Tomic Riter

Tag: shortstory

  • They are here again.

    Here’s another herd of sheep. They’re looking at each other’s faces. They are all seemingly lost. They don’t seem to figure out where to put their next step. They’re afraid. They think somebody’s out here to kill them. They are the crazy anxious lot. They think anxiety is a part of their personal. They are convinced that’s how it is. They think that every man or woman is anxious. They’ve been shouting at the too of their lungs for no reason. Is it anxiety or old age? It could be old age as well. I had always thought that with age man became quieter and wiser. Looking at these crazy anxious people, I’m convinced it isn’t so.

    It’s hard to find a man of patience.

    – Tomic. All rights reserved.

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  • The first night of this year.

    As I lay down, the first night of this year, I tell myself that there’s so much to do. So so much. One step at a time. This year be a year of creating. For now, I can’t walk, can’t even keep my eyes open. My throat is a bit dry. My stomach a bit empty. Things have to wait until morning. A day over. Soon, this year will be over too. And hopefully I come out a bit wiser and all alive!

    – Tomic. All rights reserved.

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  • While I bit my fingers hooked to my desk.

    Two men appeared out of a yellow coloured building. Two men took the elevator to the basement and then ran off like they were being chased by the most ghostly of ghosts. Two men were walking down the street, side by side, when one of them took a device out of his jacket’s inner pocket, pressed the button on its side. The timer was ticking countdown. Three minutes. He gave the device to the other man and himself sat down on a bench on the pavement. The other man looked at the device, smiled, took a long drag of his cigarette, bent down, extended his arm out, rolled the device away to his right. The device rolled until it stopped beneath a parked car. The car was a dusty red Cadillac. The man stood straight, tossed the cigarette away and walked on. The other man kept sitting on the bench, kept hitting the bench’s iron surface with both of his fisted palms. He looked at his watch on the left wrist. It had the countdown timer running. 01:10. He got up, walked right to the Cadillac. He opened the zipper of his pants. He pissed on the side gates and on the window of the car. He closed the zipper. He walked to the bonnet, jumped on top of it with both his feet. He walked up right to the centre of the car top. He stood there for a while, looking down. He lifted his left wrist, looked at his watch again. 00:25. He laughed loud. He laid down on the car top, his face facing the sky above. His mouth was open. He closed his eyes. Slowly. Exhaled everything out of his body.

    3………2………1……….

    © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

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  • Talk and talk.

    I never wanted to be a better writer. I just wanted to write well. Isn’t that enough? To write well? To tell in simple, clear sentences what you wish to tell? But what do I wish to tell? I haven’t always been very clear about it. It’s just that there’s always something more to tell.

    t’s a rainy day. Sun will be seen rarely in the days to come. Raindrops will hang down the window panes all day long. Spiders will repopulate themselves. An eerie smell of decay will be filling my room very very soon. Wet dirt will be all over the floors of my entire home. I will be lazier than ever, doing nothing all day, just laying down somewhere on the floor or on the couch. The rain has stopped for a moment. The sweet noise of rain falling is gone for a while. It seemed like a necessary noise. Without it, everything else sounds awful.

    It’s night now. It rained pretty much whole day. The evening was spent meeting a stranger. The truth about money is that almost everybody is in dire need of it. Now, laying down on the couch, yawning, listening to a song, thinking about all the talks done and not done this evening, yawning again and again. One more time. My room is cold. I’ve got nothing more to talk about right now. However much we talk, we fail to communicate often.

    © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

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  • Just that and something of this.

    Nothing much on my mind. Nothing much has been on my mind. Just these thoughts that are nothing more than noise. It’s night. I’m sitting in my revolving chair. I’m looking out the window, stretching my neck out, trying to look at the city as much as I can. The city is getting wet again. It has less and less to offer me now. Moments ago, I was sitting on a bench downstairs, trying to catch a breath in the cool winds when a dog stopped near me. It looked at me for a good 20 seconds or so. Then it bolted away. You might be thinking now, ‘What’s so strange about that?’ I don’t know. The dog seemed to appear out of nowhere.

    Let’s say I weren’t here right now. I would be somewhere else. The truth is that I would be somewhere. It’s strange isn’t it. I am never nowhere although I would love to be nowhere. Being somewhere doesn’t put my mind to rest. No, I’m not greedy. But I do know by now and in a hard hard way that life is one. Why be scared of anything. Let’s take the risks we are afraid to take. Let’s kick away the hurdles. Let’s move ahead no matter what. One step at a time. Let’s move mountains. It is time.

    But I’ve talked about moving mountains before. Why am I talking about moving mountains now. Suddenly my fingers stop typing. I am taking a moment to think. What has suddenly made my fingers to stop typing. They were typing just fine and now they’re doing nothing. Simply nothing. I’m staring at the blank wall in front of me, lowering the volume on speakers a bit. Yes, it’s perfect now. I know nothing and the music isn’t loud. I can sit comfortably without having any kind of answers to any kind of questions and enjoy the music. The song changes. The song often changes right when you are getting lost in it.

    I’m looking at you. I’m looking at you again. I have this smile on my face and in my eyes that only you bring. I’m closing my eyes. I will stop right here.

    © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

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  • Time and again.

    At a friend’s shop, sitting on this chair with my legs stretched. Been sitting here with my legs stretched since about thirty minutes. The friend is nowhere to be seen. ‘He said he’ll be back in five minutes’ says the helper. ‘Sure’ I say to him and continue with the sitting.

    Yesterday, started reading this book by Murakami. Novelist as A Vocation. Finished 50 pages. The guy is a genius and a consistent performer. It takes something more than just talent to keep churning out novels even after 30 years. I don’t think I would be able to write consistently and get my works published for that long. I think I would give up everything in the next ten years. That’s how I feel now. Hell, I could give up tomorrow.

    What to have for dinner is a question that bugs me almost every night. I am tired of going to the same restaurant for dinner every other night. I am as much tired of going out for dinner as I am of ordering food from home. I need a change of setting. That’s what I need. I need a whole new city and a whole new role to play.

    The friend of mine did come later. We sat there in his shop and talked for about three hours. Two other friends joined us later. It’s a small shop with the perfect ceiling lights.

    It’s getting late by the minute. I cannot decide where I really want to be tonight. Sitting here on my couch at my home, I don’t feel like I want to be here right now.

    © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

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  • The little pleasures and me.

    Back home early from work. Oh the pleasure of coming home early from work, although there’s nothing much to do at home. The pleasure of sitting naked on the couch legs crossed or stretched out, putting on loud music, opening a can of beer, watching sunset from my bedroom, writing, reading a new book. It had been a long while since I gave time to myself.

    Work keeps me busy. There’s a lot to do. Sometimes, I got nothing going on my mind other than work stuff. I miss out even on writing. It is something that seldom happens with me. However less time I get for myself, I do not forget to write. Now, sipping beer and listening to some good old music. God’s gonna cut you down.

    On the writing front, been writing a fresh set of poems based loosely on my night experiences. The collection is still untitled. For now, I must get the writing done. The collection will be my third collection of poetry. A work of prose is already complete. It does need to be edited before I get it published. This year has been good so far. I mean there’s work stuff but it doesn’t bother me anymore. Got to live with that for now.

    It had been a while since I last wrote here. I keep forgetting this place. I have promised before that I would be writing here regularly but it hasn’t happened. I won’t make any such promises this time. Sometimes, circumstances are such that they keep me away from this place. But I’ve always loved this place. It means much to me that you, my reader, are here and you’re reading all of this. It’s just unbelievable. I have unbound respect for you.

    Damn! I didn’t even realise when my glass of beer got over. Need to pour another one. Need to get this evening going. Sometimes I wish I were in another city getting drunk on something that I haven’t gotten drunk on before. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

    I think I should stop this one here. The sun is almost set. I hope you have been well all this while.

    © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

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  • Laws and backaches.

    That there’s a legal age for drinking and it varies from one country to another says a lot about how well we have our laws planned. In short, a man/woman breaking law in one country might not be doing so in some other country, and is, as a result, not punished in one country and punished for the same act in another country. How ridiculous is that. The society has always sucked, especially because of its senseless definitions of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Maybe man leading from forests to the civilisation was itself a mistake. Maybe none of this is sustainable and we have come to the point where we’re just tolerating each other’s bullshit and we have to keep doing that every fucking day because we see no other way. Everybody’s so scared of a little chaos, but the chaos is inevitable.

    It’s amusing how a thought turns to a paragraph. Something has been hurting my lower back since a week now. It’s like something is inside my skin and eating me from within, literally. However much I stretch, it isn’t getting better. It’s like the ache is spreading slowly, like an infection. Haven’t had a proper sleep in two days. Maybe all I need is one good sleep, and the ache will be gone. Maybe I need to walk more. Maybe I need to put my body to some use, and this ache is just the beginning of a rot.

    It’s a sunny day. A hundred miles have been covered between yesterday and today. This year is about adding miles to the whole experience. On other note, the house is in a complete disorder. Bottles everywhere, garbage, soiled clothes, dust. I don’t know where to begin. Maybe I’ll just lie down and try forgetting about it all one more time.

    – – Tomic Riter. © All rights reserved.

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  • Bare chests and second drafts.

    None of my lines have ever repeated, or maybe they have. How would I know. I never read my stuff again unless of course it’s for the purpose of editing. Otherwise, why would I read it again. I wouldn’t want to change anything about it other than, maybe, make a few minor structural and grammatical corrections to it.

    Whatever I have written above, it’s all just lies, and whatever I’m writing next, be so kind as to not believe a word of it. The actual writing begins in the second draft. It’s where the existing paragraphs grow and new paragraphs get added. Writing the second draft is like finding little stories within the big story. It’s like asking oneself – between two lines, what else can fit and make sense, what else can complete the idea that I intend to put through. The intention is not to write more pages. It is to convey the idea as clearly as it should be conveyed.

    I haven’t much experience in the field of editing. So far, I have published only two books. But I have been through the process of publishing from beginning to end. It’s a joy in itself. But why, all of a sudden, I am sharing all of this.

    Maybe I’ve got nothing to do this morning. I’ve been running here and there since last two days. There hasn’t been a moment of complete rest until now. I have arrived in this moment stumbling all along. This morning, I am not drunk, well, not yet. And since I woke up, I haven’t heard a song either. I haven’t a single cloth on my body. It’s just complete silence around me. And now I’m having this urge to take a short road trip alone.

    I think I got to go somewhere right away.

    — Tomic Riter. © All rights reserved.

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  • Written in blood one evening.

    What would I tell the world if it asked me what happened today. What could I possibly tell. In fact, what could I tell the world about any of my days. It’s like everything is happening at once, and also nothing at all. There’s so much that when I sit down to write, I sometimes find nothing for a couple of paragraphs. It’s just two paragraphs of me trying to put down what happened. Sometimes, I fail to put it down in pages, not because I am unable to write, but because my head is just consumed with all sorts of things, and then there’s alcoholism. There’s also smoking now and then. There are many more things. Sometimes I feel I am running with a lot on my back. But whether or not I end up writing about what happened or didn’t happen, I always end up writing something. I have never found myself failing in that. What would I feel like if, one day, I fail in that. Shit. I can’t think about it right now.

    Now is the time to relax and take it very slowly. Now is the time to sip my drink slowly. Now is the time to take long drags off my cigarette, keep the smoke in my mouth for long as I can, and then, finally, at the very end of the act, exhale. A slow, very slow exhalation, and after I have exhaled, I look up at the ceiling like it’s not the ceiling but the sky itself, and I look at it like I’m trying hard to find a few stars there, trying to find some brightness there. I am drunk and in the lap of music. I have been in that state on most of my evenings.

    Right now, as I type, I am sitting with my back against the setting sun. My teeth are sour. My hair all messed up. My clothes are carrying the stench of a whole month gone bad. My drink is about to finish. The dizziness is building up all too slowly. There’s a song waiting to be played. It’s been there on my mind since I woke up this morning.

    – Tomic Riter. © All rights reserved.

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