A to Z Stories of Life and Death

By D Biswas

The twenty-six A to Z stories, based on the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, cover a wide spectrum. The focus is on a crucial juncture when a character's life changes, for the better or worse, because of a choice or decision.

The stories also question our moral compass: how do you judge a teacher toying with the sexuality of her teenaged student? A boy who decides to murder his mother? What thoughts rage inside a pedophile serial killer before he shoots himself?

Some of the characters in the stories confront death, others talk about life with its quirks and whimsies. Each voice, ranging in age from a six-year-old to a centenarian, has its own riveting story to tell. Together, this collection of stories at over 12000 words attempts to prove that when it comes to stories, depth can sometimes replace length and breadth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D Biswas
• Release date: Aug 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465823205

D Biswas

D.Biswas lives more in her head than in this world, adores her husband, and loves her pet fish and plants. She is an established writer for magazines and journals. Her short fiction has been published in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Muse India and in print anthologies by Marshall Cavendish, Monsoon Books, and MPH publications.

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A to Z Stories of Life and Death

By D.Biswas

Copyright 2011 D.Biswas

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Table of Contents

A for Aquarium

B for Burn

C for Commas

D for Do What You Do

E for Ecstasy

F for Fickle

G for Girls

H for Heart

I for I have a Secret

J for Jasoda’s Children

K for Kill

L for Life

M for Mannequin

N for Nothing

O for Okay

P for Perilous

Q for Quit

R for Reunion

S for Sacrilege

T for Tell Me a Story

U for Under the Skin

V for Victorious

W for Women

X for X-ray

Y for Youth

Z for Zone

A for Aquarium

She let out a squeal when she saw the first snail, a dot on the glass wall with its own antennae and goo crawling out of a shell.

It thrilled her to see a creature in the aquarium that she hadn’t put in, at least not on purpose. It brought everything closer to the illusion of nature, which is a wild, uncontrolled thing, an illusion she had tried to create with rocks, moss, driftwood, soil, plants, fish, shrimp. Now she had snails!

The next day she saw another snail among the expensive grass, and five more in quick succession. They’re thriving, she said, and that means my fish and shrimp and plants would thrive too.

But two days later she saw no fewer than a dozen, some much bigger than those she had spotted the last time. On closer examination, she discovered twenty-three of them. She read up a little, and discovered snails are not as desirable as she had once thought. Not too good for the plants, and they used up food and oxygen she needed for her fish and shrimp.

Besides, now that so many dotted her aquarium wall, they no longer looked cute. She removed a few and put them in the bowl of water along with her Devil’s Ivy, taking care not to hurt them, releasing them slow and easy into their new home.

No matter what she did, she found snails braving their way up the aquarium wall, like lost souls seeking nirvana. They ruined the view of her piece of nature. One day, losing patience and with arms cramped from hours of fishing out snails, she crushed one of them. Then another, and another.

Hope God forgives me for taking so many lives before breakfast, she said, but these are pests, and I’m sure He understands.

Then she decided to bring in Assassin snails. These were big fellas, who like Kings and Prophets, would descend on the resident snails and decimate their numbers as appropriate, redressing the balance of nature.

But the Assassins became part of the populace, eating snails as per their moods and appetites, caring little for her need to eliminate tiny snails. She didn’t like what they looked like either.

Fewer snails graced the glass walls now, and as she crushed them under her fingers, she sometimes had the sneaking suspicion that God put her and