Living a lie

The crowd rose for a thundering applause. Devika, couldn't help grinning from one ear to another. This is it, this was her day. She had finally released her book called "Super moms", it was an inspirational guide for working mother’s to create that perfect work life balance.

The amphitheater, where she stood and spoke, felt like home to her, and the scores of adoring crowd, her family. Once she finished giving autographs and answering countless questions, Devika was more exhilarated than exhausted. It was time to go home.

Devika entered her living room only to find Tia’s toys all over the house, her 5 year old was still running around in school uniform at 10:00 pm. Following her was, James, Devika’s husband and Tojo, their Labrador.

James saw Devika and stopped, “Finally home, is it? We have been waiting for you to come and give us dinner.”

“You haven’t eaten yet, didn’t Sharada cook?”

“Yes, she did. But its egg and we are in mood to eat chicken, aren’t we Tia?”

Tia, nodded her head in eagerly, “Yummm chickennnn!”

Devika, dredged herself to the kitchen. As she cooked, James went on with a list of complaints.

“Tia’s, teacher says, she needs to practice spellings. With this silly feministic book of yours, you seem to have forgotten your daughter. And when will you take her to the dentist, am I supposed to do everything. Don’t I take care of the house, Tia and Tojo when you have to go for these stupid talks…Don't youvforget are a housewife before being an author.
Devika, are you even listening to me….atleast acknowledge?!”

James walked off in exasperation, “I feel like I am talking to the walls....Oh and take Tojo for a walk.”

Devika was too exhausted to argue, she finished and took Tojo for a walk. She kept thinking about how the whole world could understand her, except for her own husband. It made her miserable that she couldn’t even follow a single tip from her own guide.

As she walked the empty street, Tojo started barking. Devika felt a sliver of fear when she made out someone standing in a dark corner. As that person, stepped out in the light, she realized it was Devika herself. It was like looking into a mirror.

The doppelgänger spoke one sentence before disappearing, ”So, how does it feel to live a lie, Supermom?”

And Devika couldn’t help but break into bitter tears.

The Door

The Door made its presence known on a perfect day. It was mother’s 40^th birthday and she expected a grand celebration. Nothing could take the focus away from mother, except for the Door maybe. Perhaps, it was that sadistic streak which made the Door appear on that eventful summer morning.

Father, I and Bren woke up early, we ran to Mrs. Tully, our neighbor, and sneaked the cake inside our house. Of course we couldn’t have hidden mother’s 40^th birthday cake in our refrigerator; she would have known. We decorated the cake with candles; none of us would dare put all 40 candles, so we settled for 20, and wrote, “20 in every which way”. That should cheer mother up.

We arranged the living room with balloons and stars. And when we were ready, father brought a groggy mother out into the living room. I say groggy because apparently mother was being naughty at 40 last night.

As expected, mother was absolutely delighted, soon her delight turned into surprise, shock and mortification. And she kept staring at me.

Okay that was creepy, but then I saw father and Bren also staring at me the same way, until I realized they were staring at something behind me. My mind ran a list of things that could possibly be standing there, from man eating lions to killer clowns from outer space, from Emily Rose to the Wicked Witch of the west, from Ted Bundy to Freddy.

“Mishka, honey why don’t you come over here?” Mother finally spoke, and implored with her stretched hands. Yes, that sounded like a good plan, to turn around while I was standing there in the safe circle of my family. I ran to mother, and looked.

It was inconspicuous, it was inconsequential to my vivid expectations, it was a door. A door that was never there for the last 15 years that I had lived in that house and in this world. It just stood there innocent, a brown polished door that could only be opened from the other side.

Instantly “The Door” became a smash hit in our neighborhood, perhaps more of a hit than its namesake band. People from across the neighborhood and our extended family came to visit, and ruminate over the Door.

There were theories, some sane, some insane. Uncle Martin felt, that the Door was a gateway to hell, and the Devil chose our home for it, since we have not attended the Sunday mass in the last 5 years. Of course, mother then ranted on about the benefits of embracing Scientology as a religion. When Tom Cruise doesn’t have a gateway to hell in his mansion, why should we? What can I say, the argument seemed legitimate!

Mrs. Tully, felt that the Door led to the garden outside, our family, along with 100 other people just cant see it.

My friends and I thought that the Door was a wormhole and should it open; the entire world would get sucked into it.

Bren, expected zombies infected with the T-Virus to walk in through the door; and that’s why he always armed himself with his baseball bat.

People tried breaking down the door, and the wall around it. Even a wrecking ball couldn’t touch the Door. Finally, we gave up and as months went by and nothing went in or came out of the Door, it became business as usual and we started ignoring it.

Life went on, until one summer evening. After a year of ignoring the newest member of our household, The Door, it happened. I reached home that evening, only to be welcomed by mother’s excited chattering.

“It opened, Mishka. It opened.” What?!! Finally the Door opens.

I ran inside and mother followed. I saw father, Bren and Mishka standing there near the Door. Wait, Mishka? I was Mishka. But she looked just like me. My stomach sank and I slowly turned around to see the bodies of my real Mother, Father and Bren lying near the dining area. Mother or that woman who looked like mother, spoke with a wide evil grin on her face, “You are next.”

The Door shimmered out of existence.

If witches ruled...

So this was my first attempt at Alternative history, and I couldn't help but imagine, what could have happened had thousands of witches not been hunted and burned at stake in early 16th century.

“Muriel, I need the love potion you gave Ashthi”, my patron stood across the counter and asked me. But I couldn’t just give her the love potion.

With great witchcraft, comes great responsibility.

“Why do you need it Runa, didn’t you just take one last month for, what was that boy’s name, Aryan, isn’t it?” I asked her.

“Yeah, but now I am bored of Aryan, and he is all love struck, done it all to please me. This time, it is the mail man, Pasha. He seems quite a catch.” Runa’s eyes light up with excitement and desire. She obviously was bored of her last month’s love slave and needed another distraction. But I wasn’t going to provide her with the love potion.

Yes, they were just men. And yes they served few non-intellectual purposes like lifting weights, making love, running errands and giving us our precious baby girls. There would sometimes be boys, but those boys were given to wet nurses and sent to the palaces to be raised as love slaves. And yes, even if it felt wrong to treat them as slaves, there wasn’t much that could be done. It was after all the way of the world.

What I did not understand for the life of me, was when asked to think differently, they would look and that’s it, just look like they had the thinking capacity of a sparrow! I had heard stories about smart men, intelligent men, Alexander the great, King Arthur but that was all before the 16^th century. All before witches of the world took over the reigns and men lost the capacity to exercise their brain.

So yes back to Runa, while Pasha would serve his purpose for Runa, it was wrong for Runa to want so much. After all greed and lust were the ancient sins.

“Sorry Runa, you know the drill. One love potion for one man. And that has got to last for at least 3 months.” I responded to Runa, who made a face and stomped out of my store.

Ufff, these new rules made by the new Queen of witches were too much to abide by. We had heard rumors about a man in the Queen’s service who was a wizard, and the Queen was in love with him.  This was the reason for all those pro – men rules. These rules did not go down well with most of the world. Already there was a rebel uprising in whole of Europe and India.

“Love” a woman falling in love with a man was unheard of, and that too a wizard.

Wizard’s were a small species of men who were respected by witches because they were as well versed in magic as we Witches were, but the Wizard population was dwindling. They were one by one being hunted down by a secret society of witches who felt that men had only one purpose and that was one of a slave.

This secret society went by the name of “Kooreetsi”, it began in the later 17^th century and were lorded over by a panel of 7 fierce and powerful witches, who were also referred to as elders. Every 100 years the reigns of power passed on to the chosen 7. The 7 were chosen from a lineage of pure blood witches and after years of rigorous training.  Each one of these 7 had to prove mastery over 5 elements before they were declared as elders. And their identity remained a secret from every one including the bottom ring of the “Kooreetsi” society. The elders were not just responsible for taking crucial decisions in running of the “Kooreetsi” society but also were especially trained in taking down and hunting of the most powerful wizards.

I looked outside and realized it was dark already. Time to shut shop and go home. As I was about to pull down the shutters, a Raven came flying towards me and dropped a sealed envelope. I instantly knew where the letter came from. My hands shivered in excitement as I opened the letter.

There were just two lines written on it:

Hunter: Elder Muriel

Hunted: Wizard Dragan

With a crazy grin on my face, and the lust of my next hunt literally making me salivate I ran to the resource room in the basement of my 2 storied home. A cozy abode that alternated between a ground floor store and 1st floor living quarters.

The weapons room was filled with spell books, potions, swords, axes, guns, poisonous knives and my most prized possession, Rhys, my pet boa constrictor. A wizard can’t possibly incant spells when Rhys is increasingly choking his throat now, can he? Oh how many of those, nasty men who called themselves men of magic suffocated to the grip of Rhys. Rhys loved me and I loved him and the best part of having Rhys with me was that I was never lonely.

When I became the Elder, Rhys was my gift. Blessed with the power of speech he was a young 6 days old Boa who would wail consistently for either milk or a frog. But I raised him and I have loved him ever since first set eyes upon the tiny, scaly green shiny delight.

It took me around 2 hours to collect all my weapons and magic books, potions and poisons and dump them in the bottomless bag. Before I could ask, Rhys wrapped himself around my neck and I teleported us to the nearest “Warp”.

“Warps” were this elite mode of travel, reserved only for witches and wizards. They could teleport you to any part of the world in an instant.

I stood outside the warp looking up at the night sky and the giant columns where every single inch was carved with incantations.

I cut my veins and allowed the blood to flow through the channels that led inside the warp and invoked the spell of teleportation.

“Ut ducem luna et requies lucis,

Oh ianuam, ut me semper in – Pragae”

I saw a light forming in the dark recesses of the “Warp”, I waited in anticipation for the light to engulf me and pull me in, for what I knew would be the greatest adventure of my life.

“Muriel, I have always hated teleportation, it ruffles my scales.” Rhys spoke in a tone that sounded suspiciously like fear.

“Don’t be a wuss, Rhys. 5 -4 -3 -2 -1….Wohoooo here we goooooooo!” and we were sucked into the bright vortex.