Arsee’s short stories 154 Conflict

Howard “Buzz” Ford was the best agent that the Covert Agency had. He was a veteran of more missions than he could remember. The Agency itself was kept under wraps and even the mention of it was hushed up by the Government, much like Area 51 and what went on there. Buzz, as he was called for a reason that he could not really recollect, was an expert at ballistics and bombs, a talent that held him in good stead in the war areas of the Middle East, in Afghanistan, Iraq and more recently Syria.

Buzz did the work that could never have Government clearance for obvious reasons. Nasty assassinations, risky extractions, illegal kidnappings, Buzz did them all. 

Then what could have been so severe in his latest mission that made him shut himself in his house was the question the agency was asking.
Ever since Buzz had come back from Lebanon something inside him had changed. He was distant, uncommunicative and his neighbors did see the newspapers gather outside his door. He was not even stepping outside his house.

On a cold winter day the Agency had to break his door down because he would not answer their calls or mails. They found him dead, hanging from the ceiling, suicide. 

Nick Rogers was his partner on many a mission. Nick was shocked to learn that Buzz had killed himself. He wanted to know why but the Agency kept everything under wraps, need to know basis only. Nick told the agency that if they wanted him out in the field than they better level with him or they could “Kiss his ass Goodbye”. The Agency could not afford to lose two agents in a week. They sent Nick a DVD with instructions to destroy after he watched it.

The television screen came alive with Buzz’s face on it. Nick sat down to see what his friend had to say. Buzz looked like he had not slept, eaten, shaved or even lived in days. He spoke in a shattered lonesome tone.

“If you are watching this video, then you know that I have succeeded in killing myself. I could not live another day with his young innocent eyes looking at me. Everywhere I go I see his eyes, even when I close my eyes I see him, he is smiling at me, he is stretching his hand out, his innocence is tearing me apart.”

Buzz closed his eyes and took a deep breath, “I was in Lebanon and my mission was to kill Abu Tariq. He was the genius who was routing the funding for the groups that we want decimated. Like all men who have secrets Abu Tariq had one. He had a Mistress that he visited every week, the day and time would vary, so I had to stalk him for weeks to learn that there was no choice but to wait for him to appear. His security made it impossible for a direct assault. There was only one way, detonate the damn place when he was inside with her. The Mistress would be collateral damage but then she deserved it for sleeping with the devil. I lined the place up when she went out for a chore. I chose a remote detonator with an exclusive frequency and a place the I rented for a month with a view to the Mistress’s house.”

“Late on a Sunday night Abu Tariq came there, what I had not bargained for was that he would come with his twelve-year old boy. What kind of an asshole came to a Mistress with a kid? I put my headphones on and heard him telling the Mistress that she had to move; he had intel that he was being watched. He would have one of his men take her to an undisclosed place. I was going to loose him if I did not kill him there and then, if I did, I would kill an innocent child. It was the Devil’s Alternative. The seconds ticked by and I saw Tariq get up to leave, it was either now or never. I hit the button. Just before the place went up in flames I caught the sight of the little boy saying goodbye to the lady with a smile.”

Buzz began to sob, “I cannot forget that smile and the waving of the hand. It was like he was saying goodbye to the world. The sight haunts me, I cannot live with that smile but most of all I cannot live with myself.”

Then Buzz wiped his tears, “I have no idea what we are fighting for anymore. Their children are dying and our children are dying. We are fighting for a future but what kind of future is it where there are no children? A Chinese curse comes to my mind, ‘May you outlive your children.’ We are making that curse come true.”

The video went off and left Nick looking at the flurry of the television signal. He closed his eyes and leaned back. What would turn the tide of so much hate, he wondered. Then he sighed and wished the world did not have so many believers. For a moment he wished there was no God, no his God and no my God. Just no God. Humans, he realized, had the need to make others believe in what they believed in. In the end all conflict came to that My belief versus your belief.

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 153 Reflections

“So you are back my dear Rowena?” the Plastic Surgeon walked up to receive Rowena Red into his plush office with his welcoming salesman smile. He had figured very long back that people were more worried about how they looked and not how they felt. He had converted that knowledge into a lucrative business of plastic surgery, the crème de la crème of tinsel town made it their temple, a temple where they found the elixir of everlasting youth under the Surgeon’s experienced scalpel.

Rowena Red had been a heartthrob of millions when she lit up the movie screens throughout the world but that was a while ago. Now she was just a lonely woman battling her wrinkles in a huge mansion surrounded by dogs and security guards.

“We cannot do another surgery, it is not advisable. There is only that much the skin can take,” the Surgeon informed Rowena with a despondent look. Rowena sighed. She did not want to look the way she looked now; she wanted to look like she was five years back, ten years even. There was a searing silence in the office; it was not easy for the most beautiful girl in the world to accept that she would not be beautiful anymore.

“There is one thing I can do for you,” the Surgeon sprang an idea. “There is a mirror I have experimented on and perfected. No matter how old you get, it will only reflect what you want it to reflect, the age you want it to reflect and the mood that makes you look the best. It has a one time setting on it, unfortunately, once you set it you cannot change it but why would you want to change it?” the Surgeon smiled like he was selling another product.

Rowena was interested immediately. She never went out and almost never called anyone home. It could be a perfect fix for her problem. “How many mirrors can I buy?” she asked. “As many as you wish.” The Surgeon countered with glee. Rowena nodded and smiled slowly.

A week later all the mirrors in her house were changed to the special mirror that she had bought from the Surgeon. They were set to the age of thirty-five, it was closer to the truth but not the truth entirely. Rowena was absolutely delighted with this new mechanism, it worked perfectly for her. There was a self-destruct mechanism that came with the mirrors, in case she wanted to shatter them and have the originals back but Rowena knew she would never need a mechanism like that, ever!

She would wake up in the morning to look at a young smiling face in the mirror, it felt wonderful to see no pigmentation and no wrinkles. The mirror became her best friend; she could not stop looking at herself. She would change her clothes five times day and the mirror would reflect those clothes on a thirty-five year old hourglass figure. It was what she wanted all her life, everlasting youth. There were days when she felt unwell, days when she felt her hair was not falling right, days when she could not be bothered to wear make-up and even those days turned delightful thanks to the mirror.

On a bright summer morning Rowena woke up to a blurry vision in her right eye. She could have a sty or an infection, she went to the mirror but it showed her a perfectly beautiful eye, every mirror only showed her perfection. She had no idea how to check what was wrong with her eye! She walked to her car outside and checked her eye in the rearview mirror but she forgot that she had them fixed as well. The only way was to go to the Eye Doctor, but then she did not know how she really looked. She could not see, only an idea how she might appear. She had to risk it. Fortunately, the Doctor did not even notice her clothes or how she looked. It was an infection and all she needed was to put some eye drops.

As the days went by the infection got better but Rowena’s need to see her real self began to grow. The reflection was beginning to get to her. Her reflection was like an ineffective advertisement smiling at her from a billboard, selling her a fantasy. She wanted to see herself sad, lonely, depressed, alone and miserable but all she saw was a happy reflection, a young woman smiling at her in the clothes that she wore. She grew tired and restless, tired of being an unfeeling, unthinking person.

Days passed and the restlessness grew into an urgent need to see her. She knew her hair was falling, she could see that on the pillow, she was getting frail and her clothes would not fit her, she could see that her hands were getting wrinkled and she knew she had to make a choice.

She had to make a choice between how she wanted to see herself and how she wanted the world to see her. It was not an easy choice. It kept her up at nights and hungry through the day. But finally the choice was made.

She opened the self-destruct box and steeling herself, pressed on the button. With a terrific shattering noise all the mirrors in the house came down. When she walked to the mirror frame nearest to her she saw that there was a note from the Surgeon, “You are perfect in your imperfections, the joy of youth is in the fact that it is not everlasting. And then neither is life.”

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 152 The Serial Killer

It seemed like the case had taken years out of his life, though it had been only two months since the first killing. A young professional, beautiful and blonde, she was getting home late from work. There were no eyewitnesses but they had found her phone on Auburn Road under the overpass. Four days later they found her body and what was done to her was plain unspeakable, the product of a deranged mind.

Paul Torino was an expert at these kind cases but with all his talent and experience he was at his wits end after two months and three more blonde girls dead with their bodies found in depraved conditions. There were no leads, no fingerprints and no witnesses, it was like the Killer came from nowhere and went into nowhere.

Paul sat alone at his desk pouring over tons of files when the storm outside grew indignant and blew the power grid swallowing an entire part of the city into the mouth of its darkness. Paul let his hands find his cell phone and turned on the torch. There wasn’t really any point working anymore in the dark. Perhaps the morning would bring with it some light for the case, it was time to call it a night.

 

Paul drove through the empty streets; the sheets of rain that fell were enough discouragement for any odd jaywalker. It was a block past the Auburn road intersection when Paul felt a loud thud. Paul had little choice but to step out in the downpour to see what had happened. The front right wheel had sunk into an open manhole; the damn thing was big enough to swallow the tyre of a monster truck. This was bad news. He looked around for anyone who could help but there was no one around, not that he could really see far in this driving rain. He would have to call the towing company to pull the car out and probably take a cab home.

“Why don’t you put the car into reverse while I lift the car out of the hole?” Paul was startled by the voice. He turned around to find an old man in a strange hat and a long trench coat smiling at him through some broken front teeth.

“You mean you could be at the wheel while I tried to pull it out?” Paul clarified.

“No, I meant what I said,” the smile remained constant like it was plastered on the Stranger’s face. Paul shrugged, he did not have anything to loose. He sat behind the wheel and put the stick shifted into reverse, stepped on the pedal and watched to his shock the Stranger pull the car out on the manhole with remarkable ease. He must be a hell of a strong man, Paul thought to himself.

Even before he could get out of the car to thank the Stranger, the Stranger was at his window, “That was not that difficult now? Was it?”

“Thank you,” Paul acknowledged with a smile.

“You are welcome,” the Stranger had not changed his smile since Paul saw him first. “If you would be going downtown would you give me a lift to 42^nd and Lansbury?” the Stranger asked. Paul thought it was the least he could do and asked the Stranger to him to hope on.

 

They rode in absolute silence, the rain falling on the tin roof and the rhythmic swipe of the wipers the only sound. The Stranger looked straight ahead and what was more odd, his smile would not fade.

 

Paul pulled over at the corner of 42^nd and Lansbury to let the Stranger off. The Stranger thanked him and walked away in the furious rain. Paul looked on at the Stranger for a moment longer and then to his horror the Stranger walked into a cemetery. Who the hell walked into a cemetery in a downpour like this? What the hell was this guy? Paul was out of his car and chasing behind the stranger in a flash but he was still too late. The Stranger was nowhere to be seen, just rows and rows of graves and no man till the eye could see. There was no way he could have walked so fast into any direction. Paul was not someone who encouraged the supernatural nonsense but that seemed to be the only logical explanation. Had he ridden three miles in the driving rain with a spirit? It made his hair stand on end and a deep sense of dread filled him.

 

“We have a survivor Sir!” his deputy screamed into the phone with excitement. “This one got away from the Serial killer.” Paul told him that he would be at the station within the hour.

 

The sketch artist had taken the cue from the survivor and made a sketch. The Stranger in the rain stared at him, the smile was unmistakable and it was the serial killer. Paul crashed onto the chair behind him; in the distance he could hear the thunder of the retreating storm. How does one catch a Serial killer who is not even alive?

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 151 Two Choices

The Manhattan evening traffic was unforgiving but then Brad was really not in a hurry to get home. Today was the day, it had to be today, he had to do it today. He could not live the lie anymore.

Kate and he had been living together for a year and Kate was ready to take the next step, which was marriage. The subtle hints had given way to long restless conversations and the restless conversations were now hurtful quarrels. It all had to end. It was becoming a nightmare for the both of them.

He watched the endless rows of cars on Park Avenue and decided to cut through and take the FDR. Snaking through the traffic clogged streets Brad had enough time to introspect, he knew that all the reasons that he gave Kate for not wanting to get married were rubbish. The fact was that he could not forget Irene.

She had betrayed him; she had promised to live her life with him and then gone ahead and broken the promise, dying on him. A freak accident is how the police put it. A cold winter day, north of Boston, on her way to him, a tyre burst and the car swirled out of control. It was his life that had swirled out of control. He could not get the image out of his mind, his beautiful Irene lying naked on the cold morgue table bloody and battered. It was there all the time; a part of his being, like a nametag that he wore. It had taken him a long time to start dating again and an even longer time to live in with Kate. And yet Kate was not Irene. He knew she tried her best, she did everything to make him happy but it was all just pointless. Perhaps he was damaged beyond repair.

Brad rode the elevator to his thirty-seventh floor apartment and for the last time rehearsed the words that he would say to Kate to make the break up easy. He did not want to hurt her anymore. He wanted to make it easy for her.

He opened the door to an apartment lit by beautiful candles and the sound of Strauss, his heart sank. She was trying to make the evening special and he was going to ruin it. But he could not let this matter. He had to do it today or the courage would fail him.

Kate stepped out of the bedroom looking fabulous in a short black evening dress. It was going to be heartbreaking.

She smiled at him and holding his hand gently guided him to the dining table. It was set beautifully for two, the best China and steel. Brad took a deep breath and was about to say something but she put a finger on his lips and had him sit down. There was an envelope on the table with his name on it. Kate smiled and gestured for him to open the letter. He did.

Dear Brad,

I am writing this in a letter because I don’t want this to become an endless discussion or worse, a quarrel.

There has always been three people in this relationship, you, me and Irene. I know what happened is not easy to forget. I know you have tried. I know I have tried but I also know that you are finding it hard. You care and so you don’t want to hurt me but I can see the writing on the wall. We are done. And that’s fine as well.

I am leaving today.

But I want to tell you that you have made me realize something about life. All of us have two choices, one, you look at yourself now from some point in the past or two, you look at the past from where you are now. They are not the same things. Think about it.

Love
Kate.

Brad looked at her, sitting across the table in the candlelight. She wore her gentle smile. He did not realize when he had begun to cry. Kate stood up and walked around the table to where he sat, she kissed one last time and then walked out of the door.

The door banged shut, leaving Brad with two choices.

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 150 Penance

Balram watched Krishna closely as he read the letter that had come from Princess Rukmini, daughter of King Bhishmaka and sister to the dreaded Rukmi. He had watched his younger brother since childhood and he knew from the expression on Kanha’s face that Kanha was going to create trouble. It was like Kanha loved trouble!

“She writes that she is to be married to Shishupala and she does not want to be married to him,” Krishna informed his older brother. “And why is she writing to you? You don’t even know her!” Balram had raised his voice in anticipation of the argument to follow. “She has always been in love with me and won’t marry anyone else. She wants me to go and kidnap her and then marry her,” Krishna smiled at Balram as he said that.

“Are you even considering that Kanha? Are you seriously out of your mind? You are not a Shepherd boy anymore, you are the Ruler of Dwarka. Do you understand the political implications of this?” Balram was exasperated in anticipation as well.

Krishna sat on his swing and looked at Balram, his eyes twinkling with that hint of naughtiness and a smile to go with it, “What are the political implications? Please educate me.”

“Don’t give me this innocent act Kanha, you know all too well. Shishupal and Rukmi are both vassals of Jarasandha. And Jarasandha was Kansa ‘s father-in-law, the man you killed remember? You are going to start a war!”

Krishna nodded and gestured to his brother to sit next to him on the swing. Balram grudgingly obliged. Then he put a loving hand on his brother and spoke with great tenderness, “Brother, do you know why we are all stuck in this cycle of birth and rebirth? It is to learn lessons that our soul needs to learn. I need to learn a lesson as well.”

Balram looked at Krishna with an irritable frown, “I know who you really are, don’t forget. You can fool the world. You don’t fool me Kanha.”

“I am not trying to fool you,” and then a sad look descended on Kanha, “In my last birth I was a Prince, I had three brothers but I was the eldest, the heir to the throne. I married a beautiful and pious lady, brought her home to make her a queen but my Stepmother had other plans. To help my father keep his word to my Stepmother I went into exile for fourteen years, my wife did not utter a word, she accompanied me. In the forest she was kidnapped by a fiend. I had to wage a war to save her. She was made to take an agnipariksha for her piety. I knew that hurt her but she still did not utter a word.”

“When I became king after all those years and she queen, I heard ramblings about her having spent time with another man, the populace was talking loosely about her. So I sent her away, knowing she was pregnant with my children. She still did not utter a word. Finally when I went to claim my children she absolved herself of a lifetime of sadness and disrespect. I was a good son, a good brother, a good king but I was not a good husband.”

Balram was quickly angered but he was even quicker saddened. He was teary eyed and kept his silence cause he did not trust himself to speak.

“This birth I will not stand around and watch a woman unprotected, a woman helpless or a woman unsheltered,” Krishna said with grim determination. “I will tear the world apart and plunge the universe into chaos if I have to, but this is Krishna ‘s responsibility and Krishna does not shirk his responsibility!”

Balram nodded and hugged his brother, “You are right, you are stubborn and you are incorrigible.”

Krishna laughed,“So should we kidnap a Princess?”

“I think we should!” Balram’s voice resounded through the Palace.

(It’s the 150th Story. Has to she about Kanha smile 🙂 )

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 149 The Birth of a Planet

“We are entering the orbit of the designated planet, you are advised to start the landing procedure Izzac,” the almost human voice of the onboard computer informed Izzac. How was a computer supposed to know that Izzac did not need to be informed? He had been waiting for this day since he left his home planet two hundred years back.

With his body still stiff with the effects of long-term hibernation, Izzac looked out of the porthole of the spacecraft and looked at the planet they were circling. The sight brought tears to his eyes; it was just like home, blue with water and interspersed with fluffy white clouds. It was worth travelling the more than 1000 AU to get here. The Sun that shone on the planet was much younger than the Sun of his solar system and a fiery yellow orb.

It was time to carry out his mission; he was the last hope of humanity.

Izzac finished the final checks on the planetary landing module that was far smaller than the huge spacecraft that had brought him here. It was specifically designed to land on planets with varying gravitational forces. The engines fired up and the craft began its journey towards the planet. Izzac looked at the load that he was carrying, just one thermal jar with two compartments.

As the module tore through the clouds, Izzac thought back to his own planet and the sad chain of events that led him here. The advent of nuclear power, the division of the populace on the basis of religious faiths, the corruption of power hungry governments, the war that came and the destruction that ruined the planet. It was now just a wasteland of radiation. Considering he had spent two hundred years getting here, he was probably the only survivor of that entire planet that once boasted of such varied specimens of life. Waste, such a bloody waste!

Izzac landed his craft on the designated site. It was the mouth of a river high in the mountains. He was informed by the scientist back on his planet that the chance of life thriving was best in a free flowing river that was open to enough sunlight. Life needed three things, he was told, water, heat or sunlight and the building blocks of life that he brought with himself.

The plan was to leave the building blocks to their destiny, if they survived, their species would survive, if not they did not deserve to survive.

He only wished that the species did not make the same mistakes that they had made. He hoped they would live in peace and harmony, he hoped they understood that a habitable planet was difficult to find.

He took the two different kind of Nitrogen and Carbon cells that were engineered back at home. They would interact with one another and form life. Under the harsh scrutiny of the laboratory only two of the cells showed promised, they were called A-dominant and E-submissive. He hoped they would do the trick. He took the capsules out of the jar, mixed them together in a petri dish and then let the mix flow into the water.

As he strode back towards the module he took the empty jar back with him, on it were scribbled the abbreviations for the cell structures, Adom (A-Dominant) and Eve (E-submissive). He wished both Adom and Eve the best and flew off the planet. It was the third planet from the Sun, Earth, they called it.

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 148 Detective Rustom Baba

Part 2.

“The first thing I would ask you to do is cancel your father’s funeral and be ready to have an autopsy if the need arises. Are you ready to do that?” Rustom asked Fenil, observing him closely over his glasses.

“That would create a furor in the family,” Fenil was clearly concerned.

“We either get to the bottom of it or not. The choice is yours, Mr. Mehta.”

Fenil Mehta took a deep breath and then nodded slowly. Rustom smiled at him encouragingly, “I would like to meet all your family members and Ruby mentioned that there were two nurses that took care of your Father, I would like to meet them as well.”

“I shall arrange that.” Fenil said with a certain amount of finality and determination.

Later as they sat playing a game of carrom Ruby asked Rustom what were his thoughts. “I think the most important decision in the game of carrom is when you decide to pocket the red coin.” Rustom said as he pocketed the red coin with full concentration. Those were not the kind of thoughts Ruby had in mind but she also realised it was pointless probing further.

“Ahh from Sikkim, did you say?” Rustom asked the Day Nurse. The Nurse replied in the affirmative.

“About twelve miles from Nellore, in Andhra Pradesh. It is a small place you would not know.” The Night Nurse said responding to Rustom’s query. Rustom nodded and gestured to Ruby to make a note.

Rustom and Ruby sat in Fenil’s elder brother’s office chamber. “So you say this is not your father’s first heart attack?” Ruby posed this time. “No, he had two before. He was ailing it was a matter of time.” Rustom in the meanwhile was lost looking at pictures of various Gods on his desk. “You are religious Mister Mehta?” Rustom interjected. “Sometimes.” The elder Mehta Son smiled enigmatically as he said that.

“You were married to Mr. Mehta but you did not sleep in the same room as him?” Rustom asked Neena Mehta, Fenil’s Stepmother. “Well, he was ill and the nurse would be there day and night. Did not seem there was much privacy in any case!” Rustom glanced at Ruby to catch her disapprove with her trademark frown.

“I just got in from Paris last night, had been there for the past one month.” testified the Stepbrother.

Rustom had what he needed. He marched up to Fenil Mehta and on a piece of paper gave him the name of the murderer and the modus operandi.

Rustom was more interested in figuring the six letter word for angst but Ruby insisted that he tell her the who and why of the Mehta case. Just then the television announced that Dheeraj Mehta, Fenil’s elder brother, and a Nurse had been arrested for the murder of Mr Mehta. They also credited Rustom Baba with solving the case.

Ruby turned around to look at Rustom in shock. Rustom knew he had to explain, he put the crossword aside, “When we first visited the Mehta house I found some medicines on Mehta’s bedside table. Amongst them was a tube of ointment that had been opened from the bottom. Like tampered with. Like someone had put something else in the tube. Next I found a bottle of e liquid in the trash. The liquid is used in electronic cigarettes. It is concentrated nicotine and add to it no one smoked in the house. Odd? I knew then that nicotine was the culprit.”

Rustom grew a tad excited as he revisited the case, he stood up and began to pace the room, “The night Nurse came from Nellore. Nellore is famous for Tobacco plantations and a common illness that strikes people who work these plantations is called Green Tobacco Sickness. Inexperienced harvesters would be in constant contact with wet Tobacco plants and the nicotine would enter their blood stream through the skin and make them ill. The Nurse from Nellore had to know that.”

“Next, when we visited the Mehta boy in the office I saw the depictions of Lord Mallikarjuna and Goddes Kamakshi among the other God’s that he had. These dieties are rare. And the temples are in the same town, 12 kilometers from Nellore. So do the math!”

Ruby began to piece it all together, “You mean the Night Nurse put the e liquid in the ointment tube and applied it as a muscle relaxant. The nicotine tingling gave the feeling of a muscle relaxant. The unnaturally high amounts of nicotine that seeped in impacted Mr. Mehta’s heart. It gave him a heart attack. Oh my God! The Son and the Nurse really had it going!”

Rustom nodded sadly, “Money is a strange thing. Turns sons against fathers”

“Misery,” whispered Ruby.

“What?”

“The six letter word for angst,” Ruby said with a sigh.

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 147 Detective Rustom Baba

Part 1.

Rustom Baba, yes, Baba was his surname and not the general suffix attached randomly in the country, in a random fashion, to random people. But I shall not go into the various uses of the word Baba cause that is furthest from the sordid tale that unfolds here today.

A gentleman of Parsi origin, Rustom Baba, was the detective that detectives sought out for assistance. It was another matter that he did not remember their names cause he could not remember anything that was not relevant to the case at hand.

When Ruby Singh, his neighbor and assistant, tried to look for him she knew  it had to be in an odd spot but even she was not ready for what she saw, Rustom sat under the washbasin in the bathroom. He had a faraway look in his eyes and it seemed he was trying to calculate something with his fingers.

“Rustom, why are you sitting here?” Rustom looked at her or through her, one would never know.

“The Mehta boy is here to see me?” He asked blankly.
“How do you know?” Ruby was ready to hear some cunning deduction he had made sitting under the washbasin to arrive at the conclusion that a new client that he had never heard off had come to see him.

“I saw on the news that his Father died of a heart attack and there is a major property dispute in the family, so obviously someone suspects murder. No great deduction involved here.” Rustom pushed Ruby aside and walked out of the bathroom. Ruby followed him out and found a wet towel lying on a chair, trust Rustom to put the towel where he belonged and put himself where the towel belonged.

“When did he pass away,” Rustom asked Fenil Mehta, the scion of the Mehta Empire.
“Last night.” Fenil replied, watching Rustom make thin shavings of a beetle nut with his beetle nutcracker.
“And you think it’s murder?” Fenil nodded in response. Rustom asked Fenil if he could visit house and carry out a search. Fenil was more than happy to arrange that.

Rustom and Ruby walked through the haloed halls of the rich. Through the halls that boasted the Hussains and then some ugly Crystals. Rustom checked Trilok Mehta’s room. How strange it was that the man was gone but there was a piece of him everywhere.

Ruby noticed that Rustom spent a long time studying Trilok’s medicines as they still lay on his bedside table. Then he looked at Fenil and asked him two questions. If his Father had any muscular pain and if he indeed die of a heart attack. Fenil replied in the affirmative to both the questions.

Rustom walked up to Fenil and peered over his reading glasses, “If he died of a heart attack then how are you so sure it’s murder?”
“My Stepmother, my Stepbrother, my Sister, my elder Brother, everyone was fighting for the estate… And… ”

“And your Father got a heart attack? Could it be that you are just looking to blame someone for your grief? A heart attack is a heart attack after all?” Rustom reasoned.

Fenil nodded, sad. But there was something about his sadness that moved Rustom. “Can you show me the main trash can of the house? That’s where the secrets lie usually,” Rustom said with half a smile.

A pair of surgical gloves later Rustom rummaged through the waste, like a dog looking for scraps of food. Then he picked up a small bottle, like an eye drop and turned to Fenil, “Who smokes in this house?”
Fenil shook his head, “No one…”

Rustom took a deep breath and then whispered softly, “It is a murder!”

To be continued…

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 146 Evolution of Man

Things were going exactly as Srinivasan had feared, his Mother would come in from India and crush his American way of life under her strong South Indian influence. For a genetic scientist like Vasu, as Srinivasan was called by his friends, the only kind of order was disorder. So consumed he was by his research that the world and it’s affairs mattered little to him. When his last girlfriend walked out on him, “Find a girl on planet Srinivasan,” she had screamed as she stomped out.

Now Vasu’s Mother had taken over the administration of the planet. It irritated him, this milk at night and chywanprash every morning. “Have you been wearing the same pair of Jeans for the past three days?” Mother was beginning her morning interrogation.

Vasu stared at the hot idlis in front of him, the chywanprash to follow and the wardrobe interrogation that had begun. Something snapped in his mind. “Mom I love you and I love that you come all the way from India to take care of me but plesse don’t fuss over me! It irritates me!  And then I cannot work!”

His Mother did not really care if Vasu was upset, “The idlis are getting cold,” was her matter of fact response.

“You don’t really care, do you Mom?”

“I care about you Vasu. The work you do is alright. If you don’t do it, someone else will do it.”

“Mom, I am genetic scientist. I am working on the evolution of man. Theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, have you heard of him?” Vasu was exasperated with her unwillingness to understand. His Mother sat down next to him and smiled, “I know Darwin, Vasu. I also know that what you think he discovered was old news in India.”

“Yeah sure Mom!” Vasu said with sarcasm.

“Well if you are too smart then listen to this,” his Mother countered.

“Have you heard of Dashavatar? The ten avatars of Vishnu?” Vasu nodded.

“Then let me tell you what you and Mr. Darwin don’t know. The first avatar was the Matsya avatar, it means the fish. That is because life began in the water. Is that not right?” Vasu began to listen with a little more attention.

“Then came the Kurma Avatar, which means the tortoise, cause life moved from the water to the land. The amphibian. So the Tortoise denoted the evolution from sea to land. Third was the Varaha, the wild boar, which meant the wild animals with not much intellect, you call them the Dinosaurs, correct? ” Vasu nodded wide eyed.

“The fourth avatar was the Narasimha avatar, half man and half animal, the evolution from wild animals to intelligent beings. Fifth the Waman avatar, the midget or dwarf, who could grow really tall. Do you know why that is? Cause there were two kinds of humans, Homo Erectus and the Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapiens won that battle.” Vasu could see that his Mother was in full flow and he was stupefied.

“The Sixth avatar was Parshuram, the man who wielded the axe, the man who was a cave and forest dweller. Angry, and not social but the seventh avatar  was Ram, the first thinking social being, who laid out the laws of society and the basis of all relationships. The eight avatar was Krishna, the statesman, the politician, the lover who played the game of society and taught how to live and thrive in the social structure. The Ninth avatar, the Buddha, the man who rose from Narasimha and found man’s true nature. The nature of Buddha, he identified man’s final quest of enlightenment. And finally, my boy, will come Kalki, the man you are working on. The man who will be genetically supreme.”

Vasu looked at his Mother speechless. “This is amazing Mom, how did you.. This makes sense!”

“Yes it does Vasu! Now have your chywanprash!”

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 145 The Fifth Dimension

Part 3.

“I am an Astrophysicist. Not a Mafia hit man!” Henry Fodder was shocked with Brian Shore’s intention of killing the Brian in the parrellel universe.

“Everyone and everything has a price. What is your prize?” Love or the lack of it had made Brian into a rude and insensitive man.

Henry Fodder was silent for a whole minute, then he walked to a desk and brought a notepad with him. “These are the numbers and combinations that make the portal work. Find yourself a friend who is eager to kill. I am not for sale.” Henry walked up the staircase and away from his greatest invention without a shred of regret. Brian did respect that but he was past feeling anything more than respect. He had a murder to commit. Finding a apprentice of astrophysics was easy, figuring the logistics to murder was the tough part.

He stood watching the city from his office window, the glass of Scotch in his hand. He would have to go into the other Universe and murder the Brian there but he had two problems to straighten out;  where was he going to dump the body and if he had to live in the other universe posing as that Brian what was he going to do about the great business enterprise that he was running in this universe?

There was no way of transferring a business into another universe. Unless of course he took pots of gold into that world, which was in itself a preposterous idea. He decided he would give his business away to charity, to Henry Fodder for his research.

Then came the murder. There was a simple way of doing that. He would have to murder that Brian, bring his dead body into this universe and then go back into the other one closing the portal forever. The police in this one would think Brian Shore was dead and they could go nuts figuring the murder, he did not care, he would be in another universe with his Lisa. He felt a physical ache in his heart when he thought of her. He wanted to hold her in his arms and feel her breath against his chest.

It was the fourth of July weekend, a Saturday. It was the day Brian had decided to murder.

He got the apprentice to kick the portal on and once again stepped from the physical realm of one world to the realm of another. He came to a spot on a deserted pavement not far from Brian’s house. He knew Lisa was visiting her parents in New England, he had overhead that in one of his reconnaissance missions. A Smith and Wesson with a silencer was the weapon of choice.

Brian edged his way through the silent suburban streets keeping to the darker areas of the pavement. He found Brian’s house cloaked in darkness save for a light that shone out of a first floor window. Perhaps he was getting ready for bed. Brian went around to the back of the house and then with the glass cutter he had carried he cut out a neat circle and unlocked the window.

He took his gun out of the holster as he stepped into the kitchen through the window he had picked. It was dark but he had studied the house well. He could see the staircase that led to the upper floors when he heard a voice, “A murder in any universe is a murder.” He turned around shocked to find Lisa standing there in the blackness of the kitchen. “Lisa…  You… I was..”

“You thought I was going to be at my parent’s house, didn’t you?”
All Brian could do was nod.
Lisa walked up to him,“Henry Fodder told me everything. He wanted to stop the murder from happening.”
Brian looked a picture of rage and regret, “You mean he came to this universe and ratted me out?”

“Brian, you silly man, I am the Lisa from you universe not this one. I have come here to stop your madness.” Brian stood there, stunned. Lisa’s eyes were brimming with tears,“You spent all this money, so much time, were willing to give up your business empire, traversed so many worlds just to be with me and yet you never tried to win back the Lisa in your universe?” Brian looked away sheepishly, “I tried Lisa, I really did. But you just did not want to…”

“Brian women in every universe are the same, when their trust is broken it takes time for them to trust again. You don’t have to chase her in different universes, you just have to keep chasing her in the same one.” Then she kissed Brian and in that kiss were the unlived moments of all those wasted years, then she stepped back and looking into his eyes said softly, “Now can we please go back to where we live and let this Brian and Lisa deal with problems of their universe?” “Only if you kiss me again,” Brian whispered through his tears and Lisa willingly obliged.

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 144 The Fifth Dimension

Part 2.

“Its ready, we have tested it,” Henry Fodder called Brian to give him the good news. It was the call that Brian had been waiting for the past two years.

It was two in the morning when Brian got to the top-secret facility that Henry had designed in the heart of the Scandinavian Mountains. “It is called the Gravitational Quantum Jumper,” Brian said pointing to the portal that he had built. “Do you know what is the only thing that leaks to the other Universe’s? It is gravity.”

Brian looked at the machine; it took most of the room. He could see wires that extended from a metal doorway to a huge bank of computers. There were some mirror like spheres made of material that he could not recognize.

“Newton saw the apple fall down but he did not wonder how the bird took off, he did not stop to think why an enormous body like Earth would exert only such little gravity that a small little magnet could pick up metal shavings of off a table. Have you wondered? Ever?” Henry turned the machines on as he posed the question to Brian. Brian shook his head in response. “Astrophysics then theorized that the parallel universe’s were sharing gravity. That is how I have designed the portal to put it in layman terms.”

“You said that there are millions of parallel universe’s, so how do I get to the one where I can be with Lisa?” Brian clearly did not care about the scientific mumbo jumbo. He wanted Lisa, it was a one point agenda.”

“I thought you might ask me that, so we should aim for the universe’s which exist after you decided to go to university because that is where you met Lisa.”

Brian agreed that it was a good idea.

He was ready to make the jump… The portal came alive! Electric lightning sparked in places on the metal door and the space between the door felt like it had changed the state of matter from gas to liquid. “How do I get back?” Brian inquired.

“Stand at the spot where you enter the universe. The portal will grab you back.”

Henry nodded to Brian and he walked through the portal.

It was a long white corridor. There were strange lights in the corridor, not tube lights but a kind of White Neon lights that gave the corridor a strange antiseptic feel. Brian could hear voices down the hall. He walked towards the voices. Soon he could see a room where there were a lot of men and women sitting in a circle. An important looking man was conducting a meeting. Brian realized that it was a meeting for people who were trying to throw the habit of drugs away. He was in a Rehab!

And then he saw himself! Bearded, disheveled and slouched over a chair. Defeated. He looked like he could use rehab for certain but then… A thought struck Brian and he ran back towards the portal.

“How the hell am I going to meet Lisa if there is another version of me that already exists in that universe? Would there not be two of me then?” Everything that Brian had worked out in his mind seemed to fall apart around him.

Henry Fodder did not seem to be pleased with his attitude, “Here we have defied the laws of physics and all you want to know is how you are going to be able to restart a relationship you screwed up!”

“What you and the world of physics do not understand is that there might be billions of universes out there but they are useless if I cannot have Lisa in any one of them.” Brian sat down broken, teary eyed.

Henry Fodder lit his Cuban cigar and sat himself down on the metal staircase that rose upwards to the entrance of the laboratory. “What is important, is to find Lisa first and then wonder what you are going to do with the other Brian in that universe. I can invent a portal, I cannot rewrite the laws of the universe,” Henry spoke evenly.

Six weeks later, Brian had seen a universe every night and he was still to find Lisa. Henry asked Brian to be patient. It could take months or even years to find Lisa, there were so many choices she could have made that might have kept her away from the university. It was literally like a needle in a haystack.

On a cold Sunday night Brian found the needle.

He saw Lisa leave her office and get into her car. It was the same office that she used to work for in their universe. This was close! He hailed a cab and asked the Cabbie to follow her car; a red car of an unknown manufacturer, Lisa liked the color red in this universe? That troubled him. A girl who liked red would probably not like him. He was just over simplifying the situation, he told himself.

Lisa pulled over outside a swanky restaurant and went in, excited. What he saw broke his heart. There was a Brian Shore waiting for her in the restaurant. They kissed. Then Lisa said, “Happy anniversary darling!” They were married! He felt the chill of being out there on his own.

“This cannot be!” Brian screamed through his tears. “When I find her she belongs to another me in another universe. I want her!” I want her for Henry felt his pain. He had always thought that he had lost a grip of human emotions but despite all his cynicism he found his tears well up. “Don’t worry Brian. I am sure we will find another one where Lisa is not married.”

Brian did not answer and his face grew sinister. “I have to kill that Brian and take his place. That is the only way.”

(need another day :p )

To be continued…

-Arsee.

Arsee’s short stories 143 The Fifth Dimension

Part 1.

When Brian first heard about it he thought it was some kind of joke. Parallel Universes? Like really? But they did exist insisted the scientific community.

 

Brian Shore owned the biggest shopping network online; they called him the Zuckerberg of ecommerce. Money was never a problem with Brian but intellectual curiosity could keep him up nights in a row.  And then as far as this thing about parallel universes was concerned, there was something entirely different that piqued his interest. It was not about science, it was about love. The only woman he had ever loved, Lisa Donavan.

 

“Imagine this,” said Henry Fodder, “There was a time when we thought that the Earth was the center of the Universe, am I right?” Brian nodded. Henry Fodder was the leading Cosmologist and Astro-physicist in the world. Brian decided to pay him a visit and learn more about this enigma.

 

“Then we understood that the Earth actually roams around the sun,” Henry continued, “For a time after that we believed there was only one solar system but we soon discovered a whole galaxy, then we discovered other galaxies. Our knowledge of the universe has only been growing with technology. Now, we believe that there are other universes. We live in what we now call a Multiverse.”

 

“So what makes a parallel universe,” Brian asked.

 

Henry took a deep breath, “It is not fantasy, it is science and you may find this hard to believe but… well… lets put it this way. Do you know about the dimensions?”

 

Brian nodded, “Length, Breadth, Height and Time.”

 

“Correct, but do you that there are seven more?” Henry chuckled as he said this.

 

Brian looked surprised and shook his head.

 

“It is not easy to understand all of them but for our purpose you only need to understand the Fifth Dimension. The Fifth Dimension says that all probabilities exist at the same time.” Henry could see that Brian was a like reindeer caught in the headlights of a car, stunned and disbelieving.

 

Henry decided to slow down and tried to explain to Brian as he would to a six-year old. “It just means that for all the choices or decisions that you have taken, the ones that you did not take exist as well. Simply put, if you decided not to have lunch in this dimension, in another dimension you did have lunch. If you have a friend in this dimension it is possible that you did not meet him in another dimension or if you are alive in this dimension you could also be dead in another one. All your choices exist in other dimensions.”

 

Henry walked to the chestnut cigar box and grabbed a Cuban cigar; he offered one to Brian who shook his head, too deep in thought about what he had just heard.

 

“So is it possible to go from one dimension to another?” Brian asked finally.

 

“Ah! You want to make a business of transporting business people between dimensions?” Henry laughed.

 

“No, I don’t but I will tell you if you indulge me.”

 

Henry sat himself down on the black leather couch, “It is possible, well theoretically. We call it quantum jumping. But I don’t know if it can be done in reality. Would take a lot of money and a lot research.”

 

Brian stood up with finality, “I have the money, and can you do the research?”

 

“Not until you tell me what this is about.” Henry said with an equal amount of finality.

 

Brian took a deep breath and walked to the window. He could see the autumn leaves lining a curved path sheltered by old oaks.

 

“I have loved only once, her name is Lisa. This was after we were done with university. All love stories are like roller coasters, they start on a high and then there is a piece of track where things slow down and the excitement cools. We began to fight a lot, bickering all the time, I got roaringly drunk one night and slept with a friend of hers’. She walked out and away from me. I begged and pleaded but it was over. It has been fifteen years since this happened but every night I dream of her, everyday I miss her, I hear her voice all the time and ever so often I get a whiff of her scent. It is driving me mad.”

 

“So you want to jump to a universe where you did not sleep with the other girl and you are still with her? Is that right?” Henry concluded with certain ease.

 

“Yes that is correct,” Brian said turning around to look Henry in the eye.

 

“I have the will and you have the money, so lets see if I can get you your love back,” Henry said with a charming smile.

 

Brian walked up to him and Henry stood up, they shook hands

(More tomorrow 🙂 )

To be continued…

-Arsee.