BS Murthy

             Autumn Love        This is the story of moral conflict between marital fidelity and extramarital attraction in a woman’s emotional sphere, in the autumn of her life. ------------------------------------------- She willed herself to not to check her phone to see if he had replied. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was constantly checking his ‘last seen at’ status and yes, he had logged in just five minutes ago. Yet she couldn’t stop herself. This sinking feeling to find absolutely no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost tortuous. And then, just as she sat down in her chair, her phone vibrated. With her heart thudding in her ear, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen. Finally! It was his message. But when she opened it and read it, she nearly stopped breathing. She didn’t know if he was joking or not. What was this...

     An End Without An End    A short story by BS Murthy It is the enigma of life in that death impacts the living in ways varied, so it seems. When I heard she died, well after her death, I was doubly pained. Not that it was any untimely for she lived long enough to become a great-grandmother. Even then, death, after all, is death that is finite. But she made hers, an end without an end, haunting me no end. So to say, born not long apart, we became close neighbours, that was in our late teens. Besides being pretty and lively, she had grace and poise. Yet I was not drawn to her as I was infatuated with someone by then, say in calf-love. Hence, not to mention her nuanced advances, I was even blind to her come-hither looks. But soon enough, as she laid bare her heart to me, I was insensibly impacted by the warmth of her love. So, with her craving for me crushing my crush for the other, I began seeing her passion in the light of her love, and that enhanced mine o...