Sayani Sarkar

“CHANGING TIMES” by Sayani Sarkar

Submitted to Contest #85

YEAR 1965:“Stop running. Jesus. These damn kids! One day they are going to get seriously hurt.” Muttered Mrs. Patrakis from the fourth floor as she slowly climbed up the stairs with the support of railings. “God knows when they’ll fix up the elevator. It’s been months. People these days have no concerns for their senior citizens.” Mrs. Patrakis, widowed at the age of fifty, recently turned seventy. Her body ached every time she got up from her chair. Yet, she made it a point to step out to buy her own groceries, get her letter...

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“Pasghetti ” by Sayani Sarkar

Submitted to Contest #55

Randall is sitting on the counter waiting for everyone to leave. He glances around to confirm he has left no task undone which could be brought up at the last moment and deter him. As the clock strikes four-thirty and the last person leaves the establishment, he picks up his backpack, cross-checks the items in it, and steps out. He scrutinizes his surroundings to make sure nobody sees him. Pulling out his bicycle, he rides away, occasionally checking his rear-view mirror in case he’s followed.Jonathan is in the middle of a fight. The other p...

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“Fiction Vs Reality” by Sayani Sarkar

Submitted to Contest #52

Sitting on a wooden bench in front of a deli, you’re ravishing a tuna sandwich with extra mustard. It’s a busy Friday evening and the deli is swarming with people.It’s your first night out in a month. The last few weeks have been hazy for you. You haven’t taken a bath in forever, nor have you eaten properly in days. This happens every time you start off with a new project. But work is self-satisfying. You willingly let yourself get pulled into an alternate universe. A universe where everything is in your control and you’re the sole creator.Y...

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“I am not original” by Sayani Sarkar

My name is Sayani, and I am not original.But guess what? Neither are you.I had a vehement reaction to a bug bite last year, “The Instagram bug”. I loved going to aesthetic places, taking aesthetic pictures, buying expensive home decor to get 100 extra likes on my posts, visiting expensive coffee shops even though I hate coffee. At one point it got so severe that I started looking at places, exploring their beauty and worth before even going there, which took away the fun of exploring because nothing about the places surprised me anymore.I ha...

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“The bajji woman” by Sayani Sarkar

Submitted to Contest #42

When I was ten, I lived in the older side of Calcutta. It was a small neighborhood of four-five blocks. There were a lot of old buildings, open fields, a dirty pond, a hundred-year-old theater, too many people and carnivals that happened all year round. One could get hold of almost anything just by stepping out. From the tea stall right outside my house to the milk guy next to it. An old temple to the left and a small cheap alcohol shop to the right. Within a radius of half a kilometer, we had it all. Paint shops, stationary shops, bedding a...

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“Woman unnoticed ” by Sayani Sarkar

Submitted to Contest #42

It was probably ten o’ clock on a cold winter morning. There was a light which fell directly on her face waking her up. It was a big crack on the nearer side of the window that the small curtains couldn’t cover.She had meant to get the crack fixed. She had even called a guy last week.But nobody seemed to pick up the call most of the time and the one time they did,they kept saying ‘we can’t hear you’. It’s one thing for people to ignore her in person knowing that she wasn’t a very attractive person nor had a great personality but it’s another...

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