Enthralling Trails

“Yesterday is a pile of rubble. Today is a pile of opportunity. Life takes a new dump each morning” ― Ryan Lilly Troy was aghast to see the car move jerkily and climb up the walkway. The driver was none other than Roan who lived on the second floor. Troy had heard Penny, the neighbour assure that Roan was a careful driver. Troy waited in eagerness to hear Roan's explanation about the incident. Troy was the first to know of all the happenings though it was a mere balcony that jutted out of the wall into the open expanse in Mirraw Street. The colony consisted of independent bungalows, but of late the owners had begun selling their houses to the real estate agents and builders who built beautiful flats.   Penny was a narrow balcony, the French kind of balcony that we normally call a 'Juliet' balcony with a metallic barrier placed in front of a high window. Penny had metallic baluster, spindles between elaborate metallic network. Penny often felt suffocated when...

Hiren was six years old when he first came across an earthworm in his garden. It was dark maroon and had a band at the anterior end. Hiren asked his mother, “Is this worm a girl worm, she is wearing a hairband”, Hiren’s mother Neeta looked at Hiren lovingly and said, ‘It is called a clitellum’.  She also read out to him that worms were legless serpents or dragons. She then showed Hiren the animal book and told Hiren the numerous kinds of worms that lived in this world, but this was the earthworm, the most useful one. The slimy creature did not appeal Hiren, but it lived in the large longitudinal pot with the Aloe Vera, the Turmeric and the Ginger Plant. Every day when Neeta poured excess of water in the pot, Wriggly, the earthworm surfaced. Hiren would imagine it choking and coughing. Wriggly was thin dark and just a few centimetres in length. Hiren would sometimes address it as 'baby Wriggly'. He told Neeta, 'Can I tie a thread around its band just as we have a ...