So wrote Joyce Carol Oates in the Sky Blue Ball part of a compilation called Collector of Hearts, New Tales of the Grotesque....
In reality, I was collectorofhearts@hotmail.com. And my new boss was shocked, intrigued and scandalised imagining the possibility of having to pass on this address of one of his team members to the Big Boss....
"Why on earth do you have such a ridiculous id?" she squealed at the lunch table...The woman who kept all my boss's secrets and had vowed to go to the grave with them in return for occasional other worldly pleasures that he offered her/himself...Well debatable in itself but lets move on to the actual story...."Because I am one." Full stop no more questions, answers, smirks, sighs, sneers and whatever else they could come up with to counter my little world....life, name...
Ah those years when I reveled in seriously collecting hearts....me the object of absolute devotion, someone they couldn't miss, but someone who would make them feel like a piece of dirty slimy algae you want to sweep off your the corner with the dirtiest muckiest broom for fear it might spoil the one you clean your indoors with.....Someone they could talk to and listen to in the silence of the night or even compare to the dashing waves that were going back with a little piece of the land each time they touched the shore....destructive in every measure one could think of yet so appealing one could do nothing to shy away from that vast expanse of charm, calling out to you in some unknown tongue, making you want to give up everything you hold dear, just to be a part of that mystical and magical experience....
I was not good for some of them...they still hate me with all the ferociousness they can muster when they stand face to face...some want me dead for having trampled all over them and then walked off humming their favourite tune...some want to possess me for the sheer magnitude of my existence which they understand they will never fathom even in the next nine lives given to them, some want small parts to be happy and boast about it over a nice drink in some shady pub while they watch other women cling on to partners and rolling their tongues on the dance floor...
But I am unattainable unless I let myself be taken...and taken I was one time...badly too....for once the collector got collected and I pondered over adding eggonface.com to it...but then the glorious queen had more than met her match and I merely ended up hiding blue-black bruises with long sleeves and cried into the night over a nice smoke...the only thing I believe will never let me down in the face of adversity...but that was an aside...
back to the story....and now I pray that he rots in hell and cries out in agony each time he shuts his eyes when those images flash by him and make him want to cry and repent but even the gods don't want anything to do with him...and his family that egged him on and ate out of my dad's savings with absolutely no shame and till date merely revel in bad mouthing the only piece of luck that went their way, I hope they rot in penury even as they search for the source that will give them their next meal and a roof to hide their shameful faces in their tattered clothes.....
I hold absolute wrath in my heart as I sob at times in the middle of the night imagining him sitting by my bedside, with my hands tied behind my back, beating me with a stick and ensuring that the marks were made where the public couldn't see and thereby managing to look good in the sun....and each time I gritted my teeth and watched in absolute fear mixed with resolve..not to give in, not to be the one who lets out a sob, wanting to hit him back and hoping someone would walk in and then hold him back while I lashed him with that stick...zoopppp...........and he threw me against the cot, my neck got hurt...am glad I am alive...writing this, thinking about what all could have happened....
And I want revenge at some point in my life...I would not want to turn in grave imagining the many ways I could have inflicted harm on him while I was still walking the earth....
But then I am not competing with Joyce Carol Oates ...she writes grotesque tales....so I shall remain mute for now...but what goes around does come around they say.....so I shall for now bide my time before nature's fury turns on him and his family..
