Water war.

Water war

One of the poorest neighborhoods in the world is in a Kerala town in India. The neighborhood is literally two streets and houses on those streets. There are constant fights between those who live on Jayashankar road and those who live on Priya road. The streets are parallel to each other. The main source of fighting is the single well that provides water to the people of both these streets. It is a perpetual fight to be the first there and to draw enough water so that a family is able to cook, clean, drink, and bathe.

If you go there in the wee hours after midnight, you can see empty buckets and pails lined up on both sides of the well. In a hour or so, the women and children will come to draw water and get started with their days. But each street has their own gang of hoodlums. The Jayashankar gang smashes the earthen pitchers that belong to families on Priya. The exact same situation happens with the Priya gang. The constant one upping often leads to several families going without water on some days. The only one happy is the pot maker. There is violence on some days, and always sorrow. If your family has a meal of thick gruel, then it is a happy day.

Of course, this is a tale of two star-crossed lovers. John from Jayashankar and Hari from Priya road. It is hard enough to live on these streets and be lovers. But the animosity each streets have to each other is probably less than the homophobia of the people in this town.

On a day after intense fights between the two groups, a woman from outside the town comes to the water well and drinks without a care for the people gaping at this audacity. She is Esther. To the corner, at the tea shop, she finds out about the fights and this general animosity. She hears it all and recognizes an opportunity. She bounces from one side to the other side offering her services to get more water for each street. Playing each off the other, she hopes to some how end this fight. She jumps from one gang to the other raising the stakes, escalating the fights. All of this on the idea that in the end that the fighting might end with the gangs self destructing because of this escalation. Of course, this is made difficult with the two lovers. She hopes to unite them. But to unite them and have them be accepted is the part that borders on insanity. But she can do it. The question is how...

Eyes like a Hawk.

Hawk sight.

Every year between September and November, thousands upon thousands of Raptors fly over the Northeast on their way down south. Hawks, Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles are just some of the birds seen. Chimney Rock, New Jersey is maybe 1000 feet in size, but birdwatchers flock there to see this magnificent sight. Most eyes are turned to the skies. But a look down reveals giant gravel mounds left by the mines that still pump out Copper and Calcite. 

Akash Sinh works in these mines. On the days off, he goes onto Chimney Rock and looks through his binoculars. Around him are other avid birdwatchers looking to the skies. But, today, he is alone. Despite torrential rain and wind, he is determined to be the first to see the birds fly by after the storm. A shriek in the quarry below startles him. As he looks, he sees two men carrying something heavy into the mine. Again and again, these men do this as though by rote. Over a period of a half-hour, a little more than dozen of these heavy packages are left in the mines. Puzzled, He decides to keep this to himself. The storm runs for almost two days. In the aftermath of the storm, the biggest news story is the disappearance of a large group college students who were coming back from spring break. One of the missing left a desperate sounding voice mail to his father before it was cut off. Akash wonders what to do. Does he speak up and possibly be in danger himself or just shut up and keep on living. How are his wife and two-year-old son affected by this. Is his family's safety and joy greater than that of all the families who worry about their missing children? What will he see if he goes that deep into the mines? 

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Five Murders and the Romany

Five Murders and the Romany

You are Bashalde of the Sinti and by extension you are of the Romany. You are a gypsy. Itinerant and traveling throughout Europe and this is your life and profession. At every stop, you sing and talk of Sinti lore and snippets from far away lands that you've “come from.” But in the last five places you have stopped,young boys have been killed. Each time, with the words of one of your songs scratched into the dead bodies. Sinti law states that for the Traveler, outside laws do not matter. Tradition requires you to walk on and to let the outside world swallow you and your teaching. And then you leave before harm comes to you or any others. But for you the harm is happening and has happened. You are implicated in these five murders. You, Bashalde, find it hard to keep with your world and people. This, probably, will have you in jail or, worse, killed. You find your choice a difficult one. Have faith in Sinti tradition and travel on. Or do you leave as as to clear to your name by finding who is the actual murderer.. The first possibility is to be prosecuted by the outside world. The second would be to possibly losing your family behind. To lose it all permanently. . So you leave your Sinti family and traditions behind and walk into the world outside. Lost and without a friend, the only place to start is the tavern.

Email: In which an African princess solicits money

Email: In which an African princess solicits money

An African prince has been been kidnapped while studying at MIT. Unfortunately, the ransom demand is too high for his sister, the African princess, to pay without destroying the livelihood of her people in her kingdom. Having no other recourse, she emails random people, who number in the millions, across the globe asking for help. Thousands of people answer and she has more money than necessary for the ransom demands. Honor dictates that she can't accept charity. Her plan is that the people she solicits would pay small parts of the ransom and she would slowly pay them back after getting her brother back. She even offers them a significant extra dividend based on how much money these wonderful saviors give her to pay the ransom. The people from the email list send her money money than the ransom amount. She pays the ransom and invests the rest in multiple offshore accounts across the world. She hopes that the lack of taxes and the high return value would help her pay of her saviors. All this while, law enforcement agencies across the world are spying on the princess because of these suspect fiscal activities. Another reason for all this is to to gain control of her country by political and corporate organizations. All the while, our princess goes about the duty of ruling the kingdom while being unaware of the espionage. The politics of the issue forces the law enforcement to try to imprison her and seek control of her assets. Breaking out of the jail, the princess runs. In her possession is the ancestral seal, the blessings of her people and, most importantly, a list of people who helped her with money. She hopes they will again help her through shelter, food and, most importantly, save her kingdom from these dastardly villains.  

The Clockmaker

In 2010, the doomsday clock was at 6 minutes to to midnight. In 2015, the cloc had reached a new all-time low at 1 minute to midnight. IN 2020, large mobs all over the world are agitated by this change. At 2021, doomsday clock is at midnight. The Doomsday clock along with each of its replicas are destroyed. In 2060, new life forms are noticed on Jupiter's moon,Ganymede. Over a course of 10 years, the alien life forms have moved on to Saturn. The rate of travel seems to be accelerating very quickly. It is estimated that in 10 years, they would touch down on earth.

The UN has restarted the Doomsday clock. Joachim is the curator for the clock and all its mechanisms. The world outside is being divided into different cliques. Isolationism, integration, warfare, and first contact. Of course, there are others who belong to more conspiratorial cults. Aside from general care of the clock mechanism, he is part of all politics between the different group. He is the Clockmaker.


~
Arun K Raman


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How the cookie crumbles

Based on a weird Halloween costume here's a story idea.

Some time in the distant future, scientists have found methods to bring any idea to life. However, each of these characters are governed by the ethos of their own universe. When confronted with our world, their world view is stretched and contorted to mesh with our world. At times, this can go awry.

One of the early creations were to bring Cookie monster to life. With the principle of "Cookies are a sometime food" CM starts hunting down people and either eating them or turning them into Ghouls who draw in prey. You are a monster hunter bent on ridding the world of the Crumbling Cookie universe.

The assembly line is turned on.

While I have many ideas on what to do on the internet or off of the internet, I seldom accomplish them. With this try I hope to accomplish my goal.

Often times, I think of ideas for fiction, rpg, futurism and/or, but not limited to, science experiments.

Like an assembly line, I hope to crank out quick posts on a daily basis. Each post will be quite short and isn't really a story. It is the seed of stories that I or anyone else might want to use.

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Love

Arun K.