Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
The Boy Who Fancied Himself a Tiger
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
Hasit chose his spot carefully, close enough to Mumbai’s train station that he could hope for alms from foreigners, far enough so bigger boys wouldn’t beat him for encroaching on their spots. He sat, arm held as if withered, and told stories for money. Most times the tale would be silent, eye contact and an artfully woebegone expression. Sometimes a few words sufficed, cleverly chosen to resonate with the listener. Very occasionally, once a week perhaps, he would relate an extended yarn; a fable of need that would wrench hearts and wallets wide open.
None of the stories Hasit told to others were as potent as those he told himself, and none of these half so eloquent as when he dreamed himself a tiger. No boy tiger he, but a mighty predator, king of a skyscraper jungle where every human cowered before him. He stalked, he pounced, he devoured.
Inevitably, the One Tiger learned of the interloper, and left her tree to confront him. Hasit the tiger forgot all his hard-learned eloquence, meeting the One Tiger claw for claw and fang for fang. They fought across the land, leaping from building to building, from tree to tree, into the jungle of myth, awash with greens beyond green.
Hasit was young and strong in his dreaming, but the One Tiger was ancient and wily. She circled, she taunted, she dodged as if her battle was one she dared not lose. Finally she darted in and sank her teeth into the boy tiger’s forepaw.
The shock of the wound woke Hasit. He lay in the dark, knowing his arm to be crippled beyond repair. It wasn’t the pain, the shredded nightclothes, it wasn’t even that it hung at an unnatural angle. The damage went to his core, to his image of himself, as if his arm had always been crippled.
Now, Hasit sits before the train station, in a position of honor. He has his pick of passengers to importune. No one minds giving way. They live to hear Hasit’s stories. Travelers, too, are generous, once he catches their eye. With some it only takes a glance, for some a few words will do, but more and more often he produces a longer story. A tale well told, he thinks with pride, is worth more than the money it will produce.
But in his dreams he is humble.
The Bridge
Monday, September 6th, 2010
To go under the arch of that particular stone bridge is to pass through a gate. To go over the same bridge is to pass along a road, a simple straight-line journey without riddles or challenges.
The road over the bridge will take you from one city you can find on a map to another. You can also find both in post cards, tourist pamphlets, and history textbooks.
The bridge, you can find on some of the better-researched, higher resolution maps, a pair of facing crescents intersecting the road’s line. The very best might have a couple dashes implying a trail down from the road to the streambed on one side.
If you stand there, looking through the dark below the bridge, hearing the thrum of tires and rush of engines overhead, the gurgle of the river down the waterfall steps ahead of you in the bridge-shadow, you can just make out the form of the sphinx jutting out in the middle of the rapids.
Climb the slick stone of those steps, stand face-to-face with it, and you’ll hear questions in your mind.
Chances are, if you’ve found your way this far, you learned about the sphinx from a note on the back of a postcard, or from one of the more transgressive tourist guides, or from the story told by the friend of a friend, who gave you a map with the bridge location circled. Any of these will also have given you a list of the seventeen questions the sphinx might ask, with answers.
If you’re correct, you’ll pass beyond, and the stone arch becomes your gateway to a world transformed. If you’re wrong, it’s you that’ll be transformed, to become the sphinx while the former sphinx walks free.
So reach carefully into the plastic pocket of your rain slicker and shield the paper from the dampness dripping from everyone. Maybe a pocket flashlight would help? It is darker than you might expect. Not that it matters, since all the answers you know are wrong.
We made sure of this–out of kindness, not cruelty. We former sphinxes have made sure to spread information about the bridge and a host of wrong answers. That way, someone will come along very soon with equally incorrect responses, and you’ll be free.
What would have happened if you’d answered correctly?
If we had any actual answers, we could tell you.