DAY 5

After the discovery of the frozen ‘dragon’ bodies in the cave in the Alps, Duncan was given the opportunity to see the research first hand. There is where they discovered that the species found was something entirely new, and was nothing at all like the dinosaurs they had got to know so far.

It was discovered that the ‘mother’ dragon had three chambers in her body. There were some traces of methane along a passageway that led to a smaller chamber. On the other hand, another passageway that ran parallel to the methane passageway had oxygen traces. Despite being frozen for over a million years (carbon dating method) the body of the ‘dragon’ was somewhat warm. The research team predicted that the third chamber might have been the place where dragons produced their legendary fire.

When the research papers were revealed to the scientific world, everyone who heard it got into frenzy. It was a revolutionary find. People had accepted it as a myth, and now the evidence was here right in front of their eyes.

The question was… would there be others?

Duncan took it as a personal quest. He was going to be the one who discovers the next body, or fossil, or whatever it may be. He didn’t care at whatever it might have cost him… and monetary cost was the last thing on his mind. His mission took a toll on him. He neglected friends and family. He stayed around the Alps for years hoping to get another body.

Unfortunately, the second dragon body was not around the Alps at all. It was found in a desert in Mongolia. It wasn’t a body, this time, just a full skeleton, and some bits of skin that remained in the harsh, dry desert land. But what almost drove Duncan insane was the person who led the team that found the dragon.

It was Tara.

-----------------****

The idea of changing Duncan’s character into a woman remained just an idea. Besides, there weren’t any characteristics that made Duncan completely necessary to be a guy. At least, not yet. So he figured that if Duncan required a sex change, he would just change the name to something more feminine, and change all the he’s into she’s.

Something else crossed his mind as he typed out the story. He begins to wonder if it was wiser to make the character a first person… instead of a third person narration.

Will it be odd if I described Duncan, when he is actually describing himself?
HE was a mad palaeontologist. Opposed to I am a mad palaeontologist.

Clearly writing had driven Mark close to temporary insanity. He decided to take a walk before continuing his journey into the unknown world of palaeontology and dragons.



Mark often took a walk late at night, past some street side stalls and decided to have some hot Nescafe at one of the stalls that was lined at the side of the street. The delicious aroma of coffee floated through the air, beckoning him to get over there immediately.

He could make a cuppa at the house, but he thought it would be too much of a hassle. The coffee maker was a thing of the past. Besides, they didn’t have any sugar in the house… especially since the ex-housemate left. He even doubted the existence of Nescafe that hadn’t surpassed the expiry date. Grocery shopping was just not his thing.

He met two of the writers from the Peter and Molly series having a late night drink too, and joined them at their corner.

Mark wasn’t in a chatty mood that night, but his two friends were. The word regret swam in front of him several times as he just nodded in approval at their opinions and grunted at intervals to be polite. He wasn’t really paying attention to their chatter. All that was in his mind now is his story. Duncan’s obsession and without any connection whatsoever with whatever he did earlier or is doing at the moment, his mind floated to this role playing game he played some time back. There were dragons there.

Mark recollected how engrossed he was in the game back then. It was a crazy period of sleepless nights and on the nights he managed to finally catch some sleep, queens, vampires and thieves invaded his dreams. His role as a game player required him to rescue a few characters and solve some riddles that sent him back and forth through many places in the game. If he had problems solving a particular puzzle, he’d have a dream that had the solution. It was utter madness. He finished the game in a mere 40 hours. Those were the days…

“Just poke him on the shoulder. His mind has drifted away.”
“You poke him!”
“You’re nearer! Shut up and poke him”

Mark is came out of his reverie in a state of surprise.

“Sorry bout that, wei… you stopped responding. Anyway, we’re leaving. Paid up for your coffee too.” said one of them

“What? You didn’t have to…” Mark interjected.
“It’s paid up for, already. But you could thank us” the other one added
“Oh… thanks. But you really didn’t have to… see the poke on the shoulder works wonders.” Mark added feebly

Both of them laughed and headed off. One of them turned and waved at Mark with a smile.

She has a really nice smile; Mark thought as he waved back at her and felt his face turning red.

----------------------*****

Luke was watching his favourite episode of the Private Crime Investigations from his DVD set, his feet curled up on the chair, and a tennis racquet in his hand when Mark reached their rented house.

“Who do you plan to beat up with that?” Mark asked. Curious.
“This?” Luke asked back swinging the racquet
“Simple… according the show, If I hit you while you were on the floor, it’s supposed to hurt your head quite bad. But if I hit you when you’re standing up, the only thing you’d most probably get is a bump on the head, and a very bad headache.”
“And you have intentions of doing that?” asked Mark again, looking apprehensively at the racquet.
“It’s bloody interesting concept. Don’t worry, I make an honest living by making people believe that I’m someone whom I’m not. I don’t need this.” Luke said, clearly annoyed
“Ok…” Mark said and got up to leave. He was annoyed too, for no apparent reason.

---------------------****

The Mongolian dragon had red skin, based on the bit of skin they discovered near the spiked tail. Despite the fact that most of the muscles had decayed, some parts remained, and the evidence of the three chambers was a good enough proof that it was indeed a dragon.

Duncan hated the fact that it wasn’t him that discovered the Mongolian dragon. Even the Alps dragon was more of a joint discovery. He was only a student back then.

Tara had been one of Duncan’s mountaineering buddies. They had a shared passion for mountains, ancient history, dinosaurs, and the wild outdoors in general. It was during the terrible days on the mountain and the fear that they would never make it down to safety, with the company of two unknown creatures, Tara and Duncan bonded emotionally. The other team member had suffered from a fall, and was in between being conscious and unconscious, and therefore was not fully involved in the daily conversations of fears and hopes.

After the ordeal they had decided to get together as a couple, but the news of the existence of dragons had changed Duncan. He began to see everything as a competition. He needed to verify his position as the top palaeontologist from time to time regardless of the consequences.

It is hard to say that if it was because of their similar vocation or not, but Duncan began to see Tara as a threat. Her less unpredictable behaviour and her non existent temper tantrums earned her several invitations to join respectable expeditions through respected college professors. Whereas, Duncan was left behind for being a completely unpredictable, hot headed, and disgustingly self-centred jerk.

It was sooner rather than later, when Duncan began verbally abusing Tara, accusing that she had used him to get into higher playing fields in palaeontology that she decided to end the relationship. He had established his own research team, because his parents were wealthy enough to help him out, whereas Tara had joined one of the teams that were based in Mongolia.

After the Mongolia findings, Duncan moved even further forward, pushing himself and his team to the limits. There was no news of Tara. There was also no news of new discoveries. That was good enough for Duncan at the moment.

Mark began to enjoy the single dimensioned character of Duncan. Who needed him to be complicated? Good dialogue was not necessary. As long as the obsession is justified, his crimes revealed, the pain that has been caused and the pain received in return has been mentioned, and a suitable retribution has been figured out. The novel should be fine.

Moreover, this was his first attempt at a novel. And he was doing it in a hurry. When you look at 50 days closely, you quite realise that is a tremendously short span of time. No one wins a Pulitzer in such a short time. Ha! Ha! Ha! Pulitzer. Who am I kidding?

---------------****

It has been a week since Mark started on his journey to be a novelist. The word novelist sounds like an awfully serious word for many people. Although his character was much more developed now compared to the earlier days, Mark still didn’t know where the story was headed. You could do a lot with 70,000 words. According to his ancient dictionary which he’s been using for the past 10 years, there are 72,000 words in the language. He wondered how many unique words he uses. He doubted he used that many… maybe there were only about 2000 different types of words scattered throughout his work.

He began to get slightly worried, though. The story might meet a premature ending if he couldn’t expand it to stretch through all those 50 days.

Luke enters the room where Mark was working on his manuscript.

“Your boss just called” Luke said
“What did she want?” Mark asked, wrinkling his forehead.
“It’s a he… err. Ex-boss?”
“Of course… now he calls me. The dingbat!”
“He’s still on the line…”

Mark dashed out the room to the telephone in the next room.

What is he calling for now? Mark thought, slightly annoyed

“Sir?” enquired Mark, keeping his tone polite
“Mark, old boy… How have you been?” said a gruff voice from the other end
“Jobless” Mark said “as if you didn’t already know” he added to himself. “What happened that day? I tried contacting you but…” Mark finished off halfway, not really sure how to say what he thought.
“Yes, that… I figured I owe you an explanation, and your salary. Can we talk somewhere, for coffee? Tea?” the gruff voice continued, slowly.
“Name the place and date, I’ll be there.” Mark said. Involuntarily he shrugged his shoulders.
“4:30 pm at CoffeeTown. You’re okay with tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there.”

-------------------------******

Mark had to wait for at least 15 minutes before the ex-boss arrived. He spent the time drafting out the plot for DUNCAN’S STORY - A yet to be named novel. Soon after he had started though, he met a stumbling block in the plot and gave up.

Before the mysterious appearance of the man in a grey suit and the policeman that strange Monday morning, Mark was employed as a new reporter for a little local newspaper. Although the rest of the staff had years of experience in the field and were all involved in some sort of covert satirical writing, they accepted Mark with open arms as they ‘could do with some new blood’.

The newspaper was sort of leftist in nature, as the proprietor (that is the boss) had some issues against the local happenings. He went undercover and resorted to writing scandalous articles similar to those of Junius[1] in the late eighteenth century. Junius carried his secret identity to the grave, but the boss chose to reveal his true self a tad bit too prematurely, besides, it was highly impossible to remain anonymous in this time and age.

The boss managed to recruit a small team of like minded people, mostly former army personnel who felt that their services to the well being of the nation was overlooked and underappreciated and that the certain people needed to be pulled down a notch or two.

Mark was hired based on being at the right place at the right time, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time depending on how you looked at it. He possessed a certain knack in writing satire that was not prevalent among the younger crowd of journalists, and no one suspected that anything was amiss seeing a young person loitering (and snooping) around. He was just most probably wasting his time doing nothing of particular importance like most of the other young people.

“Mark, you’re here already…” said the familiar gruff voice

Mark looked at the person who spoke.

The ex-boss had on a pair of sunglasses. He looked a little thinner and walked with a slight limp. Mark looked at the man’s hands and saw that his knuckles were bruised. When he spoke, he sounded like he was in pain.

“Yeah, I arrived here about 15 minutes ago.” Mark realised with trepidation that he never go to find out the boss’ name. Everyone he knew either called him Boss or Sir. Interesting… Mark thought.

The boss pulled out a chair and seated himself.

“I’ll get to the point…. Those idiots destroyed all our equipment, the computers, printers, stencils, dark room, you name it… There’s not one thing left.” The boss said with certain bitterness to his voice.

“They even beat me up…” he added with a grimace, taking out his sunglasses.

Mark gasped. The boss’ eye had an unmistakable look of having received a rather severe injury.

“I thought you should know, they had me in for 2 weeks. I tell ya, those were the worst days of my life, and I was in the ward for about a week.”

“But these injuries don’t matter so much… it’s just that I lost the one true thing I really cared for…” said the boss “and that’s he newspaper if you didn’t already know” the boss added quickly when he saw the expression on Mark’s face.

“Who did it?” Mark asked slightly hesitant.

“Why, don’t you know?” the boss was clearly surprised.

“No… I have no idea. Who’d do such a thing?”

“It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya. I almost had those suckers nailed down for all those heinous crimes they did while in power.” The boss lowered his voice dramatically.

“Those bastards got wind of the big story I had, and they did this to us. Rifle died in the scuffle. Poor chap couldn’t handle it.” The boss continued.

Rifle was the assistant editor of the paper.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t know.” said Mark sympathetically. ‘Yeah, I didn’t know anything…’ thought Mark to himself.

Mark grew more and more horrified as he realised the truth behind the sudden loss of his first job. Of course it wasn’t the best job in the world, but after the sudden disappearance of the boss and the newspaper, Mark had found it almost impossible to get a new job.

If he stated that he had no previous job before that, the prospective employers passed him off as being inexperienced. On the other hand if he used the name of the paper as a previous job experience, the prospective employer just never bothered calling him back.
In the days that followed, certain opportunities knocked on Mark’s door only to disappear the very next day. It’s either the person who wanted to employ him moved to another country, or he missed the call because his phone was cranky. The last straw was when the person in charge of another paper that dared to employ him died of a heart attack the night before the day Mark was supposed to report for duty.

The whole ridiculousness of the situation made Mark almost believe that he was jinxed.

In the end when the story book offer came by, Mark grabbed the offer without thinking too much. Weighing the pros and cons was out of the question. Here was a job where no one died suddenly in the process. The transition from joblessness to having a part time stint was smooth as far as transitions go. Most of all, he needed the money.
[1] The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries pg 29, Colin Wilson & Damon Wilson, Constable & Robinson Ltd

DAY 4

As a result of Duncan’s persistent search of the elusive evidence of the dragon’s existence, he and his team found a site full of bones. He had a strong belief that at least half of it would be dragon bones.

The area was conducive for dragons. The high mountains with an intricate cave system provided the dragons with enough of heat despite the snow surrounding the outsides. The dark caves also provided a great place for shelter, and hibernation if necessary.

What Duncan didn’t know was there were some people in his team who thought he was crazy… Eccentric old goat, they called him, though he was neither.

Up till then, people in general believed that the dragon was a myth that co-incidentally existed in all parts of the world and transcended cultures. There were only two sites that remotely presented evidence of their existence.

The first was a mountain up in the Alps. The cave was covered with ice for over a million years. A group of mountaineers had hiked over the Alps. A sudden change in the weather resulting in a terrible blizzard had caused the mountaineers to get trapped up in the mountains. An avalanche that followed revealed the mountain where the three miserable mountaineers sought shelter throughout their horrible ordeal.

They found the cave to be surprisingly warm and comfortable for something that was right in the middle of the mountains.

When the weather improved slightly, they ventured deeper into the cave while waiting to be rescued. There they discovered the dead bodies of 2 creatures unlike anything any of them had ever seen before. It looked as though mother and child had died defending themselves against an unknown attacker.

Duncan was one of the mountaineers.

During the mountaineering incident, Duncan was in his final year of Palaeontology and Anthropology at university.

DAY 3

Luke’s voice could be overheard from the other room where Mark was fooling around with another adventure for Molly and Peter.

The last act where Luke’s character does a monologue is particularly interesting. Especially when you can’t see the person saying it, Mark thought quietly

If I could live life all over again, would I have done anything I differently? I suppose not. Even if had loads to complain about, life was pretty fulfilling for me, because I lived it as though there was no tomorrow, and I lived it exactly how I wanted to. Well, almost…

I assumed the jerk persona, so people wouldn’t get too close to me, and neither would be able to get close to them, because who in their right mind would want to get close to a jerk?

I failed to realise that every one of us has the tendency to not use the mind when dealing with daily lives… we just do it, and then live to regret the decisions for eternity. Or else, we stand by it till the very end until it breaks us into a tiny little million pieces, and nothing could put it back together again. There’s a Humpty Dumpty incident waiting to happen all over again to all of us.

I was being only human. Hey, wait… what’s that supposed to mean? I am human, and nothing else. Does that make me make mistakes?

It’s a clichéd reality if you look at it… the tough exterior protecting the fragile insides. Anatomically we’re built that way. Then we try to subconsciously build our emotional selves the same way too.

I built my jerk exterior to protect myself and others, but I failed. Not only did I fail protecting others, I also failed to protect myself. I let someone come too close.

There was a deep secret which only I knew. I kept till the very end. Till the minute the tumour decided to block my artery. Right up till the oxygenated blood had nowhere else to flow. I dragged the person with me to the depths of despair. Now I’ve hurt someone whom I allowed to get near enough me.

I am no more the annoying jerk they worked with. I am no more the irritating pain in the ass. I am just me, someone who lost their life to cancer, someone who didn’t want to share the pain. The tough exterior is shattered. I’m sorry. I really am.

Anyone who came across the monologue considered it to be relatively interesting. With a title like MADNESS IN THE OFFICE, you’d expect a comedy of sorts… The dialogue expresses the wackiness of the people who work in that particular office. There’s banter, presumptions and the depthless sarcasm. The dialogue wasn’t all that great, but there was just something about the play. A kind of hidden charm.

The beginning was obviously hilarious. If anyone had mentioned that someone dies at the end, no one would have believed it. A twist in the story, so prudently kept hidden that the effect in the end was magnified by a thousand times.

“So, what’s Peter doing today?”

Startled, Mark looked up from his work. Luke was standing by the door. He looked normal again without the bandanna. The mismatched socks stood out horribly, on his feet, clashing with each other.

“You’re here… rehearsed already?”

“Um… everything compiled neatly in the head, for the moment. I’m bored… entertain me!”

Luke grabs a chair and sits on it without ceremony.

“I could sing that song, if you like….”

“No, you’re not… don’t even think about it. It’ll rain again, and I’m already feeling icy cold. C’mon, tell me what is Peter up to…”

“Ok… let’s see. Molly solves the crime this time around. Peter has a nasty cold, and is not allowed out of the house. But he creeps out in the middle of the night anyway, and then he gets eaten by the lions that escaped from the zoo which they visited that morning. Obviously Peter dies, and Molly and Peter are no more. Molly tries recruiting some new partners, but they’re all morons so she bakes poisoned cookies and kills them. And then she eats them”

“Alive?”

“No she kills them, and then she eats them in a gulp, like a hungry wolf. Their mommies and daddies go around looking for them, and since Molly’s such a great mystery solver, they ask her assistance, and she pretends to be all so sweet and understanding and sympathetic… but it’s all a big fat lie”

“And then?”

“I don’t know”

Both of them start laughing hysterically at the thought of Molly eating her friends. Luke had once shown Mark and the other ex-housemate an old school photograph, and one of the girls there was Molly. Luke had a crush on her way back when they were still kids.

Could Molly be the kind of person who would resort to cannibalism?

DAY 2 - 2/11/06

Mark disliked Saturdays for only one particular reason, but this time around he hated it for two reasons. Saturdays meant going into the city centre to ‘meet the author’.

Today, he hated it even more because it was raining. Mark and Luke and another former housemate lived just slightly out of the city, due to the rent being too high in the city.

Since neither of them had their own transport, going to the city centre meant taking the bus. No one really liked taking the bus, and they usually walked to the city centre on good days.

It’s funny how the people in the city always drove wherever they went, even to the store next door. They said the air was polluted and the city was a treeless heat island that made you feel as though you’ve climbed a mountain and got back down in a hurry. Mark personally thought that the people were exaggerating. No doubt it was hot, but the walk to and from the city made him much more refreshed, compared to when he takes the bus.

The stress of meeting ‘the author’ was getting to him as each Saturday passed by. “The author’ was a high profiled local children’s author. She had run out of ideas, and her company decided to recruit part time writers to help her with the stories. Mark was one of them. Although he was utterly disgusted at the thought that he was writing for a fraud, he also felt sorry for the little children who worshipped the author, thinking that all the fabulous adventures of Molly and Peter came out of her head, when in fact the stories came out of at least 5 different authors, all still looking for that one piece of work that will bring them out of their miserable lives.

It irked him that these sessions with the author always resulted in the stories being heavily edited, and it ended up with him being unhappy on Saturday afternoons, whilst other folks walked around in parks, or did some shopping and enjoyed their weekends in various other ways.

He wondered if the old job would have been better than what he was doing now. It was much better paying, it was a full time job, and the adrenaline rush was great while it lasted.

His wandering mind was interrupted by the shouts of some kids… something about rainbows… he looked out the window, and true enough. The downpour had stopped and the sun was shining weakly through some clouds. Maybe he didn’t have to take the bus after all later that day.

Alas! Take the bus he did. The rain poured with extra enthusiasm, and he took it as a personal insult. Wet, chilled to the bone and sneezing, he entered the conference room where they had their weekly meetings of plots, subplots and crazy adventures that was not welcomed as he wished they would be. By the time the writers were bored, pushed around like little kids, and given extra things and subplots to work on, the rain had stopped, allowing another slight ray of sunshine to pass through.

Mark walked his usual route, the rain that poured earlier allowed the air to remain fresh and cool, and he felt happy walking through the park, avoiding puddles of water, and hearing the birds in the trees.

“Mark!!”

Someone had called his name from behind. Luke.

Luke did a small jog and reached Mark, slightly breathless

“C’mon, join us, we’re playing football on the muddy fields, seven aside”

“I’m not dressed to play football” said Mark gesturing at his grey sweater and jeans”

“What doesn’t kill you won’t hurt you. Heard of anyone who died while playing football?” Luke attempted to joke

“Yeah, he got struck by lightning”

Something in Mark’s tone jolted Luke to his senses, and he knew that wasn’t a joke.

“Ok, hey dude…I’m sorry. Had no idea. Wanna watch then? We still need 1 more person though.”

“I’ll pass this time” said Mark in a tone that seemed to come from far away.

“Right… see ya later!”

Luke jogged back to the other side of the park towards the field and disappeared from Mark’s view. Mark instead stood quietly for awhile, his mind racing back to the time when he was 11.

Everyone he knew had told him that it wasn’t his fault at all. He tried to believe it but it took too much effort. Each time something similar occurred, or when circumstances and situations pointed towards that direction he grew cold and distant.

Although he had grown to get used to the fact that it actually was never his fault, the memory remained with him always. It drained his energy, and left him pensive for years, when he actually should have been a boisterous kid, playing practical jokes on people and playing football, like his brothers.

Derek had been the one of the best under 12 football players their little old town had in a long while. All the teachers, the parents and practically everyone else in the neighbourhood adored him.

Derek was obsessed about football.

His death had been a somewhat mysterious occurrence. A bunch of boys were having a game of football, the real one… not seven a side, when suddenly the sky was brightened with lightning flashes. Mark had thought the whole effect of the lightning against the light blue sky to be something quite spectacular, unlike anything he has ever seen before. Which was quite true in a way…

Their town was quiet, set quite far back from tall buildings and busy roads, and rarely witnessed anything out of the ordinary. Including natural disasters.

The boys, mesmerised by the display across the sky stood rooted to the ground watching the flashes that took interesting shapes. There was no rain, so none of them ran for cover. Something loud descended upon the boys, who all ran in different directions. There was a dull thud in the silence that came thereafter. One of them lay motionless on the grass.

“Derek!” Mark yelled at the figure on the ground. No response.

He tried to run towards Derek, not really knowing why. There was some sort of fear in him, unfounded and yet it was extremely strong. His attempt to run back towards the field was thwarted by someone who grabbed him from the back.

“Let me go!” Mark yelled as he attempted to break loose.

“No. He’s dead. There’s nothing you can do. Come with me”

The voice sounded oddly calming. It was as though it had come from another place, a far away place where babies slept peacefully to beautiful lullabies and rainbows coloured the skies in gorgeous hues.

Mark had some difficulty remembering the rest of the incident. His parents, after some time decided to tell him that the paramedics had found him unconscious by the side of the field. All the other terrified boys had run off in fear. And someone had called for help, maybe a little too late, or not.

“Like someone once said, everyone is obsessed about something. You could be obsessed about your favourite sports team. Or your hair. Or your job….”

“Damn! This thing is not working. I need to create a strong enough fictional character that can have a great impact on whoever who reads it. Ha! Ha! It will be a hoot if I said that I borrowed the quote from Shakespeare.” Mark thought

It’s hard to expand a palaeontologist’s character into a something more sinister. An obsession with dragons, seemed like a good idea when he first started. But now, it made Duncan look like a single dimensioned character from a simple computer role playing game.

Mark had second thoughts about his character. He was tempted to change Duncan into a woman. He was suddenly flooded with ideas that would require him to retype whatever he had written.

“Hey sis, how you doin’?”

“Mark! What a surprise… I’m great. How are you?”

“I’m cool… Got a question for you though.”

“Alright, shoot…”

“Okay, say you were a 25 year old palaeontologist. What could possibly cross your mind?”

“Err… you still there?” said Mark after a couple of minutes silence

“Yeah, Mark… it’s not the easiest question you know… I suppose I would start with thinking about locations and tools and stuff… “

“Hmmm… I was hoping you’d give me some insight to a 25 year old girl’s mind”

“What makes you think I’ll know what goes through a 25 year old girl’s mind?”

“Cos you’re a girl… c’mon sis. Surprise me.”

After a long moment of silence, Mark’s sister says something.

“She’d want to be the first to make an interesting discovery. She’s up ahead against all the male palaeontologist’s whom she thinks are out to put her down.’

“Who?”

“Your 25 year old palaeontologist… who else?”

“So, she’s a feminist of sorts…”

“Yeah, I’ll approve of her immediately… new girlfriend, huh?”

“Not really, more like a dream girl. Hey sis, sorry for cutting this short, but I gotta split. Stuff to do. Take care!”

“You too”

Mark laughed to himself at the thought of his sister’s remark regarding the new girlfriend. He couldn’t understand what could be so funny about it, it seemed logical enough… Besides they always made assumptions about things… like how the woman who had a car wash most probably wasn’t allowed to play with water as a child and having a car wash was to get back at the folks who prevented her from playing with water, although I seems odd that she doesn’t really do the washing herself, or how some of the cows which grazed near the industrial area might have super powers as they actually run when crossing the road, and graze lazily on the grassy areas. It’s as if they knew how to cross roads without accidentally getting killed or killing someone.

------------------------------------------

The floor was scattered with papers with miniscule words printed on them. In the middle of the room, Luke sat crossed legged on the floor, with mismatched socks on his feet. (They were always cold even in warm weather, which was always… by the way), a pen swirling in his right hand and a bandanna tied around his head. He almost looked like a pirate. This possibly meant that he was prepping himself for a role.

Office crap is a comedy of sorts where Luke plays the role of an annoying, pain in the ass executive. It’s a far cry from his pirate getup, which was his method of displaying a “do not disturb” message.

It’s not that he gets into a pirate outfit each time he wants to be alone, instead he gets into something you’d never be caught wearing anywhere outside the comfort of your own home. Take the mismatched socks for instance, or a faux fur hat when the temperature is about 30 C. Once he walked around the house in an apron over his clothes and a chef’s hat over his head. At that time he was concentrating on his role as a ghost haunting an insurance company.

Mark often ignored Luke at times like these. It’s best to leave creative people to mull over their own thoughts in complete silence… those temperamental jerks (when they’re having their bouts of ‘Oh, I can do whatever I want because I’m creative and people love me’)

Otherwise you’d most probably get ‘the look’ from them.

DAY 1 - 1/11/06

It’s hard to say how it all began; it’s even harder to say when. Besides, people don’t really go around admitting that they’re obsessed with something. It’s all a complicated chain of events that stem from one thing or another. A relentless pursuit, a maniacal drive and the next thing you know, you’re too far in it, and there’s no turning back.

“This is so not working… I don’t even know what I’m doing.” Mark muttered to himself as he stared at the words that flickered across the screen of his battered old computer.

Writing something of novel length was never his forte. He preferred short, smart sentences that could pack a punch and hit the readers with awe. Too bad it only lasted for two months. Then he had to resort to something else, much more subdued, but nevertheless still short enough for him to finish it in one go. He started writing for children, after obtaining a part time stint writing about the adventures of Peter and Molly, two 7 year olds running around their neighbourhood and solving mysteries of missing pets and scary creatures who ate children for lunch.

At that moment, he regretted his decision to join Word Hunt, a recent competition for budding writers where they slaved over their manuscripts for hours on end to achieve the minimum word limit of 70,000 in 50 days.

It was a secret project though… failing to achieve would have been a personal defeat and he didn’t want anyone to know about it until he was sure that he’d be able to pull this off.

“Dude, whaddya doin’, man?”

Mark instantly minimised his window and tried to smile at his housemate, Luke.

Luke had a beautiful set of teeth, which was a positive attribute for his chosen career path. He was a theatre actor, out of the job most of the time, but he still found happiness in bugging his friend’s life.

“Nothing”

“Dude, your screen’s blank”

“Huh?”

“Your screen’s blank. Are ya deaf or what?”

Luke grabs a chair and drops himself beside Mark. He starts playing with the wires that were there.

Mark lets out a barely audible sigh but remains silent. Luke looks at him.

“Well, you’re alive… but with this kind of silence you’re giving me the creeps, dude” Luke added, somewhat mysteriously.

“Yeah, I’m alive… See…”

“You know, if I came in here and found you dead on this chair staring at your computer…”

“Look Luke, don’t be silly!” Mark interrupted.

“You interrupted my flow of thought… anyway, as I was saying, if I found you dead here I’d say that you were having an affair with the computer and your chick came in here, saw the act and murdered you.”

"Luke, you know I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“But someday you will…”

“Huh! Which season are you in now? You’re obsessed with that murder investigation show you know… You’ve been talking about murders and investigations and stuff like that since forever.”

Mark wondered how on earth Luke’s mom could give a boxed DVD set of all the show’s seasons for his birthday.

“Oh, come on, dude. You’re the one who’s obsessed… with the word obsessed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been muttering it to yourself the past couple of days. Something’s wrong, man. Anyway, nice screensaver you’ve got there” Luke said and bounded off his chair and out of the door sleek as a cat.

Luke turned to face his computer again, making a mental note to change the screensaver to start 3 seconds after being idle…or less if that was an option, 1 second, perhaps… having someone look at your blank screen and comment on it is not something he would look forward to again.

He stared at the screen, taking in the words he had written one by one, trying to see where he could improve it. Writing for children, he noticed, didn’t involve this much rumination.

He could opt to write a novel for children, though… just throw in dragons, or a princess. The kids would love it. But he didn’t want to write for others, not this time anyway… though he still continued thinking about dragons and princesses all the same. A dragon princess, or prince, something to think about….

He kind of changed his mind later… he needed to make it real, he thought. The main character was supposed to be a guy, like him… but he was worried that he might just end up making the character a part of himself, maybe a handsomer, taller, and much more talented and confident version of him. That didn’t sound too bad. Except that it didn’t help his self esteem.

He wondered if he was obsessed about anything. It was hard to come up with possibilities of obsession. Maybe it was writing… he had no idea.

He figured that he needed to think his plot over… obsession was an idea, expanding the plot to engage the interest of the reader was something else altogether. Finally, he decides that sitting in front of the computer and tapping the table was not going to help him, and leaves to look for Luke.

Mark walked into the darkened room where Luke was standing against a wall, reading a manuscript, and looking worriedly across the room from time to time. Now was not a good time to interrupt Luke, but that wasn’t Mark’s intention. He came over to give Luke some moral support for his attempt to get a role as an annoying pain in the ass young executive. Secretly, Mark thought that the role would fit Luke like a glove. Luke could be an annoying pain in the ass. And he was quite young. He would be 23 in June.

Luke caught Mark’s eye and gave a small wave.

Some of the others turned around to look at Mark. Slightly tall and gangly, Mark had a crooked nose, which some people said looked like a certain actor’s nose, and people often mistook him for an actor whenever he came to Luke’s auditions.

Through an unfortunate series of events, Mark was rather shy, and would rather have a dozen bricks fall on his leg than act in front of critical audiences. He rather felt that his arms and legs were too long and they kept flailing about and hitting other people when he actually tried to interact with others.

A pint sized lady with triangle shaped glasses and a pair of dangling earrings stood up and rapped her clipboard with the pen. Her voice projected from her corner in crisp, clean lines… from what she was saying, Mark assumed she was the casting director.

The actors started moving to the seats in front, and a few dodgy looking men sat on the chairs at the back. The big yellow chair in the middle of the table had the word DIRECTOR emblazoned at the back of it in big bold letters.

Mark observed as the young actors began performing the script. Most of them hardly looked at it, and acted as though they were having a casual conversation with their neighbours.

Young exec: I’m here to officially bug your life

Female colleague: Gee, that’s great! (Rolls eyes)

Young exec: Awesome… you’re the first person that thinks me bugging them is great. You’re an amazing colleague, you know.

Female colleague: Yeah, I found that out a long time ago. Anyway, I see Meg’s free at the moment. Stop by her place will ya? She looks likes she needs some cheering up.

Young exec: (In low whispers) I can’t.

Female colleague: (Whispering also) Why not?

Young exec: (Runs fingers through his hair) I think she has the hots for me.

Female colleague: She’s old enough to be your mother!

Young exec: Nope. I did the math. My mom would have had to have me when she was 15 if she were the same age as Meg. And if you take into account my good old sis, who’s like 5 years older than me, then she would have been 10 when she first gave birth. Freaky!

The script wasn’t much to go by… the conversation between the characters lacked depth. It was meant to be that way. In fact it was almost straightforward, unlike other stage performances. The only thing that mattered most was the body language, as well as the way the actors projected themselves and took on the role. The role had to be taken by a true actor. At least, that’s what the lady with the clipboard said, after calling all the actors forward.

Mark walked out of the theatre alone, his hands in his pockets due to the cold. His hands and feet were always cold. Luke apparently stayed behind to chat up with some chick who was auditioning for the female colleague part, occasionally flashing those beautiful teeth as he played the part of the suave guy to perfection.

Mark decided to name his main character Duncan. It was an interesting name, and he didn’t know anyone who went by that name personally. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even know anyone whose name started with the alphabet D with the exception of Derek, a childhood friend. And Derek was dead.

“Duncan had an obsession no one knew about. It grabbed him by the collar, forcing him to obey it’s every whim and fancy. The search for the dragon, once assumed to be a dinosaur increased Duncan’s status in the eyes of other palaeontologists. His obsession for the search of the mystical dragon was often mistaken for passion and enthusiasm. The search drove him crazy, especially whenever the team was close to a discovery but the evidence was just not enough.

Oftentimes, he would go to the site late at night with a sketchpad in hand, conjuring images of dragons with long snouts, or with spikes across their tails… flying in the mountains, or crawling stealthily in the mangrove swamps.

Then he would trudge back to the camp in the early hours and yell for his team to get an extra early start. He was clearly obsessed.”

Mark read the paragraph again. It didn’t sound too bad… at least there was something to build on. It looked much better than his opening sentence. Perhaps he’d go back and change it when he’s done.

He wondered what would happen if he changed Duncan to a girl. An obsessed female palaeontologist sounds much more enticing. He decided to call his sister and ask her what kind of things would have crossed her mind if she was a 25 year old female palaeontologist. Even if her answer would most probably be inapplicable, her reaction would be worth the trouble.

He realised 2 things though… the first thing is that dragons don’t necessarily belong in children’s stories. In fact they don’t belong anywhere. Anything that big would have never let anything else live. He shuddered slightly as he recalled a movie a watched a few years ago, where the earth was attacked by dragons. Another thing he noticed is that he is obsessed with the word obsessed. Luke was right!

PROLOGUE (5/11/06)

It was a perfectly normal Monday morning, as far as Monday mornings could go. The surly looks of the people that crossed his path that morning was an indication that a perfectly normal Monday for him could be a blue Monday for everyone else. He didn’t care one bit how everyone else perceived Monday mornings. Subjective ideas didn’t need deliberation. It was a pure waste of time.

Mark was headed down town towards the office. Having turned 23 earlier that year, he was one of the youngest in the office. The rest of the team were greying men who had children who were just a few years younger than him.

Mark was lanky, and had long arms and legs which concerned him greatly. He always thought he was clumsy, and mentioned his worries about it to anyone who would listen. He was particularly conscious about his arms and legs, and avoided activity that required him to use it much such as games and dancing. In reality it was merely a figment of his active imagination.

From a slight distance he noticed that something was not quite normal about the office surroundings. The car park was slightly deserted, and a grey suited man was sitting at the entrance steps, and there w as also a policeman dressed in blue by the side of the man in the grey suit.

Did someone die?

Mark attempted to enter the building past the man in the grey suit.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the policeman said

“Work” Mark replied

“Don’t be smart, young man” said the policeman in a gruff tone as he got up and placed himself in front of Mark.

“I’m sorry, but I work up here.” Mark tried to be as polite as possible. As far as he could tell, getting into trouble with the police was not in his list of things to do. Not that he did have a list, but if there ever was one, getting into trouble was not going to be in it.

The grey suited man moved forward, and signalled something to the policeman.

“You work up here?” the man asked Mark in what he called a kind tone

“Yeah, is something wrong?” Mark queried, worried.

“I’m afraid so. We have closed the place for an indefinite time. I’m sure your boss will contact you to inform you regarding the… ‘cough discreetly’ current issues at hand” said the man again. “I believe it’s best if you leave this place now.’

Mark looked at both the man in the grey suit and the policeman.

“Run along now, kiddo. Your boss will contact you soon.”

Reluctantly Mark left the building. He took out his cell phone and called his boss. There was no dial tone. The phone was dead. He tried another number, his colleague’s number this time and then another, and another.

All the phones had something similar about them. There was no dial tone. At that moment, Mark felt was wistfully reminded of a character from a book he once read.