Leap of Faith

He was running hard and could hear his heart beating in his ears and his breath was getting raspy, his lungs burned.  The wolves chasing him did not let down, on his heels they were the chase would be over soon.  He sees ahead that the road is running out, there’s a cliff ahead.  He comes to the cliff and in seconds jumps to cling to a branch. The wolves cry overhead and bark at him, below are violent and wild crashing waves.  The branch gives a little, his time is running out. “Dear God! Please help me!” he screams out.

And he hears a voice inside… “You will be saved. But first, let go of the branch.”

Short Story: Shuffle.

“Dammit.” This reports going to take the whole bloody day. Why do I do this? Why am I here?

“He’s calling you into his office.” A colleague with general information as he passed by. I wouldn’t be irritated if it wasn’t for that smirk on his face, bastard.

Walking into ‘his’ office everything slows down. I suddenly know what’s going to happen and I smile. Eternity in a moment. I’m sitting down and he’s moving his lips but I already know what he’s going to say and then Radiohead starts to play… Radiohead and Sigur Ros. It was like having my iPod on Shuffle but the music was blending together.

It also wasn’t music…

It was all visual… I was both climbing a mountain and sailing the ocean at the same time with the voice of Thom Yorke pushing me up the mountain at the same time as the slow glacial music of Sigur Ros pushed wind into my sails.

“Are you listening to me? Why do you have that blank stare on your face? This is serious.”

It sounds like ice cream, feels like a sunset, looks like Beethoven’s ninth. I see the summit and feel the waves beneath me. What is this?

“Okay, it doesn’t look like I’m getting through… Hello? We have to let you go… I’m sorry. You can’t work here anymore.”

I’m smiling and I stand and walk out. I realised that for the last six months I’ve only ever thought about work and each day was singular. And now I realise that this was what I needed. I didn’t stop at my desk, I didn’t look back. I was outside with a smile. Floating on music and climbing my future.

I was free.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Short Story, Sigur Ros, Radiohead

Pink Stones

It was 4 carats.It was a pink stone.It had been catalogued in the collections of four generations of Scandinavian royalty. It was gone. The only clue was the Zulu spear.

It was then that Joey thought that maybe, just maybe, a Zulu warrior had actually infiltrated the fort-knox which was the local jewellery store and stole the pink stone from the unsuspecting owners. ‘Naah, it couldn’t be that…’ he told himself. ‘The owners did it!’ he screamed. ‘He was on holiday in Africa a week ago and he planted this damn spear to make us think a Zulu warrior had stole it!’ Three months later Joey was in a mental hospital… and nobody ever found out why he was shouting at the little pink sweets at the candy store… the ones next to the spear shaped jellies.

— The First Paragraph was a fragment provided by my good friend Zubair Habib :) —