Novosibirsk, Russia. 1942. They were cleaning the train bogeys in the morning when they found the body. It was Jack, to stipulate. He found the body slumped and trashed in the deep corner end which was mostly beside the washroom. It was hidden behind the tall bamboo broomsticks and paint and grease cans and that is why it smelled like a crashed car. He tried to move it away … [Read more...]
Short Stories
The Hands of a Killer | Nirupama Akella
“The shape and size of your hands tells you what sort of person you are,” said the old lady seated on the lower berth in the train, wrapped in black and blue looking ominous and like a rounded cozy hen. Wisps of black hair peppered with white escaped from a straggly hair net as sharp penetrating eyes peered out from underneath shaggy grey eyebrows. Deep furrows outlined her … [Read more...]
Catoptromancy | Shefali Shah Choksi
Geeta had cultivated a strange habit that befuddled her friends. As was wont of her posse, she frequently indulged in lengthy monologues fraught with much feeling and little matter, but this was not strange. In midst of such emotional expostulations, she had taken to blatantly exposing her carelessness about the person she was performing for, sprinkling her eye-rolling and deep … [Read more...]
The Playhouse | Bhabendra Nath Saikia
I tried to take out as many sticks as I possibly could from the matchbox in my uncontrolled enthusiasm induced clumsiness; but of no avail. The matchbox was new; full of sticks, it was impossible to hold together too many sticks with the fingers, even if they could be held together it was impossible to get them out. Yet I managed to get out four sticks from the first jerk and … [Read more...]
The Boy With No Face | Bhanuraj Kashyap
My dreary existence speaks for itself. As the night drops in on us to take us to fitful sleep, I lie awake, dreading tomorrow, with its infinitely long seconds; I don’t know what to do with the time I’ve been allotted. Neither I’m squandering it nor am I saving it. Ah! Allow me to recount the tale of my uneventful and monotonous life, plagued by boredom. I’m raving, I know! … [Read more...]