A new doorway

The maze of wires that connected his brain to the monitor and would soon tap into the deepest recesses of his mind gave him jitters. Beads of sweat cropped up on his forehead and the sustained pounding in his chest made him unusually aware of cardiac presence. An impulsive desire to scurry past the white coats rose in his heart as he began to question his decision of volunteering for this project.

Awareness would not abandon him during the procedure but he would feel no pain, so he had been reassured. The 'Memory manipulation-cum-enhancement procedure (MMEP)', if successful, would open a new therapeutic door to the world. It could possibly eradicate multitudes of illnesses that plagued humanity today.

Few minutes into the procedure and a voice exclaimed,"This is amazing. Just the perfect results we expected. His neurons are firing exactly as they... Hold on... Wait... What's this?... What's going on here?"

"Jenny, get me his vitals, right now", the voice demanded urgently.

"What the hell is happening?" he was screaming now.

The body on the table was, by this time, violently jerking, arms and legs all over the place, getting into distortions that would possibly snap it into pieces. Eyes rolled up, face contorted, froth drooling out the mouth and heavy breathing. A state of panic enveloped the procedure room as action took over to handle this emergency. In a few minutes that seemed like an eternity, the anti-epileptic injection calmed him down.

Hours later, a voice, in its full-blown innocence asked the nurse, "Where am I?"

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This post is in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge week seventy-five.

The prompt is to write a 33 to 333 word response using the following word/definition:

DOOR:  a means of access or participation : opportunity

Paranoia

Ear-deafening shrieks tore through the darkness as her terror-filled eyes followed the haunting shadow again.
"It's fine, honey. There's nothing here," balm-like words soothed her.
A doll's arm revealed itself from his pocket.

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This post is in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge Week Sixty-Five.

End of all woes

The ecstasy on William's blood-stained face as he was about to be beheaded in front of a huge crowd of gawking spectators, the hope of seeing the rays of the sun tear apart the darkness of the unending, gloomy night, the anticipation of the fragrance of his long-lost love, his aching for the gentle kiss that reminded him of dew-topped rose petals, the sounds of her tinkling laughter every time he played with her silken tresses, they all masked the tears of blood that he shed in his fight for her and the immense suffering he put up to bring justice to her death. In a moment of trance, this soldier realized that few seconds from now, he would be hers in death too, just as he'd never quit being hers in life. He couldn't contain within himself the rapturous exaltation coupled with relief that he was going to become one with her... finally!

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This post is in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge (week seventy-four)

This week’s Trifecta challenge was to incorporate the word below, in the third definition.

This week's word prompt:

ECSTASY (noun)

1
a : a state of being beyond reason and self-control
b archaic : swoon
2
: a state of overwhelming emotion; especially : rapturous delight
3
: trance; especially : a mystic or prophetic trance

A World Full Of Strangers

There are times in life when it's comforting to have strangers around you. You don't feel lonely this way. And yet there's no one who will ask u 'Why are you upset? What happened? Why are you feeling so low?'

They just leave you to be yourself. Girls walking around giggling on phone, guys involved in animated conversations with friends, women exchanging gossip in whispers and some old men sitting with the newspaper which seems to be their best friend.

You walk past with some burdens buried deep inside you, desperate to fight their way into the outer world through tears. Your will emerges stronger and not a single drop is shed. May be because you don't want any of these inanimate strangers to come to life and ask you the same questions you wanted to avoid. Or may be because you really wanted someone else to care about these...

An Old Acquaintance

Something happened today while I was shopping. A guy approached me and politely asked me, "Excuse me, are you Sapna?"

I looked at him curiously and replied in the affirmative, a confused look very perceptive on my face.

He immediately continued, "You remember Sanjay Punjabi from Junior college?"

I answered an embarrassed "No". I added, "I'm so sorry but I don't remember."

He kind of expected this from me. After all I was the kinds who hardly spoke much to others all through my school and college.

Blatantly ignoring my poor memory, he continued "I'm Sanjay. So, howz life? What are u doing nowadays"

"I'm a doctor"

"Wow", he interrupted. And here I was wondering what was so 'wow' about it. I didn't think there was anything great about it.

Courtesy demanded I ask him about his life too.

"I have a job at one of these nearby shops."

"Great", I concluded.

He said he had seen me even before but was confused if it was me or someone else. "I do come shopping here once in a while" was all I could say.

He left with a good-bye and I turned around with all my bags.

I realised his condition - obviously not very well-to-do, his clothes (I noticed the unduly old and a bit tattered shirt) said it. Yet he had a smile on his face. May not be having the best kind of job too... Being a salesman at a garments market isn't really a 'dream job'. Yet he seemed happy. Contented.

I walked away wondering what makes me crib about my work sometimes. Why do I crib about life at all? Can't I just be happy like him and go and say 'Hello' when I spot an old acquaintance?

Voila... Retail Therapy!

Stress is the talk-of-the-town and what better stress-buster than shopping. Na na na… don’t get me wrong… I’m not jumping to any conclusions but merely stating something that has been substantiated completely by research scientists who I’m sure are not shopaholics! On the contrary, they may be dedicated husbands to women who are shopping maniacs (aesthetically termed as ‘compulsive shoppers’) to an extent that they have got their husbands’ credit cards blocked due to non-payment of charges that are well beyond the assigned credit limit. So what makes shopping a mood-lifter after all?

The simplest explanation would be that when we are feeling low, we need to experience ‘something’ that lifts our mood. It may be chocolates or sweets for some, a nice game for others and shopping for most of the fairer sex. Shopping is likened to ‘rewarding oneself’ and who does not feel better when rewarded?? It triggers women out of their gloomy state and launches them straight into the air-conditioned, sweet-smelling interiors of a big store in the nearest shopping mall. At the end of all the My-God-I-bought-so-many-things experience, a wonderful mood emerges that lasts quite a while :)

I don’t think I should even wander into areas that touch the point about the credit card bills that are awaiting you in the coming month… didn’t I say I was discussing only stress-busters today??

Corporate Email Antics

As official as it may sound, corporate emailing is far from being ‘official’ many a times, and becomes a rather unofficial way of getting back at colleagues. Whether someone wants to dodge a particular job assigned to them or settle scores with a particularly nasty colleague, corporate email shows them the way. It’s amusing how much the human mind can evolve to uncover newer and newer methods of such not-so-pleasant tactics that people are often at the giving (or receiving) end of.

Starts off as an ‘FYI’ from the queen-of-lazy-ones who practically dozes off at her desk all the time in your neighboring cubicle. You realize only too late that you got into this loop of a hundred FYI messages simply because this lady found the task assigned to her very un-cool and intended to bat it straight to you. Alas, the boss comes over to ‘you’ and questions you about the task that you are blissfully unaware of, while this lucky lady sips away her cappuccino during the tea break. And what do you do? Sport that Ohh-I-didn’t-know-at-all look only to be fired for being so irresponsible about your duties. You realize your fault too late: Being dumb enough not to pass on the FYI to your next in-line.

Marking CC and BCC is another repulsive trend – don’t ask me who started this trend but I’m still hunting for that person even today… he will become history the day I lay my hands on him! People who don’t work need something to make noise about – probably to show they are on the ball of something important and their easiest tactic is to mark a CC to the boss for every trifling email. Phew… don’t even know how to deal with such people… Can Microsoft Office kindly provide some valuable help?

And the last of the kin are those who have ample of time and energy to write mails for anything and everything (obviously unimportant ones!) in the world. So they will mark a reply-all every time asking for the stupidest bit of information over and over till you fall dead replying to them. Tring tring – do these people know there’s a telephone at their desk that they can pick up and ask their query and get it solved in a jiffy?

Well these super-beings are not the last ones actually – there are multitudes of them out there, but for now, these are all I can spare time to talk about… I just received an FYI with a CC marked to the boss and obviously I am to action it… soonest!