Bullets Don’t Kill They Die

“Sshh…This is a secret; please don’t tell this to anyone.” I said to the knife while rolling inside the gun. “So you mean to say you’re not in the mood to die today and so you plan to not hit the aim and just fly away in the sky?” Knife confirmed once again before the shooter got the gun ready to shoot me out.

Hi! I’m a Spitzer bullet and I see a lot of my brothers and sisters dying these days. These humans are exploiting us like we’re some flowers meant to be on a grave or the wedding car. But today things are going to be different; I’m in no mood to die.  I love the gun I live in; I hate the shooter who might shoot me out. I don’t know what happens to the aim once we’re fired, because I’m meant to die as soon as I hit the target.

Imagine being in my position, if I work towards the ultimate purpose of my life, then I’m meant to die. This sounds unfair, doesn’t it? But hey! As a bullet I have the liberty of living every once in a while. Wondering how? It’s simple, I just have to miss the target and save myself. Mostly it’s difficult because the shooters are well trained but if it happens to be a practice session, then the luck is in my favor. Oh! It also depends on the wind speed, humidity, barometric pressure, and the air temperature. These things can save my life too.

I have a dream and that is to act in action films. You know how they shoot in the air without aiming at anything in particular? Its fun, looks like a way out to escape in the open. My friends and I are often traded from one shooter to another. Sometimes I belong to the terrorists, sometimes to people who keep me with them just for “self defense” purpose, and other times I belong to the encounter specialists. The hardest part is, I don’t know which destination will be my last. Whether I will be cursed for my work or appreciated for my work.

Anyway, I have decided to escape death today and live a free life, unless of course a tree comes in the way and I’m stuck in the wood forever. Sometimes I do dream of having a glorious death, you know? Either by piercing in the body of a known person or a famous wall, where people can come and see the mark I leave behind.

So the shooter is all set to fire me and I’m all set to be free. Shot!

I can’t control my speed but I’m hoping the wind pressure will help. Today looks like a bright day for me. Yay! I managed to skip the target, wait oh! oh! That’s a bird, no no no…Boom!

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The Filth

“You dirt! What are you doing there? Don’t you know which area you’re in?” He screamed his guts out. I pulled up the zip at once and tried to leave but a tight grip on my collar and some nails piercing through the back of my neck held me back.

“What’s your name you filth? How dare you come in this area and try to dirty the streets with your filthy act?”Mr. R Bolton asked with a death glare that made me want to pee all the more. I looked down and saw these shiny leather brogues that looked freshly polished.

“Forgive me sir, I realize I shouldn’t be doing that out in the open but it was kind of an emergency.” I said in a firm voice, holding tight the sides of my worn out loose jeans. Mr. Bolton said, “What is your name? I will note a complaint against you right now! You filthy cheap bastards who absolutely lack manners, social etiquette, and toilets! Is there no one from your area who could teach you how to behave in the outside world? Add to it you have the audacity to come to this side of the city and litter a public place by peeing all over it! What if you’re carrying some disease on you? What if it spreads in this side of the city and becomes the reason to kill hundreds of prestigious men? Sigh.”

He went quiet in the efforts of calming down and I chose to be silent. After a moment, I gathered some guts and spoke, “My name is Ron, yes I’m poor and I come from that part of this city where you would never dare to put your feet on. The reason why I’m here is because I wanted to meet the government officer who takes care of the needs of people from economically backward class. I have a letter that’s signed by every adult from that “filthy area” that clearly says, “We need toilets with taps that has water flowing through them 24×7.” This is the fifth time I’m coming here in last 5 days and every day they ask me to come later. This morning I left from my house in a hurry to reach here in time and meet the officer. In the efforts of not getting late I left without finishing my business and in order to release the tension, I asked a gentleman to guide me to a public toilet.”

The man looked at me, laughed hysterically and said, “Why do you need to use the washroom, you guys are in a habit to do it in public, so go ahead roll your pants down and do it! Why pretend to feel shy or ashamed?” I don’t know what was so funny – the fact that I asked for a public toilet or the fact that I come from a backward part of this city – you know, one that is not blessed with enough toilets and forces people to defecate in public?

To prove my point sir, I decided to do what was asked of me to do. Now I did that only to grab the attention of well cultured people who are stuffed with “manners” and social etiquette. Well, and of course to get some help from them. That is if they’re humans enough to understand the problems of other humans and choose to help them. And don’t you think that will be a much better thing to do rather than laughing at us and giving us grief for having been born poor?

Sir, I have one question here, what exactly is filthy? Your thoughts about us and by us I mean all the poor people out there who are deprived of their rights of having basic facilities like public toilets or us who are forced to pee in public just to prove a simple point?

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Little Tim’s Little Story

“Tim is stuck in a pit mom! I need help to get him out.” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Tim is my best friend and what I love about him the most is that he is shy, almost always. Tim and I have been friends since 8 years now. Well, we’re planning our 9th birthday party that we’ll soon celebrate. So, practically we’ve been friends almost all our lives.

“Clint! What were you boys doing out there? I told you to not cross the fence while playing!” my mom yelled on her way out from the kitchen in hurried efforts of helping Tim.

Tim and I were playing in the backyard with our dolls and cars. Tim loves dolls and I love cars. However people always tell him that he should be playing with superheroes and not dolls. We don’t get the “adult’s” logic and we hardly care. We love how our dolls travel in the car and make a grand entry at the movie premiere.

“Mom! hurry! Tim is getting scared.” I yelled back as she went in to find something that would help Tim come out of the pit.

We were playing our usual game where Tim dresses up his doll and I polish my car. Later we pretend to take Tim’s doll out to her movie premier in her favorite car. Sometimes our stories change and other times we like to stick to our favorite movie premiere story.

“Clint! Help me! It’s dark in here, it’s scaring me!” a shaky voice from within appeared as mom and I were struggling to choose between a ladder and a rope.

Dance, coloring, and dressing up were the kind of things Tim enjoyed the most. On the other hand, I loved to be his guest, so I practiced the dance moves with him and let him dress me up in my mother’s scarlet colored scarf, Victorian hat, and a pearl white purse.

“Goodness gracious! How are you Tim? Are you hurt? Do you feel fine? Tell me what happened?” Mom cried out like a scared lamb.

Clint and I were playing in the backyard and suddenly he started forcing me to play with Laida’s doll that he stole from school today. When I said no, he said he had a new game to play that he recently invented. He brought your stole, purse, and a hat and started dressing me. When I retaliated, he pleaded to play this game at least once. After giving it a thought I said, “Okay, but only on one condition, if you return Laida’s doll tomorrow and never again play this game.” Clint got furious and pushed me in the pit, that’s how I landed there.

“No mom! He is lying!” I cried.

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Berries In My Pie

“To have a bakery is not an easy task”, said my father. I always wondered why and what made him say that? I saw him wake up early in the morning every day and wear his colorful zentai suit. He ate fruit tart or berry pie for breakfast, just the regular leftovers of previous night. Then he went to the bakery to bake lovely cakes, delicious muffins, lip smacking tarts, and pies that had sweet fragrance of vanilla essence, and freshness of real fruits. These cakes, muffins, and tarts were sometimes coated with caster sugar and other times with roasted almonds or nougat. Dad worked till 1 in the afternoon then took a lunch break and relished the regular meat pie and a chocolate chip muffin for dessert. It was his tradition to have an 8.7 min power nap daily before getting back to baking with his assistant Mrs. Berry tart.

At 4 p.m. daily they took their high tea break and relished on some hot tea with freshly baked cupcakes that were baked in rainbow colors. My personal favorite is the red velvet cupcake with double layers of cheese crème. Their rainbow colors are fixed for each day of the week and so I loved Fridays, because that’s when they baked my favorite cup cake.

At 8 p.m. daily their last baked cake made a grand entry out of the oven and filled the bakery with its sweet fragrance that had the power to make anyone drool for hours. This last cake of the day was famously known as the ‘Berry’s special’. My dad and his assistant had a pact of coming up with a new recipe daily and trying it out instantly. This cake as you must have guessed was the Berry’s special. It had the most random and creative combinations one could ever think of. These combinations and flavors worked wonders almost every time. Some of the famous cakes were Nutella cheese cake, gooey double chocolate, nougat and crème cheese, caramelized bacon, rosemary banana macaroons special cake, blue berry and raspberry mint cake.

They had another interesting tradition that they followed ritually. My dad and Mrs. Berry Tart celebrated birthdays of less fortunate kids on their way home with of course a delicious birthday cake that said, ‘With love, Tarts’. By 9:00 p.m. my dad returns home. That’s his usual time to arrive and for me to watch my favorite sitcom – How I met your mother. This reminds me…

…Mrs. Berry tart is also my father’s wife, my mother, and the co-owner of the bakery – With love, Tarts. She wakes up little later than my father does and sleeps little early than my father. How do I know that? Well, that’s a secret.  She also wears colorful zentai suits every day, wakes me up for breakfast, dresses me up in my zentai suit and drops me to the school. She reaches the bakery half an hour later than my dad and spends an identical day like him at the bakery.

This made me wonder what was so difficult in managing a bakery and spending a regular day like that. Then it struck me maybe my parents are busy acknowledging aliens every day. Apparently they come daily to the bakery to take all the freshly baked alienai-crème cake back to their planet and accuse my mother of stealing their secret recipe. This one is our specialty and earns us a heavy income. It is my mother’s invention; although she claims that an actual alien friend told her the recipe. My dad says it was just a dream but I like to believe it was her creativity.

There is another reason that could make the managing of that bakery difficult. I remember long time ago when I was three, my father told me that he met a fairy on his way to the bakery one day and she was crying her wand and wings out. The sugar fairy was upset because she could not celebrate her 168th birthday, as she had to pay heavy government taxes. So maybe this could be it. Maybe it is difficult to manage the bakery because my parents are always busy attending her fairy friends and serving them their special order of 168 rainbow colored cheese cream cupcakes daily. Probably that is their way of cheering up sugar fairy and helping her get over her depression and bankruptcy.

Suddenly a piece of white chalk lands on my head shaking me out of my day dream and I see my class teacher shouting at the top of her voice. When I adjust my hearing capacity from under the zentai suite, I hear her yelling, “Wake up you dreamer! It’s not easy to manage a class of 50.” And I get my answer.

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