Words that trigger stories - Part 7

I have often been blamed on our Readers' Club WhatsApp group that my stories are too dark or morbid. I don't necessarily agree with that observation because my stories are reflection of our society in some way. Secondly, there have been days when I have written about things like romance, slice of life, workplace stories as well. This post has a good mix of such stories. Three "Word of the Day" led me to explore three different worlds - a work from home woman, a stuck office goer and a political situation. Read on.

Corybantic

adjective [kawr-uh-ban-tik, kor-]

frenzied; agitated; unrestrained

Tale: Pellet Guns

A stone comes flying through the open window and hits the head of a constable, who is on duty. His head starts bleeding immediately. His painful shrieks alert all the other policemen deputed at this sensitive post. As they look out of the window, they see lot of children leading a mob of corybantic rioters. With stones in their hands and loud anti national slogans filling the sky, the situation gets out of hand very soon. Police has to do something but the mob is using innocent young children as shields. As they started panicking, they brought out their pellet guns.

Phalanx

noun [fey-langks, fal-angks]

a number of individuals, especially persons united for a common purpose

Tale: Wave and Green Tea

I was going against the wave. While everyone was going to office this morning I decided to go back home. I didn't want to let me go through yet another purpose less day. I had decided to be the master of my own destiny. As I entered the VT station to catch a local train back to my home, I encountered a phalanx of office goers coming out of the station. Their sheer force pushed me out of the station into the rat race once again. I am having my green tea right now, looking at an ominous excel sheet on my desktop, in my cubicle.

Haimish

adjective [hey-mish]

homey; cozy and unpretentious

Tale: Don't Sleep

Her haimish bed was very inviting. She hadn't slept for last 48 hours. But there was a deadline to keep. So instead of hitting the sack she kept hammering her laptop. She didn't realise when she dozed off and clicked the send button. After few hours she was woken up by urgent sounding ringtone of her phone. By the time she came to know about her sleep induced error, her latest online book had already been downloaded by millions of people for free. The book was getting rave reviews but she didn't earn much out of it.