Diary of Ashok rajhttp://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/Diary of Ashok rajen-us8 years agoI wanted to share an experience that occurred to my inlaws a little over 8 years ago.

They were a darling retired couple, in their early 80's. They had recently been forced to put to sleep their aging pekinese, "Toy" (short for, believe it or not, Toyota). This dog had been like a child for my mother in law, Peggy. She groomed him incessantly and brushed his teeth every morning. Consequently, she took his loss very hard as did Arthur, my father in law. They went to the expense of having him laid to rest in a pet cemetary. Eventually they began to get over their grief.

Approx. 6 months after Toy's death, right around 10pm, they heard a dog barking (actually it was more like a yipping, common in the smaller dog breeds). Upon investigation, they discovered that the sound was generated directly above where Toy's bed was on the back porch. It was not long in duration and didn't seem to upset either of them. It seemed they had gotten more of a sense of peace from the experience, when my husband and I questioned them on it. The barking incident turned into be a regular occurance at their home. It always seemed to occur just shortly after 10pm, which happened to be the time that they had always given Toy his treat, just before they retired for the night. They had numerous guests over as well as the minister of their church, all of which were treated to the dogs "communique". Many of those who witnessed this incident, went to great lengths to determine its source. All of them failed to generate any explanation other than it was Toy. They even tape recorded numerous sessions, which we retained a copy of.

This continued for several months. It began to wear on them both, but especially Peggy. The barking had begun to turn to more of a growling and snapping sound. Peggy relayed to us that she feared that Toy was becoming increasingly more "angry", as she described it. One evening, right around 10, she went to the refrigerator and as she opened it. She was hit be a large wind and a very loud, ferocious snarling. It was enough to make her recoil and slam the door shut. She broke into tears and verbally spoke as if the dog were alive in front of her. She tried to explain to him that they had put him to sleep to alieviate the pain that he was suffering from. She continued and told him that she and Arthur loved him and would see him on the other side, but that he didn't live her anymore.

The "ghostly doggie sounds" ceased that very night. They never heard again from their beloved little dog. Several years past and they were given a darling little pomeranian. This pooch expressed one little oddity. Frequently, around 10pm he would stand in the kitchen, facing the back porch and he would growl and carry on, as if he had seen a ghost.]]>Sat, 03 May 2008 09:16:19 +0530http://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/05/03/8-years-ago-1.htmlA student at Yale I am the most unfortunate of men. Rich, respected, fairly well educated and of sound health -- with many other advantages usually valued by those having them and coveted by those who have them not -- I sometimes think that I should be less unhappy if they had been denied me, for then the contrast between my outer and my inner life would not be continually demanding a painful attention. In the stress of privation and the need of effort I might sometimes forget the sombre secret ever baffling the conjecture that it compels.
I am the only child of Joel and Julia Hetman. The one was a well-to-do country gentleman, the other a beautiful and accomplished woman to whom he was passionately attached with what I now know to have been a jealous and exacting devotion. The family home was a few miles from Nashville, Tennessee, a large, irregularly built dwelling of no particular order of architecture, a little way off the road, in a park of trees and shrubbery.
At the time of which I write I was nineteen years old, a student at Yale. One day I received a telegram from my father of such urgency that in compliance with its unexplained demand I left at once for home. At the railway station in Nashville a distant relative awaited me to apprise me of the reason for my recall: my mother had been barbarously murdered -- why and by whom none could conjecture, but the circumstances were these.
My father had gone to Nashville, intending to return the next afternoon. Something prevented his accomplishing the business in hand, so he returned on the same night, arriving just before the dawn. In his testimony before the coroner he explained that having no latchkey and not caring to disturb the sleeping servants, he had, with no clearly defined intention, gone round to the rear of the house. As he turned an angle of the building, he heard a sound as of a door gently closed, and saw in the darkness, indistinctly, the figure of a man, which instantly disappeared among the trees of the lawn. A hasty pursuit and brief search of the grounds in the belief that the trespasser was some one secretly visiting a servant proving fruitless, he entered at the unlocked door and mounted the stairs to my mother's chamber. Its door was open, and stepping into black darkness he fell headlong over some heavy object on the floor. I may spare myself the details; it was my poor mother, dead of strangulation by human hands!

Nothing had been taken from the house, the servants had heard no sound, and excepting those terrible finger-marks upon the dead woman's throat -- dear God! that I might forget them! -- no trace of the assassin was ever found.
I gave up my studies and remained with my father, who, naturally, was greatly changed. Always of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell into so deep a dejection that nothing could hold his attention, yet anything -- a footfall, the sudden closing of a door -- aroused in him a fitful interest; one might have called it an apprehension. At any small surprise of the senses he would start visibly and sometimes turn pale, then relapse into a melancholy apathy deeper than before. I suppose he was what is called a 'nervous wreck.' As to me, I was younger then than now -- there is much in that. Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound. Ah, that I might again dwell in that enchanted land! Unacquainted with grief, I knew not how to appraise my bereavement; I could not rightly estimate the strength of the stroke.
One night, a few months after the dreadful event, my father and I walked home from the city. The full moon was about three hours above the eastern horizon; the entire countryside had the solemn stillness of a summer night; our footfalls and the ceaseless song of the katydids were the only sound, aloof. Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart the road, which, in the short reaches between, gleamed a ghostly white. As we approached the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow, and in which no light shone, my father suddenly stopped and clutched my arm, saying, hardly above his breath:
'God! God! what is that?'
'I hear nothing,' I replied.
'But see -- see!' he said, pointing along the road, directly ahead.
I said: 'Nothing is there. Come, father, let us go in -- you are ill.'
He had released my arm and was standing rigid and motionless in the centre of the illuminated roadway, staring like one bereft of sense. His face in the moonlight showed a pallor and fixity inexpressibly distressing. I pulled gently at his sleeve, but he had forgotten my existence. Presently he began to retire backward, step by step, never for an instant removing his eyes from what he saw, or thought he saw. I turned half round to follow, but stood irresolute. I do not recall any feeling of fear, unless a sudden chill was its physical manifestation. It seemed as if an icy wind had touched my face and enfolded my body from head to foot; I could feel the stir of it in my hair.

At that moment my attention was drawn to a light that suddenly streamed from an upper window of the house: one of the servants, awakened by what mysterious premonition of evil who can say, and in obedience to an impulse that she was never able to name, had lit a lamp. When I turned to look for my father he was gone, and in all the years that have passed no whisper of his fate has come across the borderland of conjecture from the realm of the unknown.

To-day I am said to live, to-morrow, here in this room, will lie a senseless shape of clay that all too long was I. If anyone lift the cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing it will be in gratification of a mere morbid curiosity. Some, doubtless, will go further and inquire, 'Who was he?' In this writing I supply the only answer that I am able to make -- Caspar Grattan. Surely, that should be enough. The name has served my small need for more than twenty years of a life of unknown length. True, I gave it to myself, but lacking another I had the right. In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.
One day, for illustration, I was passing along a street of a city, far from here, when I met two men in uniform, one of whom, half pausing and looking curiously into my face, said to his companion, 'That man looks like 767.' Something in the number seemed familiar and horrible. Moved by an uncontrollable impulse, I sprang into a side street and ran until I fell exhausted in a country lane.
I have never forgotten that number, and always it comes to memory attended by gibbering obscenity, peals of joyless laughter, the clang of iron doors. So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth!
Of him who shall find this paper I must beg a little consideration. It is not the history of my life; the knowledge to write that is denied me. This is only a record of broken and apparently unrelated memories, some of them as distinct and sequent as brilliant beads upon a thread, others remote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams with interspaces blank and black -- witch-fires glowing still and red in a great desolation.

Standing upon the shore of eternity, I turn for a last look landward over the course by which I came. There are twenty years of footprints fairly distinct, the impressions of bleeding feet. They lead through poverty and pain, devious and unsure, as of one staggering beneath a burden --
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Ah, the poet's prophecy of Me -- how admirable, how dreadfully admirable!
Backward beyond the beginning of this via dolorosa -- this epic of suffering with episodes of sin -- I see nothing clearly; it comes out of a cloud. I know that it spans only twenty years, yet I am an old man.
One does not remember one's birth -- one has to be told. But with me it was different; life came to me full-handed and dowered me with all my faculties and powers. Of a previous existence I know no more than others, for all have stammering intimations that may be memories and may be dreams. I know only that my first consciousness was of maturity in body and mind -- a consciousness accepted without surprise or conjecture. I merely found myself walking in a forest, half-clad, footsore, unutterably weary and hungry. Seeing a farmhouse, I approached and asked for food, which was given me by one who inquired my name. I did not know, yet knew that all had names. Greatly embarrassed, I retreated, and night coming on, lay down in the forest and slept.
The next day I entered a large town which I shall not name. Nor shall I recount further incidents of the life that is now to end -- a life of wandering, always and everywhere haunted by an overmastering sense of crime in punishment of wrong and of terror in punishment of crime. Let me see if I can reduce it to narrative.
I seem once to have lived near a great city, a prosperous planter, married to a woman whom I loved and distrusted. We had, it sometimes seems, one child, a youth of brilliant parts and promise. He is at all times a vague figure, never clearly drawn, frequently altogether out of the picture.
One luckless evening it occurred to me to test my wife's fidelity in a vulgar, commonplace way familiar to everyone who has acquaintance with the literature of fact and fiction. I went to the city, telling my wife that I should be absent until the following afternoon. But I returned before daybreak and went to the rear of the house, purposing to enter by a door with which I had secretly so tampered that it would seem to lock, yet not actually fasten. As I approached it, I heard it gently open and close, and saw a man steal away into the darkness. With murder in my heart, I sprang after him, but he had vanished without even the bad luck of identification. Sometimes now I cannot even persuade myself that it was a human being.

Crazed with jealousy and rage, blind and bestial with all the elemental passions of insulted manhood, I entered the house and sprang up the stairs to the door of my wife's chamber. It was closed, but having tampered with its lock also, I easily entered, and despite the black darkness soon stood by the side of her bed. My groping hands told me that although disarranged it was unoccupied.
'She is below,' I thought, 'and terrified by my entrance has evaded me in the darkness of the hall.' With the purpose of seeking her I turned to leave the room, but took a wrong direction -- the right one! My foot struck her, cowering in a corner of the room. Instantly my hands were at her throat, stifling a shriek, my knees were upon her struggling body; and there in the darkness, without a word of accusation or reproach, I strangled her till she died! There ends the dream. I have related it in the past tense, but the present would be the fitter form, for again and again the sombre tragedy re-enacts itself in my consciousness -- over and over I lay the plan, I suffer the confirmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is blank; and afterward the rains beat against the grimy windowpanes, or the snows fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the squalid streets where my life lies in poverty and mean employment. If there is ever sunshine I do not recall it; if there are birds they do not sing.
There is another dream, another vision of the night. I stand among the shadows in a moonlit road. I am aware of another presence, but whose I cannot rightly determine. In the shadow of a great dwelling I catch the gleam of white garments; then the figure of a woman confronts me in the road -- my murdered wife! There is death in the face; there are marks upon the throat. The eyes are fixed on mine with an infinite gravity which is not reproach, nor hate, nor menace, nor anything less terrible than recognition. Before this awful apparition I retreat in terror -- a terror that is upon me as I write. I can no longer rightly shape the words. See! they --
Now I am calm, but truly there is no more to tell: the incident ends where it began -- in darkness and in doubt.

Yes, I am again in control of myself: 'the captain of my soul.' But that is not respite; it is another stage and phase of expiation. My penance, constant in degree, is mutable in kind: one of its variants is tranquillity. After all, it is only a life-sentence. 'To Hell for life' -- that is a foolish penalty: the culprit chooses the duration of his punishment. To-day my term expires.
To each and all, the peace that was not mine.

3. Statement of the Late Julia Hetman, through the Medium Bayrolles

I had retired early and fallen almost immediately into a peaceful sleep, from which I awoke with that indefinable sense of peril which is, I think, a common experience in that other, earlier life. Of its unmeaning character, too, I was entirely persuaded, yet that did not banish it. My husband, Joel Hetman, was away from home; the servants slept in another part of the house. But these were familiar conditions; they had never before distressed me. Nevertheless, the strange terror grew so insupportable that conquering my reluctance to move I sat up and lit the lamp at my bedside. Contrary to my expectation this gave me no relief; the light seemed rather an added danger, for I reflected that it would shine out under the door, disclosing my presence to whatever evil thing might lurk outside. You that are still in the flesh, subject to horrors of the imagination, think what a monstrous fear that must be which seeks in darkness security from malevolent existences of the night. That is to spring to close quarters with an unseen enemy -- the strategy of despair!
Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bedclothing about my head and lay trembling and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray. In this pitiable state I must have lain for what you call hours -- with us there are no hours, there is no time.
At last it came -- a soft, irregular sound of footfalls on the stairs! They were slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of something that did not see its way; to my disordered reason all the more terrifying for that, as the approach of some blind and mindless malevolence to which is no appeal. I even thought that I must have left the hall lamp burning and the groping of this creature proved it a monster of the night. This was foolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, but what would you have? Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated. We know this well, we who have passed into the Realm of Terror, who skulk in eternal dusk among the scenes of our former lives, invisible even to ourselves, and one another, yet hiding forlorn in lonely places; yearning for speech with our loved ones, yet dumb, and as fearful of them as they of us. Sometimes the disability is removed, the law suspended: by the deathless power of love or hate we break the spell -- we are seen by those whom we would warn, console, or punish. What form we seem to them to bear we know not; we know only that we terrify even those whom we most wish to comfort, and from whom we most crave tenderness and sympathy.

Forgive, I pray you, this inconsequent digression by what was once a woman. You who consult us in this imperfect way -- you do not understand. You ask foolish questions about things unknown and things forbidden. Much that we know and could impart in our speech is meaningless in yours. We must communicate with you through a stammering intelligence in that small fraction of our language that you yourselves can speak. You think that we are of another world. No, we have knowledge of no world but yours, though for us it holds no sunlight, no warmth, no music, no laughter, no song of birds, nor any companionship. O God! what a thing it is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world, a prey to apprehension and despair!
No, I did not die of fright: the Thing turned and went away. I heard it go down the stairs, hurriedly, I thought, as if itself in sudden fear. Then I rose to call for help. Hardly had my shaking hand found the door-knob when -- merciful heaven! -- I heard it returning. Its footfalls as it remounted the stairs were rapid, heavy and loud; they shook the house. I fled to an angle of the wall and crouched upon the floor. I tried to pray. I tried to call the name of my dear husband. Then I heard the door thrown open. There was an interval of unconsciousness, and when I revived I felt a strangling clutch upon my throat -- felt my arms feebly beating against something that bore me backward -- felt my tongue thrusting itself from between my teeth! And then I passed into this life.
No, I have no knowledge of what it was. The sum of what we knew at death is the measure of what we know afterward of all that went before. Of this existence we know many things, but no new light falls upon any page of that; in memory is written all of it that we can read. Here are no heights of truth overlooking the confused landscape of that dubitable domain. We still dwell in the Valley of the Shadow, lurk in its desolate places, peering from brambles and thickets at its mad, malign inhabitants. How should we have new knowledge of that fading past?

What I am about to relate happened on a night. We know when it is night, for then you retire to your houses and we can venture from our places of concealment to move unafraid about our old homes, to look in at the windows, even to enter and gaze upon your faces as you sleep. I had lingered long near the dwelling where I had been so cruelly changed to what I am, as we do while any that we love or hate remain. Vainly I had sought some method of manifestation, some way to make my continued existence and my great love and poignant pity understood by my husband and son. Always if they slept they would wake, or if in my desperation I dared approach them when they were awake, would turn toward me the terrible eyes of the living, frightening me by the glances that I sought from the purpose that I held.
On this night I had searched for them without success, fearing to find them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlit dawn. For, although the sun is lost to us for ever, the moon, full-orbed or slender, remains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, as in that other life.
I left the lawn and moved in the white light and silence along the road, aimless and sorrowing. Suddenly I heard the voice of my poor husband in exclamations of astonishment, with that of my son in reassurance and dissuasion; and there by the shadow of a group of trees they stood -- near, so near! Their faces were toward me, the eyes of the elder man fixed upon mine. He saw me -- at last, at last, he saw me! In the consciousness of that, my terror fled as a cruel dream. The death-spell was broken: Love had conquered Law! Mad with exultation I shouted -- I must have shouted,' He sees, he sees: he will understand!' Then, controlling myself, I moved forward, smiling and consciously beautiful, to offer myself to his arms, to comfort him with endearments, and, with my son's hand in mine, to speak words that should restore the broken bonds between the living and the dead.

Alas! alas! his face went white with fear, his eyes were as those of a hunted animal. He backed away from me, as I advanced, and at last turned and fled into the wood -- whither, it is not given to me to know.
To my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I have never been able to impart a sense of my presence. Soon he, too, must pass to this Life Invisible and be lost to me for ever.
]]>Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:49:09 +0530http://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/04/06/A-student-at-Yale.htmlwarm romancewarm romance

Lisa gazed out over the Caribbean Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face - eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered the last time she had been here.
She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as his looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort on the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the travelling they would do together - it was all certain, so they had thought then.
But that seemed such a long time ago now. A lot can change in just a few years - a lot of heartache can change a person and drive a wedge through the strongest ties, break even the deepest love. Three years to the day and they had returned, though this time not for the beachside marriages the island was famous for but for one of its equally popular quickie divorces.
Lisa let out a sigh that was filled with pain and regret. What could she do but move on, find a new life and new dreams? - the old one was beyond repair. How could this beautiful place, with its lush green coastline, eternity of azure blue sea and endless sands be a place for the agony she felt now?
The man stood watching from the edge of the palm trees. He couldn't take his eyes of the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water's edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something - or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself. It wasn't her looks that attracted him though; he came across many beautiful women in his work as a freelance photographer. It was her loneliness and intensity that lured him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he could meet.

Lisa sensed the man approaching even before she turned around. She had been aware of him standing there staring at her and had felt strangely calm about being observed. She looked at him and felt the instant spark of connection she had only experienced once before. He walked slowly towards her and they held each other's gaze. It felt like meeting a long lost friend - not a stranger on a strange beach.
Later, sitting at one of the many bars on the resort, sipping the local cocktails they began to talk. First pleasantries, their hotels, the quality of the food and friendliness of the locals. Their conversation was strangely hesitant considering the naturalness and confidence of their earlier meeting. Onlookers, however, would have detected the subtle flirtation as they mirrored each other's actions and spoke directly into each other's eyes. Only later, after the alcohol had had its loosening effect, did the conversation deepen. They talked of why they were here and finally, against her judgement, Lisa opened up about her heartache of the past year and how events had led her back to the place where she had married the only man she believed she could ever love. She told him of things that had been locked deep inside her, able to tell no one. She told him how she had felt after she had lost her baby.
She was six months pregnant and the happiest she had ever been when the pains had started. She was staying with her mother as James was working out of town. He hadn't made it back in time. The doctor had said it was just one of those things, that they could try again. But how could she when she couldn't even look James in the eye. She hated him then, for not being there, for not hurting as much as her but most of all for looking so much like the tiny baby boy that she held for just three hours before the took him away. All through the following months she had withdrawn from her husband, family, friends. Not wanting to recover form the pain she felt - that would have been a betrayal of her son. At the funeral she had refused to stand next to her husband and the next day she had left him.

Looking up, Lisa could see her pain reflected in the man's eyes. For the first time in months she didn't feel alone, she felt the unbearable burden begin to lift from her, only a bit but it was a start. She began to believe that maybe she had a future after all and maybe it could be with this man, with his kind hazel eyes, wet with their shared tears.
They had come here to dissolve their marriage but maybe there was hope. Lisa stood up and took James by the hand and led him away from the bar towards the beech where they had made their vows to each other three years ago. Tomorrow she would cancel the divorce; tonight they would work on renewing their promises.]]>Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:50:39 +0530http://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/04/04/warm-romance-1.htmlImpersonating elvis Impersonating elvis

This isn't a story about Elvis Presley. This is a story about Chuckie Walaach and me and Chuck's wife, Carol. Carol should have been my wife but sometimes things don't work out the way they should and so she became Chuck's wife instead.
Carol got pregnant right after our senior year at Stimson High. It's true that Carol and I hadn't actually had a date since eighth grade but I would have married her anyway, even though I had plans for accounting school and I knew it couldn't really be my baby. Even in junior high I'd been too much of a gentleman for something like that to happen. But not Chuckie Walaach. Carol admitted it was Chuck's baby so he was the one got to marry her.
That's pretty much Chuck Walaach in a nutshell. Unfortunate luck, I call it. During sophomore year the senior quarterback pulled a groin muscle coming over the console in Tamara Newsome's father's mustang and knocked himself out of four games. Chuck wound up getting the credit for the whole winning season. When it came time to cast for the year end Stimson High Musical, they needed a beefy type lead and because Petey Boyd Beasley had laryngitis, who do you suppose got the part over yours truly? Chuckie Walaach.
Don't get me wrong, I have to admit that even then he had an unusual voice. Deep, sort of croony and slurred like he'd just had a mouthful of something the rest of us would never be lucky enough to taste. Chuck always got the babes, even Carol. I rest my case. Girls are the reason he got to be class president, too. Brawn for brains should have been his platform. Tight jeans and duck ass hair.
But all that happened about twenty years ago. I'm a mature man, forgive and forget. Except. Because of Carol's indelicacy right out of high school, Chuck's father took him immediately into the family business and made him a junior executive. Meantime, I went off to college where I was doing fine until my father shredded his foot with the wheat combine and my mother took ill with a rare type of swine breeder's syndrome and I had to come home to help out. There's only one place off a farm in Stimson to work: the Walaach School Bus Body Manufacturing Plant.

Now I don't want to come off like I'm some kind of a certified public accountant, because I'm not, but I do have a talent with numbers. Chuck knew about that from my days on the scoreboards at the Stimson High games, plus which I completed better than four community college classes. Walaach Bus moved me right in to head up their inventory department.
The general public would be surprised at all that goes into making a school bus body. It's more than just kid-sized padded metal seats, metaline yellow paint and oversized amber/red flashers, I can tell you. There's an engineering trick to opening that folded front door from the outside that - But this isn't about the inventory, design and construction of school bus bodies, either.
It's about Chuck and his Elvis impersonation. I don't know, maybe it's because Chuck's been here longer than I have, but since he became company president, he doesn't seem to be all that interested in the bus body business anymore. In fact, for this last year I've practically been running the whole shebang for him. Partly that's because I'm better at it than he is but mostly it's because Chuckie Walaach thinks he can be Elvis.
He's grown sideburns and instead of letting the gray come naturally, as I do, he's started dying all his hair black. It's disgusting. I'm not talking just about the puffed up pompadour or the cheap cheek hair. I'm talking about those little tufts that come out through the vee in his shirt front. Oh yes, Chuckie stopped wearing a tie to the office when his father stepped down out of the bus body business two years ago. If Chuck weren't in the driver's seat now, he'd never get away with the stuff he does.
At this year's company picnic, Chuck came in a white and gold lame skin suit with three back-up singers and a full rhythm band. Myself, I think he was assisted by some spandex body support, too. The men who work the line cheered for him. Gave him a standing ovation, in fact, but what does that mean? They gotta work for the guy two hundred sixty-one and a half days of the year (less three weeks vacation if they've been here over five years).
And Carol! Well, she came to that company function in a short flared skirt with some kind of net stuff swirling out the sides that didn't belong up on a stage above eye level, what with all that open strut-work underneath. She cheered him on, too. But of course she has to, she's gotta live with the guy a full three-hundred sixty-five days of the year, no planned vacation. And she's still a good looking woman. Not every woman over forty could wear a poodle skirt and that flip platinum hair with the class she does. She's got too much style for Chuckie Walaach and when she leaned down under the stage to ask if I'd like to crawl out and eat lunch at her private table, I could tell that she'd finally gotten bored with the shallow excuse for a man that Chuck really is. I also realized how much fulfillment she and I could bring into each other's aching, empty lives.

This induced me to work out a plan. I already knew that come March, Chuck had paid the application fees to perform in an Elvis Look-Alike Contest. Chuckie Walaach is certainly not the only man in the world who thinks he could pass for Elvis. Apparently a hundred and thirty-six other mousse haired fools think the same thing. This was to be a battle of the Elvises. Elvii's? Whatever.
So. Since I've accumulated over eighteen weeks of back vacation time in my years with the company, I asked for two of them at the time of the Elvis contest. I bought myself some temporary black dye and a snub nose Saturday Night Special like the ones Elvis favored towards the end and I booked a room at the Elvis Contest Hotel. I did not, however, give my real name, nor did I enroll myself in the contest proper.
It was a good plan. Almost foolproof, I've got to say. Just picture the police putting out an all points bulletin on an Elvis assassin who looks like Elvis in a town with one hundred-thirty-seven Elvis's walking around. Who could give a description? I didn't even have to hide, I just walked into the Elvis Grand Ball Room, pulled my gun, shot my Elvis, dropped the gun and walked back out before any of those other Elvii's could swivel a hip.
Then I immediately got on a plane back to Stimson, rinsed out my midnight-blue pomp and reported for work the next morning. And who was there? Chuckie Walaach, third runner up in the Battle of the Elvis Look-Alikes. I needn't have worried that someone would ask me how was my vacation in Kenosha; all eyes were glazed on Chuckie as per usual.
He was full of news about this contest and the killing. Seems that the number two Elvis—the one who was killed—was wanted for serial murders in three entirely different states. The bullet which killed him just grazed lucky Chuckie and now Chuck is being treated like some kind of hero in the whole affair. Pictures in all the papers, national news coverage. Even people who should know better have started treating him like he had superstar status, especially Carol. She even had the nerve to ask me if I'd like to drive them back to the airport. Seems the Elvis Contest Hotel has gotten so much publicity, they've decided to give the hero and his adoring wife a week long vacation in their hearts-bouquet honeymoon suite.

]]>Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:17:04 +0530http://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/04/04/Impersonating-elvis-1.htmlHorror The horror

After he had surveyed his surroundings to make sure that the coast was clear, Trent entered the underbelly of Portland through an old utility entrance under the rising, steel-grated skeleton of St. John's Bridge. As he ducked through an open section of chain link fence near one of the bridge's main columns, he could see the bustle of traffic high above him roaring over the iron-meshed grills - black rubber tires created that comforting sound of 'home' as they roared over the metal grates.

Once inside the small, trash-strewn, fenced perimeter of the concrete pillar, Trent scanned the area around him again. Seeing that no one had followed him and that it was safe to proceed, he hurried along through the garden of discarded plastic bottles, mouldy, sun-bleached newspapers, rotted boards, broken glass and used condoms until he had reached a small manhole covered with a rusted iron cover. Again, Trent took a look around and when he was finally convinced that all was safe, he lifted the cover off and slipped down into the darkness that led into the belly of Portland.

Trent placed his foot on the first rusted rung of an iron ladder. The ladder was nothing more than a rickety series of iron strips sunk into the concrete wall that had once been used by Portland city workers decades earlier. When only Trent's head remained above ground level, he held on to the top rung with a white- knuckle grip. With his free hand he pulled the cover back over the hole and continued the climb down until his feet were firmly planted.

As soon as Trent's feet hit the concave concrete of the old sewer tributary beneath him, he immediately went into a dead run, hoping that whatever he had just seen above ground would not follow him.

Trent ran through the dark sewer until his heart pumped acid into his veins, making the muscles in his thighs, calves and feet burn. He exhaled; his breath hung in the cold air like a rain cloud. Then he ran some more. He was lucky his instinct guided him through the darkness of these tunnels; he knew them like the back of his hand after living on, and below, the streets of Portland for the last three years. Only when his body could not withstand any more of the abuse, did he stop for a rest on a dimly lit brick ledge under a grate. Above him through the metal grill the noon sun hung in the smog-filled, grey sky, and Trent could hear the bustling of midday traffic, the honking of angry car horns and the patter of pedestrians who went about their business above ground. As Trent sought to catch his breath, he eased back and rested his head against the crumbling, brick-lined sewer wall to relax for awhile to enjoy a cigarette that he fished out of the inside pocket of his denim jacket.

As Trent took in the first stale drag from his cigarette, he pondered over what had just transpired. Maybe he had just imagined it, hadn't really seen what he thought he had seen in Cathedral Park only a few minutes ago. Perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Still, Trent had lived on these streets for three years. Down on his luck or not, Trent knew damn well that you have to keep a good head on your shoulders to survive on the streets of Portland - and whatever the hell it was that he had seen, it seemed real enough to him and he wasn't prone to flights of fancy or seeing things that weren't there.

The image played over in his mind again, burned into the backs of his eyes and he could still see it when he blinked - indelible. He wondered why it was that he felt safe down here in the ghost that was once a city, beneath the beast above that was Portland; surely there was considerably more safety in the vast numbers of people on the streets, safety in the sunlight, safety in the day time, above ground, safety in reality and normality. But this was his reality, this was his normal, and this was where he felt safest.

That wasn't right kept ringing inside his head. It was something that should hide in dark places, something that had no place being up-top, on the outside, all the way up there with the regular folks.

He remembered all the old urban legends he'd heard over the years, things his grandfather had told him when he was a little boy on his Gramp's knee and he thought the old man was 837 years old. He remembered stuff he'd heard at school - from kids and teachers, things he had overheard in coffee shops and bars, out on the street...and under it. Those were the worst ones - the one's he'd heard down here. And yet this was his home, this was the place he felt safe.

In particular, he remembered a story that Guitar John, one of the oldest guys who lived underneath Portland, had told him when he first came underground. At the time he thought that maybe the old hippy who liked to talk to his own hand was just trying to freak the 'new kid' out as a part of Trent's rite of passage to acceptance in his new home. Still, the grizzled man's story about a little girl's disembodied head screaming through the tunnels un-nerved him due to the man's flair for vivid details. For weeks after that, Trent would move very cautiously through the tunnels on this side of the city, half expecting something from an old horror movie to jump out from every blind corner he went around. And when the old rusted pipes that ran along the sides of the tunnels would creak and emit inhuman groans that emanated from throughout the entire tunnel system, Trent's fear would erupt into a dead and blind run that led him haphazardly into sections of dark tunnels that were unknown to him.

Not too bright, nor brave for sixteen years old, but that seemed like a lifetime ago to Trent after being under the streets for three years. He was a man now, wily, street-wise, always ready with a broken bottle to slice into flesh if some newbie got out of hand down here and needed to be cowed.

But it was safer way down here than it was sleeping rough on the dirty streets and the filthy alleys of Portland. They'll fucking kill you for your cardboard quilt as soon as look at you, he was told by a stinking old drunk who turned out to be a famous writer once upon a time, but was now only notorious for being a hopeless drunkard. 'Sit-ups' they called him, on account of him having to sleep sitting up in order to avoid choking on his own vomit every night.

He had some chilling memories of being up top when he first got to Portland. Memories that still made beads of cold sweat spider down his spine and a look of child-like fear freeze his gaze whenever he allowed them into his head.

Now, panting in the underbelly of the city like Jonah in the guts of the whale, he felt that way again - too young and too green to be here, the reek of nievety coming off him like stale sweat. He was a little boy again hiding beneath the covers from the monster under the bed, pissing himself rather than put one foot out and onto the floor in case some thing grabbed it, the teenager wondering whether or not to take the shortcut through the cemetery just to make it home on time or take the well-lit way and be roasted alive for being late.

They were all closing in on him now - all the things he'd ever had to live with or get over or deal with. All those things that he'd overcome to get where he was, be by himself, not bothered by anybody anymore. He was a non-person, yes, not even a government statistic, he was nobody. And he'd worked damn hard to become him.

]]>Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:45:32 +0530http://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/04/02/Horror-1.html The green button

The house refused to let her in. Every time she dialed her entry code it said, 'Processing error" and asked her to try again. She tried the backup fingerprint recognition and that didn't work either. She stood out on the cold porch, shivering in her thin, cotton kurta, thumping in her entry code over and over again.

"Damn it," she tried to tell her house, near tears, "its me, its me. Why don't you recognize me ?"

Processing error. Processing error. Processing error....

This couldn't be happening. How was it possible ? Houses were the safest things in the universe. They never failed, wasn't that what all the advertising brochures said ? The company which constructed this house had told her this could never happen. But it was happening. The house just would not let her in.

After half an hour of trying she gave up and sat on the cold plasmetal of the porch. She had just returned from a very long working day, surviving the boring commuters shuttle ride back only by thinking of the cozy warmth of being home again, of her house welcoming her in, heating her favorite dinner, playing her favorite music and keeping the temperature to the exact degree she preferred.

She was rarely this late. About once a month she had to work in the head office in another city. They knew she lived on the Edge and usually sent her back in plenty of time. But this time her colleague had taken sick leave and she was doing the work of two people and she had cut it very close, thinking if she was back even five minutes before dark it would be fine. She would normally have had enough time to get out from the shuttle, punch in her code and be safely inside before the icy night began.

Instead she was here huddled on the narrow, pillared porch, with no warm clothing and no shelter. Her nearest neighbor was about fifty miles away and the shuttle that dropped her home had left her and gone.

On this planet the temperature drop was instant. When the third sun set, the darkness and the freeze descended with jarring suddenness. To be outside without a thermal suit after dark was certain death. And all she had to wrap around her shoulders was a transparent, handloom dupatta.

Why did I buy this damned house ? She asked herself. It was so remote she had almost decided not to. But the salesman kept pointing out that she could never go this hi tech at this price anywhere else.

"We are almost giving it away," he said, "wouldn't you like to come home and have all the chores done and your meal hot on the table ? This house is premium grade and its got everything. It's the latest dusty rose plasmetal that is totally weatherproof and guaranteed even in this extreme climate. Its fully armed in case you ever need to defend yourself. Two warning shots, then rapid fire, then household missiles if needed. All yours to command at the press of a button. There is literally nothing this house can't do."

She hesitated only because it was so far out in the wasteland. But he told her supply shuttles came in twice a day. "Just type in your list and the computer will order and receive everything and you won't even know its done. You will never run short of anything again."

Finally she had allowed herself to be persuaded. As a house it was a excellent deal. She could afford a lot more here on the edge of the world than she could have had in town.

Town houses were far too expensive. She could not afford the roofless houses in the most expensive centrally insulated neighborhoods. She would have had to settle for a tiny tenement with little automation, certainly nothing as hi tech as this. Imagine having to come home from work and start cooking and cleaning . No, this was a far better deal.

Well, it had been good for a while. The house had been everything they said, all the chores were done, the supplies ordered, the music timed, her favorite view channels set, bed made, pool cleaned, fresh laundry, perfect dinner on the table steaming hot. The secretary desk had her mail despatched, reports typed and papers filed with no mistakes at all.

She had even grown used to the desolate view outside. The house had no windows and the scenic walls inside gave her a far better view than the featureless landscape. Few plants could survive the nightly freeze. As far as she could see it was miles of flatland grey green scrub, the only plants hardy enough to thrive in this weather.

It had been a good buy once she was used to the isolation. Cheap at the price.

Much good that will do me if I am dead!

She had to get help and fast. She sat on the cold step feeling the cooling plasmetal through her thin kurta and fumbled in her purse. She had the SSKG Type E Developer's card, the builders of her house. She hoped it was still with her and not filed neatly by her secretary desk inside her inaccessible study.

After some searching she found it. At least her phone still had a good charge on it. She called. The phone kept ringing, her fear kept growing.

Finally a click and a cold computer voice said, "the number you are calling has closed for the day. Please call during working hours. Thank you for calling. Have a nice day."

Meera took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. Okay, she couldn't call the company. She had some personal numbers but they were in her desk. She would have to call an emergency number. Fortunately for her, regulations demanded that all emergency numbers be printed next to the keypad of her house.

She called and explained her problem. "I need you to deactivate my house." she said.

"What is the nature of the complaint ?" the mechanical voice asked her. "Is your house attacking you ?"

The question took her aback. Did houses attack people ? "No, it just won't let me in. Please deactivate it for me so I can get home."

"Please dial in your CIN or Citizen Identification Number."

She found it and dialed it in, wishing it would just hurry up. She was shivering in her thin day wear and uninsulated shoes.

"Please dial in your HSC or House Security Code."

Luckily she had that too, on the card they had given her when she bought the house.

"Please dial in your IIC or Income Identification Code."

"Oh, God, why do you need that ? Its in the house."

"Please dial in your IIC or Income Identification Code."

"Listen, I pay my taxes, just deactivate my house before I freeze to death, will you please ?"

"Please dial in your......"

Exasperated she hung up and kicked the plasmetal pillar. It made a hollow boom that didn't relieve her feelings at all. She looked through the list of emergency numbers and decided to try the police.

When she got into the Police computer she explained her problem again. She dialed in her CIN and HSC number and hoped it would not ask for her IIC number. To her relief it didn't.

"To self destruct dial 1, to deactivate dial 2"

She pressed 2 and the computer asked her to wait while she was connected to the House Complaints Cell. She waited. A flat mechanical voice came on again, thanking her for waiting assuring her that she would be attended to immediately. After the fifth repetition she was ready to hang up, only desperation made her hold on.

When she had almost given up the voice faded and another computer voice said, "House Complaints Cell. Please state your complaint."

"Thank god," she thought and explained her position all over again. "So can you do something to help me ?" she finished hopefully.

"We will deactivate and reset your house."

Meera found herself weak with relief. "Thank god, thank you, how soon can you come ?"

"Please dial in your......."

Here we go again, Meera thought, dialing in all the numbers. It didn't not ask for her Income number. She waited breathlessly as it said, "one moment please."

"Please fill in the House Deactivation form under section 537B-D-68."

"Listen, I'm way out in the middle of nowhere, and I have about five minutes before sunset. Can't you just deactivate the house and I will fill in any form you want later."

"Please fill in the House Malfunctions complaint, and the Insurance Claims Form and a Standard Disclaimer Form. When those are filed we will get a Court Computer Order to deactivate your house."

"Court order ....?" Meera repeated stunned.

"Deactivation requires a Court Computer Order under Section 538X-K-97."

"And how long will all this take ?"

"After you fill in the forms it will take less than 20 standard planetary days, or 30 local days to deactivate your house."

For a long time she sat with her head between her knees, trying to think of something. Her mind was a blank. She was tired and she was hungry. It had been a long trip and she never ate the synthetic shuttle food that looked so good and tasted just as metallic as the robots who served it.

It was the cold that aroused her. The shivering had given way to a growing numbness. It had become dark, the last sun had set and the soft porch light had refused to come out of the standby mode. The sensors were not working either. She could barely see in the nightlight and her fingers and toes were losing feeling. She knew enough about the terrible night chills to know that was not a good sign. I cant stay here, she decided, if I delay I will die.

In another few minutes the porch would become slippery with ice and if she was still there she would never leave.

I had better go back to the city and take a room for the night, she decided. Her hands were too numb to find the card that the shuttle cab had given her, so she tilted her purse and spilt all its contents on the floor of the porch. Her fingers were cold-clumsy sifting through the collected bits of paper. She was so exasperated that she threw her hairbrush at the door. It clanged against the plasmetal, rebounded and hit a pillar. It landed in the bushes outside.

She had just found the card when a whizz went past her head and the bush just off the porch exploded, showering her with burning leaves.

She jumped, seeing nothing. Another streak shrieked past her and burst in mid air above the small front garden. She turned her head and realized it was coming from the house. The house was attacking her. It had construed the hair brush as an attack and was firing its warning shots .

Panicked she grabbed her phone and the cab company card and ran, losing her dupatta and crunching the contents of her purse underfoot. She slid between the porch pillars, bruising her knees on the hard soil, a mere half second before the rapid fire began. The house was shooting at random, hitting the few frost resistant plants in her garden showering the porch with clods of mud and charred, foul smelling leaves.

At least it hadn't taken out the missiles yet.

They told me this could never happen, she thought bitterly. Why the hell did I let them talk me into buying a fully armed house? They told me that the safeties were so good the house would never attack unless I specifically programmed it. And now its attacking me!

The wall behind her shook. Somewhere to the left a plume of fire exploded sending a long column of earth and debris high into the air. The house had shot a missile.

Meera cowered against the porch wall, making sure she did not touch it. She crouched low, hoping the bushes would hide her presence, desperately dialing the cab service in the dying light. The explosions continued in the front garden.

"Traid Cab Service only operates from the airport." the mechanical voice told her.

The wall behind her began to quiver. The house had sensed her presence. She lay flat on the freezing ground hoping it would not consider that a threat.

"Please," she whispered into the phone. "Get me the number of a cab service, any cab service, please."

The wall subsided. Apparently the house sensed no danger. The booms in the garden were at longer intervals now.

"All computerized cab services shut down outer city runs before dark." the impersonal voice told her.

The ground under her was freezing. She tried to ignore the bone sapping cold. "Please, please," she whispered desperately, "I am dying out here. There must be someone I can call. Isn't there a single cab service that works after dark ?"

For a long moment there was silence. Then the metallic voice said, "there is a human cab service you may call. I must warn you that any human service is inferior and erratic and cannot compare with computer cabs."

"Just give me the number," she pleaded, too drained to do any more than hope.

After another pause the computer gave her the number.

She took a long, shaky breath and said a prayer as she forced her numb fingers to dial the number.

It kept ringing.

Pick up, for god sakes, pick it up, pick it up, you are my last hope.

It kept ringing.

She hung on, obstinately, remembering that it was human and therefore unreliable. Pick up, please, please, please pick up !

With a definite click a cheerful voice said, "Rajesh Human Cab Service. How can I help you ?"

The human voice after all those dead computer voices brought her near tears. She swallowed and managed to speak. "My house is shooting at me and it wont let me in. Please come and pick me up, please." she got it all out in one long breath.

"Hey, slow down, did you say your house wont let you in ?"

"Yes, yes, please I will pay you whatever you ask, please pick me up and take me to the city before I freeze to death." the phone almost slipped out of her numb fingers. She held onto it with both hands.

"Lady, if that's your only problem you don't need me."

He wasn't going to come. She panicked and started to cry.

"Hey, wait a minute," there was concern in his voice. "What I mean is its really simple. Did you say your house was attacking you ?"

"Yes, yes," she sobbed.

"Has it stopped ?"

"Yes, but please, please come and get me. Please !"

"If you still need me after what I tell you I will come, I promise you. Now listen to me. Are you near the entry key box ?"

Her teeth were starting to chatter. "How can I be? Didn't you hear me? It was shooting at me !"

"It has stopped hasn't it ? Don't worry it wont start again for at least fifteen minutes. Go to your entry box."

"I cant....."

"Listen lady, I know what I am doing. Houses attack people all the time. Just go to your entry box. Right now."

She got up painfully, moving with difficulty, expecting an attack any second. But the house didn't react even when she climbed the low porch steps. Her crumpled dupatta and the mess from her purse were lying scattered, rimmed with frost. She was too tired even to avoid them. She stepped on something that cracked and didn't even look to see if it was her credit computer or her data pac that she had destroyed.

"What do you mean houses attack people all the time ? I thought houses were the safest things in the universe !"

He sounded amused. "They have to say something. How else will they persuade people to buy houses armed with missiles and anti-air firepower ? Are you at the entry box ? Open it."

She blinked away the tears frozen to frost on her cheeks and fumbled with the catch. She almost lost the phone but managed to hang onto it and open the box.

"Good," he said. "Now at the bottom or side or someplace there is another lid. Find it and open it. What do you see inside ?"

It took her minutes to press the microscopic catch to open it. There were buttons and switches and circuits inside.

"Do you see a green button ?"

"There is a red button and a green button."

"That's it," he sounded confident, "press the green button."

"Are you sure ?"

"Of course I'm sure. Houses do this all the time. Go ahead. Press the green button."

She hesitated. "But what if it self destructs ?"

"That's the red button."

"But what if something goes wrong ? Why don't you just come and get me ?"

"Lady if you are where I think you are it will take me an hour to get there. Can you last that long ? Instead you can be home and warm in two minutes. Listen, I know what I am doing. Press the green button."

"But is it safe ?"

He sighed. "Lady, the green button will reset your house computer. Believe me, I get cases like yours all the time. Just do it."

Something in his voice convinced her. He seemed so very certain. She reached out a frozen hand and managed to press the green button with it.

She waited. Nothing happened. " it didn't work," she said.

"Sure it worked. Shut the box and punch in your entry code."

She punched it in, making errors with her unresponsive fingers, muttering under her breath, having to go back and correct the numbers several times. Rajesh waited patiently for her to finish.

Finally she got it right, finished the code and hit enter. For a long moment nothing happened. Then the porch lights blazed and a blast of warm air hit her as her front door slid open and the familiar computer voice said, " Welcome home, Meera."

She stumbled into the light and warmth and sank onto the soft carpet crying as the door whooshed shut behind her. "Oh, my god, it worked, it worked, the door opened. I'm home!"

"Good," Rajesh sounded pleased. " Are you alright ?"

"Yes, yes, I am. I just cant believe it ! I called everywhere and they told me I needed a court computer order....."

"Well, you're home safe now." Rajesh said. "And you know what to do if it happens again. Don't wait for it to attack. Reset it right away."

"I don't understand how it could happen ? They said it could never fail. That there is a backup and both systems can't ever fail together. Nobody mentioned any of this. They told me the house would never use its weapons at all. But it nearly shot me ! I could have died right on my front porch and no one would have cared !"

"That's the price we pay for living in a world run by computers." Rajesh said. "That's the price you pay for convenience. Do you know how many houses kill their owners every year ?"

At that moment she didn't care. It was a worry for tomorrow but today she was alive and safe and very grateful.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, getting up and going to her most comfortable armchair. Warmth was coming back into her limbs, her favorite music played softly, the walls were shaded with her favorite forest green theme and the table was laid with her special choice of dishes. The mouth watering smell made her suddenly ravenous.

"Just remember," he said, " and this is important in this hi tech age. Just remember that computers rule the world but there is always a green button."

" I will never forget that." she said, wiping her tears, smiling now, sitting down to dinner.

Home at last.

]]>Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:40:06 +0530http://ashokg1992.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/03/28/nbsp.html