Abhishek Sengupta
@abhisheksg.bsky.social
Writer. Imaginary. Published in a few journals and anthologies around the globe. Winner: Bristol Short Story Prize 2023 and others. A figment of your imagination, otherwise.
A couple watches the lifeline of their dead child grow in the coconut orchard where he used to play. It performs the dance of a complex crisscross in the years the child's parents smile as if it were a string around them that made their romantic bonds stronger.
#magicalrealsim #vss365
#magicalrealsim #vss365
February 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM
A couple watches the lifeline of their dead child grow in the coconut orchard where he used to play. It performs the dance of a complex crisscross in the years the child's parents smile as if it were a string around them that made their romantic bonds stronger.
#magicalrealsim #vss365
#magicalrealsim #vss365
A group of bachelors is declared lost in the neverending corridors of everlasting love. SWAT teams are sent to rescue them from the tangled dreams of a purple safehaven. But inside its labyrinthine contours, the SWATs face these monstrosities called bachelors-turned-masters.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 13, 2025 at 4:13 PM
A group of bachelors is declared lost in the neverending corridors of everlasting love. SWAT teams are sent to rescue them from the tangled dreams of a purple safehaven. But inside its labyrinthine contours, the SWATs face these monstrosities called bachelors-turned-masters.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
Okay, children. One day, the mercury soars above an eagle. Hey bud, are ya looking for rats too? asks Eagle. Nope, there are too many rats. I escaped, says Mercury. We sure live in two very different worlds, Eagle scoffs. Actually, that's exactly why I soared, says Mercury.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 12, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Okay, children. One day, the mercury soars above an eagle. Hey bud, are ya looking for rats too? asks Eagle. Nope, there are too many rats. I escaped, says Mercury. We sure live in two very different worlds, Eagle scoffs. Actually, that's exactly why I soared, says Mercury.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
When a radio jockey returns home, she realises she'd dropped all her conversations somewhere down the way. She retracts her words but can't find a semblance of closure in what she recollects nor chase away the fear of a miscreant picking it up from where she left it off.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 11, 2025 at 3:23 PM
When a radio jockey returns home, she realises she'd dropped all her conversations somewhere down the way. She retracts her words but can't find a semblance of closure in what she recollects nor chase away the fear of a miscreant picking it up from where she left it off.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A loan shark dyes his hair the shade of yesterday. He dances in the rain, celebrating his liberation from all self-annihilating futures. Accidentally, in his drunken revelry, he unknowingly eliminates the moon from the sky and can't seem to recall the money the stars owe him
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
A loan shark dyes his hair the shade of yesterday. He dances in the rain, celebrating his liberation from all self-annihilating futures. Accidentally, in his drunken revelry, he unknowingly eliminates the moon from the sky and can't seem to recall the money the stars owe him
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
Hey Blueskyers, floating about in this virtual ether, I've swum with you, and I came across no gods and can't say if one (or more or less) exists, but I can tell you I read Orbital and I know Samantha Harvey exists and she wears the Earth as if it's her trenchcoat.
#booksky #literary #EarthCalling
#booksky #literary #EarthCalling
February 9, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Hey Blueskyers, floating about in this virtual ether, I've swum with you, and I came across no gods and can't say if one (or more or less) exists, but I can tell you I read Orbital and I know Samantha Harvey exists and she wears the Earth as if it's her trenchcoat.
#booksky #literary #EarthCalling
#booksky #literary #EarthCalling
A modest rightward shift of a continent leads it into the gulf of paranoia where placebos have stopped working. A casual bleeding becomes commonplace after people complain their hands have been replaced with knives, their minds with pens, and their dreams with carbon paper.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 9, 2025 at 4:01 PM
A modest rightward shift of a continent leads it into the gulf of paranoia where placebos have stopped working. A casual bleeding becomes commonplace after people complain their hands have been replaced with knives, their minds with pens, and their dreams with carbon paper.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
An entire police force has to be disarmed when they start using tear gas to control their own revolutionary thoughts that they say they can no longer tame. Snatching the tear gas away from them brings to light their apathetic selves. Shamed, they start committing suicide.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 8, 2025 at 3:30 PM
An entire police force has to be disarmed when they start using tear gas to control their own revolutionary thoughts that they say they can no longer tame. Snatching the tear gas away from them brings to light their apathetic selves. Shamed, they start committing suicide.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
If you're seeing through the eye of a cyclone, you'll notice all the candles left aglow on tables, shelves, and minds. You're a stone's throw away from a burnout. Your whisper is misconstrued as a growl. And every careless bird you ingest is one lifetime and a day of remorse
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 7, 2025 at 3:29 PM
If you're seeing through the eye of a cyclone, you'll notice all the candles left aglow on tables, shelves, and minds. You're a stone's throw away from a burnout. Your whisper is misconstrued as a growl. And every careless bird you ingest is one lifetime and a day of remorse
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A six-year-old girl can calculate the height of all shadows that long-forgotten pasts leave behind on a thoroughfare. When there's no sun, moon, streetlight or flashbang, her reflective mood casts its own light on her parents' final thoughts before they were shot down.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 6, 2025 at 3:26 PM
A six-year-old girl can calculate the height of all shadows that long-forgotten pasts leave behind on a thoroughfare. When there's no sun, moon, streetlight or flashbang, her reflective mood casts its own light on her parents' final thoughts before they were shot down.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
Robbie Arnott's debut novel Flames was a pleasure to read. The metaphors land so well in this largely unexplored Tasmanian setting. Quite a few POVs and some very unusual ones, but it all connects. (Be a little patient in the opening chapters.) The writing hums.
#booksky #magicalrealism #Australia
#booksky #magicalrealism #Australia
February 6, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Robbie Arnott's debut novel Flames was a pleasure to read. The metaphors land so well in this largely unexplored Tasmanian setting. Quite a few POVs and some very unusual ones, but it all connects. (Be a little patient in the opening chapters.) The writing hums.
#booksky #magicalrealism #Australia
#booksky #magicalrealism #Australia
A fortune teller can say precisely how many nexus of eternities it takes to decrypt the riddle named peace. He speaks of the proper alignment of stars in the sky and on Earth for such an event. And all the while he dances on burning charcoal. "The first step," he says.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 5, 2025 at 4:08 PM
A fortune teller can say precisely how many nexus of eternities it takes to decrypt the riddle named peace. He speaks of the proper alignment of stars in the sky and on Earth for such an event. And all the while he dances on burning charcoal. "The first step," he says.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
While sitting in his bathtub, a sociologist realizes something so irrefutably obvious he runs out of the door naked to announce the truth to the world. "Humpty Dumpty could've easily been put together again had two kingdoms not fought over which side of the wall he fell."
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 4, 2025 at 4:30 PM
While sitting in his bathtub, a sociologist realizes something so irrefutably obvious he runs out of the door naked to announce the truth to the world. "Humpty Dumpty could've easily been put together again had two kingdoms not fought over which side of the wall he fell."
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
Every morning, a man walks down the street with a broomstick, sweeping away yesterday's gibberish, collecting them all in a bin. In the afternoons, he sits under an old oak, picking nascent words people had felt but forgotten to define for a personal collage in his bedroom.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 3, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Every morning, a man walks down the street with a broomstick, sweeping away yesterday's gibberish, collecting them all in a bin. In the afternoons, he sits under an old oak, picking nascent words people had felt but forgotten to define for a personal collage in his bedroom.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
An irritated boy casts a pebble aiming at the fragile end of the dusk and shatters it into pieces. Only people who'd not forgotten to carry umbrellas are saved from a night that falls sharply and pricks onto everyone's skin like a rain of needles. The iron dome doesn't help.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 2, 2025 at 3:59 PM
An irritated boy casts a pebble aiming at the fragile end of the dusk and shatters it into pieces. Only people who'd not forgotten to carry umbrellas are saved from a night that falls sharply and pricks onto everyone's skin like a rain of needles. The iron dome doesn't help.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A tiny nation under heavy restrictions develops a rocket that can travel to the falling stars. it returns with ten thousand wishes that its government distributes to its populace for free. They grow up to become doctors dedicated to mending bruised hearts around the globe.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
February 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
A tiny nation under heavy restrictions develops a rocket that can travel to the falling stars. it returns with ten thousand wishes that its government distributes to its populace for free. They grow up to become doctors dedicated to mending bruised hearts around the globe.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
Stuck by an immense sense of sonder in an exact fraction of a second, scientists all over the globe unequivocally agree sadness is the next possible source of cheap sustainable energy that could fuel entire lives and may even spill over to some afterlives.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 31, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Stuck by an immense sense of sonder in an exact fraction of a second, scientists all over the globe unequivocally agree sadness is the next possible source of cheap sustainable energy that could fuel entire lives and may even spill over to some afterlives.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
An author keeps her stories on a short leash. They habitually escape the pages, run across the borders, and go dancing with other abandoned stories in shadowy bylanes, beyond which the author can hardly tell her stories apart. She buys them fancy collars, deplaguarizes them.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 30, 2025 at 3:44 PM
An author keeps her stories on a short leash. They habitually escape the pages, run across the borders, and go dancing with other abandoned stories in shadowy bylanes, beyond which the author can hardly tell her stories apart. She buys them fancy collars, deplaguarizes them.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A transistor catches sea waves from various parts of the ocean. Thereby, it conjures a monster that propagates kindness through its static, infecting the wet dreams of all listeners with compassion. They wake in the middle of the night sweating; their lips refuse to swear.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 29, 2025 at 4:02 PM
A transistor catches sea waves from various parts of the ocean. Thereby, it conjures a monster that propagates kindness through its static, infecting the wet dreams of all listeners with compassion. They wake in the middle of the night sweating; their lips refuse to swear.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A brand new virus gnaws at your childhood memories such that your life starts at age sixteen. Children aren't affected by that virus but suffer from a different impediment. They arrange for their imminent deaths at sixteen, beyond which they know they'd stop existing.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 28, 2025 at 3:56 PM
A brand new virus gnaws at your childhood memories such that your life starts at age sixteen. Children aren't affected by that virus but suffer from a different impediment. They arrange for their imminent deaths at sixteen, beyond which they know they'd stop existing.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
Finally read Piranesi. My reaction: Eh. The house as a world idea is a been-there-done-that thing for me. I hoped the Borgesian elements would wow me; instead, I was following a protag who'd forgotten his past. The cliché of all clichés. The writing is lacklustre, at best.
#booksky #magicalrealism
#booksky #magicalrealism
January 28, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Finally read Piranesi. My reaction: Eh. The house as a world idea is a been-there-done-that thing for me. I hoped the Borgesian elements would wow me; instead, I was following a protag who'd forgotten his past. The cliché of all clichés. The writing is lacklustre, at best.
#booksky #magicalrealism
#booksky #magicalrealism
A platypus loses its temper, which was of a cobalt blue shade, mid-performance in The Sydney Opera House. Instead of mouthing its rehearsed lines, it starts spewing venom at the political figureheads, singing, "There are mates and rivals, & then, there are Tasmanian devils."
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 27, 2025 at 3:42 PM
A platypus loses its temper, which was of a cobalt blue shade, mid-performance in The Sydney Opera House. Instead of mouthing its rehearsed lines, it starts spewing venom at the political figureheads, singing, "There are mates and rivals, & then, there are Tasmanian devils."
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A kidnapper takes a businessman's greed for hostage and demands an unheard-of ransom. The businessman, who no longer understands the worth of money, easily agrees. After the casual exchange is done, the businessman offers to buy the kidnapper's business & launch it globally.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 26, 2025 at 4:08 PM
A kidnapper takes a businessman's greed for hostage and demands an unheard-of ransom. The businessman, who no longer understands the worth of money, easily agrees. After the casual exchange is done, the businessman offers to buy the kidnapper's business & launch it globally.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
A news outlet celebrating the achievements of their country in the past decade with special news coverage on the streets is forced to use loud music to drown out the incessant screaming of invisible children, mostly hungry, abandoned, and dead in the background.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 25, 2025 at 4:06 PM
A news outlet celebrating the achievements of their country in the past decade with special news coverage on the streets is forced to use loud music to drown out the incessant screaming of invisible children, mostly hungry, abandoned, and dead in the background.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
After a recent geology survey reveals that the earth is saltier in tropical regions owing to the sweat of diligent workers, MNCs queue to set up sweatshops out there. Breaks are banned to maximise perspiration, and vampires are hired to oversee bloodletting.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365
January 24, 2025 at 4:02 PM
After a recent geology survey reveals that the earth is saltier in tropical regions owing to the sweat of diligent workers, MNCs queue to set up sweatshops out there. Breaks are banned to maximise perspiration, and vampires are hired to oversee bloodletting.
#magicalrealism #vss365
#magicalrealism #vss365