The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

Bottom and Titania in a Multiplex

Bottom had walked into the multiplex for window-shopping.  The centralised air-conditioning in the multiplex was a joyful relief from the scorching heat in the city’s overcrowded open spaces.  Moreover, he could gratify his voyeuristic inclination by looking at the legs or cleavages of the pretty fairies that wafted coquettishly around with mobile phones clinging to their ears like earrings and chocobars slipping through their velveteen lips.

Though he imagined the girls as fairies Bottom didn’t really believe that fairies existed.  So when he was approached by Titania, the fairy queen herself, his surprise was quite palpable.  But, like most twenty-first century boys (and girls, of course), he knew how to tackle any odd situation in life and so he overcame his surprise sooner than any person from another period of human history would.

Titania had just woken up from a sleep.  But her mind was still under the influence of the overdose of the sex pill she had had earlier.  The first man she saw as she woke up was Bottom. Yes, she was sleeping in the multiplex.  Fairies can sleep anywhere. In the olden times they used to sleep in the cool shade of trees in some jungle.  When jungles started disappearing fairies faced the threat of extinction like the Indian tigers.  However, unlike the Indian tigers, the fairies discovered appropriate places for survival – the air-conditioned multiplex, for instance. So there she was, Titania, with all her attendant bevy of fairy maids.  She saw Bottom sitting absolutely relaxed on one of the chairs on the third floor of the multiplex, watching the girls on the ever-flowing escalators, with his legs stretched out as far as they would go.

“You look fabulously handsome, young man.  I’m bowled over.”

Bottom looked at the beautiful but odd and tiny creature standing before him, then at the other creatures who accompanied her, and again at the speaker. By the time his gaze travelled so much he had overcome his surprise. 

“Yeah, no wonder you’re bowled over.  I had a lot of girlfriends at school, you know. You are also welcome.  One more won’t make much difference.”

“You are as wise as you are handsome.”

“Well, you know, I think I’ve seen you somewhere earlier.”

He must have seen her in his fairy tale books which he used to read long ago.

“Ask me whatever you wish and my maids will attend to your wishes instantly.”

Quite strange, thought Bottom.  But like most boys (and girls, of course) of his time he knew how to rise to the occasion.  “Okay, I want my parents to stop peering into my room to check what I’m doing with my laptop.”

“Do you really want that, dear?” asked Titania, though she was under the spell of the sex pill.

“You said you could get me anything. Get me this and prove yourself.”

“But...” hesitated Titania. She was not as quick as the new generation lover of hers.

“Alright, darling.  I’m paralysing your parents.  They won’t ever walk anymore.”  Fairies belonged to an ancient period.  For them curse and blessing were all a once and for all thing.  They were not aware of multitasking or part-time jobs, for example. Eternity does not understand calendars.

“Where are you going so soon, darling? Sit with me, play with me, dance with me…” pleaded Titania under the influence of the sex pill and also the ignorance about human nature. 

“You think I’m nuts? Bye, see you, ta ta... I just want to make sure that they are indeed paralysed.”

The shock of base ingratitude was too much even for the hangover of the sex pills.  When the hangover took an unexpectedly earlier leave of her, Titania realised what a fool she had been making of herself.

“This is the problem of deforestation,” she mumbled to herself as she went in search of Oberon who might be flirting with some dunce with hair dyed in brilliant colours in another part of the multiplex.

[This is a spoof on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene i. Titania is the fairy queen in the play and Oberon is the king.  Bottom is a working class member of Shakespeare’s contemporary London society.]