Month: December 2019

Yes, I know you’re saying, “Autobiography of a Balloon? Yeah, that’s all I’ve got time for these days?’’ But check it out.

I hope this reaches you some time in the future. Don’t even ask where I am because I’ll already be out of your reach by then.

So let’s start from the ‘start’. When I was born I was nothing to take pictures of and make albums and look at me and go ‘awww . . .’, to be truthful I looked like a squished up wad of clay on whom everyone in the city had stepped on. I was bunched up with some other guys (can you call a balloon a guy?) who were twice as grumpy as I was. Have you ever been in an elevator for ten and been pushed in with twenty people? Yeah that’s how it felt.

My packet was transparent and I was stuck on the side of the packet and looked at these things that walked on two stick-thingies and made sounds with their mouths, which I now know as humans.

I kept observing them for a few months. Or years. Who knows.

After these months (or years) I was taken out of my packet. I was so excited that my whole body buzzed with excitement. I, along with my twenty packet – mates ( balloon ‘guys’) was inflated with a funny gas that tickled me all over made me rise into the sky.

I was tied to a cart. I was free! Not one-hundred percent free but at least I was not a squished up wad of rubber. Oops! Let me tell you about how I looked. I was brilliant blue and shaped like an upside-down water droplet (but of course, I was way more handsome).

I was now aware that we balloons were sold to you humans for rectangular slips of paper. I was sold to a nice little girl of four, I think. She was O.K. But it was her brother who creeped me out. He smiled in a way a wolf smiles at a helpless goat. Anyway, she was wearing a shiny blue dress that complimented my colour (or maybe my colour complimented her dress. Aaargh I’m getting confused.)

I spent five days with her. She would talk to me about the world and how huge it was and that I was just a little balloon (who was very handsome, of course). I was bouncing around in the house with the little girl chasing me when her creepy brother caught me and pulled my string. He threw me out of the window and smiled (also in the way a wolf smiles at a helpless goat).

Well, I guess that was the end of Chapter One.

Andrew knew that the tables had turned and that he had to do something to save his company. He took out his folders and tried to find the numbers of the gentlemen who had offered help once. But all those gentlemen very politely declined seeing the company in deep crisis.

With dawn peeking through the clouds, Andrew sat in his office perplexed. The problem arose when they transferred all their data online. He lost all his customers and his sales kept going down. Moreover, his connections were cut. He had his suspicions that the rival company might be the culprit which caused this mess but he couldn’t make any allegations just yet.

After hours of investigation he came to the conclusion that he had been hacked by someone in his company – someone very high up since the information accessed was highly classified. He checked the users who could access the data and found one of his office computers online. He crept into the hall and saw a man fumbling with the computer keys. It was his brother Tim who was destroying the company files.

Once Andrew had caught him red-handed, Tim confessed that he had always been envious of Andrew’s position and how the family had handed the company to him without even considering Tim. He thought if he could make Andrew look bad, they would reconsider.

Andrew knew that Tim was very capable and it was just jealousy that had corrupted him. Andrew decided to condone Tim’s deception and offered him an equal partnership in the company. Tim realized his mistake and also how Andrew was truly the better of them. The two brothers from then on successfully managed the company.

The Johnsons were busy with their so called happy yet tiring life. But now they decided to spend a night at a restaurant and take a break. It was Jason who suggested visiting Byrow’s which was the most popular restaurant these days among the crazy people of Monister City. It was famous for its weird experimentations.

When they grabbed their seats, Emilda read the menu. It read ‘Poodle Hot’, ‘German Shepherd Stew’, ‘Pomeranian Eyeball Crunchies’, etc. The choice became a matter of debate among Rita, Avaro and Jason. Mr Johnson and Mrs Johnson (Emilda) were dumbstruck!

Soon the poor waiter became the target of their very pointed questions, but he defended himself well. He said that since it was the International Dogs’ Day, in memory of their owner’s dog Lucy, they just renamed the actual dishes in the menu on the names of dogs with the Lucy Veg Platter becoming the USP of their menu.

Once all the volcanoes of confusion erupting in the minds of the Johnsons subsided, they placed their respective orders but Emilda was still confused. One of the dishes read ‘Libya Sausage’ with red chilli chutney’ Emily stopped. Her mind went into flashback.

In the mind’s world, one can reach any spot in the entire universe without much stress and so did Mrs Johnson. She went to her childhood and felt her little white furry Labradore – Libya! Her eyes were blue with a pinch of naughtiness in them and a shine never seen in anyone’s eyes. And no doubt, her favourite food too was indeed – sausages!

Libya always used to stay with Emilda. She used to poke her nose into Emilda’s ear and bark whenever she wished to play with Emilda. A unique habit never observed in other pet dogs. When Emilda was eight and had to face two bomb blasts during World War II, it was Libya who had warned her and her family members by pointing and barking again and again towards the ceiling of their house. When her family was poverty stricken, Libya learnt how to stand on her hind legs and even used to dance, earning quite a lot of shillings from the rich class.

Unfortunately, Libya left the world by the time Emilda’s parents earned quite a fortune and Emilda also forgot her as she got busy with her University life. After being married and spending sixteen long years with her husband and her family, Libya was nearly out of her mind.

But today, this very moment, she was full of regret and despair at having forgotten Libya. When they departed from Byrow’s she donated five hundred dollars for the dog’s caring Association which was supported by the Byrow’s.

Arms and Legs were exhausted because Boss Brain had told them to run and work more than usual. They were sore, swollen to the size of ripe pumpkins. Such was also the situation of Blood Delivery Service, Mr Nose and the Lung twins. But there was one organ who hadn’t moved at all in those fifteen hours: Belly. He was simply sitting there with comfort, resting away to glory. The most irritated about this were the Arms.

“I bet Belly cannot do what we do for an hour,” said the Arms.

“And I suppose you can’t do what I do for mere minutes,” retorted Belly.

Legs now objected, “Do what, sit lazily like a lump on a log?”

The offended Belly did not reply. It was too angry to reply. So Legs and Arms decided to go on strike, refusing to work for the idle Belly.

Boss Brain thought it was a very foolish idea but they were young and juvenile, knowing about the ways of the body, he let it go. Blood Delivery Service and Mr Nose were too busy to think.

The strike was terrible. The owner of the body could not move. But it was not so for the Blood Delivery Service. The strike was news and news had only one purpose, to be spread. The news went viral (literally). Blood Delivery Service rushed around like a bullet train. It gave excess oxygen to the Kidneys and waste to Mr Nose. It could be summed up in one word – chaos.

But Belly was there to save the day. It wore its best suit and went to negotiate sense into Arms and Legs. It was good at that as he would convince them to consume food everyday. It told them about the work it did: digesting food, maintaining body momentum, etc. Arms and Legs felt stupid for causing such nuisance. They started working again and to Boss Brain’s relief, everything was fine once again.

Twitty, a beautiful bird, had a nest on one of the oldest trees of the jungle. That day, the air smelled of a storm. Twitty was not worried about herself and her children as they were well protected under the dense tree. Though, she did worry about the other animals in the jungle.

Dark clouds covered the entire sky. It started to rain steadily. Twitty knew that this was just the beginning. She had enough experience to know that this storm would create havoc and take the lives of many.

Suddenly, she saw a ball of stark black feathers huddled together at the end of the branch of the opposite tree. She flew over to inspect it. On a closer look, she found that it was a baby crow, shivering in the cold.

“Hey”, she called out to him, “What are you doing all by yourself in the storm?” she gently asked. The baby crow looked up fearfully and said, “I can’t find my parents,” and burst into tears.

Twitty took pity on him. She knew he was miserable. She decided to take him under her wings. “Come” she said, “Rest in my nest until the storm passes.”

The next morning, when the storm had cleared up, they went to search for his parents. But on enquiring, they found that the crow family had not survived the storm. Twitty knew that the crow wouldn’t be able to survive alone. So, she decided to keep him.

Her decision was widely opposed. “You’re making a huge mistake” said the nightingale. “Crows are bad omen. You should keep away from them” said the sparrow. “Crows are unfaithful. They will destroy your sweet little family” said the pigeon. “Your family is so beautiful. Pretty yellow feathers and cute brown beaks. Why do you want that black sinister crow in your nest?” said the peacock. But Twitty didn’t listen to anyone. She trusted him. What could a small crow do? She raised him as one of her own.

One day, when Twitty returned to her nest, she saw that the nest was empty. She panicked and wondered where her children could be. Just as she was about to call out to them, her eyes fell on the crow. She felt relieved. But the relief went away as soon as it came. She saw blood dripping from the crow’s beak. Without thinking, she screamed in fury, “You traitor! You filthy black crow! I gave you a home to live and you killed my children!” In anger she attacked the crow and pecked him to death in her fury. Just as she was done, she heard the small voice of her children. Her blood ran cold. She turned and saw all of her children safe and sound. “Mom, he just saved us from the snake” they said still shaky from the experience. And indeed, there was a dead snake lying under the tree.

Twitty, a beautiful bird, had a nest on one of the oldest trees of the jungle. That day, the air smelled of a storm. So, in order to protect her eggs from the storm, she went in search of sticks and leaves to cover the nest. While searching, she ended up in a circular patch full of leaves. Just when she was about to take off with the leaves, she saw a man standing in the middle of the patch. She hid herself behind the trees before the man could spot her. What she saw next was unbelievable!

Lightning started striking the circular patch and suddenly another man appeared out of the lightning. Twitty couldn’t understand what was going on. So, she decided to wait and watch. The man who was already there approached the other man and said, “Oh father, bless me with power, courage and strength so that I can win this war for my people.” The other man said, “Hercules, my son, my blessings are always with you.”

The other man raised his arm in the air, mumbled some spells and suddenly there came in his hand the Thunderbold of Zeus, which had the power to destroy civilizations with a single blow. Twitty realised that the man who had appeared out of the lightning was none other than the God of Gods and the controller of lightning, Zeus, and the other man was his son, the yielder of strength and power, Hercules.

Zeus then gave his thunderbolt to Hercules and said something inaudibly and disappeared into another lightning. Twitty was then able to understand that Hercules had called his father Zeus for help in a war.

Hercules started walking out of the jungle and Twitty followed him. After following him for some time, she entered an open battlefield and the view she saw was disheartening. There were people lying dead on the ground and their blood flowing through. Hercules went to the centre of the battlefield and shouted, “You shall pay for my people’s lives.” And with all his power, struck the thunderbolt on the ground.

The earth shook, cracks appeared and his enemy’s army fell into the earth as though they were being swallowed by it. Terribly frightened, Twitty then quickly flew back to her nest and hid herself in it with her eggs. She did not know what happened after it but she was very frightened and didn’t dare to venture into that patch again.