At World’s End

In a neighbourhood characterised by low hanging meshes of wires, narrow alleys, and watchful eyes, a girl in a black robe stepped out of her house. Disrobing herself of what she had called a ‘portable prison’ moments ago when her father had tried to stop her, Zulfiya made her way across the street.

It was simultaneously a site of grand celebration and mass mourning. A sweet shop offered kheer being prepared in a massive dish to all passers-by. There was no handing over of currency. Children were burning firecrackers. Teary-eyed men in skull caps exchanged long hugs. Unattended shops became sites of casual looting for some and self-serving markets for others who left overcompensating sums of money for their final purchase. Sounds of anguish — chest-beating and cacophonous chants — emanated from most terraces.

Zulfiya, however was the one attracting the eyeballs. By the time she reached the end of the street, she had left a trail of garments, her robe right outside her house, her bra below her feet. Lecherous, outraged, shocked, empathetic: her blasphemy drew all sorts of reactions. A woman rushed to cover her and some men rushed to hit her. But they were blocked by five girls who rushed faster to defend Zulfiya and stripped naked in solidarity. While the reactions grew in magnitude, they were outmatched by the movement’s virality: in a span of 15 minutes, over a hundred men and women stood shoulder to shoulder, feeling for the first time, the rays of the sun on their bare bodies.

***

Yesterday

Reports have just come in. It is true, the world, as we know it, will be destroyed tomorrow. MASA scientists have confirmed that Asteroid 15 Hygiantia will hit the earth at 7:57 pm GMT on December 21, 2017… And since the world is ending, it matters little if I spill some beans. President Chump is a mass murderer. He is part of a syndicate of world leaders who fund terrorist organisations like SISI. Moreover, he gave a free hand to rioters during–

The bulletin went off and the news channel never came back on air.

***

It seemed appropriate to seize the day. From the balcony of his 21st storey apartment, police officer Dilip Deshmukh saw a panoramic exhibition of that aphorism. The sprawling garden, where he took his morning walk and where no couple would dare to get caught so much as holding hands, was now hosting an orgy of a scale justifying the choice of venue. Surprised with the crowds of voyeuristic spectators and not at all with the performers, he snorted. Even with death upon us, so many people still choose to take more interest in others’ lives than their own. Funny. Alongside the carnal festival were parties with loud music, free flowing booze, snorting of lines, popping of magic pills, dragging of joints and other means of debauch.

While some were packing their final hours with as much life as they could, others were packing up their lives. In the distance, Deshmukh saw people jump off buildings, perhaps afraid of the kind of death that awaited them later that day. The birds couldn’t sit on the cables; the echo of gunshots disturbed them every few minutes. He wondered if they were coming from murders or suicides.

There were no such doubts regarding the scene on the streets. Even in the face of extinction, there were those, of course, who felt the need to settle scores, if only to live with pumped up chests for a few hours. Vandalism, arguments, fights, murder — one needed little time to acclimatise to the sudden prevalence of blood and broken bones and glass. Normally, Deshmukh’s instinct would have been to deploy his team to catch hold of the criminals. The team must itself be acting criminal right now. But there was no real reason left to do anything: commit a crime, prevent it, make arrests. Deshmukh wasn’t even going to pull the trigger for personal battles. His wife had left him a vitriolic testimonial and the address of her lover. He quietly sipped his single malt, the finest bottle he had, the one he told his son was meant only for special occasions.

But it wasn’t all gloomy skies and downpours. Orchestras and entertainers formed pockets of merriment. The rich distributed meals and chocolates to poor kids, gave them toys, and took them for joyrides in their fancy cars. All cars were fancy to the new passengers. People stopped in the middle of the road to exchange smiles, high-fives, and hugs and to dance with complete strangers. When people are headed to the same destination, they don’t remain strangers, they become co-travellers.

Revolutions were happening in closed spaces too. People, for once, were telling the unadulterated truth. Several men and women made confessions of their amorous adventures to their spouses. The silence of years between distanced friends and relatives was melted away by warm exchanges. Bosses learnt how much corruption had happened on their watch and how highly their subordinates really thought of them. No church, mosque or temple was vacant. If places of worship were still collecting donations, they could open banks the following day, if there was a following day. But it was a good time to turn to god. So most people logged in to social media platforms. ‘#Apocalypse’ was trending on Shitter and Basebook walls were sprayed with the graffiti of withheld emotions and truths and banal farewell messages.

In these circumstances, being normal was an anomaly. But such was the life of some people. Amidst the mayhem and revelations, a seamstress continued sewing as if that was what kept the world spinning. A bookshop owner sat quietly at the selling counter in his unpeopled shop. A tea stall owner scolded his helper boy for not cleaning the glasses properly, as he went on brewing batch after batch for his sworn customers. A taxi driver sat quietly inside his car before greeting a passenger and driving off for business as usual. A family, like millions of others, prepared feasts, which saw in a rare occurrence, the attendance of all members. A middle-aged couple stayed in bed, making and expressing love after a hiatus of years they had forgotten to count.

In the minutes leading up to the fatal collision, people gathered in teeming squares across the world and strained their necks to look at the sky. Anticipating the inevitable, they held each other’s hands. With seconds left, they began a countdown, as if they had gathered not to witness the end of the world, but to celebrate the start of a new year. 5, 4, 3, 2,1… Boom!

Nothing happened. Nothing. No bang. No noise. No thud. No flash of light. Not so much as a tremor. Not then. Not an hour later. Not a day later. Not a week later. Nothing. The world continued to exist, although against the wish of most of its inhabitants.

Never before had a non-occurrence caused so much hysteria. It was hard to imagine how not getting hit by a rock could change the face of the world. Those holding on to life desperately in the seconds leading up to the predicted destruction were disappointed in retaining what they dreaded to lose. They couldn’t believe that the MASA had really miscalculated the trajectory of the asteroid, which missed the earth by a few thousand kilometres.

The fragile planet was still unbroken. The world wasn’t. Way too much had been broken in under two days. Public property, traffic rules, and laws weren’t the least of it. Pacts and truces, ceasefires and battles, homes, relationships, alliances, banks, corporations, governments, traditions, cultural and religious norms, ideologies: they were broken. And while you could rejoin the fragments of a bowl, the cracks wouldn’t disappear.

But as is usual, even in the most unusual of circumstances, life went on, in whatever way it could. Military coups and shifts in governments in most countries hit the headlines for the better part of a month. News channels and media houses returned but a certain TV reporter didn’t. Celebrities and politicians, who had revealed a little too much on their social media handles found themselves in a rabbit hole. Claiming that their profile has been hacked was as common as healthy people applying for sick leaves.

No economy was stable. The cost of gold shot up by over 500 times. Infrastructure companies, for obvious reasons, spearheaded the reinvigoration of global stock markets. Pharmaceutical firms came next, powered by a surge in the demand for emergency contraceptive pills.

People needed jobs and companies needed human resources. So employees, even the ones who had spat in their employers’ face in the wake of the non-Apocalypse, were accepted. One thing hadn’t changed for them: they were still living in a world of mutual disrespect. The only question was whether it made sense to pretend anymore. It did, they concluded on Day 1.

Dilip Deshmukh also went back to work. There was so much of it that he forgot what his apartment looked like. But he remembered the view it offered on the un-fateful (fateful?) day as almost everyone was now filing a complaint. Murders were prioritised, thefts and damage to property were reprimanded. His wife didn’t return home. Couldn’t. He preferred to let her and her beloved live under the fear of receiving bullets in their brains than clearing that doubt.

Normalcy — whatever that means — faced the inevitable fate of restoration. The same chocolate pastry which had cost ten thousand dollars to one customer and was given away for free to another (some shop-keepers were just having fun with ‘The Last Supper’ sales), was being sold for 4 dollars a piece again. Sky diving was significantly cheaper than a lifetime worth of savings, but not as many people were keen to take the plunge anymore. Red lights once again meant that you had to stop and not ram into another car. Lies, the fear of death, and living as if life mattered became general practices again.

But some people had revealed too much of themselves to take cover again. Disowned by her father, Zulfiya couldn’t walk the way back home. And yet in homelessness, she found more shelter. Hers was just one of the innumerable acts of rebellion, so it wasn’t hard to find support. She had volunteered to be a torchbearer of change when it mattered the least. She wasn’t going to back off when it did. And change had been catalysed, thanks to the asteroid. I hope they don’t start worshipping a rock again, she joked to her friends, realising the possibility couldn’t be ruled out.

Some bridges, and not just physical ones, ended up in ruins. More marriages culminated in (or got stuck in the application for) divorce than didn’t. Thousands of corporations closed down. Insurance companies — even though they denied more claims than they granted — went bankrupt. The casualties of chaos were survived by those who wished the asteroid had hit the earth. They went on living, walking with their heads hung low, wondering whether hell existed underneath their feet or amidst them. Some worlds were destroyed after all.

— — —

Written in response to the following prompt:

“The end of the world is at hand. Everyone starts to tick off their bucket list, doing crazy things because they know it won’t matter in the long run. In an odd twist of fate, the crisis is averted. Now everyone has to live with the repercussions of what they did.”