short stories in six sentences

I am really into this number six thing. So much so that I have tried the Six Sentences or 6S challenge. I have a profile (yes one more thing to maintain, and have two new posts). But because its writing, and more writing, its all good.

http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/ShafinaazHassim

The End.
He kissed her forehead. It said goodbye. She opened her eyes to a dark room and the sound of the heart monitor beeping. Her vitals were almost okay, but she remembered last night. One minute they were on the highway, singing along to their honeymoon song. Next thing she remembers is the flash of light, the blur of glass and metal, the stench of blood and the white sheet being pulled over his body on the wet tarmac.

Burning Memories.
It was crazy to think that she could do it, but it played in her head for ten hours in the darkness. The gleam of silver; the smell of flesh burning. When she finally did it, it seemed all too familiar. First she stabbed him; fourteen times for good measure. Then she burned the bed, and the house around it, so that the memory of the monster could go up in smoke. That's when she saw it: her freedom rising out of the ashes, a victorious phoenix.

Mumbai Burning...

Just after 8pm this evening, my mom was watching the news on ND-TV, and emergency reports displayed breaking news of terror attacks in Mumbai. All they said was that grenades had been strewn across the foyers of the famous Oberoi, Taj and Trident hotels in and around Colaba, in the south of the city. I was on my way out to supper, and my friends indignant hooter had me out the door before I could get more news. And I thought, it's just the major hotels, hopefully no fatalities; will check it out when I get home.

Later news said, even the JW Marriott in Juhu was under attack by gunmen. Shootouts were reported around the major hospitals, St Georges in particular. I just got home. VT Station looks like it's been the grounds of a genocide. Bodies and Blood pepper the paved court around the victorian building. My phone rang five minutes ago. Mumbai, is Burning. I put the news on once again. It's like watching a badly filmed movie. The Taj, a heritage hotel flanked by the Gateway, is in flames! As of right now, a hundred people have been rescued from the Taj.

The bizarre is being normalised. This has become a regular occurrence. Gosh. There's a death count of number of innocents and number of cops killed. What is this, from the Wild West to the Inferno Ridden East?!

Provoked

What does it take for a woman of modest bearing, to wait till the quiet hours of the night until her husband of ten years is sound asleep, and to douse him in a carefully prepared mixture of cooking oil and other household flammable liquids, and then to drop a flaming candle at his feet, and watch in horror, and relief as the flames sieze and engulf his screaming frame!?

What does it take?

Insanity is a gleaming and rather self-righteous label designed by the self-acclaimed 'sane' and an appeasing banner to the designated who must wear it as a yoke. Why must some plead insanity to obtain justice? Or rather, as a human right's activist in the movie suggests, 'Why must women plead insanity to obtain justice, while men need only lose their tempers for the same?'

'Provoked' is the name of the movie that profiles a young Punjabi woman's plight to restore her dignity from within the confines of an abusive marriage, and in an act of being driven to temporary irrational insanity, she sets her husband on fire. He dies after some days in hospital. She is charged. This, she maintains, is her first taste of freedom.

Battered wife syndrome is, as a result of her case, a legally recognised condition.

Abuse is a messy subject, and many people will shy away from the indications to take the topic by the horns and do real battle with it. How do we break the cycle? We engage in abuse and are abused every other day when we choose to ascribe labels on each other, and when we carry those with which we might be branded. Where does it all stop? And how?

Thriving on Vices...

Everyone wants to make the most of life. And in some or other way, we all tend to live life excessively. We thrive on vices. We harbour secret addictions. Chocoholism. Shoe fetishes. People addictions. Choose one and stick by it.

And in everything lies an element of contradiction. Ice, cold and hot. Water, both the source of life and destruction. Fire, warming hearths and burning forests. A few weeks ago, I heard that someone's home burnt down. (But, she says, her ghd survived thanks to its heat protection case:P) And two weeks ago, my parents were travelling on the N1 into Johannesburg and they experienced a raging roadside veld-fire that bellowed smoke across the highway, making driver vision a smoky nightmare. Foglights, are made for, well, 'fog'. Later, my mom said the view was so beautiful but in the anxiety of the moment, she forgot to take photo's.

So there you have it, the beauty and elation in something awesomely alive yet incredibly scary! I love the ocean, and the rain. We have been celebrating a friends wedding all week, despite and even because of the intense heat. (I am out in Polokwane about 200 km's south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Just got here on Tuesday with my parents. My brother and his wife, sister and her husband (and baby) arrived on Friday. I love LOVE love having a full house. We have a family home out here, and while we partied together on Friday night, the rain of blessings drenched our skins.

We arrived home to find a room or two in flood. Persian rugs swam a centimetre above maple wood floors. Porcelain tiles were easily transformed into gleaming ski-sites. And a smattering of sand from an apparent sandstorm was now reduced to a bit of mud here and there. So we rolled up raw silk shalwar pants and discarded studded sandals for rubber soled flip-flops and got to work with some mops and music at midnight in true Cinderella style.

I guess the dismay would have hurt had it not been for the energy of love around. And a giggling sixteen month old who wanted to wiggle her way out of her gran's arms so she could splash about with the rest of us.

Love and fear can go hand in hand.

And like water and fire, love too, is a thing of gregarious destruction and/or immense fascination, filled with the possibilities of replenishing thirsty souls, creating spirited life and manifesting itself in oh so many beautiful forms.

In Love, Water, Fire...
S

PS: GG, I think a sari would've soaked up the water with no fuss :P
But, no water wonderland last night, (luckily). Sigh.