Tomic Riter

Tag: shortstory

  • As another victim ripens slowly.

    “What happened there?” Sonny asked.

    “Where?” I asked in return.

    “Your neighbor.”

    Sonny is a big man with one face and two eyes.

    “What neighbor. I don’t have a neighbor. I live alone on my floor,” I told Sonny.

    “The guy on the floor below yours.”

    “I don’t know. What happened to him? I never met him”

    “Somebody has pasted a notice on his front door. It says ‘HOME QUARANTINED. KINDLY REFRAIN FROM STEPPING OUTSIDE.’”

    “Oh that. Two folks visited this apartment in the morning. They said they were surveying for the virus. The guy has come here from outside two weeks back. That’s all I know about him,” I told Sonny.

    The sun had set. Almost. The roof , on which we stood, and everything else shone in red.

    “I see. It’s becoming a big thing slowly.”

    “The virus. Yes.”

    “What did they say to you?” Sonny asked me.

    “Nothing much. They asked me if anybody visited me from outside. I said no. Then they left my place.”

    Sonny nodded to my reply, then looked away and walked few steps. He looked down at the little playground that these village boys had created from dry mud. They were playing cricket foolishly.

    I looked away from Sonny. I looked at the red clay brick lying near my feet. I lifted it with my both arms. It was fairly heavy. I lifted it over my head. I stood like that for a while. The guy on the floor below, he never steps outside. Even if he fries himself in his home out of agony, nobody would know until the sour smell of death enters a clean nose.

    I caught a mild cold two days back.

    — TOMIC RITER

  • A beginning in viral times.

    It is almost midnight. I write this to you as I step into another day. Everything is fine here for now. The virus is still far from here, but for how long I cannot say. In the afternoon, two folks, a man and a woman, visited my home with masks covering their sweaty faces.

    ‘Tell me your name,’ the woman said.

    ‘Why should I? Who are you?’ I asked.

    ‘We are asked to survey in light of the rapid spreading of the virus. Now, tell me your name,’ she replied.

    ‘Oh OK. OK. Fine,’ said I and told them my name and cellphone number.

    ‘Has anybody visited you from outside?’ asked the man.

    ‘Nobody visits me from anywhere. I live alone,’ said I.

    ‘Fine,’ said the man and took out a sketch pen from his pocket. He wrote a sequence on my door in big, bold characters. ‘What the hell,’ I said in my mind as I read the characters.

    I understood the idea of this exercise. In case I get the virus in the future, they can track my home and burn it down to ash.

    — TOMIC RITER