My story The Perpetual Traveller has been published in an online literary community called New Asian Writing and I am very excited about it. New Asian Writing compiles short stories, essays, novel extracts and poetry from Asian countries. At the end of each year they publish and Anthology of short stories in print. New Asian Writing has a collection of enthralling short stories by both aspiring and published authors. What is interesting about NAW is that it houses short stories from all corners of Asia. So you might be reading a story about a culture you have not read about earlier. Please ready my story there and enjoy it and please do not forget to leave a comment.

Thank you and have a wonderful day!

http://www.new-asian-writing.com/2369/the-perpetual-traveller/

In Captivity

“Please let me go home. Please take me home!” I wailed  but my entreaty echoed only within myself. Outside I had begun to look like a corpse, stiff and still. It wasn’t my mind that shut off first after all. I sobbed, screamed, begged, prayed but not even the birds that perhaps flew over me, heard me. Then there was a break. Through my shut lids I saw something glowering from a distance. The dull point of light grew sharper and wider until it was so close to me that my eyeballs burnt behind my lids and the warmth from it melted the layer of frost on my face. I was being carried was the last message my mind conveyed. Then darkness and silence descended over me making me forget myself.

The End of the Drive

“He possesses me.” he uttered with a detached seriousness, his voice echoing in the darkness. Something snapped within me when I heard him say those words. A feeling of not being met by an anticipated surprise took over me and instead I was surprised that I wasn’t shocked by this new revelation. Instead it was like small bits of puzzles slowly falling together making it look more like a whole picture. It was now clear that the bird-man had not disappeared into thin air. The man within had been stronger. But how? I wondered for an instance before I spoke to him again.

Breaking the Ice
I felt my hip bone crunch as I fell on the ground with a muffled thud. Not finding time to cushion my fall with my hands, I thought I died from the pain. Red and silvery blotches danced before my eyes and I felt my pants getting warm from my buttocks downwards. The shock of the fall had caused me to urinate. “I-I- only meant to pull myself up,” came a familiar voice. A face began to break through the red and silvery mosaic pattern still dancing in front of my eyes. It was him. The black hood had fallen off his head and disheveled hair stood haphazardly about. His pupils had constricted into pinholes as the torchlight still intact in my hand, fell on his face. A pair of pale blue eyes were searching my face with what I interpreted as a tiny bit of concern. However I wasn’t sure if it was that. There was caked blood around his nose. “How did you get here?” I asked as I took my own fingers to my own nose to see if I was bleeding from the fall. I wasn’t, and I remembered that I had wet my pants instead and quickly twined my legs together that as if by twining my legs I could evade the sour smell that had begun to emanate from me. However he seemed oblivious. “You have blood on your nose,” I said quickly killing the awkward silence and he instantly rubbed it with the back of his hand. We got into the vehicle and shut the darkness and the raw wind out.

A Revelation on the Highway

The Beginning

Don’t do that! He snapped as I tried to roll the window down to let in some air. The inside of the vehicle was stifling but he wouldn’t let me roll the window down. He didn’t look intimidating for a kidnapper. He looked like any other average young man, and I was exceptionally calm. “What are you staring at?” he said between casting a side glance at me and keeping his eyes on the road. Outside the open fields that were fringed with trees at a distance all turned into a blur as he put pressure on the accelerator.
“Do you think I am going to jump if I roll down the window?” I murmured.

Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Published by: Random House
Year of Publication: December 9th 2003
Series: Gemma Doyle Trilogy
Pages: 403
Verdict: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis:
Gemma Doyle is an outright teenage rebel with an attitude that is unforgivable in the Victorian Era. Hating her existence in the dusty and grueling plains of India, she harbours a great deal of dislike for her mother mainly because she does not comply to Gemma’s wish of moving back to London and attending a finishing school for proper young ladies.
Under very mysterious circumstances, Gemma’s mother loses her life shunning her husband, Gemma’s father into an oblivion where his life is ruled by alcohol consumption. Thus suddenly Gemma’s wish comes true when she is transported to London where she is admitted into Spence Academy, a finishing school where proper young ladies are honed to make perfect dutiful wives to their husbands. Wracked by guilt for being ruthlessly sarcastic and intolerable towards her mother, Gemma deeply blames herself for her mother’s untimely demise and is unable to celebrate her admittance to London’s society.

I stood at the edge of the forest both enticed and reluctant. Behind me the village beckoned. Houses with chimneys from where wisps of smoke coiled upwards promised me home and hearth.  The warmth of home and hearth lulled me to take a step back. But a deathly cold air escaped the forest and fanned my hair. A deep chortling laughter rumbled somewhere in its belly. The rumbling vibrated causing the moss under my feet throw up tiny stones and tickle the roof of my feet. Of all things dark and sinister, of all things evil and mean that awaited me in darkness anywhere, this one was certainly the blackest and I took a step forward nonetheless.