The write club Nov 2017 edition has a total of four stories from four different authors. I submitted one of my older stories from my other book, “The Case of The Punctual Phantom“.
I was very lazy to sit and write a full story, so I cheated! Had too. Sorry 😦
But now that you are here, you could read my story (which is also the featured story of the month), and decide to buy the full edition of the magazine by clicking on the link below, or you could give it a pass 🙂
Either way, I am glad you’re reading this right now!
The kindle version can be bought (free for kindle unlimited users) from here
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Overheard in a Pizzeria
~Ashwin
(Genre: Humor)
She was eating her fries with fork and knife, when I walked in. So I instantly knew, a man of such low caliber and jeans, who sat across her, wasn’t going to get laid. I walked over.
“Hey!” I said to the fine ass, pointing at the next table, “You mind, if I sit here?”
“Please do.” She said.
Her voice was cuddly and warm, like an angel sleeping on her tongue. The guy made an angry pumpkin face and I could feel the heat blazing out of his glittery shirt towards me—one printed fire cracker at a time. I settled myself, switched on my laptop, plugged in my charger, and sucked on my drink—all ice and almost no caffeine—with a fat straw. It was unnecessarily fat … fat like the gap between this guy’s front teeth. In fact, I could put my pinkie in it and wiggle, if it was my itching ear.
I had been too slow with my writing. I had travelled for inspiration, read classics, remained in almost solitary confinement to work on my words … but nothing. I was someone, who could write all day, fuck with people’s brains, get pregnant with ideas and deliver them, one after the other—like a literary whore. But past few months had been too slow on the paper.
They sat face-to-face;
“Haan?” she asked. Clearly, she wasn’t paying attention to his jabbers.
“Are you a non-vegetarian?” he asked.
“Absolutely. You?”
“Sometimes veg. Sometimes non-veg.”
“Really? I have never heard someone say something like that before.”
“I know. I am awesome”, he winked.
I sat there wondering, how much sarcasm one could rub in this dude’s face before he noticed. I, for one, could heckle a guy like him all my life and he would never revolt. Mostly, because he would never have a comeback, and also, because he wouldn’t realise he is being heckled.
I had met plenty of such beefed up, fodder for brains, noncontributing zeros in my life.
“Bro! Bro! Bro!” some of them with their hair shaped like croissant, would utter, “You wanna go to the new dubstep after-party in the town?”
“Fuck no.”
“But Bro …”
“Nope! Fuck a dubstep!”
“But bro … the DJ …” they would throw some jazzed-up names without any vowels in them, “… is playing. He is mad bro!”
I am sure he is.
I had never been a follower of trends, especially when it came to music. Music for me was pleasure and not just sounds. I could listen to one song all my life if that made me happy. But if someone wanted to listen to the sounds of drums on buckets, or the jingles of crickets on beats, or cracking of utensils in the kitchen all night, it was his choice. To each his own—really.
Then a deadbeat loafer asked me, “Can I take this chair?” almost certain that I was going to say, “Yes”. I looked up from my laptop—my stare was sharp and I flared my nose on purpose.
“But are you gonna pay for it?” I asked.
“… Aaa”
His mouth opened wide and remained open, like a lopsided “O”, on pills.
“ … Aaa”, he said again, “… aaa … aaa”, standing there. Not moving. Cat got his tongue? My face was straight. Eyelids far apart. I was choking on happiness.
“Are you?”
“ … Aaa … I mean … aaa … I … aaa …”
“I am joking, man! Relax. Take it.”
“Oh! Okay. Thank You.”
Shit. His face would have melted, if I had grilled him further. He looked more nervous than a girl taking her pregnancy test. Where were all the men who could take a beating with humor or gave some back at the same time? With all that gym, and lifting heavy weights and gulping protein shakes daily, one’s functional healthy brain that can respond to wit, with wit, or handle wit with grace at the very least, goes for a toss. They look at a poultry farm and think its food. I look at the same and think it’s a—cock’s block.
I looked at my laptop—the almost blank screen with a blinking cursor. This pizzeria served me more ideas and less food; often just five pieces of prawns in a platter for five hundred bucks. But I liked it here; the waiters did not ask me if, “I wanted anything else”, when I was obviously done for an hour. There were no snotty toddlers running around, bumping in to my leg. People worked on their laptops in quiet corners. Fat rich single women read novels and twirled their curls and discussed sitcoms with an accent. Teenagers clicked selfies in silent mode. Middle aged businessmen discussed powerpoint slides, fairies served tea and unicorns somersaulted in your cup; it was a happy island for me.
And I heard him say to the fine ass;
“What are your hobbies?”
“I travel a lot.”
“Oh!” he said, lacking for words.
Really? Oh? That’s what you got there Johnny Bravo?
“How about you?” she asked.
“I go to the gym.”
“… and? What else?”
“And I exercise a lot.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah. I go to the gym all seven days a week”, he flexed his right biceps and rubbed all that head he never used when someone hit him with sarcasm, “Two hours every day.”
She was back to cutting one fry at a time and forking them in her mouth. He gobbled them in plurals, and licked all his fingers like a toddler.
“ … This chutney is over” he said.
“Huh?”
“Need more chutney”
“Salsa dip, you mean?” she asked.
“Yes”, he called the waiter, “more chutney please!”
About the Author: Well, that would be me 🙂. And you’re reading this on my blog. So …
***
About Write Club Bangalore: It’s a weekly meetup group of writers, that’s been consistently running for past 7 years.
Every week we assemble at 2 in the afternoon and write on a prompt given to us by the host. Then we read (out loud) whatever we have managed to write, one by one, and the host, or the other members of the club, tell us how good or bad the pieces are.
Post the writing session, we have coffee at a close by restaurant and we often debate (and/or joke) about everything under the sun. The waiters at the restaurant probably hate us, because we are usually very loud. But then it’s a lot of fun. I mean, I could go on and on about the group, but I can’t put it in words. Why don’t you check out the official website instead?
Peterosophy 
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