Enter Midas

The synchronized chanting was deafening, the crowd's collective sonic pulsations reverberating all round the huge hall, all eyes on centre stage, a single name on every lip.

"Harvey!Harvey!Harvey!Harvey!Harvey!..."


The lights exploded.So did the crowd. The atmosphere was as electric as the guitar solo being effortlessly played, drums thrashing in the background, all coming together in an acoustic melange that was a feast for the ears.

Then Harvey opened his mouth and roared into the microphone, inciting the audience into a frenzy. His persona glowed, quite literally, in the spotlight, as he mesmerized the crowd with his superior vocal range, slipping effortlessly from crooning to growling, giving the crowd a hell of a time.
At the end of the day, when Harvey Hayes was chosen as Freshman Of the Year, it came as no surprise.

Strands of his ridiculously flawless hair bounced as he hopped off the stage, returning all the high and low-fives coming his way and steering himself back to his hostel room. The light was already on. He turned the knob and walked in, setting his trophy down on the table beside the bed. Then he turned around.

His heart pounded louder than the drumbeats still echoing from the hall, against his throat. Euphoria ebbing away, he watched as his roommate tightened his noose with an expression that meant business.

"What the fuck're you doing, man? Come down....please..."

Ezra Devel looked bewildered. Then he looked at Harvey's horrified face, and then at his noose, comprehension dawning on his face.

He pointed to the window, atop which a camera had been fixed, its red light flashing.

"I'm making a movie, dude.....suicide scene."

"Why the FUCK didn't you tell me before?!"

"I did, you dumbass....it's your own fucking fault you weren't listening... Congrats on the win, by the way! Awesome stuff."

"Yeah well...thanks," said Harvey, flinging himself onto the four-poster bed, without bothering to take off his shoes.

"This is the life, man....Best goddamn University in the world, hottest chicks, awesome grades, and an already secured internship.....I love my life!"

Then he sat up and began tinkering with the project he's been working on, taking notes on his bulky notepad.

"Beauty, talent AND brains....God was too fucking generous with you, mate," chuckled Ezra.

"Take off that fucking noose, will you? It's still getting on my nerves..."

"Eat my shorts.."

Dizzying Predicament

The darkness seemed to loom out at him, invisible eyes glaring furiously in his wake....
The man drove in a blur, trying to block out his paranoia, wondering if it  really was paranoia or if it was all real.
"It couldn't be!" he told himself hysterically.
He didn't have himself convinced. He looked frantically out of the window on both sides and then at the rear view mirror, beads of sweat growing steadily into a stream upon his terrified visage, fear rippling through his frazzled veins.

His breath was rapid and painful, as was his heartbeat.
He switched on the CD player in an attempt to calm himself down. It wasn't quite the soothing effect he was looking for -
"We're painted as monsters,
Borracho, cansado.."

"No!" he screamed, switching it off.
It would have been almost comical, had it not been for the grimness of the situation in which he had landed himself.

The man found it difficult to concentrate, visions of blood flying through the chilly air flashing before his unfocussed eyes, haunting him.

An enormous truck suddenly loomed out of nowhere, blaring its horn, unleashing a fresh flood of adrenaline into the poor man's already overloaded veins. He swerved wildly, tyres screeching out his desperation, propelling the vehicle into chaotic trajectory which he could barely register before gaining control over his limbs and brain long enough to slam the brakes. He stopped short just in front of a towering tree that would have resulted in instant death had he crashed into it.
The man regained his breath, petrified. He looked up at the tree.
"Divine intervention?" he wondered.
He didn't have time to think further. He threw open the front door and stumbled out, vomiting violently on the ground. He kept staggering forward on his unsteady limbs and slumped to the ground against a bush, losing consciousness.



The alarm clock rang shrilly, forcing a half-conscious arm to reach out and slap it shut, almost automatically. Waking from his deep slumber, the man sat up slowly on his tattered bed.
Head pounding, he dragged himself to his feet and made his way to the wash basin. As he splashed water onto his drooping eyelids, he recalled the horrors of the night before.

He rushed down to the garage and slid the door open. What he saw made him slump against the door and let out a long winded sigh.....
He reached for a bottle on the table next to him and took a deep swig.....

A Day At The Beach

It was a bright weekday afternoon. Dust blew helplessly around with the wind that carried it, ever transient , carrying with it the coolness of the ocean which it just traversed. It seemed more purposeful than the clusters of human beings that loitered around aimlessly.
The eccentric young man strode swiftly past the moving yet still public all around him. He perched himself on a secluded stretch of granite lining the sidewalk, which gleamed forebodingly in the blaring sunlight. The excessive warmth pierced his body, but he didn't bother to flinch. His ability to bear extreme weather was beyond ordinary. He slid his arms out of the backpack he was carrying, and opened a zip at the rear of the backpack. From it he took out a pair of slippers packed in a polythene bag. He wore the slippers and replaced them with the shoes he had been wearing until now.
He took a deep breath of the comfort that he could already feel, getting up on his feet. He put his hands in his pockets and began wading through the sand, on a long walk till he reached the shore. On the way he laid his eyes upon various anomalies in a place that should be beautifully natural. He watched a man ride a horse till the shoreline and watched the horse slow down to enjoy the water streaming across its hooves. Then he watched the owner whack a stick on the horse's tired thigh, forcing it to move on...

He picked a relatively clean spot just over the slope of the shore where the sand was still dry, placing his backpack down, pulling the end of his trousers up slightly. He let himself collapse onto the ground in bliss, watching the incoming waves push the outgoing waves back, both losing, a compromise being reached, a beautiful sight being created...over and over again. He took off his spectacles when the sand particles and the spray clouded them too much. In the bright sun, he counted the various layers of the oceans , each coloured a different shade...

Ten minutes later he got bored, and took out his lunchbox, about which he had completely forgotten until a moment ago, when his stomach got bored of the scenery. He ate with a sense of tactile detachment, not tasting but just stuffing his mouth repeatedly whenever it got emptied. It was at this point that he was interrupted by a young boy wearing a yellowish saffron cloth round his torso, walking towards him with a cloth bag slung round his shoulder and a cane in the other hand. He said something that the man didn't understand. Presuming that he probably wanted some alms, the man held up the lunchbox in an offering gesture. The boy again said something, which sounded like a refusal followed by a clarification. Apparently the boy was offering to read his palm for a price..The man smiled, shaking his head. The boy stood there for a couple of moments, then walked away. A couple of minutes later, a beggar came by, with a baby in her arms. The man offered her the lunchbox again. She refused, saying the baby can't eat that stuff. It was all the man had. So he just went about finishing it, and waited for the beggar to go away. She took a long time to do so.

The man finished his lunch, and lay back, using his backpack as a pillow. He gazed at the ocean disappearing into the horizon. He tilted his head up and watched the clouds merge into one another, in an unchoreographed motion that was far more aesthetic than what he ever saw on television dance shows. He longed for his camera...

He had just come from college, giving an exam after reading hardly for 10 minutes prior to the exam. And he couldn't care less that he was probably going to flunk. It's alright, he thought to himself....after all, he did top in yesterday's exam.

The man was a bipolar social misfit whose behaviour baffled most people around him. He could stay silent and alone for hours, even days on a stretch and feel completely happy. Solitary confinement would actually be a treat for him.
All he wanted was a thought to fill his head. Like right now, he was thinking of the completeness of nature and its ways. Imagining a world without humans. Without senseless chatter, malls, polluting automobiles and the works...but then one thought struck him. He couldn't live without music.

He fished out his Cowon s9 from his pocket and lay there in bliss, feeling the music speaking to him, communicating back to him what he felt about the wretched world of today...what other song but

Anesthetize - Porcupine Tree ?