About Us - Ashvamegh

About Us: Ashvamegh Vol.II Issue.XXII November 2016

Ashvamegh Biharsharif, India [email protected], +91 7004831594

Editorial Board on Ashvamegh:

Alok Mishra (Editor-in-Chief) Murray Alfredson (Sr. Editor) Dr. Shrikant Singh (Sr. Editor) Nidhi Sharma (Sr. Editor) Vihang Naik (Sr. Editor) Pooja Chakraborty (Editor) Anway Mukhopadhyay (Editor) Munia Khan (Editor) Dr. Sarada Thallam (Sr. Editor) D. Anjan Kumar (Sr. Editor) Ravi Teja (Editor)

Advisory Panel on Ashvamegh: Dr. Swarna Prabhat Ken W Simpson N. K. Dar Alan Britt

Ashvamegh is an online international journal of literary and creative writing. Publishing monthly, Ashvamegh has successfully launched its 22nd issue in November 2016 (this issue). Submission is open every day of the year. Please visit http://ashvamegh.net for more details.

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Table of Contents: Ashvamegh Vol.II Issue.XXII November 2016

What is inside to read?

Cover

About us

Table of contents

• Editorial • Poetry Section • Short Stories

(note: you can download research articles and essays in a different non-fiction edition of the issue from the website)

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Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016

Alok Mishra: Editorial ISSN: 2454-4574

I don’t know if someone else in the past had said it or not, I think that literature is a fluid thing. If you think that literature is a phenomenon, then I will say that it keeps happening every single moment. If you that literature is a window, then I will say that the room you are talking about has only 4 large sized windows instead of the walls. What I want to say is that literature is just ‘that important’! We have lost one gem from our literature just some days ago – the legendary Leonard Cohen!

Leonard Cohen was one my favourite poets alive. Not only a poet, he was also very famous for his songs and especially the way he used to sing them. The literary fraternity will surely miss the figure who just left us alive ‘a thousand kisses deep’.

This weekend, the Ashvamegh Literature group on WhatsApp was discussing the topic ‘Global Literature’. Of course, the discussion was initiated by me and I wanted the academicians to think in a certain way which goes against the classic notion that world literature and global literature are somewhat same. How much I could succeed and how valid my arguments were can be traced here: “Discussion on Global Literature in Ashvamegh WhatsApp Group”

I have also another great news to convey. Some days ago, Ashvamegh has organized a poetry competition on our WhatsApp platform. The winners and all other entries can be seen here: Ashvamegh poetry Competition on WhatsApp. The theme of the competition was sympathy, and worth mentioning that we had a great deal of discussion the poems submitted. That was good to see.

I wish best to all the poets, authors and scholars to be published in this issue. We can surely make things happen! Keep on writing and reading!

Best wishes for the coming days,

Alok Mishra

http://ashvamegh.net/whatsapp-literature-group/what-is-global-literature-discussion/

http://ashvamegh.net/whatsapp-literature-group/short-poetry-competition-whatsapp-october-2016/

Poetry: Ashvamegh Vol.II Issue.XXII November 2016

• Grace Cavalieri (Featured Poet) • Gary Beck • Nidhi Sharma • Anandita Mitro • Waheeda Khan • Dr. Jyothsnaphanija • Dr. Richa Tripathi • Jim Saroj Winston

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Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Cavalieri: Featured poet ISSN: 2454-4574

Introduction to the Poet:

Grace Cavalieri’s new book is WITH (Somondoco Press 2016.) She’s the author of several books and produced plays. The most recent play, “Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory.” (Theatre for the New City, NYC 2012.) She celebrates 39 years on public radio with “The Poet and The Poem” now recorded at The Library of Congress. Grace’s career includes a co-founder of WPFW-FM; after that, Assoc. Director for Children’s Programming, PBS; and then a Senior Media Program Officer, NEH. She’s the founder of two poetry presses in DC, still thriving, and is presently the poetry columnist for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Grace Cavalieri was awarded the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from WASH INDEP REVIEW. She received the George Garrett Award from AWP for Service to literature, the Allen Ginsberg, Paterson Award, Bordighera, and Columbia Poetry Awards, A Pen Fiction Award, plus CPB’s Silver Medal.

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Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Cavalieri: Featured poet ISSN: 2454-4574 Hollow I fell for a guy who was going to die— I knew at the moment I met him— He was dying I tell you before he was born, drifting to dark out of light, even I couldn’t stop him. Can you imagine holding candles in the hollow of your hand? Can you imagine the wind blowing a candle in the palm of your hand? Do you see I’ve enclosed my heart in my hand, while I bathed in the light coming out of the dark, as I bathed in the dark coming out of the light. The deeper I got the higher he climbed toward the peak. The wind drifted the candle wisping deep in my hand. The moment I met him I told myself this is a guy who was born to die, who dreamed of standing on a peak surrounded by sky standing alone on a peak surrounded by sky. The crickets were dying every day by his side. The wish to be with the green as he fell to the trees— I did it anyway. I stood as long as I could on the peak waiting. I stood as long as I could until the crickets stopped singing. (the poem Hollow has been first published by Poet & Artists) A Well Known Thing (for Ken) I was confined to my youth giving the empty sky my attention and you murmured something impeccable, I’ll never forget— Careless, before you, trapped and rooted. Thank you for this, transcended, rarified, once love’s beggar now its belief. 3

Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Cavalieri: Featured poet ISSN: 2454-4574 Who We Are “The cry did knock/against my very heart…” The Tempest When we do not feel the hungry children in Biafra looking at tourists taking their pictures, then we are the camera. We are also the neighbor in West Virginia who shot his cat. See our hands on the trigger, no matter the gun. We are the karmic seeds of Viet Nam running ablaze with fire on our backs. We’re the hummingbird flying the Atlantic in March. Now we are Katrina because clothes were soaked, and when there were no more, when no help came, we were the empty verbs. These are the tears that come for Mozambique, Its children in the trees, waiting for rescue helicopters. All this, when there were other possibilities. Don’t you feel the heartbeat of the earth, the knob we could turn, the magical tree we could put back in the rain forest? Can you count the number of women sold to slavery we could wrap in warm cotton and bring back home? Riding an idea is like riding the wind unless we harness its lonely tumult. We are the sun on the cold hungry dog in the streets of Chile, the disfigured man in prison, the mass deaths in Bosnia, their thunderstorms. We are the shame of the soldier who thought he should die instead of his buddy. We are the broken clock of the widows of war. their last dreams filled with absence— Since we are the ones who did not feed, comfort or save—

we are the grave. 4

Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Cavalieri: Featured poet ISSN: 2454-4574 Refugees At sunset they do not fold their tents like tourists in Aruba. How shall we dress our children for their first fine day at school— The refuged do not worry about a dress, a suit, a fine day at school. And look at the photos of the African child dying in the camp with flies on his eyelids. He has no wish for the teddy bear sent from UNICEF. Did you read about that child in Arizona beaten to death for soiling his pants? Did you see that mother outside the post office hurl her one-year-old by his arm into her SUV? So you dreamed last night about a baby that you forgot to feed. It’s not a dream the refugees can afford to dream. This is why you write a poem. In fact, It’s all that you can do. You cannot know more, unless you are that child with a broken arm, or, the Mother with a baby crying at her drying breasts. If you are not with the exiled, captured, stripped and sold, then you are the one who must write this poem. 5

Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Cavalieri: Featured poet ISSN: 2454-4574 Almost Alone Behind White Wooden Doors Moving like interwoven monologues --Him in his studio -- I in my office Taking turns saying the Wrong words then Getting the language right But you knew by this title it might not Turn out good Then Athena goddess of Just War Came with her female literacy Liberating independence Blending force and nature And being a good girl Took us by the hands And walked us out to the unexplored meadow For year and years and years of it Showing us how reality can often damage the imagination.

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Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Beck: poems ISSN: 2454-4574 Introduction to the Poet: Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks and 3 more accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions (Winter Goose Publishing). Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Publications). His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing) and Call to Valor (Gnome on Pigs Productions). Sudden Conflicts will be published by Lillicat Publishers and State of Rage by Rainy Day Reads Publishing. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.. The Nature of Cities VI

Evolved monstrosities of fractious disorder, deluding dwellers with glims of culture that only console the comfortable, while the masses struggle to endure chaos, mad construction assaulting citizens, uprooting tendrils clutching for survival. The Flow of Capital Business is a profession that does valuable service for people who grow things with expertise in crop yields, not the process of transactions. And when people left the soil for the cities, the factories,

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Ashvamegh: Vol–II: Issue XXII: November 2016 Beck: poems ISSN: 2454-4574 they upgraded limited skills, adapting to new conditions, but were still dependent on specialists. Then we confused businessmen with doctors, soldiers, scientists, more vital practitioners maintaining the health of the nation. When we answered the summons to purchase homes, invest in stocks, we relied on the greedy, or the inept, who squandered wealth, then abandoned us when the system collapsed, callously bailing out in golden parachutes. Benefits of Democracy Political disclosures of graft and corruption no longer shock us, media educated between commercials for instant reception of sins of commission, quickly forgotten when the program continues.

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Nidhi Sharma: Poems ISSN: 2454-4574

Introduction to the Poet: Nidhi Sharma is senior editor at Ashvamegh as well as a Ph.D. research scholar. She loves to write poems which reflect the social realities in verse.

Balloons

Strange are the ways of this world.. miles apart we dream the same. Still my craving is different from yours.. Yesterday on red light I noticed Two boys same age... Looking at coloured balloons, Moving with wind, tied to a stick. Feelings were different however; One wanted to get rid of them, Other craved to get them... Only thing that separated them was, THE CAR's WINDOW

Blue Crayon

My sky was never painted too big I always fell short of that colour You...when i found I felt my sky growing I want to paint it large And you my love are my BLUE CRAYON.. Paint my world large.. Stretch it infinite.. Colour my life be my Sky

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Mitro: poem ISSN: 2454-4574


Anandita Mitro is 17 years old and she goes to Calcutta Girls School. She is a student of class XI.

I Need Not Be

I need not be-

The woman you dream of to be beautiful,

The girl you think of to be desirable;

Well dressed and fashionable to be modern,

Quiet and demure to prove myself modest;

Obedient to prove myself worthy and humble,

Kind hearted to prove my worth and measure;

Careful so that I may speak only chosen words,

Polite to prove myself decent and cultured;

Young in age to keep my beauty and appeal,

Attractive or dramatic to earn your attention;

A Feminist to know and want self-respect,

Submissive to the power of my womb and know that

I, a woman and a mother, am the masterpiece of Nature.

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Khan: poems ISSN: 2454-4574


Waheeda Khan is from Karwar in Karnataka. She is a Teaching Assistant at the Karnatak University P.G. Centre and teaches M.A. English students. She has been writing poetry for quite some time now. She has a book of poems published this year called ‘Frozen Smoulders’. One of her poems has been included in the Poetry Society India- Poetry completion 2015 winners and short listed printed in journal format. Also one of her poems is a part of an anthology published by Prof. Manu Mangattan of Kerela. She loves literature and its various forms and usually writes with the pen name ‘Soulful heart’.

The Family Case

One day at the court Came forth a strange case The Plaintiff charged the defendant- " She does not acknowledge her family"!! Judge asked " Who's your attorney? " Defendant declared, her own case Will be defended best, herself. Judge gave a chance, so

Defendant began-- " Who are family? Can these be my family?

Who never understood my twinkling hopes, How can they be family?

Who never understood my speech of silence, How can they be family?

Who never understood my breathe of contempt, How can they be family?

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Who never understood my wordless affection, How can they be family?

Who never understood the sadness behind my smile, How can they be family?

Who never understood my look of hidden plea, How can they be family?

Who never understood the suffocation of desires, How can they be family?

Who forever tried to imprison my identity, How can they be family?

Who forever prod an' trod my defects, How can they be family?

Who can never bear to see me at peace, How can they be family?"

And the whole court laughed. The prosecutor finally argued-- "Defendant expects miraculous qualities That do not exist in this world. Her complaint, hence Itself must be declared illogical!! Me Lord! It proves She does not have, the Civility of living in a family. So, I request your honour To punish the accused With solitary confinement And order, a severe psychiatric treatment!!!"

Today's World

Orphaned soul in a toned body, Burning heart within a smiling face.

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Because --- -- Every man, a hypocrite behind a mask; -- Every being, a maze of twisted persona; -- Every celebration, a darkness within Neon glow; -- Every face, a painted snap of an editing shop; -- Every step, a whirlwind of strife and toil; -- Every raindrop, a fresh kiss of rampant disease; -- Every conversation, a riddle of fake words; -- Every road, a choice in departure from emotions; -- Every happiness, a pain hidden behind a grin; -- Every sight, an un-quenching greed of envious wishes; -- Every moment, a search for goals an' deadlines; -- Every conscience, a dark quarry of style an' status; -- Every existence, a smoke rolled in deception; -- Every position, a step away from Almighty's fear; -- Every aim, a race, ripping away sane boundaries; -- Every hope, a mistake, embracing the grave's torture; -- Every city, every town, every hamlet A shadow, suffering amnesia of its shroud an' coffin.

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Dr. Jyothsnaphanija: poems ISSN: 2454-4574


Dr. Jyothsnaphanija is Assistant Professor of English at ARSD college, University of Delhi,

India. Her poetry has recently appeared in Pool, Page & spine, Literary Orphans, Foliate Oak,

short stories in eFiction India, articles in Café Dissensus, Wordgathering, eDhvani and others.

Her first poetry collection “Ceramic Evening” is forthcoming from Writers Workshop Calcutta.

She blogs at phanija.wordpress.com

Unwritten

Reading the in-between states

of happiness and loss,

Clouds kid at nature’s preoccupation

with creative songs.

The sky too speaks

Rain’s language

If not today, tomorrow

Voices of tuberoses

In our time-out memories.

Stop and think

Intimate strangeness.

My secret is

writing the process of being made younger.

Poetry is the simplification of inconceivability.

Wording similar thoughts

That translate the beauty of little things.

Our electronic lives are fatigue of light.

World has enough pictures.

I picked one glass of

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Intoxicated conscious

Easthetically poured

On musical nostalgia.

Inconsistency is our response

to fragmentation

We know that everything of the world

cannot be named.

Language

Memory is a translation

Of such ellipsis’s

Carried away by past cold

Atlases.

Plurality elevates music

As it does to revolt

In fairytales

Authenticity is twice rephrased into

Texts sure of their appetite.

Time is a conjunction that erases uncertainty in life,

Filling more blankness in the indexes between pauses.

I wonder! How did I become this much solitary?

I recall such abstractness of the spellings as singular in words,

Singular in wind, singular in pain.

Whose life is a metamorphosis from ambiguity towards loss, the

invisibility is of the ice alone.

Coldness is the accent, thickening the speech.

I recall how my speech remained under the heavy light, lite wind

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contrast contractions.

Afterlife

Voices I hear are hypocoristic in the light hazel screens of foamy evenings.

Enacted several times, still nervous at the turn.

The rain can prick, but the dying flowers too prick the sun with no usual returns.

Burning time in the curler, imaginary days are of too much purple ever.

Kabuki roles in my lost diary.

I try to spiral the manuscript again for an aesthetic cover page.

Prints and reprints of a happily ended story

Flowers open where few petals unheard, get drowned in mulberry snow or icy rain.

They die of fever, when syrupy words are inserted.

like tired castanets.

Colours keyed in satin cups

On quilted herbage

Sing in

Moving dreams

Hypnotistic thunder

Pays

The cost of

A hallucinating end

Occurs once in a life.

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Tripathi: poems ISSN: 2454-4574


Dr. Richa Tripathi is an Assistant Professor, in Galgotia College of Engineering and Technology, Humanities Department. Teaching graduate and post graduate students, she handles English and Professional Communication. She believes in uncomplex writing which touches the human heart. She has to her credit many papers, articles and poems published in different national and international journals and magazines.

THE WOMB

The Heavenly news of spring dew,

Living being in a curved womb,

A fresh flower, ready to bloom,

Divine angle grows with in you.

Granted plea of future parent,

Idyllic partner of playful siblings,

Set for lots of batting & dribbling,

Wheeze a refreshing fragrance.

Long wait of nine months,

Newborn enters in to a divine earth,

Mother’s pain gets its worth,

Wholeness achieved by divine wreath.

A colourful rainbow following heavy rain,

Memoirs breathe babyhood again,

Nostalgia, to relive and refrain,

God’s pious gift for the next human chain.

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Tripathi: poems ISSN: 2454-4574

From Nothing to Everything

Once

‘Nothing’ feels nothing

‘Nothing’ meets ‘Anything’

‘Anything’ finds something in ‘Nothing’

‘Nothing’ becomes ‘Mrs. Something’

‘Mrs. something’ gives birth to ‘everything’

And she becomes little everything's everything.

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Winston: poems ISSN: 2454-4574

Introduction to the Poet: Jim Saroj Winston from Trivandrum, Kerala works as an Audiologist by profession, a travel freak and musician by love.

Two World Collide! A vibrant evening in a rail station, Where man and machines meet for journey, Amid the crowd and yet from them, Sits two families by the root of an iron pillar, Two worlds, two world orders. One, as their attires speak from a lowly world, A mother and child, few summers hardly seen. Hails from the other world, a mother and child, Brought up with a silver spoon and factory food, Two worlds, two world orders. As the mothers sit munching and quenching, Near yet their souls so far apart, Habitants of a spherical earth where ends meet never, Drenched in own world, as if others don't exist, Two worlds, two world orders. Ice started breaking at infant’s end, First just stares, progressed to childish plays, Little explorers unnoticed first, Exploring each other, exploring around, Their Little pony's to their moms’ bags, Two worlds, two world orders. Joyful sight their childish plays, Oh innocence rare in grown up world, Strangers, yet as if they know from long, Ignorant of caste, creed and bank balance, Co-existence how it’s meant to be, Two worlds, two world orders. Just as they were getting along, The rich Mother driven by the rules, Dragged her child back to the silver world, Wiped him clean of the worldly dust, The child still clueless of his crime, Two worlds, two world orders. Though he paused for a second, the lowly child, Crawled to his mom's arms and hugged her tight, Perplexed, where and what went wrong,

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Winston: poems ISSN: 2454-4574

Staring at the worldly child, Beginners lesson always hurts, The lesson of two worlds and two world orders. An Ode to the Newborn

Little did he think, That night when he was born, That life is just a journey From one womb to another. From joy of solo journeying, To the wilderness of look alikes. From protection of four walls, To being restricted by four walls. A shift from being the wanted one, To a world that cares him not. From being bound by nourishing umblica, To being chained from all his dreams. Suspended in mothers smooth fluid, To being sunk in his own self. Dependent will he be , In this womb and wombs to come. Then one day he'll be ripe, And trance into another womb. Singing travellers tale, Inspired by his last stay. But little will he think, That night when he'll be born, That life is just a journey, From one womb to another.

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Short Stories: Ashvamegh Vol.II Issue.XXII November 2016

• The Unnamed by Shafinaz Sikder • The Final Goodbye by Soumyadeep Chattarjee

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Sikder: The unnamed ISSN: 2454-4574

“The Unnamed” Introduction to the Author:

Shafinaz Sikder is a course instructor in a private university of Bangladesh (United International

University). Shafinaz did her graduation and post-graduation on ELT and Applied Linguistics from

BRAC University. In past, she has also worked in different private schools during her graduation

program. At present, she is involved in researches and academic publications related to development

of traditional materials to suit her students’ needs. She is also interested in designing different

communicative materials to promote a communicative approach within the existing system of

teaching English language courses.

It’s a slow lazy morning and Bella is planning to buy her partner a cake. It seems like two

years have gone since they get closer to each other and never celebrated with a cake; the thought

of which kept her awake at nights. Bella, being conscious about her partner’s choice, was therefore

looking for a cake which will have a plain chocolate cover without any cream or any icing sugar

coating; a cake without any sorts of decorations actually. This kept her thinking for long hours,

“the cake will be even more better if its just the size of a pastry”, she thought to herself, because

that could be the only size which can be hardly preferred by the one for whom she has been

planning all this. This is also not because it is their anniversary nor its meant to be one of their

birthdays. Bella’s intention was just to take some photos together which they haven’t taken for so

long. The cake was just an excuse; for which she had all these planning. Therefore, to make it

happen, she put on the necklace she just bought with her partner’s money. Not only this, she also

put on her new sandals; in case of make-up, she used a light lipstick and clipped her hair somehow

funnily. It took about an hour for all these preparations and this time she carefully put the camera

inside her bag and then started for the nearest and cheapest place for buying the cake. This is again

because her partner could shout at her if the cake was expensive. The truth is she dreamt of buying

something expensive, which will cross her monthly budget of course but made up her mind to go

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Sikder: The unnamed ISSN: 2454-4574

for the cheapest cake available at the store. Worried about the cost, soon she came to know that

the bakery section was left with the last three cakes where the cheapest was around 450tk.

Disappointed at the rate, she decided to move out…but the desire to take some photos together

kept her holding back. After a long period of indecisions going inside her, she bought the cake and

asked for the decorative creamer so that she can write out something sweet on the cake…she also

planned that she will say that cake was of 400tk if asked; 50tk less than the original price. Making

the payment as soon as she can, she hurried away to the nearest restaurant, where she kept waiting

with inordinate excitement; to surprise her partner with the little tit bit. After an hour, her partner

came and soon got mad at her silly expenditure. For no particular reason, her partner opened the

box, got the cake out and cut it half and started eating it. She kept starring because her partner was

not eating hungrily, rather eating it with the hope to finish it up as soon as possible. She could not

take her eyes off; she was hurt though she understood. She understood that her partner did not like

the fact that the cake had their names on it; she did not know how to react…she just closed her

eyes…

The winter morning’s sunbeams touched upon her cheeks and Bella opened her eyes. It

was 7.30 in the morning but the fog has already passed away making the sky a bit clearer which

brought a big smile on her face. She turned on her left and noticed that her partner is getting under

the pillow as a mark of angriness on the falling sunlight. Quickly she got up and turned down all

the curtains getting back to the bed. The smile was back on her face, and she moved closer to her

partner…closed her eyes….feeling the serenity of lying down beside someone…someone who is

more than just special to her…someone for whom, no religion, society or tradition ever mattered

to her. This is because her partner is the only one with whom she can remain calm, stable and

contented…to such an extent that all the sacrifices would mean really less….And this is also

because its not incomplete though it is unnamed…..

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Chattarjee: The final goodbye ISSN: 2454-4574

The final goodbye

Introduction to the Author:

Soumyadeep Chatterjee is a 4th year student of engineering from Kolkata, who has a passion for stories and films. He never had a lot of friends, so books were his companion from an early age. He inherited the habit of reading from his parents, and gradually the reading habit gave way to writing. He has particular interest in the genre of short stories. He believes the genre gives one the challenge of exploring the intricate and complicated human emotions while limiting the word-length, as also keeps the story open to multiple interpretations from the reader’s perspective.

"Think again"

"I already have, and my decision won't change..."

"Well, it's not that things would change much by your death, and you know that...."

"Doesn't matter. I cannot take this anymore. It is an escape route, not a magic trick that would set everything straight. I need to escape."

"So you are running away, aren't you?"

"Look, I won't go into all these things again. I have made up my mind, so don't try to stop me"

"I am not trying to stop you. I could never do that. It's just that, what would become of me once you are gone?"

"Why? You're scared of loneliness?"

"No, but would I still be the same person once you are gone? Won't I change?"

"Remember the tiffin episode from the school??"

"That was different, we were kids...I reacted impulsively which I still regret..."

"Well, that day I realised you would do fine without me...."

The cold wind cut through the shivering bones, the surrounding darkness seemed to engulf everything possible. The leaves rustled to the beats of the harsh wind creating a strangely melancholic yet soothing music, a music which caressed his cold ears and took him to a happy moment of the distant and forgotten past.

"Don't go. I need you. You know that, don't you? I...I really.... really do..."

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"I have to"

"No you don't. Things change, you just have to give it some time."

"Come on, none of us is a kid. We know nothing ever changes. It's only the lives which end, the world, this magnanimous, ever-so-forgiving world remains just as it was, unaffected, unmoved. Had you still been that little kid, I might not have said this. But every adult knows that nothing in this universe ever changes. It's the same old story told again and again from different perspectives, and frankly speaking, I have got bored of that story. I want to write the end of the story in my way, just the way I want it to be... what? "

"What 'what'?"

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing. Why would something happen with me?"

"You are crying? I hardly remember ever seeing you cry. You are tougher than this, aren't you? Stop crying. You know your tears won't change my decision"

"Well then. If you think that is what is good for you, very well then. I hope to meet you soon. I must leave now. Goodbye. The final goodbye, that is..."

"Don't go like that. Look, I can't go peacefully if you leave me like this. The final goodbye cannot be so brief"

"Brevity is beauty"

"Yes I agree, but just few more minutes. Then we both can leave, towards our respective destinations. But for the last few minutes, let me enjoy your presence, let me breathe in your existence for the last time, and then the curtain would fall...."

On that lonely rooftop, time seemed to have ceased to flow. The wind still ate through the bones, the leaves still played their own music of melancholy, the darkness continued to engulf everything. He sat there, without the slightest of movement except the shivering. His eyes were moist, his hands cold and dry. He was feeling thirsty. There were no stars in the sky, only some opaque clouds floating aimlessly. He felt dizzy, his feet had gotten numb. But, his parched lips slowly curved themselves to form a mysterious grin. A grin which seemed to speak a lot, yet was incomprehensible.

Suddenly, the darkness was shattered by a sharp glow of light from all around. He could not keep his eyes open in the blinding glaze. The darkness was gone, the wind was gone, the musical leaves were gone, he was gone.....

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"Good morning. How do you feel today, young man?"

"Good morning doctor. I feel good"

"Just good?"

"No, not just good. I feel free. Yes doctor, I feel free. I feel free...."

"Yes I know. They have arrived, only the paperwork is left. Once that is done, they will take you, and then you would actually be free....absolutely free...."

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