The Man from the South
Friday, June 20, 2008
I tapped my watch in despair. It seemed that the hands hadn't moved for a while now. The forecast on the television this morning predicted normal levels of gravity, so the forces slowing down the clockwork was obviously something else, something far more mysterious.
"Or something far more mundane", chipped in the girl beside me, yawning.
I swear on my ancestors' graves as I tell you this : I have no idea how she reads my mind. If it was a solitary occurrence it could perhaps be explained as a coincidence of two minds with the same thought at the same time. It wasn't. It happened with an unfailing regularity, to the point that she could do it at will and even, if she agreed, possibly demonstrate the power to, and befuddle in the process, a panel of rational Antimystics, members of a cult which obsesses over debunking myths and popular legend. Her explanation for this supranatural power would have outraged the Antimystics though.
"We are sisters", she replied in answer to my question, questioning her on her mind reading, privacy invading powers.
I suppose it was better than the "Magicians never reveal the tricks of their trade" answer that I was expecting, but I had to point out to her that we were not sisters, nor even remotely related, unless she was aware of some long forgotten scandal in our family histories that could have made us blood relatives, the pantheon of Gods forbid.
"Not boring biological sisters, silly. We are Sisters", she said, emphasizing the last word.
And I remembered the night we met, brought together as roommates by the alphabetical ordering of names in the dormitory register, and not by fate or an act of the pantheon of Gods as she claimed it was. That was the first time she invaded my mind, reading my most private thoughts.
"You need to pee", she said, cheerfully.
The tone wasn't a questioning one. It was a statement. How would she know I needed to relieve myself and was about to look for the privy, I wondered and then realized that she was probably hearing the call of nature too, after a long drive to the University.
I was wrong. It happened again the next day as we walked to the library. A jogger, probably another student senior to us by a year or two, passed us and I said aloud, "You'll be shocked if you knew what I would love to do with that man. I would..", and trailed off into silence with a smile.
"Oh, I wouldn't be shocked. I'm not from the conservative districts, you know. I would love to be on a tree too, eff you sea kay eye...", she replied, trailing off with a mischievous smile.
The expression that appeared on my face is hard to describe now. It was an unique expression, expressing emotions that one felt at that moment, impossible to replicate now in the absence of the shock that caused it. I would use the word flabbergasted, a word that I loved from the day I set eyes on it in the dictionary, to describe the emotion that I felt, though it would hardly do it justice.
"You look like you downed a scotch up the wrong end. What happened?", asked she, looking upon my flabbergasted self.
"I am flabbergasted", I replied.
"At?"
"Your ability to read my mind! I don't want anyone knowing that I love love-making on trees!", I screamed, realising later, the next minute actually, as passers by stared and a smart alec claimed on being descended from a direct line of monkeys and sharing a love for treetop sex, that we weren't alone.
I put my arm around her neck and growled, "My fetishes are mine, okay? The next time you read my poor little mind, you keep it to yourself. I hope there aren't more of your kind, because if someone reads your mind while you're reading mine, we kill her. Agreed?"
She nodded weakly. I let her go.
She did not keep it to herself, of course. By the end of that year, everyone in the University knew of my fetishes and fantasies and though I started coming up with creative ways to kill a roommate without arousing suspicion at first, I began to be thankful later as my fantasies turned into experiences with the help of like minded men.
A second yawn brought me out of this nostalgic reverie. "It is boredom that slows down time in your perspective, not increased gravity or an unexplained quantum effect", she explained, "Why must you always look for the more fanciful explanation?"
"Because we enrolled for a course in flights of fancy?", I replied, laughing, referring to our course in Retro-Futurist Fiction.
If you asked me why I chose this course over Governmentalism, which would help our Lords extend their governance far beyond what the Rebels called 'Total Control' or Modernist Shamanism which would help save lives every day, I could not say. As a child I was fascinated by the theory of Alternate History, which constructs worlds different from ours, changed because of some event in history that could have happened differently. Would the world be different if Cleopatra was a man, was a favourite poser of mine, that I posed to guests during dinner table conversations in our ancestral house. And why was my mind reading roommate, Kaikeiyi enrolled in this course? I had no idea.
The professor droned on. He was a pure born Greek and he taught his favourite subject. The History of the World. It was an important subject for retro-futurists. They needed to know their history in order to begin constructing alternate histories. But his droning voice took the last bit of juice out of this subject. If it wasn't for his Greek looks, which was what kept us girls in the class and led us to wonder why the guys remained, the class would have been empty.
"The Greco-Roman empire led an invasive force into the Indic Lands in prehistory", he droned, as we pretended to take notes, "defeating the pagan king Sandracottus. Ashamed in defeat, Sandracottus hands over the rule of the Indic lands to the Greco-Romans but warns of certain defeat and a horrible fate that should befall the army unwise enough to venture into the lands south of the Vindhyan mountains. According to historians, he is quoted to have said 'Fear ye the Pandyas of mystical war powers and the Rashtrakutas, eaters of their own dead. Cross not the Vindhyas, lest ye be annihilated and your women in your homelands be impregnated mysteriously with their children.' The Greco-Romans ignored his warning as a pagan fear of the unknown and sent a large army into the South. The fate of the army is unknown, though possibly recorded in the histories of the Unconquered South. It was thought to be lost to time, until our recent peace treaty that is..", he paused, with a rare smile.
The professor was of course referring to the treaty that was signed recently by the Greco-Roman Regent of Maurya and the representative of the Pandyas, who had in the course of two thousand years established dominance over the Southern Lands. Maurya was an advanced colony of the now two thousand year old Greco-Roman empire that ruled most of the world. Our empire colonised most of the lands on this planet through technological supremacy and the free lands that remained, like Nippon, Scandinavia and the Southern region of the Indies, were insular cultures that fought battles with magical technologies.
"Finally we historians have a chance to know what happened in the Dark Ages of the Indies", continued the professor, "We have with us a professor of anthropology from Pandya, Mr. Sevuna Yadava.."
I did not hear what the professor said after that, as this man entered. A strange man, how would I describe him; I looked at Kaikeiyi and she was staring at him too. He was tall and dark of skin, a colour that we thought had been lost from human existence with the annihilation of the African kingdoms, with wavy black hair and deep black eyes. He was built like a warrior. I could almost imagine him bare chested, wrapped in a sarong, climbing a tree.
Kaikeyi giggled.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Kaikeiyi?"
"Well I obviously am", she replied, tapping her forehead, "but I must say I love what you're thinking of now."
posted by foogarky @ 11:34 PM,
4 Comments:
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At 12:38 PM,
Mihir Pathare said...
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Why are all your stories cliff hangers? :(
We wants moar endings!
As captivating this story is, it's kinda sad it's ended there. I wanna know what happens next! And where is the hot lesbian kiss? Your plot seems pointless without it.
Moar lesbian kissy kissy pl0x!
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At 3:34 AM,
check said...
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yes, I understand what you meant now. I was surprised to find that the narrator was female. BUT it was fun. I hope you contiue, I want to see where you go with this. :D
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At 9:57 PM,
Mihir Pathare said...
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Still no moar? :(
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At 10:04 AM,
Lord Akoroth said...
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Where is the rest of this story you filthy heathen. Write heathen. Don't make me come down there and beat out the story out of you.
The Author
foogarky
foogarky is the pseudonym of the fictional construct who battles for supremacy with other constructed personas in the mind of a crazed individual. He describes himself as a man living in a non descript house in Rio De Janiero, Brazil with two dogs and a parakeet.
About This Blog
The Loony Lampoonist serves to parody, spoof and satirize everything that needs to be parodied, spoofed and satirized. Due to the fictional nature of this electronic journal, any anecdotes appearing here ever so often that seem to be personal in nature, would suffer from the effects of conflicting personalities, the creation of fictional events and the inclusion of non existent characters who did not make it to the big league in the author's literary works. Thus, the Loony Lampoonist is also a purgatory for characters and ideas that have missed the limelight.
