Friday, July 11, 2008

.............................THE CROWN OF THORNS


The drums rolled. Louder and louder.
The drum-roll was so loud; it awoke the dormant Darth Vader living within the sacerdotal priest. He was sleeping in his plush bed that stood against the wall of an otherwise sparse room of the ancient rectory.

The priest twisted and turned in his bed. He sweated profusely. Somewhere, an
alley cat screeched an eerie mew. In his dreams, he walked down memory lane…


To that fateful night in the Florida Prison cell, where he was administering the last rights to the Death Row Convict #8, Robert Flamingo. Chained from head to toe, Robert still had that determinate cause popping his eye-veins. In a corner of the prison cell, there lay the crab-cakes with cucumber tartar sauce. Prior to execution, a Death Row convict could request his favorite last meal.

The last rites had to be done in three stages: first, penance for sins committed, then anointing with holy oil, followed by Viaticum (Holy Communion).


Robert Flamingo told the Priest, “I’m an honest Christian. I killed the Kingpin of the Gonzales Banking Fraud- a heartless Investment and Securities Fraud. My family and 100 other unsuspecting senior citizens lost our entire life savings, as we put them in the hands of Gonzales in the form of the Dakoita Investment Offering, in return for a stabilized income at 12% interest.

Stabilized income? We ended up losing our stability and I, my sanity. I went to Gonzales to talk things out, and probably look at some kind of compensation, but he was a snotty bastard dripping with
sarcasm as to how the Government could procrastinate the proceedings in the Court of Law by letting him slip through those loopholes that they would willingly create, as a sign of returning the ‘favors’ they had had sought from the fraud in the first place. I lost my cool when I saw no signs of compromise, I fell bait to a heated argument: one that I was losing real bad.

Gonzales liked to flaunt his misplaced sense of religiosity and had a thurible at his desk; a desk he liked to call his altar. I assume he wished the holy smoke from the thurible would absolve him from his scandalous sins.

“You people are like the ‘Crown of Thorns’ on God’s head. I just removed the thorns and made God’s life easier. Your money is gone forever, just like the crown of thorns,” he jeered.

I couldn’t digest it: the contrasting, far-from-holy atrocity of his deeds. I took the thurible in hand, and in one swift blow, took a deathly swing at his surprised-as-hell head. The evil, scarlet blood oozed in a stead stream onto the white ‘altar’.
I spotted a Moses’ burning bush in his office. The
sugar-sweet irony kissed my triumphant face: I mean the man had not obeyed a single commandment; and here was a Moses Bush! I’d never seen pietism and putridness get along this well. Moses would have turned in his grave. I walked to the bush, made a small ‘crown of thorns’ and left it on his bleeding head.

That’s my story father. And I accept this death penalty with all my heart. I’m one small thorn who is alright with being removed, when I know the red rose can still be preserved.”

The priest had a sheet-white expression. This man was an exemplary Jesus. He anointed him with holy Oil and gave him ‘The Holy communion’. He felt privileged administering the last rites.

As he was about the leave, Robert called to him. “Father, would you help me in keeping the red rose alive?”

The priest stumbled a little, and then said, “What can I do for your people?”

Robert replied: “There are three
Monster Trucks parked in these five different Church yards where Gonzales used to send clothes, furniture and other knick-knacks to; as part of his ‘Christian Deeds’. I’ve loaded them with the money that I got to recover from this bloody scam. No police or Government has gotten there. No Church has opened these either. I just got them filled out with my men last night. These are the keys. Get the money to my people.”

The priest took the keys, walked out of the prison cell, and blessed the Guards at the Door.

That was two years ago.

He woke up with a start. The sheets were still wet with perspiration. He had aided and abetted a criminal.

Then, his heart beat slowed down.
He saw those happy faces. They’d gotten their life back.

***********************************************************************************
Raven's Wordzzle Challenge: assorted words-just make a story out of them!
I loved the challenge : so took it up :)

The words for last week's ten word challenge were: flamingo, monster trucks, Darth Vader, cucumbers, sugar-free, banking, determinate, thurible, sarcasm, drums And for the Mini Challenge: procrastinate, memory lane, alley cat, argument, Florida
***********************************************************************************************

34 comments:

Sameera Ansari said...

Great story girl!

I was wondering what did the highlighted words mean.Splendid weaving you have done using them :)

Keep it up!

Have a great weekend!

Vishesh said...

amazing! lol,you are damn good at writin :)

Cinderella said...

I loved it I loved I loved it !!!!!

I was wondering why have you coloured those words....

YOu are so good, perhaps you donot know....and maybe you musnt, for the fear of ruining your own magic !!!

Bravo !!

Cinderella said...

Write a book girlie....who knows you just might becoome the next JK Rowling babe !!!!!

Anonymous said...

and here i was wonderingf what these highlighted words signified..hehe

nys oone gurl...

Heart'n'Soul said...

Takin up this challenge can be expected only out of our very own great story teller...lol

Loved it, and like sameera even i was wonderin wt the highlightd wrds are...but ofcourse now i know

And nxt JK Rowling haaan? keep it up sweethrt....trust me, i agree with cindrella...u can become a grt writer

rantravereflect/ jane said...

--sameera-->
heeeeeeee thanks a ton babeeeee :D
ya haveee a sooper awesum weekend as well :) mwuahhhhh :)

--vishesh-->
i love all this exchange of goodwill :D
i mean ya-write-well-i-write-well :D
we're both the 'GEEZ' ;) if ya know wat i mean ;)

--cinderella-->
wowwwwww woman, thankssss aton!!! n hey, i do not know it, cos i'm jus another bunch of cray ideas, so if ya enjoy my craziness, i'm jus hankering for tat :):)

rantravereflect/ jane said...

--cinderella-->
next jk rowling.. geeeee
i' m the next jj rolling ;)
jj cos i'm jane jeyakumar(my name)
and rolling, cos i'm one big mass of flesh rolling downhill ;)

--humble devil-->
geeeee, i'm glad ya likey it:)

--div-->
yehhh woman... heeee, n thanks for lurvin it :) ya made my dayyy :)
b yehh, i'll keep writing until i get bored of friends (which is like 'never')

mwuahhh :* all of ya :)

maverick said...

nice story....i like ur creativity alot...inspired from prison break?

Gunjan Aylawadi said...

whoa, u always better urself girl!!
sexy story thr!! ;)

rantravereflect/ jane said...

--maverick-->
bang on! inspired frm prison break somewhere, but it caught onto me as I tried to formulate the story-line around those words ;)

--shankar-->
sure thing man! thanks a ton for dropping by :)

--gunj-->
yeh sweetheart, i try n outdo myself, grt for ya guys to appreciate it!!

Raven said...

Nicely done. You're a few weeks behind with this one, but it's great. Please add your name to Mr. Linky on today's Saturday post so that other can find you and enjoy your efforts. Most of them have worked through these words and I'm sure they'll enjoy how creatively you have used them.

Vishesh said...

lol ya :) someday we should do something big :)

rantravereflect/ jane said...

sure.. i'm a little freaked of teh water wen i look at it frm teh shore, but otherwise, i'm sure, once on water, i'd love gliing :D

heeee, sureee we'll do the catamaran..:)

Anonymous said...

aaha... not this time u used highlight a horn eh??? ur are not plain jane man!

Cinderella said...

Hahahaha...not quite !!

Ok forget I sad about JK Rowling or anything remotely sounding of that.

Just fill up a book with your crazy ideas and hand-made pix and start selling wouldja ?!

Vishesh said...

lol, ok but on the adyar please ...the thing stinks9 lol i have a frnd who is does rowing there) ..

Saim said...

brilliant weaving of d storyline....*applause*

Comfortably Numb said...

omg there is this other comfortably numb too :((

LOL..

anyways nice story. And yea those highlighted words kept me guessing :P

Cheers!

ranjana said...

what an amazing and interesting piece of wrting

Heart'n'Soul said...

hey
whrs u
I wan the gr8 story tellers comments on mine...drop in asap???

But seriously...whr r u?

Arun said...

woow!!! loved it... i have no words really... really really awesome!! sheesh... i dont get words to express.. i guess i've conveyed how much i liked it.. Bravo!! :)

Sachin Sawant said...

Hi,

I have tagged you .....more details on the blog...plz check it out :)

Thanks :)

Harshey said...

this is terrific!
Great job
And I found some humour there as well, I mean robert Flemingo??? who has that surname? hehehe... but thats just me
[...and the Oscar for the best original screenplay goes to... :)]

Cяystal said...

Loved it,babe!!!!

Aneesh said...

Good one.
I guess, it needs some skill to do that?

Aneesh

Lena said...

i simply loved it! you are too good :)
you made a great job on weaving all those words into the context! :)

Krazy Krimson said...

nice attempt!!

Its a little disjointed in the middle.. but comes to a very concrete ending

loved reading it!! :)

Prehistoric Developments! said...

woah!!!!!!!
amazing, fell in love with the way you use your words
I could've never pulled off anythin like that
btw, thanks for commenting, I'll back soon :)

Sriram said...

wow.. good one!

Heart'n'Soul said...

Long time no see??? whr u missin girl?

Anonymous said...

Am here after quite sometime and I can see what I missed.Girl,you have some serious writing talent.Try writing a movie script- you might actually end up making a career in that field,specially when the current movies are changing lanes.Great work !

Rahul Nair said...

i wouldnt have known what to do with these words..

i would probably have written :
A flamingo was perched on the Monster Truck. The dark Vader was there. Sitting in the driver's seat and chewing on cucumbers.
He was on a suger free diet and he had to munch on cucumbers for a while.

He knew a determinate amount of money lay in the truck. He was not a banker or into banking. But he was surely after the money.

A woman passed wearing a bright red blinding outfit. "Nice dress" he commented. His sarcasm the size of a thurible.

He had made it out wih the money. Let the drums roll..
Hehe couldn't make a worse prose tha that one...

Anyway, apart from my Crap...Nice job .. :)

Anonymous said...

Good thing .. that bit...I also used to write scraps and bits of stories which I one day planned to "stick" together. But as you would have guessed that is not a proper way to come up with something near to a book. But the talent shows, doesn't it?

UPDATES ON MY OTHER BLOG :)

1. Read my latest post 'wear and tear' ON MY BLOG here:PJ4u-----