The two writers laughed aloud as I ended story. Not that it was kind of thing that one likes to hear in morning. Some would quickly go on their knees and pray that “cup” passes next door. But pray as they might, it is a “cup” that we all must drink from.

By cup, I am not referring to cups of tea in our hands that we now resumed to enjoy after telling them story. DD Phil, romance writer who ladies like to call Filemon, with a stress on last syllable, was looking dreamily. Sitting with his right hand supporting his chin, his left on chair, and suspended tea cup on table, one would have thought that he was plotting a scene in his next fantasy novel.

Of course, story that I was telling them was more fantasy than real. What is real again in this world? For Val K poet, sitting with all cares in this world—his legs wide apart as poles—everything (and that includes life) is poetry. It is no wonder that someone says, “Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyways.”

Whether story was a comedy or a tragedy is another matter. But it was a story about life. And whether life stories are sweet or bitter is for you to judge. Look at verdict of these people.

A chief of King Edwin says: “The present life of man is like a sparrow.” Apostle James, a Bible writer, calls it “a mist that appears for a while and then disappears.”

But story was more about equivocations—double tongues. And is life not a tale of equivocations? So, after I finished story, we resumed our tea drinking and compared story with other equivocal tales.

The first to come to mind was King Croesus who went to consult oracle before embarking on a major military expedition. He was assured that if he went to war, a mighty empire would fall. He believed and went to do battle. But empire that fell was his!

And then there was Macbeth who was thoroughly deceived by witches. He didn’t think that tress “move” and he never believed that there was any man not “born” of a woman. But he was dead wrong. Equivocation did both people in.

The best of such double tongues, however, was that of great hinter who was warned that he was to be killed by an animal on a certain day. So finicky hunter refused to step into bush on that day. But lying in his room, head of one animals that he had killed which he had suspended on a rafter, got loose and landed a death-blow on his head!

The young mother took her fever-ridden child to hospital in hopes that something could be done to save her precious child. The mother was told that there was little that could be done. The fever was much too high for child to survive. Ice water and alcohol rubs could not control fever. A few hours later, mother was told that her beloved daughter, her first and only child, had died.

Within minutes, a frantic doctor ran back into waiting room to tell young mother that her child had come back to life!

Before evening sun set, child was sitting up in her crib playing with her dolly as if nothing out of ordinary had happened. The fever was gone. The mottled extremities were pink with health. The child giggled shyly as parade of doctors and nurses came in to see her. They brought more toys and stuffed animals than little crib could hold. They asked questions like, “What’s your dolly’s name?” They marveled at bright eyes and quick responses of child that surely should have been brain damaged.

My name is RobinRenee, and I was that little girl. I remember nothing about event. Nor do I remember when I realized that if I opened my eyes just as I was drifting off to sleep, my room would become an Alice in Wonderland delight.

I learned to fly to ceiling turning flips in ether like a trapeze artist. I looked down on my body as it lay sleeping. I stretched perimeters of my room until it felt smooth to me. I let it curl in upon itself like a nautilus shell. I walked on my “nautilus shell” room leaving footprints as if it were wet sand. Then room would quickly unwind, spinning me along with it until I ended up in far corner of ceiling. This dizzying ride was one of my favorite games.