Bunked

OR "How to imagine an apocalypse in two distinctly alien worlds by lighting two cigarettes and involving very few words."

Two writers bunked the local literary festival. The truth is they were considered a little more radical than everyone else. But they kept insisting that they bunked the festival, so they could go about doing what they like the best. Somehow, both of them agreed to imagine shorter plots this year. One was called the Bird and the more radical of the two was liked to be called the Camel. And this is how justify the ‘bunk’:

The Bird: Absolutely horrible! -- This whole idea of calling writers from everywhere and then..these discussions. I don’t want such patronages. Thank you very much.

The Camel: Readers, not patrons. Groupies, not fans. This fest is absolutely disgusting. I replied saying that that the dust from the busy feet of all the writers would be a bit too much for me. Writers walking together. Writers writing together, thinking together..

The Bird (interrupting): Sleeping together? ... I mean I don’t have a problem with people sleeping together. I am also open to orgies but it’s a bit funny. Come to think of it. All the filth in your body, that feeds your imagination, suddenly has to be washed. You are reduced to nothing but a complacent pink blob trading your favourite spot on the bed with people keen on raping you intellectually, molesting you verbally and then fucking you. They hardly match your exotic fantasies. They are filled with the insecurity of their anatomical crevices burning with desire to be loved, pursued, chased and then praised for their written word.

The Camel: Yeah..I mean, you could fuck or you can just read. You can’t fuck and read at the same time. I don’t think fornication entails reading a book.

The Bird: That would just appear like someone’s reading an instruction manual to fornicate. I am so glad I bunked.

The Camel: You know it now Bird. That was an easy deconstruction of a literary fest like that.

The Bird: I am thinking, we should stop writing complicated stories. The readers like it but I think they move to other complicated authors. And there are just complicated stories these days. Even simplest of the simpletons imagine a complex plot and then bring in elements which are not neccessary. I think we should not waste peoples’ time. So what have you got here for our little literary rendezvous?

The Camel: I like the last point. Your argument was very complex, though. People do not have time. We have all the time. So we could think of small and small plots. That would give us many, less complicated, even profound plots. I have one ready for you:

‘A shiny extraterrestrial mammoth walked past the helium balloon parked in the viscious landscape of Koban, the planet of swamps. The volatile atmosphere of this methane compressed terrain couldn't stop the smoker from lighting up another one, and that's it. Koban just blew up man!’

This is like the shortest plot that I could ever imagine in the alien worlds theme.

The Bird: Wow! When did this happen?

The Camel: Umm ... Almost instantly as we were speaking.

The Bird: But, I am not capable thinking so quickly and so minutely. Ok, minutely is not the right word here. I mean that was minimal and still was so...

The Camel: For those who don’t have time. But I am really afraid, what if they fail to grasp this connect between swamps and methane gas?

The Bird: You could replace with a race that survives on its own.. umm... gas.

The Camel: That’s brilliant. See you got it. So frame it up for me.

The Bird: Okay I will just stick to the same name for the planet. Its Koban, you said.

The Camel: Ya!

The Bird: ‘The lone stranger riding on the helium balloon across the dappled realm of Koban landed softly on its soil. But before the stranger even realised while lighting his last cigarette, Koban’s high and mighty, the only intelligent life form of its moist planet survived just by inhaling the gaseous content emanating from their posteriors. And then Koban was history, almost in an instant.’

The Camel: Classic! This ends our literary rendezvous. Thank you Bird.