An Experiment...

When I was reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I got an idea. I hope they don't sue me for this. Presenting yours faithfully's second person narrative, with all due apologies to Duforts, Elisa, H. G. Wells, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and fathers, mothers and others of SteamPunk. #GoingToHellForThis.

Madam Dufort sits sipping her tea. Oh yes! She sips tea. She likes green tea. It is indeed very becoming of the rich folk, and I daresay, madam Dufort drinks tea because she is rich. She doesn't like the taste, the poor rich madam wants regular Earl Grey with more creamery, but no. Green tea is more becoming of the rich folk.

"Elisa," she calls to you in her strong voice, chiseled with nicotine vapours from her silver holder and chipped with her medication.

You walk without making a sound. Some unrest makes you feel that your apron is tightening around your waist. You hold your hands together, bow your head in a courtesy, and not utter a word. It is improper of you to speak, when you are not expected to talk.

"Elisa, I want you to prepare my ink and quill for the letter I am to write to Sir Hill," she takes a pause sips her tea. Oh, don't look up! She doesn't like you meeting her eye. "Also, tell Smith that Mrs. Fonde will be paying us a visit."

"Yes, Madam," you say.

You are aware of madam Dufort's eye for detail. That's why you keep your dress as grey as it is supposed to be and bleach your apron and headrest whenever you have a chance. "And Elisa," she says, "did you wipe your hands with your apron again while cleaning the book case?"

Oh dear! Madam told you she likes uniform to be proper. "Yes madam," you confess. A good servant must be honest, Elisa. And you are good, aren't you? God save you!

"Well, Madam Fonde might not find it graceful. Tell Smith his orders, and you brush that up, clear?"

"Yes, madam," you say, clearing up the tea tray. You make your way past the halls, trying to remember what day it is. And your gaze wanders outside. Sir Samuel is practicing archery. Aye, that does feel something, doesn't it, Elisa? Had you been not a servant, how blessed would it be?

"How blessed would it be, dear Elisa?" you hear a voice call out from behind you. You turn around to address it. "How very blessed would it be?"

"Who is it?" you say turning behind you.

"You obviously don't know me Elisa," calls out the voice. Oh, it is so very near, yet you cannot see.

"Well, are you man, God or beast?" ah, dear Elisa, too late to hold your tongue, aren't you?

"Ha-ha-ha!" he laughs! "Oh, simple servant girls know not what to say! That's so very dear of you, sweet Elisa. Yet, you know not who I am?"

"Bless you, no! I cannot even see you, how can I recognise you if I don't see you?" now, when did you last talk to voices with no face?

"C'est moi, Elisa. You may refer to me as, 'that man' or 'shadow' or 'the unseen'... haven't you heard of me ever?"

The unseen... is it? "Professor Griffin?" your eyes light up. The lesson in sciences when you still had a family... oh how could you forget your own teacher?

"Yes, dear child, it is I," he says, "but you haven't really fared well, I see."

"Elisa," a voice calls you from a distance. It is Mr. Smith, the butler.

"I shall talk to you later," says the voice.

Smith comes to you, "are you alright?" you nod to the old butler's concern.

"The Madam wants me to inform you of Madam Fonde's arrival this evening, and I must go and prepare her ink and quill. She is to write a letter to Sir Hill." You say as you go past him, through the great hall to the study. Sharpening the quill, and preparing the ink solutions, you let thoughts go in your head. What is your professor doing here? After faking his murder, the poor gent was given immortality by Gabriel. And how he convinced your father to train you in pagan sciences... and how your approach became so very unlike a true Victorian Christian. Dear! You did read the fate of Hyptia, now, didn't you? You wouldn't be her! That is why you agreed on serving the rich when your family died in an accident along with your teacher. Isn't it? Oh, the immortal can never die, Elisa, professor might have survived. And he managed to find you here!

There ought to be more of his allies around, of course. It is unlikely of him to... "Elisa," you here his voice again.

"Yes, professor?" you say. The part of your instinct so trained and thorough in warfare speaks.

"Whatever became of you, dear?"

"Oh, professor, Lord knows what has happened!" you cannot refrain from the pain it brings, good Elisa, "the fire 'twas! The fire that consumed mother, father, brother, Margarette, Heffer, you! Oh, professor... the fire 'twas that burned my life down!"

"Now now," says Griffin putting his hand on your shoulder, "I was there when it happened, and it was no fire, I tell you."

"But the estate was down to ashes!" you say.

"Elisa, the estate was burnt, yes. But your family's burial was ensured in Pagan tradition by me, I swear! Oh, no good, no good! They were murdered Elisa, and I tried to save your father, but the bullet passed through me... I couldn't stop it, though I tried! The black veiled isn't distracted, and I saw the Bearer leave. And when he set the estate on fire, I knew I had to escape! I did the best possible preparation for the corpses to go to heaven, Elisa. Lord knows they rest in peace."

You shed a tear. You can't help it. "But that doesn't answer my question, dear girl," he says.

"Elisa," calls a caustic voice, Madam Dufort. The ink is ready, the quill is chipped, you wipe your tears and straighten your face. "Ah, it is ready! You've even laid out fine paper!" you drop a glance at it. Surely the professor did it, "thankyou, dear. Bless you!" says madam Dufort as she sits to write. You drop a courtesy and leave.

Though royal parentage, you are a servant now, Elisa. You deal with truth as you've learnt from your teacher.

You make your way to servant quarters, now you must change your apron. "God, they make you walk so much!" says the voice behind you.

"I wouldn't complain, professor. Just like you taught me to."

"Very well. Now tell me..."

"The Duforts are Christian like everyone in this town, professor. We dislike them, truly. But without a family, and being too proud to beg, I went to the older estate in Gastonbury, only to learn that it has been forcefully acquired by the extremists who survived the Third War. I couldn't fight them with nothing in my hands, professor. I went to Belgium to master all that I could about dynamics and motion. And I did fare better than what they could ever expect. But my pagan identity was revealed and I fled back home to safety. The Duforts were looking for a servant, when they hired me. And one day, Smith recognised me for who I am. Without the surname, sir, I'm as good as any servant named Elisa. I do need someone to prove my identity."

"So you do, dear child, so you do," he says comforting you. "But what if they discover it?"

"Oh no, I cannot handle another war... I would move to somewhere again, of course!"

"But that's no good, is it, dear?" says Professor Griffin.

-Neetzi

Smoke: A chapter preview.

Hello Folks! Off lately, I've been kind of preoccupied. In a way porcupine(d). Anyway, bad jokes apart. It's been some months since I have written anything at all. Lets see what all have you guys missed out. My travel, my remnants, a few ramblings, a delusion. In short, you, my dear audience haven't missed a thing! Currently I'm still too busy to give my best work as of now. But I know what's it gonna be like. Here's a glimpse of it:-

Smoke. The deep vapour. Light and heavy. Inside and out. Something like myself. Smoke. I remember seeing you in November, diffused in the mist, playing hide and seek. I remember you, clear as I remembered myself this morning. Smoke. Part of you lies in my veins. Mingled with my tension. Smoke. Part of you is in my head. Covering my mind; a cloud of delusion. My blanket of comfort. Smoke. Save me the winter that never seems to end, I've been here all along. Fighting my way in and out of emotions. Sometimes, there's an occasional knock on the door, and yet I don't care to answer. After all, there's nobody home.

Once they all lined up to see me. Smoke. The cruisers back in my hey day were more likely to be the ones dropping me home than the occasional walk. I remember as a child, once I felt light when my parents would toss me in the air only to catch me again. Guess I've been high ever since. Smoke. My head always feels twice it's size if I go out without you. But I swear, that I'm glad it feels like something at all.

Once I met a man who would want that happy news that I never gave. I guess I've got my set of things to regret. But, hey! Didn't they all want a happy news? Smoke. They still do, you know. But I'd choose better than to stick around. In my country home, the roads are more welcoming than in that bustling beast of a city life. Fast lanes are not for me. I realised that years ago.

It's always about mean reds, bad hair days, some people you meet (most of which you forget), and yet the rants of seclusion continue. Non je ne regrette rien. No, no regrets. Just smoke.

You burn out now. Smoke. Faster than myself. Heavier than what I can ever be. Smelling like who you are. Fire. And out of my window. This streamline of thought. And I burn in you all that I have got. Smoke. Smoke rising from the remains of the diaries I've written, from the life I led, from the person I was, from the one I run away, from the questions I refuse to answer, from pictures of old flames (now enveloped with flames), from... Smoke.

He did say,

"Happiness is a thing of a past, and a hope of tomorrow."

And after I've killed my own past, it's the high that rises higher than the smoke itself.

And who thought that you need a cigarette to smoke?

And such is the streamline of thought. No, I'm not doing a female version of Ulysses. Things like that are best respected unrepeated. Do rate and comment. Till then,

PEACE! ~_^

Neetzi

The Writer

Hello Readers, lovers and... people(?)

A month waking up after my drug induced sleep, yet calling for another week for a haunted phantasm. Live a life! Nay, can't seem to. The phase is forever transitory. Going from one place to another, without knowing the destination. But life is an ever transitory phase. Guided from one sublime state to another. But it is in the transitions, that glass is half full.

Yes, can say my mood is happy, but can't seem to care. None-the-less. This might not call for a frequent post. No green flag, for all the poles have been broken. As a matter of fact, life is like a flowing river. We can't change the course, the currents and rapids are meant to occur. What we can do is, go with the flow. Rest... nothing better could ever be.

I am currently, working more on the philosopher me, leaving the warlocks of pen and paper to rest, and besides, as a writer I can't seem to get much happiness. Today, I shall introduce you to my dear alter-ego, "the Writer".

The Writer, is a bit of a lunatic. A crazy fellow. Consider, the Writer never combs hair, nor wears clean clothes. Often, the Writer, uncaring of one's vision, finds excuses to forget the use of spectacles (unless very grave call). As a matter of fact, the crazy Writer doesn't really seem to have a sense to differentiate between hot and cold, between clean and mess, between clear and unclear. In fact, the only sense a writer has active is to hear words, remember them, use them, give birth to them.

The dear Writer is a queer fellow. Never seems to be understanding what is wrong or right, but has an own opinion as a measuring scale, covering all of one's own faith count, often revolting against his other messy haired and terribly clothed friends.

A commoner's dictionary may be of 10,000 words but Writer's dictionary is of a 100,000 words and never ceases to hinder it's growth. That is because Writer is not a commoner. Writer never stops arguing, and is most often; a terrible speaker; for could one express in terms of spoken word, one needn't write.

The Writer wants to be misunderstood. It's the only way of proving oneself as the greatest of one's generation. Coming to think of it, any work which has been fully understood is criticised. That's why the Writer hates the one that was just written, and drives oneself sick working on the next. The only war the Writer wages with his fellows is to find the most complicated plot left out in the history to pick up, and the fact that the plot is mostly kept a secret, until published. Once understood, consider the mission to be failed.

The Writer is always told by the "well-wishers" that the vocation one chose is wrong. And that is what makes the Writer more committed to writing. It's one's only chance to be proven the greatest, to be the one to accept the gift of never being understood.

The Writer is always stereotyped. Is it hygiene or just the way one is dressed? Because clearly, the Writer doesn't care of the "fool's opinion" of life and has an off beat view to every minute detail.

The only work the Writer can not criticise is Ulysses. For this one work, no writer for generations to come can figure out completely, hence, the book remains still a hit, heating arguments among literates here and there.

My dear friend, the Writer. If one gets famous, one gets lost in transition. If one fails, one gets lost due to starvation. The Writer becomes depressed due to sudden setback, for one's books were never understood, and hence never appreciated. But convinced, that the Writer is the greatest of one's generation, the Writer celebrates with a toast. The best part, it's not just one toast. The Writer, if a good one, dies. The Writer, if a bad one, dies. In the end, every Writer dies.

So... That was all. I hope you might have appreciated my dear friend to the level one deserves for the hard work put forth.

The Displaced Frequency, looking forward to bring forth such interesting characters to you, time and time again. For, this is the one off-beat track. In Frost's word, "the road less travelled by".

Peace out!

-Neetzi

All for a change

ey everyone,

The Displaced Frequency will be undergoing spring cleaning soon. So just give me the CRAZIEST ideas for almost anything. Layout, title, my profile photo!!! I'm willing to follow almost any idea that comes to me as unique. How about ideas for some new posts?

Right now, I'm suffering a brain-drain. No thought in my head, no idea of life, nothing! So... this is what I suppose I'll do. I'll write a short story that I had written once (I guess last year or so...).

The weirdest thing about it is, that it ain't got nothing to do with the title. It's a fictional narrative about this normal person's friendship with a weird person, it's called, Goobye Enya:-

I met Enya today. It had been quite a while, almost 2 years. She had changed, evolved. Despite our friendship for 7 years and the fact that we were living in the same town, she never cared to let me know her adress. The other day I recieve a text from her to see her today evening, also saying that there might be no other chance. Naturally, I was bewildered. The girl never cares to let me know where she is. And she calls me her best friend. But then again, I always seen her in another world: drawing something on her wrists, writing away in her diary, using a camera to capture any damn thing, singing something to herself. She was so normal in her own weird way.

Her face is the most outrageously ferocious one. She has always been the wild child of the wind, hair scattered over her face, so like the clouds over the sky. In anger, her face flushed red like the big hard sun. She could pick a fight with anyone and end up winning it all the time. But life had won over her now. Enya, was calmer, quieter and and more peaceful. As I enter her apartment, her playful smile and "waddya want?" expression in her eyes greet me.

She never wanted to leave the place she so loved. I hold her hand, assuring her as only a friend could that everything is alright and she just nods and gives me a no-worry-on-tomorrow smile. But despite that hard attempt, those piercing eyes and weird piercings, her features had kindled to a great extent. She wasn't the same Enya who had pushed me during that buji jump. This newer Enya couldn't even step on a bug. How would she pick up a brawl?

She starts packing again. She has packed everything except for a pullover. She said she'll wear it at the airport tomorrow. As I look at the pullover, it's the same as I had given her once on one of her birthdays. She kept mending it for years while I knew that she was there. I'm shocked she still has it. She wears it again, despite that perfect Massachusetts summer, looking directly at the Boston skyline. She seemed to be promising it of an unfateful return.

"Why are you going there anyway?"

"To know where I came from Mimi..."

"And what do you know about em'?"

"Nothing..."

"Nothing?!?! Well, how the hell can you be so comitted to people you don't even know?"

"Mimi, they're my family."

"A family you don't even know?"

"Mimi, bloods in your veins. It just is there. It don't need to know food. It just takes it in."

"Enya, sometimes I don't get you."

"Honey," she hugged me so sweetly for the first time in my life. Her voice seemed changed, more polite and inclined to a weird sweetness. "You're not the only one."

"Get your hands of me slop!" I say as she would've said if I ever hugged her. "Does Angelus know?" Angelus is the man she loves.

"No."

"No? Enya! You LOVE him!"

"And that's why I won't tell him. That would just make him uspet!"

"Kill me... What's gone into you?"

"Mimi, you won't get the gist of it. We're peace. So be us."

As she ignores the details I ask, tears start filling in my eyes. She had changed, softened, became more fragile. I saw her in anger, I saw her in despair, I saw her bewilderment, but never her fear. And she was beautiful still in her fear... She was the beautiful I needed to be to have the world beneath my feet and hold my head up high like her. But this new Enya... The world wasn't below her feet and our heads were at the same level, her still bowing lower. I remember her wildness, her craze, her gyspsy features being overtaken by domestication and making amends with life. The tears start getting more intense. I am crying now. I can't cry! I'm too young to give up. I rush out of that apartment. This isn't the Enya I had befriended. Rather, the one who had befriended me. There was a different girl and I said to her... Goodbye Enya.

The END! Now... how'd you like it? Yes, it's original, it's mine. So OPEN TO CRITISISM! Let me know through comments and stuff. And NEWS ALERT: There would be no entries in February! I repeat: no entries in February. What? I have a life too you know. A life outside blog, outside facebook, outside cellphone! So, I'll check in for the comments though (keep em' comming). And do suggest me something whacky.

Peace!

-Neetzi