Worthing Flash

 I think we've reached the end of our friendship. I'm not sure that we will agree about who has been the better ex friend, but up for consideration are the following. That unfortunate business in 1987, when your first wife left you for her lesbian lover, and you drank whole bottles of whisky and slept out under hedgerows.  I was very understanding about that. You had plenty of support. Then the cat got run over and the wife was still playing away and you phoned me one morning when I was getting the kids ready for school and I had to overdose them on chocolate buttons to help you out. Plenty of back-up there as I recall. Things were rather quiet until the year 2001, when you wrote that mysterious letter from hospital, saying that you were there because others had deemed you  a danger to yourself, and please could I help again. Naturally, I helped lavishly. I think we should draw a discreet veil over that disgraceful tantrum you had in 2017, about the Bronze...

Dear Diary, This is so embarrazzing. I don't know what I was thinking. Okay, that's not true. I do know what I was thinking. I wanted to get away from them. My parents. They're constantly bickering about petty shit and even now, when we're here in this perfectly picturesque place, they can't stop for five minutes. I tried to go to my room, shut them out but their voices are too loud and this Airbnb is too small. So I got into my dad's stash of weed brownies and ate a whole one. I thought it'd make me too high to pay attention. Boy was I wrong. Instead of floating me off to cloud nine like I'd seen it do in the movies, it just enhanced everything; sight, sound, hearing, fears, anxieties, insecurities...I felt like I was drowning in every thought I'd ever had. I had to get out. So I climbed out of the window and ran. Yeah I know, we're in the middle of a damned National Park, there are animals and shit, and I ran out into the wilderness at dusk.   ...

  Lamp Post Stopped at the light and from across the street, you know at a glance that the woman leaning against the lamp post on this overcast day leaning toward rain is Debbie, your first wife, whom you haven’t seen in twenty-five years, which means the infant in her arms is who? Probably a grandchild. It’s the way she leans, the way she holds her head. You wouldn’t have been able to identify any of your other wives this quickly, but there has always been something about Debbie that none of your other wives and girlfriends have, and you feel her loss in your chest in a way you didn’t when you were twenty years old. She must feel you staring because she looks up, tilts her head at you and then mouths the question, “Chester?” She was the only one who ever called you that, everyone else calling you Chaz. You smile and raise a hand in a wave, and she holds up the baby so you can see his or her face, and that’s when the light changes, and you exit her life once again. Nin...

  I reached my native place in Kerala and immediately called up my school classmate Sankara and requested him to pick me at 4 PM to meet our school class mate Krishnan.  As promised he reached my gate and used the car horn. Sankara was my intimate close friend during school days.   I didn't waste any time getting into the car and soon we drove to our adjacent town Cheruthuruthy.  As we were reaching town he said. 'VK, look who is walking in front of us, It is Mani.'Sankara stopped the car beside him and called out his name and he got into the car.    'Mani, who is with me.' Mani looked at my face. I moved the mask down, seeing my face full he shouted. 'VK, it is you, so nice to see you after so many years.' I was not able to remember his face. I pretended that I knew him. We dropped him near his house and proceeded to Krishnan's house.  Sankara said, 'VK, I think you didn't know that person' I said, 'yes, I did not.' Sankara said. It ...