Dark Fantasy

An old friend of mine was with me in my kitchen when Amazon’s delivery man rang to know the location of my residence. He was the same person who delivered all my cat food subscriptions regularly. “The location shown is confusing,” he explained. “I haven’t ordered anything,” I said having checked my profile on Amazon.

He delivered the pack promptly enough and I was curious to see what it was. X, my friend, was in the kitchen cooking the prawns he had brought all the way from Kochi, his own city which reeks of seafoods naturally.

“Dark Fantasy,” he mused when he saw the content of the package. Someone had sent me a box of Dark Fantasy cookies.

I’m sure there isn’t any person on earth who keeps dark fantasies about me in their (her, as alleged by X) conscious/subconscious/unconscious mind. I wasn’t ever such a charming person at any time in my life.

“Dark fantasy,” X said refusing to believe my deprecatory self-assessment though he knew it was quite true. “You never know where you’re hiding in someone’s heart,” he said with a snigger, as he now continued scoring the pearl spot fish he had brought for us to fry for lunch.

I started fantasising. Who could be this mysterious person that sent me a box of Dark Fantasy cookies? “Very suggestive if not provocative brand name,” X said with his usual teasing wit. I nodded in assent, even as my thoughts drifted into fantasies — the kind that would be considered dark in Christian theology.

Only after X left and I opened my WhatsApp did I discover the truth — the Dark Fantasy box was a gift from Blogchatter for my participation in their Food Fest. Nothing to do with any dark admiration!

Thanks, Blogchatter, a unique and admirable team that keeps some Indian bloggers together in a secular community at a time when our country is deciding to do away with the word ‘secular’ from its constitution and, worse, its politics.