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The End...

Prologue: It was once 1757. After years, this year will also have been a year. After many years, many years would have been many years. And yet the cycle would continue.Because rules do not exist to exist, they exist to rule.
And death is inevitable.

~

Rain is crashing down portentously on the tin roof of the outhouse...
Rain and sleet have become indistinguishable in the little light that still remains.
Dusk is long past: Twilight is dwindling with traces of dark uncertainty. The smell of death is in the air: musty, yet unnervingly fresh as always …

Suddenly, as it always happens, a scream rends the fabric of the mad night. Almost quite as sudden is the appearance of the hulking man dragging his legs as if they had been recently broken.

Without halting the man looks down at his broken watch.
“Yes, it’s time.” He utters clearly and continues limping ahead.
As an afterthought, he stops for a moment and unfastens the worn leather strap of his watch and flips it over in his palm.

On the back, clearly etched he sees a half-faded inscription and stains of what would have been blood had it still been fresh. Unlike memory...

The man hulks on slowly. Then stops again and unfolds his palm: it's now wet with a red liquid.
"No, I don't need this anymore sweetheart." He looks up at the sky once, trying to spot a tombstone embedded in the silent gray clouds. Then he drops it down on the actual tombstone on the wet grass.

Then the story begins. But for that, one has to end. And many have to be ruined, as always. And then, sometimes you have to murder as well: to know what blood feels like when it flows through your hands instead of your heart...

Nobody saw the blood flowing out – it's after all another red liquid.And anyway it is the product of wounds, not their healer.

So it didn't really matter if now blood was silently flowing out of the watch and purging the tombstone. And then again, some blood as usual cleansed the wounds of the earth: flow as it usually did from the wounded man's leg.

And nobody heard the second scream, muffled by the crash of thunder which continued to roll for precisely 250 seconds.

The cycle had resurrected itself!

~

Epilogue:
“The fear lives within:
apocalyptically
drawing saddened blood.”

Nobody ever notices the beginning of the end...

It's normal.

Comments

Shubhodeep said…
parts of this were supposed to be pieced together to form a prologue of a story i was planning to write.. but evidently it didn't happen.. so i've served up a somewhat bizarre piece... although personally i'm proud of it.. he he
MoodsAndColors said…
No doubt, it's dark and bizarre.But then, that's life. Every sunny day followed by a dreary, murky night.A never ending cycle...
gulnaz said…
i love the dark mood of the piece and you are justly proud of it too.
and my favourite part is the epilogue!
This short, edgy piece is terse and powerful. Much is packed in it and it is so tight with content that there is this continuous sensation it is about to fracture and blow open. Loved it!

The dark mood is well founded and the surreal images fit it very well.
Anonymous said…
This is intriguing. Each time I read this, I feel a kinship for someone else who philosophizes and ponders "logic." Moreso, I admire this somber style that reels me.
This is definitely bizarre, but of the fascinating variety.
P.S. The link you have up for me on your link list is "dead." I deleted that blog long ago. My current blog has both artwork and poetry, although I have to reinstate those archives, once the blog is redesigned.
Dark and disparing everywhere it seems - maybe you should write the rest now
Shubhodeep said…
anjali >> precisely...

gulnaz >> glad you liked it :-)

russell >> well, it does fracture at a point...


silvy >> i'll rectify the error

sue >> maybe, maybe not...
Ranjini said…
Bizarre is right, if you prefix it with bitter-sweetly! Loved this piece, Shubhodeep...More power to your pen, and hope to read more of you!

PS: Happened upon your blog while on a random hunt, and glad I did! :)

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