A Queer Tree

Full unedited version:

I am a queer tree. I mean I'm straight but, you know, just eccentric. Like I can sometimes sway opposite to the wind just to confuse the other trees around me. Or start dropping my leaves way before autumn, gives them a real bad scare. And I love it, my eccentricities, my freedom, my sense of self. But, there's another side to me.

There's another side. A flat one. Like its not even there. Its not. Its surprising but it just never was. I simply never had in me whatever I was supposed to, on that side of my personality. Its as if some really sharp lightning just came and cut me in half right down the trunk, and removed the other half clean. It could totally have been so, except I don't remember the lightning. And there's no other side effect that would favor this theory, I'm pretty much normal otherwise. Really. Pretty much.

During childhood, with those other little plants around me, friends and otherwise, all trying to grow and become strong meaningful trees, I didn't even notice. I was too small, maybe. Or there was just not enough information. Whatever, I just didn't know that it wasn't how you were supposed to be. But a little bigger I grew, and I could say that there was something clearly different. Between me and them. Between me and everybody. Everybody else was normal. Ofcourse they had their eccentricities and differences and peculiarities, but they were still, in their basic selves inside, normal. And I somehow, just wasn't. There was one difference for sure that I never clearly acknowledged, but looking back, it definitely was real. I was weak, though just a little bit, but weaker than, say, normal. But I didn't know it then because I was taken care of well without any effort on my part. So strength apart, I still found myself a deviant, and the feeling only rose with years passing. It corresponded one to one with another feeling in me, that too, similarly, grew harder and more real as the years passed. It was the feeling of loneliness.

How I came to realize my uniqueness was actually because of my abilities. These abilities that I showed a flare for, made me known and talked about, and that really made me happy. It satisfied some inner craving for completeness which I knew not the cause of. And hence I tried even harder, and got better and better at them. It wasn't all of a sudden. Like what happened first was that I, in a moody swing one day, started swaying about me, a bit musically lets say. Its not something any tree can do, or does. Its an art, really, and there are trees popular in lands far far away just for their style of swaying. So anyhow, when I was doing that thing, pretty rookily I admit but atleast I seemed like I could do that stuff, I called out to a tree nearby. She saw me, and liked it! I was doing something on my own and somebody liked it! I was excited. So I did it more, and did it well. And kept trying. I don't know how or why, but I was fast. I pick up things fast. Soon I was all poetic in my motion and got pretty popular for it, atleast in the swamp. Trees used to turn to look at me do it when I called out for them, and used to nod in agreement, I was good.

And then I heard someone whistle. I never knew trees could do that. I mean wind made noises, sure, but to trap and move it inside you as you want it to and create those sounds that mean something, that's power. It is easily the most enchanting form of creative expression we possess. Revolutions have arisen out of the whistles of a tormented tree. And I could whistle. Its the most admired of art forms, and I really saw that I had some potential.

So yes, I had a few abilities, and was proud for them. But yet when I looked at someone with a normal, full round trunk with sturdy brown branches coming out of it, I used to feel something in me. Now he can't sway like me, can't wiggle his leaves like I can, isn't intelligent in its sounds and sure can't whistle, but he has something I don't. He is still, in some really basic sense, complete. He is normal, and I'm just not. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

I saw it clearly somewhere in my adolescence. I saw the difference, right there, sitting in perfect view as if crying for attention. Like a chopped off half, like a joke. And the other half, it was in full bloom! It was all bright flowers and shapely leaves and poetry. But one half, just right there, naked. And I had a hint why. I could guess why I was so because I had seen more of life. Seen more of the others growing up to be normal, seen why they were turning out fine. And I couldn't bloody do anything about it. It was done with, it wasn't in my hands. And I thought what the hell, its alright. I mean I got abilities here ain't I. Show me someone who sways better.

And I saw trees who swayed better. Whoa. I saw some great trees of my time when I grew. Taller I grew, the more wonderful and able the world looked. And taller and taller I grew, for I was making up in height what I didn't have in width. I don't know if my incompleteness made me or I would anyway have been, but I was strong inside. Very much. And able. And I was using my abilities, my flexibility, and the beautiful spread of my leaves on one side, to hide the other flat side. It was awkward initially, it clearly showed, but I got better. I moved like a beauty, I whistled like a philosopher, and I started to atleast look like a perfectly normal tree, from a distance, yes, but yeah. Infact, given my moody sway, my mischievous tricks, my wild whistle, I think I'm now positively hot.

And lonely. I can excite other trees, I can make them want me, touch me, sway with me. I learned the tricks overtime. But I cannot make them love my incompleteness. I cannot counter my uniqueness, only the appearance of it, only temporarily. I can act, sure. But I don't want to. I don't even want to cover it anymore. I only want the company of trees that accept the fact. I want acceptance not without, but with it. I want to be seen in complete exacting truth, and then judged. For I believe, in all totality, given all my cracks and cuts, counting all my scars and losses, I'm still worthy of the pride I hold in myself.

My incompleteness made me what I am. It drives my instincts and makes me want to grow. Its fulfillment is the source of my satisfaction. I wouldn't have fought so much had I not had this reason to. An unsatisfied being, alone, is creative. And though I have not a hair's width of a guess as to how life would have been as a satisfied, complete, normal tree, I can say with all my power of belief, that this one is way more exciting.

And hence it is that I don't blame the seed I grew out of. It was only half a seed.

(Part 5/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This
(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan

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Dated: The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe and Everything


Now, God is a huge being. Its been what, some countless years since he stood on that stage and told us newly deads about the infinities of boredom and pointlessness. He was growing, atleast physically. Infact, He was now too big for anybody, or any combination of them thereof, to lift up or transport anymore. All He did, hence, was sit in seclusion, working and toiling away at his "salvation apparatus" in secret.

It was curious. Everything and everybody in all of heaven was curious. About the Apparatus. About what God was upto suddenly after millennia of sitting around being a beacon of optimism, reverse pessimism to be precise, to all of dead ones. But God did not let a sigh out of his mouth that would betray his intentions. There was no blueprint, no written plan or specification that he was working with, and no rest either. But still, at the end of it, in their heart of hearts, people knew one thing. There was one thing they held on to their chests with tight clenched fists. The knowledge that there was no escape. That however what may happen, you can't die again, and while you exist, you'll always have to think about and somehow spend the next moment, ad infinitum.

Years passed, and a violent sound struck the air one day. Continued churning of something heavy and clunky. I shut my ears with my hands but the sounds only increased. The bee broke its motionlessness. The elephant sighed. And then the elephant sighed again. A crowd formed and walked towards the sound, I joined them. The printer got excited and behaved like a TV news reporter, and gurgled out garbage. There were murmurs flying back and forth, against the background of the clanks and clatter from the direction of the sound.

A gasp escaped the open mouths of all except God and the printer. For God it was, that Great Gargantuan Tortoise, the Massive Titanic Turtle, who was up there standing at a slant on His hind-legs and about to be toppled by the machine, the Salvation Apparatus that He built himself! A silence ensued when God moved, through the air, in slow motion, with dumbfounded eyes watching, and racing hearts and motionless tongues, through the silent unsaid gasp that hung in the air, and toppled. He toppled. And rocked.

On that semicircular, hard shell of His, smooth like Motion itself, God slept rocking like a baby on its swing, peaceful and idle. Smiling imperceptibly. Sleeping. Cocooned in the comfort, that nothing could change now. There would not be another decision to make. No options to choose from. For once and for final, he was really free from thinking. Nothing can matter anymore. For nothing can bring him back on his feet, nothing can undo this final surrender. Complete bondage, captivity that can never be undid, brought him his freedom. Salvation.

And I stood watching. Mesmerized. Wishing with all my being. Wishing with every bit of my whole being, that I were a Turtle too. The best days of my afterlife were over.

(Part 4/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This

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Dated: The Day God Had A Plan


I soon graduated to better things to do. I would turn a tap on and wait for the water to finish so there would be no water left and all heaven would break loose. I would wait for endless units of time with an evil grin on my curled lips but something even more exciting would usually catch my attention and I would leave, the tap on. My sheep count was now a 13 digit prime number, but I liked the number so much that I stopped counting further. I had already made brilliantly detailed graffiti on all the walls behind the secretive hidden doors all about the place. It was mostly reproductive organs. The depressingly maniacal bee wasn't so depressing anymore. It was exciting to watch it sit unmoving on the same precise spot for a span of 30 years, or some such big number. The spell was broken when the elephant had to go to pee, just for fun really, no necessity, maybe check if it still worked, and he was about to step right on the bee and then sigh, but the bee somehow managed to step aside, for it was painful to get hurt and not die. The elephant sighed anyway and went on. I saw him come back when the bee had already broken her previous sitting-still record.

Even through these hectic times, I did keep a check on the tap. It kept running. Everything is infinite here. Even the pages of the printer. It keeps spewing out something or the other, all the time. Even empty pages when it has nothing to say really.

Though my afterlife had many twists and turns, wars and victories, battles of the mind, and epic tales of love, passion and revenge, I still felt something was missing. Something important. Like the whole point of it, somehow. So I decided I would go talk to someone about this. God, I figured, would be the most appropriate choice to start with, apart from the fact that his misery always upped my spirits.

God, this time round, seemed actually to be enjoying himself in whatever he was busy with. Disappointed, I asked him what he was doing. He said, "Shhh". I thought about it for a while and decided he was just bullshitting me, so I asked him again. He replied,
"Fine. I'm thinking of salvation. Suicide, practically. And I am preparing the required apparatus."
  "Suicide?! But what will happen to all of life! All of living beings, animal life, humanity, printers, christians, all the people!!"
"They'll keep jumping in the frying pan for all I care. I doubt if anybody will even notice."
  "But how will you die? You can't die! Can you really kill yourself? You could, all this while?"
"No."
  "Phew. Thank God. My whole afterlife was just going to be rendered pointless."
"It is."
  "I know but, you know, you're worse right."
"Yeah."
  "So what are you planning then, there's no escape man. I've tried everything already, even boredom. It doesn't kill."
"Shhh."
  "Ok I'll ask again. So what are you planning then, there's no escape man. I've tried everything already, even boredom. It doesn't kill."

God didn't reply. He wasn't bullshitting. He just kept at it, some big levers and ropes it seemed.

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(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

(Part 3/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
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Dated: The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This

The Orientation Programme got over with the stupid Art of Living workshop by Jesus. We told him dude we know your stuff already, you have no idea how big you are in the Frying Pan, but that only charged him up more. Still hasn't forgotten the high of being the Son of God.

The workshop ended and with it pretty much everything. Now there was nothing to do. Ever. Time, people don't realize, is Evil. And if too much of it makes you a devil's workshop, an infinity of it makes you attempt to kill yourself an infinite number of times, but you don't die. You can't die. And you're looking for the son of a #@$^% whose fault it all is. One such time when I was really angry, I saw God himself slouching at a distance, and doing something very intently. It made me angrier, and I wanted to barrage him with questions and accusations and all the new creative expletives I had made up in my existential outrages. And so I went to him. I stood in front of him, with my hands folded and my eyes peeling his hard skin off in my mind. And the Tortoise turned his eyes to me slowly. He took millenia to do this. And looked at me straight, his eyes had the frustrated skin-peeling quality too, but as if they were shut inside a serene glass wall. Now when I had his attention, I actually looked at what it was that he was doing. He was playing dice. And by playing dice, I only mean throwing dice, picking them up, and repeating. Ad infinitum. I was somewhat shocked by this, truth be told, that here was God himself, and all he had with him to do is play dice? And then God, as if he really was the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient thing that he is made out to be, or maybe he just saw in my eyes what countless others must've approached him with before, slowly with great effort said to me, "And I even know what's going to turn up in the dice. Every. Single. Time."

That was all. That was all I needed to hear, I had my enlightenment then and there. I know because my ears twitched, and they never do. My enlightenment, the knowledge that brought me to peace for a long long time to come, was simply that, "God had it worse".

Until now I was only frustrated about how there was nothing to do, and even if there was, it wouldn't be able to, any amount of it, fill up the infinity I had in my hands. And that made me more frustrated. But God broke this chain. Now I was actually looking for things to do. Now I shut my mind to the endless, and concentrated on the moment at hand. And started doing something, anything, however trivial, and it never felt bad because God had it worse.

I think I spent a year trying to twitch my ears consciously, like they did on the Day of Enlightenment. I couldn't. It really was enlightenment, then.

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(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan
(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

(Part 2/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
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Dated: The Day Of The Sermon 

Holy Shit. God is a Giant Tortoise!

Today was the first day of my afterlife, and God entered the stage, while we sat in anticipation. His size made it really hard for the organizers to carry him on to the stage, and he seemed pretty amused by this fact. Kept making inaudible jokes I couldn't hear from here, but most of them ended with a butt-slap as the punchline.

And then he spoke.

"Congratulations, Loodlings. You are in Heaven!

(Waits for Applause)

(Smacks a disappointed lip)

Impressive. But I should still warn you about a few things. You're in heaven, and you'll always be. You just jumped from the frying pan onto the kitchen floor. You'll feel liberated initially. As if you know higher dimensions to reality now, something more than just getting fried in the pan. You'll roam about the place excitedly, looking for secrets and hidden doors, spend time skating in the Sink, and in general feel jealous (of the very, very, much kind) of the terrorist lot. But once you've been through the negligible, exactly zero, percentage of your eternal afterlife here in Heaven, you'll soon realize: that the place is small, that all the hidden doors open into a wall (trust me, I made them), that the Sink is actually one-dimensional (and you were a douche to ever enjoy it in the first place), and that you can't get laid here. There are only 72 virgins we've got, and they're all reserved, sorry.

Infinities suck, and you have no idea because you didn't have to deal with them. Now you will, deal with an eternal afterlife I dare you. Your death is gone and done with, there is no escape anymore, and there is nothing even to escape from. Life's hard, but Afterlife's infinitely boring. I'll appreciate recreational ideas here to fill up this stupid infinite time, though there's really no point trying to do that of course, mathematically or otherwise. And then, your recreational ideas will all probably involve retarded ways to avoid the heat of the frying pan. Please don't bother me with them, or anything else at all. I created you guys so I could see retarded creatures jumping on a fuckin' hot frying pan and trying to make themselves feel life's good. But it's getting boring of late, I think I'll just increase the temperature a bit. Anyway I'm sure that'll be boring too, and I'll still be left with an infinity to spend.

Hmmm. I wonder what's the point of my existence. Sigh."

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(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This
(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan 
(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

(Part 1/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

Dated: The Day I Died

I think I'm still in transition, since I'm receiving email as well as all my porn feeds. But the amount of spam is increasing beyond belief, I guess more people want to enlarge stuff before landing in heaven for an eternity, and then again money isn't really such a dear thing anymore.

Though a few restrictions are already in place on us (yeah I've got friends moving with me here - a chronically sighing elephant, a depressingly maniacal bee, and a rather excited printer). Restrictions like, you can't say Hell, you'll have to replace it with Hall whenever you mean it. Though you can still type it, without getting slapped by the fat pink lady and getting muted for half an hour. Muted for real, mind you, like no voice comes out and shit. But its really not fair, since the printer's not getting slapped.

The fat pink lady (She is pink, mind you, not her dress) just announced that she thinks we're gonna land in another few moments of Time (she thinks), that she thinks will pass soon. If you ask me, I think we're already there and she's just fooling with us. Just hasn't got her fill of the slaps I suspect. She mentioned something like orientation or some programme and bullshit that's going to start once we get there. God will apparently come and lecture us newbie deads. And then there'll be a compulsory Art of Living workshop to attend, though I wonder what's the point of that now anyway. Traditions are just hard to break I guess.

Here comes she charging in from the door of light. You won't believe what she's got tattooed on the palms of her hands; "Talk to me." on the left one, and "Here I come!" on the right one. Very ironic, I would say. I think somebody said Hell or some shit, and is going to get a good long indifferent slapping now. What, why's she turning to me? Hell, why's she accelerating! What did I say I'm just typing away in peace, o' hel- (slap)


**** ** *** *

..

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(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This
(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan 
(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

Marry me, I'm the Batman

A gun walked alone, pointing randomly at shiny glasses and scared cats. A thug nearby, whistling away in a hurry, looked at it with suspicion. How could a gun make the whoosh sound that it was making? Must be the wind.

The gun, ofcourse, took no notice of the bright clothes or the thug in them. It went past whooshing its metal around, and scaring cats. They loved to look that way anyway, that stretched, totally messed up electrocuted look that cats loved to look like. Its like their joke on the things that think they've scared them and feel smug for it.

The thug, now comfortable with the whoosh of the gun, approached it in small steps. So it doesn't scare the trigger into a pull. That would be bad for the cat. The one on the crosshair then. It was the thug's cat.

As this little game of the gun and the cat and the thug went on, there sat on the top of the building, a flowing shiny figure of a worked-up, but calm, body covered in the blackest night. It saw the little game with great interest. It wanted the thug, before the gun got it.

In the nanosecond that passed between when the thug caught hold of the gun, too smug and content at keeping the cat scared, which was doing it so its master could get the gun, and when the cat suddenly made that gotcha face that annoyed the gun greatly enough to flick the trigger in anger, what happened was extremely quick and blurred, as seen by the shiny figure watching from above. What happened was that the gun let out a bullet, but the thug forceful grab moved it away from the cat, and the gunshot hit the shiny figure.

The cat brought its teeth out in an excited smile, and the shiny figure fell with a thud.

The Girl with a Secret

A little girl there was who knew a big secret. A secret made of gold and glint that she kept in the depths of her heart. It made her smile with a flush when no one was looking and her eyes sparkled with the pleasure it gave her.

Her waist was thin. Her feet small. She wasn't particulary breath-taking but no one could miss her too easily if she was in the same room. Her hair wasn't messy but just about careless. They described the whole person of her with a fair accuracy. Except for the secret, and the radiance that it brought to her face.

She could barely keep from laughing aloud when someone told her he's probably seen her before. And though she could hardly keep the giggle inside when someone asked what her name was, she still told them in as ordinary a manner as she could manage. She never let them know that she knew. She wanted the game to last.

There used to be a puppy in her house. It was just a little white ball of fur with huge glass eyes that she decided were only a shiny veil. She wasn't going to be fooled. At times she looked straight into his eyes and burst out laughing, controlling it fast and turning away to smile in secret. Lest he knows that she knew.

Nobody could really understand what it was that gave her this limitless stream of liquid happiness. What gave her that spring in every step and that jump she seemed to express with all her body, without actually making it. Whatever it was, it was plenty and it was joyful. Whereas actually, it was just a secret.

She had lived with it for too long to remember what gave her the idea. But she had somehow decided it was true. That for once she knew it right. She had decided that the world around her was a setup. That it was there to watch her grow. To see how she reacts. That it wasn't so many people in the world, it was just one outside it. That One person looking at her from all the eyes around her. And judging her. Whereas she had caught the trick. She knew it now and He didn't. He kept acting like different people from inside different faces trying to trick her into life, when all the while she knew. And smiled all inside her, never letting out, never leaving a hint. Or the game might end. Though she did sometimes just for the sheer fun of it, risk a sharp swift wink to the sky.

THUD. .

Like a pink alien in springtime, I wander around all fuzzy and pink. A blue elephant in a fat flying bottle just missed me barely, from somewhere far away where he sits and reminisces, while his tired autopilot screeches and steers the bottle through a dizzy lane that bends and burns and bores like hell.

I seem to have recovered well from the unfortunate Dentrite Entanglement Accident last month, or last week, or however much it is to you from where you sit. So yeah, like a pink alien, which I am by the way, I keep sniffing about the road, hit a few Coke cans with my will (which is working fine now thanks for asking), and settle for an icecream.

The icecream was gay, not that I find anything wrong with it. But a gay icecream doesn't respond very well to the licks. Too well, actually. And they're really hard to swallow. As in, all pepped up for it. Gross. So I don't really see a point, really, you know what I mean? Too bloody small I say! Why can't they make 'em bigger and everybody will be able to see one and presumably lead happier lives.

Like you know, when the Battery died, no one really gave a shit. No you didn't I know, no one did. But I knew, I knew that someday we were all going to die because of that. But how clever, oh so very bloody clever of them to have named a day of the week on it. SomeDay just came and went. Nobody died. Nobody gave a shit, and then he was dead. And then nobody did anymore. I gulped the Humiliation, and then Realisation down. You are supposed to take them in order, or there may be gastric disorders. Maybe psychological too, but who cares about them after they put Happiness into every commoner's budget.

So yeah, the days of the week. And then the fetish started. SomeDay, ThatDay, TheDay, WhataDay, ShobhaaDay, ToDay, BirthDay, LauDay, YesterDay, and what not. And the commies even put in a MayDay, so they don't have to wait so long for it. Though I really fail to see the logic since all they do when it comes, is wait for the next one. You know its not normal when a month has a one-to-one correspondence with a week. Just like you know its not normal when its not normal. And hence it is not I say.

So yeah the Battery. It died. Moving on, did you notice the speeding blue elephant in a fat flying bottle approaching me from behind? I didn't. And he didn't miss me. Though he later will. But what good will that be to anyone. There is a right time for everything. Even for

Making Sense Of Nonsense

wrote this for the Inter Hall English Creative Writing. :)

MAKING SENSE OF NONSENSE

"Mr. Walter! Mr. Walter! Come back here I request you for god's sake!"
But Mr. Walter swings his head like a pendulum, apparently to say no and keeps walking towards the huge front gates, staggering and swaying to keep balance. I hold back my urge to shout again and run after him. Moments later, standing and staring into his drooping, yet excitingly childish eyes, I felt helpless like never before. He used to remind me of how incapable I was to help him. He was panting, groping for breath, straining his lungs for some air. Walked too hard for his age I guess.

"Where were you headed Mr. Cherry Head?", I asked him jokingly, trying to smile as I said it. He let his lips widen into a happy arc and leak out a sudden little bout of laughter, hearing the words 'Cherry Head'. His red, although scanty hair were a matter of amusement for all the inmates! Oh how he loved his smooth shiny strands! Mr. Walter had made a lot of friends over the time that he had been staying here, some because of his cherry-red hair, and some with his famous 'bouts of laughter'.

"My daughter! She called me yesterday! She asked me to meet her at The Square.", he said, with a mix of surprised happiness and urgency on his face. I tried hard to nod to him in agreement and said, "Yes Mr. Walter, I know she called. And she is already here today! Waiting for you in the hall! Ah she'll be so happy to see you! Lets walk back, she has been waiting for you for so long." He went merry in a circle with his hands flung up in pleasure and a smile covering the whole of his wrinkled face!

Mr. Walter had been a successful man in his life. A furniture business that spread to nearby towns, a magnificient two storey house with a small garden in the frontyard, a lovely wife whom he had loved more than half his life, and the most beautiful daughter in the world whom he had married off to a young lad from the neighbour town. His life couldn't be more satisfying. But god is a selfish being. He takes away good people for himself. He killed Mr. Walter's daughter. She was hit to mortality in a car accident while with her husband. They were to take her pregnancy report from the hospital. The reports had been positive.

Constraint is possibly the greatest virtue in life. And Mr. Walter was a victim of the lack of it. Time had made him an old man with a weak heart, and the detailed phone call from his daughter's husband proved fatal to his weak pulses. This jolt sucked all sanity out of Mr. Walter. He fell on the floor and went unconscious.

Sleeping on the soft white bed of his hospital ward, he looked perfectly healthy, and his face so resolved of all worries, devoid of any thought or complication. Three days later he was shifted here, among other inmates, who all shared the common trait. He had been declared insane.

We walked together, me and Mr. Walter, towards the compound, where no one was waiting for him, not his daughter, not anyone else. But it wouldn't matter. Before even reaching the compound, he would forget every second of the day that had passed.

These were not mad people, Mr. Walters and everyone. They were just living somewhere else, somewhere inside their minds, far away from the world outside.

And I make sense of them.