The Silent Accord
Chapter I: A Sliver of Stillness
In the late 1930s of the century, there came an age when people no longer heard the wind.
Not because it ceased to blow, but because the noise of everything else had grown too vast. Cities drummed endlessly—advertisements whispered from vapour screens, traffic sang its daily hymn, children recited lessons aloud to omnidirectional recorders, and even plants were encoded to emit ultrasonic greetings, detectable by smart shoes to suggest footpath mindfulness.
There was no room left for silence.
That was when silence—pure, unstructured, uncorrupted emptiness of sound—was commodified.
It began in Dzerzhinsk, a city that had once been famous for its toxic past and now leaned towards innovation to cleanse itself. A man named Pavel Yurev, former acoustician and part-time mystic, stumbled upon the accidental technique to extract silence from heavily resonant chambers using a fusion of sound-cancellation fields and deep-earth resonance siphons.
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The Empathy Room
“if you feel pain, you‘re alive. If you feel other people’s pain, you’re a human being”
– Leo Tolstoy
Planet Earth, 2100 AD
EdenLand was waiting; the impact was just sixty seconds away. The asteroid, now broken into several enormous chunks, was initially almost half the size of Earth. The ever-alert Asteroid Tracking System had taken care of most of the broken parts. Some have turned into space debris, and some are now accidental satellites of the EdenLand Space Station.
Only one of them would strike the planet in sixty seconds. The impact effect is predicted to be minimal, the lush tropical forest area just outside the main city of EdenLand being the calculated impact zone. It’s hilarious that way. The planet’s terra firma has undergone a huge change in the last fifty years. Much of Europe and parts of the Middle East are now submerged landmasses. Severe climatic changes have made most of [আরো পড়ুন]
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And So, I Brought Her Dandelions
The coffee pot was steaming. The buns are being toasted in the oven, and the silverware is shining, ready to be filled with hot food for breakfast. Nitara was dressing Kyra for school, doing her ponies and tying them with pretty blue ribbons. Warm sunlight streamed in through the high glass windows, the fresh morning breeze inviting a workman like me to a crisp, exciting day ahead. The world was unmindfully spinning out just another day. Everything was overly perfect, immaculate, sublime. To the point of perfection where a man begins to slip into the eerie realm of unease…
Is it really happening? Is it not? Am I in a surreal state of bliss? What if I wake up point-blank to a mundane, gloomy morning, in stark contrast to this happy day? I’ll get into depression, I’m sure. What if cats were actually dogs and dogs were wolves, what if roses were dandelions and dandelions really were snakes? Well, I’d [আরো পড়ুন]
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Level Killing Fields
There was consternation in Heaven. The Divine Counsels had requested a meeting with the Devil’s Advocates over a technicality. “Technicality, my foot,” twittered the imps and the cherubs. “It is all about gender equality.”
Sulochana, the matron in charge of the Kosmic Kanya Klub (KKK), was having a tough time keeping her kanyas under control. In her time, Sulochana had been an apsara married to a gandharva called Chitragreev. She had spent a goodly number of years on Earth, carrying out Divine instructions.
Angira, one of the kanyas, came rushing in. “They are not even honouring the astrological configurations,” she blurted out in disbelief.
“I know, isn’t it blasphemous?” Mithra had joined the conversation.
Angira was swift to agree. “It is!! When I was born, they took me away from my mother the same day, saying that I had been born to become a widow. Any man who married me would die. Thus, to protect its citizens, the State could, and would, take me away.”
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Madam Madex
Library, Japan
19th March, 1939
Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough—as most wrong theories are!1
Suzuki follows his routine of visiting all the alleys of the library. He starts his tour on the second floor, checking the refurbished book section, followed by the textbooks, and ending with the reference section. He comes down to the ground floor, where he spots an individual with a ponytail in the reading section; he pats the research scholar.
“It’s 10:00; I need to shut down the library. Visit the hostel library if you want to continue studying.”
He passes across the research paper section, switching off all the lights, and spots a girl in a ponytail busy with a few stacks of paper.
Suzuki knows her; she is Hana Saito, the youngest researcher in the Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo. Saito looks up and smiles towards the librarian.
“Is it late again, Mr Suzuki?”
Suzuki displays his left hand. “Go to your quarters; it’s already late.”
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ProtoTyke
Child sex crimes had decreased by 89% since the commercialisation of ProtoTyke. The new technology faced significant public backlash due to concerns about its ethical implications– ‘could we really say we were deterring sexual predators if they were taking part in their perversions, albeit synthetically?’ became the moral discourse of the time.
Shelby Lifton scrolled through the hate mail and death threats she received in her inbox daily. She did not foresee that her degree in Information Technology would lead her here, but she liked fixing bugs, resolving glitches and coding software. It had nothing to do with what she believed, or any mission to serve humanity– she was simply good at her job, and enjoyed it. In fact, if you were to ask her about her position at ProtoTyke, she would tell you that she had no moral stance on the issue one way or the other; she had an ethically neutral viewpoint [আরো পড়ুন]
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Sensory Cracks
Young geneticist Anja, accompanied by her Shih-Tzu, set out on Klavebod Brygge for her usual afternoon walk. Almost widowed by cars, the street of the Danish capital was abundantly populated with cyclists and guarded by modern, glassy buildings such as Krystallen. She admires her cheerful, floral, sleeveless dress, specially chosen to change her mood, in the asymmetric building with a rhombic skeleton. Shows off my legs, she thought, but immediately her eyes were drawn to the reflection of the slate paving Otto Monsted Plads, the minimalist square nearby, so she took a few steps in that direction. She looked at Krystallen from that side for the first time and found it haughty, propped up on one elbow, boasting of the hundreds of windows that mirrored the area without fail. In one of them, located close to the ground, he saw a column of German soldiers marching. They had the Hitler symbol on their sleeves. She even thought she [আরো পড়ুন]
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In High Spirits
“Who are you? What do you mean, my son Atul is in a coma?”
It was close to midnight in Satara, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, when Kailash Agarwal’s phone rang abruptly, disturbing his sleep. The ringtone was the one he had customized for Atul. So, although half-asleep Kailash had had no misgivings when he had picked up the phone. Atul was in Melbourne about four and a half hours ahead of Indian time. He never called very late at night but maybe he wanted to share some news that could not wait till a more decent hour. Of course, any time Atul called was a good time for Kailash and Sita Devi. Atul was their only child.
Kailash wasn’t ready for the strangely accented voice that broke the news to them. His loud reaction woke Sita Devi, who then tugged at his arm; incoherent with worry.
“This is Atul’s friend Noah. Atul is in a coma. Can you come down to Melbourne as soon as possible, sir?”
That was the first of a flurry of phone calls.
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Hunting with Gods
The forest groaned under the summer sun. Leaves rustled. Twigs snapped. Birds sang. Insects hummed. Vikkel walked softly, the sound of his footsteps lost in the thick undergrowth. He kept his spear poised and his godmind open. Everything around him was alive with secret movements—a fine day for hunting.
“Above you,” his god whispered. Vikkel looked up and saw the grey form of a silver monkey. It sat on a branch, oblivious to the world, and chewed on a piece of violet leaf. The sagging shape of an animal past its prime.
“Not what I am looking for,” Vikkel whispered, his tone accusatory. He didn’t need to speak aloud to communicate with his god, but he still had difficulty with his non-verbal speech. Mudda would’ve scolded him if she had seen him now, talking loudly to the god while hunting.
“Use your mind,” she would’ve said. “He and you are always [আরো পড়ুন]
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Mission Rovus
The cramped cockpit hummed with nervous energy as Captain Ananya Petrova and Elena Rodriguez, the pilot, expertly maneuvered their shuttle through the swirling atmosphere of the planet Rovus. Below them, the alien landscape stretched out in a breathtaking tapestry of ochre plains and emerald mountains, shrouded in an eerie mist.
“We’re almost there, team,” Ananya announced, her voice a reassuring counterpoint to the thrumming engines. “Brace for impact!”
Elena gripped the controls tightly, her knuckles turning white. “Ready, Captain,” she replied, her voice filled with a mix of nervousness and excitement.
Kaito Tanaka, the astrophysicist, peered intently at the holographic display before him, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Readings are still unstable. The composition of the atmosphere is unlike anything we’ve encountered before,” he muttered, his fingers flying across the console.
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The Re-rise
It was pitch black, as black as it could be at the bottom of hell. Yet, a warm moist endless vacuum clung heavily, almost embracing me at the point of the rise of my consciousness. I realised I was taking birth. I lay stark awake, gathering my surroundings. Where have I come? In the numbing darkness, questions haunt me about my being. Am I born well past the apocalypse, after the universe had died into the null and the void? Will I lay in eternal darkness for the rest of my days? More importantly, then, who am I after all? What is my origin?
A shrill cry somewhere overhead made me break free of my reverie and intuitively pop my head out the surface. Oh, blinding light! I shut my optical sensors as I just began to realise, I was not levitating in the endless cosmos. I am serenely embedded on the surface of the Earth. The moist embrace is all soil and water. Now, light [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Churchyard Girl
To the Sunday school children, she is a shadow in the window, a welcome distraction from the humdrum classes. Her eyes have a hollowed-out look, too, and her red scarf is askew, but she can easily pass as one of their truant classmates. Over psalm recitals and the sound of chalk scraping the blackboard, you can hear the caw-cawing of the crows and, if you listen very closely, her gentle tap-tapping on the misted glass. These taps are soft and hesitant, as though she hasn’t made up her mind about attending class or not.
When the bells finally toll for home, the children rush out. They look for her, searching for a sign in the gravel, in the rustling leaves, in the birds artfully hidden in the swaying branches. Underneath a grey sky, they mournfully share their packed lunches, leaving a few scraps for the stray cats and mongrel dogs that have made the churchyard their home. They talk about the girl they sometimes see at the window and invent stories about her.
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Carry On
“Hello, hello.”
“Hello.”
“I – can I talk to Prakash ji?”
“Speaking. May I know who’s calling?”
“I, sir – I am one of your readers. A fan. I love your science fiction stories.”
“Thank you! Can you tell me which ones you liked?”
“Yes, sure. I read your latest story just two days ago. That’s why I called you. Prakash ji, that story of yours – Carry On, I totally loved it!”
” Carry On? Thank you very much. May I know your name, please?”
“Sujay Mane. Prakash ji, I need some information from you.”
“About what?”
“Sir, regarding this story. I mean, I like the way you showed time travel in it, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“So, Prakash ji, you have shown a device in the story. Like a watch, the hero places it on the hand and sets the time. Then he goes to that time.”
“Yes.”
“So, sir, how to make this time travel device is not given in that story. Can you tell me that?”
“Look, Sujay, it’s a story. Fiction. Everything is imaginary in it.”
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Blood Lines
The night is coming to a city wrapped in fear of war. The sirens scream, telling me it is time to hide. I hurriedly closed my shop and placed a small curse on the rune-lock. Thieves are prospering, using these blackouts as their cloak. If someone chooses to break the lock, he shall suffer from a sudden outburst of explosive diarrhea. That will deter the malevolent parties for the time being.
I watched for the wandering eyes and wink at the beggar sitting on the opposite side of this narrow Bazar Road. He keeps an eye on my shop in exchange for an anna or two, and I can sleep at night with relative peace. Despite the ersatz appearance, my shop has become a site of attraction, particularly to the troops from the faraway lands. Not because I sell ginseng at the cheapest rate in the entire Calcutta, not because I sell untraceable opium, but because [আরো পড়ুন]
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Collateral Damage
“I name you Baqir Iftikhar; my son. Baqir because you are my beloved and Iftikar because you fill me with pride,” exulted the new father Intaj Iqtidar Raza, better known as Barq Bhai in the Indian underworld.
His name, Barq, had evolved because he struck like lightning. Like lightning, no one knew where he would strike and he struck with equally devastating effect and swiftness. Yet, Intaj was also a devoted family man and Noor Banu, his wife, closed her eyes for the last time secure in the knowledge that he would give their new-born every luxury the world had to offer.
***
Diwakar Dighe, Intaj’s right-hand man for over three decades wiped his eyes. “I told you; Baba listen to me. Do not buy Baqir a Lamborghini Aventador for his seventeenth birthday. Our roads are not ready for it. I begged you, Baba, listen to me.”
The writing was on the wall.
Baqir Iftekhar and his Lamborghini Aventador were both “totalled.”
The doctors said as much about their seventeen-year-old patient.
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INVION
1
Ben was sitting alone on a creaky wooden stool at the edge of the river, one hand idly swinging his fishing net into the almost still waters and the other stroking his beloved Labrador, Daphne. The lone eyes wandered far into the misty shadowed horizon, searching for nothing.
This very usual day seemed strangely unusual to Ben in many ways. He was a lone person in his early fifties, living far away from the hustle and bustle of the city in his own secluded cottage house. Otherwise content in his farming and reading books, the only passion he loved to indulge in was gazing out into the distant planets, trying to fathom its finiteness in the infinity. Not that he was an astrophysicist or even a stargazer. But he felt he could feel a signal now and then as if expecting something, though none of his neighbors could fathom what.
‘Bizarre Ben,’ they would call him. He had no friends save his much-adored pet. Together they went out on strolls and occasionally on a fishing spree.
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Sand of Time
1969
The class was over. She was supposed to go now. To home. To that place where a man thinks he is the king. That he can do anything, he wants. And the woman who shared the home with him was only his slave. A toy, which was compelled to do anything he wished. And be his punching bag when he was angry. He was the breadwinner, right? Who brings food to the table? Him! She should be thankful. Those three brilliant daughters of her, whose blood does they carry? His! She couldn’t even write ABCD, for God’s sake! And if he brings a few other women home, it is SHE who is to be blamed. That boring woman! Always nagging about not having enough money to run the family. If he brings a few others home, it is SHE who is to be blamed. A man has needs, doesn’t he? Needs she is too old to fulfil.
Yes, she has to get back to that home. That man loves him. That man loves his blood. [আরো পড়ুন]
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