Storywala

The dark shadow

Khushi Girdhar, AIS PV, X F

The old lady sighed in exhaustion as she trudged up to the house. Suddenly a shadow fell over her and startled, she turned around. But there was no one; it must be her tired mind conjuring images. She had only taken two more steps ahead when she heard the sound of footsteps. Panicking, she ran to her house. As she entered her apartment, the feeling of being followed intensified and only the sight of her daughter calmed her down a bit.
“I am being followed,” she cried. Her daughter sighed, irritated. “We’ve already moved twice. I’m not uprooting my life for you again. You’re clearly delusional!” Tears welled up in her eyes as fear gripped her heart. She knew she was not delusional. If only someone would catch her follower!
She could sense someone watching her even when she was inside. She had stopped going out or talking to anyone but her daughter would not pay her any heed. Her days were an endless loop of gazing at the blank wall. It was one of those days when she felt that presence again. She narrowed her wrinkled eyes in suspicion and clutched the knife that hadn’t left her hand in days. She quickly turned around, striking the knife in thin air. Getting up from her bed, she swiped the knife again, this time getting the curtains, causing them to fall to the floor. The bedsheet and pillows were her next victim. She left no stone unturned as she scanned the room, trying to find someone who was not there. Inevitably, her foot got caught in a piece of cloth making her trip and bang her hand on the table as she went down. She feared that she had become the victim of her paranoia.
Her daughter came home to a sight of her mother’s room in tatters and her mother lying unconscious on the floor. Immediately, she rang for an ambulance and wondered wretchedly if her mother was telling the truth the whole time. She waited outside the hospital room for an hour before the doctor came and revealed that the one who wanted to hurt her was her own schizophrenia*. The daughter cursed herself for not taking her seriously earlier, but at least, it was not too late yet.
*1% of world’s population (nearly 75,270,000 people) suffer from schizophrenia & around 40% of these patients do not receive any medical treatment.

Newspaper lamp

Hardik Tiwari, AIS Pushp Vihar, IX D

Materials required

Old newspaper
Fevicol
A small bottle for circular shape
A large sized balloon
A bulb holder
A bulb
A pair of scissors
Hot glue gun
A paint brush

Procedure

Take a newspaper page and cut it into 4 rectangular parts.
Take one of these pieces and start rolling it diagonally from one end, in order to form a neat and tight roll.
Once you are done, stick the free end. Make 30 such rolls.
Now take one roll and press it down so that it is completely flattened. Repeat the same with every roll.
Take a flattened roll and spiral it around a small bottle in a way to form a hollow ring.
Stick the roll with every twirl using hot glue gun.
Repeat the process with all the rolls, forming 30 such rings.
Now take a balloon and blow it to its full capacity.
Start pasting these rings on the balloon closely. Make sure there’s no gap between the rings.
Leave the area near the mouth of the balloon empty.
Now make a mixture of fevicol and water. Make sure the mixture is thick.
Cover the whole balloon along with the rings on it with this mixture using a paint brush. This will give the lamp a structure of its own.
After 24 hours, when the structure is dry and hard, pop the balloon with a needle and remove it carefully.
This will form a thick skull-like structure made of rings.
Now take a bulb holder and put a bulb in it.
Put the skull structure over this bulb holder from its mouth and stick it to the holder using hot glue gun so that it doesn’t fall off.
Keep it aside for some time for the glue to strengthen its hold.
Your newspaper lamp is ready! Switch on the bulb and light up your world.

WORDS VERSE

A writer's soul

Suhani Malik, AIS Pushp Vihar, XI B

There's pandemonium in my soul
Utter chaos that makes me whole
Million thoughts brewing a storm
Clouds of darkness out of form

Pen and paper keeping me sane
Words of laughter, words of pain
A gateway for my screaming mind
Lost universe for the world to find

Every breath seems like a mystery
Exploring letters of the history
Drawing in love to inspire
Exhaling words with raging fire

Broken down into the ink of pen
Dried out to recall again and again
For the pandemonium in my soul
Is utter chaos that makes me whole

The mockingbird and the tree

Tejvir Singh Suri, AIS PV, XI D

It is a beautiful Mockingbird
Singing on an old tree daily
Entrancing the whole forest
With the tunes old and new
No one dares to come near
For cuscuta will kill who do
As his shadow sustains no one
But the bird that sings like a harp
It is a sad and broken tree
With heart of a molten stone
Who curbs his murderous nature
To sustain the voice so beautiful
A peacock applauds from afar
And never tries to come close
For the tree is now a wooden cage
Whose toxicity destroys any love
The tree has withered to nothing
The peacock sees his chance now
But the bird who lit the fire in him
Is gone, he can’t find her nowhere
The beautiful Mockingbird
Imprisoned her whole life
Has now flown to freedom abound
Never to be caught by anyone