Dream Tree

Click the title and link back to the evil woman that tagged me!;-O
He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort, he was reminded of his Grandfathers words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34 hour journey to prove one of them wrong and he expected the excitement at the end of his journey. He looked at his ticket again: compartment S9, berth 23.

Pushing his luggage under the seat, he sat close to the window. "Papa, when will you be back?" his 4 year old daughter Munni asked innocently. He stared into those soft brown eyes of the motherless kid. "Munni, Papa will get you a nice gudiya from the city..sday tata" his sister spoke to the kid, to avoid an emotional outburst. In a minute, the train pulled forward, and Munni's little fingers parted from his. "I need to go..", He thought, "I have to, for Munni's sake.."

The humid summer breeze and the rattling train coaxed him into an uncomfortable state of drowsy consciousness. He dreamt that Munni ran away, the closer he ran to her, the farther she was, like a mirage. He woke up with a start and squinted at his watch. "What is the time please?" A smallish woman, a meek voice as is she was scared that hedr existence would annoy someone. Her only noticeable feature was her rather large, expressive eyes. "4:30" Something made him look at the woman again. He had stopped noticing women long back. Ever since Meenakshi passed away...

Four long years. His daughter's birth. His wife's death. Joy and sorrow in an instant. A heady cocktail. He had hardly recovered from it. He barely had a chance to. You can't be a poor famer in Andhra Pradesh and have time for emotional upheavals. Life betrayed him once with the death of his wife. Life betrayed him again, three years in a row, with the failure of his crops. Every hear the debt increased and it felt like a noose tighten around him. Tightened till he could not breathe. He shivered with the memory of the night, where he took a bottle of poison in his hand...

He threw the bottle away when he heard the small voice behind him, "Papa, what beyond the big well? Sanju says that's where the world ends. "His then-preoccupied answer had satisfied Munnis innocent curiosity, "No, beta... That's the railroad to the city...There's a lot of world beyond the big well. "He had repeated the answer to himself, "No, it's not the end of the world." Maybe some of that same innocence in this woman's voice or eyes made him rephrase the answer to her question. "What is the time, please?" In a crystal-clear flash of certainty he realized... "It was time."

It was time to put the scattered pieces of his life together. Just like the marbles he picked up as a boy. That he won and collected one by one from the ground,his pockets laden and bulging with his precious treasure. He had to play the game of the region above his sunburned face. He had a happy face and no luggage. As he walked the corridor his eyes scanned the berths. He reached their compartment and stopped in front of the woman.

Slowly she turned, could this be possible? Her eyes spoke of the panic she felt race through her body! He had found her, but how? She had taken every precaution to ensure her safety--this time! Trembling, yet she could not look way, she froze as if time itself had been suspended. Flashes of pain seared through her mind with the memory of those days.

He stood poised smiling down at her. So calm his demeanor, his shell. But the core was churning uncontrollably. He wanted to reach out, tear the flesh from the face that he once loved.

However, he just couldn't let go and give in to the urge because of a couple of reasons. No matter how much she had hurt and betrayed him, the simple fact was that once she had meant the world to him. This was the way it always was though whenever he saw her. He wished he had the decisiveness of his Grandfather, who had served as a Sepoy for the British Raj, but he was a simple man of no great courage...a simple farmer.

I was tagged by Peg over at Peg's Pen for this story round. My contribution was the red text. The rules are:
1( A blogger can add 90-100 words, no more no less
2)All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are added
3)Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author and not just the first sentence or so
4) Characters, scenes, etc can be introduced by an author.
5)Bizzare twists, Sci-Fi, Fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6)A tag must be accepted in 7 days or the branch is a dead branch
8) After appending 90-100 words onto the tree, it can be passed on to AT MOST three other bloggers.
9)The story tree is best left to grow than concluded.
10)Please attach the image of the story tree below with each accepted tag.

I pass the Tag to the following three bloggers:
Blogger Unknown
Caloi Rider over at msn space
Billieryder over at msn space

See ya later: T_Stormcrowe, or as I'm known over in msnspace Stormcroweprime