The Gift - 4 - Jungle Lunch

Razvik opened his eyes in a new and strange place. 

He was lying on his back, staring up at the sky, with trees flanking the sides of his vision. He got up on his elbows and looked around. It was a forest, for sure. The grass was green and wet under his hands and the wetness was soaking into his clothes. He got up to his feet and looked around like a lost dog. He had never in his life seen a forest so lush and wide. The trees were so green that it hurt his eyes to look at them for more than a few seconds. He saw something move in foliage.

"Hey, who's there?"

It seemed too much of a repeat of what he had said in the room where the girl had given him the keyboard. He knew he had grappled with some kind of mystical shit and he had no right to be where he was right now, but here he was. Out of his wits and out of his understanding. He didn't want to do anything with whatever this was, but he had no choice. He shouldn't have pressed that key on the keyboard.

He chose a direction at random and started walking. There must be a way out of this forest. There were random chirps of birds that he couldn't have recognized even if he had any interest in bird watching. He came up to a small block of black stone that was too big to avoid. He walked over it and kept walking. The forest kept talking at him with the forest voices and everything that it had to throw at the man. Razvik didn't mind. The hut loomed in view ahead of him. It was a simple hut. Clean walls topped by a thatched roof made from sticks and stones. There was no door to knock on the hut, just a bead curtain that jingles and jangles in the jungle air. He pushed it aside and walked in.

The black man from the market was sitting there. He had a bloody meat cleaver in his hand. The black man raised the cleaver up in the air, a stray ray of sunlight made a dancing dervish pattern on the dirty steel, and he brought it down with a solid thwack that separated another piece of meat from whatever he was cutting.

He looked up from his table and saw Razvik frozen in his step. He was not sure whether to run the fuck away from here or walk in and say hi.

The black man looked at him and his face erupted into a grin that looked like an alien worm on his face.

"Razvik! Brother!"

His voice was surprisingly gentle and cultured for someone who looked like a prison escapee.

"Hi," Razvik managed to croak out.

"I've been waiting for you," he said as he put down the bloody cleaver and wiped his hands on his blood stained apron. 

"Come in, come in. I was just cleaning the chicken for lunch. Elina is also coming."

Razvik's heart skipped a beat.

---

I have no idea where this is going, but i am going to find out!

The Gift - 3 - The Room With The Girl

Razvik felt like he was choking. Even though he was not. 

The bag on his head only added to his feeling of claustrophobia. 

He was being carried. Through the hustle and bustle of the market. Then, the sounds of the market drifted away and there was only sporadic sounds of the market, as if somewhere far away. Someone slammed him down in a chair and put his hands on a table in front of him. 

Then, silence.

The bag was lifted from his head and the brightness of the room hurt his eyes. He winced and put his hands up to shield his eyes. There was someone standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light coming from outside. 

"Hello?" Razvik called out.

And the girl from the shopping market walked in. She was wearing an office skirt and a coat and the sight of her made Razvik forget all his fear and pain for that time.

"Hi," she said as she walked towards him, like an angel from the doors of heaven. He felt himself falling and rising in love once again.

She had a package in her hand.

"You dropped this in the market."

"What is this? And what happened in the market there? Those guys, who were they?"

"Look," she bent down and looked into his eyes, "I really don't have the time to explain this. Just open the packet and get cracking and you might get to see me again. I have to go now."

There were loud sounds beyond the room and the girl looked up and with concern writ large on her face. 

"I have to go,Razvik. Open the package. Do what it says."

"But, wait, I've to get back to my office!"

"There is no office, dude. Not anymore. Open the package."

Her voice drifted off as she ran towards the door and slammed it shut on her way out.

Razvik was left in the room with the package. He started to tear open the paper that covered it. He tore the paper off the box and opened it. The keyboard slid out of the box like something alive.

A small screen popped up from the top of the keyboard. 

"Press any key" flashed on the screen.

Razvik pressed ESC.

And the world around him exploded.

-------------

More more more

The Gift - 2 - Love In The Market

"I want to fuck you."

The words tumbled out of his mouth before his mind could reign them in. He stood in a minor shock, waiting for her to slap him. She put a hand on her mouth and started to giggle.

"I'm so sorry. Oh god, i am so fucking sorry," Razvik mumbled, color rose in his cheeks and the words he spoke were a mumbled mess.

"It's okay," she smiled back at him, "I've heard worse than that. Happens to everyone who sees me for the first time."

He smiled at her stupidly, there was something about her that was making him lose all reason and thought, like getting drunk through his eyes. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was something about a keyboard and the apps on his phone. 

The gift!

"Ah, um, i am here for a gift...I got an email...GPS...stuff. Would you like go with me to my house and ..."

He bit his tongue before he could speak further. She giggled again. The sound was like wind chimes tinkling on the first day of summer. He was so hard in love. He wanted to love her so badly that no one would love her like that again. His vision blurred and his words slurred. This was bad. This was good. Like a shot of expensive whisky. He had never felt like this before.

She disappeared from his vision, going behind a curtain and his vision cleared at once. The sounds of the market that he had not noticed before came back to him. The smells and sights and colors and chaos, attacked his senses. He had to get out of this place. He looked for the door where he had come in from, but there were so many people everywhere, dressed in as colorful and outlandish clothes as possible. He felt like he was in a kaleidoscopic dream.

"Hey! I am talking to you, boy!" The rough voice was calling out to him and it belonged to an even rougher man. The black man stood easily a foot and half above Razvik's height. He had a ring through his right nostril and a chain went up from the ring and ended through his ear.

"This is for you," he growled and slammed a package on the table in front of him.

Razvik picked up the package and looked up at the monstrous man. "There was a girl here, I was talking to her just now."

"My sister," the black man snarled.

"Bye." Razvik managed to squeak out and moved into the crowd of people around him. He started to walk in the general direction  of where he thought the exit to the market was, but he was back the same table, with the black man glaring down at him. 

The people started to notice him. He was dressed differently and he was carrying a shiny package under his arm. They started to move away from him. He looked around desperately for the exit, but everything was the same in all directions.

Then someone put a bag over his head and his world became black.

--

Might have typos, but right now, i want to know what happens next.

The Gift - Part 1

The link came to Razvik in an email.

"Pick the keyboard from this place"

Just one sentence with a GPS location.

The address that the email came from was all numbers and hashes. He sent an reply to that address to ask who it was but the email bounced back to him instantly. He was curious. Had he played some contest on Twitter? Or some draw of luck on Facebook? He could not recall, there were so many of those damn things these days. 

Razvik looked at his watch. He had some time free from office. He checked the GPS address on his phone and saw that this was a shop somewhat at the periphery of town. He could go there and make it back before lunchtime was over. 

He decided to pick up his gift. It was free and after all, what was the worst that could happen?

He drove to the location said on the map and it was an empty plot of land. Not exactly empty, there was a small tent propped up at some distance from the road. He put the hand-brake on his car and walked towards the small tent. The sudden heat of the day made him sweat at once and his shirt was sticking to his back. He was out of breath by the time he reached the small tent, it was farther than it looked. What could be a keyboard doing in a place like this? Was this some new kind of social media stunt? Fucking interns, making things weirder and weirder. 

He put his hands on his knees and bent down, breathless, breathing hard from his mouth. Maybe someone in the tent had water. He lifted the small flap that went for a door and looked inside the tent. 

His brain did a small, scared shuffle in his skull.

There was a complete hall inside the tent, while from the outside it looked barely enough to hold a table and a chair. His brain told him in a shy, scared voice to get the fuck out of there,but he had come so far and he didn't want to go back without his gift. Because there was a market inside the hall.

People dressed in wonderful clothes were buying things and trading and heckling with each other in languages that made no sense to him. He took out his phone from his pocket. He felt an urgent desire to Instagram this shit, but the apps on his phone were gone. Except the Google Maps app was there. What kind of techno wizardry was this. He opened the maps app and saw his location was ten feet away from a stall where his gift, the keyboard, was supposed to be.

He walked up to the stall.

"Hello?" he asked.

A girl rose from behind the counter of the stall. She was the most beautiful girl Razvik had ever seen. He forgot what he had come here for. Then she was asking him something. Her beautiful lips formed the words that  reached his ears on their own lazy pace.

"Are you here for the keyboard, Razvik?"

Her voice was soft as honey on a toast on a Sunday morning.

Razvik was in love. Which was the least worst thing that happened to him that day. 

---

What happens to Razvik? We'll know tomorrow in part two :D

Tears

The sword is heavy in his hand. The adrenaline rush of the battle is gone and now weariness sits on his shoulders like an overweight monkey. There are random aches all over his body. He leaves a trail of blood in the bloodied ground as he walks towards the elephant that lies groaning in the mud. The cries of the animal are shrill and ear piercing that make steel sing on the edge of his teeth.

The princess is trapped under the elephant.

There are yet few breaths in her. Her eyes, though contorted in pain, shoot glances filled with pure fucking venom at him. Her bow and arrows lie useless at a distance. 

He digs the point of sword in the ground and bends at the knee to speak to her.

"Will you marry me?" he asks as he produces a bloodstained ring from his war-torn coat.

"Fuck you," she wheezes.

He sighs and gets up. The elephant still keeps on screaming. 

"I asked you once, long ago. You said no."

He pulls the sword out of the ground.

"I asked you twice, before this war began. You said no."

He lifts the heavy blade over his head.

"Today, I asked you thrice. And you said no."

The blade comes down on her neck, separating her head from her body in a swift clean stroke. Blood spritzes out like a small geyser, getting into his face and his eyes. He blinks and lets it in, cherishes the warmth and laughs at the old joke of no one being able to see his tears.

---

Hello.

N

About NaNoWriMo

Pallav: I completed the nanowrimo

People: YAY!!! SEND US SIGNED COPIES!!!!!

:: pause ::

There is not really a frame of reference for this, but I'll give this a shot. Imagine if you were getting strawberry seeds from a market to grow strawberries and your neighbor sees you buying those seeds and the next thing you know he is standing outside your house yelling for a strawberry milkshake. Or something like this.

Completing the nano is always a slightly emotional experience. It's draining in some ways. I mean, doing an act with some sort of focus and determination and dedication is something that is unique and doesn't happen for most of the year. Humans, by nature, shirk from any kind of discomfort. Writing and slamming your head against the keyboard to meet the deadline count for the day, is extremely discomforting.

There are so many other things online that you can do. There is twitter, fb, reddit, and oh god, there is youtube, but then there is this litle tiny voice in your head that says, "100 more words" and then you close other tabs and have your pathetic little word file open and you bleed on the keyboard. It's some kind of madness to be in that frame of mind when all you think about is meeting the word count and all your plans, all your strategies, all your activities are geared towards the sole activity of getting words in the screen. 

What I mean here is that once you decide that you're going to complete the 50,000 words, once you're focused, once you've committed yourself, there is very little that can come in your way. If it is any other way, then fuck it, leave it and do something else with your time.

But now that the 50k words are done, now what?

Now, the editing, which is another exercise in laziness. 

Frankly, any attempt to write 50k in one month is going to be a mess. There can be no other way, unless you're Stephen King cranked up on cocaine. And since there is only one King, there is very less hope for most of us mortals. 

The 50k words of the nano have very little that can be salvaged in form of an actual story. Which is a sad fact, but it's okay too. Nanowrimo is never about writing a novel, it's just about showing you that you can write. That's all. If you get a salvageable story out of it, that's a bonus.

What I Wrote

I wrote about a dude who gets picked up by a strange old man on his way to his office. He is thrust into a world of power, magic, dreams, and books. Lot of books. And he starts to die slowly because the books are too much for him. But the power given to him attracts new friends and old enemies, and he is chosen to save a place called The Dreaming that has been corrupted by those who were tasked to protect it. 

Right, doesn't sound like much, but i am going to edit it once I let it collect some dust in a folder. 

That's pretty much all. I am creatively drained, so gonna go and do some energizing stuff.

What's up with you?