Cosmic Horror: The Scariest Subgenre
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” – H.P. Lovecraft
One cannot discuss H.P. Lovecraft and cosmic horror without showcasing this excerpt from his seminal work, “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926). It is a monologue that doesn’t hold anything back and lays out all the cards that cosmic horror holds. At its core, this [আরো পড়ুন]
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Editorial
The first Bengali Speculative Fiction Webmagazine, Kalpabiswa steps into the ninth year of its Autumn Edition, also popularly known as Sharodiya Pujabarshiki in Bengal, India. The season, Sharod is the Bengali equivalent of the Autumn which witnesses one of the biggest festivals in the world, Durga Puja (Worship of Feminine Deity, Durga). Durga Puja is a cultural phenomenon celebrating the best of humanity, i.e. Art. The Durga Puja Magazines have been a part of the cultural celebration for centuries in Bengal.
Scholars- Painters- Writers- Authors- Poets get their launching pad in Puja Barshiki, the Autumn Edition of Magazines. Kalpabiswa is the only Indian Magazine and publisher that publishes writings in Science Fiction- Fantasy and Horror. We owe a lot to Ujjwal Ghosh, the renowned illustrator who proves his artistic mettle by designing the cover of the current [আরো পড়ুন]
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Kalpabiswa Newsletter Vol 09, Issue I
Dear Readers of the World and Beyond It, Kalpabiswa is delighted to share the first newsletter in the Autumn Edition, 2024.
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Before The Flood
Prologue
West of Mexico Bay, 65 Million Years Ago:
The titanic herd of Alamosaurus, closing to their breeding ground, looked up at the east sky as a bright radiance caught their attention. There was a bedazzling light, a second sun in the east horizon. Burning hotter and brighter than a thousand volcanoes, the meteor was losing altitude at a staggering pace. The alpha male contracted his eyes. Split second before it hit the ground, the meteor cast its permanent shadows on the ground and blinded them. Before the impact, the male thought it saw a behemoth pyramidal structure inside the light. It was no meteorite that kissed the shallows hard.
Three seconds later, the shockwaves and the tremors hit the Yucatan Peninsula, vaporizing everything in their path. The pyroclastic cloud, the tsunami, and the flames followed them.
1.
The Great Rift Valley (The Cradle of Humanity),
70000 years ago:
The morning came like a sudden reality as the sun rose between the clouds after a night of thunders and showers. He opened his eyes slowly under [আরো পড়ুন]
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His Last Journey to the West : Introduction to The Complete Wu Cheng’en Omnibus
In the 96th year of the Qìngyáng era, July, Clan Wu, the largest family in the Jiangnan region, once again embarked on the compilation of their genealogy. Unlike the routine decennial genealogy updates, this time representatives from various branches gathered for a singular purpose: to decide the fate of one individual.
This person, bearing the name Wu Cheng’en, had been exiled from the family since the founding year of the Jìngníng era for treason. However, everything changed with a single imperial decree, which praised him for his literary contributions, enumerated his lifelong achievements, posthumously honored him with the title of “Nobleman of Knowledge and Loyalty”, and ordered Clan Wu to recommend a worthy talent to travel to the capital on an auspicious day to complete the revisions of Cheng’en unfinished work, The History of Longevity. Such recognition was nearly unprecedented [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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A Ghost Can Be a Lot of Things: Mike Flanagan’s Take on Horror and Trauma
“Most times, a Ghost is a Wish”
Steven Crain remarks in The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
The popular American filmmaker known for creating horror flicks, Mike Flanagan doesn’t just use horror for scares—he uses it as a plot device to confront horrifying traumatic events one would rather bury. In Flanagan’s world, the real horror lies not in what we see, but in the pain, we try to escape.
Horror is often associated with darkness and jump scares, ghosts and demons, strategic silence, and screams. Though there is a good chunk of movies that portray horror like that, Mike Flanagan’s work proves how versatile a plot device horror can be—serving not just to terrify, but to tell profound, emotionally charged stories.
Using horror as a narrative tool allows the realistic horrors of trauma to be discussed in a way that provides emotional distance for the audience because of the inclusion [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Slapstick Joy of Speculative Horror Comedy
Mel Brooke’s 1974 work ‘Young Frankenstein’ features the delectable Gene Wilder in the role of the grandson of Dr Frankenstein, also Dr Frankenstein. Shelley’s seminal work (Frankenstein, 1818) laid the groundwork for horror as a genre in the nineteenth century, and when it is adapted to this absurdist comedy set in the atmospheric eeriness of Frankenstein’s Castle, the band of odd characters and their grotesquely comic interactions gives us gems like these: a student asks the junior Dr Frankenstein, “but what about your grandfather’s work, sir?” The ensuing response breaks viewer immersion brilliantly as Dr Frankenstein emphatically responds to the student, “My grandfather’s work was doo-doo!”.
The adolescence of horror-comedy, after skirting around subversive adaptations of classic horror, gets us to the Beetlejuice (with Michael Keaton’s legendary, “It Show [আরো পড়ুন]
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Hypnotizing Nature in Hariye Jawa and Pasangmara
The Dilemma Between Science, Nature, and Literature Too
Progress is a corollary to sacrifice. Science has given us rational amusement and partially eclipsed the magical effect of unnatural phenomena. With the invention of scientific gadgets, human intervention in the forbidden territories of nature has increased, significantly leading to the destruction of ecological balance. The recently published article, Ghostly Past and Colonial Uncanny by Tithi Bhattacharya fetches our attention to some narratives of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chelebela (Boyhood, 1940), where Tagore narrates about the bygone days of his supernatural belief about Brahmadaitya (a Brahmin Ghost). Tagore’s narrative juxtaposes the condition of Calcutta with its modern arrival of lights and the childhood faith in supernatural existence associated with the veil of a dark and shabby environment. Science, with its rationality, brought light to remove [আরো পড়ুন]
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Steampunk Avarice Review
Author: Sumit Bardhan
Language: English
Genre: Steam Punk, Science Fiction, Detective Thriller
Country: India
Published by: Kalpabiswa Publication
Blurb
IN A WORLD OF AIRSHIPS AND ALCHEMY, ONE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR MUST UNRAVEL A THEFT LEADING TO A DEEPER ENIGMA
It is the early twentieth century in an alternate-reality Calcutta. Here airships fly in the air, alchemy is an established practice and mythical races live alongside humans. Against this backdrop, private investigator Dhoorjoti is tasked with solving the case of a theft at the prestigious Indo-British Clockworks. But what looks like a simple crime, soon deepens into a deeper mystery.
The Effect of Avarice
The opening sentence provides a sense of laidback ease in the life two adults engaged in casual conversation of life. Sumit Bardhan draws the setting of the bachelor’s pad with the help of carefully chosen words and thus transfers the readers to be a part of [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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The Rise of AI Art: Shaping the Future of Creativity
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made remarkable advancements in recent years, revolutionising various industries and changing the way we live and work. One field where AI’s influence has been particularly pronounced is the realm of art. The convergence of technology and artistic expression has given rise to a new wave of creativity, leading to the emergence of AI art as a significant cultural and artistic movement. In this article, we will explore the evolution of AI art, its history, and the potential it holds in shaping the future of creativity.
The year 2022 marked a pivotal moment for AI art, as it gained mainstream recognition and acceptance as a legitimate art form. Prior to this period, AI-generated art was seen as a niche pursuit confined to the domains of academia and tech laboratories. However, the explosive growth of AI-generated artworks and their widespread acclaim in prestigious art exhibitions [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Decadence of Humanity: Double Dose of Dystopias
Science Fiction has been successful in instigating imaginary futures for humanity. The two most distinctive features include utopia and dystopia. Utopia refers to a perfect society, whereas dystopia refers to a social order without the value of human life in a general sense. It is an invented world in which ominous tendencies of our present social, political, and technological order are projected into a catastrophic society in the future.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1952), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986), and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) are regarded as some of the finest examples of dystopian science fiction.
It is time to delve into the first two dystopian classics, Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
William [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Writer – Douglas Adams
Year – 1979
Country- United Kingdom
Genre – Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Comedy
Our life is nothing but a strange series of phenomena. Sometimes it makes sense, and the rest of the time, it doesn’t. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is serious, but mostly it is meaningless because in the end, nothing really happens, we are stuck in an infinite loop of birth-life-dual life-death-afterlife-hell-heaven-reincarnation-moksha or nothing at all, and we question about the meaning of life or life itself.
Are you confused? Are you feeling “ What the hell is going on over here ?”
This is the beauty of absurd literature and obviously the world of Douglas Adams’ “ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Galaxy”, where the protagonist Arthur wakes up in the morning only to discover two things, firstly his house is going to be demolished by a bulldozer [আরো পড়ুন]
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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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Book Review of Gautam Bhatia’s The Wall
Gautam Bhatia is a well-known figure in the world of science fiction as the editor of award-winning magazine Strange Horizons. While reviewing The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Volume 2, I came across an amazing space opera story, The List’ by Mr. Bhatia about the homogenization of a human society. Thus, the debut novel of Gautam Bhatia ‘The Wall’ was the obvious choice to feed the hunger of a science fiction reader.
Let us see whether The Wall has lived up to the expectation.
The author takes his own sweet time to tell this saga of revolution in a farfetched land of Sumer. The book comes up with a map (have a close look) which shows a city surrounded by a wall. The Sumerian society is matriarchal in nature and quite liberal when it comes to homosexual relationships but the citizens might face issues with free speech and free thinking. [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Phoenix Syndrome: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
ABSTRACT
The paper is a study of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles as a modern mythology that negates the old myth of the Phoenix as a figure of survival. It is argued that such a model that assures of continuity even after self-destruction is re-imagined. Bradbury turns the myth around, as a new myth that highlights the death wish of humanity is reversed in creating a human friendly Mars that keeps the fire of the Phoenix burning but with no scope for it jump in and come back. The new Mythology / New Mars imagined by Bradbury is a literary world and the technology that enables is also a literary machine. These ‘Machineries of Joy’ are the agents of survival by dispensing ‘Medicine for Melancholy’.
Key Words: Science Fiction, Modern Mythology, Phoenix myth, Mars, Ray Bradbury
There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before [আরো পড়ুন]
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Review: Analog Virtual
Analog Virtual
Publisher : Hachette India
Author : Lavanya Lakshminarayan
Language : English
Genre : Cyberpunk
Welcome to the future where caste, creed and religion are not important but merit is the sole criteria of life because productivity is power and without power you are doomed. The author has finely developed a world built on the ideology of your contribution to the society or to be specifically a capitalistic society owned by Bell Corp, the one which controls everything and everyone.
The food, clothing, social media, art, recreation, leisure and your choice of birth ( delivery procedure) is under the radar of Big Brother, not the Orwellian Oceania but in the Apex City erstwhile Bangalore.
The world of Apex city has been developed through a series of short stories with reappearance of few characters. The beauty of the book lies in the unified sense of diverse short stories interconnected by the fact that all dwell in the dystopian world owned by Bell Corporation.
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Aftermath
Time: 0110 hours
Date: 26th April, 1986
Place: Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.
You cut could the tension with a knife. Every single person present in that room – the scientists in white, their assistants, even the lowly workers in their gear – everyone’s eyes were gleaming – was it greed? A few licked their lips, as if they could physically taste the success, the culmination of their years of labour. Arunabha found this distasteful. He felt put-off by the buzz around him. This place was nothing more than a prison for him, a prison from which there was no escape. His gaze shifted from the blue glare of the computer screen to the glass wall across the room. He could see the people feverishly working there, covered head to toe in protective gear. It was more than five years ago – that he was invited by the Soviet Union to work in this [আরো পড়ুন]
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Review: “The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Volume 2”
The second edition of The Gollancz Book Of South Asian Science Fiction fills up the loops created by the prequel. It is wider in scope and it dives deep into the abyss of the reader’s imagination. This time it is truly South Asian by including entries from Srilanka as well as Tibet apart from the usual trio of India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, yes the work selection is really impressive.
Manjula Padmanabhan’s Graphic Preface is an eye-catcher, the readers are going to enjoy the postmodern graffiti and I guess it is important to acknowledge the realism of the cover picture as well as the image of the flying South Indian temple in the garb of a rocket, loved the propulsion angle. Do not miss Tarun Saint’s introduction as well as the bibliography at the end of the introductory article.
Let us throw a laser light on some of the delicacies offered by Gollancz.
Well, [আরো পড়ুন]
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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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New Bengal
No, I am not going to try and build it up. You are probably reading this story while you lean against the handgrip in a suburban train, waiting for your destination station. Or maybe you are glancing through it as you gulp down your food during the lunch break at the office before you get back to work. Or even, perhaps you need to go out soon on some urgent work, and you are reading up as much as you can in whatever little time you have left.
In short, for you and maybe for most of you, time is in short supply. So you do not have the patience to read anything like a regular novel that slowly builds up the characters, the background and the descriptions.
So let me come straight to the point. This story is about you or someone like you. All that happens in this story could happen with you too. I mean, it is not necessary that it will happen, but it could happen nonetheless.
Let’s [আরো পড়ুন]
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Mirjafar
“Damn! How could you let this happen?”
“Sorry, sir, it was my fault, but… but, I did rectify it within seconds.”
“That doesn’t change anything, you son-of-a-bitch! You almost screwed up my entire life’s work there! Lal, you there?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Shoot this bastard right now. I want to hear his scream.”
There came the sound of a gunshot, and almost simultaneously merging into the fading echoes of the crack, came a dying man’s pathetic scream that faded into a gurgle.
“Good riddance. Now I need to handle this.”
2
Ashok had just let out a moan of pleasure as he pressed the girl’s head against his crotch when his bliss was rudely interrupted by the powerful transmitter just beside his ear, alerting him to an incoming call from his boss.
Son-of-a-bitch! What a time to call! Shoving aside the girl with one hand, Ashok began pulling up his trousers while [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Sanctuary of Modhumida
The warm touch of a glow-worm bird, almost as big as a pigeon, breaks his sleep. That dream again! It has returned to Bidur after an interval of several days.
Bidur throws a slanting glance at Srimati. She is still in deep sleep, dishevelled and content.
Bidur instantly closes his eyes as if to shut out the revelation of any deep secret. The mind travelled back to the days when he had started to smoke. The cautious way in which he kept his face away and talked with the minimum movement of lips to avoid detection.
Forbidden thoughts wrapped in coloured covers! For the first time in their twenty-two years of conjugal life, he is indulging in guilty fantasies.
In spite of all his efforts, he cannot exercise any self-control. His hand is now unconsciously playing with the steering of his car. Again, he is late for his office today. The vacation, instead of rejuvenating him, has produced exactly the opposite result. He has become rather lax in his duties.
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