Vanitha (UnCut)

Just a small addition I am making to the chapter already existing in Zephyra, as the image hovers in my mind. The faded text is whats already there and the darker one is what is added.

She thanked fate and chance for her much wanted solitude. But she missed some one. Perhaps she was missing her friend very much. Perhaps if she talked to Vanitha, everything would be alright again. Yes, there is no doubt about it. She stepped in to the coffee shop on her way to her dorm. "Hi", she tried to sound cheerful. 'Hey! Surprise visit?', the cafe keeper raised his eye brows. Zephyra giggled and asked for a chocolate, "No, not the Five Star, she likes Dairy Milk better". "Put it on my tab, Joe", she said and ran. She reached the third door on the second floor and after a moment's hesitation she raised her hand to knock.

***
Vanitha

Zephyra was about to knock, when the door squeaked open a little and Vanitha looked into Zephyra's eyes,"You don't have to knock. My spare keys are with you after all". "You can keep your spare keys.", retorted Zephyra, "They are not what I want to hang around with". The door opened fully, "Come on in", said Vanitha with her eyes cast down, "Please keep the keys with you". If anything has to be said about Vanitha, it should be her obsession with cleanliness. She kept herself tidy with hair parted in two plaits and plenty of talcum on her face. Vanitha preserved the orthodox ways of her mother. Her room was always tidy. If it were not for Zephyra, one would have thought Vanitha was a ghost. There would have been no trace of her having ever lived in the room. But Zephyra was her best friend and she could not bring herself to deny her friend when she wanted to fill Vanitha's walls with graffiti. Zephyra knew Vanitha well enough and so she drew characters from fairy tales on the walls, walking through forests, forests with black lines and curves. "What were you doing?", inquired Zephyra. "Sleeping", Vanitha replied with a shrug. Zephyra looked at the bed all neat and done, with out a wrinkle.

"Sleeping?"
"Yea", Vanitha sat on the edge of the bed, while Zephyra sat on the chair.

"You have not been to the classes for two days"

"Yea.. I am still within twenty percent limit"

"Of course you are. But you have not been out of your room for these two days"

"Of course I have been. Food does not grow in my room and I don't bathe in my room"

"Sure you don't", murmured Zephyra, "Have you been eating well?"

"What are you being so fussy about?"

"I have been eating alone for the last two days and I don't think I like the company of those ...",

Zephyra's voice trailed away.

"I am sorry. I just wanted to be alone"

Zephyra waited for Vanitha to tell her more. She waited and gave up. "Oh so you have been going through old photos? Feeling nostalgic, are we? Missing home?", asked Zephyra flipping through the album on the table.

"Hmm"

After another long wait. Zephyra wanted to slap and shake Vanitha. 'You are making me feel so lonely, you fool', she thought to herself and wished Vanitha would hear her thoughts.

"Hey! This is a nice pic. Its so sketch-able. I can turn it into a nice sketch, girl!"

Vanitha fumbled through her bag and produced a pencil and a sketch pad. Zephyra started sketching the photo. She marked the points to get her proportions right and then she began to make light lines.

"I think I am missing my grandfather now", said Vanitha, almost to herself.

Vanitha's grandfather had died of old age when she and Zephyra were in Chennai on an internship. It was sudden and Vanitha could not make a trip to pay her last visit. She last saw her grandfather two years before. She remembered going with him to temples and to buy grocery and when she parted with him, she never thought that would be the last time she would see him. Had she known, she might have taken a good look at him. She might have even stayed longer. When she heard the death news, she did not know how to react. She could not remember his face. She could not cry. She could not feel the loss. She lived hating herself for being such a cruel, cold-hearted person. She loved her grandfather so much, she stopped being herself after hearing the death news and not feeling anything about it. She renounced everything and kept herself aloof. Zephyra did not know what to do to help and would only look at the idol of Jesus on the crux and wonder what makes humans such wretched creatures. They returned from internship. One night, Zephyra heard hammering sound on the wall between their rooms. And then she heard muffled cries. Zephyra had to use the spare key to open the door, to find Vanitha hitting her head on the wall. That night she cried, like she never did. Zephyra did not understand whether she cried for her grandfather or for not being able to cry when she heard the news. When Vanitha told why, Zephyra cried, too, like she never did. From among those sobs and hiccups, Vanitha told Zephyra in a whisper, "I can not remember his face, Zephyra. I can't remember a bit. I wanted to remember his face before I cried", hitting her head with her palm.

Zepyhra still remembers the night Vanitha was hysterical. It was a cruel sight to see such an innocent child torn down by grief. That was probably the only night, the sheets on Vanitha's bed were dishevelled. There was broken plastic glass on the floor and a dead vase amidst the rubble. There were muffled shrieks in the room. There was blood where the nails ran over her face. Hey eyes were red as if the shortage of tears was forcing blood to be shed. Halfway through the madness, Zephyra embraced her friend, hoping she could absorb a part of the grief. In the very least she could stop Vanitha from hurting herself. But it was too much for Zephyra to take. The wound was too deep for Zephyra to understand. And Vanitha could see no comprehension in Zephyra's eyes. Only pity. And Vanitha could find no mercy, no comfort. She would leave no quarter for Zephyra's solace. She crumbled, weary, leaning against the wall. She buried her head in her knees and howled; so deep and grief-stricken, Zephyra was scared and left her alone. 'May be she needed to cry out. May be then she will find some peace. May be I am just defending my cowardice'. Zephyra stepped into her own room and sat by the wall, listening to Vanitha's cries on the other side. There is small lump bitter lump in her throat. It hurt her larynx, stifled the vocal chords. It seemed like an eternity to Zephyra, before the cries stopped. She waited. She tapped on the wall.

"Vanitha?"

"Anything. Anything for some memories. Please", Vanitha begged.

"Vanitha, are you okay?"

"Do you have to ask? Your eyes tell me, you comprehend. You know the answer. Give me what is mine. Please"

"What are you mumbling, girl?"

The glimmer of Darkness

The little boy sitting in front of Vanitha on his knees, reached for and raised Vanitha's head. He touched the tears flowing across her cheeks. He brought the fingers closer and examined the tear drops with interest. Then he smelled it. "I bet this is going to taste acidic, too", he said staring into a dumb-stricken Vanitha, with a little disgust. "Oh! You might want to listen to her", he remembered and pointed to a dark shadowy figure sitting on the bed. The boy stood up and proceeded to examine the room, the sketches on the wall, the broken shards on the floor and would later sit beside the figure on the bed, dangle his legs and stare at Vanitha with much amusement.

The shadowy figure made a conversation with Vanitha, but no sound emanated from her.

"I can't remember him", confided Vanitha in a whisper

"You love him so very much. But what you ask for comes at a price"

"Anything. Anything for some memories. Please", Vanitha begged.

"Even your life?"

"Do you have to ask? Your eyes tell me, you comprehend. You know the answer. Give me what is mine. Please"

"So do you, child. Not many judge me like you do. The darkness has the strength and the mercy to let the light glow. You shall have what is yours and in return I shall take what is mine"

Vanitha (Contd....)

'Oh boy! She has gone delirious', thought Zephyra and sprang to her feet. She ran to the door. "Open the door, Vanitha". Impatience is irresistible. Without waiting, Zephyra used the duplicate keys and opened the door, to find Vanitha standing, with her palms joined across her bosom and a smile on her lips, staring into the air. The sketch on the wall, thought Zephyra. Vanitha turned to Zephyra and said softly,"I can remember now. His eyebrows. His...". Vanitha now payed full attention to the wall ahead. "I can remember now. Yes. I can. Thank you. Thank you", she broke into soft tears, "Thank you. Thank you, Oh Angel of the Dark. Thank you" Zephyra, walked swiftly towards Vanitha and shook her, touched her forehead with the back of her palm, "You are running cold".

"I am alright", replied Vanitha and hugged her and sobbed softly.

Vanitha overcame her grief eventually. Things returned to normal. As normal as it can get, after losing someone very dear. Time, Zephyra believed, is a great healer. And Time, she also knew, causes new wounds. And so it was a matter of time, before Vanitha was overcome with another shadow. Only this time, Zephyra did not know whats ailing her friend. And she hated not knowing it. She felt a wave a relief when Vanitha admitted that she was missing her grandfather. She thought Vanitha is going to confess, but the confession never came. When Zephyra looked up from her sketching, Vanitha was trying to draw, too. Vanitha was never good with pencil and drawing and anything artsy. Vanitha drew up a stick and ball figure of a girl with flowing hair holding hands with another girl with two plaits. Vanitha looked up and beamed. Zephyra smiled and said, "You might want to give labels for others to identify". "Or, you could be the only one of those others to see this and you already know who is who", retorted Vanitha. Zephyra stared at Vanitha for a while, heard some one within her say,'She is just fine', smiled, held Vanitha's hand, twisted it to look at the watch and said,"Dinner?". "Sure", came the reply. 'A good meal after two days', Zephyra said to herself.

They groaned when they reached the cafeteria. They managed to gulp down some food and quickly went out to the coffee shop.

"Two coffee before we throw up", said Zephyra hastily.

"Another bad meal?", asked Joe.

"The worst"

"Hmm..", Joe handed out two cups of coffee,"A story?"

"Oh! sorry. Not today Joe. Taking a walk with Vanitha"

"Ok. Tomorrow then"

"Sure. Oh, add the chocolate to the bill"

Zephyra and Vanitha walked the streets, lit with yellow neon lamps, talking. Zephyra complained about Jessica. She talked about how she was scared about being caught dozing in the nonlinear dynamics class. She talked about how someone nicked the attendance sheet away and the professor threatened to punish the whole class. They walked back to their rooms, still talking.

"So you are gonna come for classes tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I am"

Zephyra thought she saw a tinge of grief, a lurking shadow.

"Sure? You want me to wake you tomorrow?"

"What? I wake up earlier than you", Vanitha tried to smile.

"Ok. Goodnight then"

"Goodnight"

Vanitha did not show up the next day either.

And thanks D. For the video of beautiful grandpa. I remember his eyebrows.
I know I am being senti..!

Jade

Awakening

(P.S : This is the short story from which evolved the short novel/long story titled Zephyra. Just felt like putting it here, now. P.S., btw, here stands for pre-script)

'... modified light-matter interaction between excitons and photons in ...'
'... for the first time that excitons can be controlled with an electric field ...'
She opened another book at a random page and finding the word exciton slammed it close. 'Its funny', she thought walking out of the library, ‘I never came across the word exciton until yesterday and now its everywhere I look!'
Zephyra is an undergraduate student studying physics. A hostel mate was talking to her about courses on quantum mechanics at lunch. After a long discussion on the number and kind of courses available on quantum mechanics and a short discussion on some of the things that Zephyra had learnt which she thought might interest a layman, the hostel mate had decided that Zephyra was a master in quantum mechanics. So she asked what an exciton is. Zephyra did not know and admitted it straight and sharp, despite how awkward she felt under the look the hostel mate was throwing at her. She never thought about it later. She never thought about things she did not need. She never carried much about her. Her luggage was just a backpack when she visited her parents during vacation. She did not carry a cell phone. She did not carry a iPod. She did not have those plugs in her ears – recent trend in fashion. She wore long light gowns and she looked very graceful and serene in them with her long auburn hair. The only thing she always carries, she carries it in her mind – lores on magic and legendary other worldly characters. She had washed her lunch down with a coffee and the question on exciton with a folklore the cafe-keeper was narrating. But today as she was looking for books on crystals and optics, she comes across the word in many books.
Zephyra is a curious child and never leaves unexplored anything she can lay her hands on. She is usually very scientific and modern in her thinking and outlook and is open to any view on subjects she did not study much. But today she would not explore and know what an exciton actually is. She was satisfied with what little logical explanation her intuitive brain had offered on the subject. 'It must be a state of a particle and an antiparticle which can emit light when the exciton collapses... must be something like that.. why do I care..' were her thoughts as she coldly walked out of the library. Logic came easy to her. Especially so, today, as her brain tried to give a hundred logics to explain that something preying on her mind.
Presently, she is inside a classroom attending a lecture on Nonlinear Dynamics. It is a large classroom admitting about fifty and a hundred pupils. The spanish professor is an old man with every bit of him a contradiction to every other bit: black hair and wrinkled skin, blue pupils and brown eye brows. He would appear complacent and rather lazy on the corridors and even in his office which makes it all the more surprising to attend his lectures delivered with such vigour and energy. Everybody attends his lectures, if not for anything else, to witness the dramatic change from sobriety to eagerness with which he reaches for his students; his eyes bulging large and bright, eye brows flying high above their boundaries, hands and fingers jutting out in random gestures. But none of this held any attraction to Zephyra today. Science no longer held its sway for Zephyra. Perhaps, it will never anymore. 'Having studied logistic map in detail, bifurcation and ljapunov exponent, we will now close this course with two lectures on physical manifestation of all the theory we have learnt, a phenomenon called SYNCHronisation. We will first do away with maths...', proceeded the professor, walking towards the green board. Zephyra paid no attention and was deep in thoughts about herself.
Zephyra was a Brazilian by descent, but was born and raised in India. Her mother told her stories of her grandfather living in the forests, of imaginary superheroes, of the Amazon woman. Zephyra was enchanted by all those stories. She would not sleep even at this age, with out her mamma telling her a story. She would go to sleep imagining all those stories. She fancied she had superpowers too. She thought she would one day show the abilities of feline creatures. She would imagine at school, at lunch watching her palms. She would imagine that any moment then, a claw would show itself and she would retract it before her friends see. She would imagine this everyday. Despite the daily reality, she was never disappointed. She would dream of lions, tigers and cats. She would dream of being the queen at whose feet lay those lazy feline furballs, pretending to be asleep but ready to jump to action at her command. She would dream of small adventures. She would get hurt now and then and she would lick her wounds. She would dream of becoming one with nature. Everything was as she pleased until yesterday. Yesterday, she was pushed off a cliff. She was facing the earth during her fall, feeling the winds' slippery clutches on her slim body. She was frantically looking for something to stop her fall, but there was nothing within her reach and only the earth waited 70 feet below from where she was pushed off. She did not notice who pushed her. May be it was the wind. May be it was in her head. But she no longer cared about that. She was falling. She began to imagine how her own weight, despite being way too low for her age, would crush her on impact. She could no longer imagine the strength of feline limbs supporting a fall. Fear tore at her heart while the wind ripped through her throat, across her eyes bringing tears and across her ears howling and screaming like wolves and owls on a haunted night. She wanted to look at the green wilderness surrounding her for one last time, but her head was in the clutches of her emotions, fixing the vision to the approaching terrain, calculating the impulse of the impact, wondering if her fragile bones can withstand it. 'Fragile? Feline bones ain't fragile. Oh! But what am I thinking, even in this damned hour?', her thoughts raced. But she has got no time to think about anything now. She is only a moment away ...
... from scaring herself to wake. She woke up to find herself drenched in sweat and tears. Feeling the tears on her cheeks with her fingers (her fingers were long, longer than an average woman of her age) she doubted if it was real. But her logical brain was already giving an intuitive explanation: 'must have been crying out of fear'. The dream indeed felt so real to her. She remembered the rough terrain, every stone and pebble and a worm. She remembered the heavy gravity with which she was pulled down. But she missed. She missed and woke from her sleep. She got off the bed and walked to the dressing table. She was very thirsty after the wind dried up her throat. She picked up the glass and raised her head to drink. The feeling of that vague safety turned to true horror as she stared at her image in the mirror. The glass slipped and shattered, making the noise of hands clapping!
Her attention is brought back to the classroom by the sound of the claps. She flushed thinking the professor had caught her daydreaming and has asked the class to wake her up by clapping. She was going to stand up to apologise, but the professor raised his hand signalling to stop the clapping and spoke, 'Did anybody notice anything?' A confusion of confessions from the whole class was accepted as “Yes”. 'Yes. That’s right. It started off randomly. But after a while, you heard everyone clapping in sync. Now, see this', he said, showing a video of fireflies near a river bank, 'it’s a video I had taken on my visit to Japan. The video is being played faster than the real time to mark the drama.' Zephyra watched a single flash here and there slowly begin to synchronise and a few moments later, it appeared as if all the fireflies were flashing together in a state of artificial trance. The professor spoke again, 'I am sure not all of you have heard of synchronisation before this course. I am sure most of you have never seen it happening. But now that you know what it is, I tell you, you will find it everywhere you look.' Zephyra raised her eye brow muttering to herself, 'déjà vu?' The end of the hour bell rang and the class began to disperse noisily. That noise only fell on Zephyra's deaf ears, for even now she can only hear the howl and scream of the air in her flight. Zephyra dragged herself out of the class, bumped into a few willing people, excused herself inadvertently and walked out of the common corridor towards the college entrance arch. The evening is hot. The air near the arch pillars is shimmering. 'mirage', she thought to herself. The bright saffron sun is making its way to bed steadily. She can see people leaving college in groups – twos and fives mostly. The singles are running. She felt tired. She is grateful her jealous mates are not here today to bully her. She thanked fate and chance for her much wanted solitude. Little did she know, it was not any fate or chance. Even so, she could not help thinking. Doubt, fear, hope lingered in and out of her reach as she thought of dreams and ‘déjà vu’s she had in the last few hours.
Zephyra always fancied being a superhuman. She would look at birds and animals and imagine and believe she had the power to talk to them. Little did she know that she was indeed destined with a extra ordinary power. But it is nothing like she imagined. She never would have imagined it, if she had not seen herself in the mirror this morning. She wondered, now that she knew, if she would find people like her. She has many questions. She wants answers. She remembered the professors words, '..now that you know what it is, I tell you, you will find it everywhere you look.' She wondered if ...
'Hello Zephyra!'
Zephyra stopped and looked at the stranger boy from whom the abrupt greeting cheerfully ensued. He is tall and handsome and there is something else about him that she could not put her finger on. He is standing where the pillar is, and it looked as if he was some kind of gel, letting the flesh ooze around the stones on the ground and the metal grated cylinder of the pillar.
'I know you have had enough surprises for a day and I promise this would be the last for the day'
She realised now that it was everything about him she could not put her finger on.
'Who are you? And how are you doing this..'
'Let’s just say it’s what I am. The philosophy being that there is no difference between different matter. I can manifest myself through any material. It’s my power. I have my powers just like you do yours.'
Zephyra's heart skipped a beat and just as hastily as that happened, she said, 'How do you know?'
'Oh! Everybody knows what Zephyra means! Don’t you? Though I don’t know what you mean, Zephyra’, he said casually winking.
Zephyra stood with her hands crossed, brows furrowed.
‘Ok! Well, I will be short and straight, though you can see I am tall and not so straight'; he waited for some reaction, but finding only fury, instantly turned contrastingly sober. 'The awakening signals everybody of our kind. We have been waiting for you, Zephyra. Aeon awaits you.'
'Who is Aeon?'
'You will know, in time. For now, I am to deliver this message to you. There are people like you. So have no fear. Have this', he said.
She looked at the brandished sword. 'must be made of iron', she thought receiving the heavy sword. She then spoke her thoughts out loud, 'I don't know how to use ... but why would I need this?'
'Don’t worry about your incapabilities. Raven! She will come to you and you need to stay away from her. Use the sword to protect yourself', the words were tumbling, 'Go home now and rest and don’t try and force anything', he said, beginning to shimmer.
'Wait. I have questions. I don’t even know your name..', she wailed as he disappeared. Honestly she did not know if she was glad to find another of her kind and to know that there are many more or to be disappointed at being ignored or fear the prospect of having to use a heavy iron sword against an unknown enemy. Both the adjectives made her shudder. She is allergic to iron and heavy objects. If the worst is to come, she does not even know how to use her super power. She did not have control over it yet. She has a vague idea how it manifested this morning, though she did not know why. She began to rehearse. She was falling off a cliff. She must have imagined it to be real, for it was indeed so realistic. She must have fancied using superhuman powers. She had always imagined being some sort of a cat woman. She could have imagined having healing powers. But she was falling. She was frantically looking for something to stop her fall, but there was nothing within her reach and only the earth is going to stop her fall. She could no longer imagine the strength of feline limbs supporting a fall. Fear tore at her heart while the wind ripped through her throat, across her eyes bringing tears and across her ears howling and screaming like wolves and owls on a haunted night. She wanted to look at the green wild surrounding her for one last time, but her head was clutched in her emotions, fixing the vision to the approaching terrain, calculating the impulse of the impact, wondering if her fragile bones can withstand it. Fragile? What was she thinking? But she did not have time to think about anything then. She was only a moment away from crushing herself into the relentless ground beneath. She touched the ground. Stones and pebbles almost struck her face. But she felt no pain. She woke up and walked up to the dressing table to quench her dry throat.
In a small span of attention she realised she had walked to lake side road. This road is usually deserted and it is no different now. Not a soul in sight. Looking down on the road ahead, a strong urge filled her. She dropped her bag off her shoulder. It hit the ground with a clang of the iron sword. Drenched in desire, she started sprinting. Memories returned. Logic and intuition concurred with the same conclusion. Realisation dawned on her, a black blurry mass flew beside her and as if in pursuit, she took off, unfurling her wings!
Anxiety became awe as she stared at her reflection. The glass slipped, shattered and so did the many feathers from her back, the fallen fragments of feathers and ligaments crumbling to vanishing dust!

--
Jade & Raven

Zephyra

Zephyra! Oh my Zephyra!

Can't tell you what it took to reach here.
It was a tiny two page story based on a fancy I had two years back and now it blew up into huge story. Never wrote a story this big till date. And I am afraid I might have dragged a little too much and made the story boring. But, honestly, most of it is patched up from bouts of spontaneity. I have put the entire story in one page.

http://shortnovelzephyra.blogspot.com/

In the end the only chapter I liked in the novel is the chapter titled Vanitha. But please be generous with your comments, suggestions and complaints. It probably needs more editing, especially because I have totally screwed up the tenses. But I am tired now. Some other time, perhaps.

nja,
Jade

some announcements

I decided to put whole stories and poems and other whole works here and move my other muses and the rest of the material to another blog, the link to which you will find under My Journal in the side.

And I am also planning to add another blog where in I plan to re-tell stories: mostly mythologies and legends. Its more of an attempt to gather those stories than to express my talents in re-telling.

Of course all this will take some time... meanwhile I put a story that I wrote long time back and edited now. I wonder (painfully) if editing made it better or worse!

nja!
Jade

Quote n Quote

Well.. we (me and Raven) have a special entry today. This is not an extract from a story. Its an extract from lyrics for Ani DiFranco's Grey.. the song that I, sort of, identify myself with.

.....
I smoke and I drink and
Every time I blink
I have a tiny dream.
But as bad as I am
I'm proud of the fact
That I'm worse than I seem.
What kind of paradise am I looking for?
I've got everything I want and still I want more.
Maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore.
....

Its that tiny shiny key that might wash up on the shore... What kind of paradise am I looking for?

--
Jade.