It is eleven o'clock at night. But the office is not yet closed. Three proofreaders are seated with their heads bowed on their tables. In front of them, on the right and left, on all sides are piles of papers. In another long room outside the office, the compositors are busy in their world of inverted letters. Ears are deaf because of the rumble of the press behind them.
And the editor is walking on the verandah outside the composing room. Editors are always busy who work, but today they are not sitting. Today the editor is busy, the special issue is coming out. He has to publish a special story on one of the front pages.
But there is no good story. Now, what to do? There are two rotten stories that are not worth publishing but you have to give one anways. He is cursing himself for asking his owner's friend to send his story but that's not worth publishing too. He will throw tantrums, and he will also take money for his story. So the editor is in dire need of one good story before four next morning.
What should I do when I have nothig worth publishing? There are many authors. But, first the story. What to do? Should I write one myself?
Suddenly, turning around, the editor called out, "Dany! "
Dany came and stood in front of the editor. He didn't say a word but just stood in front of the editor.
"Look, Dany, I need a story. The deadline is tomorrow morning."
"Yes. but-"
"I want one story of two pages by four this morning." saying that the editor turned his face to continue his walk again.
"Yes!" Dany returned and sat down on a tin chair, away from the proofreaders.
"It doesn't make sense." Dany thought. Two pages. The story should be good. It is a special number.
"Romance" Let me write a romantic story. But romantic means love. Love means romance. No, it won't work for me.
I never loved in my life. Love is not right for this story. Then Dany remembered that once, when he lived in the village, romance came very close to his life. To the east of the village was a garden, with many lemon and guava trees. One day, under a guava tree, he saw a girl, standing and looking at a raw guava on the tree. Dany quietly climbed the tree and dropped the guava. He fell near the girl's feet. Dany waited for the girl to pick him up, but she did not, and asked him, "Why did you drop my guava?"
Yes, the first scene is fine. Next?
Ton-ton-ton... ton! The clock struck twelve.
Dany got up. He got up and turned the chair. Now he turned to the opposite side, towards the wall, as if moving the chair's position would also change the frequency of his thoughts.
Romantic won't work. It's time for realism. Why not write about the reality of the day?
Realism? Hunger, roasted gram in the morning for breakfast, one vegetable in the afternoon, corn bread, and green leaves in the evening. I haven't had any sweet dishes for years. Mosquitoes, malaria, pneumonia, raw water from the well, and naked children.
When disease comes, the chickens start dying one by one. The chicks sit sluggishly. The wife counts eggs and thinks, "What will happen in the future?" Her favorite rooster was a Leghorn rooster. One day, he too sat down sluggishly. As the day progressed, his neck was bent to one side, and by evening he was cramped.
The Story of Dany And the heroine cries for a rooster. No, it won't do!
Noooooo!
Dany came out. Looking down from the verandah, he saw a piece of a newspaper headline: "Ukraine-War, millions of Women-"
Yes, it is. Today, the world is going at such a stormy pace. Can't a single plot work in it? The newspapers are full of realistic stories. What else do I need? Let me write a timely story because that's what I want to write about.
Dany picked up several newspapers and started turning the pages.
With the war going on in Ukraine, all the citizens left the country and moved to neighboring countries.
There are calls everywhere in Britain: England is in danger! Our peace-loving citizens will suffer if the war continues. Now we have a focus on armament, so we will build weapons and ships to stop war. There is a war with China, and all nations are getting ready to take sides.
Military preparations in Russia, unrest all over the world, not one, but the plots of innumerable stories are already here. There has to be someone to write it! But how to plot? Slowly, pictures started to make sense to Dany, and ideas started coming.
A big cannon. Lots of smoke. Thunder can be heard everywhere. There are dead bodies. And they know why and how. And the smell of burning unnecessary food items everywhere, up and down, right and left, surrounding all this.
Yes, his story must be about the war, a worldwide war. Yes, after all. Yes, let's start. Yes.
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There are clouds of unrest everywhere. There are factories everywhere, making machines for weaving cloth. Today they are making guns. Yesterday we were making motors, but today we're making fighter tanks; yesterday we were playing with toys, today we are making guns. Yesterday we used to make liquor, today we are making terrible explosives. All the countries have gone crazy. All of Europe has gone crazy. The world has gone crazy!
The protagonist of our story stands in front of this vast background and wonders, "Can I fix it all, all by myself?'
Uhh no. all wrong!
No.
Dany was asleep. He had a dream in which he reached home at six in the morning. Everyone was asleep, probably hungry, because when Dany had left the house yesterday, in the morning, it was a matter of making some arrangements for food for his family by the evening.
Then the dream was shattered, and he got up in shock. And he saw that the story was becoming very clear. It was ready. He picked up the pen and started writing fast. The last sentence flashed in front of him, and he saw that his food was burning before his eyes because all the nations of the world were keeping a watch on him, lest he should put out the fire or eat anything. And soon, he started to feel that he was not alone. He was not a person, he was the whole world, being crushed by the tyranny of these powerful rulers, slaves who burn their master's food as waste material.
Hunger's bondage awakens in him that love, that worldliness, and that which religion, philosophy, and rationalism could not. He asks, "Is civilization the cause of our slavery? Should civilization be discarded?
'What would civilization answer? Hunger, war, poverty or slavery?
The story was written. Dany got up and took it to the editor.
The editor snatched the story from his hand, read it quickly, relaxed a bit after reading it, then looked at Dany with a sharp eye and said, "What happened to you?"
Dany knelt down on the tin chair and looked out the window. The day was breaking out outside, and its grayness only discolored the darkness of the night.
The editor came and read his resignation on the folded paper, "What is this?"
"Nothing, I'm starting to write a new story."
All of a sudden, the editor had nothing much to say. Returning to go out, he said, "You have always been the same Dany. You and I work on the same wavelength ever, I guess!"
But Dany had started writing by then.