mother cautioned me to use it carefully, since she reasoned along with great power came great responsibility.

I used to be scared of shedding my skin, especially in my young age, when I used to do it frequently. I had to choose a lonely spot for the same, which was difficult, even in the thick forest I used to live. But as with the others, I gradually came to get used to it, and it became less painful when I learnt from my mother that it was good for my health.

All was fine, till one day, when a group of strange two-legged creatures entered the forest. The moment my mother saw them coming, she began panicking. I learnt from her that the creatures were called humans, and were by far, the deadliest predator of all. She also warned me that I should never bite or poison them, for reasons other than self-defence. But alas, tragedy struck, when one of the humans stepped right on top of my tail, and though I knew that he had no evil intention in his mind, in a fit of rage, I bit him, and injected my venom into his leg. I realized my mistake at once, but it was too late. I had to scamper for cover, as all the other humans came to the victim's rescue. and started searching for me. But I was too quick for them. I thought I had escaped safely, when I saw that my mother was just returning back from her hunting, and she was too slow to spot the mood among the humans, her age depriving her of the most important weapon for survival. She was beaten to death, and skinned right in front of my eyes. That was the most horrible moment of my life, but I still prayed for the recovery of the human I had poisoned.

Now I will come to the point which I made earlier. Yes we snakes can communicate. Through our minds. It may sound unbelievable, but we can read minds. We can also send signals to other minds. It is the most effective means of communication. For example, I knew that the human I bit had no evil intention because I could read his mind. My mother got killed because her communication was weak. She couldn't read the minds of the humans properly, and also couldn't cause fear in the minds of the humans. Yes, fear is imparted by us. That is why, while some people actually love us, some really loathe us. That is a feeling that is caused by us. We transmit fear when we feel that the mind is corrupted, and and tranmit love when we feel that mind has genuine care for us. This is how we communicate.

I am in fact, transmitting all these thoughts to one hapless human, who was sleeping in his bedroom, peacefully. I have manipulated his mind such that he will write this down as soon as he wakes up and publicize this. Yes, I need this to be read by as many humans as possible, since I want to ask forgiveness from the human I had unreasonably poisoned. I am indeed very sorry for what happened. I hope you are now hale and healthy. But I also request you not to kill another innocent snake like my mother. It is no use taking revenge. After all, we all want peace. This is one request I want to make to all my human friends. Fear us or love us, but please don't kill us.

My photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

When money flies...

"So, where shall we go?" my eldest sister, Radhika, asked no one in particular. "I suggest we go to the beach. And have nice hot onion bajjis." my younger brother Mukund, a die-hard foodie, replied. "Shut up, Mukund." It was Vindhya, my second sister. "Why don't you try thinking about something other than food?" "Oh Vindhya, stop teasing him." Radhika managed to prevent yet another fight between the two warring siblings. Being born as one among four children in the house, has its own share of advantages. For one, you can always enjoy watching the fights that always occur among the others. Being the third of the four children, I was the most peaceful and silent of the four. Not that I wasn't naughty, but I was smart enough to make sure no one noticed it. The particular discussion going on was to decide where we could all visit for the new year. "How about a movie?" I finally decided to open my mouth to speak. "Movie? Which one?" Mukund asked. "Vaaranam Aayiram. No other movie is worth watching for now." I reasoned. "Oh come on! I just saw that last week with my office colleagues!! It was Radhika. I had completely forgotten that she had gone out with her office friends to the same movie the previous week. "So what? We haven't seen it yet! So it will be Vaaranam aayiram." Vindhya delivered the judgement. But the discussion didn't there. Radhika was completely opposed to it, and wanted to go Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi instead. But after a lengthy debate, which included a majority vote in which Vaaranam won by 3 votes to 1, she finally conceded. I was chosen to buy the tickets, since every other person had some other work to do, and I was the only one who was jobless. "Here, have this five hundred bucks. Buy it and come soon." Radhika handed over to me a crisp new five hundred rupee note. I took off in my bike straight to Satyam Cinemas. I hoped there would be no crowd for the tickets, since the movie was quite some days old. I parked my bike and went to the advance ticket booking counter, but to my dismay, the whole place was flooded with people. I couldn't even see if there was any other movie to which tickets were available. I decided that it was no use waiting at the counter, and turned back to the parking area. Just then, I heard a voice. "Hey boy, want tickets?" I turned to see who it was. It was a middle aged man, around 40 years old, wearing a dull grey shirt and black trousers. "No, thank you." I didn't want to encourage black-ticketeers, lest to be caught my police in mufti. "I'm not selling tickets in black, my boy. I had bought some tickets for my family for new year day, but we have decided to go somewhere else. That is why I am selling these." I didn't know whether to believe him or not. He looked like a pretty decent man, so I decided to try him. "Ok, how much?" I asked him. "Let us not talk here. It is not safe. We will go outside." he told me, and started walking towards the exit. I followed him. He entered a by-lane adjacent to the cinema hall and finally stopped walking. "How much?" I asked again. "The actual cost is hundred rupees. I will give it to you for hundred and twenty five. I have four tickets with me." he told me. "That is unreasonable. I am actually doing you a favour by buying these tickets. Either sell them to me at the cost price, or else I am leaving." I made myself clear to him. "What is this, my boy. You are being very miserly. I thought I could atleast recover the fuel cost for my motorcycle. Ok, I will give it to you." he told me. I was relieved, and was happy that I could get the tickets without standing in the crowded queue. I imagined myself bragging about this to my sisters and brother. "Ok give me the four hundred bucks. I will give you the tickets." he said. "No, show me the tickets first." I wanted to confirm. "Ok here have the tickets. Let me have the money." I handed over the five hundred rupee note to him. "Hey, I don't have change. Don't you have four 100 rupee notes?" he asked me. "No, I don't." "Ok, wait. I will go to the nearby shop and get some change." So saying, he entered a shopping complex, as I waited outside. I made sure he was within my eyesight. I saw him enter a shop. I waited patiently, but there was no sign of him. I started to panic, when he didn't return for five minutes. I decided to enter the shop, and started walking towards it. But as soon as I entered through the door, I knew I had been cheated. Cause it was no shop. It was just a passageway to the other end of the road. I double-checked if at least the tickets were genuine. But the moment I saw the date, I knew I was the dumbest person in the world. It read 01-01-08. It hadn't struck me that the year should be 09, instead of 08. I entered the house with a sad look on my face. Radhika noticed it first. "Hey what happened? Didn't get the tickets?" she asked me. "No, I lost the money. I had kept it in my shirt pocket, but it isn't there now. Think it must have flew out of my pocket when I was riding the bike." Image courtesy: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/175/426982475_278f4100d0.jpg

The Rainbow (Part 3)

If he was the head of The Rainbow, Stephen was its face. He was, by far, the most popular among the six. He was the best among them, and crowds thronged just to watch him. Most of the money therefore was collected due to Stephen's charisma. But the celebrity status slowly and steadily got to his head. And therefore one day he announced to his friends.

"I am moving to Hollywood. One of my friends is a director there, and he said I had great potential to be one of the best actors in the country. I'm leaving The Rainbow for good. I hardly get any recognition here."

So that was it. Even after much persuasion by the others, he refused to change his decision. He left, and since there was no more Stephen, there were no more crowds. However innovative they made the script, there were hardly any people to watch it. They even tried a couple of new actors in his place, but none worked. And there, the end started. The people moved on to better things, and quickly forgot The Rainbow.

As for Stephen, he got to act in a couple of scenes in a B-grade movie, and that was it. There was no news of him for a long time. They later learnt that he was found dead in one of the streets, and he had died of starvation. They shed tears for their dear friend, and a very good stage performer.

He forced his mind to come back to the present. He continued speaking to his friends.

"I have decided that we will have one last show. That will be tomorrow evening. It will be the end of The Rainbow. We divide whatever we get tomorrow among us equally, and part forever, my friends. Is this fine with all of you?"

No one spoke a word. The talk ended there, and the rehearsals for the last play began. The play was aptly titled 'Rainbow's Ending', written by Noel Greig. The rehearsals continued till late at night, and then they all dispersed to their respective abodes.

The day quickly passed, and the time to start the play arrived. They hoped that at least one spectator to turn up, but there were none. They waited for audience, but for half an hour, there was none. He decided that they would start the play, with an audience or without. Just as they were about to begin the play, a man entered the old hall. He wore dirty clothes, and had himself covered with a tattered rug. They couldn't see his face, since it was dark.

"I am a beggar. I have no money," he spoke in a coarse voice, "but I thought I can watch the play."

They didn't object, and were actually happy that there was at least one person who was going to witness their last play. They started the performance.

It was an astounding performance. The play was a very emotional one and it was portrayed well by all the five men. If only there were people in the audience, they would have all been in tears. The lone man clapped at the end of it all. The lights were turned on at the end of the play. They then saw his face.

"It was really an excellent performance, my brothers!" Stephen spoke. "It reminded me of our old times, when I was alive and was one among you. I tell you, there was not one day after I left The Rainbow, that I didn't regret my decision. But I couldn't just come back and join again. I thought you wouldn't accept me again. How wrong I had been!!"

The others couldn't believe what they saw and heard. They stood dumbstruck to talk anything. But Stephen wasn't waiting for a reply. He continued.

"I was up there, listening to all of you speaking about today being the last play. I couldn't afford to miss that, can I? I have already missed you people more than anything else. So, I decided to witness it. Now as I have seen it, I am at peace. I ask for your forgiveness, my dear brothers, but I have been the result of your downfall. Please forgive me. Lord be with you."

Before any of the five could react, Stephen disappeared into thin air, right in front of their eyes. And there was darkness again.

Image courtesy: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/790656725_a3c6ae5eb0.jpg?v=0

Related posts:

1. The Rainbow (Part 1)
2. The Rainbow (Part 2)

Arte-y-pico!!

Surely a wonderful beginning to 2009. Ranjani, who writes on 'The Voices Within' has presented me with the Arte-y-pico award, which roughly translates to being conferred as 'The Best Art'. I would like to thank the gracious lady rampantheart for giving me this wonderful award, which is my first one. :) I am truly honored!

Now, I have to present this award to 5 other bloggers, who I think, deserve this award. I think I will limit this to three, and two of them have already been presented this award. They are:

Meghna

Matangi

Macadamia

Now it is the turn of these three wonderful bloggers to pick 5 other people who they think deserve the award. And remember to link to the Arte-y-pico blog, display the name of the person who awarded it and their blog, and also links to the blogs they are conferring the award upon. And hey, don't forget to display the award!!

Wishing everyone peace, happiness and prosperity for 2009 and beyond.