A beautiful young lady who taught English at the local high school fell in love with the owner of the cheese cake factory, got pregnant and after nine grueling months of keeping a living human being inside her body, finally got rid of it by shoving it out her vagina. The baby came out with some random blotches of body fluids and a big question mark on its face. Although the random blotches of body fluids were cleaned up within a few minutes, the question mark remained there for the rest of his life. He was named Charlie.
He did not grow up like the other normal human babies. Normal human babies such as his mother’s cousin’s daughter, his father’s nephew, or, even the baby in the neighbour’s marriage video. Although he had the same number of limbs as them, the same number of eyes as them and so on, no one ever said that he was cute. People did say that about his mother’s cousin’s daughter, his father’s nephew and even the baby in the neighbour’s marriage video, and this, worried his parents. What worried them even more was that whenever a relative, or a friend, or a neighbour visited them and said lots of nice things about their house and other nice things about their furniture but nothing nice about their baby, instead of cursing them later, they always ended up empathizing with them, for, they had themselves, on several occasions, witnessed the stare.
The stare was the thing that Charlie used in order to make people around him uncomfortable. He did that first only a few minutes after he was born, when the nurse held him in her hands and and took him near his mother and said, “Look, that’s your mom!” He gave her the stare. The nurse still remembers it. She says that he had even raised his left eyebrow. Later that same evening when a distant aunt of his bought him a toy car and claimed that he was going to buy a Mercedes when he grew up, he gave her the stare. Very soon, the stare became famous and people stopped buying him toy cars and stopped holding him in their hands and even stopped calling him cute. This, of course, worried his parents.
Everyone was scared of the stare. They said it was as if he was asking them a question they didn’t have an answer to and then asking them to shut up because they didn’t have the answer. So you see, he had learnt how to ask questions before he learnt how to talk, unlike, the other normal human babies.
Soon he learnt to talk as well. Although he never talked much, whenever he did, well, he asked questions. Why should he sleep on the bed and why not under the bed? Why was he allowed to eat the rice but not the spoon? Why does a pen write on paper but not on water? Does his dad’s car transport him from his house to his school everyday, or does it just change the world around him? If a normal person would ask ten questions in a given situation, he would ask eleven, the last one being “Are you sure?” This made the people around him uncomfortable, mostly because they never liked answering too many questions, and also, because none of them were really very sure.
As he grew up, he started forming opinions. Opinions that were based on what he could himself observe with his own sense organs and his own mental faculty and never based on people’s words. This made him doubt everything. He did not believe in Tom Cruise, for example. He had of course, seen him on television, but that was just a particular pattern generated by a particular sequence of digital signals that gave the impression of the presence of a human figure, was what he would say (well not exactly; he didn’t really know what digital signals were, but he at least knew that there wasn’t really a Tom Cruise inside the TV). He had seen him in newspapers and magazines, but those were just a particular arrangement of colours on sheets of paper that looked like a particular human being – insufficient evidence for his existence. Well, he had also heard about him from his friends, but that wouldn’t convince him either because when he asked them why they believed in Tom Cruise, all they had to say was that they had seen him on television and seen his pictures in newspapers and magazines. None of them had seen him in reality, using their own sense organs.
He did not believe in god either. There are better reasons to not believe in god, but his was just that he had never seen him. Well, he was just a kid. He would probably grow up into someone more rational. When he was fifteen, his parents took him to Europe on a vacation. Although the flights were mostly interesting, the landings used to scare the hell out of him. He would always grab the window seat and keep looking out throughout the flights. Sometimes he would look down and try to locate the craft’s shadow finding it mysteriously amusing that he was never able to do that. Sometimes he would just look out and feel how different it was from going to his school in his dad’s car and then would suddenly miss the traffic. And sometimes he would stare at the clouds and be fascinated by the fact that what he was looking at was their other side, the side he had never seen before. But then, the plane would start descending and he would observe the things on the ground becoming bigger and clearer and occasionally he would even be able to locate the plane’s shadow until, the distance between the craft and the ground would become too alarmingly small and yet, he would see no signs of the runway. That scared him. He wouldn’t believe on the announcement system because all it was able to offer him were people’s words – things he never based his opinions on – whereas his sense organs, his eyes, had a completely different story to tell.
The only thing he ever truly believed in were cheese cakes. As a kid, he used to spend numerous hours in his dad’s cheese cake factory, tasting different flavours, observing very carefully how each step was carried in their preparation and occasionally hurling big cheese cake balls towards his friends. He had developed an enormous liking for cheese cakes. In his school, he was known as the person who never shared his lunch, because his lunch almost always contained cheese cakes. Sometimes he used to have full meals made only of these cakes of different varieties. By the time he was seventeen, he had come up with his own cheese cake recipes. As a result of all this, he had become thoroughly aware that cheese cakes existed. He had sensed them with all his sense organs. Yes, all of them, even the ears.
His friends weren’t very fond of him, mostly because of all those uncomfortable questions he used to ask, and also, because he used to throw big cheese cake balls at them. And also because he never shared his lunch with them. Well, also because he did not believe in Tom Cruise. They were annoyed by his constant demand for evidence. They were annoyed by the fact that he would not believe in Tom Cruise unless and until he had seen him and were frustrated by the fact that they could see no way to make him see Tom Cruise, to give him the evidence he wanted. However, none of these were the thing that annoyed them the most. What annoyed them the most was the fact that by the time he was nineteen, he had never seen a nude woman and because he had never seen one, he did not believe in their existence. This annoyed them because he had denied something that they all believed in as a religion. He did not believe in breasts, not even Elisha Cuthbert’s. He had his own hypotheses to explain the spherical projections in female bodies. May be, it was just the shape of the clothes, for example. Or may be, those were just blobs of rubber inserted deliberately into their clothes as a fashion statement – the bigger the blobs, the more fashionable you are. This annoyed his friends. Until his nineteenth birthday, they were not able to see a way out, a way to make him see nude women, a way to give him the evidence he wanted. But only till his nineteenth birthday, the day when they presented him as a gift, a hooker.
He spent a night with the hooker in a hotel room and the next three days alone on a hill top far away from his house. The night with the hooker had devastated him. He had not just seen a nude woman, but had felt her with all his sense organs. Yes yes, even his ears. He was left with no choice but to believe that nude women existed, that breasts were a part of the female body and not of their clothes. He was amazed by the clarity with which he was suddenly aware of the existence of her body. He found himself in a lack of doubt, an utter inability to ask questions. He didn’t like this. He was forced to revise his beliefs, which is what he did on the hill top. He sat still at a point and meditated. After three days, he went home, but not as the Charlie everyone knew. He had changed. He now had a completely new set of beliefs.
He did not like cheese cakes any longer.
Vinayak Pathak is currently a graduate student in Computer Science. He writes essays and short stories as a hobby. Most of his writings try to bring out the mysteriously bizarre nature of the world we live in. The others are just random philosophical ruminations. He maintains a blog at http://vinayakpathak.wordpress.com.
He did not grow up like the other normal human babies. Normal human babies such as his mother’s cousin’s daughter, his father’s nephew, or, even the baby in the neighbour’s marriage video. Although he had the same number of limbs as them, the same number of eyes as them and so on, no one ever said that he was cute. People did say that about his mother’s cousin’s daughter, his father’s nephew and even the baby in the neighbour’s marriage video, and this, worried his parents. What worried them even more was that whenever a relative, or a friend, or a neighbour visited them and said lots of nice things about their house and other nice things about their furniture but nothing nice about their baby, instead of cursing them later, they always ended up empathizing with them, for, they had themselves, on several occasions, witnessed the stare.
The stare was the thing that Charlie used in order to make people around him uncomfortable. He did that first only a few minutes after he was born, when the nurse held him in her hands and and took him near his mother and said, “Look, that’s your mom!” He gave her the stare. The nurse still remembers it. She says that he had even raised his left eyebrow. Later that same evening when a distant aunt of his bought him a toy car and claimed that he was going to buy a Mercedes when he grew up, he gave her the stare. Very soon, the stare became famous and people stopped buying him toy cars and stopped holding him in their hands and even stopped calling him cute. This, of course, worried his parents.
Everyone was scared of the stare. They said it was as if he was asking them a question they didn’t have an answer to and then asking them to shut up because they didn’t have the answer. So you see, he had learnt how to ask questions before he learnt how to talk, unlike, the other normal human babies.
Soon he learnt to talk as well. Although he never talked much, whenever he did, well, he asked questions. Why should he sleep on the bed and why not under the bed? Why was he allowed to eat the rice but not the spoon? Why does a pen write on paper but not on water? Does his dad’s car transport him from his house to his school everyday, or does it just change the world around him? If a normal person would ask ten questions in a given situation, he would ask eleven, the last one being “Are you sure?” This made the people around him uncomfortable, mostly because they never liked answering too many questions, and also, because none of them were really very sure.
As he grew up, he started forming opinions. Opinions that were based on what he could himself observe with his own sense organs and his own mental faculty and never based on people’s words. This made him doubt everything. He did not believe in Tom Cruise, for example. He had of course, seen him on television, but that was just a particular pattern generated by a particular sequence of digital signals that gave the impression of the presence of a human figure, was what he would say (well not exactly; he didn’t really know what digital signals were, but he at least knew that there wasn’t really a Tom Cruise inside the TV). He had seen him in newspapers and magazines, but those were just a particular arrangement of colours on sheets of paper that looked like a particular human being – insufficient evidence for his existence. Well, he had also heard about him from his friends, but that wouldn’t convince him either because when he asked them why they believed in Tom Cruise, all they had to say was that they had seen him on television and seen his pictures in newspapers and magazines. None of them had seen him in reality, using their own sense organs.
He did not believe in god either. There are better reasons to not believe in god, but his was just that he had never seen him. Well, he was just a kid. He would probably grow up into someone more rational. When he was fifteen, his parents took him to Europe on a vacation. Although the flights were mostly interesting, the landings used to scare the hell out of him. He would always grab the window seat and keep looking out throughout the flights. Sometimes he would look down and try to locate the craft’s shadow finding it mysteriously amusing that he was never able to do that. Sometimes he would just look out and feel how different it was from going to his school in his dad’s car and then would suddenly miss the traffic. And sometimes he would stare at the clouds and be fascinated by the fact that what he was looking at was their other side, the side he had never seen before. But then, the plane would start descending and he would observe the things on the ground becoming bigger and clearer and occasionally he would even be able to locate the plane’s shadow until, the distance between the craft and the ground would become too alarmingly small and yet, he would see no signs of the runway. That scared him. He wouldn’t believe on the announcement system because all it was able to offer him were people’s words – things he never based his opinions on – whereas his sense organs, his eyes, had a completely different story to tell.
The only thing he ever truly believed in were cheese cakes. As a kid, he used to spend numerous hours in his dad’s cheese cake factory, tasting different flavours, observing very carefully how each step was carried in their preparation and occasionally hurling big cheese cake balls towards his friends. He had developed an enormous liking for cheese cakes. In his school, he was known as the person who never shared his lunch, because his lunch almost always contained cheese cakes. Sometimes he used to have full meals made only of these cakes of different varieties. By the time he was seventeen, he had come up with his own cheese cake recipes. As a result of all this, he had become thoroughly aware that cheese cakes existed. He had sensed them with all his sense organs. Yes, all of them, even the ears.
His friends weren’t very fond of him, mostly because of all those uncomfortable questions he used to ask, and also, because he used to throw big cheese cake balls at them. And also because he never shared his lunch with them. Well, also because he did not believe in Tom Cruise. They were annoyed by his constant demand for evidence. They were annoyed by the fact that he would not believe in Tom Cruise unless and until he had seen him and were frustrated by the fact that they could see no way to make him see Tom Cruise, to give him the evidence he wanted. However, none of these were the thing that annoyed them the most. What annoyed them the most was the fact that by the time he was nineteen, he had never seen a nude woman and because he had never seen one, he did not believe in their existence. This annoyed them because he had denied something that they all believed in as a religion. He did not believe in breasts, not even Elisha Cuthbert’s. He had his own hypotheses to explain the spherical projections in female bodies. May be, it was just the shape of the clothes, for example. Or may be, those were just blobs of rubber inserted deliberately into their clothes as a fashion statement – the bigger the blobs, the more fashionable you are. This annoyed his friends. Until his nineteenth birthday, they were not able to see a way out, a way to make him see nude women, a way to give him the evidence he wanted. But only till his nineteenth birthday, the day when they presented him as a gift, a hooker.
He spent a night with the hooker in a hotel room and the next three days alone on a hill top far away from his house. The night with the hooker had devastated him. He had not just seen a nude woman, but had felt her with all his sense organs. Yes yes, even his ears. He was left with no choice but to believe that nude women existed, that breasts were a part of the female body and not of their clothes. He was amazed by the clarity with which he was suddenly aware of the existence of her body. He found himself in a lack of doubt, an utter inability to ask questions. He didn’t like this. He was forced to revise his beliefs, which is what he did on the hill top. He sat still at a point and meditated. After three days, he went home, but not as the Charlie everyone knew. He had changed. He now had a completely new set of beliefs.
He did not like cheese cakes any longer.
Vinayak Pathak is currently a graduate student in Computer Science. He writes essays and short stories as a hobby. Most of his writings try to bring out the mysteriously bizarre nature of the world we live in. The others are just random philosophical ruminations. He maintains a blog at http://vinayakpathak.wordpress.com.
