[This short story love is selected for Love’2012 Story Writing Competition]
Short Story Love
His life has been an open book, for the whole world to read. His friends knew what he did when he did and why he did. He tweeted around three hundred times a day and although it was well short of the world record, it did take a slice of his life away, everyday. Luss’s tweets often carried the emotion of anger, be it an uncovered pothole on the road or a polluted taxi adding its share in strangling the world. He hated politicians. He read the conspiracy theories and his favorite pasttime was to collect information linking various wars and manufacturers of deathly ammunitions. He found imbalance in every part of the living plane and went so far as to covering provocative advertisements of cloth manufacturers with s**t as he considered they were the reason the children learned porn in their early years.
Luss fell in love with Martha the minute her voice cleansed his muddled brain. It was a saturday evening and he was sitting on the terrace of his community housing complex. It was a full moon night and the moon shone bright. The breeze was soft making his locks carress the forehead. He was looking up at the moon, trying to pen down a lyric.
Away she went afar
with no time for me,
for the only soul who loves her
cursed to rot in hell it be
and started playing an electric guitar solo in his head with his hands stroking the strings of a sick air axe. That was when he heard a loud laughter. His palms suddenly stopped the music and pressing his knee he turned around. What he saw made him feel a new emotion in his life. She stood with her hands clasped together wearing a white drape around her slender body. Her black hair was untied and thanking her for that danced wildly in joy. Her eyes reflected the white light and for one second Luss thought he saw the moon itself in a humanly form.
‘What on Earth are you doing sitting on the edge?’ she asked,
‘I, I was playing music’ Luss replied with the words hitting high bumps as they came out.
‘Play for me too’
‘Well, you’d have to connect with my head to do that’ Luss replied thinking he made an intelligent reply.
Martha walked straight toward him, bent down and touched his forehead with hers said ‘Now play it’. Luss fell, fell hard in love.
He started writing poetry every minute of the day. His words did not have any other reason to exist but to describe Martha’s beauty, their first kiss, how he felt alive. Luss’s life had finally met its world. He would say ‘come away with me’ and she would complete it with ‘I will write you a song’. It was divine.
Luss’s life changed dramatically in that his favorite angst ridden songs went to the bottom of the playlist, he even stopped hearing the special first for the day song ‘Zombie’ by Cranberries. He forgot how to spell Metallica. His leather jackets and fantasy art covered bandana were laid to sleep in the attic. Luss even started sympathising for the world. When he saw a pothole he would stop his bike in the middle of the road, covered it up and stuck a board asking the riders to reroute. He would answer his friends’ questions about the lack of world peace with sayings like ‘best happens to people who wait for it’. They started wondering what devil went inside Luss.
His dietary plan was very easy to follow, all the extra flab in his belly were evicted with no revolt. His eating became better, and more than one animal was let to live after he started being a veggietarian on her request. Martha did what many thought was impossible, total change. Luss gave up his music, and after a few months, as Martha made fun comparing a romantic lyricist to a weak and queer boy who is not man enough for a girl, he stopped writing altogether. His posters of Megadeth and Eddie the mascot came down. Beautiful double coated paints coverd the walls of his room. He was so in love that a few lucky souls had a chance to experience.
Luss started to miss his writing now and then but the steroid of Martha’s touch made him oblivious to his self definitions. One Saturday evening, after realizing Martha had gone to her cousin’s place for the weekend, he went to the pier and sat down with his toes touching the water. The wooden pier moved with the song from the wind of the afternoon, drenched with the warmth of the autumn sun. Luss started his passion that on writing a single verse, he realized he deeply missed it. His mind left the colorful and love filled world of Martha to a fantastical forest in the middle ages, haunted by the men of the mist and strange creatures. He wrote about a courtier who carried a message up North to the vikings and how he faught with the men craving for blood. The five headed dragons bellowing fire, fighting with the million toothed snake flew as a short story. It was just when koti-dhanshtraa(*) with all his million teech was about to bite the neck of panchasira(**) then he stopped hearing the cry of pain but a splash of water. It was a couple who had come to spend time by the lake on a beautiful day, probably to celebrate their love Luss thought. It was when he tried fleeing the rays of the sun by using his palms to look at the couple he realized it was Martha. She was laughing the same beautiful laugh, but it was not meant for him. Someone else was bathing on it. Luss could not believe and sat dumbstruck at the events that were played on the banks. She kissed the guy and on that impulse Luss shook and fell into the water. Martha turned towards the sound and saw Luss, her emotions reflecting the same feeling as his but only filled with guilt. After much deliberation and explanation, they parted ways. The first love of his life had come to an end.
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Sanskrit translation for the names :
(*)Koti-dhanshtra – a million toothed one
(**)Pancha-sira – five headed one
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