(This post was written for the Clarity of Night “Silhouette Short Fiction writing contest. Using the image given below, a piece had to be written in not more than 250 words. Though I failed to make it through, I did receive encouraging as well as intricate advice from fellow contesters regarding my way of writing. You can view this post on the Clarity of Night blog here.)
I glance down. Branches, leaves, flowers blend into one another, allowing me to perceive a haze of rich foliage. The talons grip nothing but ether as I flex it, and air it is that cocoons my anatomy as I accelerate.
The twilight sun settles in the distance, and my stomach rumbles with unrelenting hunger. What is the euphonious twittering in the distance to me?
The mellifluous music of an appetite being quelled…
Nay, do not mistake me for the cynical murderer, the cold blooded wielder of a scythe. Nature has its delights, but it leaves the individual to fend for itself.
Few powerful flaps of my wings, and I can discern a sparrow. It titters on, cloaked in the envelope of ominous oblivion.
Its kin spot me, and the pitch switches on to a more harried tenor. The sparrow has arched its little, pathetic wings, but even as it knows, its end shall engulf it in an ephemeral moment.
The crimson liquid flows over my talons, all around me are the sickening shrieks of “Murder!” and the rustling of a thousand feathers making an exodus for their lives.
The ambience echoes normalcy after a while.
* * *
“Come on!” Sam wrenched my arm. The lifeless eyes of the old woman mirrored my own terror-stricken ones.
“I t-thought…s-she had… gun…” The bag of cash in my hands felt as if it harboured lead.
“Doesn’t matter…come on….your daughter…remember?”
Lily swam into focus, the ECGs and the ICU with it.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
An Index of Nonsensical Hypotheses 
this particular piece, which u say entered in that competition, reminded me of “Hawk Roosting” by Ted Huges.
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
(Stanza 1, Hawk Roosting-Ted Huges)
Ps-Plz mail me whenever their is such a competition.
I dnt get to know about such competitions.Is their a site or something??
Just read the poem. Beautiful composition. 🙂
And sure, I will mail them to you.
GUESS I havent given you the email ID–
tarun_vash@yahoo.com
Where did you study man? Very difficult for me to follow your language. I read it twice despite it could gather just the least clue Sourabh. I will follow your blog until I get to understand your language.
What are those four lines that are attached from bottom? How is your love for nature connected to those lines, that is something I have been wondering for a long time.
The 250 word limit was the only constrain there was, due to which I couldn’t play out the story to its fruition.
The first segment sees a predator killing for hunger, and hunger is a necessity. This type of necessity doesn’t make him think twice before murdering the sparrow. Far from regretting his act, his character is embellished with an almost dandy-ish sort of voice which seeks to clear any misconceptions that he is a murderer, rather someone who is doing this out of sheer need. His voice is pitiless while it murders the sparrow, his ear has grown resilient against the clamor of voices emanating from other sparrows shrieking “Murder!”.
The Man, on the other hand, is someone who is robbing because he needs money for the operation of his daughter (filmy, huh? 🙂 ). While he is robbing the house of an old lady, in a moment of confusion he ends up shooting her. Here we see regret distinctly in his character, even though here too, his necessity forces him to overlook it and run out of the house before the police comes.
I had sought to bring out the contrast between these two characters, both committing murder, but the apparent difference in the respective emotions following the killing.
I did plan to write a bigger one to somehow really explain what I meant over here, just haven’t gone into that kind of a gear for a long time now. 🙂
You are free to comment whatever it was that you felt about this article.
And Welcome to my blog, hope to see you around here a lot more! 🙂
Hey, You did well and some stories need to remain abstract for reader to imagine.
Everything does not need to be black and white.
though your language is hard I agree with ‘ramyasadasivam’ but I love it- your expressions are good, though you don’t use metaphors but then it does not matter to relate to anything when you so well ascribe all.
Are you on social network–especially facebook…mine is with the same id i gave you. do tell me yours ,if you will like to add that is, for i would love to
tarun_vash@yahoo.com
Was searching for you but did not found.:(
Even though it does need to be abstract, I think I could have bettered this effort.
And yes I am on Facebook. 🙂
my id is sunny_bissu@yahoo.com.
To accomplish all this and more within 25 words is a feat of genius!
250, and thanks a lot! Means so much coming from you. 🙂
For future readers, the man above is the greatest poet that ever inhabited IIT Bombay!
I admit to having read this thrice over – not because I did not understand what you wrote – but because I do not understand how on earth could you knit those words into such a continuity to bring about the facets of two diverse emotions.. Very stirring . 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
I did wonder while writing this story whether the transition would be too jarring for the reader to accept. It has been received better than I expected. 🙂