55 Fiction is a form of microfiction that refers to the works of fiction limited to a maximum of fifty-five words. I must say it is tougher than I thought it would be, nonetheless it was fun.
KILLING THE FEAR WITHIN
She stood there looking at the motionless body of her tormentor. The weapon, a steel rod, still in her hands. A nervous smile was on her face, she was not sadistic, but she refused to live in fear. First two strikes were a miss, the third was on target and the mouse never moved again.
It was around 11 at night, he was marching across his room in a constant to and fro motion, his hands were sweaty, his mouth dry, he felt an intense knot growing in his stomach, he was much less nervous during the presentation he conducted earlier this morning and managed to make a huge sale for his company. He was happy and wanted to celebrate but he was in a foreign land, and was alone on the trip. He had bought a bottle of red wine, he was not exactly an expert on wines, so he went for the ‘if it’s expensive it must be good’ rule. Back in his room he eagerly took out the bottle and found a pamphlet attached to it. He took it out to find pictures of semi naked Caucasian women all over it, the heading said ‘HOT BABES TO SATISFY ALL YOUR DESIRES', a few phone numbers were scribbled at the bottom, the pictures did the rest of the talking. Initially he was amused but as they an empty mind is a devils workshop, he began wondering. He was a 38 year old, married for about 15 years with two kids, but for the past few years sex has been a rarity. On the few occasions when it actually did happen it was nothing more than a set of routine steps which he had mastered over the years, initially he did try to spice things up by suggesting new things but his wife was not open to experimentation, soon even he lost interest and the act of pleasure had all the pleasure sucked out of it.
Some nights he felt very frustrated and thought about exploring other option, but during those weak hours it was the fear of ignominy that stopped him from doing something drastic, what if he got caught, he would loose his wife, his kids and above all his reputation and respect he has earned through years of hard work. It was way too risky, too much was on stake but today he had a chance. He was in a foreign land where nobody knew him, all he needed to do was make a phone call and that’s it. He had all his amorous feelings bottled inside of him for years, he was not sure how long he could contain them, after all he was a man and he had his needs but he didn’t want his family to suffer just because he wanted the fulfillment of a few of his desires, now he had an opportunity to get it all out of his system without doing any damage, he couldn’t just let it go. After an hour long mental battle he was finally able to justify it to himself, than he made the toughest phone call of his life, ‘blondes or brunettes’, the man on the other side asked for his preferences, ‘blonde’ he replied, ‘tall or short’ ,the man enquired, ‘tall’ was all that he could mutter, ‘500 dollars cash’, the man said, he instinctively wanted to bargain but his negotiation skills were nowhere to be found and the only word that came to his mind was ‘ok’. So $500 was set, he gave the man the address of the hotel and his room number, ‘Amanda will be there in about an hour’, the man said and the call finally ended and he could start breathing again. Very soon he began to feel it was all too much for him to handle, he was getting too anxious, he needed alcohol, so after half a bottle of red wine here he was marching through his room. The bell rings, the wait finally ends, ‘Amanda’ was here.
‘Amanda’ was six feet tall, blonde as he had asked for, she had the figure of a goddess and the face of a doll, watching her magnificent form added to his anxiety and the knot in his stomach intensified, he realized he needed to puke, he ran to his bathroom, after ten traumatic minutes he came back to find ‘Amanda’ on the bed, ready for the act with two glasses of wine in her hand. This sight made matter worse for him. His whole body began shaking, he realized he could no longer stand, so he grabbed the table beside him for support, every cell of his body was screaming ‘NO’, apparently a man is not what he fascinates about, he is what he can do and to his surprise he was not the man who was willing to do this, he decided that he will give her the 500 dollars and then tell her to leave but he was completely unable to phrase it, he failed to find any word he was looking for, maybe the wine would help, he grabbed the glass from her and drank the whole thing in one gulp, he quickly made up his mind, took $500 from his closet, went back to her, gave her a smile and then fell to the ground unconscious. When he woke up ‘Amanda’ was gone and so were his belongings.
It’s been two decades since I first arrived in this three dimensional world of ours, my entry wasn’t exactly graceful, I remember being very exasperated and using the little strength I had in crying but in my defense a nice juicy slap on my butt was not exactly the kind of welcome I was expecting, the doctor responsible for my predicament was really enjoying herself it’s been twenty years and I still remember the sadistic grin on her face. The first couple of months were mostly spent in sleeping, I needed some time to adjust to my new surroundings, the next few months were the golden phase I literally didn’t have to do anything it was like I was on auto pilot mode my life moved forward without any effort from my side, what I enjoyed most was when someone tried to teach me to speak they would keep on saying “papa” and “mama” over and over again while I would just blankly stare back trying to conceal my laughter , sometimes when I really felt like messing with them as soon as they would stop I would mumble something gibberish and they would start all over again. Oh those were some good days.
Now the thing is, good days are like trial version of a very expensive software as soon as you get used to them they come to an end and start demanding unreasonable prices. One fine morning my parents came to a not so fine conclusion that I was too heavy to be carried around and must learn to walk, all my resistance was in vain and just like that my golden phase came to an end. As it turned out learning to walk wasn’t all that terrible. It gave me my first taste of freedom, now I could grab that that distant paperweight kept on that distant table, examine its features, play with it or ‘accidentally’ break it, one of my several ways of getting back at my parents for ending my golden phase. The possibilities seemed endless, one of my favorite vengeful activity was to hide or throw away footwear of the guests who visited my home, apparently if people are leaving and someone is unable to find his/her shoes/sandal the whole bunch gets really annoyed, soon I realized that all I needed was to hide just one of the two not the whole pair.
Soon my acts of rebellion took a toll on my parents and they began punishing me, initially the punishments were mild like not going out to play or no cartoon, they were a breeze I would always find something more interesting to do that would annoy my parents even more, unfortunately for me my mother soon realized how impotent these punishments were and resorted to more physical ones, I still remember the first time mother slapped me, the sheer shock caused by this action of hers made my mind go completely blank, it was like I had forgotten the art of speech but soon enough fear kicked in, fear of the next slap and it was then I began with the water works, I could see the remorse on her face. There are a lot of great things about being a single child but if one has no siblings one cannot blame anyone else for the broken flower vase or the missing chocolate biscuits no matter how good a liar one is, oh yeah lying was the first thing fear taught me, so the slaps kept on coming but the really frightening thing was that the remorse I first saw on her face was no longer present. Sometimes I would run away from her, in the early days she used to out run me and when she no longer could I realized I had nowhere to go. It’s amazing that it never really occurred to me that I could stop my shenanigans, the only thing the slaps were able to do was generate fear loads of fear but the problem was that fear to a kid is like a bollywood cop it always appears after the screw up has been performed, when it’s too late. All in all being a baby boy was fun, all this writing has made me nostalgic so you better keep an eye on your shoes.
