General

Amidst the towering rocks and speckled sand, far beyond our village, scattered, dust-clothed debris hunkers, the meaning of each piece a mystery to be puzzled over.

The old ones tell tales that have been passed down through generations. No doubt, with each telling, some details have shrunk, while others have swelled..

They speak of a long-lost existence called civilisation; a way of being that was better than this. They say there are clues in the artefacts that rust and decay in the sun and rain. They say these are scraps of something called machine, which made life easy, and that something called electron made it fun. Furthermore, humankind once had the voices of giants, which could be heard from the place where the sun rises all the way to where it sets. They had wings to fly high up in the sky, even to the stars.

They claim that those…

A fellow blogger, Reena Saxena, asked this question in her Exploration Challenge. This question stopped me dead in my tracks. Well, my reading, thinking, tracks.

It made me wonder – what am I avoiding at this point in time? How about a bunch. A passel. More than I could put into one post.

But really, this isn’t true. Saying there are too many things to count is just another way of avoiding. If there are too many, why bother? Let’s just toss the question aside and move on.

Which, in itself, is a cop-out. So is my life an endless circles of cop-outs?

I sincerely hope not, but what do I know? I can’t even list avoided ‘things.’

So, if I brave up and seriously think about the question, what do I find?

I find I am avoiding the world right now. But no, that’s quite true. I am avoiding…

Wagon wheels keep on turning, while the sky above is blue.
I am on my way to Rome, and I plan to see something new.
God please keep my wheels turning down this road of dust and sand.
Help me Lord as I travel down this road, singing along with the band.
I need help from my friends with the songs that I sing.
Only God knows for sure, what tomorrow will bring.
The first time I traveled out in the rain and snow.
I did not have any money or even any place to go.
I’m going to where the water tastes like wine.
I will jump in the water and stay drunk all the time.
It is a beautiful day, the sun above is beating down.
I will beg for food, when I get to the next town.
I wake up every day not knowing where or when…

Hosted by the ever gracious Reena at https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2017/09/15/reenas-exploration-challenge-week-4/

FIRST DAY, FIRST SHOW BLUES   (SHORT STORY) (GENRE:FICTION)

By Neel Anil Panicker

First Day, First Class, First Hour: Twentyone-year-old Kishore Prasad Mahto wished the Earth below his feet would give way and he be sucked deep into its recesses.

He looked what he was: A person from the heartlands.

Clad in a pale blue workman’s half sleeved shirt, cheap cotton trousers worn out at the edges, thin lips pursed around a scraggy pockmarked face that looked dyed a permanent dirty yellow, and cracked feet half covered in shocking red slippers, the kind that you get in village fairs popularised by the cattle classes.

Cattle class, that’s what he was and that’s what he epitomised.

He was seated all alone in the farthest corner. The desk beside him was empty, so were the ones in front and back.    His segregation from…