42 Quirks

Did I tell you about the time when I saved the world?

No, really. I did.

It happened like this.

I was on my way home after a long day’s work. And I was really looking forward to some R & R, mindless channel surfing on the telly coupled with a hot cup of coffee and jelly-filled cream biscuits…

Along the way I was cogitating - thinking, that is - about the problem I had left half-solved on my lab desk.

The solution to it was just around the proverbial corner. Except, the proverbial corner was not in proverbial sight, far as the proverbial eye could see.

Too many proverbial what-have-yous spoiling the proverbial whats-it-called.

Engrossed in my thoughts thus, I was traversing my daily route, almost robotically, when I heard a wheezy, “Excuse me?”

I stopped to see who it was that the voice addressed.
(more…)

One gulp.

That’s all that was remaining. And a gulp was a life-line.

Should he use it now? Or should he wait for things to get a little clearer. But, using it now would mean that they would get clearer. Yeah, he’d use it.

No, wait! What if things would get clearer anyway? What if using it was actually wasting a perfectly good gulp? And the only one? No, he decided. He’d wait.

The horizon stretched before him, and his vision was sort of blurred at the edges. A trick of the light, he told himself. A few meters more, and I’ll find it.

Find what, came the question. Whatever it is that I am supposed to find, went an answer from nowhere, to nowhere. An oasis, another question was instantly shot back? Yeah, maybe. Just keep moving.

And so, he kept moving.

(more…)

It is now time to introduce a surprise element into the story. Nothing about her existence will be revealed except for one small fact – that it is an entity of the female specie.

Alright, alright, it is a woman, to be precise.
——–

She watched the events warily as they happened

Each time the universe collapsed, she had distinctly felt an almost uncontrollable urge to snap her fingers.

Of course, she had no clue that doing that would bind her irrevocably to three other destinies that she had been following closely – albeit, merely out of curiosity.
Mercifully (and surprisingly) she had not yet given in to her almost uncontrollable urges - snapped her fingers, that is.

She had observed the entire proceedings right from the beginning. Her interest, however, had been piqued when she saw the duo collide.

Before that she had been vaguely aware of six cups of black coffee being delivered to the same table – all within a short span of two hours. Only, she wasn’t sure if the coffee was being consumed by the same person each time.

You see she was trying to focus her Chi. So she couldn’t really have noticed. You can’t focus you Chi if you are busy noticing inane things such as six cups of black coffee being delivered to a table and wondering whether they are being consumed by the same person. Tut, tut!

(more…)

And so we continue…

——
The Story so far:

Nothing much, really.

A girl who drinks a lot of coffee. A guy immersed in Tarantino-Kubrick-Greenway films. Another guy who does not believe in omens. Put the three of them together at one coffee shop and what do we get?

Nothing, really.
——

He couldn’t see him, since he had his back to the entrance.

The waiter approached him and without warning suddenly swooped down towards his leg.

The first thought that flashed in his mind, was typically Tarantino. Is this waiter a were-wolf? Is he gonna bite my leg off? His questions ended up in disappointment as the waiter retrieved a pretty silken scarf and held it in front of him.

It was definitely pretty. Colors seemed to jump in and out of it. It would have looked pretty on any girl, even the librarian. It would have looked even prettier on the girl who had just collided with him, a few minutes back.

A faint thought rumbled in the deep confines of his brain.

He remembered thinking about olives when they had both fallen on the floor. Now he realized why. The girl had been smelling of olives and lemon. Maybe it was her perfume, maybe it was her shampoo.

And then, another thought rumbled in the deep confines of his brain. This one was quite far from the first one. But somehow, with a mighty effort, his brain managed to co-relate the two, and he brought the scarf near and sniffed it.

And then, the Universe collapsed, again.

(more…)

He stepped out of the auto-rickshaw, and paid the driver in a hurry.

“I don’t have change!”

“Keep the friggin’ change!!”

“Hey thanks! You might smell funny, but you have a golden heart!”

The funny smelling guy made his way to the café entrance and was about to step in when the importance of the auto-rickshaw driver’s remark hit home.

******

It had been a really bad day.

The first thing he did every morning was wake up on the right side. Today, it had been the left. And then as he was brushing his teeth, she had called.

He really should have ignored that call.

(more…)