Arbit Scratchpad

[ Gimp on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn ] Those hapless pawns, manipulated at will, sacrificed for gains, mere pieces in the hands of the players, the masterminds, successive grandmasters ... Do they possess a mind of their own, or are they mere static, lazy, black and white pieces, pushed around, without any willpower, or the passion of survival? But so is the case with the kings, the queens, the bishops and knights, isn't it?

A seamless white, with no ends, no corners; a spotlessly clean, featureless white expanse. This soft white, hit him as a very peaceful sight as soon as he had opened his eyes. His eyes registered his own hands and legs, but nothing apart from himself. As he moved a little forward, on a surface that neither felt cold nor hot, he felt he was in a daze. Then for a moment he closed his eyes and he was thrown into another world - one full of colours, riotous colours, chaotic, noisy with sounds from the familiar world; there was the black spiralling smoke and dumps of filth everywhere, blood, gore and sorrow - all this enveloped him. Without another thought he opened his eyes and was back in the peace of that featureless expanse again. He enjoyed the clear vision for a while; however after a while a strange nagging feeling started to creep in. What felt quite strange to him was having opened his eyes he was in this neat, white yet monotonously boring world, in a sense almost blind. He felt a...

You know what? An almost inaudible whirr of the desktop fans pervades all around; a new day has just begun at the workplace. On very similar lines another, this time a rather audible whirr of those well-oiled engines of gossip, rumour, trivial talk and the like has also been set into action, determined to change the very landscape of the day. Then at some point the orchestra of gossip begins, along with master strokes on canvas over canvas these artists, some could be great script-writers too if given a chance, set the stage on fire! With absolutely all other faculties put to rust these gossip artists have the keenest faculty for idle talk activated - yak, yak, yak, and more yak! Maligning anyone or anything with a touch of their imaginative brush, their repertoire consisting of subtle hints, complete rumours and sometimes things indescribable, all coming at no cost. That evil grin, or the rolling of eyes in immense pleasure at being able to kill another person's or group's rep...