Twisted

I had always been an introvert. I had never really made friends. Those that I call friends are the people I hide my insecurity behind. They protect  me from those who feed upon other's insecurities.

But I have this one particular friend who is different. Different in the sense that is the same as me. We meet everyday in the library, and we hide our faces behind the books in the same way, shielding ourselves from the real world and immersing ourselves in the harmless new world at the same time.

"I have never had a friend here since Helen," he said one day. It startled me. We never talked to each other much, a confession was a far cry!

"Who was she?" I asked plainly.

"She was my wife," he said, "We lived here in the library house." Who lives in a library with family, I wondered.

"If you don't mind, what happened to her?" I asked.

"She got lost in the books. Never found her since. 'been ten years." There was something wrong with this man, I decided. I paid him no attention to him anymore.

I was busy looking for a good book to hide behind this weekend. "Twisted" - the name sounded interesting. I read the introduction.

" There is a woman on the 13 th page. She has fled into the story from her husband. He would come looking always. But will never find her or the book ever. If you're reading this stay away from the man. He's twisted!"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Stain

Image
It's been a long time since we had this purple stain on the kitchen floor. "It's print on the tile," some say, though it is not present on any other similar tile, while others say it's some kind of a dye. Whatever it is, what is concerning us more is that the stain seems to be growing. Ever so slowly. My wife and I, we've tried everything we could to get rid of it, or at least learn about it, but to no avail. We even consulted painters and masons, but they couldn't give a reasonable explanation. As of now, we've decided to leave it alone. Ignoring it seems to have slowed it down. By now it's gotten to about the size of a coaster, and the colour has changed from purple to deep brown. But as I said, we're ignoring it. Just the last evening a friend of mine came for dinner, and the topic of the stain somehow came up. He seemed to have an absurdly different opinion about it. Very reasonably, and deductively, he stated that since it is g...
Read more

The Hunting

Image
Neil and I had met after a long time. Almost eight years. But he looked all the same, except for the stubble that he had grown. We happened to meet on a warm Sunday morning on the path along the forest during my morning-walk. And like old times (whenever we did something together, it was never something normal) we decide to walk into the forest instead of along it. About half an hour later we were deep inside the forest and had no idea where we were. And nor did we care. We were busy talking and catching up with each other's life. But a sudden rustle nearby brought us back to the present. It was unlikely that it was somebody. Nobody came into these woods. It was 'something'! We waited motionlessly to listen. There it was again. Definitely footsteps, but of what? Silently we moved in the direction of the sound, gathering all our courage. We walked into a clearing. The next time we heard the sound, it was closer. I picked up a pebble and threw it in the direction of the s...
Read more

Leeches

Image
This village has something weird about it. All the people in it stay indoors in the evening, no matter what. It made me very curious. I had reached in the dusk just to find that even my host was hesitant to open his door to me. I asked him, but he just deferred the topic saying that the time was too dangerous to talk about it. By the time I had my sumptuous meal, I was dead tired. It was a long journey I had made. But as soon as I was getting ready to sleep, I was reminded of the behaviour of the village in the evening, and curiosity got the better of me. I walked out into the living room to meet my friend. I found him seated beside the fireplace, stoking the fire. "Welcome, my friend, I was just beginning to think when you're going to ask me again," he said, clearly knowing why I had come. "It is the story of just a few months back. The highway as you know connects two large cities. A lot of vehicles ply over it throughout the day. One day, some men fishing in th...
Read more