Stories — Part 2
Stars
The unusually nippy wind rolled over the arid landscape, whirl-pooling death and dirt alike, bestowing it a dystopian air. The sky looked surreal, like a velvety pashmina embedded with white diamonds, glistening and twinkling. Surbhi gaped at the wondrous panorama in front of her with a sense of intense gratification. The last time she remembered witnessing such a magnificent sight was when she had gone for camping in Rishikesh and they had set up their camp beside a narrow stream. There had been no electricity and they, she and her 5 friends, had huddled around the campfire, engulfed in the chatter of the brook and the murmur of the hills, having a good laugh when someone had pointed towards the sky. One by one they had looked up till everyone was completely mesmerised and too spellbound to speak and they all had just sat there in silence under the light of a million dead stars.
Coming out of her reverie, Surbhi found herself shivering, the light breeze not helping at all. It was almost mid-July, she had expected it to be a bit warm, at least in the middle of this desert valley where the land had shrivelled and broken up under the extreme heat of the summer sun. The Death Valley seemed to be keeping true to its name. Besides a few more astronomy enthusiasts who were busy investigating the heavens with their expensive telescopes, there was nothing around her for miles except the parched soil and a few scattered bushes.
She decided to get her shawl from her Jeep, the cold now seeping to her bones. She was sitting on the bonnet of her Jeep, knees folded up to her chest and hands around her legs. But before getting down, she decided to get a few selfies to post on instagram. She had to try 3–4 different poses, and every time the camera clicked, the flash froze a tiny part of the universe with her and saved it. Scanning through the images and choosing the best ones in her mind she pulled herself upright, and jumped down the vehicle. Her mini-luggage was kept on the back seat. She opened the door and her pink suitcase lay open, baring its insides. Finding her cream coloured shawl was quick: just under a stack of her tops and a makeup box that she had purchased recently. She closed the door and wrapped the shawl around her a few times. It was a long shawl, couriered to her from India by her mother. She knew it would take a few mins for the fabric to start trapping her body heat and warm her. To distract her mind off the cold, she took out a cigarette from her jeans pocket and lit it. Smoking was not something she cherished and she knew very well that they were not good for her lungs. But she had found that they helped when she was either stressed and wanted to think or when she was very happy. This whole setting appealed to the romantic side of her and she liked her image of standing against her Jeep, with a cigarette between her fingers, puffing smoke in the chilly air, bare to the heaven above and the hell below.
She was close to finishing her cigarette when she realized that the voices of people around her had gone louder. Looking around, she saw many of them pointing at the sky in an animated way. What did she expect? These people had probably travelled miles to be at this desolate place just to gaze at the stars, they were ought to be excited. She looked up again, trying to find the Orion’s belt. The 3 stars in a straight line were easily distinguishable and had helped in guiding the sea folks of ancient times. However, after minutes of searching, she couldn’t find the belt. That was weird. She remembered the general direction where she had seen it just a few mins back, but now the array of 3 stars was nowhere to be found. That was not the only thing that she noticed, she somehow felt the sky was a little less striking now. The number of diamonds in the sky seemed less. She concluded that probably some high altitude clouds had drifted in and were blocking the light from far way stars. Annoyed, she reached for her phone in her back pocket to use the skyMap app and find the Orion’s belt, but instead of feeling the cold glass body of her mobile, she just felt her ass cheek. In a moment of panic she felt her front pockets and got the same result. She was about to lose it, when she caught a glint of light reflected from the back of her phone lying on the bonnet. She must have left it there when she got down.
Surbhi reached out to her phone, lifting herself a bit against the vehicle to gain height. Once she had it in her hand, it opened automatically detecting her face. The face detection worked even with her shawl on. Impressive!
5 missed calls.
She expanded the notification to find 3 calls from her mother and 2 from her father. Being away from the phone for just 10 mins, she had still managed to miss so many calls. Her parents must be wanting to speak to her urgently. She dialled her father’s phone number and waited for it to connect.
(Lots of noise in the background) “Hey, dad! Was away from…what’s all that noise?”
“Surbhi...Surbhi, where are you? Are you safe?”
“Safe? Of course I am safe. Why are you asking?”
“Surbhi…(incoherable chatter)…is ..gone”
“What? What is gone?”
“SUN. THE SUN IS GONE!”
“Sun? What do you mean the sun is gone?”
“It’s gone. It just stopped burning and the night fell. All that’s left is a dim, red disc hanging in the sky and the temperature’s dropping very fast.”
“WTF! Are you serious? How can the sun be gone? I don’t hear anything here.”
“I don’t know what happened, but it’s GONE. Where are you? I hope you are in your flat. Close your doors and windows and collect all the food and water that you have. If shops are open, I don’t know what time it is there. But if they are, buy as much food as you can and I want you to lock yourself in your flat and insulate it with clothes and tapes.”
“Dad, I am out! I have come to the Death Valley to look at the stars. But I don’t understand how…”, Surbhi broke off as her gaze involuntarily shifted towards the sky and what she saw shook her to the core. The sky was almost pitch black, with only a countable number of stars now shining. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the brighter stars blip out. Her heart skipped a beat. She looked down, back to earth and that’s when she realised that the people around her were packing their stuff, preparing to leave, many others had already left.
“Oh God…OH MY GOD! Dad, the stars are going out too. I cannot see the Orion’s belt and other stars. What the hell is happening? I need to get out of here” Surbhi managed to say, overcome by panic and fear and darted back inside her Jeep.
“You are out? OH NO! NO NO NO…Surbhi, find a shelter, find any building with electricity or food or with anything that you can burn to generate heat. With the Sun gone, the atmosphere can only keep warm for a few hours. Then it would get cold, freezing cold.”
“Yes…yes. I am heading back to Vegas. That is the closest city from here. Oh God Dad. What are you and mum doing? Are you in the house? Do you have enough food and water?”
“Don’t worry about us, we have some food stocked up and the hand pump should be able to give us fresh water for some time. We have locked ourselves in and are closing up any openings to prevent heat from escaping. Beta, I don’t know what’s gonna happen but save yourself. Go as fast as….”
The call disconnected with a spark. Surbhi tried to call back but there was no signal. She could already feel the temperature dropping inside the car. She turned on the heater and stepped on the accelerator as hard as she could. Vehicles in the US are built to stand extreme cold temperatures, but they too have a limit, if the gas itself freezes, the Jeep would just shut down. “What do I do? What do I do?” her mind had blanked out. This was REAL. She might freeze to death before she even reached Vegas. “I need heat to survive. The Sun provided the heat and the air trapped it. But with the sun gone, the atmosphere can keep it trapped only for so long. Where else can I get heat? Even if I start a fire, it would eventually die out unless I keep throwing fuel into it which is again limited. Aren’t there any other sources of heat on earth? Think..Surbhi…think! Earth itself has molten lava running inside, that can provide heat, at least for some time. Yes..YES!! But how do I find any lava flow in this godforsaken dead land?”
She pulled out her phone and opened Google maps and searched for “volcanoes nearby”. She had never imagined in the wildest of her dreams that she would search for such a destination in this app. The network was still out, but fortunately Google automatically caches the map data around you for offline use. The search returned quite a few results. “I didn’t know that Nevada had so many volcanoes” thought Surbhi. However, her eye caught a small icon on the map with the name “Hot spring” under it. “Hot springs! Of course, they get their heat from earth’s geothermal energy.” Getting heat from lava would be tricky, but hot springs would be simple to use, she could use the hot water to cook and keep herself warm. She touched the icon and set it as her destination. It was in the same direction that she was heading to, just a bit outside Vegas. She now had a plan, given that she actually makes it to the spring. She prayed that humanity had generated enough Greenhouse gases to keep the earth warm for a few more hours. The path forward was gonna be lonely and she was terribly unprepared.
Ties
October 25, 8pm
“I can’t take this anymore. I am cutting the call. BYE!”, I balked with a voice twisted with anger and irritation, and disconnected the call. “This is it. Enough is enough. I can’t take these constant fights anymore. I’ve got a lot more important stuff to do than satisfy her need to argue” I spoke out loud to myself and tossed my phone at the bed. After it hit the mattress and bounced a few times before settling, it rang again, and I knew who it’d be. The phone chimed out the ringtone, flashing her name and I stared at it till it stopped. This was not the first time I had to deal with her incessant need for attention. The phone rang again. “Psycho girl!”, this time I picked up the phone, and put it on silent. “I don’t have to deal with this bullshit” I comforted myself, and opened my course book for “Network Programming in UNIX”. It was the 7th semester of college and both end-terms and placements were drawing near. I knew I couldn’t waste my time thinking about her, there will be time for that later.
October 25, 11.30pm
The dorm room door rattled with a loud noise and the latch shifted a little trying to hold the door in place. I ignored it. 3 seconds later, two consecutive kicks shook the door like thunder. “Darwaza khol saale, kahan mar gaya hai?”(Open the door dude, are you dead?), someone hollered from beyond the wooden barrier that shielded my concentration from worldly distractions. I recognised the voice. Shaking my head, I checked my wristwatch: it was 11.30 pm! That was a long, undisturbed period of productive study. “I guess it’s time to take a break”, I wondered getting up from my desk and unlatched the door. “Bhai, kya kar raha tha? Phone to utha liya kar. Chal canteen jaa rahe hain humlog (Dude, what were you doing? At least pick up your phone. Come, we are going to the canteen.)”, said the attacker of my dorm room door. “What? I didn’t get any ca...”, I started to say, before the memory came back to me. I had put my phone on silent after the fight. I searched for it and found it lying face down on my pillow. I picked it up and unlocked it: 2 missed calls from my door rattler and 23 missed calls from her! “She really needs to learn to let things go.” I picked up my wallet and went out the door, knowing that I won’t be talking to her for a few days at least.
November 27, 2.58 pm
The phone buzzed softly against the piercing silence of the library. Pulling my eyes away from the laptop which showed a leetcode question, I picked up the phone and saw that the call was from an unknown number. “Who’s this?” I answered in a hushed tone.
“Sir, you have a courier from Bluedart. I am standing at the reception of Rajiv Bhawan. Can you come down and get it?”.
“Courier? But I haven’t ordered anything. Hmmm…”.
The thought of packing all my stuff up and leaving the serene but focused energy of the Library to fetch a courier didn’t appeal to me. But I was also getting curious to know what was in that courier.
“Bhaiya, can you bring the package to the central library? I am there, it’ll be on your way anyway”
“Ok sir. I’ll be at the library steps in 10 mins” came the answer before the call disconnected.
Mysteries bother me and I can’t find my peace until I have solved them. I read and re-read the question on the laptop screen many times, every time restarting from the beginning when I realised mid-way that I hadn’t understood what I was reading. The blinking cursor’s location on screen didn’t change for the next 15 mins. Finally, the phone rang and taking one look at the number, I knew it was the same delivery guy. I got up, locked my laptop screen and bounced out of the reading room door. The air outside felt fresh and smelled of foliage and wet earth. The library steps reflected the trees and sky overhead. My eyes took some time to adjust to the bright world and I searched for any guy who looked liked a delivery person. A middle-aged man stood near the left edge at the bottom of the steps with a package in hand. The package was medium-sized, and my excitement grew further. I quickly signed the delivery sheet, accepted the package and started my way up. My hands weighed the package and I shook it. It felt lighter than I expected and sounded like there was another box inside it. I tore open the flimsy cardboard covering and found a matte black box inside, the sides closed with cello tape. Carefully unsticking the tape, I opened the box from the side and turned it upside down to get the contents out. 3 brand new neck ties fell out into my hand along with a small piece of paper. Interesting. I unfolded the paper, and inside was a note which read:
“I hope these ties will bring some good luck to you. Wear them in your interviews.
Love, S”
And then it hit me. It was from her! My heart sank. We hadn’t been in touch since our last fight. How long ago was that? I think October. She hadn’t called me after that night and neither had I. “How did she even get my address?” I wondered, bewildered. But inside, I was deeply touched. She knew that my placements started from 1st December, and I hadn’t even bought any ties myself. I had been procrastinating. And here I stood with her note in my one hand and 3 new ties peeking out of my other hand: a red, a black and a blue.
1st December, 9.28 am
I chose the black one for today. It was my favourite of all 3. Shiny and silky. I put it around my neck and adjusted it while looking at myself in the mirror. The tie perfectly complemented my dark blue formals. I clicked a pic, and sent it to her. “You chose the black one! Looks good on you. Go get ‘em!” came her reply after a minute. A happy smile creeped on face. “Today is gonna be a good day” I said to myself, picked up my backpack and walked out the door.
Melody
My body swayed with the music. The sweet buzz from drinking that whole can of beer was hitting the perfect spot. I am usually the shy, introverted, quiet kind of guy, but alcohol looses me up. I won’t be able to shake a leg being fully sober, but give me a pint of beer and I’d be ready to embarrass myself a bit. As the song reached its inevitable end, I came out of my zone and went back to concentrating on my laptop screen. It had been a while since I had written something, and I had discovered that somehow I wrote better when I was stoned.
I was working on a book. My book. Sounds pretty cool right? Unfortunately, I had managed to write only 3 pages of it. I had started 3 years back. 3 pages in 3 years! I know, that’s terrible progress. But in my defence, being a delivery guy doesn’t leave you with enough time and creativity to write. Yes, I delivered food from 9 am in the morning till 11 pm at night. This was not exactly how I had imagined my life to turn out. But it’s life, it hits you with the most unprecedented situations.
Having failed to get a job during my on campus placements, I wasn’t really worried then. Probably because 90% of my class was on the same boat as me. Neither did I go back to my home after college ended, instead I moved in with my friends in a dingy 2BHK flat in Noida. The startup scene was hot in the NCR region, and I was confident that I would get into one or the other early stage startups. But within a year I realised that I had seriously overestimated my capabilities. 2 years later, there I was, still living with the same bunch of friends in the same dingy apartment. But I could at least afford the rent and the food myself.
I heard a soft buzz and my phone chimed the notification tone. It’s weird right? How you always hear the buzz from the vibration first before the actual tone? I turned around on my chair, stuck out my neck and squinted my eyes to look at the notification as the phone was lying on my bed. It was a food pickup and delivery request. I looked at the wall clock in my room and it showed 11.40 pm. I had logged off from the app early that day, hoping to relax a little and take some time for myself. But it looked like I was not completely logged out and the request had been assigned to me. A weary sigh shuddered through my body. I had already made 19 deliveries that day, one more and I’d be eligible for the daily incentive on delivering 20 orders. The incentive wasn’t much, but if I managed to meet it everyday for the whole month, it’d be a substantial sum. “It’s just one more. Probably, won’t even take more than 15 mins. I am anyway not making any progress with this book.” I consoled myself and tried to get on my feet. It was a wobbly rise and I had to take a few seconds to steady myself. I searched for my bike keys and found them obscured under the blanket. My “delivery” shoes lay disoriented near the door. They were dirty around the bottom and dried mud formed a layer around the sole of the shoes. “Hey Google! Remind me to clean my shoes on Saturday at 11pm”, I spoke to the virtual assistant that lived in my phone and heard it confirming that my reminder was set. I took one look at myself in the mirror to check I was decent and went out to call the lift.
The restaurant was close by and the roads were deserted. The food was also ready by the time I arrived, so 5 mins later, I found myself holding the food package in my hands. I updated my status on the app that I had received the food. The app then started the map navigation for the delivery address. Using the app had become a habit for me now. I zoomed in to check the location and was pleasantly surprised. It was my own society! I got lucky, I usually don’t. I was saved the drive back home from the delivery location and that felt like a good omen. Noida wasn’t safe for anyone at night. On the way back, the bike drive was more enjoyable than the previous one. The air felt cleaner and cooler on my face. As I parked in my society, I checked the address again, the flat number was 508, 2 floors above my own. As I reached the door of the flat, I marked the order as Delivered in the app. It was 11.59 pm. I had made it by a narrow margin and I saw the incentive notification popping up, which brought a wry smile on my face. Extra money is always good.
I rang the bell and waited. There were quite a few potted plants arranged neatly outside the door. They all looked healthy and well maintained. The door itself had some decorations on it: plastic garlands having artificial flowers hung from both sides of it and there were a few stickers of Hindu Gods on the door, Ganesha and Lakshmi along with Shiva and Brahma. I had always found this amusing, how every Hindu chose his/her own favourite deity. I had asked about this to my Hindu friends and they never gave me a satisfying answer. Some said that they followed their family’s “Kul-devta”/“Kul-devi”, while others said that they didn’t remember how they came to be believing in their favourite Gods. Being a Muslim, I didn’t have this problem. We believed in the one and only Allah.
The door opened and a teenager looking boy stood in front of me. He took the package from my hand and went inside shouting, “Dadaji! Your momos are here.”
“Usko bhi chocolate aur cake de do.(Give him the chocolates and the cake too.)” came a groggy, shaky voice from inside.
I didn’t know if I was being addressed in that statement, I hesitated for a few seconds, but then decided to leave and started walking towards the lift. “Hey wait!”, this time it was a melodious, female voice. I often marvelled at the fact that how just by hearing someone’s voice, you form an entire image of the person in your head. I turned around and saw a pretty girl, probably in her 20s walking towards me.
“Hey what is your name?”
“Uhhh…Aasif”
“Thank you Aasif for delivering the food so late at night. It’s my dadaji’s birthday today and he suddenly got the craving for momos. Here, have this. We just cut the cake and he asked me to give it to you too.”
She offered me a styrofoam plate which had a piece of vanilla cake on it, 5 Melody chocolates and a disposable, wooden spoon. “Melody!” I just blabbered in surprise. It had been ages since I had had that chocolate. It was one of my favourites when I was a kid. Me and my sister used to fight over it.
“Yeah, I know. Brings back memories doesn’t it? My dadiji used to love these. Now my dadaji wants them everyday. The doctor had to prohibit him from eating more than 3 of these in a day.”
“Yes it does! Thank you for your generosity. Nobody has offered me food in return for delivering food before.” I spoke with a disbelieving voice and accepted the plate.
“Haha, you’re welcome. You’ll still find some old school souls like my dadaji today who keep our faith in humanity alive. Chalo, have a Goodnight!” she said and turned away. I stood there, gaping at her beautiful figure walking gracefully towards her door. Before she reached her door, she turned towards me again. “Have I seen you around here before? You look familiar…Aasif” she asked. I realised that my mouth was still open, I closed it immediately and said with a grin “I don’t think so. But maybe we’ll meet again. Who knows? The world’s a small place.”
I turned around and walked towards the steps.
