Israel Patent Application No. IL 22116 titled "Mouth Cleaner" was applied for by Yaakov Dichtenberg and Danny Unger who is also a patent attorney.
The Application was rejected. Under Section 21a and 164a of the Israel Patent Law 1967, within 12 months of a final rejection, the Applicant may request reconsideration by the Commissioner. After that time it is possible to have a closed application reopened, but it is difficult and it is generally necessary to show extreme circumstances resulted in the application becoming abandoned.
This Application was filed on 25 July 2012 and, in accordance with Section 16a of the Law, a Notice of Imminent Publication was sent to the Applicants on 5 January 2014. This notice was sent to the address given on the application form which was the address of the first Applicant, Mr Danny Unger, a patent attorney who represented himself and the his c0-applicant. The Application published on 30 January 2014.
On 2 February 2014 the Applicants received a Notice of Imminent Examination in accordance with Section 18 of the Law and regulation 36 of the patent regulations 1968. Since the Applicants did not respond to this Notice within the period ordained in regulation 36, a reminder was sent on 5 November 2014 to the effect that in absence of a response within 30 days, the Application would be deemed abandoned. Subsequently, on 21 December 2014 a Notice of Rejection issued that also informed the Applicants that they could request reinstatement within 12 months.
On 21 December 2015 a request for reinstatement was received together with a response to the Notice Prior to Examination. The Notice of Reinstatement did not include a signed affidavit as required by Commissioner Circular 026/2014, however the Applicants alleged that they never received the correspondence due to a change of address.
On 15 March 2016 the Deputy Commissioner Ms Jacqueline Bracha requested that the Applicants provide a detailed signed statement of the events leading to the Application becoming abandoned and set a date of 20 April 2016 for a hearing.
On 19 April 2016, one day before the hearing, the Applicants requested a postponement for personal reasons. Despite the lateness of the request and the lack of a doctor's letter, Ms Bracha agreed to the postponement. Nevertheless, the detailed statement was not submitted.
Applicant and Patent Attorney Unger arrived very late to the rescheduled hearing and claimed that he thought that updating the Ministry of the Interior regarding his change of address was sufficient to automatically update the patent office records. The Applicant was informed that Regulation 16a makes it clear that he should have proactively informed the Israel Patent Office of his change of address and that he still needed to provide an affidavit.
On 25 May 2016 an Affidavit was received in which the Applicant informed the Israel Patent Office that he neglected to inform them of his change of address and consequently never received the correspondence from 2014 to 2016 which was sent to his previous address. He went on to affirm that he never intended to abandon the Application and wanted to continue prosecuting the Application in parallel with the US application.
The policy regarding different requests to extend deadlines will vary depending on context and the type of proceeding that the extension is requested for.
The Commissioner may make the extension dependent on any conditions as seen fit.
Citing Opposition IL 110548 Shmuel Sadovski vs. Hogla Kimberly Marketing LTD. regarding Revivals, the relevant considerations are the time passed and the underlying reasons for the delay. In this regard, the time passed not only provides an indication of the reasonableness of the Applicant's behaviour, but also affects the likelihood of third parties relying on the case being abandoned, since it is evident that the longer an application remains abandoned, the greater the likelihood that third-parties will have relied upon the invention not having been patented.
In this instance, the period beyond the 12 months automatically granted by Section 21a of the Law is minimal. The Applicant filed a request on the last day but did not file it properly since no Affidavit was included. The Affidavit was only submitted after the hearing.
However, the behaviour of the Applicant does not conform to that expected of a Patent Attorney, who, in this case, represents not just himself, but also a second Applicant. A Patent Attorney is expected to know that he should provide an address to the Israel Patent Office and that this address will be the one that post is sent to. The Patent Office cannot change the address of record without instruction to do so in a formal request to change the address of record. No such request was submitted. Furthermore, the Applicant found it difficult to conform with the revival instructions after being instructed to provide an affidavit explaining the circumstances leading to the application going abandoned. Nevertheless, it does seem that the Applicant followed the case or he would not have known that he should request revival of the Application.
In the circumstances, the Deputy Commissioner ruled that the case should be returned to the Examiner as per Section 21a. However, because of the public interest, the Deputy Commissioner makes revival conditional on anyone relying on the patent lapsing from when it lapsed until when it was reinstated being allowed to continue using the invention, even if a patent should eventually issue.
Notice is given to the Applicant that his address has still not been updated.
Apart from being rather surprised that a registered Patent Attorney could forget to update the patent office about his change of address and assume that the Ministry of the Interior would do it automatically, I am at a loss as to why he didn't bother checking up the progress of the application for his own invention on-line.
Since the request for revival was filed within the 12 month time period, at least, since all yearly and monthly deadlines are to the same calendar day, I think the decision is correct.
I couldn't resist reviewing the Application as claimed, and note that the first few claims attempt to monopolize apples and chewing gum. Go figure.


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Home > B.Raman > India > Pakistan > worldview > India-Pakistan: re-discovering each other
India-Pakistan: re-discovering each other
March 31, 2011 B.Raman, India, Pakistan, worldview
Reuters Pictures :-
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (C) speaks with chief of India's ruling Congress party Sonia Gandhi (L) as his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh watches the ICC Cricket World Cup semi-final match between India and Pakistan in Mohali March 30, 2011. The prime ministers of nuclear-armed foes India and Pakistan stood side by side on Wednesday at a World Cup cricket match and clapped to each other's national anthems in a symbolic gesture aimed at rebuilding ties shattered by the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
by B.Raman
"Any exercise to demotivate the Pakistani state and help it to rid itself of its fears---which are seen by its army as real and by India as imaginary--- has to start with frequent and sustained interactions between the institutions of the two countries---- political parties to political parties, parliament to parliament, army to army, intelligence to intelligence, Foreign Office to Foreign Office and Home Ministry to Home Ministry. Increasing institutional contacts is as important as increasing people to people contacts to remove imaginary fears of each other. How to achieve this increase in institutional interactions between India and Pakistan.? That should be the basic question to be addressed. It should be addressed in the context of an over-all vision statement between the two countries. The imaginary fears are more in Pakistan's mind than in our mind. The Indian Prime Minister should take the initiative for visiting Pakistan to set the ball rolling towards an agreed common vision. "
(March 31, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) So I wrote in my paper of March 15,2011, titled "Is it Possible to Visualise A Shared Future for India & Pakistan? ". This paper was written by me at the request of Prof.Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, US, for an edited volume on Pakistan's future that he intends bringing out.
In the background of these suggestions, it is gratifying to note that the two concrete outcomes of the wide-ranging "conversations" between visiting Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and our Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh at Mohali on March 30,2011, have been exchanges of visits by parliamentary delegations of the two countries and an invitation from Mr.Gilani to our Prime Minister to visit Pakistan. The invitation has not yet been formally accepted by our Prime Minister, but during her media briefing at Mohali on March 30 , our Foreign Secretary,Mrs.Nirupama Rao, gave an indication that we are having an open mind on this issue.
How to give a forward push to the relations between the two countries without creating an euphoria which may prove to be unwarranted and may come back to haunt us should there be a fresh terrorist strike originating from Pakistan organised by elements determined to derail the "re-engagement" and "re-connecting" process at the top political level set in motion by the two Prime Ministers? That is the question that has been sought to be addressed by the two Prime Ministers during their "conversations". The Foreign Secretary underlined that what the two Prime Ministers had during their interactions at Mohali were "wide-ranging conversations" and not "talks" .
The apparently deliberate attempt to avoid a joint statement or a joint media briefing at the end of Mr.Gilani's visit was to create and maintain an air of relaxed informality about the process of "re-engagement" started by the two Prime Ministers without giving it an over-projected formal cloak that could have proved counter-productive.
What one saw at Mohali was a refreshingly different approach to the exercise to impart a strategic new dimension to the bilateral relations. There are two defining characteristics of this new approach---- a carefully calibrated "re-engagement" process begun and taken charge of by the two Prime Ministers themselves and the continuation of the resumed dialogue process agreed upon by the two Prime Ministers when they met in Thimpu last year under the watch of concerned Ministers and senior bureaucrats.
The first stage of the resumed dialogue process was completed just before the two Prime Ministers met at Mohali when the Home/Interior Secretaries of India and Pakistan met at New Delhi and reached some positive agreements on issues arising from the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and decided to set up a hotline between the two of them to enable faster and direct communications as part of a joint approach to internal security.The Home/Interior Secretaries' meeting is expected to be followed by a meeting---possibly in July---between P.Chidambaram, India's Home Minister, and Rehman Malik, Pakistan's Interior Minister.Thus, the two Prime Ministers have left it to their Ministers responsible for Internal Security the responsibility for finding mutually acceptable solutions to the issues relating to terrorism that could come n the way of the "re-engagement" process.
The resumed dialogue process set in motion at Thimpu would continue with forthcoming meetings between the Commerce and Foreign Secretaries of the two countries followed by meetings at ministertial level. The strategic "re-engagement" process and the tactical "dialogue process" will move side by side with the two Prime Ministers focussing on the "re-engagement" proces and concerned Ministers and officials focussing on continuing the dialogue process.
To prevent an attempt to derail the "re-engagement" process by elements which are against it, it is important that the "wide-ranging conversations" initiated at Mohali are kept moving forward by the two Prime Ministers by taking an early decision by our Prime Minister on his acceptance of the invitation from Gilani and by quick follow-up on the visits of parliamentary delegations.
The goodwill and the benign interest in each other generated by the World Cup cricket semi-final was taken advantage of by our Prime Minister to make the "re-engagement" and "re-connecting" process possible. He should readily accept the reported suggestion of Gilani for a friendly cricket match between the two teams in Pakistan in the near future and visit Pakistan to keep this process of strategic discovery of each other going forward.
(The writer is Additional Secretary(retd), Cabint Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (abbreviated TARP and more commonly known as the Deep Tunnel Project or the Chicago Deep Tunnel) is a large civil engineering project that aims to reduce flooding in the metropolitan Chicago area, and to reduce the harmful effects of flushing raw sewage into Lake Michigan by diverting storm water and sewage into temporary holding reservoirs. The megaproject is one of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken in terms of scope, cost and timeframe. Commissioned in the mid-1970s, the project is managed by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Completion of the system is not anticipated until 2029, but substantial portions of the system have already opened and are currently operational. Across 30 years of construction, over $3 billion has been spent on the project.

History

19th century
The Deep Tunnel Project is the latest in a series of civil engineering projects dating back to 1834. Many of the problems experienced by the city of Chicago are directly related to its low level topography and the fact that the city is largely built upon marsh or wet prairie. This combined with a temperate wet climate and the human development of open land, leads to substantial water runoff. Lake Michigan was ineffective in carrying sewage away from the city, and in the event of a rainstorm, the water pumps that provided drinking water to Chicagoans became contaminated with sewage. Though no epidemics were caused by this system (see Chicago 1885 cholera epidemic myth), it soon became clear that the sewage system needed to be diverted to flow away from Lake Michigan in order to handle an increasing population's sanitation needs.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal was built from 1836 to 1848 to divert some sewage water from the Chicago River. In 1900, to improve general health standards, the flow of the main branch of the Chicago River was reversed to drain water from Lake Michigan, as opposed to having the river flow into Lake Michigan. This further improved the sanitation of Lake Michigan, and helped to prevent further waterborne epidemic scares.

Between 1864 and 1867, under the leadership of Ellis S. Chesbrough, the city built the two-mile Chicago lake tunnel to a new water intake location farther from the shore. Crews began from the intake location and the shore, tunneling in two shifts a day. Clay and earth were drawn away by mule-drawn railcars. Masons lined the five-foot-diameter tunnel with two layers of brick. The lake and shore crews met in November 1866, less than seven inches out of alignment. A second tunnel was added in 1874.

20th century
The construction of the Sanitary and Ship Canal (1892–1900), enlargements to the North Shore Channel (1907–1910), the construction of the Cal-Sag Channel (1911–1922), and the construction of locks at the mouth of the Chicago River (1933–1938) brought further improvements to the sanitary issues of the time. These projects blocked further amounts of sewage from draining into Lake Michigan. The projects also brought fresh lake water to inland waterways to further dilute sewage that was already in the waterways.

Surrounding farmland also engaged in flood control projects. The Illinois Farm Drainage Act of 1879 established drainage districts. These districts were generally named for the basin they drained—for example, the Fox River Drainage District. After World War II, suburban communities began to realize the benefits of separating stormwater from sewage water and began to construct separate sewer and storm drainage lines. The primary benefit of wastestream separation is that storm water requires less treatment than sewage before being returned to the environment.

Flood damage grew markedly after 1938, when surrounding natural drainage areas were lost to development and human activity. Serious flooding has occurred in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1849, 1855, 1885, 1938, 1952, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1973, 1979, 1986, 1987, 1996, 2007, and 2008—but most record-setting crests occurred after 1948.

In the 1960s, the concept of Deep Tunnel was studied and recommended as a solution to continuing flooding issues.

Status
Phase 1, the creation of  of drainage tunnels ranging from  in diameter, up to  underground, was adopted in 1972, commenced in 1975, and completed and operational by 2006. Phase 2, creation of reservoirs primarily intended for flood control, remains underway with an expected completion date of 2029. Currently, up to  of sewage can be stored and held in the tunnels themselves while awaiting processing at sewage treatment plants, which release treated water into the Calumet and Des Plaines rivers.

Additional sewage is stored at the  Thornton Composite Reservoir, and the  Gloria Alitto Majewski Reservoir near O'Hare International Airport. The  McCook Reservoir was completed in 2017 and will be expanded to  by 2029. Because the reservoirs are decommissioned quarries, construction has been delayed by decreased demand for the quarried gravel. Upon completion, the TARP system will have a storage capacity of .

Reservoirs

Effects
Severe weather events have forced water management agencies to pump excess wastewater into the lake and river in order to prevent flooding. These incidents have decreased in frequency as more of the Deep Tunnel system has become operational. Long considered an open sewer, the Chicago River now hosts more than 50 species of fish and increased wildlife along its shores. Substantial development is occurring along many portions of the riverfront. Canoeing is once again allowed on the waterway, but swimming is still prohibited due to high pollution levels.

On October 3, 1986, a heavy thunderstorm drenched the southern portion of the Deep Tunnel area with several inches of rain in a short period of time. While the Deep Tunnel system performed satisfactorily by absorbing excess water, water within the system itself rushed past the north side of Chicago and near the Bahá'í Temple in Wilmette. Geysers of over  were reported in both locations for up to an hour as the water was redistributed more evenly through the system. A  geyser erupted downtown at the corner of Jefferson and Monroe, trapping a woman inside her car as it filled with water. A system of watertight bulkheads has since been installed to prevent the event from occurring again.

During the Chicago Flood of 1992, the water from the Chicago River that leaked into the long-disused underground freight tunnel system was eventually drained into the Deep Tunnel network, which itself was still under construction.

Sources

References

External links
 Set of photos of the Morrison Knudsen segment of the tunnel
 Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
 Video of TARP on YouTube
 Video of TARP on YouTube
 Article and map in the Encyclopedia of Chicago

Government of Chicago
Buildings and structures in Chicago
Flood control projects
Flood control in the United States
Waste processing sites
Planned developments
Engineering projects
Proposed infrastructure in the United States
Tunnels in Illinois
Proposed tunnels in the United States

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


In Cape Bushman folklore the Mantis is the most popular hero, he has been gifted with supernatural powers yet exhibits a great deal of foolishness. He is sometimes mischievous — sometimes kind — but at all times very human, his wife is the Dassie (rock rabbit). They have two young Mantis children, a son and a daughter — they have also an adopted daughter, a Porcupine, who is married to a person called Kwammanga — he is not identified with any animal but can be seen in the rainbow. This strange couple have two children — young Kwammanga, who is brave but quiet like his father, and Ichneumon (of the mongoose family) who is a great talker — she is forever lecturing the Mantis on his foolishness. The Blue Crane is the sister of the Mantis.
"People of the Early Race".
The "Mantis People" in Zimbabwe.
According to Bushman legend —'animals could talk and were indistinguishable from humans. The 'first people', who were the legendary ancestors of present-day Bushman, were believed to have been unintelligent, uncivilised and dangerous. Only after a second 'Creation' was the order of the world truly established.
Animals and Humans were separated for evermore'.
So who were these 'Mysterious Beings' who appear on so many examples of Rock Art spread across Southern Africa.
On occasion, UFO abductees have seen 'Mantis' like Beings who were assisting the 'Greys' — but looking closely at the paintings they seem to have been an integral part of 'OUR' civilisation, albeit thousands of years ago!
So it may be the "Mantis People" have been around for a very long time – monitoring us, and guiding us in directions we would not believe!
An "Insect" like creature carrying an unknown device at Leeuwkraal, Wodehouse, South Africa. The person standing next to it gives an idea of the size of this "Being", and also shows that humans of that time were in contact with them.
And then we have the strangest one of all. It must be noted this picture was taken 45 years ago, before the age of photo-shop and in a time when 'Rock Art' in remote places was virtually unknown.
Chaos ensues as Man and Animals are swept away.
And in the center of it – a bespectacled "Mantis" like Being.
'His time was finally over'.


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Home > News > North America
Polar Regions (18) Apply Polar Regions filter
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Rainbow Star: "Music From The Rainbow Sparkle Palace: Volume 1" (2018) CD Review
From the artist's name and the album's title, I expected Rainbow Star's Music From The Rainbow Sparkle Palace: Volume 1 to contain songs that would feel perfectly at home on the children's animated show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I could not have been more wrong. These songs are about serious subjects, including death, and are engaging. The first time I put on this disc, I intended to clean my apartment while listening. But by the second track, I gave up any such notions and simply lay down and closed my eyes to focus completely on the music. Rainbow Star is a singer/songwriter based in Kentucky, and her new album features mostly original material. On many of these tracks, Rainbow Star performs solo, playing ukulele, guitar and dulcimer, but she does have some musicians joining her on certain tracks.
The album opens with "Mermaid Song," on which Rainbow plays ukulele, and is not accompanied by any other musicians. Her vocal performance is engaging, and there is a kind of Ani DiFranco vibe to her vocals at times. This is the song of a reluctant birth, in which she sings "Oh, how I kicked, but I did not scream/Cold and bloody, I did not breathe/I refused to breathe, I refused to breathe/I refused to be one of you." The lines that really stand out for me are these: "It was the first time I committed suicide/Well, I tried, oh I tried/I didn't want to wake up/I didn't want to wake up." It is the repetition of that line is so effective, hitting me hard, as I've learned that often people won't believe someone the first time he or she says something like that. "I prefer a heart attack to this place." "Mermaid Song" is followed by "Pyramid Song," which Rainbow Star also performs solo, playing both ukulele and chimes. This powerful song has such a sad and moving sound, and is about her experience at the pyramids. I've left North America only once so far in my life, and it was to go to Egypt to see the pyramids, an incredible experience. A friend got sick there, and actually vomited onto the Great Pyramid. Rainbow Star's experience was more serious. "Don't tell me it's not safe for a woman these days/'Cause I wanna die in the pyramid/I wanna die in the pyramid."
On "Ophiuchus," Rainbow Star plays dulcimer, and is joined by Sam Gleaves on fiddle. Check out these lines: "He's his own kind of nightmare/Running through the field naked/And they're catching up too quickly for him to breathe/There he goes into the river where they're never going to find him/No, they're never going to find him in his own dream." There is something pretty about this song. Rainbow Star then switches to guitar for "Please Come," which she performs solo. She stresses certain lines in this song through repetition, such as "I ain't never cried so hard in my life for any stupid man" and "I'm sorry I couldn't save you from the world" and "Please come back to me." And it is in that repetition that these lines become heartbreaking. Sam Gleaves joins Rainbow again for "No Shoes," a song with a sweet sound. These lines, in particular, stand out to me for obvious reasons: "And no news in the house, if you can help it/No news, no news, if you can help it/My heart so weary, carryin' the world's burdens/My hope's a-fadin', too many people hurtin'/So please, dear, when you come near/If it ain't too much trouble/No news today."
"Dyin'" grabbed me with its opening lines: "I think about dyin'/All the time/But I'm really not/The suicidal kind." She then continues: "Oh no, I'm thinkin' about death in a healthy way/Thinkin' about how realistically/I could die today." Yes, this is more of a live-in-the-moment type of song rather than a depressive I-want-to-give-up-but-can't-kill-myself type of song. And to prove this sort of playful attitude, this track even includes some whistling. So, yes, I totally dig it, even if in it she reveals that she's a crazy cat person (oh, sorry, "crazy cat person" is a bit redundant). "Well, it's only winter for a while/That cold won't last forever/And it's only summer for a while/And in the sun we'll be together." That's followed by "Berea," with Sam Gleaves providing some wonderful work on fiddle. And on this one, Rainbow plays banjo dulcimer and chimes. This track also features backing vocals by Rachel Dorroh, Sam Gleaves, Jane Mecham, Andri Kukas, Sandra Davis, Faye Adams-Eaton, Mirra Shapiro, and Jacob Mudd. For some reason, the rhyming of "Kentucky" with "lucky" always makes me smile.
While most of the songs on this album were written by Rainbow Star, she also delivers a beautiful cover of "Amazing Grace" that becomes quite powerful. Rainbow changes the gender of God to female, singing "The Lord has promised good to me/Her Word my hope secures/She will my Shield and Portion be/As long as life endures." And why not? This country needs some strong female energy at this point, and I was thrilled to see all those women protesting at the Brett Kavanaugh hearing, their voices strong even as they were being roughly led from the room. That's followed by "Aquarius," a pretty song and original composition. Here is a taste of the lyrics: "I woke up 'cause I was tired/Havin' fits the whole night through/Grabbed a drink and went to bed/Hopin' to stop dreamin' of you." Then Tyler Devall joins Rainbow on guitar and backing vocals for "Hundred Miles," and his presence adds much to the beauty of the song. Tyler Devall also plays guitar on "Little Bird," a song in which Rainbow's vocals have an ethereal quality. Rainbow returns to ukulele for "T." "And you separate my layers/And I cannot abide/In all the ways I want you/And all the ways I've tried." The album then concludes with "Blue Skies," a song dedicated to her cat, the only track I am not all that fond of.
Mermaid Song
Pyramid Song
Please Come
No Shoes
Dyin'
Hundred Miles
Music From The Rainbow Sparkle Palace: Volume 1 was released on August 17, 2018.


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History and Legends
Shivaji's great escape
When Jatin stopped running
Krishna Rao
Dilip Kadam
Two men walked out of a bungalow carrying huge baskets. Guards stopped the men and ordered them to open the basket covers. Inside, were a variety of sweets.
"Who is this for?" barked a guard.
"Don't we answer this question every day?" one of the men answered.
The soldier glared at him.
"Don't mind him, Saheb. He is just tired," the other man said hurriedly, "We are taking these sweets to distribute them to holy men in the city."
The soldier grunted and let them go. This was becoming a daily ritual. Two large baskets filled with sweets would leave the house every day. All because Shivaji Maharaj, the great Maratha leader, had taken ill, and holy men across the city were praying for his speedy recovery.
It had been a few months since Shivaji arrived in Agra. The Marathas and the Mughals who were constantly battling had signed a treaty. This put an end to conflict between the two sides — at least for the time being. Mirza Raja Jai Singh, the Mughal Commander, had asked Shivaji to pay a visit to the Mughal Badshah Aurangzeb in Agra.
Shivaji's advisers were worried, "Maharaj, this is a trap. We can't trust Aurangzeb!"
"You have our word. You will be honoured like a King in the Mughal court," Jai Singh assured Shivaji.
So Shivaji left for Agra with his young son Sambhaji. When they reached the durbar, Shivaji greeted the Badshah. He was then led to his assigned place in the durbar hall. This was in the third row of nobles.
In those days, people were assigned places in the court based on their rank. Shivaji was furious. He had been assured that he would be treated like a King. And here he was being made to stand behind lesser nobles!
Shivaji stormed out of the court in rage. Everyone in the durbar hall was shocked. No one dared to defy the Badshah the way the valiant Maratha had done! Aurangzeb ordered that Shivaji be detained in Agra. Guards were stationed outside the house where Shivaji was put up. No one was allowed in or out without thorough checks.
Shivaji had come to Agra with a small group of people. He was in the hostile territory and he was outnumbered. He was prepared to fight his way out, but he wanted to keep his son, Sambhaji, safe. Also, he had to take care of the small band of men from Raigad who had accompanied him.
He requested the Mughals to let his men leave Agra. The Mughals agreed to his request. With his escorts gone, they could keep a close watch on Shivaji.
Then Shivaji spread news that he had fallen ill. He wanted prayers to be held by Brahmins in Agra for his recovery. He started sending out large baskets of sweets to Brahmins in the city. It was these baskets that the guards were checking outside the house.
A few weeks passed. Eventually the guards got so used to baskets of sweets leaving Shivaji's place they would simply wave them out.
This was the moment Shivaji was waiting for. One day, Sambhaji and he climbed into the baskets, which were then and covered with sweets. As the men came to the door carrying the two baskets, the guards waved them out and the men hurried out with the baskets. Once they had gone some distance, Shivaji and Sambhaji climbed out of the baskets. Instead of taking the direct road to Raigad, they headed in the opposite direction towards the city of Mathura.
Meanwhile, the Mughals realized that Shivaji and Sambhaji had escaped. Soldiers were sent after them. Alerts were sent along the road to Shivaji's capital to nab the two. But they couldn't find Shivaji on the road to Raighad.
On reaching Mathura, Sambhaji left his son with some of his supporters in Mathura. He then dressed as a holy man and set out.
A few weeks later two holy men appeared in the Maratha court asking to see Jijabai, Shivaji's mother. Jijabai was shocked when one of the holy men fell at her feet, removed his cap and put his head on her lap. Jijabai immediately realized that the holy man was none other than her son Shivaji in disguise.
Shivaji sent a message to Mathura. Soon, Sambhaji joined them at Raigad, and Shivaji and his family were free at last.
Shivaji's escape made the Mughal emperor furious. Shivaji stepped up his effort to regain the lost territories and declared himself as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the Emperor!
Great Personalities
Kanaklata: The golden girl of India's Freedom Struggle
Spirit of Freedom: Call of Vidula
The brothers who founded a kingdom
Reward for a poet


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Undefined Story
Tag Archives: short story
Remnants of dark lipstick clinged to her lips, colored in the same color as the veins of her blood shot eyes. She squinted on the screen. Typing steadily on the keyboard in a vacant office, the only sound was her persistent working and occasional sighs. That is, until the automatic light went off, and she let out a harsh grunt before she stamped over to the switch and hammered the light back on. Then she sustained the writing, unphased. A report had to be done by next week, and she refused to stop working now. Just because it was New Years Eve. Not a chance she would stop now. She had held a talk two weeks earlier, and there she had promised that the report would be ready by the turn of the year. The urgency was real. The expectations were unceasing. Her reputation, her job, her life, was at stake. She wrote. How many that would read the report, let alone care about whether it was published at the turn of the year, she did think about.
The vacancy of sound in the office was for a moment interrupted by the distant humming of an airplane. From the window and up to the atmosphere, a red and yellow airplane flew through the night sky. In the pilot seat sat a woman with a helmet and a microphone stretched to the brim of her cracked lips.
"We expect to land in about three hours and forty-five minutes. There may be some turbulence in about five minutes as we breach the cloud layer – nothing to worry about at all. I wish you a pleasant ride and a happy new year," she said. Her voice carried on into the cabin and intertwined with passengers who read books, solved crossword puzzles, stared at movies on the screen in front of them and slept with their mouths open. It was a light, pleasant, non-judging and professional voice. She knew it, because she had practiced it. Hours listening to her own voice to make it perfect. Perfect work for those stuck on an airplane on New Year's Eve. But nobody cared. And she didn't consider the fact that she, too, was stuck on an airplane on New Year's Eve.
The pilot lady, for a brief moment, caught sight of a hospital below her. Inside the white brick walls were a woman who had said yes to work on New Year's Eve because she was convinced the patients needed her. And she was not all wrong. She jogged from room to room, wiping up puke, calming down patients with anxiety attacks, emptying buckets, slicing bread, administering colorful pills in glasses. She talked with the ones who were insecure and afraid, she held their hands when the too early fireworks exploded, she stroked young girls over their heads and changed pants on old men. We are all slowly marching towards decay, she thought as she cleaned half-eaten lasagna from adorned plates. No other thought was allowed to interfere with her work, because she quickly had to move on to the next patient. As she passed a window, she peeked down at a shadow by the road, sweeping her broom over the asphalt.
The woman sweeping the streets on New Year's Eve had moved here from Afghanistan. Her hair was covered in a shawl. Deep unrested rings rested under her eyes. Although she knew she had better be at home to look after the kids, she also knew that she had to make money – the debt was too big and the expenses too dire to not earn money. Guilt consumed her as she swept the street that now had a topping of shimmering, elastic paper straps and ribbons in sparkling yellow and blue, wrapped in empty beer cans. A guilt-ridden thought brushed her mind: Who would appreciate her efforts? No room for such complaint. "God", she thought, and pushed the thought away.
As she picked up an empty beer can by the handle and squeezed it into the way too full garbage bag, she noticed a car driving by. It was a taxi. Inside the taxi sat a woman with her hands clasped on the steering wheel, surveying the half-empty city. Soon the clock would pass twelve and the telephones would activate. One address after another. Starting the car uphill in puddles, traffic lights that were somehow always red, people arguing in the back seat, throwing up on their hands, bad singing, starting an endless wave of talk, flirting. She furrowed her brows and bit her teeth hard together. Her knuckles were white against the black leather of the steering wheel. After a night out as a taxi driver, her head always ached from biting her teeth so hard. The first phone number lit up on the screen in her car, and she pushed the green telephone button.
"We need a lift," a dark voice in the other end stipulated.
"Where to?" the woman answered softly through gritted teeth. Soon the clock would strike, and it made no difference. What was one day to another? One year to another?
As she stopped by a traffic light with the rhythm of the man's voice in her ear, another car slipped in beside her. It was a police car. Momentarily, before the light turned green, the taxi-drivers' gaze met the gaze of the woman in the police car. She looked exhausted. Her hair was messy, her eyes slightly swollen, her lips in a pout. The policewoman knew there would be a lot to do tonight. She had already been to three different places to address noise, attacks, threats – one person had so far been taken into custody. And this was just the beginning. People didn't listen to reason, especially not on New Years' Eve. The world was full of people who didn't know how to take care of either themselves or others, who thought they deserved more than others but didn't lift a finger to get it. Talking reason with them only made them angry. It was indeed exhausting, she thought as the light went green and she drove on, but if she didn't do it, she was convinced the world would go under.
Like industrious ants, the ladies marched on all around the city while the clock ticked twelve and the fireworks shot up, exploding in the semi-clouded night sky into spectacular flowers. Or bombs. None of the ladies noticed. The report had one more perfect sentence, the airplane breached the turbulent clouds seamlessly, a crying girl ceased her nervousness for a moment as she got a head massage, for about thirty meters the streets were trash-free, a man and his three drunk buddies entered a taxi car, and the police sirens suddenly flipped on. Another minute, another hour, another year. White knuckles and cracked lips, tense shoulders, headaches and swollen eyes. Between making food, cleaning, giving birth and raising children, exercising bodies, managing expectations to happiness, cupcakes and Instagram, curtains, jogging, fixing ties and tires, boiling rice, hanging up clothes – they skillfully worked. Under the umbrella of equality, thousands of resourceful women marched. They stood in front of whiteboards, pointing out the strategy for the future, producing and reproducing in perpetual harmony.
At best, you admire them, and worst, you feel threatened by them. Those amazing women who transgressed the weekday like soldiers. Standing tall and broad shouldered against the perfection requirement. Even as the fireworks died down, these women worked on. The darkness once again settled on the city, inviting a cold breeze in the remnants of smoky fireworks. Suddenly, for a second, the women could feel their lips quivering. They all lifted their heads to that dim new year, dreadfully aware of one hopeless fact.
No matter how hard they worked, no matter how much they achieved, no matter how far they got – they would never truly deserve love.
28. Oct 2021 Sunny	equality, fiction, perfectionism, short story, short-stories, story	Leave a comment
The Data Analyst
If you have ever been dead, you have met my brother, the Librarian. He's a mellow guy, a narrator, a third-party witness, so to say. Always detached, always understanding, a favorite who never shook the boat. He writes down the story of the people who have lived and stores them in the big library of existence.
Of course you have never met him, though, because you have never been dead. You have just had the pleasure of not existing due to not having been born. In the end, the only thing that differs those two states of not being, is that of having a story. It's a minor detail, in the big scheme of things, but my brother likes details. Despite the insignificance of single stories, my brother ensures that the stories are preserved. I suppose it's a matter of maintaining the difference between pre-birth and post-death, the two states of not being.
I am different. I have an archive of my own, but it's not as popular. First, it's not a library, it's a database with tables and numbers and data points, which is not as inviting I suppose. Second, more importantly; people rarely want to think about cruelty. They like to dwell on egoistical means, such as having a significant story, the fallacy of eternal life, or "winning", so to say, at all the odd little games that humans make when they socialize, such as riches and beauty. Yet they seldom want to face the cruelty they inflict on their peers as they aimlessly scramble for money and power. Actually, they don't really dwell on their ego per se, it is more of a remoteness, an obscured sense of seeing, they do not offer their existence the attention it requires. That's what causes cruelty in the masses – remoteness.
Humans sometimes wonder why there is hunger, pain, poverty, disease, war, hate and evil. My database explains it. It is really all about exchanging some of those nouns for other nouns. Hunger is apathy. Pain is carelessness. Poverty is negligence. Disease is sloppiness. War is selfishness. Hate is shallowness. Evil is thoughtlessness. Most humans would protest to be dubbed hateful and evil, but shallow and thoughtless are descriptions that fit a good chunk – the majority, actually, according to my database. And since those nouns, for all intends and purposes, are the same, we have cruelty.
This is nothing less than the banality of evil that you may or may not have heard of from philosopher Hannah Arendt; "the sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil." Author Fitzgerald also caught this tendency when he concluded his book, The Great Gatsby: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made."
You may think that this is not you, but it probably is. Statistically, it is. And it doesn't matter what you feel, because feelings and statistics are inherently different. That is why humans are intuitively so bad at statistics. You know when you ask people if they are above average in traffic proficiency and ninety percent say that they are? It's like that. So you are probably an evil person, let's start with that.
Now, you will probably contribute to the collective cruelty that infects the human race decade after decade, century after century. You will buy things you don't need even though it harms the environment. You will buy it even though you could have given the money to charity, where it would go to someone who actually needed it. You will make up silly excuses, such as "everybody does it" and "the system is corrupted anyway". And the sad fact is that your actions will enhance those arguments even more – because you do it, even more people do it, and since you accept thoughtlessness, shallowness and selfishness, the system remains corrupt.
Nobody can blame you. You are just a single person. Your story will fade anyway, and nobody will care. But I am not invested in data points, in single human beings, that is my brother's job. I am concerned with the human race.
I'll admit, at first it shocked me when I saw how careless people could be, and yet, blissfully oblivious to their own carelessness. Children who bully other children without concern, parents and other supervisors who never get involved, partners that ignore each other, friends that maintain their friendship only for the sake of status, colleagues who stomp on each other to get ahead.
Once, I recorded a story of a person who entered a shop to buy flour and milk and discovered that there was a woman by the shelf with a large bruise on her left eye. It would have been easy for said person to approach and ask how things were, but it didn't. It just ignored it and carried on with buying flour and milk. Another time, I recorded a story of a person in a restaurant who had a meal with her family due to a birthday event. A mid-aged man was sitting alone by one of the tables. By the end of his stay, he approached the family and expressed his astonishment and joy for their happy family time. "Cherish it," he said, "because I am sick and lonely, my life is coming to an end", he said, smiled, then remained in the restaurant for ten minutes before he left. The family could have talked to him, invited him to eat with them, given him some attention, but they just shuffled embarrassed and ate on. Ah, yes, that sheepish embarrassment – I've recorded a story of a professor who once came late to a lecture, explaining that his wife had just been taken in ill at a hospital. One of the students got uncomfortable with the vulnerable honesty and proceeded with talking badly about him behind his back to all the other student, in order to justify her selfish cringiness.
I could go on like this forever. Truth is, all the small bad things add up much more than all the small good things. Of course, you are much more prone to be evil when you are young. Especially two-years old, they are basically psychopaths. You may find that unfair, to record the cruelty of toddlers, but I am not concerned with intent, neither blame. I am recording cruelty to measure the course of the human race collectively. The only reason why I put less weight to youngsters' cruelty, is that they do not have as much impact on the course of the human race. As of today, however, I see a tendency of putting cruel and careless people in powerful positions – from presidents to influencers – and I doubt things are going to get better. As I said, by accepting the system of cruelty, you enhance it.
I may be more invested, more fiery, more ideological in my studies than my brother, but I do study my data with scientific vigor. My brother is concerned with single human beings, and he sees a lot of beauty. They try, they stumble on, they flinch and fail and remain oblivious to all their remoteness and selfishness. I am concerned with "the people", the human race, and my predictions are clear. Collectively, the human race is doomed.
23. Jan 2021 Sunny	essay, existence, science fiction, short story	Leave a comment
Lu's grandmother was a strange kind of woman. She always wore a silk scarf firmly tied around her head. She lived in an old wooden cabin far into the woods. She usually stayed up until late in the night only to sit by the kitchen table in utter quiet. She stowed weird steel objects like old rusty tubes, crooked rings and jagged spirals away in a drawer. When Lu once asked her why she had collected this heap of funny things, her grandmother replied:
"Because, love, for every wickedness that happens to you, you have to grow steel. Collect them and remember them and stow them away. Use them for protection. Then," she said and patted the silk scarf on her head with two fingers, "grow silk for every kindness that happens to you. Expose it and wear it every day."
Most of these utterances, Lu did not understand. Sometimes, perhaps while she was boiling potatoes or sitting on the porch pretending to read the paper, her grandmother would suddenly say things like, "Lu, trust me, the happiest things in life are based on accumulation" or "one of the main sources of happiness come from active and routine appreciation". Lu would nod in a grave kind of manner and say "yes, I absolutely agree", but what she really agreed to was the inherent belief that whatever her grandmother said must have some inherent substance to it. She trusted her grandmother to say smart things, and she didn't think she had to understand them.
This belief would be the beginning of a hard learned lesson for Lu. When she was twelve, she spent one of her many summers at her grandmother's cabin. Since she slept in the attic, there was only a single, narrow window to gaze out of. Every night, before going to bed, Lu would look out of this window and say goodnight to the forest. Once, as she peeked out of the window whispering good night to the birds and the trees and the insects and all the animals, she spotted a creature in the distance.
At first, she didn't believe it to be real. She had never seen anything like it. The creature shone as if somebody had ignited it with star dust. Large and elegant, it moved past the trees in an astonishing calm. Its horns were like curly, frozen brooks stretching up towards the sky, its legs were long and slender, and its eyes were golden blue. It lit up the forest as if the moon itself was passing by the trees. Lu gazed at the animal in awe. For a moment, it felt as if the animal sensed her presence and met her gaze, and Lu was immediately flooded with a feeling of joy and tranquility rushing through her body. The world stood still for a moment and Lu could feel the brushes of her own soul against her intellect. Then, the animal disappeared among the trees, and the feeling was gone.
Lu could hardly sleep that night. She twitched and turned as she thought about that magnificent animal, and the feeling it had given her. The next morning the rushed down to breakfast only to break into an unstoppable rant about the animal. She told her grandmother that it had been the most wonderful thing she had ever seen, its presence was enough to ignite her with an eternal will to live and sense and experience.
Her grandmother furrowed her brows ever more and more. "It's the swan all over again," she murmured. "What?" Lu said, beaming. "Look, don't be fooled by the spark in things that come and go. They are intriguing because they are elusive. Learn to enjoy them in the now and let them go for the future. Never expect them to remain." "I quite agree," Lu said as she took a large bite of her slice of bread, eyes faint with the memory of the shining creature.
Lu's rant did not stop at breakfast. She kept spilling questions throughout the day, asking whether her grandmother had ever seen the animal, if she had ever read of it somewhere, was it likely to come if they set out food, what kind of food, where did it get its shine, was it maybe extraterrestrial?
One week passed in this kind of manic fashion. Lu could not let go of the feeling that the creature had given her, and every aspect of life that had previously given her joy, were now spoiled with a dull craving for more. When her grandmother offered her chocolate, it was only a possible bait for the shining animal. Walks in the forest were only an excuse to possibly see the animal again. When asked to go to bed, Lu would sit up for hours staring out of the window, waking up with blood strained eyes, a disappointed frown and a lacking appetite for breakfast the next day.
Lu's grandmother knew something that most of us know. She knew that if you see somebody struggle, and you cannot talk them out of it, it is because they have to experience a lesson for themselves. And being the odd kind of woman she was, she did not hesitate when she, one late Friday, asked Lu to head into the forest to fetch some berries, only to lock the door for the night. Standing outside the door with a basket filled with berries, Lu was shocked to find the door locked. She pulled and tugged and threw herself against it, but to no avail. The door was locked, and her grandmother was nowhere to be seen. Inside the cabin was dark.
It was a summer's night, and the temperature did not go very low. Lu had brought a warm jacket after insistence from her grandmother, and she had a basket of berries. Otherwise, she was alone. The wind howled through the forest as dusk transformed into night.
Lu started the night sitting down by the cabin wall. She munched berries just to soothe herself. "Hello?!" she yelled, but she knew that it was useless. The cabin was as quiet as a graveyard. Lu stared into the forest, imagining that the shining animal would appear again in all its glory. She clearly remembered that time, in the window, when it had looked at her with those golden blue eyes, and all her troubles had disappeared in an instant.
At the ground beside her, a larva was crawling about. Lu picked the larva up and sighed. "No shining creature, but at least you are here," she said and gave the larva one of the leaves in the berry basket. It chewed away eagerly, and Lu felt happy to share her meal with someone.
Having eaten all the berries, Lu decided to head into the forest. She left the basket by the cabin and wandered into the dimly lit wood. As she followed a path she had used to walk in daytime, she could hear the tooting of an owl. The leaves of the trees shivered playfully in the mild wind. Lu kept a keen eye out, imagining that the shining animal would appear behind a tree anytime soon. She thought that she deserved to see it now more than ever. Now, when she was all alone.
Walking further into the forest, a few bats darted by her in an intense match. They sent out supersonic waves to find their prey, and Lu glanced at them, feeling the corners of her mouth curl at how different creatures sense the world. A few inches away, she spotted a couple of yellow eyes, soon discovering that it was a fox. It watched her, as if it was looking over her. Lu stopped for a moment. Although it was dark and the forest was large, nothing was scary or lonely.
Then, suddenly, Lu spotted the contours of moonshine in the distance. Among the trees in a faint glow, she could see the same light that the animal had expelled. She immediately felt her heart racing as she dashed towards the light. Sprinting through the forest, she leaped over roots and sheltered herself from branches with her elbow, only to stop abruptly as she discovered the source of the light.
The pond. It was full moon tonight, and its intense light was reflected in a sparkling manner from the pond that was located in the middle of the forest.
Lu fell to her knees. She stared at the light streaming from the pond reflection, then slowly, her gaze searched the corners of the pond. A part of her believed that the animal had to show up now. There was no other option. But her gaze trailed the bank in vain, and she laid her head down on a heap of moss conveniently growing right by her. There would be no animal. No tranquility. No saving.
Right before she fell asleep, she could her the owl tooting soothingly again, and she knew it was not far away. Then, she felt a furry creature smooch in beside her, warming her body.
When Lu woke up, a few birds where chirping away in the tree tops. Sunrise cast a warm, lovely hide on the pond, and Lu, for once, felt rested. She had not spent the night in eager wait for the animal. On the ground beside her lay the mark of something that might well have been a fox. Lu inhaled through her nose and felt herself cleansed by the damp morning air.
She returned to her grandmothers' cabin with small twigs in her hair and a rumbly stomach. The door to the cabin was wide open, and Lu sensed the scent of eggs and baked bread. She sat down on the bench, and her grandmother placed fresh bread on the table. "I am glad to see you back," her grandmother said, and her voice was filled with so much love that Lu did not doubt it one second. She remained quiet for a moment before she said in a preachy manner: "You know. The most beautiful things are so small that you hardly even notice them. But they are the ones that keep you going in the end, not the all too rare wonders."
1. May 2020 Sunny	fiction, grandmother, gratitude, short story, short-stories, story	2 Comments
Amanda's sin
Amanda considered donating the silver ring to the church. She thought it might be used to upgrade the church bell, perhaps paint the altar anew, or purchase pillows for the front chairs, where the old women used to sit during mass. There were a million uses for the ring, she thought, but as she stood in front of the donation box, peering down at the black void-like slit where people dropped coins, she felt nauseous. The ring, loose around her thumb, was tainted with sin, and she was afraid that the sin might contaminate the church and unleash God's wrath upon her.
Her mother had spent three months' salary on the ring.
"It is worth every penny," she said as she showed it to Amanda. "It is a demonstration of my strong and never-ending love for him. I know he will understand once I show it to him."
Amanda remembered how her mother had sat at the kitchen table, eagerly wrapping the ring up in a pink napkin with yellow dots. The cheapest napkins at the store. The light from the kitchen lamp had been cold white, intensifying the deep rings under her mothers' eyes. That night, Amanda had dreamt that she sat in a car, driving down a twitchy road while the rain was pouring down. Her mother had sat in the back seat, eyes glazed and mouth half-open,as if she was in some sort of coma. The rain splashed against the window, and Amanda could hardly see where she was driving, but she kept speeding, because she felt an intense urgency. It felt as if the world was falling apart, and she was in charge of escaping the apocalypse itself.
That dream was the final manifestation of a looming omen that she had felt for a long time – ever since her mother started talking about the new inmate at the prison where she worked. It had been a few months after her fathers' death. Amanda's mother was practically non-present in those months – she just lay on the bed, cried and slept. Amanda had cooked and cleaned the house. She had taken out the dirty paper rolls, she had made sure that there was always tea and wine in the kitchen counters, she had collected and washed her mothers' underwear that lay spread on the bed. Then came a day when her mother's boss wouldn't let her stay at home anymore, threatening to fire her if she abstained from work any longer. Even with Amanda working at a café during daytime and cleaning offices during the evening, they both knew that her salary wouldn't make ends meet. Her mother dragged herself back to work, and that's where she found John.
She talked about nothing but the thick-muscled, fallen angel for weeks after. She would sit at the kitchen table with Amanda and take every opportunity to say things like; "that's exactly like something John said," or "that reminds me of one of John's tattoos". That's when Amanda started feeling as if something bad was about to happen.
Amanda had attended her mothers' funeral four days after she had been wrapping the ring into pink napkins wtih yellow dots. She was buried alongside her father in the holy ground she believed so firmly in. Amanda had questioned the Lord whether the feeling of coming disaster was a sign from him – whether she had been supposed to do something. The Lord had answered by letting a nut fall onto her forehead when she returned from the graveyard, and Amanda thought that was God's subtle way of punishing her. She picked up the nut, brought it home and thought that God had given her an opportunity to make amends. She would swallow the nut whole, she thought, and if she choked on it, God would have taken her life as a punishment for not having done more to help her mother. If she didn't choke, God would have forgiven her. But as she put the nut in her mouth, tasting the bitter, mud-like soil and feeling the rough nutshell against the back of her mouth, she lost courage and spit it out. Once again, she had disappointed those she cared about.
That night, Amanda thought a lot about whether she was more or less helpless than her mother.
"My mother," she thought, "was the kind of woman who only possessed two properties: good looks and a kind heart. They are properties often sought after in women, but they are hopelessly dependent. Good looks and a kind heart need other people to recognize them. Some qualities are independent, like being hard-working, strong, lively, creative and intelligent. They exist even though nobody are there to acknowledge them. My mother possessed none of these independent qualities. She had only good looks and a kind heart, and thus, to feel as if she had any sort of value, she had to have somebody in her life, and when she had that person in her life, she desperately tried to keep him there. And I am no better. I would kill myself because God told me to, if only I had the courage."
The white-painted altar was cracked from years of usage without renovation. Amanda carefully walked up to it and felt the peeled paint. It came off in chunks as she stroke her finger over it.
Her mother used to enjoy church.
"It's the only place I feel truly calm," she had once said.
Amanda would smile and pretend like she felt calm too, but in reality, she felt as if she was on trial every time she entered the church. God said that you shall respect your mother and father. But even though she had been tending to them as best she could, she had failed. Would she be showered in nuts if she gave him the ring? What if she didn't? The ring was supposed to convert the prison inmate, instead it stole her mother's life. Killed by a man who wouldn't accept God.
The ring felt loose around Amanda's thumb. She imagined choking on the ring, imagined swallowing it and having it stuck in her throat, gasping for air. And then, her thoughts drifted to John, his cracked lips, the vulgar tattoos on his arms, how he would look with a ring pushed down his throat, face turning purple, eyes strained in red. She rejoiced in this thought for a brief second before she became aware of herself. Shocked by her own imagination, she whimpered and unintentionally pulled a large chunk of painting off the altar. She felt God's blazing gaze on her soul, as a looking glass about to set fire to her and make her go up in flames. With the ring loose around her thumb, she quickly hurried out of the church, once again lost to irresponsibility and cowardice.
31. Aug 2019 Sunny	children, short story, short-stories, story	Leave a comment
Benjamin's journey
Benjamin saw himself as fundamentally different from everyone else. That was his curse, he believed. While he saw other people talk, laugh and engage in social occasions with the most profound ease, he felt like he was playing a role when he talked with people. He felt as if he had, at some point, memorized a certain script, and in conversations, his job was to utter lines from this script to the best of his memory. He was rather bad at it as well. Oftentimes, it took him several seconds to come up with anything interesting to say, and if he by chance had said anything loud enough for anybody to hear, and they replied, he would often experience a brain freeze and just stand there, wordless, dumbfounded. Continue reading →
20. Apr 2019 Sunny	alienation, Novelle, short story, short-stories, travel	Leave a comment
Equation 42
When my friend, Harry, told me that he wanted to apply for the position "Head of Equation 42", I first thought he might be crazy. He was a postdoc with a bright future. Clever, imaginative, hard-working, and courageous. His PhD thesis on the behavior of atoms in small-confined areas of heat radiation had already been cited more than one hundred times. It might have been cynical of me, but I firmly believed somebody with such academic talent ought not to risk it as Head of Equation 42. Therefore, I sat him down on a late Thursday and asked him what he had heard about the previous occupants of the position. He answered rather elusively, which was not surprising, given that nobody who held the position had ever been allowed to talk about what the job actually involved. However, in my years at the faculty, I had seen how the equation had depraved and degenerated those who had held the position, and so, I took the opportunity to flesh out the history of the Head of Equation 42 for Harry. Continue reading →
28. Oct 2018 Sunny	fiction, horror, mathematics, scary, short story, short-stories	1 Comment
Letter intended for my future nephew or niece
They used to call it fanatic nonsense and propaganda. They used to shake their heads in resignation and turn their backs on the thousands of warnings; on the earth that crumbled underneath our feet, on the birds that flew from their nests and never returned, and on our own greed that corrupted us. We were children of the stars, and we bathed ourselves in the glory of intelligence and ambition that nature had offered us. Nobody ever stopped to ask why we were given this prestigious position in the universe; as the dominant race on our own fertile planet. Continue reading →
16. Oct 2018 Sunny	environment, fiction, science fiction, short story, story	Leave a comment
One narrow ray of moonlight penetrated the clouds and shone in through the window grids. The ray hit a pit of water on the stone floor, and the pit gratefully absorbed the light, glimmering contently before it erupted a geyser-like steam of damp. The steaming dew made the air chilly, and he could feel his skin knotting from goose pumps, his tattoos barely hiding the physical reaction. With his skinned head and massive upper body, getting goose pumps was such a ridiculous sign of weakness that he could not allow it. Immediately, he slumped down to the floor and started to do his regular 100 push-up interval to keep the heat running through his body. Continue reading →
19. Sep 2018 Sunny	fiction, jail, psychopath, short story, sociopath, story	1 Comment
Joanna and the swan
The windows in Billy's house had been dark and the curtains had been shut for several days now. When Joanna looked at the house, she wondered if somebody might have walked inside and vacuum cleaned all the light up. Maybe light was a bit like dirt, she thought. Your house stacked up on light, the light got old and dirty, and then you had to clean it up so that your house could gather new, fresh light. She had wondered what it must be like for Billy to live in that dark house, waiting for new light to gather in. Probably very scary, she thought. Had it been her living in that dark house, she would have gone outside as often as possible. But Billy never went outside anymore, and as weird as that was, Joanna kept staring at the dark, neighboring house whenever she walked by it. A week passed before Joanna's parents finally told her that Billy's house was dark and Billy didn't walk outside anymore because Billy no longer lived in that house. His family had moved to a different country. Continue reading →
3. Sep 2018 Sunny	child, children, fiction, short story, story, swan	Leave a comment
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close day;
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."
I often hear myself mumbling Dylan Thomas' poem from 1951 when I wander down the graveyard late at night. At that time, most visitors have gone home, and I am left with a strange feeling of emptiness. The living bring the feeling of emptiness with them. To them, life is still a fact, and they treat the graveyard as a final resting place. Never could they have envisioned the vitality and strength that characterized the last breaths of those who now rest here at the graveyard. Every grave owner fought for their lives, and none of them went gently into the night. Every gravestone bears witness to that last battle, life against death. Continue reading →
19. Aug 2018 Sunny	fiction, graveyard, Novelle, short story, story	Leave a comment