A curious case of Mr. Curious

A hilarious satire on sadness and tragedy

23rd March, 1994

“I know. Sometimes, stars don’t want to orbit. Do they want to break free too? The center of a galaxy is so heavy that its gravity pulls the star, forcing it to orbit around it. Is the galaxy orbiting too? Yes, i think. Who is the base, then, taking into account all permutations? This orbit that, that orbits that but which doesn’t orbit?” " I asked to my 3 year old son.

He was staring at me, when i started asking the question, by the end of which, he was staring at the graphic of a lioness printed on a bed sheet.

I felt depressed, knowing that even a human with fresh brain don’t understand the question. I wanted to tell him the story of his past birth and how he should help humanity grasp nature of things - macroscopic and microscopic.

13th June, 1995

“Don’t shout! I am not your servant.” - My wife shouted these words on my pale skin. She didn’t even wait for me to respond and started laughing, mimicking demons of pre-Ramayan era. She laughed for ~73 seconds, looked at me nervously and blurted out some unclassified words. Suddenly, the voice of cry from my Cerelac-craving son fell on our ear. She left her sentences mid way and gave me a look, saying as if - “I am not done, you son of a b***h and her husband. I am gonna return.”

I could hear her kicking my son’s butt with her palm and abusing him with sophisticated idioms. I didn’t care. She had hit my butt several times too, using palms of her hands and feet.

6th September, 1995

The sun was about to rise, when i heard those alarming voices, i supposed, were coming from my son’s room. I put my hand on wife’s side of the bed to check her availability for solving the issue and found her missing. I rushed towards the room, where i saw my son hanging, his head tilted downwards, from her hands. She was using my son as a pendulum, oh, asking him to respond aggressively. I snatched the pendulum, oops my son, from her hands and showed my rebellious middle finger as my protest for this out-of-the-box motherly affection.

I took him to my side of the bed, pleading him to stop sobbing so much, and concentrate on broad things. “what do you think about emotions and the consequences resulting thereof? I think, emotions are not natural. Why? Because they change abruptly and very quickly. You feel happy to see someone and grumpy even to think of someone. If we all are made from same chemical substances, how can you love hydrogen in one matter and hate another hydrogen in second one?” His audacity to sob increased this time, and i, on my unfortunate parental skills, dreamt of her mother to come and caress (in her own fashion) his butt.

1st December, 1996

“Today, we all are gathered to mourn the death of a great man, while he was alive, Mr. Tony. I want you to take 2 minutes out to pray for his soul’s peaceful departure from this sinned earth. I also want all of you to think of yourself as next-in-line and admire the death as you admire life. I also want you to shout in your mind, while  remain in silence, as if to communicate your permission for Mr. Tony’s soul to Rest in Peace. Proceed.” - Mr. Tony’s third wife, and not some man-in-black, pronounced those relaxing sentences. I asked my brain to take out 2 minutes for this task but what the f&*k. Out of 120 seconds, i could only think of ‘a great man’ for only 24 seconds, and that too imagining him with my wife, who left me a year ago (after the pendulum incidence) and married him to become his second wife, only to divorced again after 3 months.

My son, who forgot to do the delicious lunch "cooked by me" in school, was also with me. He, i think, did not close his eyes for 2 minutes and instead was looking at a frog on the leaping movement. I was angry. I took his attention by throwing a stone at the frog. The stone, however, hit the dead body, which was a  dead body of ‘a great man’. My son looked at me, laughing. I took him to a nook and asked him to behave in an accepted manner. I also asked him to contemplate on this very specific issue, known as death, for some hours. “the death is going to be a reality, as you going to fail is one. You can’t escape both. Read Quran, Bhagvad Gita and Bible to understand the real nature of body being born and body decaying. What, as per you, will happen to the body of ‘a great man’ after his death? I think, he will go to hell for marrying others’ wives. You know, all of his wives were second-hand. Hard to believe. Well, you, my son, have to devote your time in grasping these intricate issues.”

19th August, 1999

Mr. Alfred, my doctor, was a very patient man. He listened to my aching voice, in my own posture in luxurious bed in his clinic, and never complained if i ever forgot to take medicines or consume alcohol. This, i think, showed his generosity towards his patients, which leave patients to do what they like and not what is otherwise required. I had a relationship with him of  6 years. Now, at present, i was telling him my condition in my trembling and aching voice and wondering that a record had been made for such a long patient-doctor relationship. How, and in what portion of the earth, would it be possible for a simple heart-ache to convert into heart-attack? He, by the way, asked me have rest and take care and do what pleases me. It was so nice of him.

“What pleases me?” " i was thinking in the cab returning home. I thought of food, sex and asking questions to my 8 years old son. Well, i couldn’t eat my favorite spicy and oil-drowned food, not because Mr. Alfred had added a precaution. It was just a matter of heart-ache every time i ate such food items. Well, regarding sex, Mr. Alfred was responsible. He had remarried my butt-soaking wife, after ‘a great man’ died. I had proposed her too to remarry me but she had said -  ‘its complicated’.

I reached home, in the meantime, to find my son reading ‘a brief history of ww1’, when other children in the neighborhood were busy playing. “what’s wrong with him? How he turned out to be such a jack-a*s?” - I wanted to delve in this mystery but, out of my 3 pleasing tasks, he was the only one left. I took him to my favorite British-style restaurant, where a conference on ‘reducing the use of nuclear weapons for everything including war’ was taking place, and asked him questions about infidelity in the 21st century and India’s role in Cosmos after achieving success in MOM.

25th December, 2000

I died on this day. My heart had caught me during its non-communicated-earlier attack and so i couldn’t respond. When i took a breath after the death, i sighed a relief. I saw my son staring at my body, in philosophical posture, and telephoned his mother to arrange a worthy, but not so expensive, ceremony. He requested her to save some money, out of this venture, for his college education, if in case, he will not receive any scholarship. What was i feeling? Nothing. I wanted to wait for my ceremony but i had no time, as ‘a great man’ was calling me to have some communications regarding our earthly wife.

Reviews

[Ranfer]

It was funny and sad at the same time.
Well there are some people like this but we should not discriminate them.the story was nice.You have written some events about that curious man and also about his wife.you could have added some more events.

[Gaurav]

haha. trust me, lots of discussions and debates have gone into this. I still am not sure what to do haha. I had written this piece in a very short time not even thinking about craft, story line or other details. I just put what ever came into my mind. But then its WC and i really am inspired to see that how much seriously we are care about the authenticity. Thank you so much for giving your review.

[Ranfer]

You are welcome

[Kathy Van Kurin]

'A curious case of Mr. curious'
Gaurov,
This was a free write where a person just allows thoughts and feelings to flow forth. It is interesting to note the material which was within your mind and came forth. This story could be made into a book with sections above placed in separate chapters. Like a memoir of sorts.
Blessings,
Kathy

[nightshade]

I really like that all of the different pieces are like journal excerpts from different points of his life. I think that some of the thoughts that the character has could be explained more, some of it was weird and it was at times hard to tell what was going on

[Gaurav]

Thank you for the review. I understand. While writin g i just painted some funny incidents.

[andrew mitchell]

An interesting story of leaps and bounds

[Gaurav]

Thanks Andrew

[ExquisiteEyes]

The story has a very philosophical start. I like the questions that were being asked. I also found humour in certain parts.
But I think it was a bit sketchy...a few more details and descriptions to connect the incidents would do the job.

[Gaurav]

You are right. It could have been more descriptive. Will keep in mind if i write such stuff again. Thanks anyways.

[ExquisiteEyes]

You're welcome

[Bubbles]

Very jumpy and skippy. I have a hard time understanding what the plot and story line is. If this is a short story, you did a great job in summing it up, but it was extremely jumpy.

Don't be afraid to add a little description in here, or explain the protagonist's (the father) thoughts and emotions! Don't worry, though, my story is extremely jumpy and has wide gaps. I am trying to fix it, and I wish I had this sort of criticism long before I reached the point that I am.

There are also a few grammar mistakes. Mostly capitalization.

Try to explain the father's thoughts in this. Really, it helps a lot with the reader. Description is everything. Here, let's put it this way.

Let's say you are blind. Most of the time, you have no idea what is going on, and you depend on one person, and one person alone to explain what is happening around you. Scary, right? You put a lot of trust in this one person.

The way you live your blind life is the way this one person explains it. If you were eating your meal, you would need a step-by-step lead through to help you feed yourself. This one person is who you depend on. If they use excellent description, and tell you what is happening every time you do something, so you don't make a mistake and hurt yourself.

Authors are this one person. The way you explain your character's movements and actions is the way your readers are going to see it. Explain the movements and background information and DON'T FORGET TO EXPLAIN THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS! Treat it like you are holding a family conference!

"I don't like the way you hit our son, wife, because I do not believe that it shows proper motherly nature, and our son will end up in a bad place if all he knows is abuse. I want him to love his parents, and enjoy being at home, not dread it. I think we should start..." That's just the basics. Fill in the blanks from there, and you'll be set! Don't be afraid to edit it. :)

One more thing!

Something my dad has always advised me about is how to speak to your audiences. Believe it or not, but it is a good idea to WRITE LIKE YOU ARE SPEAKING TO AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. Use a large array of descriptive words, but try to keep them simple and understandable. It ties sentences together, and keeps the reader interested. While reading, I became confused and exhausted trying to piece together the words, and eventually gave up. It took several times of rereading to finally gain my interest back enough to keep reading.

YOU DON'T WANT THIS! Begin to make this a goal to use a simple, yet wide-ranged vocabulary. Google synonyms, if you have to!

Just a suggestion!

[Gaurav]

I never thought about such marvelous intricacies to look for. May be, i am getting benefits of surrounded by nice writers and strong critics. Will keep your note in mind as i try to seek new writing venture. Thanks again.

[Bubbles]

No problem. Sorry I was so hard on you. I'm a lot younger than you would probably expect, so maybe I just don't understand the book because I'm so young.

[JayG]

• “I know. Sometimes, stars don’t want to orbit. Do they want to break free too? The center of a galaxy is so heavy that its gravity pulls the star, forcing it to orbit around it. Is the galaxy orbiting too? Yes, i think. Who is the base, then, taking into account all permutations? This orbit that, that orbits that but which doesn’t orbit?” " I asked to my 3 year old son.

Adding a tag 63 words into the quote is like appending “Lincoln said,” to the Gettysburg Address. Your character is responding to something unknown, and speaking to someone unknown, till the end. So while reading there’s no context. That’s why starting any scene with dialog us usually a bad idea. In this case the rejection would come before the end of the quote, were an agent or acquiring editor be the one reading.

Added to that, there’s another problem. Only you know HOW to read the paragraph. Remember, the reader doesn’t know how a line should be handled as they read it, unless what has gone before sets them for it. Were you to come to, “John, you are a real b*****d,” how would you read it? As deadly insult? High praise? A doctor giving a DNA report? Any of the three, and many more, would fit. So unless you make the reader know how they would speak the line, were-they-the-speaker, they won’t read it as you would. And here, you haven’t made the reader know anything about what’s happening but the bare words.

Yes, you have intent for the story, and how to read it, but intent doesn’t make it past the keyboard. To make the opening work, the reader would need to know who they are, where they are, and what’s going on. And the information should be provided, not as an info-dump, but in passing, in a way the reader doesn’t notice happening.

A bit of digging into the techniques of storytelling for the printed word wouls be a great help, and make the job a lot easier.

[Gaurav]

Thankyou for taking out time to review the work. Appreciate the intricacies that you pointed out while reviewing the work. This story is different and i am happy with the way it turned out to be. I did not care about the literary frameworks while writing the story and am never going to care for those in future as well. I write what comes to me naturally and not what is as per standard. Thankyou again for the review. Appreciate it.

[JayG]

Not arguing, because you certainly have the right to write in any way you see fit. Just something to keep in mind: If you're writing for yourself you have the most appreciative of critics. But if you give your work to others, readers are not going to change their standards of what they view as good/bad. They're hoping to be entertained, just like they are when reading the pros. And being unaware of your goal, some are going to critique and offer suggestions. So when you post in a forum where others post hoping for writing you might, want to note that you're not, so people like me me don't waste time offering help where none is wanted.

[Gaurav]

I really did not want to come as too strong through my review reply. I was trying to hide the weaknesses in my writing through utter descriptions. All your points are valid and i will take care of such intricacies afterwards. Thankyou for the constructive review.

[dan]

Gaurevv, I read this 3 times and I must say I feel unqualified to review this piece because I don't understand it. Satire is my favorite genre of literature and I can tell you that this isn't satire. Just calling it an offbeat 'story' might change my feeling but I just couldn't understand your intent. Sorry. take care...dan

[Gaurav]

Sir, the whole purpose of calling it a satire is primarily because the protagonist tend to think of tragedy as another form of humor in life. We use satire to ridicule the weakness of certain things/system without using a direct form of cribbing. Mostly satire, as a definition, is used to elucidate about government or individual but, in my work, i used to ridicule sadness and tragedies of life. I hope it somehow explains my intentions behind the work. And, i also hope that you correct me in case of any discrepancy. Take care.

[dan]

Satire is supposed to impart humor as it provides commentary about a person/thing. I didn't detect that as I read. take care...dan

[Gaurav]

sure, i will keep this in mind while writing a new piece. Thankyou for the review.

[Dayran]

A day in the life of father ... caught in these changing times of roles ... values and norms. A drama in real life.

[Gaurav]

Thankyou Sir for the kind review. Appreciate it.

[Manisha]

I like the way how you see things. Beautifully written :)

[Gaurav]

Thankyou for your kind words. Appreciate it.