Editor's Choice

This is going to be eclectic, thought Vedatri and forced her focus back on word one.

This is me. I had thought so when I typed the words on the virtual page. Earlier the words were real -- they formed distorted doodles on used-pages. On so many accounts, I have diluted banter all over the walls, and over my jeans. I have also smeared the bodies and t-shirts of those I have bedded, with lines and lines (straight and sentences). And then of course there was/has been the blackboard. I am now used to whiteboards and translucent glass panels and bedsheets, floortiles and bottles. These days when I deliver exclusive and highly paid lectures they are because I shun the PPT and opt for the whiteboard and multi-coloured markers. But that was now. The even faster now is creepy. It feels like a blackboard once again.

The blackboard is inside my eyes, pearl-like white words etched with some surreal, some real meanings. Flowers burst into blossoms and fish flow out of them, to dive into a field marked by waterbodies. A little girl sits on one of the mould of lands and looks into the water, coloured snakes pop up. Some are vividly blue while another was a velvetty red. A train whistled somewhere nearby, and her stories lost plot, one with the ripples that fought against stillness. As my eyes open, the I desperately try and hold on to the words that are now drowning into unknown waterbodies. 

Poultry remains of deliberations challenge the hefty reasonings of associations. The grandeur of logic eventually collapses. I pettily give up, once again. What else could I do? I give in to laundry and grocery and concern over cholesteral. Unwelcome debit messages alarm me. All my glamourous poetry is cut out as ruthlessly as things-to-do. Things such are jobs and steps to be taken in pursuit of passion. Things that are monster-headed and chew to bits my soul. This is me then.

Vedatri chewed her lips bitterly. She had to bend the rules. Sometimes being the Boss came with its own bites, like Ukti's 314 worded tale. Vedatri knew she would have to fight her team to place this on the top-three, but it was "ridiculously similar" to her life, to not be voiced. She slumped back into her chair. Fourteen words beyond limit. And she clicked on "Enter" thinking of 'things such are jobs...'

Couple of weeks later when Ukti's tale was announced first, Vedatri let out multiple sighs of relief. There were many others who did not know how to save the drowning words. She felt safe, creepy safe. And that is how we cut into each others' lives.