Two Decades of Delusion

"Whatever is, cannot be Right, Whatever ought to be, must be Righteous."

Concentric Circles

This is a short story I had written last yeat, thought to post it...Hope you like it.

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he cold winter sunlight reflected off her long lustrous auburn hair. It was left loose and like the mesquite tree takes the shape of the wind, it too was helplessly performing its haphazard ballet. The frayed winter coat was flapping at her calves and her hands were clasped in silent delight.

She was looking across the street at her child who was running around in circles with her hands above her head. They had been returning home from their owner’s house where the lady worked as a maid. The mother had paused here as her daughter had suddenly darted across the street to investigate a flock of pigeons. Now she was periodically swarming down on them and experiencing a wild pleasure to watch them rise hastily in the air in alarm and annoyance. The girl and the pigeons were performing a graceful coordinating act. The girl would prance around with her hands raised, in a wide circle and each time the pigeons settled to peck at the grains on the ground, the girl too would be just reaching that point on the imaginary circle and the same act would be repeated. It was as if the girl and the pigeons were involved in the romance of geometry and time.
It was on these greasy cobbled streets that she had met him. She was only 17 then and had run away from her violent uncle who was perpetually drunk. She was cold, hungry and alone. There was no one around in the streets and he had found her huddled and sobbing on the weathered benches that were sprinkled around the pavement.
He had a long tiring day himself. The trade unions were planning another uprising and the old wolves at the board meeting were ruthless as ever. He liked walking along this avenue after finishing work. It had started to faintly drizzle; he looked around and walked back to his car. The engine purred to life and he put the vehicle in first gear. He slowly bought the car forward and parked it near the be
nch where the girl was sobbing her bitterness out.

That was the night she became a woman and lost her voice.

The little girl had became tired of the pigeons and was instead to be found inspecting a tiny purple flower that had blossomed between two stones that made up the pavement. The girl looked at her mother, plucked the flower and scuttled across the street to her mother.

The tea seller told the police that his ears were still ringing with the woman’s shriek, the shriek, he said was louder than the truck’s screech.

Inspiration Ephemeral

The Rocky series lay at the top of the CPU, on the table a cup of coffee perched on a pirated copy of Robin Sharma, the i-pod showed a video playlist that contained Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama’s poll rhetoric, even a snippet from Schumi’s endless first place press interviews. The figure on the sofa was snoozing, exhausted from his “Search for Inspiration”.
The great Indian MBA exam had been dealt with and post CAT blues had settled in. The target he was hurtling towards, had, on contact vanished into oblivion. Puzzling uncertainty gnawed at his soul – night and day and night again. The result was a foregone conclusion which didn’t bother him, what did, was – where do you land your punches next? Where is it that you aim your arrows? Where is it that you concentrate your maniacal energy? His brain exploded with strings of unrelated meaningless thoughts, thoughts that settle in when perverse energy struggles against stubborn lethargy.
He desperately tried to cling on to perceived external sources of inspiration and it vanished. These images teased him, ragged him and ran laughing down the alley as soon as he tried to chase them. Images of Rocky boxing the strung beef, Schumi pulling out his best laps, Ambani, Birla and Mittal – all proved futile. His mind mocked him – where’s ‘I’m doing this for my parents gone?’ ‘Down which alley are your ideals bawling?’
These thoughts ran amok in his mind, ravaging his soul with all the spite. His futile search continued at every nook and cranny of his wrecked mind. All this while a lazy eye surveyed - endless movies for a pitiable story and finally he came onto one which inspired him not but provided only a feeble start –

The Matrix Revolutions – the last fight between Neo and Agent Smith

Agent Smith: Why Mr. Anderson, why, why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? You believe you are fighting for something? For more than your survival?
Can you tell me what it is? You even know? Is it freedom or truth, perhaps peace, could it be for love? Illusions Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception, temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying to justify its existence without meaning or purpose, all of them is artificial as the Matrix itself, although, only a human mind can create something as insipid as love.

You must be able to see it Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now, you can’t win, it’s pointless to keep on fighting. Why Mr. Anderson, why why why DO U PERSIST?
Neo: Because I choose to.