Manish Pathania | Author

All these words written
and saved as incomplete poems
on my laptop,

And all those places
where I wandered off to
around the world
to define a meaning for my existence,

And all those future endeavours,
hopes,
dreams,
and aspirations,
that you once wished me well for,

And all those chores,
that filled up the mundane

workout routines,
bicycle commute to work,

thousands of lines of code,
trips to the grocery stores,

ignored calls,
unanswered texts,

cans of beer,
butts of cigarettes,

tinder dates,
unreciprocated feelings,

culinary experiments,
guitar lessons,

walks by the river,
sunsets over the high rise glass buildings,

distasteful relationships
promises of satiated desires,

would amount to nothing,
if I do not see you on the other side.

This silence,
that we once shared as love,
would be left to remember me by.

I do not remember much about her
-the precursor to all longing,
where the search began
many lives ago-

self-sufficient,
cold,
detached,
all emotions rationed away
for posterity
and all love kept at bay
for the next.

A crossword puzzle,
where all whites have been filled
with dreams,
and all blacks superimposed with tiny hearts
that dangle about that crooked smirk.

An omniscient oblivion
that knows all adorations
revolving around her in yearly cycles.
and keeps the count of
all lives moved on
in frustration
and all lives still stuck
in the unread messages.

but I do remember all the days
that I longed for her,
and then some
of the days
while lamenting some other transient
friend or lover
my thoughts returned to her
and somehow, it never failed to remind me
of all the strength
I possess to fuck my life
all over again
and come out alive on the other side.

I am more troubled
than usual
this time around, so I’d pass
the annual attempt at the tiny portion
of her attention,
but the search still continues,
and I keep bumping into the women that are
distant copies of her persona -self-sufficient,
cold,
detached,
ephemeral-
or the demons I encounter,
are the ones that I bring along in
my own purgatory

It used to be easier
falling in love
back when people had not yet instilled the idea
that my time to fall in love was running out.

I had not seen enough life
to doubt
people with grey hair,
and melting hearts
but with every passing second
I pity myself for believing that every approaching light
to be the sun on the horizon.

I am not proud of myself
for wandering off to the barren fields
and bow down my head
in front of an invisible god,
but when you’ve shut your eyes for so long
darkness starts to seem blinding.

I’ve danced around the fire,
and I have taken a dip in the holy water.
I’ve auctioned my body for buyers
and I’ve placed my bets in the race.
I’d rather be drinking or writing
from now own,
for everything else is a waste of my breath,
if I a’int making love.

‘The Glitch’ won the Juggernaut short story contest 2018. The Juggernaut Short Story Prize is an annual short story prize that runs for two and a half months and invites entries from budding writers all across India.

“The results are out- while there were so many entries that made us think of life and literature in a new way, these three in particular stood out and hence bagged the prize:

First Prize- The Glitch by Manish Pathiani

The winning entry, this particular story was the one that we found most gripping and innovative, making it seem like an episode of Black Mirror.

A man sits in a bar and meets a woman, who turns out to be the owner of a startup that produces virtual reality devices that allow you to experience someone’s life in real time, from the bits they choose to show to you. The man agrees to be a beta user, and becomes obsessed with an Indian woman DeeDee who shows him glimpses of her life through the VR device; a glitch in the device however makes him see much more than he could ever wanted to…”

Read more at
http://blog.juggernaut.in/the-winners-of-the-juggernaut-short-story-prize/

You can read the story here .