My Annual Self Assessment

On the off chance that you aren't an orc and you're reading this, let me help you unravel some of the more obtuse utterances contained in this document with some choice hints. For example, what we call 'striking the deal' involves er.. striking a great deal hard. As for who or what the customers we refer to are, we call them what we call them cos stomachs are what they fill. Go figure. At least in the few moments you have before we er.. strike the deal.

If you are an orc, and you happen to be my manager, this document contains two kinds of statements - one: a brief, highly compressed statement detailing my achievements in the past year, and two: corresponding to each achievement, a highly fleshed out, fully detailed description on the areas of improvement to go with it.
Please excuse me while I take this opportunity to point out that the sections on the achievements in this document are brief, highly compressed precis of the full statement on achievements which runs into a little over fifty pages. Please keep that in mind, and excuse any unintended terseness.

1: Communication Skills

I have successfully reduced the turnover time for a typical deal to be struck with customers by employing a twofold process to improve my communication skills – first, I tuned the processes responsible for vocalization to streamline the frequencies of sounds emitted, to approach the sound of what customers often refer to as a growl. These vocal mechanisms, as you must be aware, are contained in a fleshy sac located behind the third right knee. I took to it with a bloody axe, which needless to say, did not quite tickle. Second, I was coached on the right body language to approach customers in order to induce them to er.. get eaten quickly. For example, it seems a well known fact in business circles that the flailing around of one’s arms, used judiciously, induces customers to flop to the ground in boneless shock, and consequently er.. get eaten quickly. The changes in body language I learnt were not all so unsubtle; most of them were minor tweaks in bearing to add a measure of belligerence to my general demeanour.

Areas of Improvement
I have a lot to work on here though because it appears that the aforementioned advancements in communication skills have come at the expense of increased vocal emissions from the customers (see 3). Also, my colleagues have, as is their wont, pointed out tactlessly to me that my growls still aren’t very intimidating. For the sake of self-development, I will put to paper the exact term they used to describe me in this context; but let me proclaim, first, in the strongest terms that I do not condone such language in any way, and I will never be heard growling out such obscenities in orc society in the future. “Sissy,” they said.

2: Warts

The increased production of certain obnoxious smelling pustules on the visage helped me coax more customers into er.. getting eaten, in comparison to the year before. I achieved this by adhering to a strict diet that involved not chewing more than six times on bones longer than four inches before swallowing, and then regurgitating them after a span of not more than three hours, and then finishing the chewing. I won't go into details here because I do not want to make you feel hungry while working on this appraisal.

Areas of Improvement
The aforementioned increased production of obnoxious smelling pustules, however, on select occasions, affected my interactions with colleagues, due to their entirely unpredictable propensity to er.. burst. I’m appropriately humbled to inform you that several of my colleagues have lost a limb or two or six due to the extremely corrosive effluvium that spurted out on the select occasions when an obnoxious smelling pustule or two burst unexpectedly. My colleagues, noble orcs that they all are, have chosen not to make a hue and cry of this perfectly natural process, but I resolve to improve my performance in this area next year. I resolve to strive my level best to produce more pink warts, and less green, because they are known to be less corrosive in their discharges.

3: Reduced Vocal Emissions

I have successfully reduced the number of high frequency vocal emissions generally known to be emitted by customers in the moments before er.. getting eaten, in comparison to the year before. It is well documented that these high frequency vocal emissions are potent in their effect on orc biochemistry – I have seen colleagues simply implode (the horror!) when a particularly effective emission from a three year old girl struck them. This I originally planned to achieve by showing a few more of my pearly white teeth, for it is understood that many customers are soothed by what is called a smile, but it appeared that this move only backfired from what I could gather from my informal observations. Then, I reversed strategy and decided to show fewer of my pearly white teeth. While this move predictably drew the usual taunts of effeminacy from a few colleagues (who are now limbless thanks to a wart or two blowing up in their vicinity, entirely unexpectedly), I believe that the results speak for themselves.

Areas of Improvement
Having said all that, there is still great scope for improvement. It appears that the simple act of conversation amongst my orc brethren is sufficient to evoke Powerful Vocal Emissions (PVEs) from a significant fraction of the customer sample. While it is ridiculous to expect us to not speak at all during the course of striking a deal, it may be worthwhile to explore the possibility of cutting down on some of the more overtly bellicose ejaculations that are estimated to account for a third of all orc vocalizations.

4: Hygiene

I am happy to report that I have significantly cut down on instances of accidental cleaning up; including but not limited to getting dowsed in rainwater while striking a deal during a thunderstorm, getting my venomous barb tipped pants stuck in elevators, and thereby getting dusted upside down, getting dropped in incinerators, and getting overgrown claws cleaved by swords. Why is this relevant? Here’s where an oft-repeated adage may come in handy. “A filthy orc is a healthy orc is a wealthy orc.”

Areas of Improvement
I am extremely unhappy to report however that there were still a number of instances over the past year when I was, against my will, forced to clean up. On one notable occasion, in my headlong rush to seal a deal with a customer, I slipped on a carefully placed puddle of water and lay there drenched for an entire day, while a portable incinerator was fetched to help me recover from the accident. My misery did not end there. The customer, incensed at the way we were going about striking the deal, decided to extract a modicum of revenge by spraying me liberally with what I believe they call eau-de-cologne. Needless to say, my colleagues avoided me like the plague for weeks after that incident. I pledge, I pledge on my eighty four utterly decayed fangs that I will do my best to ensure that such things will not happen again.

5: Swordplay

I have, through arduous practice, greatly improved at my swordplay. You will be pleased to hear that I only accidentally decapitated fifteen of my colleagues while wielding my twelve foot blade of choice last year. Compare this with the giddy thirty two that fell victim to my enthusiasm the year before. I must, however, insert a caveat at this point – while the year before last only sixty one limbs were hacked off in error, last year, the number grew to a worrying seventy one. These statistics, like most things in life, require some context. Since, orcs on average, possess 7.2 limbs, none of the orcs that lost theirs to my extravagant blade's er.. swishings were incapacitated by it.

Areas of Improvement
While I have greatly ameliorated some of the hurdles that have impacted the defensive side of my swordplay (this includes accidental beheadings in case you’re wondering), work is still needed to sharpen the offensive side. Statistics reveal to me that only a fourth of the deals I struck with my customers were done so employing my highly (t)rusted twelve foot blade. A majority of them involved claws, while a not insignificant fraction had something to do with fangs. As it is well understood that swords are usually the quickest way to get through (to) customers, I must improve my efficacy in this most crucial domain.

Software In Time

“I write software.”

“Soft wear? Is this some new fangled form of clothing that does not itch like the devil in the summer heat? May I have some?”

It was at this point that the enormity of the task that I was facing struck me. Or I thought it did, but the enormity of my miscalculation would only be revealed much later of course.

“But how can you write clothes? Do you mean you draw patterns that tailors stitch?” he made a sharp flicking gesture with his hand, which I took to refer to the current fashion in stitch dancing.

“ ‘Tis a strange profession though, isn’t it? I have known a fair few artists in my time. All of them were rascals and layabouts, and all the women loved them, but they couldn’t draw the little wild tree in their backyard, let alone the beautiful pictures of God and his children that you see plastered over all those holy places. Well, couldn’t don’t mean shouldn’t, so they usually did end up drawing – perhaps that’s too strong a word, eh? – sketching smudgy impressions of the holy deity. Not the peach tree in the frontyard, and certainly not clothes. Mighty odd, you saying you draw clothes for a living. New fangled ones that don’t itch in the summer at that. Hmm”

At the end of that thorough but thoroughly inaccurate rant, the man looked directly and deep into my eyes, all but demanding an explanation for my unsatisfactory choice of profession.

A bead of sweat made its stately way down my finely sculpted temple.

“Right. Do you know what er.. come you tosser?”

“Tosser? Just because I’m showing an entirely innocent interest in your vocation doesn’t mean I want to take it away, sirree. There’s no need to run away with your tongue, I’m not going to pilfer your soft wares. Tosser?! I’m only – “

“I didn’t call you a tosser. I said cump-you-terse. Do you know what they are?”

The man looked perplexed for a moment, trying to work out if I’d only gone and repeated the insult in spite of the apology.

“No, sir.”

“They are er.. Boxes.”

“Boxes? You mean you’ve got boxes full of soft wear?”

In spite of myself, I brightened immediately. This conversation was looking up. Right? Maybe all those years of hard graft would be worth something. There’d be fame of course. But.. fame is always a function of other people’s desires. It’s something that’s given to you – a gift, alms to the needy if you will. I wanted more: something for myself, something that couldn’t be taken away on a whim. Maybe that’d still come, but that cliff yonder was starting to look remarkably attractive for an impromptu dive into the unknown beyond. Well, at least sorta unknown. I knew there’d be barrelsful of jagged rocks at the bottom to tear me into little pieces of carrion-to-be, but at least I didn’t know how many barrelsful there would be. Wait, didn’t I set off to brighten up a moment earlier? Yes. No jumping yet.

“Exactly!” said I in apparently spontaneous excitement, totally undermined of course by the heavily pregnant pause that’d preceded that exclamation.

Meanwhile, remember that brightening thing I had banged on about for a bit earlier? It quickly disappeared as I took stock of the rain-dark clouds that were rapidly scudding across my companion’s face. He looked, as you’d say, thunderous.

“I didn’t know you had boxes, sir. Not only do you appear to be an uncommonly stupid simpleton, but a liar and rogue to boot. If you had boxes and boxes of your magic fabric stowed away, why did you profess such unwarranted hesitation at my request to see one? I only wanted to see, I had no intention of –“

“Please. These boxes er.. only have the blueprints.”

“You mean the drawings? Why do you need boxes then? Are you such a bad artist that you fill up boxes and boxes with tripe before you come up with something good?” A genteel titter accompanied that rhetorical question.

I was fighting a losing battle with my ego at that point. Here I was, a brave pioneer trudging paths never before seen, bandying words with a crude peasant.

“Could you not talk for a minute? Or two? Or thirty? OK. So, a computer is a box which can add numbers. It can – “

“Did I tell you about my great grandmum? Fine old lady she was. Lost both her legs to the 'pox. Most of her mind followed until she could only remember her name when it snowed fifty kilometres away. But a fine old lady she was. She could add numbers too.”

I blanched graciously.

“Right. Hold on to your tongue for a minute, will you? Here’s a steel clamp to help you out. I’ve seen it used to tether elephants.”
“A computer is a box that can add numbers in magical ways. For example, I can use that box which adds numbers …“ I rooted around for the best metaphor to tie into the utterly useless conversation we’d had so far. “… to er.. model new kinds of fabric.”

“You mean the soft stuff.”

“Yeah, the ‘soft’ stuff.” Even my supremely unflappable demeanour was feeling the strain a little, and a touch of sarcasm crept into my otherwise perfectly considerate tone. “That day, when you’d missed reading the newspaper because you were off talking to yourself since you were so bored of talking to yourself, that was the day it was reported that scientists had figured out that manipulating numbers was all there was to the world.”

“Pardon me, sir, but if you’re referring to the day my dead grandmum appeared before me and told me in no uncertain terms that it was my destiny to not become a great man, to not become very wealthy, to not have a beautiful wife and to not be the happiest man in the world, your allusion is callous and .. and blatantly in disregard of – “

“No, not that day. The other one. Anyway, the point is that computers are boxes that add numbers, subtract numbers, and juggle them like, really, really fast. Take the fastest wagon you’ve ever seen. Now imagine it were about a thousand thousand thousand thousand times faster, that’s how long my pretty little box would take to multiply your age with your height with your weight with the temperature, and round off to the nearest hundred. But computers, computers aren’t smart. We need to get them to do what we want – and that is where I come in. I tell these boxes that they can only juggle numbers in certain ways, and I ensure they remember my instructions by occasionally rapping an object shaped like a bar of soap.”

The man, I’m glad to report, finally looked a shade weary of this exchange. His eyes scoured every nook of my visage, perhaps in search of mockery. I’m glad to report, again, that I passed the test.

“So, what you're saying is, you have a box that can add numbers, and you not only use this box to add numbers in magical ways to make blueprints of soft fabric that doesn’t itch in the summertime, but also to store blueprints of soft fabric that doesn’t itch in the summertime. What you do is tell the box to only make blueprints and none of those greenprints, and to get the point across, you use a bar of soap. And you don't have any of that fine fabric to share right now.” I nodded helpfully at every syllable.

With that, he gathered one very heavily muscled arm and cuffed me gently on the chin before going on his way. When I woke up a couple of days later, I wondered if I was wrong about passing the test after all. Right then I made a vow: I’d never travel in my time machine again.

Read this ASAP!

It's funny how when somebody asks you to do something as soon as possible, when you'll actually do it depends on how the sentence is phrased. From the manual -

"While the uncontracted form 'as soon as possible' accompanying the call to action implies a certain accommodation in deference to your schedule, the contracted form of the same expression 'ASAP!' implies an undue urgency entirely unwarranted by the presence of the acronym itself."

So I dug deeper into this fascinating phenomenon, and it turned out I had severely underestimated the sheer subtlety involved. Read on...

Chaos

FOREWORD: Although I wrote this in a blinding hurry for a competition, I think I'm onto a good idea here. :) So far though, I've never managed to rework a story so that road looks like a dead end. But never say never, eh?  
NOTE: If you'd rather read the .doc here's the link. 


It started off as another day; gloomy for the most part, but with occasional periods of blazing sunshine. Mother certainly was her usual self; humming and bustling around, pausing to shout passionlessly at me to help with the chores.

‘I have to leave a little bit earlier today. I told you already didn’t I? I’m getting a new shipment of those infernal Blacks which all your friends seem to want. It’ll really drive the business up.’ she said, without interrupting a quick sweep of the living room.

Mother owned a provision store two streets off the highway. It was one of only a handful of shops that catered to the townsfolk proper, and not the passers-by; it was definitely the only one that sold the things it did – milk, eggs, bread, soaps, toothbrushes and other odds and ends that everybody needed everyday. Like the Blacks.

I trudged off to wash the dishes in the backyard, while my mother went off to heat some milk for a last coffee before she left for the shop. Presently I heard her frustrated voice drift from the kitchen.

‘I thought we had some milk left over? Did you finish it off?’
‘No, mother. And we didn’t. Remember, I told you last night that we were running out of milk and you said you’d pick up some today?’

‘What? You didn’t!’ but this time she couldn’t help the note of doubt that crept into her voice.
‘I did’ I confirmed sagely. ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten?’

There was this thing I did. I liked to call it a superpower. Simply put, I was believable. People would rather doubt themselves than disbelieve anything I said. Perhaps it was my sheer inconspicuousness that worked in my favour – I was of average height, and had an average build, average skin tone and average looks. My hair wasn’t funky and I wore glasses that weren’t too thick. Surely this guy wouldn’t say or do anything out of the ordinary? Or maybe it was that my voice was modulated just right to always ring true. Or maybe my body language oozed frankness. Or maybe I had this knack of speaking just the words people expected to hear. Maybe it was all of the above – it probably was. Whatever it was, it gave me power and I used it freely.

Mother was only slightly flustered by the milk incident. She gave me a quick hug and the usual warnings about doing well at college and she was away. I watched houseflies chase each other around the living room until it was time, then packed my single notebook into a redundant backpack and left for college.

‘College’ was an extremely run down rambling four storey building that stood all by itself, furthest from the highway excepting the farms. And ‘college’ wasn’t really a college – it was a school, kindergarten, playschool, all in one. It was the only place for education in the whole town. We had children and teenagers in the thousands but most of them did not study for long. It was understood that as soon as they were old enough they would take up the trade of their parents.

As I approached the dirt track that marked the last half kilometre, the reason for the name became apparent. A giant, spanking clean, whitewashed stone archway that spelled the word ‘college’, thoroughly incongruous in its neatness, slowly came into view.So did a gang of rich kids – we had a lot of those – standing under the arch smoking. One of them stubbed out the ash on one of the archway’s stones, leaving a stain. As I passed them by, one of them waved nonchalantly, seeing but not really noticing.

There was something about walking down that solitary dirt road, something about the mundane nature of the activity that always fouled up my mood. Some days were worse than others, and today was one of those – the way the rich kids were always there, in the exact same spot, doing the exact same thing, like partially animated statues, made my head throb. By the time I passed under the doorway, I had a full-blown headache. That was probably why I decided to stop for a chat with the rich kids.

Pointing to the stain I said ‘I passed the watchman on his rounds a minute ago. You know how the fellow walks. Slow as a snail, but he should be coming up here shortly.’ That was a complete fabrication but a believable one. Only a few metres from the archway, the dirt road curved out of sight, hidden by a clump of trees. And everybody feared the watchman – he was free with the stick and had a strong arm. And we suspected that he was the reason why the archway was always so squeaky clean.

‘Yeah?’ said the tall one with the slick hair. He was the one I’d pegged as the leader of the group, a not difficult conclusion. He took a few careful seconds to stub out his cigarette, and then shrugged as if to say that he was leaving because he was done with whatever he was doing, and not because he feared the watchman’s wrath. He signalled to his mates to join him. I shrugged back.

‘Thanks man’ he said tonelessly. My headache had cleared up rapidly because I knew they wouldn’t return for a while. I was even in a good enough mood to give him a brief smile, which he didn’t see.

Classes were a pain. I slipped out through the bathroom window after an hour of mind numbing dreariness which brought on the headache again. However, that wasn’t what was different about that day because I played truant almost everyday. And it wasn’t just me too – everybody did. Curiously enough, the teachers would probably never notice because the classes would always have the same number of attendees. Different students had different truant ‘times’. Mine was usually after the first couple of hours, when most of the other students came in.

I chose a different destination everyday for my classtime walks. That day, I decided to go to the paddy fields in the farthest corner of town, about five kilometres east of the highway and two from college. I didn’t usually go that way because the old man who looked after the farm was cranky and righteous; an unbearable combination. That day though, my headache was worse and I needed more time to get rid of it – that meant a longer walk and I didn’t have many other options. And it wasn’t just a different destination I chose everyday – I even chose different routes to the same place. I took every little goat lane, dried up canal and open sewer I could, hoping to get lost but never actually managing to do so, until half an hour later the first of the coconut trees came into view. Those trees protected his farm from the often torrential winds, but they helped me in a different way – the old man wouldn’t see me until I only a few feet away from his hut.

As I crossed the coconut tree line, I immediately realized something was different about the place. One of the windows creaked slightly on its hinges; copious amounts of dust lined the usually spotless walkway to the house; the grass was too tall and most importantly, there was a fat padlock on the front door. Had the old man left for good? What hadn’t changed though was the boxy white car parked a short way off. A little dusty and a little the worse for wear, it was perfectly usable nonetheless. My eyes were drawn to it, and my headache hadn’t passed and I felt a strange yearning tug at my consciousness.

I checked one of the doors – it was unlocked – and climbed in. I’d never seen the old man actually use this car, so I was mildly surprised to see the lush – and well maintained – interiors. Sinking into the rich leather, I put both hands on the wheel and pretended to zoom down an empty straight, tyres screaming and brakes forgotten. This was different, this was exhilarating; my headache eased up a little and presently I made my slow, convoluted way back home.

The following day, Mother could not find the coffee powder. I told her she’d run out of it at the same time she ran out of milk. I reminded her that she’d intended to pick up both of them from the warehouse together but somehow she’d forgotten and brought only the milk. She was bemused but took the slip up in her stride. Before she left for her shop, I asked her a question.

‘Didn’t you want to go to the city to check out the new supermarket?’ I asked innocuously.

Mother looked vaguely surprised at the question. Yes, she had intended to go, but she had always intended to go on vacation to Goa too. It was one of those things that tended to occupy permanent places on a to-do list, vague, vacuously pleasant ambitions that perhaps helped dull the pointlessness of routine, but surely not something one would actually go out and do. I knew what she’d say before she said it.

‘Yes, but it’s not really necessary right now. Besides, what about college? You really need to pick up your grades – you’re smarter than the scores you get.’ Her voice grew fainter as she started to walk towards the front door to wear her flip flops.

‘I have three hours off before lunch today, Mother’ I lied. ‘And I can borrow our neighbours’ bicycle and I’d be back in no time at all.’

‘Oh, all right then.’ she said, her mind already elsewhere.

The ‘city’, I knew from my geography lessons was actually nothing more than a large town. Seeing, however, as it was the only other sign of civilization within a two hundred kilometre radius, the name was appropriate. Like us, it lived off the highway, and the anonymous people who came from unknown places and passed us to go on to unknown destinations. Unlike us, it lay near a junction of no fewer than seven highways, a fact that made it a ‘city’ and us a ‘town’.

The city was fifty kilometres away and I covered the distance in a little over an hour. Pure joy rushed through my veins as I absorbed the journey in all its richness. Farms lined the highway on both sides – paddy, wheat and corn, so different yet so alike in the way the stalks seemed to dance to a hidden symphony, one played by the restless wind. The wind was never predictable and I loved the way it dived in and out of my hair, frivolously whipping it this way and that, threatening to knock off my glasses one moment, and steadying them the next. The sun burnt fiercely off my right shoulder but that felt fine too, curiously. Illusory pools of water glittered like gems on the sparkling asphalt in the distance, and the odd brick kiln added a spicy, heady aroma to the earthy background. The sheer break in routine was exhilarating yes, but that was not all of what me almost delirious with joy.

Something had changed yesterday. The sight of the car and the feel of the car had combined with the persistent headache and the foul temper to unlock things from my childhood I’d long forgotten. I’d like to call them memories, but they were more schools of thought stirred into existence by the right stimuli, stimuli that no longer existed. Back when Father had still been alive, he used to drive me to the city everyday. He’d been some sort of transport broker and this had been part of the job. I wasn’t sure what it was that had driven these memories out of my head, but with their return came an overpowering conviction that this was where I was meant to be, and this was where I had to be if I weren’t to waste away in sickness.

Days passed, and I didn’t visit the old man and his white car again. Each day, I convinced Mother to let me go to the city on the bicycle – I brought back enough gossip, and enough shiny, plasticky things from the supermarket to keep her happy. My headaches stilled for a while, but that wasn’t to last and they came back soon enough. I knew what to do though, and I’d known ever since the fateful encounter with the car. That day, when I saw a truck approaching on the other side of the highway, I switched the bicycle over to the wrong side and started pedalling furiously.

The truck driver was not paying attention to the road. I’d observed their lot keenly the past few days – their senses were so dulled by the routine nature of their job that they’d built up a resistance to anything that would actually break the monotony. Like little bicycles, no larger than one of their wheels, riding suicidally right into them. He did notice me eventually, but when I was only ten feet away. His eyes lit up in shock, and my heart leapt with joy. His hands worked the massive steering wheel frantically, but the truck was never built for that kind of response. An instant before the collision, I swerved off the road into a muddy ditch that lined it, and unable to control the bike at that speed, crashed it heavily. My knees were bruised, the skin had peeled off one forearm and my neck had suffered whiplash; but my mind raced ahead furiously, clear and completely rid of the headache, for the first time in a long time. I looked back to see if the truck driver would stop and turn back to berate my recklessness. But I’d read him correctly – he probably thought it was his fault, and that he was making a quick getaway. I laughed mirthlessly.

Mother wasn’t happy. I told her some of us had been trying to climb the archway in front of college, and I’d slipped and fallen. I hid the whiplash. She muttered and grumbled about growing up as she bandaged my various cuts. She wasn’t a bad woman, not really. I owed her for my very existence – a token debt, perhaps, because it was her duty after all, but it was something. But she was so predictable. Our neighbour was, surprisingly, not worried about the state of the bicycle.

‘Keep it’ he said generously. I found out soon enough that he intended to buy a scooter to speed up his newspaper distribution, and that he planned to expand to the city.

Perhaps it was my imagination but I felt the nature of my equation with the truck drivers change. They drove slower than ever, and many of them kept their eyes on the road longer. Chaos. I targeted the car drivers next. They were different. They drove faster, much faster, but with more concentration. I couldn’t merely cycle on the wrong side of the road as they’d notice me a long way away. Also, with them I had to pick and choose who to target, unlike the truck drivers. My first victim was an elderly lady who drove incongruously rashly in her little hatchback. I knew right away when I saw her approach that she was somebody who’d driven these roads a long time – somebody who’d expect things to work a certain way, and believed that they would, deep in her bones – a perfect customer for my trade by all appearances. I clung to the marks dividing the two sides of the road and when the car was only a few feet away I swerved right across the path of the car onto the wrong side. A startling childlike scream, almost unearthly in pitch, rent the air, and was immediately followed by a squealing of tyres and the earsplitting sound of shearing metal. I turned around. The little hatchback had crashed into a tree, and there was no movement inside. The ensuing silence was ominous. I searched my mind for any trace of sympathy, or even fear, but there was nothing; only a savage sense of pleasure that burst through my lips as a chuckle. I rode away. Chaos.

I stayed away from the road for a couple of days. It was torture. I started fights between two rival gangs of rich kids – one of them was nearly beaten to death, but I was only temporarily satiated. I sneaked to the warehouse in the middle of the night, picked up one of Mother’s new stocks of Blacks, and left it by the archway. The next morning, I walked in to find the rich kids arguing again, this time over their loot. Mother was distraught and I consoled her. I was glad to see that she broke her routine to add an extra layer of security to the warehouse.

Inevitably though, soon enough, I found myself making my way to the old man and his coconut tree lined farm. The padlock was still there, and the hut was dustier than ever. My head throbbed as I made my way to the car. Hotwiring the ignition – I’d picked up the trick from a trucker in the city – I spent a moment listening to the car thrum, and then turned it onto the back road that connected directly to the highway.

As I turned the car onto the wrong side of the road, a fatalistic mood of philosophical inquiry gripped me. Did these people even understand the incredibly fragile system that a simple highway was? Hundreds and thousands of variables, all perfectly balanced in the most complicated of protocols, a ceaseless dance that maintained the pretence of humdrum everydayness that the highway seemed to be. A truck appeared over the bend. Did these people respect the dangerous weapon they so carelessly wielded, or did they persist with their sense of entitlement? If they did, and I knew they did, they deserved to see differently. Now the truck driver saw me, and I saw the familiar series of expressions rapidly cross his face. Shock. Anger. Fear. Joy oozed into my mind like a drug and unfogged it gently; but I wasn’t satisfied. He swerved away from me, and I followed him. Resignation. In that split second before the collision, when my mind was at its clearest, I saw that he understood. I’d stripped away layers and layers of expectation in a moment, and he was, in a strange away, properly alive for the first time. Exhilaration ripped through my head like a wildfire, burning away the last vestiges of the fog.

The Script

For a really long time, I believed The Script was this fat, filthy rich dude who always wore white, open-neck tuxedoes and drove around in bullet proof cars, who all the ladies listened to because he bought them jewellery or something. That they all called him The Script and not Mr. Script, Sir Script or god forbid, just Script was a mark of respect, of course. Like calling somebody 'The Man'. You the man!

On Writing Poetry

I am able no longer
- to juxtapose these words into coherence
The implications, they strike me into rumination.

Peradventure, that which diminishes
- is my capacity for remembrance.
Peradventure, that which lies beyond me
- is this lexicon, and its discernment.

Or, these faculties, do they unravel?
- the mind, does it perceive it's own end?

The hour of my leavetaking, it's finally upon me.

Perhaps, like how the teeming millions of its fans keep insisting that you only need to have it once more before beer stops tasting like fermented dingo urine, poetry's just an acquired taste, because I often don't get it at all.
Perhaps, all this post will show is that there's a part of the brain that's for poetry processing and I either never had it, or a surgeon lobotomized it for an evening snack.

Anyway, since I never did get poetry, paradoxically, I'm convinced I know what it's all about. So much so that I came up for a brilliant algorithm that you can use to poem-ify any collection of well.. anything you can think of. Here's how it works.

1. Write something, anything.

I cannot think of a sentence.

2. Take each word in the sentence that's not a pronoun or an article, take out a thesaurus, find all synonyms you can, and replace with the biggest match. If you don't find any bigger synonyms or you just don't happen to like the ones you find (because they aren't weighty enough, naturally), replace such words with phrases of three words or more.

I am no longer able to juxtapose words into coherence.

3. Move some words around, add a comma here, a hyphen there. Do NOT put in full stops. You aren't ready for those yet. If you're wondering whether you're acting like a three year old, you aren't. You're being creative, so get on with the Yoda-ing.

I am able no longer

- to juxtapose these words into coherence.

4. Here's a tip you should brand on the poetry centres of your brain: anything that might under any conceivable circumstance be mistaken for humour, GET RID OF IT!
5. Now, pick a theme from the Emo Manual. Haven't heard of it? Don't worry, that little book's a part of our genome. Just take a deep breath, think about that Oscar movie you watched some time ago, that girl in class four you wrote reams of passionate (unread) love letters to, it'll all come out.
6. If you're still having problems, here're some pointers. 'Loss' is emore than er.. 'chocolates'. 'Death' - quite possibly the emost of the lot, be very, very careful - is emore than say, your bristly toothbrush.
7. Now that you're all ready with a theme, think of how you can transform what you've written down into a sentence that's vaguely related to your theme. If it's already kinda sorta like your theme, you're done. One line poems are gold in the world of poetry - the amount of angst you'd have packed into a handful of words would almost make it a WMD.

I am able no longer
- to juxtapose these words into coherence.

I wonder why that is.

Perhaps my memory's failing me.

Perhaps I never knew this language at all.

Or perhaps it's dementia.

I'm dying.

8. Well, all you have to do now is apply transformations 2, 3 (and a few more I'll list below) to all the other sentences until your tear ducts start to approve.
9. A tip: there's nothing more poetic than transforming the full stop at the end of a sentence into a question mark. With that little change, you'll suddenly have profundity oozing out of every syllable. Don't overdo it though - having every line end with a question will make your poem look like a pop quiz, and that's never good.

Or, these faculties, do they unravel?
- the mind, does it perceive its own end?

10. Don't do rhymes unless it's going to be that kind of a poem. Remember 4)
11. Archaic words sound more poetic. That's not a thumb rule, that's a fact of nature. 'Peradventure' sounds tons more poetic than boring old 'perhaps'.

Peradventure, that which diminishes
- is my capacity for remembrance.

12. Repeat words, repeat phrases, repeat whole sentences if your poem is long enough. Each new occurrence will have the rather curious effect of making all the earlier occurrences appear more poetic.

You're almost there - ready to roam the wild, free and unfettered. But oh, one last thing.

13. Never, ever, neverever forget to italicize your poem's text! There's something indescribably poetic, something deeply touching, something unutterably Emo about reading sloped text.

Workation

Some photo mashing with an old pun. Spot the original!