Stan Scribbles

~ Julia Have you ever stopped to notice how things really only last for a little while? And when something comes to an end, it happens abruptly; silently, with no signs of it happening at all. Just the other day, I was driving past one of my favourite restaurants, just to see the place had closed down and been replaced by another. Granted I had only been there a few times for special occasions and it had been long since I had gone last, but it still filled me with a huge sense of disappointment. When I had dined there a couple months ago, would I have held the experience in a different light had I known then that it would be my last time having their cheesecake for dessert? This leads me to another memory from my last few months of high school. It was before we started preparing for our Board exams in earnest, when we still had classes happening instead of just revision periods. One of my classmates made a witty joke in English period, and it had the whole class clutching their bellies...

  ~ Kook kannan Winning entry of PRADHARSHINI '24, Flash Fiction Prompt: You get the ability to speak with the dead after touching an ancient book. But you can do so for only one minute. Word limit: 180 SandwichMan: Speaking with the dead was never my hobby until I touched that book. And the first person I talked to was a thousand-year-old mummy buried beside it. But that's how learnt the rules for this power. One, I had to touch the dead in order to speak with them - which is not an easy feat. Two, I can speak with them only for one minute. Three, never again. Somehow, that mummy wasted the whole minute just to explain these three rules to me. I had talked to many dead bodies ever since then and learnt a lot more nuances about it. But the most shocking one was what I learnt yesterday - it was not just my hands that wielded the power. I went to the nearest 'SandwichMan' joint yesterday with my friends for a dinner party. And as soon as the allegedly chicken sandw...

  ~ saathweek  have you watched things around you? they change. like that book you wanted to read but haven't touched, yeah it changed. it has become heavy, just by sitting there. it has taken in the smoke, the dust, the grief. I'm not sure if you've noticed. it was new when it was hot off the press, mind you it hasn't been read yet. you haven't set the trigger yet, so it's still new in the bookshelf of a chic, chill and mundane bookshop. and on a fateful day, you walk in empty-handed. I'm sure it's too much work carrying that emptiness around, but you are unaware of how much it is holding you down - like a stone tied to you as you fight against the currents of an upstream river - of your thoughts - you are drowning in, but it is still holding you down. you pick this book up, you are greedy. jump forward to present (insert a cinematic time-lapse of your not so happening yet happening life.) its bright outside, and you sit in this dark. I see you walk, ...

~ Akash Life isn’t straightforward, that’s something everyone can agree with. One moment you are cruising through joyous moments, the next you are doing everything you can just to stay afloat. It’s kinda funny and sad at the same time but yeah, that’s life. You never know what to expect. Ever felt inadequate? That somehow you are a person who’d never be good enough, good enough to deserve the nice stuff life has to offer? Maybe that’s true, maybe you are incomplete, maybe you’ll never have “enough”. But what is enough? Enough money? Enough love? Enough time? But then again who does? Maybe it isn’t supposed to be enough, maybe life is supposed to about enjoying the fleeting moments of joy, enjoying the inadequacies life has to offer in all it’s glory and somehow… being fine with it? Life owes you nothing; it is up to you to determine what the “nice” things life has to offer. You create a mental picture of what “nice” is and crib that you weren’t handed enough. Maybe it didn’t work o...

  ~ DK In case you guys didn't know, there's this Spotify playlist called a 'Daylist', which factors in the kind of songs you listen to on all days of the week and makes a mix for each day, and the name of the playlist changes every day, and they're just so weird sometimes. Here are some of the names:   Renaissance flannel Wednesday 90s pure air guitar Monday Divorced 70s metal dad Saturday Commiecore punk reggae Thursday Vintage rock supernatural Sunday early morning Bombastic melancholic English power pop new wave Tuesday Not just 'Rock' or 'Pop', even though you toss the stuff I listen to into these huge boxes. There seems to be something for everyone, a micro - nichè (as if niches weren't small enough) for every listener, and this concept applies to a lot more than just music. Take fashion for example. There's an aesthetic for everything and everyone. You like Doc Martens and flannel? You're grunge. Like tracksuits a...

~ Kavya Manonmani Did you wake to the 5 am “to study” alarm? Did you run to the hostel bathroom to keep your bucket reserve at 6:30? Did you realize again that the iron was underheated because you forgot to swap it with the mobile charger at the socket? I know you blasted your ears with rock music all that while. Did you tell your roommates bye before leaving? Or did you leave the room last? Oh wait, you didn’t check the mirror. Did you reach the mess before 8:30? You didn’t eat again? You sleepwalked even though you were 10 minutes late for attendance, no? Do you know the topic of the anatomy lecture? Did the professor call you up again to answer because you were depicting the different stages of sleep? Did you bunk the 11 am class? Oh, you finally ate lunch! You are just going to scroll Instagram after 4 pm again, no? Damn. Calm. I woke up at 5:15. I did keep my bucket at the bathroom, but only at 7. And now I have been waiting for half an hour. I did begin to iron without realizing ...