Short Stories - The New Bhayanak Maut Album - August 30, 2011

Hello again.

Sunneith and I are writing short stories (6 each) that will be used as blueprints for lyrics to the next Bhayanak Maut album.
It's simple math : 12 short stories = 12 songs

I've written two stories.

What follows is Sunneith's first short story.
It's titled 'Eden'.

Enjoy!

 

You’ve waited twenty years for this. It always is a while before the perfect specimen comes across. The hospital is particular about sex-determination data. Even the doting parents are never told. Lest they abort the baby. There is secrecy. There is paperwork. But things have always fallen in place for you. The way has always been paved for you. With a bodies cleared away, putrefying at the side.

Woman – 19

6 months pregnant

Fraternal twins

Boy and girl

“Perfect”, you say to yourself.

After you pin the report on the wall, you turn around to admire your study. A multitude of books adorn the wall on the right. The table in the center holds a glass case with your most prized possession. It is a version of the Holy Bible that no one has. Your version. Twenty years in the making. It has taken you a long time to get here. The deed must be done.

You look to the left and glazed eyes meet yours. You walk over toward the eyes. There is a smile on your face.

“It must be done. Yes. Fifteen years it has taken. I have loved you. I have nurtured you. I have watched you become what you are today, Lilith. You will make me proud. Or I will feed on you. Bathed in your blood. Wrapped in moulded leftover bread.”  

The girl lies on the bed you’ve laid out in your home. A single bulb lamp hangs over her resting body. Her skin glows. It has been a humid month. Fine beads of sweat form on her forehead and cheeks. You close your eyes and imagine the squeaking it might cause if you rubbed your palms on her belly.

Her bump is very much visible. The fact that she holds twins makes it even more so.

She is beautiful. Her hair used to be long and flowing. It would gently brush against her cheek bone; and she would pull it back behind her small, lobe-less ears. Her jaw line forms a shadow on her neck, and you wonder what secrets might be hidden in that darkness. She has no tattoos. Not this one. She is clean. And her husband was her first.

You’ve managed to shave off every bit of hair on her body. You dipped her in a tub laced with bathing salts and gentle cleaning-alcohol. It might have stung her a little. But morphine is a good friend in times of heartache and skin trauma.

 

She comes to. Her eyes are wide. She looks at you bent at the foot of the bed. She pulls in air to scream. She launches into a full-blown shriek. Not a single sound is made.

The Hindus use a particular kind of powder during their religious celebrations. They mark their foreheads with this red powder. They call it kum kum. It is a mix of turmeric and powdered calcium hydroxide.

With a fistful of kum kum coating the inside of your throat, you can barely breathe, let alone say the good name of the lord.

 

All that comes out of her are frail, harsh hisses.

“You’re beautiful. Perfect. You know, you’re very lucky to be holding twins. That too one of each.”

She didn’t know. Now she does.

“When god made Adam and Eve, he put them in the perfect place. With everything they could ask for. Much like your body.”

She thrashes. But her arms are tied to the bed. As are her legs. Parted for good reason. She is stark naked.

“I will call you, Eden.”

She now starts to cry.

“You know. Humans have always tried to defy the will and act of god. We blaspheme, only so that we do not conform to the ways of the higher power. We blaspheme to convince ourselves that we are, indeed, the sculptors of our fate. But what if it was God’s will for you to Blaspheme in the first place? Ever thought of that? What if, the serpent was the left hand of god?”

She starts to move her bare buttocks across the bed. That is when she notices that something is terribly wrong with her body.

“So I must create a symbol of god’s doing. I must re-enact the events of the garden. I must bring upon man, the wrath of the higher power. I must, alas, become god.”

Her muscle memory takes control. She tries to squeeze her bare thighs to contract her vagina. She notices the discomfort that she feels there.

“Oh don’t worry. The apple has been introduced. One of your twins has been baited. Much like the curious Eve.”

Her jaw drops. She tries to thrust through her vagina. You’re happy to know that she knows exactly what comes next.

“This must be done. You are merely a host to the mould of man. And I am merely God’s image. The serpent is my tool.”

 

You open the glass cage lying at your feet. You stare into those glazed eyes again. You take the left hand of God and hold it in your arms.

“Lilith. Make me proud.”

The head of the Burmese python matches the contracted radius of the human vagina.

 

Short Stories - The New Bhayanak Maut Album - July 31, 2011

This is the second short story that's been written for the next Bhayanak Maut album.

It's untitled, as of now.

Feel free to comment and share.

Enjoy.





You’ve been looking forward to this Master Art Class.

One of the world’s most renowned artists is here, in the classroom, as a guest speaker.



You like the way he walks energetically across the open space that’s in front of the class. He’s wearing a silk shirt, black and full-sleeved. His jeans are a vibrant shade of blue. His shoes are made of shiny black leather. Thick soles. No laces.

You like the way his hands continuously clasp and unclasp in front of him. The rings on his hands are hard not to notice. They’re chunky, thick Silver, with flashes of Gold and Sapphire Blue that shine like fireflies when his hands move.



You like the way he takes the effort to make eye contact with everyone in the class. His face is clean shaven. His hair is silver. His eyes are a mesmerizing shade of silvery green.



He’s a prolific painter, architect, sculptor, artist, photographer and filmmaker.

He’s a thinker, an author, an art collector and an entrepreneur.

He’s a creator. And you’ve always wanted to be just like him.



His voice is rich, soothing and demands your attention. He’s been speaking for over 30 minutes now. You’ve soaked in every single word that he’s shared with the class today.



“You cannot create something unless you’ve destroyed something else.
You all realize that, don’t you?”



You like the way he’s been questioning everyone. His tone is anything but condescending.



You look down at your notebook.



DESTROY. You write that down.

DESTRUCTION. Right under the previous word.

DESTRUCT.

DE – STRUCT. Somehow, it makes sense.



You’ve made this notebook yourself.

150 perfectly cut, A5-sized sheets of Thai White Mulberry.

Hand-pressed. 120gsm. Acid-free. Spiral bound.



It’s the 34th such notebook that you’ve created.

You know this because you’ve individually numbered them.



“Be it tangible or intangible, something must be destroyed for you to create something else.”



CON-STRUCT. You smile as you write this.

CREATE.

CREATION. Something inside your head moves at a million miles an hour.



CREATION | DESTRUCTION. You write these words right next to each other.



“I’ve had the privilege of interacting with quite a few people who honestly believed that that there was some form of destruction involved in their creations. They were wrong.”



You look up now. He’s stopped pacing the front of the room. He’s now standing right in the centre, with one hand in his pant pocket, and the other held against his chin with the index finger placed against his lips.



He’s allowing that sentence to soak in.



His upper body moves from left to right as he scans the room for a reaction.

You notice that he’s never, even once, looked down at the floor since he started talking.



DESTRUCTION | CREATION. You re-order the words.



“You see, In order to really destroy something, you have to know it;

You have to understand it.



He pauses here and clasps his hands. You look up and stare at him, completely aware of everything that he’s saying; your mind though, is searching for some meaning in the words that you’ve just re-ordered in your notebook.



“Everything wants to be something else. Have you ever thought of that? Have you sensed that desire?



You smile. He looks straight at you, catches your smile and smiles back. He says the next sentence while looking at you straight in the eye.



“Furthermore, your act of destruction should ensure that the original form and the new form somehow still co-exist.



His gaze shifts to someone who’s sitting behind you.



“You see, every single element that is involved in this process of change has a purpose. The purpose of this process, of course, is to create tension in the minds of those who observe the change.



He pauses here.


“ In your mind though, you will feel absolute power; and the complete absence of fear.



He smiles and nods at the Head of the Art Department who is sitting on the first bench at the right-hand corner of the classroom.



The Head nods back. The guest speaker opens his arms, his palms facing the ceiling and looks at the class with one smooth movement from left to right.



“Thank you very much, class. I’m happy that I spent this Monday morning with you.



The Head gets up from the bench, and leads the class in a standing ovation. He’s a fantastic person, the Head of the Art Department. He’s knowledgeable, witty, warm and extremely patient with all his students.



He walks towards the center of the class and shakes hands with the guest speaker. The Head then asks everyone to sit. He thanks the guest speaker for taking the time to be here today.



Suddenly, you notice how the Head’s mannerisms are mirroring the guest speaker’s mannerisms. ‘Strange’ is the word that comes to your head.



The Head then turns around and walks to the large black board that runs across the length of the wall. With a piece of chalk, in neat, block letters, he writes THE LAST ASSIGNMENT on the board.



He informs the class that everyone’s final projects are due in 3 weeks.
He looks around the class and says that this is the opportunity for all students, across all departments, to showcase their best work yet, because this man (he points to the guest speaker) will be grading them.



A gasp escapes your lips. Someone in the class whistles loudly. Someone from the back of the class starts to clap. A few more people join in. Soon, there’s another standing ovation.



You stay seated in your bench. Your body is shaking.

The Head raises his hands and asks everyone to calm down.



There are thoughts in your head that you just cannot control. Like always, you let them run around, while still paying attention to what’s happening in the front of the class. The Head gestures to the guest speaker and says that it’s only fair to have him speak to the class about the last assignment of the year.



“I’m truly honoured and delighted to have been asked to grade your final assignments. It really means a lot to me – this institute being my alma mater – and I’m looking forward to spending time with each one of you during your personal assessments.



He walks to the board and with a chalk he writes DESTRUCTION | CREATION under what the Head has already written on the board. You hear a murmur of voices from behind you.



“Now, listen up. For your last assignments, across all departments, I’d like to see your interpretation of destruction and creation – It could be a moment in time or a feeling that you want to be immersed in; it could even be some sort of vision or an intense participatory environment; I want to see how you capture this relation between the two.


Your Head of Department and I are both keen on seeing how well you’re able to showcase the mastery of your skills. Grading will be tough and honest. I’m looking at every single detail – the choice of your raw materials, how much you use, how you use it, what you expose it to, why use it the way you do – everything will be questioned.
Remember, as creators you’ll have to question yourselves about every single element that you use to create your canvas.



I look forward to seeing you all in 3 weeks.



10 minutes later, the classroom is empty, except for you. You’re reliving the entire morning - Every single word and action is being re-played in your head.



You look at the blackboard. Your mind is playing with the words you see there.

DESTRUCTION | CREATION.

DESTRUCT | CREATE.

DESTRUCTION AND CREATION.

You’re still looking at the black board.



CREATION AND DESTRUCTION.

CREATION IN DESTRUCTION.

DESTRUCTION IN CREATION.

THE LAST ASSIGNMENT.

And then, you see it. Well, at least fragments of it.



It’s not going to be easy, but you know that you’ll be able to pull it off.

Like always, the details will matter.

You close your eyes to complete the thought.



You open your eyes. It’s now 20 days since you began work on the last assignment and it’s almost complete.



You’re sitting naked on a chair, in your studio, and you’ve just lit a cigarette.
You’re trying to get your bowels to move.

10 minutes later, a cramp begins to form in your lower abdomen.

You get up and walk towards the dead woman who is lying on the floor. You squat over her hollowed-out stomach and position yourself so that you can smoothly deliver her 5-month-old foetus back into the womb.



A foetus is not easy to digest. Especially when it’s uncooked.

Eating the creature was not an issue. But keeping it down and passing it was difficult. Today will be the last time that you’ll have to pass one.



You finish taking a shit. It’s perfect. Just like you want it to be.

You stand up, turn around and take a look at the almost complete canvas that’s on the other side of the studio.

Your interpretation of DESTRUCTION | CREATION looks beautiful.



You take the dead woman and lift her up gently.

You carry her towards your canvas, slowly, not wanting to disturb the foetus that’s back in her womb.



You place her gently on a wooden chair that you modified with a high backrest. You pick up the nail gun that’s placed on the floor next to the chair and fire a volley of 6-inch nails into her thighs and then into her chest.

She will be still now.



You shoot a couple of nails through her mouth, into the backrest, to ensure that her head stays still.



Her foetus, now reborn and still fresh in her womb has now started to attract the flies that have invaded your studio.



You turn her chair around to join the 12 other chairs that are part of the canvas. You squat next to her knees and have a look to see if all the chairs are placed symmetrically. They are.



Each of the 13 chairs now has a woman nailed to it.

Each woman has had their once-pregnant stomach hollowed out and carefully refilled with the foetus after it has passed through your bowels.



What excites you the most is the sound and movement of the thousands of flies in your studio. They add life to your canvas.



You take your time and walk around each of the 13 chairs. All of the women, except for the one seated in the middle, have gorgeous black hair. The one in the middle is different. She’s the only one who turns you on. Her flaming red hair along with her full-body tattoos and body piercings make her the perfect centerpiece for your canvas.



You grab the long table that you finished building yesterday and drag it into place in front of the 13 chairs. You’ve already made markings on the floor to know exactly where you should place the table’s legs.



You close your eyes once again. You remember the last conversation you had with the Head in his office after the Master Art Class when you were introduced to the guest speaker. He smiled and asked you what your major was. ‘Visual Arts’ was your reply. He said he looked forward to spending time with you at your assessment.



You open your eyes, stand in front of your canvas and take a deep breath.

'Create | Destroy | Create: The Last Usurper' is now complete.

You know you’re getting an ‘A’ in this assignment.

Short Stories - The New Bhayanak Maut Album - July 22, 2011

Sunneith and I are writing 6 short stories each.

These stories will be used as blueprints for the lyrics to the next Bhayanak Maut album.

This is the first short story that I've written. There's no name to it as yet.

Enjoy.

 

You’re having a flashback.

You’re 10 years old.

It’s a sunny afternoon and you’re behind the village shaman’s house.

You look around you and see your father.

His face is a mixture of uncertainty and pride.

Your elder brother is standing next to your father.

His best friends are standing very close to him.

You recognize that look on your brother’s face – You’ve seen it whenever one of his friends puts his hands inside your brother’s loosely-knotted pants.

 

The shaman is now standing in front of you. There’s a breeze blowing and his white robes are stuck close to his body. So close, that you see the shape of his paunch and the shape of his skinny legs too.

Your gaze shifts to the young goat that the Shaman is holding by the ears. He turns the goat towards the hut and secures a noose around its neck.

He squats down next to you, takes your hand and gently places it on the goat’s back. ‘There, there, there’s nothing to be afraid of’.

His hand then guides yours to the goat’s fluffy tail. ‘You see this?’, he asks as he lifts the tail and points to the pinkish hole from where goats let out their brown berries every day.

You always wondered why nobody ate those berries. Well, at least till you ate one yourself.

‘Now, you’re going to prove to all of us that YOU (he said this is a sing-song way) are a real man’.

There’s an unusual feeling like a knot deep behind your belly button. It’s the first time you’ve felt anything like it. You swallow your spit, take in a sharp breath and clench your buttocks.

 ‘How?’ you ask him, looking straight into his eyes.

The shaman puts two of his fingers into his mouth, sucks on them for an uncomfortably long period of time, takes them out carefully and then shows them to you. His eyes are suddenly glassy, like the marbles you play with.

 

One of his eyebrows raises itself, slowly. You don’t know how that happened, but it brings a smile to your face. The Shaman smiles too, but for a completely different reason.

You then follow his two, wet fingers as they approach the goat’s backside.

You hear him call out to someone; in a flash two pairs of weathered hands, are holding the goat’s hind legs down.

For a few seconds, you notice the animal struggling to look around, but your attention soon returns to the two fingers as they are forced into the hole under the goat’s tail.

 

Your head explodes with the bleating of the goat. That knot behind your belly button suddenly starts to drop lower into your body. There’s a funny sensation between your legs.  You don’t know it, but your father is now standing behind you, his hands around your mid-riff, untying your pyjamas. He drops them to the ground, raises you by holding you from your armpits and kicks away your pyjamas with his legs.

You’re forced to look down at the little pipe-like protrusion between your legs as the Shaman takes it into his mouth and starts to suck on it. It’s an unusual feeling at first. A warm, tingling sensation starts to build up between your legs. It’s mirrored by a ticklish sensation on the outside of your legs as the Shaman’s beard rubs against your thighs.

 

 Your father’s hands are still holding you by the armpits, but you have no idea where your arms are. You look down once the sucking stops and what you see excites you tremendously. Your small pipe is now very, very long. The Shaman looks at your father and smiles. He brings the goat’s backside closer to your groin and raises the tail once more.

‘Today, show us that you’re a man’ he says in your ear.

 

You don’t know it, but you’re already bucking; something inside you wants you to put your pipe inside that goat. You slide in nice and easy. The hair that surrounds the goat’s pink hole is soft and ticklish. You don’t know it yet, but this is a feeling that you will remember for the rest of your life.

 

Your head is now in a warm place. You don’t know what you’re doing but you know exactly what you’re supposed to do. In the distance, in another world maybe, you hear shouts of encouragement from your brother. The haze in your head starts to clear and you’re brought back to the back of the hut when you feel something hard and wet creep between your buttock cheeks. It’s the shaman’s fingers.

You don’t know what they’re doing there, but you feel them probe an area that you touch only when you have to wash yourself after taking a shit. The only other people to have touched that area before were your father and brother. Your father taught you how to clean up after you did your ‘kaka’ every morning. Your brother told you that it was he could touch you there whenever he wanted to. And you allowed him to do that; you liked it.

 

As soon as the Shaman’s fingers enter you noiselessly, you find yourself bucking even harder. The goat’s bleats are now like a beat that you’re following.  Your head escapes once more – this time into a brighter, warmer place. There’s an unusual fuzzy feeling that’s starting to build up in your groin.  You don’t know it, but you’re about to experience an orgasm for the very first time. A dry one though. Your testicles won’t produce any seed till you turn 12.

The first orgasm you ever have is a violent one. Your body contorts and writhes like you’re having a fit. Your father pulls you out of the goat and swings you away from the hut’s shadow and into the sunlight. His strong hands hold you up so that your kicking feet don’t touch the ground. The other men from the village cheer loudly. You don’t hear it; your ears are buzzing with the sound of a million flies.

 

Your breathing is shallow and quick. Now, you smell your brother’s breath and slowly open your eyes. The bright sun only allows you to see a silhouette of people at first. There are loud voices asking your father to bring you back to the goat. The Shaman is now standing next to the goat with a large knife. Your father places you close to the Shaman, who gently places his hand behind your neck. He comes close to your ear and whispers, ‘A man, you are now’.

 

He moves away from you and hacks the goat’s neck with one strong swing of the knife. You see blood spray violently against the hut’s wall. It’s the first time you notice dry spray patterns all over the hut’s wall, now being soaked back into existence by the fresher blood.

 

The Shaman now holds the goat’s midriff and cuts away at the skin (parts of the skin are still violently shaking) to reveal the back-bone. With the skill of an expert, he rips out the last bone with the tip of the knife, holds it up and shouts out, ‘A man! He is a man!’

 

Now, back to the present.

 

You’re in the back of your truck.

A eunuch has your penis in his mouth. It’s well past mid-night but the moon is full and bright. You pull yourself out of the eunuch’s mouth and turn him over. Two fingers, first in your mouth and then in the eunuchs tight hole.

Like always.

You’re hard as a rock now.

 

You spend a few seconds squeezing the eunuch’s firm buttocks with your free hand.  Then you use the tips of your fingers to feel for scars.

You don’t find any.

 

To your delight, the eunuch is blessed with a thick matting of hair between his legs and his buttocks.

You tell him that you like that.

You pull your fingers out and get ready to mount him.

He’s now on all fours, and has no clue about what you’re going to do to him.

 

As you enter the eunuch, he moans his surprise at the size of your erection.

You wrap your hands around his neck and start to thrust yourself.

 

You experimented with your sexual behaviour during the second decade of your life. Dogs, Sheep, Goats, Cow, the odd Cat and Horse too– you mounted them all.

 

They always brought you joy.

Women never did.

They talked back.

They always talked back and told you that you were too big, or too rough or too unusual.

But, animals were different. You never had to deal with their feelings after you were done with them.

 

When your father passed away, your brother forced you to join him on the road as a truck driver. You were only 19.

What did you miss the most about being in the village?

The animals. You yearned for their touch.

On the road, you allowed yourself to be seduced by other truck drivers on a few occasions, but you never enjoyed it.

You had stopped feeling like a man.

 

Then, one night, you slept with a eunuch.

He said that if you were a real man, then you’d have to prove it to him.

You did.

Since that episode, you’ve only slept with eunuchs.

And, tonight, once again, you’ll prove that you’re a man.

 

Like always, you enticed this eunuch into joining you in the cargo hold of the truck by offering him a gracious sum of money at the end.

You showed him the currency note and said he could have it if he did exactly what you told him to do.

 

Your hands are now wrapped tightly around the eunuch’s neck.

As you thrust harder into him, you grunt out that you want to hear the bleating sounds of a goat while you’re inside him.

He tries to bleat, but he can’t.

You start to thrust harder and your grip around his neck gets tighter.

 

He pulls at your fingers; you let go of his throat and hold him by the shoulders.  He starts to bleat.  

‘Again!’ you order him.

He bleats again.

‘Don’t stop!’ you shout at him.

The bleating continues.

You are now in a warm place.

There’s a knot behind your belly button that’s dropping towards your crotch. That familiar fuzzy feeling that tells you that you’re about to ejaculate soon has started to build up in your groin.

You can hear your brother and the other elders of the village cheering you on. You start to buck like a maniac.

The eunuch continues to bleat.

He’s never done anything like this before.

 

Your grunts have now turned into deep moans.

Your hold on the eunuch’s shoulders becomes stronger.

As soon as you start to ejaculate, your body becomes tense.

If you could, you would have ripped out the flesh from this eunuch’s shoulders.

 

The eunuch hears you take in several sharp breaths of air as you thrust a final few times.

You finally stop moving; but you’re still hard, inside him.

There are a million flies buzzing in your ears.

 

 

 

You see shiny beads of sweat on the eunuch’s back.

One bead is slowly travelling down between his buttocks, towards your penis.

 

You remove your penis, still erect.

You hold him down in this current position with one hand and use the other one to squeeze his groin and the insides of his thighs.

Then, like a bad habit, your hand moves to a secret crevice on the edge of the wall of the cargo hold.

 

The eunuch lets go of a sigh.

He looks back at you and the last thing that he sees in his miserable life is a knife coming down on his neck.

 

It’s taken you a while to perfect that move, and you’re quite good at it now.

One powerful and complete swipe of the arm into the back of the neck with a sharp knife, and death is quick and silent.

 

They bleed a bit, most eunuchs, but most of the blood seeps into the wooden floors of the cargo hold, only to drip away onto the road.

 

You use the knife to expose the back-bone and rip out the last bone, the tail-bone.

You leave the eunuch’s body in the cargo hold. You usually wait to cross a bridge or a river to dispose the body.

 

You wear your robes and head back to the front of the truck.

Once you’ve climbed in through the driver’s door, you move to the back seat and pull out the tin jar that you’ve hidden under it.

You place the fresh tail-bone in your mouth and suck away the blood.

You pry the box’s cover open with your fingernails and look at the contents of the tin box.

 

There they are. All the proof you’ll need to know that you’re a man.

You spit the freshest tail-bone into the tin and close the lid.

You know you’ll sleep well tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destruction - July 19, 2011

It's so easy for humans to believe that they've actually destroyed something. 

You believe that in order to really destroy something, you have to know it; you have to understand it.
You have to make the act of destruction graceful enough so that the original form and the new form somehow still co-exist.
It's like a change of bodies.

The purpose of this, of course, is to create tension in the mind's of those who observe this change.

And, in your mind, you feel absolute power.

Haiku - Writing for the new Bhayanak Maut album - July 14, 2011

I'm writing for the new Bhayanak Maut album. 

I'm terribly excited.

Maybe because it's about subjects that people avoid talking about.

A Haiku to tell you how I feel:

 

Humans are cruel.

You've never seen them this way?

Do hear the album.

 

 

Haiku - Fuck Off, Cough - July 14, 2011

Cough, Cough, Ack! Sniff, Cough.

Thoo, Cough, Cough, Ack! Sniff, Spit, Gah!

I hate this weather.

Haiku - This city, so shitty - July 13, 2011

Me, myself and I

All good with the three of you?

Let this city rot.