The Moving Finger Writes by G. B. Prabhat
A man recalls a memorable work trip to Kerala's beautiful Vembanad Lake.
It was dusk when we reached the hotel, which according to the various reviews I had read, was situated right on the shore of the lake. For many years now, I had been dreaming of visiting Kumarakom in Kerala to take a look at the Vembanad lake, reportedly India's longest. I contrived to make sure that the venue of the management retreat of my team would be Kumarakom.
I couldn't contain my excitement to complete the check-in formalities.
"Where's the lake?" I asked the receptionist.
"It's basically there." He pointed his hand without shifting his eyes from the screen.
"I'll be back. Meanwhile, please check me in. Those, there, are my bags. Please have them placed in my room."
I looked around. My colleagues were asking, "Where's the bar?"
Balaji gave me a meaningful look.
"Want to come? I want to see the lake before it becomes completely dark."
"Yes," he said animatedly.
I was surprised. I knew him as a colleague for the past few years, extremely diligent but prosaic, or so I thought.
"Like you, I too have been waiting long to see Vembanad." He was almost bashful.
"Well, come along."
Even though we trotted the hundred meters or so, it became dark.
We stood at the edge of the water but could get no sense of the size of the lake.
The water was dark and brooding. The eerie silence was punctuated only by the lapping sounds. It was as if a rapacious monster were greedily licking the shore to get a taste of it.
A few houseboats, belonging presumably to the hotel, bobbed a greeting to us.
"The lights in the distance. That must be Alappuzha," said Balaji, nodding without waiting for a response. He seemed to be returning the greeting of the houseboats.
Balaji and I were ready to depart at 7am the next morning as we had agreed the previous evening. It would become sweltering later. Besides, we had to return for our management session that was scheduled to begin at 11. There was no sign of my other colleagues. Still recovering from their hangovers, I thought.
We were quite unprepared for the sight at the lakeshore. The vast expanse of water was dotted by the floating mounds of green that are unique to the Kerala backwaters. The sun had just come up and gilt-edged the few boats that had already set sail.
The boatman the hotel had arranged for us discreetly coughed and released us from our rapture.
"Shall we leave?"
"Yes, of course," I said and headed towards his canoe.
The canoe was the smallest boat I had ever seen, with a slat on either side that made up the seats. Each slat could barely contain one person. The boatman sat at one end. Balaji and I somehow squeezed ourselves onto the slats at the other. I was worried my bad back would start acting up in that awkward posture. Within a few minutes of sailing, I had forgotten about my back.
"We will first sail through the wide waters and then enter the narrow waters. On either side of the narrow waters, you will see beautiful green villages. We will end our trip in a village where you can get down, walk around, and see paddy cultivation. We will be back at your hotel in two hours."
The boatman must have read the lack of comprehension on our faces about the paddy cultivation bit.
"Surely you have heard about the Kuttanad region?" he asked.
"No," Balaji and I said almost in chorus.
"Kumarakom and the surrounding areas are part of a region called Kuttanad. Kuttanad is below the sea level. It is perhaps the only place other than the Netherlands where paddy is cultivated below the sea level. It is a nice experience to take a walk beside a paddy field. The village we are about to go to is beautiful even otherwise."
We were embarrassed that we knew so little about our country whereas the boatman seemed to know even about the Netherlands.
Soon we entered the narrow waters that snaked through the breathtakingly beautiful villages, each a collection of ten houses or so. The residents stood with one fist on hip, giving us stony stares or ignoring us completely. The water was shallow and limpid that we could get a glimpse of life at its bottom.
The boatman stopped briefly, shushed us, and pointed to a tree. We saw nothing. Then the bird became visible.
"It's a cormorant," the boatman whispered.
A little later he pointed out another magnificent bird camouflaged in a bush. "That's a darter. A rare sighting. Your lucky day."
The quiet of our journey was disturbed by a sudden commotion.
A gaggle of boys and girls, aged probably seven or eight, dressed in school uniforms of white and navy blue, was running alongside our boat. They seemed to have appeared from the thicket beyond.
At first, I thought they were waving at us, just a bit of trainspotting behaviour. However, I realized quickly that they were asking us for something.
Their hands were outstretched and from their babble I thought they were asking for money.
"Do they want money?" I asked the boatman.
He replied lazily. "It's their routine. They beg tourists all the time. Just look the other way."
I couldn't.
I fished out a fifty rupee note from my wallet and held it out.
A girl giggled and shook her head trying to make me understand. That's when I noticed her. She had black hair but in the morning sun it had a reddish halo. Her eyes were the lightest grey. Her complexion was pale with a pink hue. She was holding hands with a boy who was a little taller and had well-oiled, combed black hair parted on the left.
"Is that girl a foreigner?" I asked the boatman.
He laughed. "No foreigner, nothing. That kind of hair and eyes are common in some communities here. If you hang around in the area for a bit, you'll find quite a few people with such eyes and hair. They are very fair and are often mistaken for Westerners."
I held the note out towards the girl again.
She chuckled and said, "Kaashu vendam, saare." I don't need money, sir.
The gaggle agreed and the babble now distinctly conveyed that they weren't looking for money.
Mustering the little Malayalam I knew since my roots lay in Kerala, I asked, "Entha vendathu?" What do you want?
The grey-eyed girl pointed to the pen in Balaji's pocket. "I want that."
The other boys and girls clamoured their agreement. "That's right. We want a pen."
"The pen?" I asked incredulously.
"We don't have pens to write with. Our parents won't buy us pens. There's no money at home," said the boy who was holding the hand of the grey-eyed girl. The other boys and girls said, "Yes, yes."
"We want to study well," the grey-eyed girl added.
Once again, the others furiously shook their heads in assent.
I looked at the boatman.
"These creatures are very creative. They fabricate some fancy story or other. If you respond to them, they won't let go you. They will throw stones at you. Get into the water. Tug at your shirt. Shake the boat. Who can say what they will do? Little Satans," he said impassively.
"Really?" The disbelief in my voice must have been obvious.
He lifted a hand to shoo them. They smirked and defiantly stood their ground.
Their faces, all now directed towards me and Balaji, were a hodgepodge of expressions. Grinning, expectant, curious, resigned and yawning.
"Where's your school?" Balaji asked.
They pointed to their left.
"Just a five minute walk," said the smallest girl coyly.
Suddenly a boy drew a sharp breath. "The bell will ring soon. We should be going."
That created a sense of panic, a dread of the rebuke that awaits the latecomer. While the others retreated hesitantly, and started heading to their school, the grey-eyed girl and her companion who held her hand ran alongside us persistently.
"Don't you have to leave, too?" Balaji asked.
"We'll go, we'll go. The moment we have your pen, we'll run to school," the grey-eyed girl said. She seemed to have no doubt that she would get it.
"I am warning you. They are pests. Ignore them." The boatman's voice had a slight edge.
I decided to ignore him instead.
When I eyed the pen in Balaji's pocket, he clutched it possessively.
"Oh, come on," I chided him. "It's a cheap ball pen. I'll get you another after we return."
With a betrayed look, he handed the pen to me.
I dangled the pen before the duo on the shore.
"But I have just one pen. You are two..." I hesitated and then offered. "Okay, I will throw the pen in the air. Whoever catches it can have it. NO fighting, understood?"
They nodded their heads vigorously.
Balaji sat with an idiotic grin that conveyed his resignation.
When I threw the pen in the air, the grey-eyed girl displayed a surprising agility and sprang. But the arc was to the advantage of the boy, who too leapt and caught the pen.
The other boys and girls stopped in their tracks for a moment to see who the victor was, sulked at us, and walked away.
The grey-eyed girl gave me a doleful look and broke into tears.
I cursed myself. What had happened to my adult responsibilities? I had behaved thoughtlessly and caused grief to a child. There appeared no remedies now.
The boy was stricken by the girl's tears and gave her the pen immediately. He then put his arm around her, made comforting noises, and said, "Karaiyanda." Don't cry.
"Sir, don't worry, we'll share the pen," he said to me and then to her, "You can use it first."
I gaped at the boy's sagacity.
Immediately a smile appeared on the grey-eyed girl's tear-streaked face. "Yes, we'll share it. Thank you, uncle."
"Yes, uncle. Thank you," the boy added.
"What do you want to study?" I asked the girl.
"Science. I want to become a scientist," she replied.
"And you?" to the boy.
"I haven't decided yet," he said gravely.
The boatman increased the rowing speed.
Until the girl reduced to a speck, I could see her grey eyes, still brimmed from the earlier tragedy, but now crinkled with cheer. I could make out that she was holding out the pen towards us and waving with her other hand. The boy was waving too. The boat turned a bend, and we lost sight of them.
My understanding of the happenings during the remaining part of the boat trip are partly my recollections and partly Balaji's reconstructions at various times after our trips. He indulged my many requests to recount our journey after we left the boy and the girl.
After a few minutes, the boatman announced, "We have another ten minutes or so before we stop at the village."
Once again, he slowed the boat down and pointed to an overhanging branch.
This time there was no missing it. The bird had a shimmering white head on a rich brown body.
"Brahminy Kite," the boatman whispered. "You are truly in luck. You are seeing the rare birds."
He needn't have whispered. Far from being shy, the bird fixed its stare at us and didn't mind that we sailed so close it. It craned its neck to keep staring at us after we had passed it.
"So cocky," said Balaji.
Apparently, I reassured Balaji at regular intervals that I would replace his pen (which I did promptly on our return home).
The boatman docked the boat in a tiny cove.
"We get off here," he said.
"Where should we go?" I asked him.
"I'll come along," he said and ambled beside us.
The vast expanse of paddy fields made Balaji gasp.
"Oh, wow," he remarked with uncharacteristic loudness.
I recall the huge spread of green and think now that it must have been an extraordinary sight.
The boatman called out to a couple of farmers with the familiarity of a local.
The farmers waved to us as we walked past them.
I remember seeing windmill-like structures now and then.
I pointed to one of them and asked the boatman, "What's that?"
He said, "They are water pumps."
"Oh," I said vaguely.
"I think you have forgotten this is Kuttanad." The boatman cackled showing his stained teeth. "These pumps pump water from inside the field to outside. Otherwise, too much water would flood the low-lying land."
The profundity was lost on me then.
"Wonderful. Didn't quite realize that." Balaji whistled.
When we walked back, we kept alarming the herons and egrets, hidden in the fields, by our pattering footsteps. They flapped their wings, rising to the sky with raucous protests.
On the way, the farmers accosted us. They had some tender coconuts open and ready with straws.
"From our trees." They pointed to the hundreds of coconut trees lining the fields.
Balaji protested weakly. "You needn't have..."
"That's how it is, sir. You are their guests," the boatman reassured.
In spite of my distractedness then, I can still taste the nectar-like sweetness of the coconut water.
We spoke little on the boat ride back with Balaji taking in the sights contemplatively while I remained in my trance.
When I try to recapture those moments, I still see the fields and coconut trees through a haze. I can see myself mechanically executing movements and speaking in reflex. Life was a blur until I reached home.
There is something that will never blur.
The grey eyes and the tear-streaked face.
Thirty years after my trip to Kumarakom, I am now retired.
Though I resolved many times to take my family to see the splendour of Lake Vembanad, another trip never materialized. It is a matter of almost daily regret that, after years of longing to visit the lake, I did not pay attention to what lay before me when I did.
As I sat in the plantation chair stretching my legs and considering a short nap, my wife dropped a packet on the side table and pointed her finger towards it.
It was the next issue of TIME magazine. I gazed at the packet for a few moments wondering if I should open it. Then with indolent fingers, I ripped the packet open, extracted the magazine with the intention of glancing at the cover, taking a nap, and returning to it later. The cover feature was TIME100 Next, emerging leaders shaping the future of the world. I was about to drop the issue on the side table when I did a double take. The exceptionally comely young woman on the cover. Her black hair with a faint reddish hue, her striking grey eyes.
With quickening breath, I turned the pages desperately until I located the feature about her. Her name was Geetha Haridass. She had migrated to the US from Kerala and was married to her childhood sweetheart, a successful IT entrepreneur in his own right, in Silicon Valley. Her father had been a daily wages labourer who had struggled to afford his daughter's austere government-school education. She had managed to survive the days of privation at her humble Kerala home to eventually reach Stanford for her doctorate. The writer had extolled her contributions to new techniques of gene editing with a distinct focus on elimination of diseases. He had cited luminaries in the field touting Geetha as a potential Nobel winner. She had accumulated more than a dozen distinguishing patents.
Could it be?
I picked up the TIME issue cover and started at it intently. Then I closed my eyes to reject the cover photograph and conjure up an image. I alternated between these acts for a few minutes until I felt I was teetering on the edge of sanity. I slapped the magazine down and pushed it away.
Could it be?
The question was tantalizing. But I am old and suffer from the exhaustion of many years of irrelevant and inconsequential verifications-by-Google. A new form of burnout. Even if I searched the internet fervently, I know that I would never be able to confirm anything.
But this much I know for sure: A pen thrown at a seeking hand writes somewhere.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/SFtKqh5
via IFTTT
 |
| Image generated with OpenAI |
I couldn't contain my excitement to complete the check-in formalities.
"Where's the lake?" I asked the receptionist.
"It's basically there." He pointed his hand without shifting his eyes from the screen.
"I'll be back. Meanwhile, please check me in. Those, there, are my bags. Please have them placed in my room."
I looked around. My colleagues were asking, "Where's the bar?"
Balaji gave me a meaningful look.
"Want to come? I want to see the lake before it becomes completely dark."
"Yes," he said animatedly.
I was surprised. I knew him as a colleague for the past few years, extremely diligent but prosaic, or so I thought.
"Like you, I too have been waiting long to see Vembanad." He was almost bashful.
"Well, come along."
Even though we trotted the hundred meters or so, it became dark.
We stood at the edge of the water but could get no sense of the size of the lake.
The water was dark and brooding. The eerie silence was punctuated only by the lapping sounds. It was as if a rapacious monster were greedily licking the shore to get a taste of it.
A few houseboats, belonging presumably to the hotel, bobbed a greeting to us.
"The lights in the distance. That must be Alappuzha," said Balaji, nodding without waiting for a response. He seemed to be returning the greeting of the houseboats.
Balaji and I were ready to depart at 7am the next morning as we had agreed the previous evening. It would become sweltering later. Besides, we had to return for our management session that was scheduled to begin at 11. There was no sign of my other colleagues. Still recovering from their hangovers, I thought.
We were quite unprepared for the sight at the lakeshore. The vast expanse of water was dotted by the floating mounds of green that are unique to the Kerala backwaters. The sun had just come up and gilt-edged the few boats that had already set sail.
The boatman the hotel had arranged for us discreetly coughed and released us from our rapture.
"Shall we leave?"
"Yes, of course," I said and headed towards his canoe.
The canoe was the smallest boat I had ever seen, with a slat on either side that made up the seats. Each slat could barely contain one person. The boatman sat at one end. Balaji and I somehow squeezed ourselves onto the slats at the other. I was worried my bad back would start acting up in that awkward posture. Within a few minutes of sailing, I had forgotten about my back.
"We will first sail through the wide waters and then enter the narrow waters. On either side of the narrow waters, you will see beautiful green villages. We will end our trip in a village where you can get down, walk around, and see paddy cultivation. We will be back at your hotel in two hours."
The boatman must have read the lack of comprehension on our faces about the paddy cultivation bit.
"Surely you have heard about the Kuttanad region?" he asked.
"No," Balaji and I said almost in chorus.
"Kumarakom and the surrounding areas are part of a region called Kuttanad. Kuttanad is below the sea level. It is perhaps the only place other than the Netherlands where paddy is cultivated below the sea level. It is a nice experience to take a walk beside a paddy field. The village we are about to go to is beautiful even otherwise."
We were embarrassed that we knew so little about our country whereas the boatman seemed to know even about the Netherlands.
Soon we entered the narrow waters that snaked through the breathtakingly beautiful villages, each a collection of ten houses or so. The residents stood with one fist on hip, giving us stony stares or ignoring us completely. The water was shallow and limpid that we could get a glimpse of life at its bottom.
The boatman stopped briefly, shushed us, and pointed to a tree. We saw nothing. Then the bird became visible.
"It's a cormorant," the boatman whispered.
A little later he pointed out another magnificent bird camouflaged in a bush. "That's a darter. A rare sighting. Your lucky day."
The quiet of our journey was disturbed by a sudden commotion.
A gaggle of boys and girls, aged probably seven or eight, dressed in school uniforms of white and navy blue, was running alongside our boat. They seemed to have appeared from the thicket beyond.
At first, I thought they were waving at us, just a bit of trainspotting behaviour. However, I realized quickly that they were asking us for something.
Their hands were outstretched and from their babble I thought they were asking for money.
"Do they want money?" I asked the boatman.
He replied lazily. "It's their routine. They beg tourists all the time. Just look the other way."
I couldn't.
I fished out a fifty rupee note from my wallet and held it out.
A girl giggled and shook her head trying to make me understand. That's when I noticed her. She had black hair but in the morning sun it had a reddish halo. Her eyes were the lightest grey. Her complexion was pale with a pink hue. She was holding hands with a boy who was a little taller and had well-oiled, combed black hair parted on the left.
"Is that girl a foreigner?" I asked the boatman.
He laughed. "No foreigner, nothing. That kind of hair and eyes are common in some communities here. If you hang around in the area for a bit, you'll find quite a few people with such eyes and hair. They are very fair and are often mistaken for Westerners."
I held the note out towards the girl again.
She chuckled and said, "Kaashu vendam, saare." I don't need money, sir.
The gaggle agreed and the babble now distinctly conveyed that they weren't looking for money.
Mustering the little Malayalam I knew since my roots lay in Kerala, I asked, "Entha vendathu?" What do you want?
The grey-eyed girl pointed to the pen in Balaji's pocket. "I want that."
The other boys and girls clamoured their agreement. "That's right. We want a pen."
"The pen?" I asked incredulously.
"We don't have pens to write with. Our parents won't buy us pens. There's no money at home," said the boy who was holding the hand of the grey-eyed girl. The other boys and girls said, "Yes, yes."
"We want to study well," the grey-eyed girl added.
Once again, the others furiously shook their heads in assent.
I looked at the boatman.
"These creatures are very creative. They fabricate some fancy story or other. If you respond to them, they won't let go you. They will throw stones at you. Get into the water. Tug at your shirt. Shake the boat. Who can say what they will do? Little Satans," he said impassively.
"Really?" The disbelief in my voice must have been obvious.
He lifted a hand to shoo them. They smirked and defiantly stood their ground.
Their faces, all now directed towards me and Balaji, were a hodgepodge of expressions. Grinning, expectant, curious, resigned and yawning.
"Where's your school?" Balaji asked.
They pointed to their left.
"Just a five minute walk," said the smallest girl coyly.
Suddenly a boy drew a sharp breath. "The bell will ring soon. We should be going."
That created a sense of panic, a dread of the rebuke that awaits the latecomer. While the others retreated hesitantly, and started heading to their school, the grey-eyed girl and her companion who held her hand ran alongside us persistently.
"Don't you have to leave, too?" Balaji asked.
"We'll go, we'll go. The moment we have your pen, we'll run to school," the grey-eyed girl said. She seemed to have no doubt that she would get it.
"I am warning you. They are pests. Ignore them." The boatman's voice had a slight edge.
I decided to ignore him instead.
When I eyed the pen in Balaji's pocket, he clutched it possessively.
"Oh, come on," I chided him. "It's a cheap ball pen. I'll get you another after we return."
With a betrayed look, he handed the pen to me.
I dangled the pen before the duo on the shore.
"But I have just one pen. You are two..." I hesitated and then offered. "Okay, I will throw the pen in the air. Whoever catches it can have it. NO fighting, understood?"
They nodded their heads vigorously.
Balaji sat with an idiotic grin that conveyed his resignation.
When I threw the pen in the air, the grey-eyed girl displayed a surprising agility and sprang. But the arc was to the advantage of the boy, who too leapt and caught the pen.
The other boys and girls stopped in their tracks for a moment to see who the victor was, sulked at us, and walked away.
The grey-eyed girl gave me a doleful look and broke into tears.
I cursed myself. What had happened to my adult responsibilities? I had behaved thoughtlessly and caused grief to a child. There appeared no remedies now.
The boy was stricken by the girl's tears and gave her the pen immediately. He then put his arm around her, made comforting noises, and said, "Karaiyanda." Don't cry.
"Sir, don't worry, we'll share the pen," he said to me and then to her, "You can use it first."
I gaped at the boy's sagacity.
Immediately a smile appeared on the grey-eyed girl's tear-streaked face. "Yes, we'll share it. Thank you, uncle."
"Yes, uncle. Thank you," the boy added.
"What do you want to study?" I asked the girl.
"Science. I want to become a scientist," she replied.
"And you?" to the boy.
"I haven't decided yet," he said gravely.
The boatman increased the rowing speed.
Until the girl reduced to a speck, I could see her grey eyes, still brimmed from the earlier tragedy, but now crinkled with cheer. I could make out that she was holding out the pen towards us and waving with her other hand. The boy was waving too. The boat turned a bend, and we lost sight of them.
My understanding of the happenings during the remaining part of the boat trip are partly my recollections and partly Balaji's reconstructions at various times after our trips. He indulged my many requests to recount our journey after we left the boy and the girl.
After a few minutes, the boatman announced, "We have another ten minutes or so before we stop at the village."
Once again, he slowed the boat down and pointed to an overhanging branch.
This time there was no missing it. The bird had a shimmering white head on a rich brown body.
"Brahminy Kite," the boatman whispered. "You are truly in luck. You are seeing the rare birds."
He needn't have whispered. Far from being shy, the bird fixed its stare at us and didn't mind that we sailed so close it. It craned its neck to keep staring at us after we had passed it.
"So cocky," said Balaji.
Apparently, I reassured Balaji at regular intervals that I would replace his pen (which I did promptly on our return home).
The boatman docked the boat in a tiny cove.
"We get off here," he said.
"Where should we go?" I asked him.
"I'll come along," he said and ambled beside us.
The vast expanse of paddy fields made Balaji gasp.
"Oh, wow," he remarked with uncharacteristic loudness.
I recall the huge spread of green and think now that it must have been an extraordinary sight.
The boatman called out to a couple of farmers with the familiarity of a local.
The farmers waved to us as we walked past them.
I remember seeing windmill-like structures now and then.
I pointed to one of them and asked the boatman, "What's that?"
He said, "They are water pumps."
"Oh," I said vaguely.
"I think you have forgotten this is Kuttanad." The boatman cackled showing his stained teeth. "These pumps pump water from inside the field to outside. Otherwise, too much water would flood the low-lying land."
The profundity was lost on me then.
"Wonderful. Didn't quite realize that." Balaji whistled.
When we walked back, we kept alarming the herons and egrets, hidden in the fields, by our pattering footsteps. They flapped their wings, rising to the sky with raucous protests.
On the way, the farmers accosted us. They had some tender coconuts open and ready with straws.
"From our trees." They pointed to the hundreds of coconut trees lining the fields.
Balaji protested weakly. "You needn't have..."
"That's how it is, sir. You are their guests," the boatman reassured.
In spite of my distractedness then, I can still taste the nectar-like sweetness of the coconut water.
We spoke little on the boat ride back with Balaji taking in the sights contemplatively while I remained in my trance.
When I try to recapture those moments, I still see the fields and coconut trees through a haze. I can see myself mechanically executing movements and speaking in reflex. Life was a blur until I reached home.
There is something that will never blur.
The grey eyes and the tear-streaked face.
Thirty years after my trip to Kumarakom, I am now retired.
Though I resolved many times to take my family to see the splendour of Lake Vembanad, another trip never materialized. It is a matter of almost daily regret that, after years of longing to visit the lake, I did not pay attention to what lay before me when I did.
As I sat in the plantation chair stretching my legs and considering a short nap, my wife dropped a packet on the side table and pointed her finger towards it.
It was the next issue of TIME magazine. I gazed at the packet for a few moments wondering if I should open it. Then with indolent fingers, I ripped the packet open, extracted the magazine with the intention of glancing at the cover, taking a nap, and returning to it later. The cover feature was TIME100 Next, emerging leaders shaping the future of the world. I was about to drop the issue on the side table when I did a double take. The exceptionally comely young woman on the cover. Her black hair with a faint reddish hue, her striking grey eyes.
With quickening breath, I turned the pages desperately until I located the feature about her. Her name was Geetha Haridass. She had migrated to the US from Kerala and was married to her childhood sweetheart, a successful IT entrepreneur in his own right, in Silicon Valley. Her father had been a daily wages labourer who had struggled to afford his daughter's austere government-school education. She had managed to survive the days of privation at her humble Kerala home to eventually reach Stanford for her doctorate. The writer had extolled her contributions to new techniques of gene editing with a distinct focus on elimination of diseases. He had cited luminaries in the field touting Geetha as a potential Nobel winner. She had accumulated more than a dozen distinguishing patents.
Could it be?
I picked up the TIME issue cover and started at it intently. Then I closed my eyes to reject the cover photograph and conjure up an image. I alternated between these acts for a few minutes until I felt I was teetering on the edge of sanity. I slapped the magazine down and pushed it away.
Could it be?
The question was tantalizing. But I am old and suffer from the exhaustion of many years of irrelevant and inconsequential verifications-by-Google. A new form of burnout. Even if I searched the internet fervently, I know that I would never be able to confirm anything.
But this much I know for sure: A pen thrown at a seeking hand writes somewhere.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/SFtKqh5
via IFTTT
Comments
Post a Comment