Guilt Rides Better Than Whiskey

The guilt catches just when the whiskey leaves. And it catches you better: by your collar, your aching balls, your dry gut.

Guilt hurts, humors if you confront it, and blinks when you stammer. It tries to find ways to say it better, even when your mind is fighting with the colors of the world and their erotic confluence that makes it sticky to keep your legs crossed. Occasionally, whiskey-driven, you may grab what your senses desire: quality you’re sure you deserve, and excess of it at that moment, you can’t do without.  Next morning, as I said, the guilt catches just when the whiskey leaves. I don’t like this cycle, yet I live it. I am alive. I am comatose. I am a cocktail of both.

My Ancestors Weren’t Apes

Forty years ago, as I was born, I came, invited, adored, into the arms of reality. Over the years I have read many books, people, things. I have scratched my head and other parts, confided with my soul many times, fought its fears that contradicted the norms built by those who pervaded me and my cavemen ancestors.

Our society, like a ready-to-eat meal, has been like this for a long before I came: the good and bad litmus, claws of religion that slows down until you can’t think no more, normalcy a prerequisite for not being called a madman. Today, I can’t find the graveyards of those who made this apparatus. I want to exhume their bodies and ask them, politely (I am still following the norms): Why did they do this to me? To us? I am sure, if I ever get this honor, they will smile, laugh and label me and all others on the planet (us if you are with me) fools. They’d say: “Bloody fools stop aping our vision. Use your eyes, mind, and organs. Make something new. Make this world a better place.”

Cheese vs. Cheese

The goat cheese asked the buffalo cheese: I am smaller in size and weaker in stamina but why is the cheese made from my milk stronger in flavor? The buffalo is not sure if it was an answer or a question.

It’s Everyone’s World

The tourist likes to travel, watch everything like a worldly inspector: dust, insects, muck. But he’s never sure he’s cleansing himself through the observations. That is the best part of being a tourist.

Kulpreet Yadav

Kulpreet Yadav is a writer based at New Delhi who edits the online literary magazine Open Road Review. His short fiction has appeared in journals from around the world. In 2011, his short fiction won a special commendation in the Best Short Writing in the World competition held by Fleeting Magazine and received honorable mentions twice in the Sonora Review's flash fiction contest. He is the author of two novels, The Bet and A Waiting Wave. He lives in New Delhi, India.

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