It was the usual manic Monday morning. Her inner time clock had put her eyes on
Auto pilot whom opened of their own volition and she saw the time was 6.00am
She leapt out of bed and after her daily ablutions, was applying moisturizer on her
Legs when something way out of the blue occurred.   The week before she had
Fallen on the pavement due to fresh snowfall.  She’d fallen flat on her belly but not
A single drop fell out of her coffee mug. Weird.. Well she’d brushed off the snow
and with the help of a passerby and made her way to work.  This fall had created a scab on one of her varicose veins that ran down her  right leg  which she’d developed after pregnancy.  These angry red lines ran down both legs forcing her to cover them
In all seasons.   Now, as she applied the moisturizer, the scab came off the varicose vein which burst open and blood gushed out in full flow.  Not being fainthearted, she tried to stem the flow with towels, but the blood kept gushing.  Getting frantic now, she rushed
To the bedroom to wake her husband who was snoring gently in deep sleep.  Hubby
Had removed his hearing aids and was sort of deaf to the world.  She stuck one finger
In her vein and with the other hand shook him vigorously.  He woke up due to this
Violent shaking and after putting on his hearing aid asked whattssup?  Wifey screamed
Am bleeding to death!!  What!! Hurry quickly call 911 for emergency medical aid.
He finally realized the gravity of the situation and called 911 emergency hotline.
Help came amidst sirens waking the whole hood.  Wifey was embarrassed and sheepish
But she was bleeding to death so it was ok after all, causing all this  uproar.  She had
Lost a lot of blood having bled profusely for a good 30-45 mins and hence they gave
Her oxygen and applied a tight bandage and carried her to the emergency
Room of the nearby hospital.  There they transferred her to a bed.  A physician’s aide
Then came to her aid and cut open the bandage and said that it would require stitches
And asked her to lie on her stomach so that she could do the needful as the vein was on the
Back of the right leg.  She was quite dizzy and light headed and quietly turned over.
She started bleeding profusely again whilst the physician’s aide had left to get the
Sutures and bandages.
Suddenly, wifey felt herself floating on thin air and then she alighted in what seemed
Like a cemetery which looked very familiar.  Yes, she’d attended a wake and subsequent
Burial in this very place.  It felt like home.  The headstones on various graves seemed
Familiar markers and she felt she knew the folks buried there as well. She floated along
Until she reached the church in the building that annexed the crematorium.  Here she
Saw her hubby, her two sons, her daughter and all her near and dear ones, silently weeping  and wiping their eyes whilst looking at the coffin holding the body of the
Deceased.  Out of curiosity she crept closer to see who were they mourning and how
Come no one had informed her.  Getting upset, she crept closer and then she saw she herself was lying in the coffin in her favorite red color sari with all her finery and hands folded.
She got a bad jolt!!  When did she die? She is fine and present right here.  She shouted
Waved her hands but no one paid any heed.  What should she do now?  She then
Recalled the gateway she had entered after leaving the hospital and entering the
Cemetery.  It was funny shaped with lots of carvings and seemed to reach the sky.
It was shaped like an oriental pagoda.  She did not recall seeing the top of this gateway.  Now she sped back on the double to retrace her steps going back through the gateway.  When she reached this gateway, she tried to go through but it seemed to move out of reach.  She tried again, again it seemed to elude her.  Please, she wept, god help me cross  this gate as I need to get back home. She had lots of work pending. But the gate seemed
To move just out reach every time she crept near.  Finally tired, she fell to the ground
In a dead faint.
After what seemed like eons, she opened her eyes and found herself in the emergency
Room with oxygen tubes in both nostrils and IV in her arm and her leg was bound in a fresh bandage.  Hubby was dozing in a chair close to her bed after what seemed like another sudoku bout.  The daily crossword had not been tackled as yet.  Hubby enjoyed
Mental calisthenics in lieu of physical ones even though she nudged him constantly.
He enjoyed hot pakoras and requested them all the time.  Now, she vowed, I will ensure
That he goes for daily walks with me.  Want him around forever with me.  The children
Will soon fly out of the nest and we will only have each other for company.  
The doctor finally came around with her discharge papers and told her to be very
careful with her legs and told her to walk a lot and drink lots and lots of water to
get the circulation going.  Then the doctor said in passing, missy you really scared
All of us you know.  For a good ten minutes you were not responding to anything and even your heartbeat had stopped- We gave you shocks to revive you and gradually
You began to respond.  Your husband had started weeping a lot and seemed lost
Without you.  He wanted to call your children, but we stopped him as we had not
Given up hope.  You are a tough one and a fighter and so you came back to us.
The Gateway had finally let her pass through……….
   
 
 
The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates
 in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness.
 Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to
 less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness
 and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable
 together reveal a man’s thoughts.
Louis Aragon
1897-1982, French Poet
Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

Truth Is Stranger Than FictionWMD aka William Marcus D’Souza- Bill for short was having a bad day.  It had been a very hectic day at work with meeting after meeting and his table was full of uncleared files that needed his immediate attention. The Company was in the middle of a merger deal and he had been asked to clear all pending projects by delegating all the workload to appropriate Department heads so that they could be finished in record time before The company merged losing its identity and resurfacing in another morphed Avatar. Bill had been promoted as General Manager recently and this came to pass due to his hard work, innovative skills and thinking outside the box mentality.

WMD- Bill was an only son having lost his dad in the war, a squadron Leader
in the Indian Air force. His mom Maggie d’souza was a woman of substance and
her personality had equal measure of charm, diffidence and courage. Maggie did
not breakdown when her beloved husband Marcus Jose D’Souza lost his life in
service of his country at the age of thirty leaving behind a four year son who had
just begun binding with his Dad.

Maggie gathered her wits about her and weighing all the pros and cons decided
To sell their small house in Goa and move to Bombay where she had found a good
School where little Billy could study and Maggie could teach in primary school as well.
The nuns who ran this convent had also given Maggie a two room apartment as part of  her employment package considering her circumstances and also maybe it was the will  of  god -that element was very much in the mix as this was the only time they had made an exception and provided accommodation to a member of their staff.

Maggie was a good teacher who brought out the best in her students and also captured their attention by her innovative method of teaching. Billy too was in her class and flourished in body and mind. The nuns however to be fair, always had Billy’s test papers checked out by another staff member to avoid any controversy and the test papers for each class were set by the teacher of another section which eliminated any cheating or partiality. Billy’s dad when alive was an accomplished well respected pianist and Billy had inherited his musical prowess from him and this skill Maggie honed to perfection by having Billy take special piano lessons. They had also brought their prized possession,  a baby grand piano with them to Bombay.

Time went by swiftly and Billy turned 21 and being an outstanding student, he got recruited right  from the college campus at a substantial compensation package. Both mother and son finally  felt all their hard work and determination had paid off. They remembered Marcus very much and said  special Prayers for him at the local church where they attended mass every Sunday without fail.  Now they moved into the company three bedroom apartment that was part of the package deal. Luckily it was not too far from the school. Few years passed by.

Maggie had been having dizzying spells and had been feeling weak for some time but had ignored these  signs. Finally her colleague and best friend Nisha persuaded her to consult her physician. The test results had finally come in and Maggie felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach.  She had blood cancer and it was in the advanced stages and she did not have too much time to live.  Maggie was happy and then sad. She was happy because now she would be joining her beloved Marcus
and then she was sad as her Billy would be left alone. But Maggie was aware that Billy was in love  with a lovely girl named Sonia who also loved Billy equally in return. So, she consoled herself that Billy would have someone to hold him when she called it quits. But she did not let Billy know about her illness- she said that she had some infection which was lingering and was problematic.  Billy made sure Maggie took her meds and dinner on time and paid extra heed to her needs. They truly cared for each other and were more like pals than mother and son.

Since Maggie had little time left, she wanted to pay a last visit to Goa and bid farewell to her numerous relatives who had been calling her all these years and also pay her respects at the graves  of both her parents and Marcus’s parents. After great persuasion, Billy let her go with the promise  that she will call frequently and let him know about her well being.

Billy was feeling a lot of strain due to the deadlines and also the merger was only two days away.  He had caught a chill yesterday whilst being caught in the rain without
proper attire and now he was coming down with high fever and chills. Even his teeth
had begun to chatter. Their family doctor was Doctor Khanna who had his office
in the nearby shopping market and he also lived about couple of miles from their place.  As luck would have it, even though he tried calling Dr. Khanna on his cell, he could not  reach him. After calling the office, Lisa, doctor Khanna’s secretary informed him that  Doctor was on leave for a month and had left a substitute doctor in charge and she promised  to have Dr. Kher the sub doc make a house call. Billy said thanks, and fell  in the bed almost in a comatose state babbling incoherently with tremors shaking  his body due to chills felt all over.

Dr. Kher was returning from another house call and was on his way back to the office
when he saw someone standing in the middle of the road. He had to hit the brakes and  slow down abruptly. He saw a well dressed bespectacled lady standing there. He rolled  down the car window and asked if he could help her. She said yes doctor I need you to  come with me for another housecall as there is another person who needs your help urgently.  They rushed to Billy’s house and immediately doctor Kher attended to Billy and realized  that he had a bad case of the flu and would need hospitaliztaion so that he could be under  proper care and observation. with appropriateIV fluids etc administered as treatment protocol.

The lady thanked him profusely and then saw him off. The next day, Dr. Kher went
to the hospital to check up on Billy and he found Sonia his fiancé in attendance and his color  looked much better and he seemed to be responding to the treatment Then Billy thanked the doctor  and also asked him to convey his gratitude to Lisa who had dispatched him with alacrity.  Dr. Kher was mystified and said that he did not spoken to Lisa since yesterday morning.  Then Billy asked how did he know to come to house to see him. Dr. Kher said that a middle  aged lady had stopped his car and requested and pleaded with him to hurry and see her son. Billy  was mystified and said Doc you must be mistaken as my mom is in Goa. Then when the doc insisted,
he showed the picture of his mom that he carried in his wallet and Doc Kher confirmed  That indeed Maggie had asked him to visit their house and checkout Billy.

Billy did not disbelieve the doc but was still puzzled. He immediately called his mom on her cell  phone but there was no answer. Then he called his cousin Mary who was very dear to them and  Maggie would most probably be with them. Mary answered the phone on the first bell and whilst  weeping profusely informed Billy that aunty Maggie had passed away last evening around 7.30pm  and ever since they had been calling Billy to let him know but there was no answer..
Doctor Kher had seen Maggie at 7.30pm In Bombay on his way back to the office…….

A few years ago, when I taught English Composition at a community college, one of the first essays I’d assign students was “The Transaction” by William Zinsser. In the essay, Zinsser writes about a doctor who has recently begun to write and has experienced some publishing successes. He compares his way of working with the way the doctor works. Zinsser points out that to him, a professional writer, writing is a vocation, while to the doctor, it is an avocation. The assignment of the term “avocation” implies the doctor will never be taken seriously as a writer. At least that’s the impression I always came away with each time I re-read the essay in preparation for discussing it with a new group of students.

I always wanted to call writing my vocation. Like many people, I had a lifelong dream of being a writer. I returned to school as an adult, when my youngest child was in first grade, to pursue that dream. I’d read and taken to heart the words of another professional writer, John Gardner, that anyone serious about becoming a writer should first get a liberal arts education. After earning my Bachelor’s degree, I went on for my MFA in fiction writing. Creative writing programs are ideal in granting students the time to write amid an atmosphere of creativity. You “fill the well” with ideas and learn the craft by reading and discussing each others’ stories, as well as classic and contemporary works of literary value. And if that doesn’t keep you writing, there’s the additional pressure of having to produce a book-length work for your final thesis in order to graduate. I walked away with my degree along with a few awards and visions of writing grandeur.

But after seven years in school, supported emotionally and financially by an encouraging husband, I felt a need to justify all that time spent earning my undergrad and graduate degrees. So I began to teach. I never viewed teaching as my vocation. First and foremost, I was a writer. The teaching was just something I did—a class or two a semester—on the side.

Only “on the side” took up a huge portion of what I’d anticipated would be my writing time. I am conscientious and hard working by nature, and approach everything I take on with gusto. Teaching was no different. I was dedicated to helping my students discover and develop their individual voices. I wanted them to love writing the way I loved it, to recognize the strength and power of the English language. I spent hours at home reading, thinking about, and marking up their assignments, not only grammatically, but in an attempt to push them to dig deeper into their individual stories. I gave their work the same time and attention and respect that I would any fellow writer’s.

I found teaching rewarding. To clarify, I found being in the classroom rewarding, but the politics of academia not worth the budgeted dollars they were paying me. One semester I ended up teaching 11 credits, one credit shy of a full-time load, miserable that I had no time to work on my own stories. I decided to take a break the following spring to put into practice the subject I’d been teaching and pursue my vocation. I was going to write.

What happened that spring is as unsurprising as a predictable plotline. With time stretched out endlessly before me, I filled it just as endlessly with writing-related activities, all of which provided a pretext of writing but produced little new work. I surfed the Internet in pursuit of suitable publications. I wrote cover letters and submitted to those publications, garnering my market share of rejection slips. I joined an online critique group and spent more time reading other people’s stories than writing my own. I signed up for a number of online writing discussion lists and used up hours responding to the posts which poured into my e-mail. My fingers were striking the keyboard, but I wasn’t writing.

I wasn’t the complete slug, or as my students would label it, slacker, that I’m making myself out to be. I did write a few essays, a form I became interested in while teaching, and placed them, along with some older stories, in decent publications. I became involved in fighting an attempt at censorship in the public schools in my county. This led to a bit of national exposure for my work; I was invited to write a guest column for The Washington Post. Although I was writing passionately about something I cared deeply about, I’d lost my creative focus and along with it, the ability to enter my imagination to produce fiction, the literary art I’d studied for years.
I am an impulsive person and impulsively one day, five months into my vocation as a full-time writer, I picked up the newspaper, studied the want ads and started to send out my resume. I quickly progressed from applying for part-time to applying for full-time positions, reasoning in my non-writing angst that as long as I was going to compromise on my dream and work for someone else, I might as well be well paid for my efforts.

When I began my new position as a contract administrator for a real estate broker, I didn’t know what to expect. I’d had various jobs since birthing my first child, but I hadn’t worked full-time in twenty-two years. I took the job more out of self-disgust and frustration than a desire for self-growth and fulfillment.

So what did I discover? After years of teaching freshman English Composition, a class the majority of students don’t want to take, mothering children who once they are teenagers don’t want to be mothered, and writing stories so many editors don’t want to publish, it was a refreshing change to work hard and have not only my boss, but all his clients tell me what a great job I was doing. I grew to love the real estate business. My communication skills, both oral and written, and the requirements of the job were a perfect match. I’d found my vocation.

Maybe the ending is to be expected, a plot twist in what continues to be a predictable storyline. I still write. Now that writing has become my avocation, I have become more prolific despite, or maybe because of, having to squeeze my writing into narrow periods of time.

When the preachers came, they embraced you. When they entered your home, they smiled pious smiles. Then they said in reverent tones, ‘Let us pray for your forgiveness.’ But you were unable to tell them that it was your husband who had sinned.

When you knelt, their fingers gripped your shoulders and their unified voices mingled with your whispered prayer for his return and they left, gratified with their godliness and you, watching their black coats recede, tied a noose around your neck and left your baby crying.

Our child, Jilly Nines, will be starting kindergarten in September and last night we participated in our first parent’s night at school. We, and about eighty other parents, met the principal, the school psychologist, all five kindergarten teachers, the administrative director, two first grade teachers, the librarian, the art teacher, the physical education teacher, the night custodian, the director of the PTA, the PTA fund-raising coordinator, the director of bi-lingual education, the director of transportation, the speech pathologist, the director of the PTA communications office, four teacher’s aides and someone else. Almost all of the teachers were endowed with a charming, youthful silhouette. None looked like they could deliver the thunderous reprimands of the Sister Christopher of my youth. The night custodian, a charming woman about my age, fifty-x, looked as if she could have snapped my neck in the wink of an eye.

We learned there will be about ninety new kindergartners and five different kindergarten classes in the school. Two of the classes will be bi-lingual.
All of this took place at ‘Neath Lake Elementary School. This is the same place that my dad, Jilly’s grandfather went to school from 1924 - 1935 (first grade through high school).

By the end of the meeting, three things occurred to me:
1. In order to assure a heterogeneous (a word which should only be written with a space between each letter thusly — h e t e r o g e n e o u s) I’ll start again. In order to assure a h e t e r o g e n e o u s student population in kindergarten, as mandated by New York State law, all new kindergarten students must be screened by school officials prior to admission. I guess this applies to schools that will have multiple incoming classes as well as to provide some Department of Education number cruncher some raw data in order to prove something to someone. The children, we learned would be tested in six categories: Large Motor Skills; Cognitive Skills; Language Skills; Shape Shifting; and Cookie Eating. We were assured any number of times that this was not a test and that our children could not fail. We were told that the results of this non-testing could not, would not, should not be shared with the child’s parents. That the information would only be used to assure a h e t e r o g e n e o u s classroom population.

I have always known, and confirmed last night, that I am, for the most part, a very accepting and trusting individual. This can be evidenced by the fact that after we were informed of the fail-safe screening, I had no questions for the school officials. I did not even ask if someone should have spell checked the principal’s presentation. Oh, h e t e r o g e n e o u s was spelled well enough but I am still wondering what I should tell them Jilly’s “heigth” is. My other co-parents though are not quite as trusting and what occurred to me, after about the two-hundred-seventy-sixth question about kindergarten screening from only about six of the other seventy-nine parents in the room, was that there was another kind of screening taking place right in front of my eyes and it was this: These teachers, in order to survive the school year are going to have to ASSURE that these six parents have their children in separate classrooms. Otherwise, the lovely and patient Mrs. Greenhild will probably go postal (or hombre postaleros if they end up in her bi-lingual education program).

2. Everyone at my job is “Bill,” “Bob,” “Ruth,” “Sarah,” “Lester,” “Asshole Trevor,” or “etc.” What I mean is everyone is on a “first name” or “epithet and first name basis.” At school, it turns out that everyone is: Mrs. Greenhild, Mr. Ingram, Mrs. Lipton-Soupmix. I cannot handle this. I have to get on a first name basis with these people in a hurry or I’ll be as afraid to address them as I am to order a double-mocha-cino-mora-java-llada-roma at Starbucks. It’s intimidating. I just want to be able to say to Jilly’s teacher, “So, Julie are we having fun learning?” or “Jules, are we up to speed on the shape shifting thing yet?” (I do plan to refer to Jilly as “we” in school as I am prepared to take 100% responsibility for everything related to “our” schooling because there is no way she is getting away with the stuff that I got away with.) So, I am pretty sure the road to this kind of relationship with the staff at Jilly’s school is paved with money. Money that flows to the school in new ways. New Money. Money for a class trip to a herbologist. Maybe a new laptop for the Department of Education number cruncher. I have to get involved. I have to volunteer. I have to attend meetings. I have to vote in the school board election. I have to, well, to use the ‘f’ word. I have to fund-raise. So this constitutes fair warning. Be prepared to buy, from me, at a significant mark-up: wrapping paper, books, chocolate, costume jewelry, magazine subscriptions, doilies. Save your money. You name it. We’re selling it. You’re buying it.

3. I cried as we were leaving the school. My father walked these halls eighty years ago. He had his whole life ahead of him and he decided to have children instead. I am eternally grateful. Last night, all of the teachers, administrators, therapists talked about the children, our children, my child as if they really liked children. As if they liked my child. Already. Not ever having met her. They were articulate about what the children do each day at school. They knew when school started. They knew when school ended. They were teaching over the summer. And they were attending a meeting at 7:30 in the evening with seventy-four reasonable and six treacherously aggressive parents. Do you know how many people who work at my office would attend a 7:30PM meeting? Well, other than Asshole Trevor, no one would.
So, we’ve made first contact with our child’s educators. I hope I can behave like an adult which I think I can as long as no one tries to teach me the correct use of the semi;colon.