L'esprit de l'escalier

Photo by  Jeffrey Czum  from  Pexels The Matchbox House  By Swadha Rawat   Struck a match Or in this case, well more than a few: A bubbling vat of oil, a hunk of smouldering charcoal and Another shovelful of hard, dark coal fuel. Covered your ears, breathed in the smoke: Wispy strands and dissipating tendrils caressing your hair.   Set a clock, and forgot, that it was ever there. A decade, two, three and four Then struck it with a baseball bat when the buzzing alarm wouldn’t stop. Eyes still closed, In a slowly warming up room: stifling, festering, irrevocably altering. The ice starts dripping down, pooling round the refrigerator But the taps run dry, coated with a fine layer of corrosive acid. (Entire biomes lost, entire species gone, entire livelihoods lost to the seemingly inevitable crawl of time.)   It was not inevitable, it could be stopped But still the man in the room lies, half asleep, deaf to his own wheezes,...

The Reaper   by Swadha Rawat Co -First Place Winning Piece at the 2019 Writer's Guild, Modern School Flash Writing Contest for Grade 10   Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels   Even as the drums of war reverberated in the caged city,  A shroud of mourning muting the fallen kingdom, The Black Market glistened With precious swords and stolen stones The tinkle of golden bangles on slender wrists and golden coins trading hands. In the tangled web of crooked alleys Awaited a wizened old woman Whose eyes shone in the dark with the wisdom of a thousand suns. The newly crowned invaders swarmed the market Dark hands covered in blood reaching for even more After burning their lore and crushing their defeated souls. The Red Knight General of the conqueror’s force Swept into an alley in his bloodred cloak And looked down upon A crippled, wizen woman with a headband of beaten gold His gloved hand snatched the glittering circlet away. Her yellow teet...