dreamszilla

A Pakistani tour guide falls for an American visitor and remembers her even long after moving to the USA himself. Image generated with OpenAI Pappu once lived in Karachi where he drove foreign tourists to the ancient city of Mohenjo Daro. The five-thousand-year-old city was magnificent. With its broken-down majestic ruins, brown and gold in the afternoon sun, the steps that now led nowhere, the rutted small roads that emptied into courtyards of homes where people had lived their lives long ago. He had taken many people around the old buildings, given them the tour of the citadel, the granaries and told them many a story. The Mound of the Dead - that was what the words meant in translation. Pappu told visitors everything he had read up from old books, and stuff that he made up on the spot, or improvised as he drove along, the stories in his head mingling with their chatter behind him. It helped he knew a bit of English. In his job, one had to. But the sound of other langu...

In early 1980s London, a couple take a break from refurbishing their new home go on an important visit. London, August 1982 Image generated with OpenAI He's always been meticulous, this one. Spotlessly clean and immaculately groomed. Runs in the family, he says. "We've always been a careful lot." Right now, I can feel the bony fingers of his right hand delve through my hair, picking attentively at my scalp, occasionally alighting on something and tugging it free. "Hey apeman, are you grooming me?" In the dark uncarpeted room, my voice sounds too loud. The echo from the bare walls stretches the vowels, makes my accent seem stronger. Turns my joke into indignation. "Just drops of paint from yesterday. No need to have you fumigated, but a spot of shampoo wouldn't hurt. Have we got any left? We need milk anyway - I'll get some." His left arm is still round me, fingertips stroking circles in the hairs around my navel. Gentl...

In rural USA during the Great Depression, one of the Allshouse children is hurt - will local hermit Guzzies rise to the occasion? Image generated with OpenAI Wiggy ran shirtless through the woods as fast as could. Having discarded his hand-me-down footwear, and now wearing his new shoes, he wasn't stubbing his toes on rocks and tree roots as he used to do. This time he was running full tilt. He didn't notice the marks and scratches tree branches were leaving over his bare chest and arms. Terror masked whatever pain he was feeling. He ran with all the might his teenage legs could muster. Even if he made it, he might be too late. All the Allshouse boys loved hunting, though Jimmy and Boyd stopped when they began working the mines. Crow, Carney, and Wiggy went a couple of times a week especially in the fall. Raccoon coats were a rage during the 1920s, and a raccoon pelt fetched a nice price. During the Great Depression, there was less demand, but the boys loved hun...