Beards Ablaze

Time and again, I have a stupid idea creep into my usually sane mind. I used to feel ashamed about this idea, thinking that I must be abnormal to have such wicked thoughts. But now I don’t see myself as different from other normal people. At least, not different from P.G. Woodhouse, who also shared my thoughts. Does it ever occur to you, to say something stupid in the midst of a grave matter? Well! Once I went to this theatre where a famous tragic play was going on. I had been watching the play patiently. The tragic scenes moved me to tears. But the moment I realized that this literary performance is reducing me to tears, the scenes ceased to move me further. Oh. How I resented my behaviour, which made me appear a weaker man. As a human being having superiority over the lesser animate beings and much lesser inanimate beings, how humiliated I felt at having been made to express my innermost emotions publicly. This lowered my dignity. I vowed to maintain a firm distance between these literary elements and myself. To recover my lost dignity, I felt like doing something completely outrageous that may portray me as a bold man. This thought encouraged me, and suddenly a chain of stupid ideas came dangling before my mind. I could already imagine the desired effect of my ridiculous antics. One vile thought took my utmost fancy, and musing on it, I glanced at the stage. An actor playing the role of a seer was ranting heavily on the stage. The dense vegetation of his beard caught my attention. I had stumbled upon an injured sparrow on the road a day before. Sweet bird, I have found the coziest nest for you. Feel at home in the beard.  What is this buzzing sound I hear in my head? It is perhaps another stupid idea making an entry into my mind. Suddenly, I have this wild urge to set fire to the seer’s beard. I could see each strand of hair curling and twirling up in submission to the demands of the voracious fire in a ritualistic manner. Greedy flames were leaping up, lusting for the moustaches. May I suggest the lush white, bushy eyebrows to you, holy flames? Oh. What pleasure, what joy I found in annihilating the fuzzy moss crawling on his sculpted jaws! How grateful the seer will be to me, when the ecstatic feeling of a cool breeze caresses his bare cheeks. What a feeling of freshness it will be. How happy the shaving brush will be, on getting the chance to fondle his cheeks on the pretext of working up lather! The shaving cream will now be employed repeatedly to pamper the cheeks with a luxuriant treatment of rich white cream………. What jubilation the aftershave lotion feels on being destined to adorn the glistening cheek! Healthy sunshine, water, wind and occasional specks of earth nourish the cheeks. Their softness seduces the feminine nimble fingers to pinch them lovingly. Oh! Why do these cheeks get such attention? I cannot tolerate these show stealers anymore. They just hog the limelight! Instead I want to slap them really hard. What a gleeful sight the red imprint of my five fingers fossilized on the soft flesh will provide! 

Ankita Haldar
II English