Short and Sweet

I like reading short stories and I kind of prefer them over novels, unless the novel is really, really good. One of my most favourite short story collections is Baum Plan for Financial Independence by John Kessel, I was in third or fourth year of college and it kind of vibed with me, my personal style and preferences but above all the actual truth of the world. I mean I liked what I read back then and haven’t read it again, but the experience stays, and it is among the few reading experiences that I remember like when I read Harry Potter as a kid or when I read Tolstoy. Short stories are underrated and not everyone can do justice to them though I’m glad that I grew up in an era when there were a lot of authentic short stories, written directly from the hearts of people. During college I read a lot of Kafka’s short stories, and I liked the vibe, I was already in depression so the depressive atmosphere of Kafka’s work and the truth in it felt sweet to me, and it felt like “at least someone knows the truth”.  Even Sherlock Holmes is mostly short stories. I kind of started writing short fiction around 2010 and still write a bit here and there when I get the inspiration and even though my language skills weren’t great, they still aren’t, I kind of like what I wrote for a guy in his late teens and early twenties. It’s all redundant now though. Short stories like any other story don’t matter anymore after the world got connected and changed and some would argue, for the worse. But I still read stories short or long because they are an experience. Reading short stories or even novels is an experience and this is what protects them from becoming irrelevant. You read Lovecraft and the feel the grand mythic nature of his stories and their warm nihilism. This is the very reason I never totally gave up on writing short stories, and even now every now and then end up writing a flash fiction. After getting exposed to and bearing the brunt of the reality of this country, I promised myself that my writing will do either of two tell the truth or make people feel and preferably do both. I’m more of warm writing that comforts kind of a person but then I lean towards the transgressive too, so I sometimes experiment with mixing warmth and transgression. Reading is one of the ways you can explore the world without travelling and explore the minds of people. I hope people who have kids now are buying them comics.

Cleopatra

She sits in front of me. My nostrils get a whiff of her perfume. I don't wear perfumes or deodorants, I am tolerant of other people's body odours and I keep my distance from people so that they don't have to tolerate mine. I let my kind of women find me, as they say those who are genetically compatible to you find your body odour attractive, though one should make it a point to not let their body odour turn into an abomination that makes people retch. Her scent was attractive, no doubts about that and her body odour mixed with the scent of her perfume was doing things to me. Attraction is such a thing, you never know who ends up attracting you. Last time it was that cute idealistic ground reporter who deals with morbid things like rape. I came to know about her, wanted to know more about her and she kept on getting more and more attractive for me. The task at hand was not getting pulled by this babe who was wearing a kind of perfume that had the capacity to attract me, of course mixed with her body odour that was making my chromosomes jump around in the nucleus of my cells. I felt like I wanted to procreate with her. I have known a few women and I have known their souls. This was different, I didn't know anything about her except her body's smell and her choice in perfumes. I try to calm myself. I start actively thinking about the idealistic reporter I liked so much. I'm somehow sure that she would have smelled good too had I known her. Could the reverse be true too? Could this perfume wearing, what they call now a days, baddie, be my kind of a woman? That's a topic for research. Would have to check PubMed after reaching home to see if someone has already explored it. I haven't got to see her face, but at this point I'm not afraid of getting disappointed. My nostrils and through them my brain and the rest of my body have already declared their verdict. All my theories about being sapiosexual and soulmate finder are at stake here. Maybe things actually are primal. My brain at this point has stopped braining, it just feels that I want her to sit on my face. Sitting on the face denotes power dynamic and I don't even know her enough to deduce the political and financial power differences, I just want her ivory ass on my fucking face. Maybe genetic superiority is really a thing. I reject it though. I will always reject it. I get up and walk in front of the bus without giving her a look. I don't want to see her face. I get down from the bus. Life can't be this simple, I can't let it be this simple.