Afterthought

The flames were rising. The ashes strewn left a stench unbearable, charred corpses, bloodied and scarred beyond recognition - cries of anguish filling the air.

The enemy emerging, defeated and deflated.

Yet, the feeling of pride didn't come. The emotions of jubilation and triumph failed to surface.

Such was war.

Victory maybe yours, but the lives lost make it seem petty...futile...all in vain.

The tide

The tide came. It brought along good news.

But the deluge wasn't far behind. The good news just a mere euphemistic shamble for the bad tidings.

Darkness was to be the only survivor. Even shadows would flee soon. Nothing but despair and quiet desperation.

The light at the end of the tunnel had been long since put out. No angel had come down to reignite it.

The blasphemies of childhood and youth were now being mangled. The idiocies were now being brought to consciousness.

"All is not well," people say. But who is there to listen? Who is there to champion their cause?

Nobody. No one. Not a single soul in sight.

Humour and laughter have long since fled. The mournful sorrow, the bleak horizon stretching beyond vision, with no signs of retreat...

The plumes are rising, the earth is being swallowed, slowly but most definitely.

Life is coming to a hollow stand still.

The end is near...

Nearer still..

Its come!

Reflections

She took her time, she did. No matter how she saw it, her world had completely slipped from its axis. Nothing was in the right, right then.

All was fading...and she couldn't do anything about it.

Just as she was about to jump off the abyss, a voice called out to her.

"Where are you going my child?"

She swiveled back to find an old woman, leaning heavily on a cane. The woman's face was wrinkled, her lips were chapped, her skin all mouldy. But her eyes! Deep and sunken though they were, the moisture in them mirrored her anguish, her fear of the unknown.

The girl stood there, rooted to the spot. She willed the old woman to come to her.

But the old woman didn't budge.

Both stood, waiting and watching.

Finally, the girl took one step back, the old woman did the same.

She then took a step forward, the old woman did the same.

She took another step forward...and another...and another...

Finally, they both stood right in front of each other. The girl saw herself reflected in those dull and misty eyes.

The old woman finally spoke, "Let your sorrow go my child. Its not worth it. You have so much ahead of you. Don't let something like this sour your future. Let go of your sorrow. Let go of your anguish. Let go my child. Let go..."

CLARITY!

Mother I need thee... - the catharsis of the burning child.

Dear Mother,

It is often said that no matter what a child does, her mother always finds it in her heart to forgive her for whatever she has done. She always absolves her of any blunder she may have committed.
But what I have done cannot be trivialized as a mistake/blunder.
I have sinned Mother
I have betrayed thee.
I ask you now for your forgiveness.

As I look back at the life I have led, I shudder to think of the way I have strayed from the path you had shown me - the right path.
In my youthful arrogance I never once considered it the right path. Today, I bear the price for it.

But I will never let the shadow of my misery even touch you Mother. You are that precious to me. With you in my life, I can always look forward to happier days.
----
Do not turn your back on me Mother. My claustrophobic guilty conscience will not let me escape my past.
I need you by my side the most tonight. I want to put my head in your lap, I want you to rock me to sleep, I want to hear your beautiful musical voice sing to me Mother.

For, the chasm ahead of me is deep and wide. I see no hope for return. I see no end to this misery.
This is my imposition ... my comeuppance!

And now, as I stand here, on this precipice, I have one thing to say to thee -
Forgive me Mother. I have betrayed you.
Forgive me Mother.
I am sorry.
I love you.


----

And then she jumped........

Bleak

Her eyes loomed across the horizon, looking for that elusive something. But her hands grabbed at nothing. Her unblinking eyes stung with tears, her heart stuttered, her life desolate.

She moved with stealth to the nearest trash can. Her groping hands looking for something to bite into. She found a half-eaten rotten sandwich. Her mouth salivated in anticipation of the food, her stomach growled, but her mind shrank from the stench the sandwich gave out.
Yet, her desperation was too great, her hunger even mightier. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she sank her teeth into the sandwich.
Bliss she thought as she blanked her mind momentarily from all the warnings it was sending her. She knew she wouldn't be able to find anything better than this. This was all she could get.
She was content for now.

Her feast over, she gazed up at the moonless night, the stars were also hiding. Bleak. Distant. Fading.

She got herself up on to the pavement and hugged herself tightly, the harsh winter in no way helping.
There she lay, frozen in the cold biting weather. The scurrying rats, her lullaby, she slept.

The goons came in no time.
They mauled her, groped her...she let them.
For she didn't have the strength to fight.
All was dead inside her.

The rag picker!

The Prison Cell

The walls were dirty and grimy. The stench of blood, the dried mud on the walls and the floors, the smell of stale food and sweat lingering in the air - the loud snores of the sleeping men, the dull thud of the beefy guard's footfalls, the soft cackles and sniggers of the crudes ogling the lady gaoler.

The prison was just another place which reflected the ugliness of his life. He'd started early, making his way to the most-wanted. His name featured on every cop's hit-list. He'd stooped low, lost his pride, given up all hope and learnt that life despite all its euphemistic incarnations was one ugly sordid mess. To him, existence was just something that was an everyday affair. He never questioned any thing, it was as if he didn't have a mind of his own. It was as though he was programmed to do everything on autopilot - nothing came to him naturally.

The guard rattled the bars on his cell. 'Sleep time' he barked and was on his way again. The crudes sitting on the bunk in the opposite cell, fell silent for all of two moments, smirked and went back to having lascivious thoughts about the opposite sex.

In the corner, he could see his small dirty plate of food - untouched, unpalatable. A family of rats had settled themselves in his plate.

He knew his sins were unpardonable, yet he'd begged for mercy, pled guilty (wanting to suffer for his actions perhaps) and had been penalized with solitary confinement.

Anybody who saw him would know that he was a hoodlum. His dark scarred face, bloodshot slits for eyes, a snarling mouth...he looked more beast than man. His appearance had always worked to his advantage. People shuddered when they came anywhere near him. Children ran a mile when they saw him approaching.

She had done so too. Her shudder of fear had completely undone him. Her initial wariness had given way to plain fright anytime he came anywhere near her.

He learned to love her from a distance. A man in his field, could never betray any sign on emotion - it spelled weakness. And he was no ninny.

And then that dark night, in a dingy alley he found her broken, scarred, mauled, dead. He'd scooped her up in his arms, the rain magnified his despair, his helplessness.

He hunted them all, he killed them all. They'd taken her life, he took theirs.

He'd then walked into the nearest station and surrendered himself - never walked out a free man again.

The next morning when the guard entered his cell, he was dead.

Grey

As the name of the blog and this post blatantly suggest, this blog is essentially about matters of 'the' grey. Unlike Dreamland: La Push and Dreamspinner, this blog here would have very few 'happily ever afters'.

So I'd like to welcome you all to:

Noir Me.

Priyanka