#12 Beauty

A drop fell on his face.

 

He opened his eyes to a wolf snarling above his face. The man standing next to them held the wolf back on leash. He tried to remember how he had got here.

The place was familiar…

It was the old house that he and his friends used to play in as children.

 

Nobody came there anymore.

 

“Let me go! I’m rich and will pay you handsomely”

“Your money is worth nothing here. We value beauty”

 

The colour drained from his face as he realised how the statues in the garden had such realistic features.

#11 The Games Boys Played

He had the best players with him. Arvind didn’t stand a chance.

Chetan thought back to the evenings he’d sat on the edge of the field. He had always been the last one picked into a team. It was his job to find the balls when they went over the fence.

But that seemed long ago.

They hadn’t let him play with them, so he had made his own games.

 

It was his move. He moved his players into offence. Arvind didn’t know it but Chetan had coded the game.

The computer classes had paid off. He would never lose.

#10 The face in the window

The train was crowded as usual. Thankfully he was going only till the next station.

The boy sitting by the window seemed familiar. Rahul had never been good with names. He furrowed his eyebrows trying to place the boy.

It couldn’t be..

Ajay! – That was the name he had taken after the operation.

Rahul had known him only as Sheila.

5 years ago they had sat on the steps of his house while she had told him her story. He had tried to understand but couldn’t.

He wished he had taken the later train. This collision of worlds was un-nerving.