TheTreasure @furiousfighters - Tumblr Blog

A Quest for Taste

Millie does not recall any distant childhood memories laden with aroma of comfort food. That was probably because no one in the home ever prepared any dish that would imprint in her memories forever. However, when she watches her fellow colleagues talking animatedly about the food from their childhood, she cannot help but feel envious.

Sitting in her usual cubical and staring at the cheap cafeteria sandwich made her groan loudly. Suddenly a strong sweet smell hit her senses; the fragrance glided through her nasal cavity and settled itself on her tongue, making her glands salivate involuntary. Millie couldn’t help but peek from the wooden barrier, searching for the source of this mind numbing smell. She felt as if she was a part of cartoon show, where she was in the air and an imaginary pull was tugging her towards it.

Her view halted, the third cubical in the row was surrounded with fairly good number of people. Some even poking heads from their respective wooden box. That was probably the source of smell that left her awestruck. She inhaled deeply again, it seemed to make its way to the gut as her stomach growled.

She stood up straight, and without even sparing a second glance at the sandwich she followed the call of her sensory organs, they guided her to the rich sugary smell that now set an uncertain yet permanent craving in her. She smiled politely at her fellow co-workers but before she could see them return the gesture, her eyes betrayed them over the appetizing halva in beautiful saffron colour, sitting proudly inside someone’s blue tiffin box.

To her that spread of halva, looked the most beautiful thing in the world at the specific moment. Everyone as well had their eyes fixed on that certain edible, spread corner to corner, filling the box properly. A few streaks of yellow ran over the mild orange colour along with dry fruits scattered here and there.

This tastes exactly, how my mother used to make Sahi Havla. Millie heard someone comment, few nodded in agreement and some started filling in the distant memories of delicious meals they have had.

She felt odd and out of place once again. Not that she never had a chance to try some culinary masterpiece, it’s just never mattered to her. For her family, food was just meant for survival and not something to relish over. But she regretted not enjoying her meals now. Her train of past paused as, Shyla, the owner of the striking meal offered her the box politely. Millie hesitated for a moment, but when the encouraging faces came to view all doubts flew out of the window.

She could almost visualise, how delicately layers were peeled off the carrot, grate into fine tendrils. The smell of butter as it melted on the pot, the hiss when the carrot was added. And the smell of everything altogether once the milk was poured, absolutely delicious.

Millie could wait no longer. She dug out good amount of chunk with the spoon, mildly noticing the pit she created in that perfect saffron square, but she couldn’t care less now. Almost like a reflex, her lips parted and she jostles it in. It felt so rich, good and melted immediately. Flavours burst out in her mouth melting it in the pit of her stomach; a fluid current seemed to run through her body.

It must have been prepared by the angels and severed straight to her. She related the extraordinary taste with the felling when she was claimed the best student in school, she felt really victorious that day and the halva somewhat felt winning that moment.

But before she could enjoy it a little more, it was over. The joy was only momentary, but left her longing more for it.

Millie could have asked for more or have had a few more spoons of it, but she did otherwise. Bowing her head she paid her gratitude to, Shyla.

Now, she realised it’s not only the halva or pleasure of any other food, people around her talks about, but the feeling of experiencing something that comes with it. You may not remember the taste of the food in the end, but process is what that remains forever.

And thus with a new lesson forever in her mind, Millie began her quest for taste.

#food #delicious #nostalgia

Too Steep

From the beginning, Millie had an interest to see the world from third person’s point of view.

It is easier that way, isn't it? Watching something afar,and sometimes she was also in the scenario as it was really not her but the anonymous self she created.

Actually being a third person is fun, better comprehension and understanding of the insight without actually being present there. Almost like an outer body experience.

But the drawback of this experience was; it was not stable, just momentary like all other good and euphoric things.

And now that all that is drawing to an end; like high school years, being pseudo was not really much of a help because everyone wants to leave high school or anyplace for that matter with a bang!

You are almost done now, on your way to an adult… were the perfect moment to have an outer body experience to avoid all these sorts but she couldn't.

It wasn't like nobody would let her (after all these years of practice, she finally understood the secret of being rebel) but this this she wanted it; voluntarily.

Now according to her people have taken the meaning of voluntary all wrong; for instance it can mean being the third person and watch from far with the involvement in your mind?

But that was not an option certainly.

Reality was something that is too steep to climb down and this astral projection of on outer body experience was something to keep forever.

Sure pseudo was not going to last long and there were other too serious thing around the corner, but right now; watching with a different eye with just observing was the most she could do.

#astral projection #pov #unsuperhero #bunking superhero

Too Steep

‘You don’t know what you got till it’s gone’ was something Millie heard every other street echoing.

But with every minuscule moment rushing past in bur forming a haphazard moment, she knew what it meant.

And for her it was every second now.

Where are those times, and where is every messy moment now?

For a person with photographic memory, it seemed more difficult than to keep every thought safe like porcelain in a bubble wrap.

Now with heightened emotions, every rock around the corner seemed to share a moment with her, no matter if the rock was born yesterday. But in that entire jiffy, she realized the sting of letting go is worse than everything.

Nostalgia was like a big truck with no brakes on really slippery tracks; 6th grade and all the grades were gone and all she is left with no good grades to take her anywhere.

Childhood was gone. And not even her superheroes with their time traveling power can do anything to rescue that poor phase.

It wasn't the process of growing up that is tough, it was the leaving something behind with pace of growing up that is bad.

And with a new found envy to the generation an epoch younger, she despised everything. ‘Some people just have it all’, was one thing she would utter every now and then.

In order to new leaves to grow, tree needs to push out some old to make room for young ones, but that doesn't mean the previous leaf sacrificed for nothing.

It was now just a matter of fact that needed to be swallowed with a throat dry as sandpaper.

Maybe her childhood along with every other from her time was not lost just hiding behind the face of someone who needed it.

Sure nostalgia doesn't have a break on sloppy tracks but it sure knew when to make the impact.

Reference: Sirish Ke Phool by Hajari Prasad Devadi.

#growing up #nostalgia #unsuperhero #bunking superhero

Too Steep

Once in a while, when you got nothing better be do (or maybe you have so many things to do but chose to believe the fact, it’ll be done) all you want to do stare at something.

And Millie was too weak to repel the power of a trance.

Although a trance can spellbound anyone anywhere anytime, the best place, according to Millie, to fall for a trance was when resting on bed and staring upward. It was as if to everything that has ever happened on this face of earth lay there upward and your eyes can search through millions of stuffs with mind's eye.

Now with all the thoughts sprawled out on the ceiling, the thought of self-existence snuck up.

Now this specific thought is enough to drive a person to do something heroic to prove themselves or to the pit of extreme despair, enough to regret the reason to be born.

And something somewhat similar happened to Millie, the question was there, raw latching to the thick air waiting for the answer in a deserted place.

Days, months, a whole lifetime later, Millie still cannot grasp the mystery of existence, precisely her own.

Was being a superhero, just a façade? To every possible thing she pretended?

Trying to recall your heroic act is difficult, when you have done nothing at all, but listened to people around you, about their deeds and doings. Everyone whining about every other thing, complaining and be grouchy. And you want to open your mouth as well… but the blank part of your mind make you appear like n awkward withering leaf with nothing but sheepish smile.

And now with very little self-experience on any possible thing but full of experience-by-others in her thought, a realisation dawn upon to Millie, like the process of before-after to a child.

At this moment the lifeless pale roof never looked so lively before, with stare fixed to the top and the insight of having a power, for real and not in pretence was a good feeling she knew.

A listener;

Falling into the same routine, overeating yourself to a specific activity and every other tiring thing but no one to talk to, actually starch that, no one to listen to. People need to get it out of their systems! A talk, all ears could, what else do the wold need?

From the moment the, Millie was not just the one who dreams to bunk class to be a superhero and save the world but she was already saving the world.

Every show needs spectator. And every thought need ears.

Millie decided was a listener.

#unsuperhero #listner #bunking superhero

Too Steep

The one thing this twisted, elongated process of ‘growing up’taught Millie one thing very specifically; How to be awkward.

Oh and never state ‘I’m awkward’, as it make the situation more awkward, that’s a tip Millie wanted to share.

Now Millie’s parents patiently waited outside the cocoon they wrapped and waited to blossom out a social butterfly fluttering her way to a wide horizon.

Well the cocoon cracked, alright. But a moth came along; you know the revolving aimlessly around bright light specifically in social gathering with huge blinding beams and wish to attain some sort of nirvana.

The point is… these gatherings proved nothing. And it wasn't like anybody was discussing about cold war or great depression, there.

Soon the realization hit her, that this particular activity was not a one-time thing. It is needed to be carried forward almost similar like a relation. And Millie didn't get the point why everything is needed to take forward?

Thus came along the question of; why she was being forced to be this social person?

And no matter what the medium of escape she choose; superheroes, or weird imagination to pretend she is not present in that moment. That reality always seemed to drag her down from there.

And we all know, Millie was not very much fan of reality.

But instead peeling the shell of awkwardness, all she got was the ripping off Band-Aid. The tender red swollen part the aid was torn away never really healed it seems. Just another skin of awkwardness replaced the first.

And if it’s left to her, Millie would keep that skin forever.

#awkward #bunking superhero #unsuperhero

Too Steep

Somethings lasts forever… and some unwanted things creep their way into the psyche of a person and get comfortable there.

Now, our Millie was a kind of girl who remembered every single detail of everything (like how loud the volume was while watching her favorite show.)

Millie had a photographic memory.

And every lone minute passed in the new school was taking over her mind like a bad photograph taken over and over with a Polaroid camera. Looking at a bad picture once is traumatizing enough and with a photographic memory like hers, it was almost as if to the same image is accidentally left with shuffle on your song playlist.

With above mentioned things, 11th sucked!

When many faces from same group stuck their hand in front of a new member from alien place, the stranger somewhat feels welcome and happy. But when all aliens come together for the first time and form some sort of unity, no one feels out of place.

Now everybody wants to fit in somewhere. But Millie was trying hard to fit into a place that never existed.

The relief in that moment was the bus ride to home; perhaps it was because, the only one she knew there was assigned to sit next to her, or it could the forty minute fantasy her bus buddy created with her words. She was the best story teller, Millie ever met.

On a random day, Dad gave Millie, a palm sized jotter to do who knew what? How is she supposed to write anything on those teeny weeny pages?

The hold the thing grew stronger than a glue fix, and before she knew it random stuffs began to make their way to the pad in form of her handwriting.

Now one day with the home computer screen illuminating and the small notepad to her side, she longed to run her finger through the keys to unlock the solution to this problem.

11th grade, faces from same group, stories, fit into a place, her photographic memory played them over and over again until they made a pit stop the specific part; Wet freshly washed hands of a bunch from her grade smearing on her uniform, caged in a circle, while everyone minded their own business and suddenly her with botches of damp water on her dress alone.

That is how school is right? Nobody’s business.

Millie searched; how to deal with bullies. The internet delivered many options, but the most promising one (which, Millie still thinks is awesome) was to cast a spell on your bullies.

Now maybe was tales her mate narrated, her superheroes or belief in magic or whatever, Millie scribbled the spell on her small pad.

School started and ended, the spell never got past her notebook.

#spells #bullies #unsuperhero

Too Steep

Now the first onset of High School year, the 9thgrade is the first phase of four more tortures years to come. You just got labelled as a senior part of school, you’re lost and a teenager and you’re suspicious of every possible atom around you.

And Millie was an embodiment of everything mentioned above.

With Puberty being heartless to her and bloating her up likea parachute and every other thought everywhere, Millie was beginning to loseher sanity (although she was a firm believer saneness is myth).

The whirlwind of replicating someone and yet being yourself was getting confusing because the line between pretense and reality was really thin.

The chant, ‘You can do it’ by the elders around kind of sounded like ‘Everyone is dealing with it, so why can’t you?’

9th grade almost seemed like a threshold of every bad thing, Millie can ever imagine. And her superheroes with metal claws, webs and psychic power power could not prevent what is coming. The once vivid imagination was now a distant relative who you forget if not close enough.

The omens black cat crossing your path and cawing of a murder of crow (which Millie didn't believe at all) almost seemed like a truth at this point. But then again the blurred line made everything a bluff.

Pushing pulling and swarming through unspecified crowd, a piece of fiction provided her relief like a charger to a dying device.

The theory of something super with words around was never absurd to her (She had a language of her own to prove the point) but now Millie can almost touch it with her sight, almost like a kaleidoscope of reality and imagination; both in peace together.

Reference: Marvel’s X- Men, Marvel’s Spider-man.

#unsuperhero #teenager #bunking superhero

Too Steep

Dry warm winds were the best reminder than the school calendar screaming that summer is here and Millie loved summer.

‘This year summer is better than last’ was the traditionMillie came up with when she was in 5th grade and watched moviestill late at night for the first time ever without parent’s consent, best first summer ever.

And now in 7th grade with summer approaching near she tried to continue the self-made 2 year tradition alive.

She couldn't wait to get off the cramped school bus and run home to start summer. All the unpleasant summer memories before the tradition rushed back to her, but her mind got stuck in 2nd and 3rd grade like a broken record. And the memory wasn't unpleasant or anything it was just boring.

Plain and simple like sheet centuries old stained with time but not a single thing impressed on it. Millie could not even distinguish those two years, they were the like same thing that happened twice!

All she recollected from those younger summer years were; Homework.

‘Write this Sentence Gazillion times on your workbook with neat handwriting.’ All the summer assignments were more or less similar to that. She didn't really have any quarries over that particular thing that time.

Now that she was old enough, she often pondered on the peculiar functioning of these works she did in school in younger years which made no sense at all, like the summer homework, which did not played any part in any kind of accomplishment all those year, except for the fact she had to buy a tons of pencil to finish the thing and by the end of the assignment the ‘neat handwriting’ appeared just like a lore.

But now that is all forgotten, right? They weren't that insensitive now, are they?

Millie’s thoughts were like a body of its own, creating a certain oblivious immunity to push out a foreign object, pretending it’s all fine and sickness is a distant thing that cannot get past this protection.

But strong virus wins every time.

Sure Millie can question now and was in 7th grade. Things changed for her.

But the pattern to 2nd and 7th grade seemed to be frozen forever.

#bunking superhero #unsuperhero

Too Steep

"Too steep is a series of post, of Millie, a person (not just a girl) with endless fantasies and imagination and how life peeks through every one of them".

When Millie was in 6th grade, she use to fantasize that, the walls of pale discolored classroom with odd blue border will turn transparent as she would snap her head to different direction and the mathematical equations the teacher was scrawling on the board of another class for test would be as visible as light.

That didn't happen.

Nor did the mere imagination of the green board which was now faded with chalk dust, to turn into a sudden hi-tech screen with ‘Secret Mission’ people on the other side of display would be calling for her to save the world; She would be getting her special backpack and secret suit ready while rest of the class (including the teacher) would gawk as her shoes shoot fire and she would be off to ‘Saving the World’.

That didn't happen.

The point is… Millie wanted to save the world or do something so cool no one had thought of; Like ‘Six Sticks’; her first ever odd creation with words. Her classmates laughed when she narrated the plot to a closed group; there is no superhero or superpowers in real. They had it all together between sanity and insanity (or abstract thinking as Millie would like to call it) in only 6th grade!

Hell even Millie knew that, She just… wasn't ready to admit it yet.

The heroic characters around Millie had solution to everything, which she longed to be like. They had an escape, which this twisted realistic place didn't let her to have.

They trapped her with their petty threats and wouldn't let set free of this pathetic fear of ‘what if something goes wrong’; like this one time Millie flunked in maths badly, you know how 6th grade maths could be, and the teacher who reeked of bad body odour threatened to tell her dad, That insolent man!

But after endless marathons of smarty pants stuffs, Millie was smart. So she told her dad first!

Take that now, insolent man!

Just as her bubble of being smart was budding up, insolent man expressed his unharmed thought of discussing the horrible grade to her classmates.

A specific unheard thing twisted inside, which was probably the very first portion of transformation to something obscure and undefined that our 6th grader was not set for.

All she wanted to be the one who, ‘Bunk class to save the world’. Unaware of the evils she has to face to be the ‘Bunking Superhero’.

That was the first day Life Happened to Millie, the 6th grader.

And after a long span of time, now it was all a distant memory, a form of nostaligia that shakes the inside of her psyche every now and then, leaving a stretch of smile or a frown sometimes. Somewhat somewhere, Millie realised, as much as memories cherish you leaves your dark day with a ray of sunshine. Those sunshine is followed by a sunset called reality, which no living being in this very universe has ever escaped.

#too steep #unsuperhero #bunking superhero