3 Stories and a Postscript

The Prodigal

The Prodigal is a son.
He was never meant to be a father.
He chose to remain a son from the day he gained conciousness. He would be the despised one, the one everyone would choose not to be. He would complete the tasks others would shun for those were tasks not meant for men. The Prodigal was cursed. Cursed for sneaking into ‘desolation row’ when he was too young to. He’s now grown old enough to kiss his curses when he meets them, sometimes during his walks in the evenings or lonely nights in his bed. He kisses them each time as if it were the last time he was to kiss them. Then he continues to live to fulfill their dictate. He smiles wryly at his destiny, for he does not want to believe it.
Now he was to carry the flaming torch of each of his curses and meet the new day, armed with a purpose. He would cripple his own existence so that others would see life, he would meet the darkest stars and show humanity what lies within, he would be the aberration, the deep disturbing chasm in one’s soul that would inadvertantly remind one that one does have a soul. The Prodigal would burn. Burn before the eyes of all who care, and all who don’t so that they all would know that it was possible to burn.
Its not easy for a young man to choose his own fate. Especially in an order where most leave their souls with the World Bank and hearts in churches and temple. The Prodigal would live for the girl.
The Prodigal chose to perish.


The Angel

The Angel is a female.
She loves a man. She must.
She’s flown a long way and learnt much to be here now. She once flew into a garden, where she found a little boy locked up. There was no way to release him, for he himself was the key and he was the one locked up. She however didn’t bother to think so much. She couldn’t, after all here was a little boy crying alone in a garden. So she flew in and held his hand. Held for as long as it took him to stop crying and allow her to hold him tight. Held on for as long as it took for him to need her to hold him.
The Angel never had had to choose. She simply evaded such thorny paths. She was just there always. After all that’s what angels do don’t they?
Now she often finds the little boy around, toying with dangerous toys. Playing games men shouldn’t and weren’t supposed to. She pities the boy sometimes. She shouldn’t, but she can’t help it. She wishes she could release him from within his walls. She knows she could. But she musn’t. Angels don’t play God. Only humans do.
Now she fears. Because now she loves. A man at that. The only one who would make her choose. The one she would like to drown with in those muckfilled swamps, just so they could be immersed in it together to be moulded in one being. The Angel cannot remain an angel anymore, for now she must walk with him and live his choices. The Angel makes the choice she’s never made before.
She chooses to live.


The General and a Maiden

The General had fought many battles and waged many a war. All in the name of the King he serves and the Queen he’s besotted to in his dreams. He has sufferred wounds that chose not to heal. He has lived a life of pledged loyalty to his King’s wishes and left his desires stranded in the battlefields.
Now the nation seems faltering under the shadow of another invasion, another war. The general knows his task. He is to lead the thousands in servitude to meet their purpose. He is to hold them each by their hands and show them what they must see; what they, if not for him, would not have seen. He cannot choose to escape such tasks, for they are his duty and he serves the King. His life and dream, all lie in the realm of the King. He is merely a symbol of the King walking into battle for the King.
A maiden breaks his thoughts, offers him some milk. He takes it graciously for he knows he might never taste milk again.
From the look in the maiden’s eyes he knows she’s sad. She’s sad for him. She knows him not, and neither does he recall her aquaintance. But she’s still sad for him and he’s grateful for her milk.


ps: the poet

The poet lives on 42nd Desolation Row. He is the creator. He is the master and servant of his own creation. The poet is the god and the devil. What he creates only he may destroy.
The poet shoots himself on a rainy Sunday afternoon after feeding his pet cat.