Saturday, May 21, 2005

Quick tales

Water, terribly, sleep

Waters of the world had had enough of abuse and decided to go to sleep. And never wake up. There were no waves, no ripples. No whirlpools, waterfalls or vortex. Only still water everywhere. And the world was a terribly poor place for it. But the people did not notice a change.

~
Young man in a strange country. Boards a train. Drinks coffee offered by stranger. Drugged and robbed of his luggage, thrown off the train. Remembers nothing except three words 'water, terribly, sleep' which he keeps repeating to himself. But what good is 3 English words in a land where they spoke a different tongue with their noses? And why was everyone walking on their hands? Were the tree waving their roots at him? How was he ever going to get out?
~
'Never swim after a heavy meal' were the last words that flashed through her mind. Her mom her given this sagely advice many years ago. The words were of no use. Now that the water was turning terribly cold and she was drifting into a deep sleep. Sinking all the time.
~
He had a lisp and could not pronounce 'r' properly. At six, that was a terrible or a 'tellible' thing to happen. So he invented a new vocabulary for words that involved pronouncing an 'r'. He'd say 'jingo' for 'water' and 'bingo' for 'bread'. Thankfully, he did not have to come up with a word for 'sleep' as there were no 'r's in it and in his dreams he was not teased.
~
She could remember it like it was yesterday. Walking into his house for a drink of water, falling asleep on the couch and waking up feeling terribly ill. She told her mom about it. But the mother asked her not to breathe a word. For father would be real mad if he found out.
~
She longed for a pet. But mother wouldn't allow any in the house. 'They make a terrible racket and won't let me sleep at night', she said while adding helpfully, 'Instead, you could have a plant, water it and watch it grow'.
'But I cannot take it for a walk', countered the daughter with irrefutable logic.
~
Note: These were written as part of an exercise to weave stories around a set of 3 words picked randomly. All stories have been reproduced without the benefit of revision or editing.

14 comments:

Harish said...

Brillaint, brilliant, brilliant!!!

I tried writing a comment w/ 3 random words that came to my mind too! :)

kalakitenga Ammani!

ps.
'But I cannot take it for a walk'
I've actually sed the exact same thing! But my parents came up w/ a better logic.. "Edhukku da naai? nee irukiyae, poraadha?"

pps.
drop by sometime.. haven't blamed ya for messin up my exam. promise! :P

Harish said...

and unfortunately, the first word came to my mind accompanied by a typo! :D

(unga ella quicktales-kum naan idhaye thaan soleetu irukkaen!! but then, nothin else comes to mind!)

Shammi said...

Very nice. VERY nice!

Anonymous said...

Sooper!!!

Unknown said...

i am bowled over by your quality of writing!

Nachiketas said...

Your creativity is just awesome. Have you thought about getting your work published?

anumita said...

... and they are excellent!

Amrita said...

i simply love the way u put up your stories, the most interesting things about ur posts is their story-telling mode, this combination of water, sleep and terrible is indeed remarkable.i love the logical cohesion with which u have woven the three ideas together.

AF said...

Excellent writing Ammani

AF

Balaji said...

whoosh! sound of the latest stories going over my head :-) btw, this exercise thing... u enrolled in a writing course or something?

Me said...

wondering what to comment

my comment has never been random and always deterministic.....

it has been always awesome.. excellent....on stuff like that...

Houseowner said...

i love the guy with the lisp story!

cheers!

Arun said...

this is creative writing at its best..i mus thank ramya for directing me to this page..and i agree with her that every1 who comes her will b bowled over!!

Anjali said...

superb!thz to bala for this referal.I can sharpen mine too.