General

The last book on Planet Earth

Of the books ever written, it made sense that the last one standing was “The Book of Survival at The End of The World”.

Everyone still alive had one, and it was considered the bible in terms of survival.

In some ways, as the end neared, the book was more redundant than useful but when all you have is hope you cling to it like your life depends on it.

Written many years earlier, it detailed the steps you would need to take when life was drawing to a closure. There was nothing you could do about it, the darkness had gradually been getting more intense, the inhabitants lived a subsistence life, death was more prevalent than birth.

Misery became the norm, death couldn’t come fast enough for some, such that throughout the earth, only pockets of life remained. Those who believed in the…

Friday sits like a coin in my pocket
whispering to me. What shall I spend it on?
I could buy a kite, or a coffee,
or a pair of shoes. I could spend it all
on a book, or a poem, or a fragment
of something half written,
tossed away on the wind. I could take it out
and polish it in the sunlight,
roll it across a sanded floor,
send it spinning into a wave
crashing onto a shingle shore.
I could take a ride on a bus
to the end of the line,
or buy an apple and biting it
learn what good is, and what’s evil,
I could hold my hand out
to a cunning magpie,
offer my silver as a gift,
sacrifice it to an ancient goddess,
bury it beneath a hawthorn tree,
or I could hide it underneath my pillow,
feel the dull thickness of…

WHY SHAHEEN BAGHS HAPPEN

By Neel Anil Panicker

“Mamma, I don’t want to go to school,” eleven year old Shazia shouted out, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Simmi, hearing her little one’s cries, rushed out of the kitchen.

“What is it, my baby? Why are so upset? Did anyone scold you? Say something?”

As the little one’s tears wailings showed no end of stopping, the concerned mother lifted her and sat her down on the bed.

“Now tell me, my dearest, ” she started, wiping away her third born’s tears with the edges of her kurti.

“Mamma, tell me are we Pakistanis?”

The question momentarily stumped Simmi.

Then, she calmed herself, and coolly replied, “No, we are Indians. Proud Indians at that. We…”

“Then, why do they all call me Pakistani, Mamma?”

Simmi, realising what she was up against, replied, “Now, my dear, tell me , do all your friends…

The politician stood in front of his audience, delivered his address and then invited questions.

The first question asked about his government’s response to the current domestic crisis.

The politician listened to the question and gave himself a moment to consider his response before saying he took the question as a rhetorical one and didn’t feel the need to make any comment.

It was his standard response when asked something he either didn’t have an answer to or didn’t want to answer.

He turned his media conferences into meaningless exchanges in which he espoused his virtues and those of his government and ignored anything uncomfortable.

He discovered a sound way to protect himself, his rhetoric in reply, to what he considered a rhetorical question. Always delivered with the smugness of a seasoned politician.

Written for: https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/reenas-exploration-challenge-120/

Reenais the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge.

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome back to this space, friends!

PROMPT

The theme this week is

RHETORICAL QUESTION

Use the words in your piece, allude to it in some way, or include the figure of speech in your writing.

Have a ball! Can writers write?

~*~

There are so many unnecessary things that we say in a day. Asking futile questions and making observations, starting the obvious. Some people are kind and do answer these rhetoricalquestions and reply to our statements which can only be answered by a yes. While there are others who can never resist to make a joke out of it.

With keys and a purse in your hands, you are headed out the door when your kid or husband would say, “Are you going out?”

“No, I was just getting a glass of water from the kitchen”

“But…