13
THE RUIN
[As Kalki, I’ll provide a sigh of relief to the ailing mankind after tremors of World War III that would devastate mankind forever. After that war, there will be only the ruin in the world. There will be no county, no state or not city, only and only a dry wasteland will cover a major part of the earth as a cloak of destruction and the air will carry only sand and suffering that time.]
“Are you hearing?” my father asks in a high voice, shattering divergent thoughts inside me, “are you?”
“Yes,” I say, “what’s that?” my eyes gesture outside to a massive construction different than other buildings. It’s a mammoth stone block construction, standing on same mammoth pillars: each is thicker than my hut.
“That’s a bridge,” he says, “an over-bridge. Hundreds of years ago the bridge was built with skill and precision.”
I see it’s made of mammoth blocks, each block is square and perfectly laid, and the arches are semi-circles and along the edges are a balustrade of stone carved into dome topped pillars. But every block is broken, webbed with cracks like a giant spider's cobweb ever it. I can only imagine how marvel it would be before the ruin and feel no-one has the skills to build such construction nowadays.
“The bridge is for what?” I observe on every pillar are different paintings made of culors different than we use made of tree and flowers. Here they are dark and look stable but all the paints are horrible. Some depict dead bodies, some depict flood and the rest depict fire, huge circles of fire.
“It was to control the traffic.” my father says, slowly.
“What’s the traffic?” I don’t know for certain what the traffic is, the word seems odd.
“Traffic means too many people and cars and motorcycles.” My father looks out the window toward the ruin, where the bridge is describing how Pralaya was.
“How can it?” I say, “why so many people?”
“That was the time when there were millions of people.” My father sighs.
“Millions of people,” I can’t agree on him.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” I feel stupid admitting there were millions of people, but I ask.
“Experienced has told us when we saw all this first time.”
I nod in understanding. “And who told to them?”
“Their fathers and them their forefathers and at last the persons who have seen the ruin in front of their eyes.”
I don’t question more, turn my head and look outside. As far as eyes can see, now are trees, all burned and half burned and burned houses, and burned things that I don’t know what to give a name.
My eyes seeing trees as if made of charcoal, all black and mostly fallen or half stood and remaining standing, still how I don’t know. I can’t understand why someone would have burned all the trees and houses. Are people right about the sun coming to the earth and burning everything?
NO- they can’t. The sun is millions KM away- I’ve read it. It’s impossible, its arrival on the earth is impossible.
And after an hour there was nothing to see except the moonlight shining on piles of the sand at both side of the track – still, the track is elevated.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask my father, observing the car inside. Some experienced are talking with their apprentices.
“Yes, while seeing the ruin inexperienced is allowed to ask if they have any question,” he says, “apprentice should know everything about the ruin and Pralaya.”
I hate his explanation of the rule but I ask what I want to ask.
“Will we die like them?”
“Sometimes, not now,” he says, looking out from the window.
“How?”
“Still Pralaya hasn’t gone.” he says, “It’s hidden in the oceans and in the earth.”
“That’s why the earthquake comes?”
“Yes, to remind us don’t do the mistake again.”
I sigh in mind – fuck the reminder. Why everything is for us- nothing for Nirbhaya and Devata? They also should follow the rules. I wonder if they follow any rules.
“You know Pralaya hasn’t gone then why don’t you do anything to be safe?”
“No one can.” his voice shaking, “this is the punishment of our sins no one can deny it. Haven’t you heard about the Karma inside the wall?”
“I’ve. The god is not unjust or unkind. It’s our Karma that we suffer the pain.” I say, “Is everything depends on the Karma?”
“Yes,” he says, “beyond the wall, they say – the great suffering brings the great peace. We shouldn’t deny our sufferings. We can’t hide from the Karma. No one can deny for what the Karma offers him.”
“They are trying,” I say, “making a construction which can stand against Pralaya.”
“No one can mean No human can,” his voice serious, “this construction is being as instruction of the god.”
Fuck your god. I again curse in mind.
My people fear to speak – the creator so they call him the god. I hate it.
“That’s a dam.” my father says, gesturing out with his eyes.
“A dam is for what?”
“It creates a small ocean.” he uses word Small Ocean thinking that I wouldn’t understand the meaning of the lake but I know what the lake is and what is the dam. I have read it in books still I just ask.
“Why one makes a dam in the desert?”
“There wasn’t the desert before,” he says, “there were cities and people lived here with their families.”
I try to imagine a city and people passing by, walking on the road, sitting on the sideways, crowding the buildings, children playing in open grounds, women dancing and singing in public but I can only test salty air with small grains of the sand, nothing else.
“Why there is everything burned?” I ask.
“The sun had come to the earth,” now his was trembling, “Someone had called the sun down with some magical power to ruin this area.”
I can’t believe.
“Then?” I ask.
“Then most of the people die and everything burned but before it, they begged the sun and asked him to take revenge for them.”
“And?”
“And the sun listened to them, it went back to the person who had sent him and the sun burned him along with the whole of his city.”
What the fuck!
How can you call the sun on the earth and order him or request him?
No way.
But… I had no way to explain my people. If I will try they will kill me believing I am a Rakshasha.
How powerful books are!
I can think but others can’t because they haven’t read books.
Perhaps that’s why Devatas are ruling us.
Perhaps that’s why even Nirbhayas bows them.
Do Nirbhayas read books?
I think - NO. Such scary creatures can’t do anything except fight. I am sure. Only Devatas read but not all the books because they also bow to the creator means they also don’t know the whole truth.
All the knowledge must be in the creator’s hand. And that’s the secret of the temple or the tower whatever it is or maybe something else.
I am not sure. How can I before seeing all or reading all the books? I must break into the tower and get all the books. I think but I can’t as I am not a thief. The only thief can divert the spies and steal things. No one else can. Or it is just another superstition of my people.
What if I can get help from the folk?
Impossible - They are coward people, they can’t help.
Now the train enters in a deserted area where I see craters passes by, red rocky soil, mostly covered by sand and the abandoned cities dotted with ruined buildings as if what my father has told is right. The sun himself had come and deserted everything. As I see it nausea sours my stomach.
“Now the area is of the storms.” I hear the car door opening first and then the voice of the Nirbhaya, he has returned in the car.
I hear his words but can’t understand what he has said. I look at my father.
“Now be brave,” he says, “no matter what happens, you don’t scream.”
“What’s coming?” I ask, something churning my stomach. I don’t know what.
“The storms.”
“They also come in the wall,” I say.
“Here different.”
“How?”
“Instead of air, they are of the lightning.”
The Nirbhaya closes all the doors of the car, still, we can see the view outside as the doors have big transparent windows made of something no Sunya knows but I know it is the glass as I have read books of the knowledge.
A lightning slid in the sky. My fingers fold tightly into the center of the palm and then my thumb clamps over the middle phalanges.
The second lightning shines in the sky as if trying to overpower the first and before their battle ends so many others join them, shining like the sun, illuminating the landscape, making noise more than train’s engine, creating a design in the sky like creepers on the old stone.
My heart goes to my stomach and comes to my mouth, but I press my lips together, clench my jaw, not allowing it to come out. The storm continues, the battle of lightning is unstoppable and undeterminable which one has won, illuminating the area which no one should see.
But we see that. In the light of the storm, we see it.
Buildings half in the earth and a half out of it, bigger than the train, some fallen as if a giant has kicked down them, glasses broken, windows shattered, and beg craters over them, even the surrounding the earth was dotted with craters as if stars had fallen to the earth and made those craters.
My heart wants to escape my chest, from my stomach or my mouth. I struggle to keep it in the place.
If only I am allowed to close my eyes? I think but remember if I do Nirbhaya would throw me out of the car.
It’s unimaginable – thrown in one of those craters.
A lightning falls to the building nearby the elevated track, it slides on its glassy surface, gliding like a snake and then falling in craters in the building and then jumps out and catch the surface of the train. My eyes widen as it passes on the glass window nearest to me as if it will devour not only me but the whole car or maybe the whole train.
My heart beat increases. I struggle not to shut my eyes, which is hard, more than I have imagined.
Then another one falls to the surface of the train, giving the first a company but they both start a fight as if the first doesn’t like the company.
And a girl screams – an ear piercing scream – more lauder than the noise of train – more lauder than the sound of lightning fighting or whatever they are doing.
I feel she must stop or her throat would blow by her own screams.
I look at her. She is pale and thin, her hairs tied in the thin tail, on her neck a tattoo of zero is the size of the silver coin of the traders, her eyes leaking, her neck trembling. Her eyes are almond shaped but now widen and like lemon, death hovering above her head.
Her father beside her, watching her with perhaps the fear or the anger or I don’t know what is it but his father’s face is white, knowing what will happen now.
***
To be continue.....
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