by Gabbar Singh
“No Vaman. I am not. I am here to tell you the story of your birth,” she said.
“I already know the story of my birth,” I said, “My mother has told me.”
“That is a fairytale. I have the real story,” she said with an indulgent smile.
“What do you mean?” I did not like her condescending smile. “Our systems have been attacked by a virus. A virus so deadly that in all likelihood it will destroy our systems. It has already attacked and wiped out five hundred thousand human terminals attached to a central proces- sor. We cannot live without our systems, can we? Honestly, we are the systems,” she said.
I nodded as though I understood, but I had no clue. “You are the antivirus carrier, Vaman. Your mother was one of the ten terminals with the potential to spawn the antivirus carrier. All the other nine have failed. You are our last hope,” she said.
I thought I heard a faint quiver in her voice as she said the last part. “Are you people what we call Gods here?” I asked.
“No. Okay, maybe. But you have used your limited imagination to under- stand us. We are far more complex than you think.” I nodded though it made no sense. As she had said, I was a being with limited imagination.
“The next time we meet, you will have to come with us and destroy that virus. We will equip you with the necessary weapons. Don’t worry, okay?”
A shadow of deep worry passed over her face and for a moment I thought she had let her charade down. I saw her in that moment. She was a machine. There were strange coloured lights blinking inside it. It had parts that were very recognizable. I could see a big central processor. There were bright colourful wires connecting other parts. The cooling pins. It did not look very complex to me. It quickly realized that I was looking right inside and restored the charade.
“Don’t let any harm come to you. We will meet in a few more hours.” “Hours?”
“Yes hours to us. For you, it might be another ten years. We are planning to shut down a lot of systems. So nothing much would happen to you in the next ten years.”
Then she was gone. I was lying on the mattress in our sari shop with all the saris safe and sound. But she was wrong. A lot happened to me in the next ten years. Those were the best ten years of my life.
I met Tara when we were sitting in a bus. She was sitting at one end of the bus and I was standing on the other. There were around a hundred people huffing, sweating, fidgeting and twisting in the bus that could ac- commodate only fifty. And it was incredible that Tara and I still saw each other. The bus stopped at one of the most nondescript stops and all the passengers got out. Just the both of us remained. This was one of the implausible things that happened in those ten years. There were other things. Some of them big. Like the discovery of three more planets in the solar system. Like the sudden inventions of the cures to dreaded diseases like AIDS and cancer. Like the rain that fed the Sahara for two years. Some of them were small. Like me finally fulfilling my dream of selling my first sari. Like my father talking to me seventeen times per year. Like my getting the courage to talk to the most beautiful girl I had seen.
“I sold my first sari yesterday,” I walked up, swaying like a drunkard in the lurching bus and said to her. I wanted to remember that it was the first thing I said to her. I thought she was going to slap me. Or at best ignore me, like everyone else did. She was an inch shorter than I was but a few notches more visible(I don’t know what the unit for the measurement of ‘visibility’ could be, so notches would have to do).
“What colour was it?” she asked, her eyes widened. “It was green. Like an emerald,” I said. “That is my favorite colour,” she said, “I am Tara.”
I told her my name. Two months later we were married and stayed that way for the next nine and a half years. I prayed that they, the almostGods, would keep the systems switched off. The world, or the space that I inhibited, worked just fine without the systems. But it was not to be.
Ten years later I was thirty-one years old and had just lit my wife’s pyre. She died while giving birth to our baby. The baby died too. The custom was to bury the baby and burn the wife. I did both. I knew I was going to kill myself. There was nothing left for me in this world.
And that was when I saw them the third time. I lit the pyre and stood a few feet away. Just like the last two times, there was the now familiar darkness and everything disappeared. Except for the burning pyre of my dead wife. I thought it burnt with ten times the intensity. Or maybe the blackest darkness was magnifying it. A human form jumped out of the pyre. It was made up of fire, of course, but had the very distinguishable features of a man.
“Sorry about your wife,” the fireman said. “Can you bring her back?” I asked.
“It is not part of the plan, unfortunately,” he said. I saw the sorrowful expression on his fiery face. “You remember what we told you the last two times, don’t you?”
“Yes. I will do it. But only if you bring back my wife and my son,” I said.
“You cannot make demands. We own you,” the man said. He burned a little brighter. “No you don’t! I will kill myself!” I said, with as much courage as I could muster.
The man lifted the pyre of my wife as though it were a little orange ball. For a moment, I thought he was going to hurl itat me. But after two of the most terrifying seconds of my life something changed in the man. He burned more like an ordinary fire and dropped the pyre.
“Why are you being stubborn?” “She is more visible than I am,” I said.
He nodded resignedly. They took me after they promised to bring back my wife and baby. I had to trust their word. They had no reason not to honor it.
I felt the most excruciating pain as I opened my eyes. My whole body had innumerable wires attached to it. I thought my mind was aware of the unique pain caused by each and every wire stuck into me. I could not breathe. I was submerged in a liquid substance that resembled thin milk.
“Take quick breaths and stop thrashing around,” a voice said in my head. It seemed to be accompanied by the faintest of whistles. I stopped twisting around and tried to breathe.
“Don’t struggle,” the voice said. This time I could hear the whistle quite clearly.
I could breathe a little. But the pain shot up as though rejuvenated by my breathing. “Inhale. Exhale slowly.” I did. The pain did not go. “Again. Inhale. Exhale slowly.”
The pain subsided a little. After a few moments I could breathe and I got used to the pain. I looked at my body or whatever of it that was vis- ible through the wires. It was white, like the skin under the wristwatch that is never removed. Suddenly the liquid enclosure burst and I fell. All the wires snapped and I screamed with pain. That was when I saw the hives. Huge clusters of enclosures, just like the one I was in. Shaped like inverted Christmas trees and as big as mountains.
I slowed down as I fell and after a few seconds came to a halt. There was no ground beneath me. It was as though the air had solidified just enough for me to get my footing. Someone walked towards me from a distance. I was stunned to see that it was the P.T teacher. He had the same red whistle in his mouth and was twisting it as if chewing a cigar.
“You are aware that you are our last hope, Vaman,” he said. I nodded a yes. “All of us have been watching you. Every single one of us,” he said.
“Nobody could see me back there, except for Tara,” I said. My voice sounded electronic, as though it was coming out of an ancient tele- phone.
“We did not want any harm done to you. So we made you invisible. We don’t really know how Tara could see you though. What you call love, we call anomaly. We still haven’t figured it out yet. We do not have much time,” he said. He didn’t seem very happy talking to me. The whistle was a lot more distinct.
“If we don’t send you now, I am afraid we will have to shut down forever. And that includes the place you were for thirty-one years. The virus has embedded itself right in the core central processing unit. You will have to journey to that point and kill it. We will give
you the armor and the antivirus. Just inject it in the virus and your job will be done.”
“Why me?” “You are small, Vaman. You can enter the systems very easily. We are big. Can you enter the microprocessor in the world you came from? No. The same applies to us.”
It made sense. I nodded. The P.T. teacher whistled loudly and the very next moment we were in front a giant pipe.
“This is the entrance to the systems.” I was a little surprised to see myself inside an armor. The armor felt wonderful. Right from my childhood I have had to struggle with clothes. I could never buy clothes that fit me; they always had to be stitched. A tailor could stitch clothes for a five-year-old kid who was one and a half feet high but not a ten-year-old one. And that meant I never had clothes that fit. But the armor was the best thing I wore. It fitted as though a tailor had measured me out to a millimeter. It was grey in colour and as light as a second skin.
“This armor will protect you from almost all harm.” “Almost?” “Well we don’t know everything about this virus, do we?” he said.
He handed me a big syringe with a purple-coloured liquid filled in it. “This is the antivirus. Just inject it into that damn virus. And run back like hell, okay?” he said and patted my back.
He whistled loudly and the entrance to the pipe began to slowly slide leftwards. A bright greenish light peeped through the pipe and began to spread as the entrance opened.
“Don’t forget your promise,” I said. The P.T. teacher nodded. I wondered why his eyes were so sorrowful.
“All the best son. We shall be watching you.”
I entered the pipe. The moment I entered, the door closed behind me. I took hesitant steps forward.
You can run, I heard a voice in my head. I knew it was the armor talking to me. I began to run. Suddenly, I thought the diameter of the pipe was increas - ing. And after a few moments there was no telling if I was inside a pipe or on a vast open green land with green skies and a green horizon. I kept running towards the horizon.
That was when I saw giant rocks hurtling in my direction. I thought they were as big as planets. Maybe they were. I dodged them.
“The precision. The rhythm. The timing,” the armor said to me. “How do you know?” I asked.
“We saw you practicing your triple jump. All that practice and your size will come in handy. And the answer is yes.” “ Yes what?” “You really can jump across the school ground.”
I ran. I dodged. I jumped. The giant rocks kept coming. The armor kept preempting the motion of the rocks. Suddenly the rocks stopped. The green land, green sky and the green horizon were gone and they were replaced by complete darkness. The armor spread just enough light for me to see. I was feeling very tired after dodging and jumping. And then I thought I saw the central processor. It was the size of a continent. I saw the virus. It was a huge, moldy larva-like being that was devouring the central processor in large chunks as though it were a giant rectangular biscuit.
“Remember, you have to inject the antivirus right in the middle of its eyes,” the armor said.
“This is news to me,” I said. “Don’t worry. You will be able to do it. We are sure. Nobody else even reached the central processor.” The virus sensed me. It stopped chomping on the processor and turned to look at me. It had countless little eyes and innumerable large mouths full of sharp teeth. It was bright orange in colour and suddenly glowed so intensely that it almost blinded me. I did not see it attack me. But the armor did.
“Jump!” I jumped. Perhaps the longest that I have. And the virus missed me by the gap between its teeth. I quickly realized that it was a big clumsy be- ing. It turned like a huge freight train and attacked me. The armor told me in advance but I was tired. Very tired. And I was late. Its sharp teeth tore off the armor from my body. The armor was sloughed off my skin. The virus was turning to attack me once again. I knew I had just a few seconds before the giant teeth shred me to strips.
I ran towards it. It was a little surprised and that gave me enough time to jump. The precision.I landed on the little space between its two mouths. I jumped. The rhythm.I landed on its snoot. By then it could not see me, and it howled with rage. I jumped. The timing.I landed right in the middle of its million eyes. I raised the syringe filled with antivirus and plunged it deep.
The reaction was instantaneous. There was a huge explosion of colours, some of them I knew and many that I didn’t. Just like the saris in our store. It was beautiful in a grisly sort of way. It went on and on. I was flung in the air and knew I would not survive it. Bastards. They did not tell me what would happen to the damn virus after I injected it with the antivirus.
As I was tossed in the air, with my entire body flailing like a pitiful leaf in a tornado, it all paused. As in, only my head was mobile. I could look in all directions. I saw the suspended explosion of colours beneath me. It was as though a million rainbows had mixed and merged.
I looked up and saw the P.T. teacher walking towards me.
“You did an incredible job, son!” He said with unbridled happiness ac- companied by loud whistling. “You son of a bitch! You never told me about any explosion!” “We are sorry. But you did a great job! You have saved us all.” “Can you make this explosion stop?”
“Sorry.”
“So my death was inevitable,” I said, the feeling slowly sinking in.
“You will be revered forever by us. You are one of our Gods now, Va - man. The dwarf God who saved the systems, our world, in three giant steps!”
“But an expendable one.” “Aren’t all Gods expendable? Don’t we invoke them only when we need them desperately,” he said with a sigh.
I had saved a world but I felt no elation. It was not my world. Maybe that was the burden of the Gods.
“Will you at least keep your promise?” “Oh yes, sure. Your wife and child shall be safe and sound back there,” he said with a sad smile. I knew they would keep the promise. The P.T. teacher began to fade. I knew it was all over.
“How long do I have?” I asked. “Three system seconds,” only the red-coloured whistle remained. “Can you send me back there? Only for three seconds?” The whistle blew as though mulling over the request.
“Our systems are not up and running yet. But we will try. Three system seconds here mean three months back there. And they would be painful for you.”
“I don’t care,” I said and closed my eyes. Three months later, back in the world I grew up, I was in the hospital. My wife Tara was holding my hand. My son, the doctor said, was perfectly normal and would grow to be at least six feet tall.
I had had a brain tumor. The doctors had tried their best for the last three months after they accidently discovered it. They said it was simply astounding that I survived all these years with it in my brain. I overheard one of the doctors say that it was going to explode in my head very soon. I hoped the explosion would be as colourful as the one I had seen. People told me I was delirious at times, and talking about gods and viruses, about triple jumps and a P. T. teacher.
My wife was crying. Large beautiful tears like pearls. I wanted to gather them in my hands, but was too weak to even lift them. The last three months were the best days of my life. Even better than the ten years, when the systems were down.
“I love you,” I said to her.
She kissed my forehead and said, “I know you have saved the world. Saved us. Our son lives because of you. I believe every word you told me.”
I closed my eyes. No more words were needed. I would give a lifetime away for those three system seconds.
15. Not understanding Schnapsens
Shweta Mukesh
It was very dark outside and the train continued to chug slowly through the Croatian countryside. The exact location of the train or its passengers could not be determined. Inside the compartment the lighting was dim. Broad outlines of people’s faces were visible. There were two Austrian men, a female with a dusky complexion, and an American male. The Austrians had gruff voices. They pronounced
English words with thick German accents and often looked to each for support when they spoke. The American ignored his surroundings. He rested his head on a back- pack pressed against the rusted metal door and pretended to sleep.
“In these seats we cannot do anything,” one of the Austrian men said to the other, in German.
“Except sit... Anyways, there’s nothing to see and nowhere to go,” his friend responded.
“It will take at least another 5 hours before we reach Budapest. We will get to the station piss tired with no place to shower.”
“And?” The silence resumed. In the background there was the faint sound of train wheels turning. The Austrian pressed his face against the window hoping to get a sense of the location. No luck…though the oil from his nose rubbed off on the glass. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette; thought better of it and put the pack back in his pocket. With nothing else to do, he turned his attention to the girl. Given the limited illumina- tion, he could barely distinguish her features. She had short, dark hair and did not wear glasses. Attractive or not- he could not tell. At least, there was a 50% chance that he was not wasting his time.
“Where are you going?” The Austrian asked.
“This train goes to Budapest,” she retorted.
“European trains have stops. We just had a break at Zagreb.” “Yes and neither of us got down. The next stop is Budapest.”
“If she continues talking this way, I think I will fall asleep,” he said to his friend in German. His friend did not respond- though his expression conveyed the requisite.
“Are you from America?” he asked. “No.” “Is that your boyfriend? He does not seem interested in you.”
“I would be shocked if he did. I do not know him. A guy and a girl in a compartment and everyone seems to think we are a couple. It’s summer and in case you have not noticed Europe’s population seems to have doubled due to all the tourists.”
With that remark, both the Austrians gave up. The prospect of interest - ing conversation that extended beyond one-word smarky answers wasn’t inviting. The alternative to awkward silences… Schanpsen. They glanced at one another with one raised eyebrow each. It was an option but would she understand? Then again if she didn’t, the game would probably be more fun.