Part 1:
The sparsely staffed upper story of GM Towers that housed the diner that billed
itself the best Konkani Restaurant in town was having a slow business day. The
mostly unworked waiters lounged lazily at the corner tables, out of eye and
earshot of the handful of customers who happened to be there. All eyes in the diner
were turned towards the grainy, miniscule television that was mounted on an
improvised stand near the ceiling of the restaurant. A politician, clad in the
brightest orange, spread his arms in a gesture of magnificence, enthralling his
junta with all the wiles and
Machiavellian schemings that 40 years of politicking had taught him.
This hardly uncommon arrangement was rendered so by a seemingly innocuous
rendezvous that took place on its premises on the Sunday of December 31st,
2017.
At one of the tables sat a man, aged around 40, gold chain shining forth from
within an entanglement of chest hair, a massive paunch belying a life of lazy
Hedonism. A handful of rice was held suspended in his hand, with the gravy
running down his arm, unnoticed, as he stared at the TV screen.
Another table entertained a mother, child by her side, staring with glazed eyes
at the screen, while the child shrieked for attention, striking her
unresponsive arm with petulant pleas.
At the third sat a man, age 32, with head bowed. A green polo t-shirt,
impeccably ironed, hid a body that had been assiduously chiselled at a gym.
Size 5 converse shoes peeked out from within a pair of denims that looked like
they had come fresh from the launderers. The unusual proliferation of creases
between his eyebrows spoke of a man who has many reasons to frown, and not as
many to smile. He stared down at his plate of prawn ghee roast, apparently
taking no delight in it. A laptop bag, lying on the chair next to him, was a
constant reminder that work beckoned, as soon as he was done with his lunch.
Across from him sat a woman, aged 23, whose face bore evidence of a sleepless
night and much deliberation, and no small amount of determination. Ever since
this couple had arrived, it was she who had dominated the conversation, with
the man hardly getting a word in.
“...had just about all I can take,” she was saying, as his eyes unattentively
followed the wisps of smoke emanating from his steaming lunch. “There are many
things I admire about you, Auro, but partial admiration can only take you so
far. I don’t feel the effort that needs to be put in to this relationship is
coming from both of us.”
That last bit struck a nerve for Auro. He had never liked anyone questioning
his work ethic. Frown resumed its rightful place, and he glanced up at his
partner. As her lips continued to emit their discordant notes, his eyes strayed
up to her ears, noticing for the first time how they were not unlike prawns,
themselves. He looked down once again to reaffirm his notion and was pleased to
see that he was not mistaken. Frown fidgeted, not so sure of its seat anymore.
Behind him, the speakers continued to act as the harbingers of Separatist
propaganda. Auro found it mildly distracting.
“When was the last time you came home with a smile on your face, wanting to
spend an enjoyable evening with me? When was the last time your face did not
have that God-damned frown!” she exclaimed.
The speakers began to crackle, the politician’s voice cutting in and out
intermittently.
“I really think you need to get some help. It isn’t healthy to be this angry
all the time. Will you listen to me just this once and get some help?”
Auro had traversed elsewhere within his mind. He was travelling amongst
physical representations of sound notes, repairing the ones that had been
damaged or destroyed, adorning himself the sound carpenter.
“Are you even listening to me?” she shrieked.
Auro snapped out of his reverie. “I’m sorry, Mona, I didn’t catch that last
part,” he said, looking up with the faintest traces of apologetic feeling
softening his features.
Mona seethed, “You know what, I’ve had it. This is so typical of you. Here I
am, trying to salvage something from our relationship, and you don’t even have
the decency to hear me out. You never have. You have always been a terrible
listener.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, voice trembling with emotion, “Please don’t say
that.” Frown returned, triumphant, dominant.
“Well, I’m sorry, but it is true.”
“Mona, I understand you’re upset, but there is no need to be bitch.”
Her mouth fell open. “Wow, just wow. You know what? You can just fuck off, you
Konkan bastard.”
Auro, ears reddening, began, “Are you insulting my mother tongue?”
But she had already left.
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Part
2:
Auro walked towards the Five-items-or-less counter at the supermarket with
his 5 Kg jar of Serious Gainz protein shake. The cashier was running through
customers at an impressive pace, but there were still a couple of people before
him in the line. The guy immediately in front of him was broad shouldered and
tall. He seemed especially so to Auro, whose deficiency in the height
department had always been a source of great insecurity. The man in front of
him seemed to encompass his whole field of vision. Auro suppressed a surge of
anger, and switched queues. He now found himself at the last counter, closest
to the exit.
The tinted sliding doors provided a reflective surface that few men who hit the
gym as hard as Auro did would have been able to resist. He found himself
flexing his arms with the 5 Kg jar in his hand, and admiring how well his muscles
had developed over the past couple of years.
His eyes travelled upwards, noting the muscle mass build-up around his
shoulders and the purple of his veins straining at the skin of his neck. His
face was now hidden away beneath a full, lush beard, but his head was clean
shaven. The lights of the supermarket reflected off the beads of perspiration
that formed on it from time to time. The lines between his eyebrows had become
significantly more entrenched. Frown flourished.
It suddenly struck him how much he had changed. How, somewhere along the way,
he had lost the innocence of righteous anger, and how his evolution from that
had not only changed who he was within, but had been corporealized and was now
there for all to see.
“Good afternoon, sir, how may I help you today?” asked the cashier, an
unpleasant looking woman well past her prime, smiling wearily at him.
“Oh, just the one item, thank you,” he said, setting the jar down on the
counter.
“Gladly, sir. There is an offer on this item, sir. With every purchase of a
Serious Gainz jar, you receive one set of Zebronics Multimedia Speakers
absolutely free,” she said, with all the magnanimity of Alexander granting a
life of continued Royal Luxury to Darius III’s family.
Frown twitched, agitated.
“That’s all right, I don’t want them,” he said, voice curiously subdued.
The cashier was taken aback. This was unprecedented behaviour. Perhaps he
misunderstood.
“But, sir, it is completely free,” she repeated.
Auro remained silent, handing over the money, keeping his eyes averted. The
cashier bagged the jar and the speakers and handed it over to Auro, who
wordlessly walked out of the store.
On reaching the road, he immediately reached into the bag and, extricating the
speakers, unceremoniously dumped them into the trash can that lay right outside
the store. Then, as if afraid of lingering there, he walked off at a brisk
pace.
A short metro trip later, he was home. Setting his new purchase on top of the
cabinet, he walked across the hall and turned on his sound system. Immediately,
the whole house was drowned in the dark melodies of doom metal, with Queen of All Time blaring from the
network of speakers Auro had set up all over the house.
His eyes closed in silent ecstasy for a brief moment, as euphoria overwhelmed
him, and he felt that familiar sensation in his groin.
Frown shuddered. Tonight was going to be a good night.
He switched on his computer, grabbing an apple from the fridge, feet moving
rhythmically to the music. Logging on, he immediately opened multiple tabs,
clicking on his neatly organized bookmarks in alphabetical order. Each bookmark
pertained to a different forum for audiophiles. Long months of practice had
taught him the areas he needed to concentrate on to get his daily fix, and the
areas he needed to avoid, so as to avoid perverting the purity of his knowledge
base.
He had developed a fearsome reputation in these circles, ruthlessly mowing down
anyone who held misguided views on the characteristics of sound and its
gadgetry. People all over the world knew to step out of his way and
respectfully accept his opinion, whether out of simple fear, or out of
deference to his near encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject matter. Gone were
the days when simply good sound quality and reasonable pricing were enough to
satisfy him. Now, he travelled only in exalted circles where the philosophy of
sound overrode any quantifiable benchmark by which a particular device may be
judged. Auro was the judge, and his intuition served as benchmark enough.
Scouring the various screens, he spotted an unwelcome intruder on an otherwise
enlightened post. The intruder, styling himself “CranialDessert”, not realizing
the majesty of the company he was in, had naively ventured to express a
contrary opinion (with the best intentions no doubt) to that of Auro’s. What
followed was to go down in audiophilia lore.
Chat Window 1:
CranialDessert: Well, I originally thought using human
subjects to determine experimentally what "characteristics" of sound
they found enjoyable and then to build these characteristics into loudspeakers
was a pretty good idea. But now it just seems like another way of trying to
force feed us linearity in every facet of our lives. #anarchy
Auro-al-Illusion: And what is wrong
with linearity? It is the sole driving force of accurate reproduction. Go back
to your Momma’s breast and do some fucking research, you Skull Candy bitch!
Chat Window 2:
FieryFoxtrot97: Ha! “Skull Candy bitch.” Nice one. :* :*
Auro-al-Illusion: Bitch-ass noobs trying
to troll our threads! I bet his cries for attention couldn’t be any louder if
he played them through a Backes & Muller BM 100.
FieryFoxtrot97: Ha-ha, yeah…
Auro-al-Illusion: I’m sick of people
not even taking the effort to learn about something that they are talking
about. I bet this sad excuse for a human being still equates price to quality
of product.
FieryFoxtrot97: So, anyway, we on
for tonight?
Auro-al-Illusion: Would you believe,
they tried to foist a Zebronics piece of trash on me today. Some crap about it
being free with my protein shake. I should have given that to CranialDessert, I
bet he would jack off to those.
FieryFoxtrot97: …
Auro-al-Illusion: What? Oh, sorry, I didn’t see your message. Yeah, yeah,
we’re on for tonight.
FieryFoxtrot97: Great, I’ll seeya at
seven, then.
Auro-al-Illusion: Yeah. So do you think we should block him from our
thread? I think I’m gonna have a word with the admin. I wrote to him last week
as well, he never replies.
A couple of hours later, having destroyed any vestige of self-worth that
CranialDessert may have salvaged within himself, Auro logged out and began to
get ready for his date.
A special occasion warranted a special effort, and Auro did not pull any punches.
A smart blue shirt with impeccably fashionable pants to match, a careful
comb-through of his beard, and he was not at all disappointed with what he
espied in the mirror. First impressions were key. Until now, his entire
spectrum of interaction with FieryFoxtrot97 was online. He had never spoken to
her in person. He did not even know how she looked.
What he saw was disappointing, but Auro was never picky when it came to looks.
She stood at 5’3”,
with a largish build. Bordering on obese, if he was being honest. A shock of
curly hair mercifully covered the majority of her face, and she had chosen an
unpleasant shade of shock red lipstick to adorn her lips with. Her overall vibe
was not quite revolting, merely pathetic.
But ever the picture of chivalry, Auro took no notice of any of that, and the
twain proceeded to have a wonderful evening over wine and Coorgi pork. The
lady, unused to a charm separated from superficiality, was swept off her feet by
his passionate discourses, and pretty soon, with a seemingly natural
progression, she found herself accompanying him to his house.
On entry, what struck her first and foremost was the neatness. The almost
obsessively perfect arrangement of furniture, entertainment systems and
miscellaneous paraphernalia. What struck her next was that this house was an
utter and completely accurate representation of Auro’s personality. It
reflected the personality of a man who knew what he was doing, who had his life
and its direction sorted out. The kind of man who would wake up every morning
with a purpose, and not take each day as it comes, but will life into
submitting to his whims.
“Come, I’ll show you around,” he said, tenderly, sending her innards into
convulsions of delight. She rose silently, taking his hand, giddy with pleasure.
He led her through the hallway, down a narrow corridor. The corridor had four
doors diverging from it, one on the left, two on the right and one right at the
end.
Auro led her into the second door on the right, a room enveloped in the deepest
shade of darkness. She shuddered in anticipation, waiting for what they both
knew was to come.
CLICK.
A string of light bulbs turned on, illuminating to the awestruck lady what
could only be described as a temple.
From the ceiling to the floor, there were speakers. Old school, mid-range,
retro, storm-jammers, the best of every genre and age of speakers was
represented there, and cross referenced with the current market price of that
particular device.
Front and centre, she spotted a massive structure, shrouded reverentially in a
protective blanket of the softest cotton. Despite the overwhelming multitude of
similar structures around her, she found her eyes drawn to this item alone.
This fact did not go unnoticed by Auro, who pressed home his advantage.
“Ah, this,” he said, his hand stroking the cotton suggestively. “This is, as
they say in France, La Piece de
Resistance.”
“You speak French too?” she gasped, breathily.
Frown, for the first time that evening, made an appearance, albeit not with its
usual pronouncement.
A curious feeling of foreboding began to seep into Auro’s mind, a premonition
of sorts. He looked at her for the first time with a new look in his eyes. He
had offered to take her out for dinner on the vaguely optimistic hope that a
fellow audiophile and him would have plenty to talk about and that he would
find a companion to share his greatest passion with. But now, thinking back
over the evening he had spent, he began to see multiple clues pointing to the
fact that this was now no more than wishful thinking.
With an extravagant flourish, he pulled off the cotton blanket, displaying the
pride of his collection in all its glory. He had made sure it was positioned
just so that the lighting of the room did it justice and that it was acoustically
in the optimum position in the room.
“So, tell me,” he began, working hard to keep his voice from trembling, “what
do you think this… This structure… This work of art… This… This masterclass of
audio technology, what do you think it has that other systems don’t?”
The lady, intent on Auro himself rather than what he was talking about, did not
process the question entirely, nor did she gauge the apparent importance it
held for Auro. What she did spot, however, was an option to flirt.
“Um, I dunno,” she said, “Maybe ‘cause it’s really, really big?”
Frown cast down its anchor. It wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the night.
“I see,” said Auro, now visibly worked up. “Could I interest you in showing you
something truly beautiful?”
A playful smile lit up the lady’s face as she said, in a sultry voice, “I’m all
yours.”
Auro took her hand and led her back out into the corridor. Turning right, he
led her into the last door at the end of the corridor.
He unlocked the door, and seemed to struggle with its weight when pulling it
open. Beyond yawned a gaping chasm of the most absolute darkness.
“After you,” said Auro, showing her in.
She walked slowly, cautiously, feeling with her feet. Behind her she heard the
heavy door thud shut and the click of multiple locks. A shiver ran through her.
“Well, this is… Unusual,” she ventured.
Her comment received no acknowledgement as Auro had seemingly busied himself
with something else, of which the only evidence reaching her was the vague
sound of shuffling in the darkness. She braced herself, expecting to feel his
touch at any moment.
Suddenly, the lights flicked on. Initially blinded, her eyes took a few seconds
to adjust. The room she stood in now was threadbare to say the least. There was
one chair in the middle of the room. And three of the four walls were covered
in drapes, even though there were no windows to this room. The floor contained
no panelling, and the room came across more as a basement than anything else.
It certainly was a far cry from the king-sized bed the lady had been imagining.
She gasped as she suddenly felt Auro’s hands wrap around her from behind. Sliding his hands across her belly, they came
to rest in the crevice between the bottom of her breasts and the first fold of
fat from her belly.
“Are you ready?” he whispered, nudging her forwards towards the wall.
She was beginning to feel quite disconcerted, by now.
“Erm… Not really. I don’t quite like this room, can we go back outside,
please?” she asked, her tonality taking on that childlike quality that every
woman seems to have at their beck and call when required.
“Oh, but I haven’t showed you what we came here to see,” he said. He had
manoeuvred her until she now stood within arm’s reach of the draping on one of
the walls. “Pull it off,” he commanded.
“I really don…”
“Pull it off!” he hissed.
She flinched, and then yanked at the draping.
After two long seconds, in which her mind processed what it was being forced
to, the silence of the night was rent apart by a blood curdling shriek.
She writhed and struggled, but Auro’s once sensual embrace was now an
unbreakable grip, as he manhandled her into the chair. His forearms closed
around her throat and he began applying pressure until it was no longer
possible for her to scream, and eventually even to breathe. She blacked out.
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When she came to, she was still in the chair, but she had been stripped naked,
and her hands and ankles were tied to it. She noticed, too, that the chair had
been nailed down. The chair sat in such a position, that the person occupying
it had the best seat to appreciate the collection that resided behind all three
drapes.
Auro had left the lights on, and removed the drapes for her benefit, and so it
was that she beheld the entire collection in all its wonder.
Adorning all three walls, labelled, tagged and arranged according to size,
shape and colour were ears. Human ears. Starting from the left wall, where the
smallest and frailest ears were displayed, some of them undoubtedly the ears of
babies, the size increased all the way to the wall on the right, where the
adult male ears were displayed.
Auro stood at the wall directly in front of her, having labelled and indexed an
empty spot on the wall in front. He turned to face her, an expression of
maniacal pleasure on his face, though not without Frown. He emitted a laugh,
but not like anything she had heard before. It was not a normal laugh, not even
an evil laugh. To her petrified ears, it sounded like a long exhale from an
asthmatic, or the final expelling of breath from one who has not the strength
to inhale anymore. It sounded like death.
Tapping the empty spot, he said, “This is where you belong, you
pseudo-audiophiles. This is your rightful place. Before you, my dear, is a
collection of all the most imperfect ears mankind has created. Not imperfect to
look at, mind you. A true audiophile isn’t as superficial as that. No, no.
Imperfect in their ability to detect the truly sublime sound from the merely
good sound. You, who had all the equipmental knowledge gleaned from constantly
scouring that forum, how could you allow your ears to degrade to the point
where they can’t discern between volume and clarity? How, despite your
excellent aural education, could you say something as ignorant as you did
outside?”
“I WASN’T LISTENING TO YOU!!! I JUST SAID THAT TO FLIRT WITH YOU! WHAT THE FUCK
IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU PSYCHO!! HELP ME! HELP!” she screamed.
Auro shook his head disapprovingly and, approaching her calmly, bludgeoned her
with a right hook, shutting her up and cutting open her cheek. Her pleas for
help were replaced by groans of pain.
“If you had paid attention, my love,” he said, “you would have noticed that
this room has been soundproofed. You could scream till your sub-par ears are
rendered even more useless, but nothing will come of it. I recommend,
therefore, that you desist.”
As she sat, hunched over in her chair, Auro produced a backpack. From within he
pulled out an iPod and a pair of headphones. The model number on the headphones
read MX-50, an upgrade on the now obsolete MX-20’s.
Working slowly but surely, he chose the track he wished to play and set the
headphones over her ears. They were tightly clamped and she found that shaking
her head, however vigorously, would not dislodge it.
Turning up the volume to the maximum, Auro hit play. Immediately, a cacophony
of sounds blared through the headphones, filling her head, drowning out any
coherent thought.
She screamed and flailed, trying to escape, but the headphones stayed clamped.
She felt like she was being subjected to a million nails being painstakingly
drawn across a million blackboards, with all the collected wails of misery ever
voiced by mankind added in for good measure. The sound made her skin crawl, and
its sheer volume ensured that it reverberated within her.
Seconds melted into hours, and she had no idea how long she sat there,
screaming, blacking out, coming to, screaming again. But, do what she might,
the sound did not stop. In the midst of her travails, she had lost control of
her bladder, and now sat drenched in her own urine and faeces, but found
herself unable to even process that fact enough to be disgusted by it.
Her screams now blended into the wails and screeches emanating from her
headphones, and everywhere she glimpsed ears, as if mounted to hear her scream.
She passed out again.
She came to, conscious of a stinging pain in her neck. She opened her eyes to
see Auro withdrawing a syringe filled with her blood.
“For filing, you understand,” he said, airily. He knew she could not hear him
over the sounds playing into her ears, but he still kept a one sided
conversation with her. He found that he enjoyed conversations most when he was
the only one talking.
He returned with a knife. It looked sheer, was made completely of metal, and
looked, even at first glance, to be immensely sharp.
Nonchalantly, and with no foreplay, he held her head in place by wrapping his
arm round it, and held her right ear with his hand. His other hand brought the
knife and began slicing through. Her agony touched new peaks and she positively
shrieked in excruciation. The knife, thoroughly sharp, sliced through the ear
with no trouble at all, and soon he had his latest specimen.
He held it up for close examination. His sensitive ears were inundated by her
continued shrieks, distracting him. Frown fretted, agitated, and suddenly Auro
swung the knife across her face with all the force he possessed. It struck her
on the left cheek, slicing through her jaw, all the way to the other side of
her face, until her lower jaw lay hanging by cartilage. The next swipe sliced
open her throat, causing blood to cascade down her breasts, down to the foot of
the chair, mingling with her refuse.
And at long last, he had his beloved silence.
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Part 3:
Six months later:
Mona sat in a hotel room, munching on a piece of toast, flicking
through the channels, when onscreen flashed the picture of a person she was all
too familiar with. She watched in silent horror as the gruesome details of
Auro’s deeds were explained over and over again with sadistic glee by
journalists from every channel in the country.
“…police say the suspect has admitted to kidnapping, theft, assault,
manslaughter, graverobbing, cannibalism and many other heinous crimes. The
suspect also furnished details in support of his statement, lending further
credence to his claim that he had no accomplices. However, the police admit
that they have hit a snag in determining his motives. On being asked to state
his motive, the police report states that the suspect emitted a loud, wheezy
laugh, and simply said, ‘She can’t say I’m not a good listener. I listened all
right.’ On being asked to elaborate, the suspect clamped up and refused to
speak any further.”
The piece of toast was still suspended midway between the plate and Mona’s
mouth; its holder had not moved for the past few minutes. Snippets of their
last conversation flashed before her eyes. Those words that he had immortalized
in criminal lore, those words were hers. She had cast them at him, carelessly,
unthinkingly. She had set in motion, with a careless remark, events that would
affect hundreds, maybe thousands of people.
She set her toast back down on the plate and switched off the TV. A headache
began to assail her. She felt her head being invaded by an alien presence. She
felt heavy, weighed down. She glanced into the mirror by her bed.
Frown stared back at her.
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