HIGHWAY TO HAIL

Snowflakes are such bloody show offs. Like, okay, winter IS their personal theatre and they have every right to dance and pirouette and grand jete all they want to before, literally, coming to earth. But bloody hell, is it too much to expect 'em to have a little consideration for other things that would like share some air space with them. Like ruddy AIRPLANES.

"Ahem ahem", coughed my conscience, an absolutely hateful creature with the disposition of that crackpot Zimbabwean despot. " You have never really SEEN snow...you shouldn't judge like that......

....... ABWZEBMI!!" it yelled, staggering back, as I drew an( imaginary) icicle through its heart.

Back to the sniffling old snow. Yes, now, you. I don't care a frigging frigg if you plan to take Moscow, Paris , or Toronto by storm. But I warned you before: NOT the land of Rockefeller & Co, NOT...errr...Nouveau Pierre. We didn't need no cancelled airplanes. Honestly, don't the hearts of snowflakes ever MELT.

Sigh. I returned after that barking session with the Hounds of Hell, to deal with the NOW. What a shame! And I had actually started appreciating winter for once, you know, noting the prettiness of the fog, the spells of winter sun, the drama the least bit of red or yellow or purple bring in when it peeks out of all the dead colors. Even enemies appear appealing. Like even the sadak ke mad canines transform themselves into things of wolverine elegance in their dog-jacket haute couture.

So I had warmed up to winters considerably before news arrived. That it was snowstorm season in NY=> CANCELLED FLIGHTS.

I kicked my toe, bruised it and switched off Hey Soul Sister- it was making me irritable.

One can't kick one's toes more than ten times so one really has to think of new avenues. Averse to suggestions like clean your room! do something! turn off the TV!, I got experimental. I snooped into unheard bookshops, waded through their most doubtful literature and came back triumphantly clutching The Joy Of Lazing.

" This is my code of life! Every word of it! Look- The authors are even PhD s! This is genuine stuff! " I pointed at the book defensively as eyebrows around shot up. The eyebrows fell. The couch would be legally mine! I thought noting these signs of affirmation. The TV, mine, mine! I had very well located the Lost Scrolls! Screw going back! " Liberation" I cried, flipping through the book in glee.

Mid-flip, page 85: Eat Less.

In the background, my conscience conducted the chorus . Ice, Ice, baby. You know what the literal translation of it is in Hindi. Barf, Barf...sure, give me a basin.

The Great Gag in the Sky

Monster in the Backyard

It caught you, chased you down finally. And now the monster is laughing, its eyes are bloodshot, it is mad, raving mad and there are a hundred things running in your mind that you could say to make it see sense, if only it could listen.

It is a funny creature. It grew in your own backyard, did you know that, thriving on the very stuff that you wanted to get rid of, the stuff you threw out because you grew so sick of it. It chose for itself a friendless corner and there it grew, unseen and unsuspected. It grew against nature, it grew on death and decomposition, shunned by the sun and spurned by other backyard monsters.

Come on now. There are no monsters! It must have been just a bad dream, some psychedelic shit.. I say while you’re at it, throw in some junkie Euro music in the background! And some dark, moody lighting too!

The monster is laughing and your skin begins to crawl, such is the irony of its laughter. It sounds like a hundred thousand dying men crying out of agony. Of course. Hasn't it learned everything out of all that you tried to unlearn. Everything you tried to destroy, burn twice over and bury into the bowels of the earth. And even as you dug the graves, the earth-devils snickered. Like we'd keep your secrets!

And now ghosts! There aren't such things AT ALL! It's all in the frikking mind...

But without a brain or a motive, the pathetic little monster wouldn't have lasted too long. It was senseless, cold, dumb. But sinister forces were already afoot, and it was a matter of time before they discovered the soul less creature and possessed it as one of their own. Evil took root and spread out all over it, giving it something to call flesh and blood. The backyard had a monster.

Gloom. Failure. Disappointment. Revenge. The monster ate into the pile of rubbish that you had left lying in the dark reaches. And out of it, it fashioned itself a new brain, its own system of reason. An outrageous brain! A brain like a swamp, a thick, airless, stubborn world that rankled without reason, that knew nothing but malice and hatred. It couldn't process information, it could only drag every unfamiliar thing into its depths till it became one of its kind. It putrefied beauty, it suppurated courage. Wherever the monster went, it spread doubt and devilry, it haunted you to look into the dark recesses of your mind that you had long since shut.

Alleys

A metal chill over your shoulder. The breath of a steel blade? Thick darkness that feels so solid, you could be running into someone? Drafts of dry wind. One couldn't even fly out of this..

And then from the other end of the alley, framed by unreal blackness, emerged the Monster.

I would have to kill it but the real trouble was it's flesh and blood was mine. It's blindness was mine, its wrath was mine and it's death would be mine too. I hesitated. I had to kill it! I waited for Fear to consume me, but even terror came teasingly, lazily, taking its own time, enjoying watching me tremble. The ground seemed to turn into a bog, and it pulled me in but not fast enough for me to escape the Monster. I had to kill it! I forced my eyes open and willed myself to look at it hard. It had funny eyes..cold and dead..eyes that were turned inside out.My fingers curled automatically towards its throat, white and shivering but determined to do their job.

The monster flinched.

It lies limply at your feet. Take it with you. It's not a monster, its only a scarecrow, a harmless home-made scrap. A doll dressed with the odds and ends of your worst fears. Its eyes look so vacant now. It was only a lifeless sleepwalker.

Take back its remains, all the junk that is so badly rusted and distorted you can't even make out what it had originally been. Take it back with you and bury it well this time.