The Traveller

The first time he travelled through that tenuous and ephemeral temporal membrane he found himself among a flock of sheep in the middle of a wide open grassy plain with the sun beating on his bald head.

He asked the sheep which was nearest to him of the location and time, but it turned away from him; it was not apparently much of a talker. He asked the next one but it stared at him incredulously chewing the grass. After meeting with many similar and at other times incomprehensible replies he gave up and walked out from that white fluffy patch in the sea of green and started searching for more cooperative and comprehensible beings.

And thus it was that he came across the shepherd who was dozing in the shade of the single tree that blemished that otherwise greenish land. He woke up the man who was dressed sparingly in just a loin cloth fashioned out of some animal skin with a body of hair and a beard that reached to his loins which was quite possibly home to many vermins. The man woke up with a start and grabbed the stick lying next to him shouting in an incomprehensible language. The traveler irked as he was managed to keep up appearances and to calm this scraggy shepherd down. But here also the answers to his questions was just as incoherent as those of the sheep.

Infuriated the traveler walked away from the shepherd and searched high and low for something that had the decency to speak to him in his own language.

As he stomped around, the sky grew clouded and a heated argument took place in heaven. The light tired of being intangible and transparent had decided to become forks that raced through the sky and crashed down in chaos. Sound green with envy at light’s disobedience moaned and whined and shouted with God.

In all this ruckus, the traveler felt caught and scared. He was out of place. This single language, this single God, this single land was more than he could take. In fright, he quickly departed from his destination into the highways of time.

The traveler was of the ‘here’ and the ‘now’. The ‘here’ and ‘now’ of a thousand wars, a thousand problems, a thousand laments, a thousand Gods. He hated ‘here’ and ‘now’.

He wasn’t worse off. In fact he was in one of those ‘here’s’ that was faring very well. This particular here was respected for its wisdom, creativity and for its sheer bloodlust. Of the thousands of wars that were being waged almost half involved them. In a generation where every type of entertainment had been milked to its maximum, war was the new monopoly, the new horse races, the new reality. Drop a couple of bombs ‘there’, drop some slight innuendos in a speech ‘there’ and viola the bets were on.

The traveler’s father was in fact a general and enjoyed waging wars for reasons that he himself had forgotten. In fact the very latest war was due to the difference in opinion between the general of ‘here’ and the general of ‘there’ over the shape of a cloud. One had remarked that it looked like a rabbit while the other was adamant that it was more of an elephant than a rabbit. And thus the War of the Clouds began. The general sat in his room shouting orders through his phone; send a nuclear warhead to ‘there’, kill a 1000 innocent people ‘there’, rape some women ‘there’……

And in this chaotic ‘now’ people had lost their faith in a single God. They had realized that the burden was too much for one god to carry. Thus they invented a multitude of gods of varying physical forms and philosophy. Everyone loved their God and hated the others. They burned the apocryphal texts of the other Gods shouting that the others worshipped chaos oblivious to the fact that God in all his omnipotence was simply too chaotic himself to not cause chaos in the world.

Though a man of his times, the traveler was disillusioned.  He had thus built his vehicle of temporal and spatial transport. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

Once again he found himself among sheep, in the same place but there was something wrong here, he could feel it.

He doesn’t ask any of the sheep any questions this time around. The sheep are all chewing but they are not chewing grass for what is underfoot is not grass,rather it is something that is made to look like grass. Moreover the sheep aren’t real either. They are artificial, not alive, mere machinations. He disentangled himself from all that artificiality and walked around. Nothing was real, even the sky was a projection.

He came across a man who was sleeping beneath an artificial tree that resembled more of an umbrella than a tree. The man wore nothing but a loincloth of some silvery material.The man was also hairless from head to toe. The man became aware of the traveler. He opened his eyes and smiled. The traveler asked him some questions. It was evident that the man understood what was being asked but he didn’t reply, just smiled.

The traveler became aware of the silence that perpetuated across this artificial environment. He realized that this was a place where man had ceased all forms of communication. He felt the absence of all Gods. This was a time of atheism, of man making the sky and the sheep and the ground beneath his feet. In this time man didn’t need a God, he was one.

Depressed the traveler decided to leave. He had travelled both forwards and backwards in the highways of time. Nowhere could he find peace he sought. He realized that no matter what he was always a prisoner of his time. It was where he should be, reminiscing about a peace he never wished to have or could ever obtain.

- Rohith

The Bug

 ‘I don't know how to tell you this’ said Ricky. He noticed, or rather recollected, that the abundance of natural light in the room made Augustin, who was sitting across the table, look like an animated shadow drowned in sunlight. The consistent, metronomic tune he drummed on the tabletop, which made the spoons kept on it vibrate tenuously and click against each other to make metallic overtones to his beats, made Augustin a surreal presence across the table, an unreal shadow that Ricky was talking to.

‘I have never seen you so terrified’, said Augustin, words emanating from his formless silhouette.  

Ricky shook his head and said ‘I don’t know if it is serious, I have a nagging feeling that it might be. All I am sure of is that I have never felt anything like this before in my life’ Somebody walked into the restaurant, a tall man in a black suit and a bowler hat who momentarily blocked the light and Ricky could see Augustin’s face in his shadow, Augustin whose eyes were narrowed to serpentine slits of scrutiny. The man walked away and Augustin was once more featureless.

‘Tell me what this is about. All the pretext is making me nervous’ said Augustin,

‘You know there are two routes from my house to my office. One by this road parallel to the beach and the other by the main road through the heart of the city’ said Ricky

‘Yes, yes’ Augustin nodded in affirmative.

‘Well yesterday morning I didn’t know which of these two to take. I just forgot which road I should be taking. I happened today morning again. It is like have no memory of what I am supposed to do next, I have to think about it every time’

‘What do you mean you don’t remember?!’ asked Augustin in a high pitched tone that reverberated, bouncing off the white walls of the almost empty restaurant, as his voice died out there was a sinister silence.

‘I don’t remember. From yesterday whenever I am faced with a choice I can’t remember what to do next. I have to make decisions about everything. It’s crazy’ said Ricky.

‘You are crazy’ said Augustin, finger pointing ‘How can you not remember man. You always remember what to do next, always’

Lost in their conundrums they did not see the waiter who approached the table and announced his presence with a question ‘May I take your order sir?’ Both Ricky and Augustin took the menu cards. Augustin just glanced through it and said ‘I will have pasta with white sauce and olives’ The waiter noted it down with fast strokes in his note pad and turned his head towards Ricky who was hiding his perspiration riddled face behind the menu card which was trembling like his hands in anticipation of the choices he will have to make so as to have dinner. He tried his best to decide what to order, a dilemma he had never faced before in his life, every dish from pasta to dosa looked good, he searched his head frantically to try and remember what should he be ordering today at this precise moment in the cosmic scheme of things, he searched in the folders of his memory to find his choices, he found only a black blankness in the memory of the future. The waiter urged him with a polite, monosyllabic question ‘Sir?’

Ricky looked up from the menu card and said with a quivering voice ‘I’ll take whatever he his having’ He lost the game of choosing and succumbed to the lazy habit of duplicity.

The waiter left the table, Augustin was giving him a belligerent look ‘What the hell was that all about?’

‘I told you. I can’t remember anything about the future. It’s completely blank. I have to make decisions every time’ said Ricky, retracting his neck into his shoulders in shame.

‘Go get your head checked then, see a shrink today itself’

The thought had occurred to Ricky, to get his head checked, to get rid of the nagging blankness in his memory of things to come, to be normal again, and to live by remembering rather than thinking. But he liked it, he liked the small rush of blood he got when he weighed out his options and made a decision, it made him feel that he was the master of his own destiny, a god of small things.

‘No, I’m not going to get my head checked. I like it this way’

‘What?!’ once again Augustin’s high pitched voice rose high above the serene rumblings of the far away sea.

‘Ya I like it’ said Ricky emphasizing the ‘like’, rolling his tongue over the ‘l’, clicking at ‘i’, finishing with a short, slap-like ‘it’.

‘How can you like it? It’s a bloody waste of time. See how much time you took with the menu’ said Augustin, who did not like what he was hearing, his acerbic tone barely veiled his feelings.

‘You wouldn’t understand it man. It feels really good. Yes, it can be frustrating at times, but at least you know you are in control. And the feeling you get when things work out is… it’s like cold beer washing down your parched throat on a summer day. It’s fucking liberation man, you got to try it’

Augustin looked at Ricky, silence, he lifted his left hand towards his head and started moving his forefinger in circles near his left ear and finally broke the silence ‘I don’t want to go cuckoo like you man. If I want to feel that, I’ll go buy a drink’

Ricky ignored his friend’s snide remark and his forefinger still going around in circles, questioning his sanity. He leaned back on his chair and looked out through the open doors of his restaurant. He saw palm trees lining the road on the other side, yellow sand, white foam, blue sea joining the blue sky at the horizon which was of an indescribable colour. In the blankness of his mind, free from the preconceived, contrived memories of the future, Ricky could feel thoughts and connections he had never felt before in his life. Inside him there was a tenuous seething novel to his universe. He understood, like no man before him that the sea, the sand, his body, his soul, his thoughts, his memories, everything except the rebellious, riotous feeling in him to think, was too perfect. He had never experienced prolonged pain, or heartbreak, he has never had diseases, never had he been involved in an accident of any kind, nor have Augustin, nor have his wife Laura, nor have the waiter Anelsmo, but all of them knew about such horrors, who put these vile notions in their heads? What use of knowing about such shit in a perfect world? He found this strange. He leaned forward to tell Augustin about this apparent anomaly, then he heard gunfire, Augustin’s head bobbed like it had been punched, pieces of his skull burst into the air followed by jets of blood and brain.

                                                                        ***

Ajay didn’t like what he saw in the screen. He rolled his enormous body as quick as he could to get his myopic eyes as close to the screen as possible, toppling a glass of Coke he kept on his table in the process.

‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed. Still staring at the screen he shouted as loud as he could ‘Hey Martin!’

Martin was his neighbor from the next cabin. Mr Fix it of the group, the go to guy when your code crashed.

No response. Ajay took in a deep breath and shouted again ‘Hey Martin! Come over here, there is something wrong with this mission’

He heard the screech of a chair moving from the other side of his cabin wall, five seconds later Martin was peering over his shoulder at the screen

‘You should get your table cleaned up’

‘Ya ya, we got bigger problems than that’, said Ajay, choosing not to look at the Coke soaked mess that was his table

‘What’s the big deal? This seems to be running fine’ said Martin, pushing up his heavy spectacles up his nose with his middle finger.

‘No, it’s not. The first mission is supposed to end with a cut scene showing the gang entering a restaurant, shooting a random customer and then making off with the money’ said Ajay

‘And the problem is….’

‘The problem is that the game goes berserk at that point. They shoot a guy in the restaurant, but another guy just slaughters them inside the restaurant before they can take the cash’ said Ajay, shifting uneasily in his bean bag.

‘The people in the restaurant are props right?’ asked Martin

‘Yeah, just props, unplayable dummies. They should have no bearing on the outcome of the game. But this guy just pops out of nowhere’

‘Must be a bug’

‘Bugs make the game crash. What kind of a bug goes all vigilante?’ asked Ajay

‘Ah screw it. Just delete the code for the props in the restaurant and ask one of the interns to recode them’ said Martin, once again he had fixed the bug.

AJ

The Infinite Die

The physical manifestation of the line between hope and despair exists on the border between New Mexico and the United States of America clad in steel barbs and buzzing with power. On one side of the line exists the paradise of desires and on the other side the hot desolation of hell.

The physical manifestation of such an ephemeral substance comes with a cost. For the line to exist human sacrifices are necessary on a regular basis. But this has never been a problem as there are always people who dream to cross to heaven from hell. The aura that emanates from the line poisons the air around it. Nowhere is violence more acceptable and more at home.

The Bue Casares is the only saloon close to the border. I sat at the counter with a mug of beer in my hand, tense and sweating. Guards roamed the bar or sat on the chairs showing off their long barreled shotguns. Most were paid by the US to keep us out. ‘To keep their country clean’ as Senator McKeenly likes to say in his speeches.

Pablo Schmelzer, the German born Mexican smuggler had promised to meet me here at midnight. I was to try my chance at paradise and Pablo said he would get me there, for a small price ofcourse. He had had more success than others that occupied his trade. It is said that he knew more ways to dig into the US soil than the earthworms that made this precarious land their home.

Until Pablo showed up though, I had to be unobtrusive and inconspicuous. I had to blend in and seem like one of the normal rowdy patents of the Bue Casares.

Though I was sweating profusely and my heart was hammering in my chest, I was talking up Alona the waitress. I was my charming best and she was leaning forward showing off her ample cleavage. Another time I would have been rock hard and thinking how it would be to rest my head on her bosom. But this wasn’t the time or place for it. I was merely passing by, trying to be inconspicuous.

Pareho Sanchez suddenly appeared at my elbow and started to drag me towards a game of dice played by a group of men loudly and raucously.

Pareho Sanchez was a stout, well muscled man with a grin a mile long. He had driven me over to the Bue Casares from Terequita. He was a simple man. You give him a 100 pesos and he would drive you from anywhere to the Bue Casares and he never asked questions. He was as friendly as they get and he sauntered around the saloon as if it was his own home. With good reason perhaps, he had probably spent more time here than at his own home.

Games of chance always intrigued me but I declined their offer to play. I had to keep the rest of my money in check. I watched the game and joined in their cheer and soon I was feeling relaxed, more so than when I was talking up Alona.  After a while I glanced around the bar and that was when I saw him.

He was old but not old enough to be an infirm. His face was a tapestry of wrinkles and the hair on his head though long was sparse. He was sitting alone at a table, tossing a die and scribbling stuff in his notebook. Each time he would toss the die, wait for it to come to a standstill and then he would proceed to write something in his notebook. This went on for some time. Finally curiosity got the better of me and I walked over to the man.

‘What game are you playing, amigo?’ I asked to start up the conversation.

The man tossed the die again raised his index finger to tell me to give him a minute, motioned to the other chair placed by the table and then proceeded to write in his note again after which he looked at me and smiled.

‘Ah amigo! Are you interested?’ he asked.

‘It seems to be one I haven’t yet seen before’

‘Well it is a unique game. I think that man hasn’t ever played it. Not that this is a new game of course. No, not at all. This is probably the oldest game in the history of the universe.’

‘Really?’ I decided to indulge this man. He had a good face, a nice smile; I liked him. ‘What is it called?’

‘Well a name for it is hard to come by.’ He paused for a second reflecting. ‘Though I suppose it can be referred to as ‘Playing God’.’

‘Playing God?’

He took the die from the table and gave it to me.

‘Yes God. Look at the die. What do you see?’

I looked at it. It was an ordinary die. Nothing special. Six sides, each side numbered. ‘Well it’s just an ordinary die.’

‘True. But calling a die ordinary is undervaluing the true power of the object. Now do you know what is special about a die?’

I racked my brains ‘Well no. It’s just a tool to play a game’

‘No it is much more than that. A die is a tool for arbitration. It is a way to arrive at an unbiased decision. A die is designed such that all the six sides have an equal chance of arbitrarily appearing. It is a tool of pure chance and randomness.’

‘But how can you use it to play God?’ I asked while tossing the die towards him. The die flipped over the table, rolling until it landed in front of the man.

‘Tell me what number is facing me?’

I looked at it. ‘Five.’

‘Yes five. Now there was an equal chance for any of the 6 numbers to come. It could have been 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 6. But by a very random chance it turned out to be 5.’

He took it in is hands. There was a sparkle in his eyes. I leaned forward. The conversation was proving to be very interesting.

‘The earliest interpretations of God penned him as a being who had humanities best interests to heart. That is, he created the whole universe and the world just for us. He had a predetermined plan whose final outcome was humanity and it is for this that he strived. But ofcourse science has told us that ours is not a special world or a special solar system. There exists many such suns and planets in the universe. Now that leads us to question our preconceived notion of a human centric God. Would you like some beer?’

The question caught me of guard. I was listening closely to the conversation and I realized that the glass of liquor I had in my hand, the only one I allowed myself the luxury of dinking that night was empty. I had to keep my wits about me for the rest of the night so I politely declined.

He looked at me and started laughing but it wasn’t a large bellow of a laughter, it was much more subtle. A small whisper of a laugh.

‘What are you laughing about?’ I asked chuckling myself, caught in the moment.

‘He pointed to the notebook he was writing in before which he had closed and kept on the table when he started talking to me.

‘Take a look at the book. Page number 77.’

I flipped open the book. The pages were all numbered and were all scribbled in aneat and tidy hand. I turned over to page 77. And on it was written:

1990-2000-> february-may -> 15-22 -> 7-10->Game played -> game played some more

->a stranger arrives -> conversation with stranger -> offer stranger a drink -> refusal ->explain -> stranger bids adieu ->stranger attempting to cross the border ->guide Pablo Schmelzer ->Terquita or Gonzala ->came by truck

I felt like I had been doused with a bucket of ice cold water. Fear gripped my heart again. Was this kindly man part of the border patrol?

‘Who are you? And how did you know about all this?’

‘My name is irrelevant and so is yours, to me anyway. And do not fear, I am not part of the border patrol.’

‘But then how did you know all this?’

‘Simple. I played dice’ he replied with that light smile still on is face. ‘Listen. Einstein says that God does not play dice with the universe. I agree, well not the dice that we play anyway.But the truth is that if we replace our notion of a human centric God, then in an infinite universe playing dice is the best way to arbitrarily arrive at the distribution of resources. 

‘You mean to tell me that you got all this by using the die that is lying on this table?’ I asked incredulously. ‘You could just have gotten it from asking Pablo.’

‘Do not insult me. I keep no truck with men of his kind. I have nothing to offer him and he nothing to offer me. And as for your question of whether I arrived at all this by using this die; no of course not. A six sided die has the problem of it only being able to account for six branches of time at any given moment. According to physicists the number of branches that are available for time to turn into at any given moment is infinite. No, so the six sided die could not have, with such precision, given me the sheer number of approximately correct details I have about what is happening here. It can’t do that. But six is not the only number that a fair die can possess. Follow me.’

He got up and walked towards the door on the back of the bar. Astounded and curious though I was with this man’s eloquence I looked at the clock before following him. I had time, not much but probably enough. Real life takes precedence over conjuncture.

He led me out a side door in the back to a staircase. We climbed up a floor and he turned and went into the room at the immediate right of the stairway. He held open the door and invited me in. Supposedly this was his home.

He switched on the single incandescent light fixture in the room. It was sparsely furnished. A bed, a table and a chair. That was all the room contained. There wasn’t room for anymore even if he wanted it.

He motioned me to sit in the chair as he crouched down and retrieved a cardboard box from under his bed. He dumped the entire contents of the box on to the table unceremoniously and I had to lean forward and use my hands to keep some things from falling off the table.

The jumble of stuff that littered the table included notebooks, loose sheaves of paper and geometric solids of the nature I have never laid eyes on before.

‘What are these?’ I asked taking one of them of the table from around the 20 or 30 on it. The solid in question was as big as my fist and had about 120 sides, each numbered.

He sat down on the bed and smiled at me.

‘Those are all fair dies. Each and every one of them. The one you are holding in your hand is a disdyakis triacontahedron also known as a truncated icosidodecahedron. They belong to larger category called Catalan solids or Archimedean duals. In fact the one you are holding in your hand right now is the same one I used to make my prediction of your arrival.’

I was in truth amazed. I hadn’t known this many dice existed and I looked at the other objects that littered the table.

‘I never knew so many dice existed. Let alone fair ones.’

Yes. A number of solids adhere to the random and equal probability rule needed for a fair die. They include Platonic solids, Catalan solids, Bipyramids, Trapezohedrons and Disphenoids. All these solids are littered on the table in front of you. With numerous sides in each of them. That is my life’s work; all the dice you see in front of you were machined by me individually. I have to take extra care so that the shapes don’t deviate from the theoretical originals.'

The man was grinning contently. There was pride in his eyes at his accomplishments.

‘So this is what you do, sit here and make predictions based on the dies? Do they all come true?’

‘Yes mostly that is what I do. Occasionally I help out around the bar but I have dedicated my life to this. And no not all of my predictions come true but some do, reaffirming my belief that God’s decisions arise from the toss of a die. And also even if some of my predictions don’t come true in this universe it must so in another one.’

So you are saying that God determines the fate of the universes using these dies?’ I asked

‘Oh no, of course not! These are way too, shall we say inadequate for God’s use. Here.’ He took a small metal sphere form the jumble on the table and tossed it to me.

‘That is a sphere. Now a sphere can be used as a die as well, you just have to mark the points in it and assign it numbers. But the thing is that the number of points on a sphere is actually unknown. To be more precise it is infinite. And so the probability of any one side is 1 by infinity. That my friend is the ultimate die…… an infinite die!’ His eyes were aglow with the revelation he had just made to me.

‘So God uses an infinite die much like a sphere. Is that what you say?’

‘Yes and no. God uses an infinite die but to limit God to using a spherical die is preposterous. God’s die is something else all together. It is almost impossible for us to imagine. God’s die is an infinite die with infinite results on each point and so on and so forth to infinity.’

I was still turning the sphere over in my hands and I looked at him quizzically.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Like I said it is difficult for us to imagine. Imagine the die you are holding in your hands and imagine that you can make out individually the infinite points that make up the die. In God’s die each of that individual points have further a infinite die in them in the sense that each of that individual points is constituted by infinite points and each of them by another set and so on. So the true outcome of a toss is an infinite series that starts from the beginning of time to its end. This can mean that each toss of the die decides an entire universe. Do you understand?’

‘Yes. I suppose so.’ I kept trolling the sphere in my hands and in it I could see my birth and my growth in my home village of Terquita. I looked up at him. ‘It’s something else’

‘Everything. From the big bang to the creation of the Milky Way Galaxy, to our sun and the earth and life itself. Everything is in the toss of a die. Life is a blotch on one side of an infinite die. Can you imagine that?’

Yes I could. More so than he could imagine. The die turned in my hands and I could see myself killing Rojo Gerdo, the local mafia boss. I could see myself in hiding, my heart beating at every footstep. I could see my journey from the village and out to here. I could see my mother pushing every scrap of money she had into my arms and kissing my forehead. I could see a lot of things.

We sat there like that for a while, not talking, immersed in our own thoughts about the infinite die. Finally I got up.

‘I think it is about time I started off. Thank you for showing me all this.’

‘No. No.’ he got up from the bed. ‘It is no problem at all. ‘It is a pleasure to share all this with someone. And you should not thank me. The dies told me you would come and I merely followed it. Thank chance if you feel like thanking someone.’

I turned to walk out the door and stopped.

‘Do you think…’I let my voice trail off.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t cast the die for that yet.’ The man says from behind me.

From the moment I left the pub on my dangerous trip I started to hear a sound. It hounded me.

As I hid behind a bush, a patrol went by so close that they would have stepped on my fingers. I was afraid that the patrol would hear the sound as well, but they were oblivious to its incessant continuity.

I crossed trenches, crawled through tunnels, waded through waist high water in all this the sound was slowly reverberating in the background.

As I jumped an electric fence and ran towards the nearest tunnel entrance I realized what the noise I kept hearing was. It was the rattle of a die being tossed.

As shots were fired around me and bullets fizzed past me on my mad dash to my refuge the infinite die was still rolling

Rohith

The inexpressible adventures of…. whatever his name is

 1.

‘Life is so fragile’ said Stmtriütot to his friend, who was sitting facing him. Through the big glass window that took up most of the wall behind his friend, Stmtriütot could see the city cast in dull orange by the setting sun. On the glass he saw his face reflected like that of a ghost, a diaphanous mirage on the crystal.

‘Any of us, or both of us, but most likely neither of us may die any second now. A stroke, a heart attack, an aneurysm, that’s all it takes’ continued Stmtriütot. His friend nodded in approval, carefully shaking his head as if not to break his fragile neck.

Yes, life is fragile. For instance I could be dead by the time you read this or you could be dead by the time I write this. But I don’t believe that is your concern at the moment. You are wondering; what kind of a demented name is Stmtriütot? What language does he speak? What clothes does he wear? What does he look like? Is he human? In your desperation you probably tried to pronounce his name, to say it out loud, and obviously failed, ending in incomprehensible tits and tots and wondering how to pronounce the ü (I for one have no clue.)

Let me alleviate your discomfort. I will rename him as Sergio Gonzales. Thing are much better now, aren’t they? Let me tell you that he is Mexican, now that troublesome scene in the beginning probably has taken the following form in your subconscious-

‘Life is so fragile, amigo’, Sergio tells his friend, who is sitting across him. His friend, whose name is Raul or Juan, has a big moustache and wears a sombrero. Through the open window behind his friend Sergio can see the desert, cast in brilliant orange by the setting sun. ‘Si si’ his friend nods in approval. May be later they share a joint, or drink tequila, or have dinner at a cheap bar listening to a mariachi band playing in the street. And all they eat is plate of enchiladas.

That’s much better. What if I name him Vladimir IIyanovich. You will see vodka, a Kalashnikov resting near the table, the Siberian winter or the Kremlin outside the window (which for some reason is closed now), and a picture of Stalin hanging on the wall.

No, let him remain Stmtriütot. The inhabitant of a floating non-descript universe. His name is its anchor, the pivot that can fills it with colour, slang and beautiful women. I find this rather unfair. Doesn’t Stmtriütot deserve something better than this driftwood of a reality? Dear Reader, I am convinced that he does, and I am going to create one for him, and it will be beautiful I tell you, beautiful.

2.

‘Goodbye then, I must be off’ Stmtriütot got up, took his coat from the stand and headed for the door. His friend just watched him leave in silence.

Stmtriütot stepped out of the building and into the street and he merged with an aimlessly flowing continuum of humanity. As he walked he pondered on the nature of his existence and about what the Writer said to the Reader who failed to pronounce his name. ‘How stupid’ thought Stmtriütot and he tried to pronounce his name under his breath, trying in mumbles so that people near him won’t notice. He failed, just like you before him. He realized with a poignant sigh that he had never heard his name pronounced, he had no memories of his name being called out in love or reproach, in fact he had no memories at all, nothing before the conversation he just had. Stmtriütot searched for his past frantically in a vacuum. The Vacuum* assured him that he existed long before the conversation, but for Stmtriütot’s coaxing it wouldn't tell him anything more.

‘Am I even human?’ he asked himself in desperation ‘Of course I am. The Writer just said that I merged in to a continuum of humanity. Which must mean I am human’

Mr Lin Xiang tapped on Stmtriütot shoulder and on securing his attention corrected Stmtriütot’s logical fallacy ‘the Writer was talking about the crowd. You could be an alien in a continuum of humanity’

‘Improbable’ said Stmtriütot looking around him, trying to catch his reflection off the shop windows.

‘Not impossible’ Mr Lin was not going to cut him any slack

Stmtriütot realized that the inept Writer had forgotten to account for reflection off shop windows in his imagination. And everywhere around him there were expressionless perfect faces, walking with their sights fixed on something far away, beyond the gaze of normal men. No one slowed their pace, no one picked their nose, dropped their purse or stop to tie their shoelaces. It is a march of lunatics, catatonic lunatics, thought Stmtriütot

‘They are not lunatics, they are background’ said Lin.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘The Writer only imagined up both of us. The rest of the scenery he lifted form some book or movie’

‘Fucking plagiarist**’ Stmtriütot said. He noticed that the sun had not set yet, it was still hanging precariously over the sharp horizon like an orange about to be guillotined as seen by a man impaled upside down beside it.

‘The skyline is from New York. The crowd is composed only of Caucasians. The guy is clearly racist***’ Lin said

 ‘Boy. You sure know a lot about this writing business’ said Stmtriütot

‘Yup. It is cos of my backstory. I am a failed writer who cheated on his wife with his mistress, and then cheated on his mistress with a donkey’ said Lin

‘How do you cheat on someone with a donkey?’

‘I don’t know. The Writer didn’t imagine that yet’

‘I don’t even have a backstory’ Stmtriütot hung his head in sadness and watched his legs oscillate against a background of sliding cobblestones

‘Well, what are you waiting for then. Let’s go find the Writer. I have to ask him about the donkey thing’ said Lin, tugging Stmtriütot’s coat.

‘Yeah! You are right. This whole business is screwed up. I got to find this guy and set things straight’ Stmtriütot said.  A new found purpose propelled him forward. He walked as fast as he could, ahead.

‘Hey! Wait up man’ Lin shouted, trying to keep up.

* The clever reader will understand that the Vacuum exists because I started writing about Stmtriütot only from the conversation. But his organic make up is not that of an infant.

** That is a very strong word to use. This guy should watch his mouth.

*** I’m not racist. It is just easier to imagine a uniform racial demographic.

3.

The Writer was in his study, writing with his ink pen on the smoothest paper in the most beautiful long hand. He was working on his best work, his magnum opus, which when finished would be the best work anyone has ever written. A revolution in literature. On his table there were pictures of him with famous writers, philosophers, painters, directors and scientists, who seemed to admire him in those photographs. He stopped occasionally to lean on his plush leather chair, take a sip of expensive (also the world’s best) scotch and gaze at the fire place. At such times he would look around and admire his well-furnished study, especially his collection of leather bound volumes that completely covered the eastern wall of his room and had in it all the classics of literature, philosophy and science.

He was taking such a break when he heard the knock on the door

‘Come in’ said the Writer

Stmtriütot peered into the room from the half open door. The tasteful excess of its furnishing caught hold of his senses. He entered as if in a trance, and looked around with wide eyes.

‘Ah Stmtriütot! I was just writing about you’ said the Writer. The Writers booming voice bought Stmtriütot’s attention back to the purpose of his visit.

‘You must be the Writer then?’ he asked

‘The one and only’ said the Writer

Stmtriütot sat down in a recliner kept near the fire place and shifted himself into a comfortable position facing the Writer. ‘We need to talk’ he said.

‘Yes, Why not?… Or why bother? I will just write about the whole conversation and save ourselves a lot of time and effort’ the Writer picked up his pen and took a half full sheet of paper to write on.

‘No! Stop! No writing’ Stmtriütot shouted. The Writer startled, looked at Stmtriütot for answers.

‘At least give me a proper name before you write anything more about me. Mr Writer, I’m not asking for anything grand. A simple name would do. And maybe a nice backstory too while you are at it. Nothing fancy’ pleaded Stmtriütot, his voice trailing off into a humble whisper 

The Writer laughed. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. I conceived you to write about things transcending cultural stereotypes. Giving you a name would make the Reader assume unnecessary details about you. As he did in the beginning; when I named you Sergio. The Reader can be very naïve you see’

There was another knock on the door. ‘Come in’ said the Writer

Lin opened the door and stumbled in panting. As he stopped to catch his breath he saw Stmtriütot near the fireplace and the Writer behind his desk.

‘I am the Writer’ he said, sensing the question is Lin’s gaze.

‘No. You can’t be the Writer’ said Lin as if stating an obvious fact.

‘Yes I am!’ said the Writer. He held up his pen, showing Lin the irrefutable evidence pointing to the nature of his work.

‘No you can’t be. If you were really the Writer, then me and my friend here should vanish into thin air the moment you stop writing. You sure aren’t writing now and we are still here, which must mean that you are not the Writer’

‘There is something wrong here. What was the last thing you wrote?’ Stmtriütot asked the Writer.

‘Well. Let me see….. Ah here it is. I was describing you knocking on my door’ said the Writer after shuffling through his papers.

‘Who then is writing all this?’ asked Stmtriütot. He was puzzled once again.

The Writer was stumped by the question. ‘I never thought of it that way. Who am I then? Why am I writing all this?’ the Writer shouted in despair. Both of them looked at Lin, who seemed adept at the writing business, for answers.

‘I know what’s going on. All of us here seem to be constructs of the real Writers imagination’ said Lin. He then asked the Writer ‘Tell me. Do you have a back story?’

The Writer thought for some time ‘None that I can remember’ he answered.

‘Interesting. Do you have a front story then?’

‘A what?’

‘A front story. Like what is going to happen in the future for you?’

‘Oh that. Yes I have. I will write the best novel ever written, win the Booker prize, the Nobel prize, the Fields Medal…’

‘Stop right there. I know who you are!’ said Lin, interrupting the Writer.

‘Who?’ asked the Writer and Stmtriütot in unison

‘You are his ego. The real Writer’s image of himself in his deep sub conscious’

Stmtriütot who had followed the conversation intently, then had an epiphany ‘That explains all the expensive furniture, the scotch and all those books. Real writers hardly ever make that sort of money’

‘Spot on!’ said Lin, shaking his head in approval.

The Writer looked around his room in sadness and sighed. ‘I knew all this was too good to be true….’ He then looked at Lin and said ‘Boy! You sure know a lot about this writing business’

‘It’s cos of my backstory. I am a failed writer who cheated on my wife with my mistress and then cheated on my mistress with a donkey’ said Lin

‘How do you cheat on someone with a donkey?’ asked the Writer

‘I don’t know. The guy didn’t think of that yet. I mean to find him and ask him’

‘I have a couple of things to ask him myself’ said the Writer, twirling his scotch and gazing at the fire with an expression of vacant remorse.

‘Me too. Let’s go and find him then’ said Stmtriütot, getting up from the recliner.

4.

Dear Reader, I must apologize. This whole thing has blown up into an embarrassing business. I made a promise to you, that I will create a wonderful universe for Stmtriütot. But I can no longer do that, because the more I write the more these lunatics get close to finding me. If they find me, they will make me write grotesque things about donkeys that I have no intention in writing. I am deeply sorry, but I must go, I have little time. I hear knocking on the door*. I hope it is not them. I will not write about them opening the door and entering** for that will put me in grave danger.

*I have realized that they are knocking because I mentioned in text about them knocking

**I have realized that I just mentioned in text about them opening the door and entering also. Too late now.

AJ