Dipti

Dipti walked into her boss Abhijit’s office. “Hey Abhijit, do you have a couple of minutes, wanted to discuss something with you. “Ummm... Give me ten minutes, I’ll come to your seat”. As Dipti walked away, she swore that Abhijit was playing farmville when she walked into his cabin. She realized that when you got to a certain point in your career the company paid you for the privilege of being able to goof off in an office of your own, in complete privacy. You still did what you did when you were in a cubicle, that is to send out resumes, check personal email and play farmville. Only now you did it with complete impunity and in privacy.

Abhijit walked into Dipti’s cubicle two hours later not bothering to apologize at all. “So, tell me”. His voice had a grating quality to it and it got on Dipti’s nerves even more today. She was irritated on the day because she hadn’t had a proper hot water bath in the morning. She blamed the following people for this not in any particular order; the head of the electricity company of Karnataka, lady luck and the prime minister of India.

“I wanted to discuss leave plans with you Abhijit”. “Leave!”, said Abhijit and made sure that he was heard at least in a five cubicle radius. “Yes leave, Abhhijit, I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept”. Sarcasm however was lost on Abhijit like it would be on most software bosses. Instead it was taken literally and mistaken for arrogance. It wasn’t arrogance in this case however. It was sheer exasperation combined with crabbiness that was the result of working at a dead end job for three years. “I’d like to take two weeks off in June”. “Two weeks” screamed Abhijit. “I don’t remember the last time I took two days off. In fact I think it’s been two years since I’ve put leave”. “Wow, you must be sitting on a pot of gold with all that leave encashment money huh? Anyways, I don’t see why it should be a problem. We’ve just released B3C3R1Z567HU and we don’t have anything planned for the next two months”. “I am better informed of company plans and policy that you are my dear Dips”, said Abhijit. Dipti hated it when he called her Dips. Not even her best friend called her that. She didn’t tell him that however. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter, do I get the time off or not? I need two weeks”. “Ok, let’s see!” said Abhijit, "Apply for it in Toolmatic. I’ll talk to Gagan and let you know”. “When will you let me know? I need to concretize my travel plans”. She didn’t believe for a moment that she’d used the work 'concretized' in a sentence. Uggh. She had to get away from here. Fast. “Oh! you’re going to be out of Bangalore? What happens if some urgent issue comes up? Who will take care of any HPCI’s?” “Well I assume, since you’re running this fancy corporate setup and all, you’d be able to take care of it? I’ve also noticed that there happens to be more than one person working in our team. Which would logically lead me to the rather startling conclusion, that, wait for it, someone else could take care of H(fucking)PCI’s”? She didn’t say the f word though. Though she allowed a big enough gap between the H and P to say it inside her head. Sarcasm again. Lost again on the unfairer and dumber sex. “I have got to know today Abhijit, I need to finalize my travel plans”. “Ok, you go ahead and book your tickets, we can always get them cancelled if something comes up.” “No, I cannot get them cancelled Abhijit, I’ll lose a ton of money on the cancellation charge; something I’m sure that our company’s not going to pick up. Anyways, let me know by evening max when you'll approve it”.

A reportee, giving her manager a task was hard to digest for Abhijit. Especially when the reportee was of the female variety and very pretty. “I can’t tell you today evening”. “When can you tell me then? Tomorrow? If that’s not possible, I’ll talk to Gagan myself. Since you seem to be so busy nowadays”. This conversation was backfiring for Abhijit as did most conversations with Dipti. “OK”, he cut Dipti off mid sentence. “Put leave in toolmatic, we’ll see what we can do”. So saying, he walked away. Dipti was convinced that this was victory and set about sending resumes and playing farmville with renewed vigor.

Chapter two

“Yes da, I’m going alone”, Dipti told Plural over lunch in the company cafeteria. “I don’t see why that’s such a problem”. Plural was Dipti’s colleague and possibly only friend at work. He’d been in the company a lot longer than Dipti and seemed to be much better adjusted to the software world than she was. Everyone liked him and he’d been rated “Exceeded expectations” three times in a row. He had a reputation of being very cool under pressure and in general was well ensconced into what was still a very unfamiliar and uncomfortable setting for Dipti. In a private moment he had actually admitted to Dipti that the reason that he was so good under pressure was that deep down, he didn’t give a shit about anything. Not about whether the product shipped on time, whether the company was doing well, or whether anything changed at all. Philosophically Dipti didn’t get that kind of approach. Not wanting much out of life suggested mediocrity to Dipti. She’d discussed this many times with Plural but Plural insisted that at the end of the day his approach towards life and doing things was much better than anyone else. He said that the only thing that he wanted at the end of the day was to be happy. He said this so often that it irritated the shit out of Dipti. Dipti felt that she was meant to do much more with life than she was accomplishing in NotSoft IT solutions. She tolerated Plural however, because she didn’t want to lose the only friend she had at office. And he was good for other things as well.

“So you want to go to Leh all by yourself?” Plural asked Dipti. “Yup” said Dipti. She enjoyed watching people react when she told them she was off on a vacation across the country all on her own. She was even more determined now that some of people had actually advised her against it. Ever since she’d seen a documentary on Ladakh on TV she’d wanted to go there. She was fascinated when she’d seen lush greenery turning into a cold barren desert at 15000 feet. The landscape looked as though it had been dropped there from another planet.

“That’s fantastic”, said Plural. “I’ve always wanted to go there myself. You beat me to it bitch”. “Yeah, if that asshole bastard Abhijit approves my vacation”, she growled.

“Don’t worry, he will. There’s no reason for him not to. There’s nothing for us to do for the next month at least. Go enjoy yourself. The next B4 beta release isn’t coming up at least for… ”, he stopped mid-sentence because of the frown on Dipti’s face. Tech talk wasn’t allowed during any of their lunch conversations. It drove Dipti mad how well-adjusted Plural seemed in this environment. He was far more intelligent than that. It just seemed to her like he’d accepted his lot in life.

“Yeah, I’ll try”, said Dipti. But she wasn’t really going there to enjoy herself. Her goals were much loftier. She wanted to study Buddhism, live in a monastery, look for the Yeti, milk yaks, discover the meaning of life and find peace, not necessarily in the same order. What she didn’t know that she would in fact find at least two of the things she was looking for at the end of the trip.

Chapter three

The plane ride from Bangalore to Delhi had been pleasant, the bus ride from Delhi to Manali tolerable and the jeep ride from Manali to Leh had been hideously uncomfortable. From Manali to Rohtang pass was a sea of humanity; many going there to only to get the first glimpse of snow in their life. Of all the jeeps that got to Rohtang pass, and there must have been at least three hundred, only three jeeps ventured beyond. Dipti was well and truly on her way to where she'd wanted to go for long time.

Chapter four

As Dipti sat in the German bakery and ate Yak cheese along with bread, she stared at the mountains all around her and felt quite at peace. She congratulated herself on making it all the way here all on her own. Leh was a lovely town; everything was catered to the firangs who thronged there, which unfortunately meant that Indian tourists were treated with disdain in their own country.

But Dipti didn't mind. At least she wasn't ogled and groped at here. Dipti's plan was to spend two or three days in Leh and then head towards Pangong Tso. Pangong Tso (Tso - the tibetian word for lake) was a salt water lake nestled between India and China at a height of 15000 feet above sea level. In winter, it got so cold there that the lake froze over despite the fact that it was made up of salt water. Dipti wanted to go there by herself unfettered by the irritating tourists that seemed to be all around her.

So she found an almost broken down gypsy that would take her to Pangong.The driver however assured her that it was in tip-top shape and would get them there in no time. It was to be a two day trip which would turn into two weeks. But Dipti didn't know that. Yet. She would find out soon. They set out from Leh early in the morning and drove past the Shey and Thiksey monasteries through the most spectacular vistas that Dipti had ever seen in her life. Her driver Jamyang was a pleasant enough chap who didn't find it the least bit odd that Dipti wanted the entire jeep to herself and was traveling alone. Dipti liked him for this. They didn't talk at all while he was driving; Jamyang constantly hummed to himself and Dipti stared out of the window constantly. They stopped from time to time to eat masala Maggi mixed with chillies and drink tea. After about 7 hours of driving they were still about an hour away from Pangong and that's when it happened. The suspension of the Gypsy that had been groaning and protesting against the hill roads for the past seven hours gave out with a big wail and the car veered off the road and went crashing down the mountain. For some odd reason Dipti had been wearing her seat belt . Jamyang was dead when the car turned turtle the third time.

When Dipti came to, all she could make out was that she was in someplace dark; some kind of cave possibly. It felt like she was injured, only slightly though, and was unconscious most of the time.

Chapter five

"That was quite a scare you gave me you know", Dipti said to the hairy creature that was sitting next to her making her masala maggi.

The Yeti had seen the crash from afar and saved Dipti. Needless to say that Dipti was shocked out of her wits when she saw him for the first time but he had a calming influence on her immediately. There was something about his eyes that told Dipti immediately that she was safe and nothing bad would happen to her. The Yeti nursed Dipti to health but it was still some time before Dipti would be able to walk back into civilization.

"And how the hell do you speak English so well? And that too with a Shashi Tharoor accent?".

"Don't let that bother you? The only thing to do now is for you to get better and get back to wherever you came from as soon as possible".

"Why do you want to get rid of me"?

"I'd rather be by myself. I hate people. At least I hate what people have become now. My time was nice", said the Yeti.

"How old are you anyways?", asked Dipti. "In human years, I'm at least 10000 years old... I think".

"You don't seriously expect me to believe that do you? That would mean that you were around during the Mahabharata huh", Dipti chuckled.

"Well, yes and no. I was away in China at the time.". "Hmmm, travel a lot do you?", said Dipti, "You must have accumulated a ton of frequent flier miles huh!"

"Not if you do the flying yourself", said the yeti as he jumped into the air and flew so high up in the sky that Dipti could hardly see him any more.

Chapter five

"So why do you live like a hermit anyways, you should come back with me to Bangalore, you'd be famous!".

"You know, recently, I was in China, two thousand of your human years ago I think, and I met this monk. He wanted to come back to India and meet this buddy of mine. My buddy's name was Sid. Sid, really had it figured out. He really tried to reach out to people and help them. They did listen for a while, but soon forgot. It just seems to me that humans have completely lost it.

Much before that, I used to work for this guy. He was the man! Those were the times, we fought for what we believed in, you know. We were young idealistic and foolish. We were faithful to our ideals. To our gods! To my god!

All the values that he stood for though, truth, compassion, nobility seem to have been forgotten completely. My blood boiled when I realized that his name was being used by a gang of goons to terrorize innocent women recently.

That's when I realized, 'm better off living here, if I were in Bangalore I think I'd kill off half the population.

"Yeah, you should start with the software engineers first", said Dipti. "Anyways, I don't think you should lose faith in humanity just yet; there are still a lot of good people in the world"

Chapter six

"Dipti, it's time that you got going".

"Yes, it is, and don't worry, I won't tell any one about you".

"I know. Jai Shri Ram", said the Yeti as he smiled back at her.

"Jai Shri Ram", said Dipti as she waved her final goodbye to the Yeti. She had found peace. For now.

Inspector Nayak licked his lips. It was a hot day even by Bangalore standards. Even the potted plants in his office, the cactus included, seemed to be screaming out for cold majjige. What a boring week it had been. Once in a while he'd get a murder to liven things up, but this week, not a robbery even! To top it all he had had a bad fight with his wife. She wanted a washing machine(with drier) but the stupid woman didn't realize that he was stuck at one of the most "dry" postings in Bengaluru. "Eh Benjamin!", he screamed out, "Get some tea I say. Make it fast you bloody fellow. No bewarsi wants to do any work around here".

It was then that constable Ramprasad walked in. Ramprasad and Nayak shared an easy camaraderie. The constable had been working with Nayak for over ten years and they had developed a deep level of bonding and understanding. Whenever Nayak was transferred, he made sure that Ramprasad went along with him.

"Murder case saar", he announced as he walked in. "Ah! good. Yelli"?

"Nearby, saar, 15'th main, 3'rd cross. Rich fellow, killed a girl. Today early morning. Some TV serial producer it seems, saar". "Ok, let's go, you take out the jeep, I need to go for one quick recess. I will come within 5 minutes". Nayak loved murders. He had never failed to crack a murder case ever. He loved the rush of stalking of the prey, getting into people's heads and figuring out their motives. He hated people in general and it gave him great pleasure to have the power to make them squirm. As he finished zipping up his pants after finishing his business, he wondered how long it would take to crack this one. Rich people were always a problem. You couldn't rough them up and couldn't threaten them. He got into the jeep and winked at Ramprasad. "Lets go".

It was a posh house in Koramangala on an eighty by one hundred site with a seven foot high compound wall. Nayak immediately liked that it had at least two trees in it. One jackfruit and one gulmohar that was in full bloom. He paused for a while to look at the gulmohar. It was a big fancy "architect-designed-saar" house. He sauntered into the hall walking on the Italian marble and past a very expensive looking home theater system.

There was a man sitting on the sofa sobbing inconsolably. He didn't pay much attention to him and simply nodded to one of the constables there. "Illi saar", the constable pointed him to a room. He walked into the bedroom and into the weirdest looking murder scene he'd ever seen. There was a woman in a white sari lying in a pool of blood. Lying next to her was a dumbbell, which was purportedly used to bludgeon her to death. Clutched in the dead woman's hand was a candle.

He walked out back into the hall and was immediately depressed to see that bloody buffoon Parthasarathy there. "Wopen and shut case saarr", said sub inspector Parthasarathy walking towards Nayak. "Eh, you let me decide how open and how shut this case is. Now, you shut your mouth for some time. That's all". "Who is that guy on the sofa crying"?

"Saar, he only did it saar, he killed that woman". "Hmmm.. ok", Nayak said as he thoughtfully bit his moustache. He sat down next to the man who was still sobbing inconsolably and muttering to himself, "why her", over and over again. "Eh you! stop crying", he screamed at the top of his lungs. The whole room went silent. The only sounds you could hear were the chirping of the birds on the Gulmohar tree. The crying man was shocked into silence. Nayak paused for a moment and reveled in the silence. He listened to the birdsong for some time.

"Ok. now tell me what happened. And if you start crying in, I'll kick you on your tika with my leather boot". It was best to extract as much information out of someone before the lawyer came and Nayak had half an hour tops.

"Ok, ok", said the crying man. "It happened like this. I was asleep...". "Hey you bloody fool! I heard you were a TV producer. Tell the story properly I say. Start with your bio data first".

"My name is Prakash Pai. I'm 41 years old and married. I have no kids. I'm the head of programming at Grahana TV. We are going to launch soon. . I came back home around 11 PM last night, had dinner and a couple of drinks".
"Which drink?", interrupted Nayak. "Single malt. Glennfiddich". "Oho! good choice. Hey constable, find that bottle and get us two drinks. Neat. Make it fast. Ok continue".

"After I had finished my drinks, I sat down to watch some TV in the hall and then went up to bed to sleep. I'd had a very tiring day and was asleep as soon as I hit the bed. Then, in the middle of the night, I don't know exactly what time it was, I was woken up. Someone was shaking me violently. I woke up and found the face of a woman six inches from mine. She was laughing and screaming hysterically. She was saying something like "Utth, Pai, utth, aaj teri baari hai". There was blood dripping from her mouth and honest to god she had sharp dracula like teeth. I almost had a heart attack. I looked for the first thing I could find to hit her with. There was a dumbbell lying nearby and I took it and lashed out. I just kept hitting and hitting her until she didn't move anymore. I think I passed out for sometime after that. After I awoke, I called the police. That's all I know"

Nayak considered this for some time. As he was thoughtfully rolling around this supposed confession inside his head, there was some kind of commotion at the door. "What is it?", he asked Ramprasad. "Sir, the TV producer's colleague. He wants to give you some information". "Ok, let him in".

A tall handsome man in his late thirties walked in. He was white as a sheet. He walked towards Prakash and put his arm around him. "Don't worry Prakash, I'll sort everything out". He then walked towards Nayak and sat down.

"Sir, what a tragedy sir". "Fellow, let me decide whether this is a tragedy or comedy. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Sir my name is Anant. I work with..". "Full name", interrupted Nayak.

"Anant Borkar. I work with Prakash. We are colleagues at Grahana. All this was supposed to be for a TV show. It's all gone so tragically wrong. Two months ago, we were in the process of coming up with new shows. Then Prakash himself had an idea of doing a show like MTV bakra. But we wanted to take it to the next level and really scare people. We wanted to do something great for the first show. The idea was to have a woman dressed in a white sari and go around waking up people when they are asleep. Like the bhatakti aatma in films. She would go wake people up when they were asleep and we would get the entire thing on camera. For the first show we wanted to turn the whole thing around and play the first trick on our boss. So we got together our crew and decided to do it tonight. The girl who was killed was an intern at our office. Her name was Dipti. Of course, Prakash didn't know about any of this. Oh my god! How am I going to face her family!"

Nayak chewed his moustache some more. "OK. What's done is done. Clean this place up. There's nothing more for us do", he said. "Ahhh, only one last thing", he said to Prakash, "you kept saying 'why her', 'why her'. What kind of relationship did you have with the victim"? "I was her boss", said Prakash. "

"Sir, one minute", Ramprasad called out from the scene of the crime. "Sir, look at this dumbbell sir, they generally come in pairs, but I have searched and searched for the other one and can
t find it. Then I searched in the house and found this other one in the utility. Sir, don't you think it's funny that there was only one dumbbell in this room. Looks like it was intended for something other than exercise".

"Hmm...", said Nayak and smiled. This was not so "open and shut" after all. He was going to enjoy this. He went back into the hall and asked Prakash, "where was your wife when all this was going on?".

"She has been staying at her mother's place in JP Nagar for sometime".

Back at the station, Ramprasad came into his room. "Sir, it seems that the husband wife were having a lot of problems. I talked to the neighbours and and some people who worked at their house. They used to fight almost yeveryday it seems. Then about one week ago, she left him and went away to her mother's house".

"Good work. OK. I want you to do one thing. Get the phone records of all these fellows. Prakash, his wife, Anant and the dead girl. Study them and see if anything comes up. Also call this fellow Anant in for questioning. Something about him is not right."

A week later Anant walked in with his lawyer into the station. Nayak was in a good mood on that day. He had come very close to cracking the case. All he needed to do was talk to Borkar. "Ahh, Mr Borkar, please come, have a seat. Will you take some tea or coffee?"

"No thank you", said Anant. "So Mr. Borkar, I want you to start out by explaining to me why there were 20 calls between you and Mrs Pai the day before the murder?"

Anant's face turned stony. "We were good friends. After Deepika, sorry, Mrs. Pai, started having problems in Prakash, she confided in me. We became good friends. And spoke to each other once in a while."

"Really?", Nayak raised a eyebrow, "Good friends, or much more than that? Maybe you should explain to me why Mrs. Pai has never been seen near her mother's place for the past month? For the life of me I could not figure out the connection. Then it hit me. But I'll let you explain. So how long has the affair between you and Mrs. Pai been going on? There's no point denying it. You better come clean."

Anant sighed. "We were in love. We have been for the past year. Prakash was a bastard who didn't treat his wife well. Sometime ago, Deepika found out that Prakash was having an affair with Dipti and left him. Deepika confided in me."

"Ahh yes, yes. Which is why I was surprised to learn that Prakash had taken out a policy of 1 crore on Deepika AFTER she found out about him and Dipti. Anyway go on."

"Yes", continued Anant, "Prakash didn't know that Deepika and I had fallen in love with each other. A while ago he came to me with a plan. He wanted to get rid of Deepika. The bakra idea was his. The idea was to set this whole thing up and then get Deepika to carry out the prank. She would walk in and then Prakash would kill her. The whole thing would look like an accident of course and he would pocket the insurance money and I would get a cut"

"Deepika and I went ahead with the plan as is. Only we replaced Deepika with Dipti", smiled Anant.

"And the poor girl was killed", said Ramprasad who was listening to all of this.

"What poor girl! Everyone in this world is a bastard only I say. That's why I hate people so much. Go get me one cold Yelneer from outside"

Nikhil and Priya walked to the bus stop from school everyday, took a bus to the campus and then walked back home. Theirs was what you could easily describe as a happy idyllic life peppered with simple pleasures. They lived near the beautiful city of Mangalore on the KREC campus. Every Saturday evening, along with their parents, they would ride a bus into town and head straight to Ideal cream parlour. Priya would always have the Sandy nuts and Nikhil the Chocolate dad or Gadbad. On Sundays, sometimes they would walk to Surathkal beach and while Nikhil and Priya played in the water, their parents would watch the sun set. They would walk back to campus chatting and eating the kadle puri they bought from the only seller that sold anything on the beach.

It was 1992 and cable TV was just coming into India and into Nihil and Priya's home as well. The whole family was looking forward to it with repressed glee. The cable guy had been promising to come for a long time and finally after a two week wait he landed up one bright Sunday morning. Little did they know that the black cable would bring a lot more into their life than Star TV.

Nikhil was in the tenth standard and his was a life of discipline. He was woken up every day at 5 AM and studied until 7 AM. Then both the kids got ready, had breakfast and left for school. They were back home by 3 PM, slept for an hour and then went out to play. They got back by 5 PM had coffee and tindi and then it was study time. Whether they liked it or not, they were at their books between 7 PM and 9PM after which they were bundled off to bed.

TV screwed all this up. The kids were constantly watching TV now and their mother was worried. If Nikhil didn't study hard enough, he wouldn't get into a good college and their dreams of him becoming a computer science engineer would be dashed. So their TV viewing was restricted to half an hour every day. The kids were none too happy with this though. They rebelled, screamed, kicked and scratched but their parents didn't give. Nikhil suddenly turned from being a sweet tempered kid into a demon.

One day, the kids didn't come home at their normal time. At 5PM, Lakshmi their mother was frantic. She took a bus to their school and was informed that they left as soon as classes were over. She came back to campus and went to each of their friends' houses but they weren't to be found. Hysterical, she came back home around 7PM hoping to find them. And there they were smiling and chatting with each other watching TV. Their faces were calm and serene. "Where have you been?", Lakshmi screamed. "Oh! we were around", Priya told her mother. They was a certain calmness in her voice that seemed very odd to Lakshmi and sent a chill up her spine. "What do you mean you were around? You can't just go off like this somewhere without letting me or appa know where you're going. Just wait till he gets home, you're in for the hiding of your life!". The kids simply looked at each other and smiled.

This happened for the next month intermittently. The kids simply wouldn't turn up and this sent their mother into conniptions. Finally one day, she decided that she needed to punish them. She got the cable TV connection disconnected. The kids, as usual came home and sat down to watch their evening cartoons only to discover that it was not to be. And then it happened. Nikhil turned purple with rage. "How dare you cut the connection off, you bitch!", he screamed at his mother. "Who the hell do you think you are? You can't control me, you don't own me!", so saying, he drew closer to her menacingly. "I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget", he said as he grabbed her arm and started twisting it. Lakshmi trembled with fear. Were these really her kids? What had happened to the kids with the sweetest demeanour in the world? "Anna!", Priya screamed at Nikhil. "Don't do anything rash. He will tell us what to do. Let her go". Nikhil's face suddenly turned calm. He smiled at Lakshmi, a smile that sent shudders up her spine. Suddenly her son seemed very alien to her.

When Prakash, their father came home that night, Lakshmi told him all. He was furious. He went to the kids rooms woke them up and beat them as he had never beat them before. While they were getting beaten up, the kids just looked at each other and smiled. This made Prakash more furious and he simply beat them more and more. Finally Lakshmi couldn't stand it any more and pulled Prakash away from them. Talking to each other later that night, they decided that they needed to take the kids to the doctor in the city the next day.

The next morning when Lakshmi, feeling apologetic, went to wake up the kids, she saw that they weren't there. They had sneaked out at night. At 11 AM, they were back. Prakash who had taken off from work that day was out frantically searching for them. They came back to find Lakshmi sobbing in the kitchen. Priya, came to her and gently ran her fingers through her hair. "Amma, what's wrong? Why are you crying? Don't worry. We'll make it all right for you. You'll never cry again. NOW!!!" she screamed to Nikhil who was standing behind her. Nikhil quickly wrapped Nylon rope that he had around his mother's neck and started strangulating her with all his strength. Priya joined her brother and pulled at the rope. Lakshmi looked at the kids. The kids looked at the horror in her eyes, and simply pulled harder at rope. Lakshmi slowly started twitching all over and her eyes were closing. After 15 minutes of pulling at the rope, she started turning blue and fainted. "Priya, here, take this knife and cut her throat, make sure she's dead". Priya took the butchers knife and cut her mother's throat almost down to the spine.

They heard Prakash's scooter outside and Nikhil said to Priya. "We need to take care of Appa". Half an hour later it was done.

The kids blood soaked started walking from their house towards the beach. They came to a dense thicket and stood there. Waiting. Soon 5 other blood soaked kids joined them. Then out of the dense undergrowth, out walked a TV. It had two arms, two legs and one eye that kept a watch over them. It also had a benign smile on it's face. A smile so captivating that it made one think that everything was right with the world.

"Well done", it said to the kids.