One evening, when he sat by the porch thinking about her, he woke up.

He couldn't recall when he had fell asleep. But now his eyes seemed torn apart by life. he could suddenly see to all the different direction in one indivisible fragment of moment. And from two of those uncertain directions he saw her twin selves walking towards him. He had to quickly decide which of her he had been betraying. It was difficult. And as his heartbeat paced and the two of her walked closer, he woke up once again.

Since then, whenever he had tried to hold her close to himself he just woke up over and over again from one of his preceding awakening.

Labels: borges, dream, fiction, flash fiction, love, short story, sleep, space, story, surreal, time, waking

One fine morning, I was dropped out of a tomato. It was nothing new. I had been dropped several times before, from various vegetables. For some strange, unknown reason people always believed that I belonged to none of those.

For those of you who have never been inside a vegetable, it’s hard to tell. You must be feeling whatever I had written till now, is plain nonsense. Nonsense. Now, that could be a very misleading term. Nonsense is a genre in itself. A man called Lewis Carroll had played with it in “Alice in Wonderland”. From this I’d like to draw the following conclusions:

1. Fools can’t write nonsense.

2. Not all nonsense is true

3. Not all things true is good

4. Not everything that’s good qualify as creative.

5. Therefore, fools may or may not be creative.

6. Fools may be creative

7. Fools can write nonsense.

Now I’d prove the virtue of nonsense by your reactions. You may have five reactions to this.

1. You are awestruck by the argument: Because the argument is nonsense itself, you’re helping me carry it over that extra mile.

2. You want to refute the argument itself. It’s not valid: It’s nonsense. Therefore, it’s not valid. Thanks for accepting that.

3. It all went over your head: Things fly over our head when they make no sense. And therefore, you know….

4. You were and are indifferent to the entire article: It doesn’t stir your emotion… doesn’t stimulate your senses. It’s nonsense

5. You think there can be more reactions and options and whatever I tried to prove over here is total crap. Well, need I say more.

In the same way I can prove every writing in this world to be nothing more than nonsense and that we have actually been writing nothing but nonsense all this while.

So, where was I? Oh yes. I was dropped out of a tomato. And the reasons they gave me for such. You won’t believe this when I tell you. I had given them this very argument, as I had done in every other vegetable before. And they still thought that it was all nonsense.

Labels: absurd, fiction, flash fiction, short story, story, writing

He could decode the ambiguous. The first time he met her was because someone told him that she was complicated. Beyond understanding. Perhaps, because he could understand him or maybe because she didn't. He found that people no longer called her complicated.

Slowly, he came to realize that she had been a problem child. She suffered from obscurity too. Because in all these time he had become a part of her, he faded in her presence.

One day, when he disappeared completely, people started calling her complicated again.

Labels: ambiguity, aphorism, complicacy, fading, fiction, flash fiction, obscurity, short story, story, surreal

She transposed herself into darkness, every night.

Hid behind it, somewhere.

Behind the shadow of something.

The trees, the houses, the earths.

I went out with a torch.

Illumined every part of those.

Hunting the haunted.

I came back, exhausted.

Every night.

Within the night.

Without her.

With a realization.

She had deep, dark eyes.

Labels: darkness, exhaustion, eyes, fiction, flash fiction, haunted, hunting, poetry, shadow, short story, song, story, surreal, torch

Although she tried, the water slipped down her palms and she could never wake him up from his sub-conscious state. Inside, deep down, in the core of his sub-conscious, she lived. She tried. The water kept slipping. Everytime.

She would never leave him alone.

Labels: destiny, fiction, flash fiction, life, love, palm, short story, spell, story, sub-consciouness, water

He seconds none in counting the minutes. Like glory passed away in some undiluted rhythm. He tells there's a season of pearls... when the sea won't leave you bereft.

His second wound was minute. Inside, he had found his cozy abode. Outside, where the burn remained, he applied ointment. He tells there's a reason for girls... when they find him to be too stubborn.

After his wounds healed, he kept living under the extension of skin. His cozy abode.

Labels: death, fiction, flash fiction, girls, life, love, pearl, roof, short story, skin, story, surreal, wound

For the difference of one, he could never sleep the number of times he woke up.

Labels: death, fiction, flash fiction, immortality, life, short story, sleep, story, surreal

One morning they woke up and realized that they could no longer draw a straight line.

"Earth ain't spherical, no more," the sheriff told them "You've to learn to hold the pencil in a newer angle."

Labels: deconstruction, earth, fiction, flash fiction, pencil, short story, story, straight line, surreal, time

In the rain, his memories were drenched. And in the thrill of wetness, he imagined her walking back into his future. Dry, as always. Slowly, as she had been approaching him, a few ashes scattered from her eyes.

The old man had predicted acid rain, a year ago.

Labels: ashes, dry, fiction, flash fiction, memories, rain, short story, story, surreal, wet, year

A few broken breezes were scattered all over his kitchen floor. He tried to sweep those away but a fresh gust of wind came and pushed the pieces in. And the breezes, like feathers, landed all over his food. He had to try, once more, carefully filtering the meal of the breezes. But it was all so futile with the storm playing outside his apartment.

Unable to accept his defeat to the forces of nature, he started breathing, once again.

Labels: breath, breeze, fiction, flash fiction, meal, reincarnation, short story, storm, story, surreal, wind

She wanted him to be precise. But for the moments that went unnoticed, he often rounded-off her memories.

Labels: fiction, flash fiction, formula, love, memory, precision, short story, story, surreal

Dear girl,

Sounds still creep on the grass where we used to sit. The analogy of dawn seems just as unmindful. I've lost a few eyes in these years. The dewdrops seem hazy. But I do listen to the tinkling sound they create as they fall on the grass blades.

You'd be glad to know I've found an abode amidst the grass, in an abandoned ant-hill that the ants had evacuated sensing the rains. And guess what, I've found all my eyes in there.

Kisses.
Him

Depression came like the first signs of guilt in their eyes. Underestimated. The fog took over the city. Depression became a promise. People stopped looking into each other's eyes. They passed by looking down all the while.

They all knew each other by their shoes. After someone had passed, a few of them cried following the trail of footprints left behind by the heavy, heavy sole of a boot.

Labels: boot, depression, eyes, fiction, flash fiction, shoes, short story, sole, soul, story, surreal

One day, since he had been wandering too long, too deep into his dreams, he found the gate to outside was closed. He tried to climb the walls, but found his grip losing, over and over again.

He was sad. He would never be meeting his sweet nightmare.

Labels: dream, fiction, flash fiction, grief, nightmare, river, sadness, short story, story, surreal, wall

"Clever", she'd say after he completed each of his sentences.

It took him an eternity to realize each time that he had been saying the same sentence all over again.

Labels: clever, eternity, fiction, flash fiction, possibility, sentence, short story, story, surreal

He wandered right into the light that had burned his eyes. He'd never know the embers if he don't touch 'em.

Labels: burn, ember, eyes, fiction, fire, flash fiction, light, pyre, short story, story, surreal, touch

They had invented a game in which each asked questions to the other and no one answered. They only giggled with the questions. And rolled in the mist of questions they had created. The game became synonymous to their existence. And they thought of it to be eternal.

Then, one day he asked her - "Who's going to ask the next question?"

Labels: fallacy, fiction, flash fiction, game, paradox, question, short story, story, surreal, tragedy

It was an old sad hue of the distant songs that colored his head. Slowly as the color deepened, he wrote and played blues.

He had a canvas in front of him when he played his violin.

[You may also read A Short Essay on Perception ]

Labels: blues, canvas, fiction, flash fiction, perception, short story, song, story, surreal, violin