Sharmila Shankarkumar

“The Point of No Return” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #118

Turn the page. Don’t ask me what happens next. I can only tell you what happened the last time. The last time I died. My Life as Fish, as recalled by a silverfish, 2 April 2000 Last time, I stepped off the curb, and a delivery guy, Orhan, Turkish, 23, recent immigrant through green card lottery, racing on his  bike, speeding the wrong way on Morton street, to deliver an order of shish kebabs and zucchini fritters to Number 52, Apartment 3B, slammed into me. The first me, the me that was reading while walking and not looking, little b...

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“Department of Complaints” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

The email came out of the blue. The sender was someone called resked, no one I’d ever communicated with before. But the subject line caught my eye: Important Information With Regards to Your Air India Flight. It read like some sort of cryptic telegram, a cipher in a novel by Dan Brown.Dear Passenger,AI175 23AUG21 BLR SFO ix combined with AI503 24AUG21 BLR DEL & AI173 25AUG21 DEL SFO ,BLR departure would be 1720hrs. AI TOLL 18602331407 01242641407 02026231407-AIR INDIARegards,Air India CCAll I could process in my state of height...

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“Apology Flowers” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #105

I remember him well enough, a big shot. He was on his phone the whole time, yakking away, Zegna suit in that midnight blue, Italian wingtips, the whole bunch. I think it was the latest iPhone. Of course it was the latest iPhone. Not that that’s something I can assert with certainty, but a reasonable guess, I’d say, given he tells the time by his Wempe tourbillon. I had occasion to look closely at his wrist while he was paying.He was sending flowers. Of course, that’s why he was in my shop. They were Apology Flowers, the bunch I make up with ...

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“Attempts at Mating ” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #104

She stares in the mirror surveying the final effect, the thicker lashes, the lips plumper and accentuated, the brows darkened and shaped into an unfamiliar thin arch, the eyes lined with kohl, the pupils sparkling gems set in the deep shadows of bronze lids, a blush creeping over the cheekbones like a pink dawn against a night sky. Ana’s question comes back to her, Are you coming tonight, and the way her mind coalesced immediately around a series of responses, first, of course, the strident, No! a response now exiled, then, If I'm up to...

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“Sign O' The Times” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #103

If I’ve learnt one thing, it’s this: looking for signs is not for the faint of heart. If you’re seeking one, you may not see it at first. Don’t give up. Stay alert, keep your eyes peeled, and eventually it’ll appear. But you may have to take the road less travelled by. * * *72 hours. They told me I had 72 hours to get it right. But this was not really the truth, the whole truth, the unvarnished truth, the one that’s stripped bare of veneers and obfuscations. No. The truth is, you have something like twelve hours. That’s all. Here, ...

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“Cupboard” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #102

Before I got second Mummy and second Daddy, I remember how first Mummy used to lock me in the cupboard. The first time it happened it was late at night, maybe nine or ten pm. I was playing with my two plastic dolls, Melissa and Sweetum. Somebody must have given them to us from abroad because they were both white-girl dolls, Melissa with long blond hair and Sweetum with short, curly-blond hair. Blond must have been the in color then. As perhaps it still is now. I don’t remember asking why the dolls had hair the color of sunshine, wh...

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“In Pursuit of Beauty” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #101

I look in the mirror one last time, to say goodbye to the face that I have known all my life. The source of so much pain, so much agony. Goodbye bulbous nose, I never needed you in a size XL to pick up scents from faraway lands. Goodbye protruding ears, you were unnecessary since I’m not an elephant in the Savannah. Goodbye tiny eyes, you served me well, but it would have been nice if you’d opened up a little more. Goodbye thin lips - need I say more? Goodbye missing eyebrows, why did you never show up for me? Even as I know I won’t miss a s...

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“Events Reported at Tapasya Paratha Junction” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #100

Myself, Jaspal Singh Rana, and the other guy, Yatinder Singh. Picture the scene at Tapasya Paratha Junction, home of the mega-paratha. The two of us sitting on opposite sides of the table, our eyes boring into each other, our mouths open, tongues glistening, stomachs emptied out in preparation. Three enormous parathas, those mouth-wateringly flaky breads, enough for a small army, piled up next to each of us. It was time to decide who had the winning stomach, whose gastric juices could mount the greatest attack, whose intestines could take th...

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“Finally, Something to Crow About” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #99

TW: Attack by a crow It was in the summer of 1984 when the crow first started attacking my father. Boom! It began, just like that. None of us can remember what started it. One day everything was fine, and then the next, my dad was the crow’s sworn enemy, a mortal threat, a foe to be vanquished.The attack would happen when my father left for work in the morning, at 8.30 am. At the time, we had just moved to Delhi for his new job and he was driving his own car to work. This was before he’d secured the perk of getting a chauffeur. Now that I th...

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“Peripheral Senses” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #98

TW: terrorism   Her fingers are trembling when she presses the keys. Just three numbers, and for that she needs three tries. “911, what’s your emergency?” The familiar refrain from TV shows. Nothing she’s ever had to hear, herself, before. “This is an anonymous tip,” she says, feeling foolish, instantly. One doesn’t have to say their tip is anonymous. One merely doesn’t give one’s name. Lessons for a next time.  “There are bombs in the Garden. Hurry. You must hurry. Get them out. There’s no time,” she says, her voice somewhere betw...

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“The Present Impossibility of Amphibian to Human Transformations” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #97

Princess Literella heard an urgent knocking on her window, a sharp rat-a-tat sound, the kind that might be made using long and pointy nails. She sat up in bed, pulling the soft woollen covers up to her chin, and listened.Rat-a-tat, there it was again. A shiver ran up her spine. Being a princess and all, she knew she had to be careful with strangers at her window late at night. And where were her guards, she mused, who would usually spring into action and ward off unknowns?Nevertheless, her heart did skip a beat when she thought someone may h...

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“A Case of Bed Bugs” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #95

I can have the house cleaned or fumigated or demolished. Or exploded or burned. I say, I’m quite partial to the explosion. Or burning. The serviceman pauses. We don’t really offer that Sir, he says. Why not, I say. I’ve seen it in the movies. In fact there's a scene at the end of - is it the second or first season of Mr Robot or maybe it's in Fight Club, where a whole city of buildings gets demolished. I quite like that image, even if I can't pin down its ancestry. It's burned into my brain. That's my vision for this thing. He looks at me...

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“Monkey Business” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #94

Dear Ananya,First off, thank you for giving me the opportunity to critique your story, Monkey Business! I love being a part of the Critic Circle, don’t you? Of course, I’ve been a member for over a decade now, so I’m lucky I know all the ins and outs.What an imaginative piece that was. You could definitely tell your protagonist Madhu was off her rocker, talking to the monkey. As if a monkey could understand English! And of course, I get that if you trained a monkey for a long time in English, it would pick up a few words, but definitely not ...

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“In Flagrante Delicto” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #93

It was almost the exact instant Wendy gingerly picked up the red thong from between the two pillows on their bed that Phillip retrieved a white jock strap that had seen better days, from the floor. “What’s this?” said Wendy, her face sporting a scowl that would shame a monsoon cloud. She was holding the side strap of the thong between her index finger and thumb, arm outstretched, much like one might hold a worm. “What’s this?” said Phillip, raising an eyebrow, in bemusement. In a gesture mirroring his wife’s, he held the jockstrap at arm’s...

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“Exchanges With Mina” by Sharmila Shankarkumar

Submitted to Contest #92

Three days into the blackout it was pitch dark inside and outside. I was contemplating my next move.It had been 6 years, 3 months, 4 days and 7 hours since I'd last left the apartment. I lived there, all day, all night, every day of the week, every week of the year. It’s a nice enough apartment. It’s right on sixth avenue and I don’t have a set of eyes right across the street, peering in at me. There's no rear window situation. There’s a little distance between us, because of the triangular park they built on the street below a long tim...

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