Schubert Sells Bibles

it was a bright and sunny day and the man who lived in the pretty little cottage between the two mango trees stood outside his house, watering his sunflowers.
they were large, golden sunflowers that looked up at the sun in a happy manner.
the man carried a long hosepipe in his hands which was connected to a little tap at one end of the small garden in front of the house.
there wasn't a single cloud in the sky and the birds sang happily and the bees buzzed over the flowers.

on the other side of the street was a large house.
madame bellona was the owner of the house.
she was an old woman who had married a rich old french-man in the late 70's and now that her husband had died she had inherited his fortune...every single penny of it cause the old french man didnt have any relatives.
madame bellona wore flashy gowns and high-heeled shoes that made a click-clicking sound as she came back home after her evening walk and she always had around 10 pounds of jewellery on her.

that morning madame bellona had come outside to greet the beautiful day when she saw him watering his sunflowers.
she called out to him,"Schubert!Lovely day..eh?!"
schubert slowly turned around and nodded his head.
he wasnt really the screaming types.
he didnt even speak that much.
he was a quiet man with not much hair on his head.
he was always seen in striped white half-shirts and plain gray pants and flip-flops.
a pair of round spectacles were always perched on his nose and wherever he went he always carried with him a small, hard brown diary and a ball point pen.

When Schubert was a a child he had been a very normal boy.
He had a normal family and lived a normal life.
His mother used to bake him cookies every alternate sunday and he used love eating those buttery cookies very much..
Then one day he found a large red ant trapped in his cookie.
the ant had somehow been mixed in the cookie batter and had been baked.
when schubert saw the ant embedded in the cookie he froze with the cookie in his hands and sat that way for almost 10 minutes on the dinner table.
when his mother realised that he hadnt moved for ten minutes at a stretch, she called out to him from the kitchen and said. "Schubert!Whats wrong honey?"
Schubert didnt reply.
he didnt even move.
then after another long 30 seconds.
he dropped the cookie which fell to the floor and crumbled to cookie dust.
he looked up at his mother's confused face, then looked down at the cookie again.
then suddenly he jumped up from the table...screamed... and ran out the front door and wasnt seen for the next 3 days.

it was the beach life-guard who had found him.
Harold, was returning home from a walk by the sea when he had seen Schubert hiding under a huge, old, rotten boat on the beach.
he had extracted the boy who seemed to be in a daze and brought him back home.


For the next 3 months schubert never talked to anybody.
He sat in a wheelchair in his room as if he were made of stone.
Doctors didnt have any idea as to what was wrong with the boy.
Some said that he had shocked himself into a phase of coma or paralysis.
Nobody was sure.
then after about 3 months, one wednesday morning, when Martha(schubert's mother) was washing her clothes in the backyard she suddenly saw schubert standing on the back porch looking up at the sky.
Martha ran to him immediately and hugged him tightly and tears started rolling down her cheeks as she was relieved that schubert had finally come back to his senses.

After that, things returned to normal as before, apart from the small fact that schubert would never have cookies again.
Never again...


And on that bright sunny morning this story started with, 31 years had passed since then.

so where we?
oh yes.
Schubert and Madame Bellona.

After watering his sunflowers, schubert retired to his house.
He went into his study and took out his brown diary and a ball point pen and started scribbling..which is what he did almost all the time.
there was a tv in his house, but he rarely switched it on.
there was a radio which was broken, there was a computer which had a layer of dust over it..
the thing is...all schubert really did apart from his job was scribble in his diary and water his sunflowers and go for occasional walks around the neighbourhood.
he didnt really have any close friends.
well you couldn't count cindy as a friend.
cindy was...cindy.

schubert had met cindy at the annual town carnival where they had been forced to share the same compartment in the giant wheel because they both had gone to the carnival alone.
cindy was a short, skinny girl with auburn hair cut in a low fringe over her arched brows.
she had a freckly nose and small fair hands that rolled themselves into fists when she was excited or angry.


since neither had any acquaintances in town they often hung out together.
But one wouldn't call them friends, or a couple or brother/sister..
One wouldnt know what name to give to their relationship.
it was really a very queer thing.

cindy was 35 years old and british and aspired to become a singer.
schubert worked in an automobile-parts manufacturing firm and wore large yellow gloves while working.


that night when schubert went to bed he left the window above his bed open as the night was breezy.
when it was morning he woke up and found a large amount of dry leaves by the foot of his bed which had flown in through the open window throughout the night.
he cleaned the mess and got ready for work and then got on his bicycle and left the house.

schubert was still at work when cindy came over to his house.
she knew schubert was at work..
but she had a key to his house.
she came and went whenever she felt like and schubert never said anything.
she let herself in and went over to the fridge and took out a can of soda for herself and switched the tv on settled herself on the maroon couch and started flicking channels.
she was hungry.
but schubert was going to pick up dinner on the way back for both of them.
she would wait for him.


an hour passed.
cindy looked up at the large black and white clock above the mantlepiece.
it was 6:45.
schubert was usually back by 6:15.
but sometimes Hallepit made him work a little longer

cindy got up from the couch and went over to schuberts study and switched the light on.
a neatly decorated room came into focus.
she sat at his desk and siffled through some papers that had sketches of insects on them.
another half an hour passed.
cindy couldnt figure out why schubert was late.
she opened a drawer and saw a small brown diary in it.
she knew it was the same diary schubert carried with him almost everywhere apart from work.
yet she had never asked him what he wrote in it, it had never occured to her to ask him..
then suddenly she had a mad desire to peep into the diary...schubert would never know..
even if he did get to know there would be no problems...he had never asked her not to look into it.

so cindy took out the diary from the drawer and placed it on the desk of schuberts study.
she took a deep breath and slowly opened it...

the first page was blank.
so was the second...so was the third.
from the fifth page onwards there was writing on it.
cindy began to read.




i pricked my finger with a safety pin by mistake as i was trying to pin the babys diaper.
a drop of blood rolled down by finger and fell into the babys mouth by mistake.
i was horrified, but little Norman, smacked his lips and looked happy.
i was petrified.
that night i carried Norman to the park and drowned him in the lake.
in the icy waters of the lake.
i didnt feel anything.
because i knew Norman was the Devil.
in the morning everybody was shocked by Norman's disappearence.
I didnt tell anybody that i had killed him.
I had killed 6 month old Norman.
He was my brother.

when mama cried and cried all night i told her that norman had gone for good.
she looked up at me with eyes full of disbelief, not reacting much as she was too shocked.


Two summers after things were nearly back to normal.
then we went to chicago to spent the summer with grandpa and grandma.
Grandpa had taken me to see some monument by the park and had pointed at the statue of a horse and a rider and told me about it.
As i looked up i couldnt see the horse and the rider that grandpa talked off...
i could see the hanging gardens of babylon.
the many terraces..the gardens..i felt the soft hot breeze against my face and saw the sunflowers move in the breeze.
grandpa was a liar.
on the way back home as we were crossing the highway i pushed him towards a pick up truck and he got runover and he died.
they buried him in a wooden crate in a graveyard.
i got my first black suit.
and i think it was my first funeral as well..
i like funerals.
they're so quiet.
nobody makes too much noise.
i dont like noise.
i had told lawrence not to scream in my ear many times in junior high.
he just wouldnt listen.
i had pushed him off the jungle gym and he had cracked his cranium and died.
everybody thought he slipped.
his mother howled like a baby in the principals office..
i saw her.


"Cindy."
Cindy whirled around, her eyes red and full of tears.
schubert was at the door of the study.
she had not heard him come back.
cindy looked up at schubert with a horrified look on her face.
schubert took out something from his pocket.
Cindy didnt see what it was.
all she saw was the look in his eyes.
a calm, unruffled expression.
and then everything faded in a moment of intense pain on the pit of her stomach.

as schubert dragged cindys lifeless body across the living room a cool breeze flew on from the open window of the study and turned over the pages of schubert's brown diary that lay on the desk.
the page read,

"This is Schubert's Bible, and from this moment of your lives you're dead"..