The clock struck 3 - Short Story

 The clock struck 3 and inside a bookshop in Maradana, Codwin made a mental summary of himself.....Codwin, age 29, failed artist, indifferent poet, and now a bookshop assistant at Premasiri Bookshop in Maradana. The world seemed darker than it did a few years ago and he knew that it would become worse when he reached his thirties. He looked through the glass window at the traffic below....it seemed to move slower every day....so much like his life...........already he felt weary of his journey home.....the traffic before the Kelani bridge would take one and a half hours......why on earth did they build a highway without solving this problem first........but then he gave up this line of thought......these were nuts beyond his ability to crack.....surrounded by books that's what he must think about.....most of them horrid and unsaleable.....how on earth did they make a profit selling this junk. He knew Mr. Premasiri knew nothing....nothing at all about books… but knowing nothing seemed a good qualification nowadays...the novel's on the shelf's that he had read secretly were all trash.....but still Mr. Premasiri was a millionaire.....the wind blew in a different way nowadays.......and the likes of him with his half baked poems.....and knowledge of things unimportant wasn't going anywhere........but even in this trash, there were gems that had been bought accidentally.... take for example….. W. Somerset Maugham's short stories based in Malaya...... most of George Orwell's books were good too....though you got the feeling that Orwell like his characters had gone off his coconut. Maybe he should have become a teacher.... yes of English... general knowledge and things like that.....he could certainly write better than people in the XXXX newspaper……… but who cares about writing nowadays.....the way the wind blows Sir.....is the way the Crow goes.....But he was surrounded by horrible books and he hated them, the poets the novelist, they were rotting with nobody left to read them……They were crawling, yes crawling like dung beetles to a common grave, and so were we all…....

Written by: RJX

Kumbuk Tree - Terminalia Arjuna

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NaTree Leaves - Mesua Ferrea (Iron Wood Tree)

 

Kobolila Tree - Bauhinia purpurea

 

Bauhinia purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar, and widely introduced elsewhere in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. 

Rough Pen Drawing

 

Short Excerpt from the Travel Book

 Unfortunately just when my travels started to gain real momentum the covid 19 pandemic struck. We went through a series of strictly imposed lockdowns, that made travel impossible. However, during one of the brief interludes of the lockdown, I decided to walk somewhere, anywhere at all away, as far away from home as was possible to be. I had never been a great fan of walking, but the lockdown had made me a kind of aimless wanderer. 

So I set out of my home and “discovered” for the first time that on both sides of the road were large Kohomba (Margosa) trees. From what I understand the margosa tree is one of the true shade trees that thrive even on the meekest trickle of groundwater so it's invaluable for those of us who can’t afford to air-condition. People in Sri Lanka, India, and Africa love it for this reason and its many medicinal and other uses. So it's surprising that it was declared a weed tree in northern parts of Australia in 2015. Introduced as a shade tree for cattle in the 1940s, it spread so quickly, that it's now illegal to buy, sell or transport plants or seeds. I've always wondered why this was, for as everyone knows nothing much grows in most parts of Australia except gum trees. Then I realized that in reality, many great trees grow in Australia, most of them endemic. An aunt of mine once visited Australia and she told the story of how she ventured into a woody place (she was always venturing into woody places) and found that there were countless Uguressa trees full of fruits. When she inquired from an Australian, she got the reply that it wasn't edible, and was in fact fit only for birds. Hey, we eat this fruit around here, it's one of my favorite fruits. Then I came upon a picturesque lake that was lined by a long row of Kumbuk Trees. For me, the Kumbuk tree, with its shiny smooth bark and colorful leaves is one of the most pleasant trees that God has put upon this earth. No Gum tree can beat this.

Written by: RJX

Short Excerpt from the Humorous Travel Book

 In Sigiriya, I met one of my relatives. He was quite old and from the things, he said I could never decide whether he was extremely intelligent or a little mad. Over a drink, he started his “advice to the young” though god knows I could hardly call myself young. “ You know what the problem with the world is” began he “ No,” said I. “Well, the problem with the world is that many people walk with only a vague idea of what they want to do.” I wondered secretly whether this accurately described his condition – senility (A decline in memory and other mental functions associated with old age). “Great wars have been fought, and millions upon millions have died because people don’t know what they really want.” “Take Hitler for example, he was a man who walked with a great anger about the injustices to his country after the First World War. But he never had a clear idea of what he really wanted, the result - 75 million people died” in the Second World War, “True” said I, “and how do you solve this problem” said I, trying to sound intelligent. “A piece of paper,” said he “Just write all your problems on the left side, and the solutions to each of them on the right side, and suddenly everything is clear. No more walking vaguely with anger or greed in your mind” said he. I only wish somebody had given me a piece of paper and said this when I was younger.

Written by:RJX

Rough Pen Drawing

 

RJX