Game, Set, Match

“There’s a wee little bit of badminton in everything.” he observed sagely, twirling that expensive looking racquet in his hand, watching the game in progress “And a wee little bit in everyone too”. She didn’t seem to be paying attention, because such insight should ideally have incited violence. “It’s a game of lessons.” he went on, now calmly tossing that racquet from one hand to the other. “And I’ve heard it’s a whole lot more bearable if you try to shut the fuck up.” she finally offered. Anybody else would have taken the hint, but he was purposefully impervious to sarcasm.

“Arey, wah, sarcasm? But you’ll probably have to try a lot harder, nahin?” his smile did little but to bring him only closer to getting a kick in the shins. She had nearly perfected that move, a swift kick to the shins, or a sharp pinch between the shoulders. The kicks hurt a lot more than he might have anticipated, and the pinches a lot less than she would have preferred. “See, now, badminton is about banter too. Every retort begets another.” he said, just as a careless volley is smashed into the court. “Yeah, but sometimes that happens too.” she said, and kicked him in the shins.

While he hopped about for what couldn’t all have been mock pain, she picked up his racquet and went on ahead to join the next game. With nobody to drive up the wall anymore, he sat down to watch her play. He couldn’t have expected her to be as good as she turned out to be. Brilliant, he thought, though if her forehand were any more peculiar, she should just have to be left-handed. A push is played close to the net, and she had to sprint across the court’s length and breadth in an insane diagonal of zigs and zags to make the lift that just couldn’t really have been lifted.

Wah, he said to himself inside his head. “Crap!” he said out aloud in a staged whisper. She might not have really intended to, though one can never quite be sure to fathom the machinations of the female brain, but somehow her next return turned quite perpendicularly; the shuttle rushed at him upwards of hundred klicks to the hour and whacked him in the face surer than a slap. Usually the shuttles don’t tend to mostly hurt very much, but he certainly seemed to be struggling to keep his face straight. “Sorry!” she manages to mention most unconvincingly as her partner scurried over to fetch the projectile.

Possibly concerned for his own wellbeing, he walked around to the other end of the court, paying his attentions instead to her opponents now. About to lose that game rather comprehensively, she must have decided to fight back; the shuttle should’ve been groaning from the sudden onslaught by the end of the next serve, and her opponents didn’t quite appear to be entirely pleased with the possibility of having to play faster, harder, and altogether better than they already were. Not that they were contesting for anything quite tangible - but a friendly is never really a friendly.

3-7. She looked at her partner, silently despairing for a miracle. And yet the serve breaks instead. Now she looked like she just wanted to punch her partner. She served. Serve breaks and changes. If she was disappointed, she wasn’t doing a darned splendid job of not being very visual about it. 7-3. Some peculiarly graphic expletives thrown towards no particular direction, so 8-3. Then 9-3. Not many moments later, Game-3. She looked at the shuttle during it’s descent, swung suddenly, missed it quite completely, and brought his racquet crashing down. He watched the racquet introduce itself to the ground with a sickening crunch that couldn't be confused for a cordial greeting, and with due respect to the fundamentals of physics, respond to the cold-concrete's interaction by very effectively crumpling into itself. He smiled weakly, his shins didn't seem to be hurting so much anymore anyhow.

By:

Sarthak Prakash

For A Piece Of Pi

“It should finish somewhere, nahin?” he asked himself, not quite aware that she was standing not very many feet behind him. The lone window seemed resolute to pour as much light as should be possible into that dark and deprived room, but those four squares of soft sunlight that could have been are stopped short at the panes covered in patches of black linen. He was scribbling furiously at the corner of one wall, numbers that didn’t seem confined to pattern or purpose. “It should.”

“But what if it doesn’t finish here? You know like in this room, in this life. What if it needs more space to be written on, what if it needs more time to be written in?” she asked him, as she opened a small cupboard near the door, pulling out two smallish glasses and a decanter that looked like it had been around for a lot longer than either of them. He watched her pour the liquid amber in the two glasses generously. “Though what it really needs, I think, is more people to be written by.”

“Thank you.” he said as she handed him one of the glasses. They sipped in silence, staring at that abomination of a wall before them. To her, the numbers were a formidable opponent, demanding from him the time that was rightfully only hers. To him, though he couldn’t tell yet, the numbers were a formidable opponent as well, demanding a sense of pattern and a sense of purpose that he couldn’t quite put down into words. “Let’s get another marker, we still have three more walls.”

“I’ll start from this end, see? You start from your usual top-left corner. We’ll run into each other somewhere near the middle, move down by a bit, and then start writing back towards the edges.” she suggested, but he was already atop the chair, starting with the first scribble in his own corner. There was this muted tension churning in the air around him, and she could almost imagine those numbers were being pulled right out from there. “Oh, but also, why exactly are we doing this?”

“Because it should finish somewhere.” he muttered, and then stopped writing, the marker’s tip at the wall in silent introspection, and the room suddenly a little more silent than usually. She could tell her question had been received, and that a suitable response was being processed as well. But what worried her was how the marker’s tip never strayed from that point on the wall right there. “These numbers, they start at a definite point. So why can’t they end somewhere as well, see?”

“No, I am afraid I don’t. But don’t let that bother you. We’ll finish these walls, we’ll cover every last darned inch-squared. Then we’ll get very drunk, plastered even. And then, before either of us has to start slurring, you can tell me about the numbers.” he smiled a weak smile, and the marker was writing even before he had fully turned away to face the wall. She sighed softly, and decided she would need another drink before she started. “Would you like some liquid motivation too?”

“22 over 7.” he said, and kept looking at her while she tinkered with the glasses and the decanter at the other end of the room. The room around her was dark and stuffy, and two walls covered in bright green scribbles adding very little to the already challenged décor. The numbers did start at a very definite point, at a very specific digit. 3. This was followed by a monumental fullstop, and from there, numbers that didn’t seem confined to pattern or purpose. “Make it a double please.”

By:

Sarthak Prakash

A Man Dead Inside Me

Into that Battle of Blades, I had rushed without taking heed; 
Behind me few followed, and before me my smiling enemy. 
I will not be the first to depart, I will not be the last to bleed; 
Many shall have to die, before I have a man dead inside me. 

Archers welcome my charge, their strings tight and taut too; 
The arrows shall pierce armours, and we’re lesser suddenly. 
Another volley is prepared, strings pulled and arrows put to; 
But not before I break the ranks, with a man dead inside me. 

They can’t shoot arrows at a man standing amidst them, no; 
Not that they shouldn’t try, but my steed shall never still be. 
My mare run, my sword sweep, my enemy’s blood to flow; 
I would not cease now, and neither the man dead inside me. 

The pike and javelin advances, they seem to cheerfully nod; 
In wild thrusts and stabs, they expected to find their victory. 
A spear looks me in the eye, then throws full might that rod; 
But his is not the claim to make, to that man dead inside me. 

The infantry came out to greet us, we exchange pleasantries; 
Each man would call out to his god, his flag, and his family. 
And then comes the onslaught, the collision of these armies; 
I close my eyes momentarily, to see the man dead inside me. 

There he stands in the distance, his armour shining so bright; 
A blade in the scabbard, with another right through his body. 
I suppose I should know now, that this shall be my last fight; 
And I opened my eyes, but I still see the man dead inside me. 

My army withers away, and my men have breathed their last; 
I stand alone with the enemy, and their swords crying hungry. 
Kill me now, I wish to tell these men, but do not kill me fast; 
And in the slow strokes of steel, I have a man dead inside me. 

By: 
Sarthak Prakash