The Voyage

To my readers,

Thank you for the wonderful applause to the first entry in the Twisted Desert series.

The second entry has some expectations perched upon it, hence the delay that I’m going to inform you of now. It will be late, but it will surely happen.

Until then, to keep your eyes hooked and minds engaged, here is a peek at the other side of my writings.

– TR

Shattered dreams, dilapidated worlds, burnt hearts – a future we didn’t anticipate. Solutions preceded survival – both of which were a far fetch. The glum of the outside world translated itself inside each individual, who’s seen this world go from flourishing to smouldering in the window of seconds.

Bodies lay on the main avenues, at the foot of towering skyscrapers. The only thing common between the both were the blown – off heads. A firm layer of powdery rubble disguised the pitch black tar roads, which ran through whole blocks. Crumpled car chassis were littered on the pathways, like tin cans of soft drinks.

Vine – proliferating storefronts lay dark and empty – their windows being washed up by dirt and dust. The air smelled lifeless, with a tinge of concrete. The plots where once houses were firmly planted had only the floorboard sticking out, like the trunk of a cut – down

tree. Big screen displays in city squares lay stationary, with the LEDs clearly looking outdated and out of use due to the web of debris spread on them.

The government – 20 years ago hailed as our saviour – 20 years later failed as our liberator. They lay in silence, knowing that with the situation at hand any move of theirs would either result in rebellion or criticism. Resources were at an all – time low. No one knew where the money was – buried under the ruble, lost in the banks, hidden away in the government’s vaults – no one had any idea. Once in a blue moon would a scavenger on the streets strike the jackpot – money, food or something else.

Life went on this way for 2 decades – our hopes for a better life as low as our chances of dying a natural death.

And then, one day, everything changed.

It was a monsoon night. The pellets of rain shooting downwards created a wet mixture of concrete and ruble. Our thatched huts lay in the hilly, elevated side of the city, overlooking the vast scatter of fragments. Nightfall meant we had to confine ourselves to our dens, step out and you’d be out for the whole night – wandering in the pitch black ins and outs of the city and hopefully not falling prey to the wild cats which migrated there.

The cold swept in through the cracks in our huts, bringing with it the whoosh of wind and moisture of rain. I lay on my mattress, trying to stay on the dry side and away from the soaked borders. The wind

penetrated through the blanket with such ease that I started doubting if there ever was a blanket on me.

The same situations carried on until 3 in the morning.

At 3 in the morning, I was awoken by a slight rumble that I felt underneath me. I woke up and, due to my eyes adapting to the dark overcast, found the shack to be moving as well. I got up from the mattress and step foot on the hilly soil, expecting to feel a freezing cold, but instead felt a burning sizzle underneath. I immediately hopped outside on my toes to find the hill also violently shaking, with the crops uprooted and rolling off the cliffs.

I looked out at the city and my jaw dropped – lights. For the first time in 20 years, our light – deprived pupils bulged with excitement as the shine fell on our eyes. I looked around me, people lined up in their rags were staring at the lights in awe, as if the cavemen had discovered fire.

In the euphoria, what we didn’t notice was that the rumbling had gotten stronger and we felt lighter and lighter. Looking down at the soil, I found it to be rumbling violent as ever, displacing all the rocks and impurities. I looked back at the city horizon – the clouds began to get smaller and smaller. I looked behind me at the other hills – they began to get shorter and shorter. I looked at the lights – they began to get brighter and brighter. I hopped forward, again on my toes, to get a better view of what was going, and my jaw dropped again but this time, so did my heart.

We were being lifted off the face of Earth. The buildings and the horizon in the distance were slowly being separated, like two magnets. The trees – forcefully uprooted from the soil. Us – feeling weightless as if we were floating in a vaccum.

As we kept going higher, the lights kept getting brighter, and the rumbling kept getting violent. When we were some 20 odd feet above the now wiped – off plot of land, our heads shot up to find a transparent dome above us, encircling the flying patch of the Earth. As we rose into the sky, the glare of the lights spread over the horizon, sending out a spherical shower of light.

And there we were, rising into an endless journey, not knowing where we were going or what awaited us, but just hoping that it’s not the same CD in the player again.

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