Author: Reena Saxena

The masses were clamoring to lift the lock-down, encouraged by a loudmouth elite. Safe in his gated community, he went as far as promoting a naked love-in on the lawns of capitol buildings across the country just to show there was nothing to fear from the bogey of the virus. Most of the naked protestors were arrested and crammed into holding cells overnight until their arraignments for indecent exposure could be processed.

Two weeks later hospital emergency rooms were packed with individuals needing to be placed in quarantined intensive care on ventilators.

Dr. James Smith was one emergency room doctor working day shifts all that week. He was meticulous about using clean protocol to avoid catching the virus from the scores of people too busy trying to stay alive to regret their selfish and impulsive following of a narcissistic madman who got a hard-on at the thought that people would…

He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors and tools.  What would he paint?  *

Eyes reddened from tears
he bears his soul, like a wolf
howls into the emptiness

No response

Life shrinks at the sight of him
wounded creatures fearing
his motivations, advances

Entrapped

Escape alludes – walls
structures of his fear
he is his own obstacle

Alone

He will find his bearing
claw his way through faithlessness
Solitude, after all, an ally to his breed.

(For Reena’s Exploration challenge:  *quotation captioned.  Image my own.)

 

For days I stared at the blank page, contemplative,

as I tried to gather the universe in metaphors

pen paralyzed, poised plaintively

words voiceless, suddenly amiss

endless time on hand stretching like a lazy cat

wasted on a futile pursuit of awol ideas

left high and dry by the secretive, masquerading muse

disgusted with the fickle-minded creativity

I wander off to the balcony, my favourite perch

only to be met with the baleful gaze of

the occasional visitor, the one-eyed crow

the nearby mango tree is half stooping

laden with flowers and a bevy of brown bulbuls

who trill merrily, a chorus so uplifting

that I stand there transfixed, as they soar and alight

uncaring of the murder of crows that has gathered

no question of a parley between the two parties

I decide to be a neutral observer

after a hectic and raucous conference

the crows cede space…

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #131

I give below a situation. You may take it as a part of your piece – beginning, middle or end.

He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors and tools. What would he paint?

~*~

“He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors and tools. What would he paint?”

When she read these lines, she feltthat someone had written her story. It was true that she wasn’t an artist but she felt the same as the protagonist in this story. She felt drained of all motivation. Tomorrowwas the audition she had been looking forward to for weeks. But now after the death of her mother, it felt hopeless to even try.

She decided to not go to the…

Demarcated by boundaries,

Separated across landmasses,

Bifurcated by opinions,

Today,

Across lines,

We stand united.

Though from afar,

Helping each other,

Being one another’s support,

Torchbearers of a single race,

The human race,

Like how Nature intended us to be,

Now that we have experienced,

The true magic of compassion,

The true spirit of warmth,

Sans borders and boundaries,

Once in our lifetime,

Let us not cage it,

Once again,

Let this not only be,

Once upon a lifestyle or,

Once upon a lifetime stories,

To be reminisced about.

Under the canvas of,

Our bountiful universe,

Let’s always spread cheer,

Like she intended,

Not just when we pushed to,

In every bleak,

There is a light,

Every fall,

Promises a climb,

Let only our spirit strengthen,

Together we can.

129 words.

Acknowledgements :- Thank you Reena Saxena for running the Reena’s Exploration Challenge #130. For rules please refer here. Thank…