Sid writes his memoirs

"My darling, I am writing my memoirs" declared Sid.  A wild-eyed look of determination confirmed his resolution. In his hand was a feathered quill, an ink pot, a ream of papers and a pair of blank spectacle frames.  With all this information and the accessories, I decided a question begged to be asked, "Are your memoirs from the 1800s? What's with all the props?"  He looked at me with a look of disbelief, "Bubz, I thought you of all people would understand, after all you enjoy a good spell of penning down all your ridiculously trivial thoughts. I, of course, will write of loftier things and in order to do so must do it the proper way.  None of this technology that you rely on, iPads and laptops...no,no...the good old pen and paper and a typewriter for me. My efforts and my hours of work will show on my ink stained fingers, my blotted sheet filled with scratches and written-over words, crumpled pieces of paper peppering the floor...at the end a glorious mound of A4s reflecting my masterpiece".

I smiled at his predictability. Sid always wanted to look the part, whatever he tried. In any case, this would keep him from monopolizing the ipad with long hours playing Candy Crush, so it was definitely to be encouraged. I patted him, "Well, you better get to it then. Those memoirs aren't going to write themselves." He rose in a magnificent swoop, gathered his things and said, "I shall retire to the day parlour then, ensure no one disturbs me, peace and solitude is what I need right now" and with that he strode two steps away into our living room and arranged himself and his things on the sofa.  He closed the sliding doors with force, a veritable "do not disturb" sign!

Half an hour later, Sarina walked in to the kitchen complaining at a much too high decibel level. "Bhaiya is
not letting me into the tv room. I need to dust and clean and my 3 o'clock serial is about to start."  I thought better than to argue with her and walked over to the room, pulling open the sliding doors. The sofa was much more crowded than it was earlier. In addition to Sid, who was now wearing my silk floor length dressing gown and smoking a pipe, Molly and Mia were also positioned strategically - the former on the sofa with her paws on Sid's lap and the latter dressed in a pencil skirt and black rimmed spectacles, the quill in her mouth and sitting on sheets of paper.  "What in the world are you doing? And why is Molly dressed like that?", I managed to ask. "This my dear, is me setting the scene. I must feel the part of a writer, I must have the accessories and the assistants". "Assistants?", I queried, "Assistants", he replied, waving at my poor puppy who looked itchy and traumatized in the pencil skirt.  "Oh please, she loves it, plus she is writing everything down,,,good girl, my little secretary". I looked over at Molly and agreed that she was holding a pen, but as I pointed out she was chewing it while making scratchy shapes on the paper.  "Well she's a dog, she can't write! But she'll get there.  In the meanwhile, Mia is acting as my editor - I'm running my ideas by her and she sneezes at me when she dislikes an idea and body slams me when she doesn't. It's all going very well.  So far she loves all my ideas". I was about to tell him that Sarina wanted a word with him, but he waved his hand at me and dismissed me. I decided he was deranged and that I'd rather deal with a shriek-y Sarina then him.  She took it surprisingly well, no ear drum shattering yelling, just a calm statement of going back in a half hour to check.

30 minutes later I knew the peace was too good to be true when a screech of indignation rent the air conditioned environs of my room...I hastened in its direction with the utmost speed.  Sarina met me halfway indignantly saying something about 'Bhaiya and underwear' and 'animal abuse' and 'ever since he became bald he's lost his mind'.  She slammed the front door saying she was taking the day off. Concerned that I'd be left to deal with the madness, I went in to deal with whatever had provoked this indignant reaction. Sid had shed my silky dressing gown and was wearing the most garish bermuda shorts - hot pink lip marks over a neon green background, bare chested and was sipping a pina colada. Molly's pencil skirt had been abandoned and she was wearing heart shaped sun glasses, and horror of horrors - Mia was looking most uneasy in a bikini! "Have you gone insane - what the hell are you doing?". He remained unperturbed - "Bubz this is just to get us into the mood for the section on all my decadent beach getaways - my my the stories those trips hold. Such hedonism, such scandal...makings of a bestseller".  I didn't have the energy to deal with this anymore and just decided to ignore him...sliding the door shut, I retired back to my book and blessed peace.

I did need to go into the "parlour" during the day and each time I went to get something the ever changing

scene behind the sliding door got increasingly bizarre. Sid leaping around with the dogs wearing Afro wigs; Sid in hiking gear with the dogs dragging backpacks; Sid strumming a guitar while the dogs and him howled out some unrecognizable tune; Sid wearing army fatigues and yelling "You want the truth, you want the truth, you can't handle the truth" at a disinterested Mia wearing a judge's wig; and I didn't even want to venture in when I heard Sid yelling at me through the door about making Molly a pair of bell-bottoms. As the sunlight slowly faded and I turned on the lights in my room, a dark shadow appeared across the floor. I looked up at a tired looking Sid, in surprisingly the most sane outfit I had seen in him all day - a Royal Challengers t-shirt, pink and blue shorts and half chewed slippers.

"Oh bubz", he wailed, descending heavily on my foot and not noticing my squawk of indignation.  "It's no use, I've tried all day and I just can't do it. My life is much too interesting and cannot be put into words. The tv room is a mess, there's paper everywhere, Mia has chewed one of the wigs and coughing up hair balls and Molly has raced around the room, knocked down the typewriter and swallowed the 'S' key...how in the world am I meant to even write 'by Siddharth Khandelwal' without the 'S' key!  They're really not very good assistants...I suggest we get cats, I hear they pay more attention to detail. So anyhow bubz, I thought I could make us rich with a bestseller, shower you with gold, slaves and cattle. But it's not going to happen"  He
continued to fiddle with the quilt not noticing that he was twisting my toes underneath. Something seemed to distract him because he looked up at me typing on my laptop.  "What's that sound...are you typing?".  I nodded in affirmation and continued clicking away. He crawled over and stared at the screen "Reems Peak? What the hell is that?"  I snorted in exasperation "It's Reemspeak, not Reems Peak idiot! And it's my blog".  He snatched it and read through the list of posts.  "Sid learns to read"; Sid and his menage-a-many; Sid reaches and settles; It's a kinda magic...why bubz, this is about me!" I nodded, "yes it is mostly about you and me", he interrupted, "...but mainly me! This is fantastic...all this time I was using those dumb canines when I should have been using you. Come on bubz, you shall write my memoirs. You can include some of these stories.  You shall be my phantom writer!" I corrected him, "Ghost writer you mean"..."same difference", he shrugged. "Hop to it bubz, there isn't a moment to lose. Can you wear a sarong and coconut shells...let us begin with when we went on holiday to Bali, believe me props are everything. No coconut shells you say...don't worry I will get the dogs to design you something. Oh this is splendid, we shall begin tonight, I must prepare the parlour for you. We are going to be rich...my life makes for riveting reading!"  He zoomed out of the room yelling for Molly and Mia. I casually slipped out of bed, went over to the door and locked it from the inside and went back to my laptop to continue 'Reemspeak-ing'.