Here's a short story I wrote for my school magazine. It has some Pakistani and Science references which some of you might have difficulty understanding, but hopefully most of you would enjoy it!
The Chronicles of Shockland: the Benzene, the Tiger and the Mehboob
Enter me—average A-Level student trying to get pass with least effort on my part. Fooling around when I’m supposed to be cracking that test, always arriving in class a minute too late and staying up all night watching a horror movie and then coming to school looking like a zombie. Dragging your dead body to class, feeling like you took twenty doses of morphine halfway through the lecture and checking your cell phone to know what time it is every thirty milliseconds and sometimes even ‘blinking’ into slumber world—nothing new, right? Except, sometimes, that blink sort of gets ‘stuck’. And believe me, you don’t want that happening.
It was Chemistry class. My notebook displayed to me the horror of Organic Chemistry. My eyes loomed like a storm on the cell phone’s screen, and it seemed like it had been noon for what, twenty minutes now? My eyelids had this sudden craving to be shut close and I tried so hard to just fake alertness, but my head dropped to the side every other second. It was like being teased with a glass of water when you’re very thirsty…to think, if I didn’t open those eyes each time Miss. Eyelid had an urge to lie down, and I let my mind just float and no longer be subject to some nonsensical babble about Benzene, the major douchebag…
Avada Kedavra.
I found myself standing in an empty and soundless room. I wasn’t sure how I got here, but it sure as hell frightened me. I had just seen Saw 203 yesterday night and I wasn’t looking forward to a ‘sequel’. I squirmed around like a squirrel, saying my last prayers just in case. Right then, the door squeaked. I jumped, my heart thudding in my chest. Oh God, what if this was it? I still had to apologize to Hira for putting that cockroach in her bag!
“Oh, Rabia dahling! Welcome, welcome, we’ve been waiting for you!”
A ‘thing’ entered and I’m not sure if you’ll deem me insane for saying that, but a ‘Benzene’ entered. She had this wig on her head, wearing stilettos with her hydrogen feet squeezed in, her lips and eyes suspended somewhere in between her. She held a cigar in her hand and walked much like a supermodel. Well, this was interesting.
“Ben—zene?”
“Oh, oh don’t call me that dahling. They call me Zen around here.”
“Right,” I said awkwardly, rolling my eyes, “what…are you doing here? Rather, what am I doing here?!”
“Oh sweetie,” she chuckled, taking a whiff of the cigar, “sweet child. You’re now in Shockland. See, every student has a Shockland where their lectures live even if they never remember anything in the exam. You have been rewarded a free visit to Shockland, because of your regular naps which prove how horrendous studies really are!”
Her explanation had me excited and frightened at the same time. I had no idea what awaited me, but it was for a fact that it wasn’t something I’m used to. She suddenly spun and strutted out of the room, confusing me. I ran behind her to make sure I didn’t get lost.
“Hey, where are we going?”
“ I’ve been entrusted to give you a tour of this place, to make sure you don’t get lost.”
“Thanks, I’d need that…” I trailed off, though a random thought came to my mind, “oh…how’s things between you and Hydrogen these days?”
“Don’t ask,” she groaned as we walked through an empty hall which resembled our very school’s, “he’s just…he gets so redundant sometimes, and then Electrophile comes by and I’m just swept off my feet! He delocalizes the positive charge on me and he kicks away Hydrogen so bravely…God, he’s so romantic…”
I couldn’t help but stare at her with my mouth forming an oval. She then pushed her hair back, declaring proudly:
“One of these days, Hydrogen’s getting a divorce. I mean, Aldehyde and Alcohol are making stories about me! And they always get invited to these Oxidation parties with Potassium Permanganate and they see the magic show where he changes his color. It’s unfair!”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. This woman had issues, more issues than Susan ever had in Desperate Housewives. I turned my head to look forward and screeched in horror—my God, a tiger!
“ZEN, LOOK!”
I jumped a step behind, shivering like a skeleton. The tiger roared fervently, making my hairs stand on end as I hid behind Benzene. Though, just as I uttered my last prayers again before the tiger decided to snack on me, he replied giddily:
“Yo yo chica, whaddup with the freakin’out. Imma not gonna eat ya up.”
I poked my head out to see how the tiger was grooving as he spoke, his head bobbing up and down as if he was going to start rapping the very next moment. Benzene blushed and pushed me forward to face this new denizen of Shockland.
“Who’re you?”
I asked meekly, at which the tiger chuckled and grooved a little more before replying:
“Well, Imma be endangered species, yo. I’d know what it’s like to be hunted n’ henceforth, Imma no hunt no chica, no senor n’ no kaching. Imma be eatin’ harrassin’ rappers like Justin Bieber instead, yo.”
I managed to crack a smile at that.
“Justin Bieber? You’ve heard of him too, Mr. Tiger?”
“Yo yo jus’ call me Bengali Tiger. N’ yeah, who’s not heard of the squeakin’ girl?”
He then went on to Benzene and hi-fived her, who giggled shyly.
“So, how’s my bon-bon, huh?”
“Just fine, thank you Bengali Tiger.”
“So you’re from my Biology class, then? Man, this is so amazing!”
“Ya haven’t seen anythin’ amazin’ yet, chica. Come with me to the Tiger Parte n’ you’re gonna wanna stay there forever!”
I had never really heard of a tiger party, but the way Bengali Tiger put it, it sounded like a worthwhile visit. I looked to Benzene who nodded and then whispered in my ear:
“I hear the Chlorine twins are coming there. God, they’re so Electrophilic when Iron’s around.”
It wasn’t long before we were inside the party. It was quite easy to guess where it was, since I saw a bunch of tigers ushering a fighting trio of polynomials inside; apparently, someone had tried to synthetically divide them and that just ticked them off. Also, a white blood cell was beating his son with resonance because he failed his immunity test. Go figure.
“Well, Imma gonna go crash with my pals! Need anythin’, jus’ roar chica.”
Bengali Tiger waved Benzene and me off at the entrance, as we were shoved into a crowd of gambling tigers and dancing electrons and protons. It was kind of odd, with all the even numbers avoiding the odd numbers and all the pluses trying to kill the minuses—I couldn’t believe there was prejudice in Shockland too! Though, what really caught my eye was an integral and a derivative fighting with each other.
“Oh, there’s Chlorine! Sorry, I got to go dahling. Catch you later.”
And Benzene took off. I sighed and went on to the integral and derivative, waving to them.
“Hey, why are you fighting?”
They both looked at me angrily at first but then politely smiled, though their hands were still at each other’s collars.
“Well, Derry here says he’s tougher and students cry when he comes in the examination. Come on lady, tell him how dumb a joke that is!”
Integral said, at which derivative shoved him angrily and retorted:
“No, and you’d like this lady here to believe that Intee here is tough. Come on, just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you can scare students any better!”
“Umm, guys,” I said, barely keeping myself from laughing, “if it helps, I find both you really, really tough. I’d totally flunk whenever any one of you would be in the exam.”
“Oh, we know.”
They blurted out together, at which I widened my eyes.
“What?!”
“Oh, yeah, you failed your Mathematics Assessment. Nineteen out of fifty.”
I felt like the world around me was spinning very fast and the ground below my feet dissolving. This had to be a joke! I knew I didn’t really study for that test and was spending half my brain thinking about hundred ways to torture Edward Cullen, but this was terrible!
“You can’t be serious?! Oh God, this is awful news.”
I said nervously, clasping my face in shame. Just as I sunk in the lowliness of my being, someone snickered from behind:
“Wait till you find out how you flunked Physics. You have a—“
“Don’t, don’t say it!”
I spun, blocking whatever the thing was’s mouth. Turned out, it was a Diode with a margarita in her hand, who then slapped my hand off and went away. It would’ve consoled me, but I could already see a kidney walk toward me, with my test result in her hand and a H
2SO
4 molecule snicker as she discussed my marks with her other acid friends. This was no longer a fun place to be.
“Bengali Tiger! Zen! I want to leave, this is a nightmare!”
I screamed, and as I expected, both of them slowly came my way.
“Dear, dear, calm down. What’s wrong?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong chica? Not findin’ yourself enough fun ‘round ‘ere?”
“Well,” I started, shaking my head, “everyone’s telling me my assessment scores. And it’s really frightening me! I want to leave, please.”
Benzene and Bengali tiger gave each other nervous looks before they looked back at me.
“Rabia dahling,” Benzene started, grabbing my hand and squeezing it, “you can’t leave Shockland just like that. You’d have to have Big Boss’s permission first.”
“Oh? And who is this ‘Big Boss’? He better show himself!”
I said daringly, though I learned quickly that it had been a bad idea. The ground shook with heavy footsteps, seemingly a giant approached us; the party quickly disassembling as every one of them evacuated the hall. I gulped and shivered in the wake of the torture I had called upon myself, turning around to see this Big Boss person.
Wow, Big Boss was nothing like you’d expect. A thirty-foot tall woman wearing an army uniform which held ammo and chainsaws—a bottle of tequila in one hand and a .45mm revolver in the other, she was definitely Saw 203 redefined. Though, with her ridiculously long, silky black hair and drooping eyelids, all smudged with ounces of make-up, it seemed someone had broken off Barbie’s head and stuck it on Indiana Jones.
“Kis nay hum ko bulanay ki khata ki hai!”
Who has dared to call upon us? She roared in an eloquent Urdu accent, at which I could only grin stupidly. A third round of my last prayers.
“Uhh…me. Rabia. Guest of honor?”
“Kya iltijah hai teri, na cheez?”
What is your plea, midget? I looked to my sides to see if Benzene and Bengali Tiger were coping all right—well, of course not, as Bengali Tiger was whimpering like a kitten and Benzene was cuddling to
both Chlorine and Hydrogen.
“I…I want to leave. It’s…everyone is telling me how I failed my tests and it’s freaking me out. All of you are amazing, though, really—it’s just my result will give me and my teachers a stroke and I’d never tell Hira about the prank I’m planning to play on Aimen.”
The woman arched an eyebrow and bent down to be closer to me, only sending a gush of fear through me.
“Hum tumhari baat kyun manein, na cheez? Tum ko maalom hai hum kon hain, larki?”
Why should we accept your plea, midget? Do you know who we are, girl?“No.”
“Hum zulm-o-sitam ki maharani hain, hum ranj-o-gham ka sarchasma hain. Hum nazron say katal kartein hain, adaon say khayal kartay hain, kyunke humaray paas laser vision aur telepathy hai. Hum, Mehboob hain.”
We are the queen of torture and oppression, we are the pinnacle of misery and desolation. We murder through our sight, cripple through our looks, because we have laser vision and telepathy. We, are Beloved.“Mehboob?!” I gasped, widening my eyes, “You mean,
the Mehboob?”
“Ji haan, wohi jis nay sab sho’ra ko baybass kar diya!”
Yep, the one who has made all the poets helpless! Well, this explained as much. I was nervous now, though; if Mehboob didn’t let me out, how was I ever going to save myself from my Chemistry result? Any time now that Benzene overhead my result from HCl.
“Yeah, and you know what? I’m your biggest fan! I mean, you’re so good at trying to reduce the number of poems we have to study for Urdu. I mean, totally!”
I babbled randomly, though I wasn’t sure it would help. Guess it was my lucky day, as Mehboob chuckled girlishly and put her revolver down.
“I know, right? I mean, Ghalib and Mir and every one of them…I know they’re great at writing but, uh, I’ve told them I’m not interested. And then they stalk me and all that, it’s just so freaky. I mean, I trained myself in armed struggle and martial arts and profanities in fifty languages just to get rid of them! God, why won’t they just move on?!”
I couldn’t really explain that to her, because that was a million-dollar question which maybe Slumdog Millionaire Two would investigate. She looked much reconcilable, though, and that was my major concern. I was going to be out of this place!
“All right, all right. Have your wish.”
I smiled widely and hopped up and down, looking gratefully toward Benzene and Bengali Tiger. They looked at me with teary eyes as I gave them a hug. A polite Nucleus started to play the violin to dramatize the situation.
“I’ll miss you guys, it was fun with you!”
“No, not really, dahling. I’ll see you in the finals.”
Benzene said with a smirk and Bengali Tiger hi-fived me.
“Yeah, chica, jus’ remember—VIVA LAS TIGERS!”
I chuckled and nodded to him, then looking to Mehboob who seemed ready to send me back.
“Don’t tell Ghalib I’m here.”
Hira was staring at me, in fact now that I realized and looked around, everyone was staring at me—I was in my Chemistry class, Benzene drawn in my notebook. Sir Kashif had stopped writing on the board with a look on the face which screamed terror.
“Why did you say that?”
Hira whispered agitatedly, at which I cocked an eyebrow.
“Say what?”
“Thank you Mehboob?”
I felt the pit of my stomach fall as the stares got only more and more embarrassing. I gave a desperate look to the clock—it was still noon.
