Pangamonium by Zanesh Catkin

Author:Zanesh Catkin [Catkin, Zanesh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780987226556
Publisher: Midnight Sun Publishing
Published: 2012-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

14 The Guardian Awakes

Daeid woke. He stood up and stretched, then moved smoothly into his daily workout, combining yoga poses, tai chi moves, aikido and resistance exercises. For a man who had been out of the army for a decade, he was still amazingly well-muscled and fit—the result of his rigorous discipline.

Breakfast was simple; yoghurt and chai. To break the fast, that was always Daeid’s understanding, not to feast. That came later, hopefully, always remembering the bad times when there wasn’t enough.

His two-room flat had been his home since he came out of the Army. It contained a few cane chairs, some embroidered cushions, a single bed and a kitchen table. Every available space on the walls was filled by posters of Bollywood stars.

His favourite was Shakara Lee, the voluptuous village girl with the heart of gold and the brain of a neurosurgeon, the guile of Cleopatra, the wealth of the Queen, the allure of Jane and the musculature of Tarzan.

He was also partial to timid little Bianesa, the brown-eyed beauty from Bangladesh fluttering lashes like peacock feathers. The cosmetic industry had been contracted in feverish haste to produce the most astonishing array of colours for her transformative make-up whenever the story called for the mousy girl in the corner to morph into an epic girl-manqué goddess, shimmering in Puce Viola, glittering in Silver Viagra, trembling in Sunset Tequila.

Of the men, there were few equals to V.T. Devid, the swashbuckling hero of a hundred serials. His impossibly glossy hair, brilliant skin, chiselled jaw and sculpted torso reflected the perfection of his genetic inheritance and the attentions of a squadron of servants who doted on his every need. V.T.’s most famous role was as Prince Rajid, the love-sick, yet independent and romantic inheritor of the largest fortune in Rajasthan—a steal for any woman, yet spurned by the object of his affections, Princess Tia, the perfect image of beauty encased in pack ice and left in a cold store until needed.

But would she ever be needed? Daeid was troubled by the seemingly eternal distance placed between the princess and her paramour, Prince Rajid. The more he longed for her, the more she retreated. Upon saving her from yet another death-defying crisis, she would merely suggest her thanks with a slight head nod and a dip of the left wrist, and then withdraw. Meanwhile Prince Rajid would cool his heels in some gutter dive, forced through the pain of his feeling for her to sing his heart out, to dance upon the tables, to dazzle the untouchables with his pearly teeth as they listened in rapture, giddy and overcome. The scene would explode in colour as he darted across a stone bridge and skipped onto a yacht, sailed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, waltzed around the Eiffel Tower and climbed Mount McKinley. All for what? To be dismissed by someone he adores.

There was a knock at the door. Daeid turned, thinking momentarily that it might be the Mounties. Then he realized his rent was due—it was his landlady.

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