Colossal.

Pain makes us make bad decisions. Fear of pain, on the other hand, is almost as big a motivator. Bring in the New Year, Greg.

Two is company. Almost always. Jay & Silent Bob.

Jay : All you motherfuckers are gonna pay. You are the ones who are the ball-lickers. We're gonna fuck your mothers while you watch and cry like little bitches. Once we get to Hollywood and find those Miramax fucks who are making that movie, we're gonna make 'em eat our shit, then shit out our shit, then eat their shit which is made up of our shit that we made 'em eat. Then all you motherfucks are next. Love, Jay and Silent Bob.

Days reflective.

My girlfriend calls me a square peg in a round hole. She rebukes me for being so uptight about my feelings and opinions even when she shares everything with me without recourse and without inhibition. I look at her and say nothing. Let the moment pass. We stare at the traffic in silence.

Bloggy blogga'.

I'm thankful I have this, at least. It's so hard to opine when you have your conscience and your friends breathing down your neck. Better be a virtual Colossus than be a timid lab-rat. And I'm appalled at what people have come to regard as creative.

Floydian Slip.

My mind conjures up this image whenever Syd starts crooning.

A-raindrop-too-much.

I won two awards today - the Aditya Birla Mental Athlete of the Year and the Sulonia Cup for Football. But, sadly, I forgot my sweats at home.

I can't cook. Who cares?

"I've got a couple of those Gossard Wonderbras. They are so brilliant, I swear, even I get cleavage with them."

– Kate Moss, 1994, New York Times Magazine


I think somebody should make an Alice in Wonderbra.

Houses of the Unholy.

My eyes open to find the ceiling above painted a vivid pink. I stare blankly at it for a moment, then glance at the sleeping figure beside me. Her eyes are closed, and she clutches the blanket tightly. Her breath reminds me of lilies and her hair has settled comfortably around her neck. I remember she said that her parents would be home by noon, so that leaves me about two hours to get dressed. I throw the covers off myself, then sit by the side of the bed, catching up with the events of last night. Although much of it is a haze, I can recollect enough about it to get a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I proceed to the bathroom, splash my tired face with cold water. As I dry my face with a towel, I can tell that a hangover is on its way. My head is already throbbing and a vein is pulsating on the side of my head. I remember now.

Four of us sit at a table in a pub at Powai. We are almost done with the hors d'oeuvres and are already in high spirits. The girl beside me is pretty and intelligent enough to be pleasant company for many evenings. My friend and his girlfriend sit across the table from us, and they are motioning to the waiter to refill our drinks. I can hear Eddie Vedder screaming in the background and my arm is around the girls shoulder. She looks at me appraisingly, as if she wants me to up the sexual tension between us. While her hands go limp in mine, I smile haplessly at my friend who is looking at me knowingly. I am irritated at the look he is giving me, but I don't say anything. Better to let the madness wring itself dry. His girlfriend is talking about how Jack Nicholson should not be allowed to sleep with so many women. He signals her to be quiet, because she is already tipsy. So, they excuse themselves and make for the exit. As they pass the next table, I hear her heave. Sigh. I look at the girl beside me, whose hand is now resting on my thigh.

X : Foolish, aren't they?
Me : More than I'd like to acknowledge. But, they are happy with each other. That is what matters,doesn't it?
X : Ah, good. What are your plans, now that they have left us in peace?
Me : Let's take a walk. This is getting stuffy.

I pay for the table. We make a quick exit. I look ahead at the glittering city. Men and women hasten to get out of their sedans, the women balance themselves on their stilettos, the men stare at their exquisitely-cut dresses, and the women giggle. God, I'm trapped in Bukowski's world again. There is a momentary hush as we pass the doorway. The girl must be a familiar face and they ogle at her backside as she runs to keep pace with me.

X : Walk slower, man. You in a hurry?
Me : I'm just not too used to the glitterati. I like to keep a low profile. You know, conscience-keeper and their ilk.
X : Oh. And here I was thinking you were at ease with these people. (smiles)
Me : Yeah, I tend to give that impression. Where are you studying?
X : St. Stanislaus. You?
Me : Singhania.
X : Oh,good. You live in Thane?
Me : Yes.

We are silent. She weaves her arm around mine. I don't object. She looks sullen. Probably, I look sullen too. One can never tell how these nights end.

X : Can you come to my house? I have a stash of weed somewhere.
Me : Haha. Okay, but I'm not sleeping with you. What about your parents?
X : Oh,don't worry. I'm not asking you to. They are not home.

We walk to her house. As she turns the key in the lock, I look around. Either the neighbourhood is sleeping or it's a quiet neighbourhood. I walk through the hallway.

The rest I have forgotten. Fuck. Now, I'm an alcoholic AND a man-slut.

The girl is now one of my best friends. Irony hits me square between the eyes. And I look back at how time murders everything so rapaciously.

A Case of the Lonely Lips.

I'm bare-chested. I am Iggy Pop. I swing my tee over my head, and land on the eager,outstretched arms of the sweaty,fornicating crowd. I look outside the window. The city is quiet tonight. As I look into the mirror, and take the razor to tough stubble, I am reminded of my date tonight, with a girl who has maddeningly beautiful lips. The razor sears its cruel way through the hair, and the tufts fall to the wash in agony. The sex is good. A long time since I had a good time. I feel the cold edge of the blade as I dunk the razor in the shaving-water. My upper lip looks bruised. Form follows function. I come out of the bathroom, do a quick search around my room for my parka, wrap it around myself and feel the cold night air bite my exposed face. Come July, and the weather is almost pleasant. The streetlights are cold and flickering. The bodies around me moan as they weave in and out of focus. I go inside a bar, sit on the bar-stool and ask the bartender for a drink. He knows I'm underage, but he also knows I'm a regular. I come here with my father often and we exchange pleasantries with this soft-spoken man behind the counter. The Dandy Warhols. Good. He brings me white rum, with a dash of lemon. I look at my drink, then take a mindful sip. I wait for the date. Tonight, I'm the Passenger.

Dangerous prosthetic.

I'm winning prizes. I'm going places. Yet, I long to whisper to him that I don't need him. All I can manage to do is whimper. His eyes are unforgiving. His brilliance scares me.

Consummation of grief, heal thyself.

When the clock strikes twelve, I will be a voracious litterateur slash theatre-dabbler slash art aficionado slash moral philanderer slash academic achiever slash Post-War dreamer slash whatever.

'Rhetoric',he screams. My electronic identity is taking a hit with each post, and I have lost count of the metaphors I last used to describe my wilfulness. There's no reason that my ego should be receiving these hits with alacrity. I play with the Styrofoam coffee-cup, inspecting the brown dregs with disinterest.I observe sullenly that I'm not quite my usual testy self. Which would mean that the caffeine is calming me, soothing my nerves, kissing my palpitations goodbye. I am reading in the airport lounge today. A paperback edition of An Equal Music (Vikram Seth) rests snugly on my lap. I am shifty, because the announcer has very formally informed us of the flights delay by an hour. I hang around in the Bookshop and then walk the length of the Duty-free shop without really giving the items so much as a glance. Then,I walk into the Jet Executive Lounge and begin reading. I had read the book a year ago, so I am quite aware of the predicament Michael was in. I stow the book away in my backpack. I lean on the handrail and look around casually, my eyes roving the terminal for an out-of-place sight, an unnoticed sound. A little here,a little there.

A little way off from the place where the bored policemen are frisking the passengers, I see a girl maneuvering expertly through the long file of commuters. About my age, wheatish, black-haired, her hair tied back into a ponytail. She is dressed demurely in a salwar-kameez, but the way she carries herself tells me that she knew more about Coco Chanel and Manolo Blahnik than any number of the garishly dressed females here. Her handbag is slung rakishly on one shoulder. I spy a book in her hand. I squint my eyes narrowly to catch a glimpse of the title. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Good God. I look at her hands. They are slender and beautiful, and the fingernails are carefully manicured. Yet,there is a restless urgency about her, it shows through her sense of security and it makes her look vulnerable. And beautiful. These fleeting moments. Where the other person is so inaccessible, yet so tangible in every other way that sexuality is heightened, and perception, as we know it, glues itself to individual opinion.
Then, without warning, she catches my eye. Something stirs in the brown irises. There is a hasty tidying up of misplaced recognition,and she looks away,blushing a furious crimson. Then, she turns her head and looks at me again. Her lips purse and the hand clutching the handbag turns white. I walk away, humming to myself. Better to let these moments be.

My affair with the Goras.

I think something in my pants just exploded. My masculinity is straining itself to yank at the headstrings of Iggy Pop and Holden Caulfield. Whoever heard of growing up in The Times of Cool?

Say what?

Conversation is futile. You can't reason with free will. Should have guessed that.

Pro-seminary.

This one is for the ladies. What you give to your dildo, life gives you back.

Who? Them.

Today, I stumbled across this progressive metal band called Tool. Headed by frontman Maynard James Keenan, who is as subversive as he is obtuse, the L.A.-based band is not one of those usual Johnny-whine-lately acts full of self-directed adolescent rage because their life is snapping at the heels of some populist tabloid. I listened in fascination as Danny Carey (drummer) beat steady,reflective beats on his percussive fantasies and Justin Chancellor (bassist) plucked away earnestly. It's strange. I wanted my music to be meaningful and honest, and I got this. For lack of musical tact, I have not come across bands showing a similar solidarity in their perception of rhythm and lyrics, except perhaps Animal Collective, Rush, King Crimson and Pink Floyd.

Here is an except from an interview Keenan gave to Moon Unit.

Q: Do you hide patterns of thought in your lyrics?
A: There's nothing being hidden. I think it gives a person more, giving them less is giving them more. They can experience it for themselves. There's certain images that I think come up for people if they don't have everything spelled out for them. Eventually, they'll have two different songs, they'll have what they heard and I'll give them a new one that might take them farther, might not have taken them as far as they went. If it takes them farther, that's great, but I'd much rather like the idea of them having gone farther than the song went. I'd rather take that risk that they're gonna be mad at me for not seeing the lyrics.

Q: What's the motivation behind the lyrics?
A: Its usually motivated by the music, you know? 'Cause music itself
has a kind of mood to it. The lyrics are usually coming out of the
mood of the song. We always write the music then the lyrics come
after.

Q: Did you ever have a romantic evening?
A: I had one the other night. Standing in my backyard while the entire
fucking earth was shaking; shit's breaking all over the place, and my
dogs come running up to me in my backyard completely scared about what's
going on, but after a while we forgot there was even an earthquake going
on. We were just sitting there together.


Q: Some people say you are a musical genius. Comment.
A: You don't need to be a super genius to do some things. What is smart? I think everybody has that genius seed in them for something. All genius is to me is somebody who has latched on to something and taken it as far out as they could take it. Ask Einstein his phone number, he couldn't tell you, he had to look it up. That's not where he's at. If you were to ask him about Led Zeppelin, he probably wouldn't have any fucking idea what you were talking about. So being a genius doesn't have anything to do with being a completely social functioning being completely understanding of everything. It has more to do with finding something, a voice in yourself, and taking it as far as you can take it. Hopefully, it takes you down a road where you understand you don't need to hurt people to get to wherever it is
you're looking for.

Give me that, Leo.

Watched 'Lost in Translation' today with Michellia. Still speechless.

This too, shall pass.

Don't look at me like that, you fool. I slept with an older woman. Does that make me so different from you, you who try to look at the hem of her skirt like you might expect it to burst into flames any moment.

I'm an object of surprise now. Suddenly, everyone is coming to terms with Ayan Ray, the Gargantuan man-slut.

Balderdash in Bombay - Part 1.

Saturday was one of those those touch-and-go days which I frequently find myself subjected to. Groggily reaching for my toothbrush, I stumbled towards the mirror and was amused to find a five'o clock shadow on my face. Whirling the toothbrush around, I found myself thinking about thoughts I didn't know that I had. Here goes.
My parents first lived in a suburb of Bombay called Antop Hill. Back then, it was a pleasant place to live in and I can still smell the wafting magnolia scent that used to blow in through the windows. Antop Hill was a sort of refuge for the individuals of a naturally dimunitive temperament. So,quite naturally,my parents found it to be a restful and pleasing environment. I could never second their opinion because I was only a child then and my emotional grasp of the situation would be limited to playing with the neighbour's children and the stuffy candy shop across the street. Indeed,those are the only sights and sounds I remember. I am not surprised,though. My paedaetrician used to be this rather affable Parsi who had his clinic in Parsi Colony. Point blank,I have always held firmly that Parsis were the original caretakers of Bombay. I don't mean to sound regionalist but these people lend a rather colonial air to the city, without the Victorian flummery. Back then,I rember being fascinated by the outer poise and the inner calm that defined their persona. Now, of course, they have taken a backseat. what with all the simmering regionalism that's brewing in Bombay. Antop Hill has now become one of those sorrily mismanaged areas that disgust you whenever you look at the peeling paint, the dusty playground, the runny taps. It leaves you with a sense of loathing but you can't exactly pigeonhole the source or the target. So much for colonialism.
My parents later bought a flat in the teeming suburb of Sion. I never knew the origin of the glitzy name and probably never will. Sion is also major railway junction that most office-goers resent. It is because the majority of sweaty,buck-toothed commuters generally come aboard at Sion.
Besides that, there's almost nothing the place can boast about now save perhaps a few bungalows here and there. You feel sorry for the place and it appears like an exotic affair gone badly off the track.When I was fifteen, I once walked on the pavements while it was raining. When it rains in Bombay,it pours.But you like it enormously.You see the black umbrellas dripping all about you and then you button your parka because of a sudden draught.It is really the perfect catalyst for thought.Even in the Sion of today,it is an experience to walk down it's streets. The smell of hot cocoa near coffee shops,of burnt hazelnuts near confectionery stores and then there is that earthly smell you always get when you cross rainwater with loose soil.Even as I sit by the window with a cup of hot coffee by my left arm and a yellow legal pad beside my right,i can visualize the sights and sounds that are so ephemeral for every person growing up in Bombay.When you grow up in a place,you generally take for granted all the things that the place has to (or can) offer.You get used to the hot summer sun burning the back of your neck,the raindrops that hit the windows of your room and the cold night air that settles around your bed while you curl up in bed with a book.When I moved out of Sion,I realized that I loved the place dearly but I hadn't been aware of that until I left.So this is what they call blues. Nice.

Lament.

In my world, there's no wiggle room for foolishness. None whatsoever.

Look,Ma,Speedy Gonzales!

She is beautiful. And her body is just about perfect. As she slips out of her nightgown, I can see in the light of the nightstand that her breasts are upturned, expectant. Her navel is a finicky dip of an affair. Her waist is perfect - I can see her panties are already wet. I put the glass of wine and let out a slow whistle. She looks at me coyly, yet I can see that she is feeling shy. Her lips are petulant, and I can see the corners of her mouth rise as she smiles. The moonlight reflects off her perfectly formed shoulders, and I see the elegant curves gesturing to me unconsciously. The bend in her elbow. The soft flicking of her wrists as I offer her my glass. She sips a little, and then climbs into bed with me. It is a long night. We make slow, passionate love - our bodies warm with pleasure, and then we fall apart, exhausted with all the feverish lovemaking.

Good God,you were amazing, I compliment her.

Was I? Thank God. I haven't made love to anyone in a decade. My faggot of a husband never looks at my body. You are very good in bed. I take it you are experienced already. She smiles as she rests her head on my chest and strokes my belly.

I look away. What are you doing,Ayan?

Cuddy-me-not.

People like talking about people. Makes us feel superior. Makes us feel in control. And sometimes, for some people, knowing some things makes them care.Wilson: "If you've got a good life, you're healthy, you've got no reason to bitch, no reason to hate life."
House: "Well, here's the flaw in your argument: if I enjoy hating life, I don't hate life, I enjoy it."
Wilson: "I didn't say it was rational. HIV testing is ninety-nine percent accurate, which means there are some people who test positive, who live with their own impending doom for months or years before finding out everything's okay. Weirdly, most of them don't react with happiness, or even anger. They get depressed, not because they wanted to die, but because they've defined themselves by their disease. Suddenly, what made them Œthem' isn't real."
House: "I don't define myself by my leg."
Wilson: "No, you have taken it one step further. The only way you could come to terms with your disability was to some way make it mean nothing. So you had to redefine everything. You have dismissed anything physical, anything not coldly, calculatingly intellectual."

That's Greg House for you. With a scimitar for a tongue, and a pair of singularly imposing breasts for a boss.

Wives.

How can anyone not fall in love with Michelle Clunie?

Puerile Satisfaction.

Hola, chica.

Let me not say anything. Manisha Koirala. No typical Bollywood plastic bimbo, this.

Coffee-cup attraction.

These Bongettes. Sigh.

Je T'aime Mon Amour.

Paris was beautiful.

Strained Emotion - Overture.

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, I will be your Bruce Banner. Today, the gamma rays will be singing for you. He came again today. This time, I silenced him by raising a weary hand. I am getting stronger. I don't think it's the therapy. It was only a month ago that I woke up in a cold sweat, in the stairwell of my school in the middle of the night,with no idea as to how and why I was there. My dreams are getting darker. Or what Epicureans would call Dark. I'm glad I found my Pericles. I dream of huge, unending stone walls. My hands feel the cold stone. Then, through an opening on the roof, I see the moonlight illuminate a figure on the ledge above me. He is dressed in a blue shirt, open at the collar. I can see that he is muscular, because of the bulge in his forearms. He looks at me. I can see that he is handsome, almost reminding me of Marlon, but just then, he smiles. It's a cold smile, and it leaves me shivering. He tells me he is me. I stare uncomprehendingly. He tells me I'm weak. In need of a brew. His potent blend. I wake up. It's a dream. Relax. A bad case of nerves, I tell myself. I smile cheerlessly.
I have discovered a side of me that's not quite well-off. It looks inviting. But is not. Go away, Tartar.
I sit upon the cold, sequined chair. The shrink twirls his pen around his finger as he looks at me, and enquires after the progress of his patient. I'm much less defiant now. I feel a strange calm come over me, like it does when I'm debating or when I'm emceeing. He pushes his gold-lane spectacles further up his nose, and adjusts his wiry frame to sit more comfortably. I imagine his face contorting as he makes love to his wife. Does he ask her how far along is she? Does he order her to scream his name out loud? Does he come inside her? The thought is disturbing, and I ignore it. All I want to do is to go home, curl up on my bean-bag, and listen to Jimmy Page caressing his guitar with his finger, or watch Chris Gayle swing his willow or turn the page of yet another Kafkan novel. He tells me whether I'm taking my medication. I answer in the affirmative. I look away. I mumble 'Bathroom Break' and excuse myself. I walk mindlessly, and catch a glimpse of my face in the flyblown mirror. I look tired, but I can see that smirking existentialist under the surface, chortling at my inability to live up to my expectations of myself. Why do I not feel? No. No. No.

Cerelacker.

She rubs some ointment on my temples, motioning to the petrified intern to grab my ankles as she fastens my legs to the iron cot. I can feel leather on my skin, and it's not very comforting. Conviction, conviction. As she reaches across me for the needle, the bulge on her front brushes against my cheek. I pull away, disgusted.

Ah, she says. Puberty didn't quite teach you what to expect,did it?

I look at her and smile weakly. There are a million things I want to say to her right now, but all I can do is whimper and tug at the electrodes. Textbook irony, I think to myself. My mind is playing ball with itself. He'll be back. And this time he won't be happy. I choke on my saliva and grunt in a weak show of discomfiture.

The nurse says the doctor will soon be with us. Bless the bastard. He's a fuckin' queer. The way he snaps his fingers when he talks reminds me of Nino Valenti in The Godfather. These closet homosexuals have nothing better to do than watch nubile male bodies writhe in seamless agony, while they cheer as they get the closest thing to the replication of a gay orgasm. Anyway, I am not in the mood for satirical puns. The hospital gown makes me look like a cross between James Frey and Elizabeth Perkins.

He arrives, smiles to show his gleaming white teeth and gushes over his patient (me) and how good he has been. What a dandy. He signals to the attendant to flick the switch.

The waves hit me. Scooping out emotions from my brain like I'm a fat bowl of Häagen-Dazs. I can see spots of green and blue materialize in front of my eyes. That means I'm hallucinating.

Then, he comes.

He's sitting with one leg crossed over the other, like a caporegime. He's wearing a tux - not a very clean one though. Smiles at me oafishly. Freak,he says.

Fuck you.

Then, he starts to shake as the pain hits me. The veins in his wrist start to bulge, then burst, spraying me with his blood. I am shaking in my cot. Electricity courses through my neural pathways. My synapses start to fizzle. Random memories appear and disappear. Sentences from books I have read do their last tango. The depolarization begins. Dendrites snap. I scream. Silently. Because the electrons are stopping salival flow. Wordless, my mouth looks to my arms for expression of pain. I'm flailing about wildly, my thighs hitting the cold sides of the cot. I can see women I have slept with - he has slept with. I can see places he has visited. I can see people with whom he has talked. They are all looking at me with mild disinterest like I'm vermin. So that they can get the cricks out of their legs and stomp on me with their dirty boots. God help me. You poor thing, I can hear the nurse say. She holds a handkerchief to her mouth, dabbing away her lipstick in one fluid motion. I look at the attendant and he looks like the piss is filling his pants. My eyes roll back to the top of my head. Everything goes quiet. It's over.

I am looking through the eyes of someone else.

You only regurgitate once.

I feel like throwing up already. The street I am walking through smells faintly of carbolic acid and soap strips, but I keep walking. My footsteps can hardly be called discreet because I feel them echoing through the night, rendering everything else quiet. My gait is unsteady - I have no idea why - and my shirt looks like it had seen better days in the garment factories. I wipe my forehead on my sleeve and stop at a crossroads, unsure of which road to take to get to my destination. Then, I check myself - do I really know where I am going, or is this another pointless exercise I have to undertake to get rid of my little fragilities? I am horrified that I don't know the answer. Then, something happens which makes me want to scream but my voice is muted by a force unseen.

I see myself coming out of every house around the intersection, every shop, every unguarded alleyway, every abandoned parking lot. Like clones. Only that they have derisive grins on their face, like my predicament humours them. But, no one speaks a word. Suddenly, I feel the blood returning to my legs and I run. I run so fast that my sneakers do not make a sound. In my ears, I hear a familiar song playing. It comes to me in wisps of sound and thunder. Nine Inch Nails - Just Like You Imagined. Soon, my legs start to go limp, and after a while, I find myself disgracefully hurtling to the ground. I see the asphalt rushing to meet me, and I let it hug me. For now.

When I open my eyes, I find myself looking at a pair of well-fitting Italian shoes. My eyes trail upwards to see the owner of the feet and let out a small groan. It is him. He kicks me in the face a couple of times and then steps back to appreciate his handiwork. My lips are a tattered mess, and my right cheekbone is (possibly) broken. I cannot even scream for help, because he's kicked me in the neck, and my larynx refuses to co-operate.

'You're a man in a box. You are so weak that that I do not even feel any pity, like a lab-rat who you know will play in his cogwheel unless you feed him another lettuce leaf. I do not even know why I despise you or all that you stand for. You were always sure no one could get to your ivory-tower existence, that no one could defeat you except you. Look who's on the ground now'.

He kicks me in the stomach, and I hear the familiar sound of bone giving way under metal. I look at him, and I can taste the blood that is now trickling from the corner of my lips.

'Look at yourself. You're a mess. Did no one ever tell you that your accountability is almost down to zero? Anyway, I have a small present for you. Look'.

I follow his finger, and I gasp. Slumped against a wall are torn, mutilated bodies of women who I cannot recognize. Their stomachs show hundreds of lacerations, and the skin on their limbs is so badly mutilated I can see yellow bones wink at me in the moonlight.

'You know who they are? You slept with them, promised them you'd stick to them come what may and then you fled, afraid to be brought to terms with your commitments. Those are the charred remains of all that is left of them. Tonight, you decided to kill me. You thought you could do away with me and neglect the part of your life that needed to be cut out. I helped you pick the scabs and now I'll kill you. Slowly. Painfully. Isn't reality kicking in already?'.

He lifts my bloodied chin and takes a knife to it. The world goes black.

When I come to, I realize I'm in the middle of a cemetery, clutching my chest. I'm lying in the all-too-damned foetal position. All around me, the tombstones stand like toppling dominos frozen in time. He's gone. For now. Where on that little tetrahedron of time did I lose my balance? I am not sure.

Back-flip and doubletake.

Kurt Vonnegut died today. This is not good news,is it,Billy?

Shalom.

I know it's not the rain that woke me up because I find myself falling asleep to the rain more often than not. So, I open one bleary eye and reach for the light. My arm misses the switch by a couple of inches, and I fall headfirst onto the pillow. I notice by the light of the pale moon streaming in through my window, that my bedside clock reads 2:30 AM. I rub my eyes with the back of my hand, and squint at the window. There is an unmistakable bulge in the curtains, something that looks out of place here, in the serenity of my bedroom. There is a huge china ashtray on my study table, with a few spent cigarette butts inside it. I am startled by its presence because I don't smoke. Yet.

I proceed cautiously towards the window and yank at the pullstring. I stifle a tiny scream, as I see the dim outline of a man in a suit. As he turns to face me, I see that an unlit cigarette dangles precariously from the corner of his lips. His suit is well-tailored and he is clean-shaven.

'Hello, I have been waiting to meet you, you genetically-tainted bastard. Lovely weather, no?', he says.

As the moonlight hits his profile, I collapse to the ground.

He looks like me. Talks like me. Is me.

Strained Emotion - Entr'acte.

I stand behind my desk. My shirt is dirty, my head is hung and I stare at my soiled shoes with the irreverent concentration of a lumberjack. There is a woman in the classroom. The sari she has draped around her meaty shoulders threatens her integrity to fall to the floor in a heap of dishonour. I am being visually raped by the sightless eyes of my classmates. For them, it is a commonplace thing - the berating of a high-school student by the Prinicipal. My dignity is being questioned, and all I can do is chuckle. I am taken aback by my own glee. It's unnatural. My fingernails beat a slow, meditative tattoo on the desk. I look up to find the woman wagging a stubby finger at me. Flecks of spit crowd the corners of the teachers downturned lips. She tells me my behaviour is unacceptable. She says she doesn't care that I bring her school wreaths-of-glory or the ceaseless attention of international school journals. I shuffle my feet impatiently. The girl beside me, who I have been fucking for two weeks now, is giggling at my nonchalance. The giggle becomes a cackle and then, silence. The bell rings. The students block the doorway and amused classmates slap my back, and, in the distance, I can hear the tinny sound of the metal clasps of lunchboxes being unfastened. My unseeing eyes roam the length of the classroom, and then they focus on the sympathetic eyes of the girl I'm fucking. I feel no remorse, no guilt, no pain and I feel like Trent Reznor. She hugs me, and leads me outside. I follow effortlessly. We find our bags and sling them around our shoulders, while we head for the Main Gate. She goes on about how the Principal is a snout-faced douchebag and how she plans to spend the evening with her friends at Pop Tates'. We take a rickshaw to my house. My parents are not in sight. There is a note on the fridge. It says they will be back by ten. She wraps her arms around my neck. I don't respond. She starts kissing me. Blur.

I wake up in my room to find her asleep next to me. I raise myself on one elbow, prod her in the shoulder and tell her it's late. She dresses quickly, pecks me on my unshaven cheek and leaves. Something's changing. It's ubiquitous. And I can feel the emotion clogging up my arteries, travelling up to the hypocampus, choking my thalamus till I am out of breath. I do not know why I am doing this. I do not know why I am doing this. I put my face in my hands.

Plead guilty,no?

I respect women. I respect women. I respect women. There. My good deed for the day is done.

Cluck-a-doodle Mural.

The alphabet. I'm taking in its versatility, one pigmented pixel at a time. The Nutbolt God looks at the bridge of my nose, and tells me to wrap my cowl tightly around the jawline. The cape has come loose,and I shake it off. I'm looking at the godfuckin' perimeter of an empty whisky glass. It's evening and the balls of paper thrown around carelessly remind me this desert is my house. The room looks uninviting and is garishly decorated, and there is that ever-so-faint whiff of eau-de-cologne. Where are the tin soldiers,eh? Jeff Buckley looks up at me from the floor, stuck to his Rolling Stone centerfold. And I come unannounced, unheeded to the virtual world where words become alliterations in cyberspace. Maybe I can do justice to the linoleum here.
I reckon Charles Babbage ran out of Di Nobili cigars. Hug me, you Simian monstrosity.