22 THE GLASS BUILDING
[This will be the time of evil. The Kaliyuga himself will rule on the earth and as result in the sky lightening will have its empire. No matter there won’t be a single cloud in the sky, the dry lightning roams here and there causing destruction and ball lightning will be free. The sky will witness war among various lightning and that time I as Avatar will face the most powerful lightning on my body made of Vajra. The Super bolt, a hundred times brighter than normal lightning, will hit the avatar and if avatar will survive, know him as Lord Kalki.]
I see a strange face leaning over me. She is a girl but who is don’t know.
She lifts my neck and tilts my head slightly back to open my airway. I can see it but I’m dying. I’m unable to keep breathing. My lungs are calling for air but I can’t inhale.
I feel upward pressure on my jaws and something slid in my mouth. Something resembles human fingers, sweeping the sand out from my mouth. Then two fingers pinch my nostrils close, and my lips feet something soft but pressed tight, blocking the way to inhale.
Is someone trying to kill me?
I’m already dying, why would some strangle me? And who will risk his life in the storm for just killing a dying person?
Where is my father? If someone is strangling me to the death why my father isn’t helping me? Or like that girl, I have lost my father?
I can’t understand anything. Then the burning in my lungs grew slower and I feel the air in them. For a second my mouth was open to breathe but I can’t and next second the same soft thing is pressed against my lips, blocking the air… no, this time it’s not blocking the air but blowing the air in my lungs through my mouth.
Someone is inhaling in my mouth. Who – I don’t know.
I don’t know how long it lasted, I don’t know how long it takes for me to realize that none is trying to kill me, and someone is rescuing me. But then I do feel all the strength coming back to me and I feel my windpipe and I’m able to inhale. I take a deep breath and see my father’s hands are swarming around me when I stand up straight and brush the dust from my shirt and pants. Still dazzled by the light, I stagger a bit. I am consumed with curiosity but still feet too ill to look closely at my surroundings.
I think I should cry, or maybe I want to cry, everything inside me screams for what I don’t know, I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to shout.
“Samrat,” my father says, “are you a… l… r… i… g…. h... t…?”
I hit with a wave of confusion, blistered with panic. Even the voice of my father seems me odd, ting with echo; some of the words are completely incomprehensible—others felt comprehensible. I will my eyes to adjust as I squint toward the light coming from huge glass windows and my father’s speaking. At first, I can see only shifting shadow of men, but they soon turn into the shapes of bodies— my father standing next to me and my people bending over, looking down at me, hoping I won’t die.
“Father,” I shout as the lens of my eyes sharpens its focus, “what has happened?”
“A lightning,” he says, helping me to get up from the ground, “you are lucky, it crashed near you but not on your body.”
“Are you all right?” I hear a girl’s voice and turn my head to her. She is Kajal, the nervous girl whom I befriend in the hall during the test.
“Kajal,” I say, feeling something heavy in my head, “how did you save…” I can’t complete, my eyes shut among my hard try to keep them open, I try to complete but can’t find my throat, and then the darkness covers me.
The last thing I feel is – my body being scooped in strong hand – whose? – I don’t know.
*
Next morning, I look around to find myself standing in a vast hall several times the size of a field where we grow crops, surrounded by four enormous walls made of red bricks and covered in thick glass. The walls are fifteen feet high, forming a perfect square around us, every side split in here and there during Pralaya, making many openings as tall as our hut, from what I can see, the sunlight beyond.
I go near an opening to get a clear view of the outside.
Another wave of confusion hit me, “It’s daytime.” My voice in shock as there is sunlight glittering sand and stones and broken buildings everywhere.
“Yes, you were unconscious for hours.” My father puts his compassionate hand over my shoulder, “I am happy you are survived.”
“Shouldn’t I?” I ask, turning back to him.
“No one should.” He says, “The lightning has hit you, I have seen it. And not even Devata or Nirbhaya can survive from it.”
“Then why I could?” I again look outside to see huge machines standing in the sand. Their wheels are so huge even in comparison to their massive sizes.
“I don’t know,” he says, coming near me, watching out from the window, “and we shouldn’t let anyone know.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the prediction.”
“What?”
“A boy who will survive from lightning will change the fate of all Sunyas.”
“Who told you?”
“Teachers.”
“Teachers?” I ask, wondering, “Have you been to them?”
“yes, for years but I can’t solve anything..” here his voice a bit disappointed, “even after learning how to read and write I can’t do anything.”
“Which was the book?”
“It was a torn and old book, only some pages left readable.” He says, “we tried many but it wasn’t complete, perhaps it was just half or a quarter one.”
“So what other details did it give?”
“Not much,” he glances back to observe my people but all are busy in themselves, “the book was a parchment. It says the Devatas aren’t read Devata, real Devatas are fighting back with them and they call them the resistant.”
“Didn’t you try to figure out more about them?”
“We have but we couldn’t,” he says, “the book doesn’t say more about them and the folk never talks about them. We haven’t seen them yet.”
“Why folk doesn’t talk about them?”
“Because they don’t dare to go against the creator.”
“Then what should we do?”
“We should look for the book which is written on a parchment and is complete.” He says, “Only such manuscript can help us.”
Suddenly I remember about Kajal, the girl who saved my life.
“What was she doing?” I ask, “How did she save me?”
“She was giving you rescue breathes. You weren’t breathing and I didn’t know what to do when she came and gave you mouth to mouth breathing.” His voice becomes sad here, “I thought I’ll lose you. Your heart wasn’t beating but her breath force you inhale and your lungs started working and your heart too.”
“How does she know about it?” I ask, “I mean how she can know such methods?”
“She is Ratan’s niece. He had taught her what to do in emergencies and she knows many first aids.”
“Have you talked with her?”
“Don’t you think I would have?” he smiles, “I can’t stop myself thanking her and talking with her after what she has done for you.”
“You two,” we hear the sound of a Nirbhaya, “what are you doing there?”
I turn to see a troop of Nirbhaya in their dress code with curved swords at their waist.
“Nothing,” my father says, “just watching outside and explaining to my apprentice how to work in the field.”
“Okay,” the leader of Nirbhaya troop says, “but today we will check and repair underground tunnels and basements. As you know it’s necessary.”
“Yes.” All the Sunyas answer.
“Get ready in five minutes we are going underground.” He orders again.
“Yes.” All nod their heads in agreement; there isn’t any question of disagreement, even all hearts fear to go underground.
“Why underground first?” I ask while we head to the bus outside to get our tool bag.
“First we check buildings underground. So we can know if it’s worthy to repair or not.”
As we come out of the glass building, it becomes harder for us to actually see around. The dust in the air is so thick as the fog, and I feel it in every breath. It’s crusting in my eyes, making them water and turning into goop that I have to keep wiping away.
I glance back to the large building we have stayed night inside, now it’s looming in clouds of the dust, towering taller and taller, like a growing giant.
“How?” I manage to ask, putting my hand over my mouth as a shield to stop the sand entering my mouth while I speak.
“If there are basements under the building and it’s connected with tunnels then its worthy to repair otherwise not.” My father also shields his eyes and mouth with his hands.
Large buildings are like towers, covered in the clouds of dust as far as my eyes can see, some broken, some bend, some batter, and some total debris. All they have one common thing, not a single building’s glass has survived, all are shattered and broken, making giant gaps in the building, small and big and vast gaps as if the giant has smashed his sledgehammer on the building, not for once but several times.
“Why there are tunnels?”
“Don’t know,” he says, opening the door of the bus, “perhaps before Pralaya people have made those basements to live safe and tunnels to use as way safe from the upside.”
“Maybe,” I say, sitting on an empty seat.
My father finds our bags, he hands me my rucksack and I throw it on my right shoulder.
Then we get down the bus to find the wind gaining a rough edge, pelting us with sand and grit until it hurts.
My father forces me to duck and saves me from a piece a small stone flying in the air.
“Beware, the wind,” he says, smiling, “here the wind is the most dangerous enemy.”
I nod, observing many unknown objects flying by, scaring me half out of my wits. Mostly, dangerous things except for countless scraps of paper swirling through the air like snowflakes.
We run through the scraps of paper and some risky objects flying in the air among the sand. Most of the Sunyas has come to retrieve their tool bags and facing the same odds. I feel pity for myself and my people.
Luckily most of us get inside the glass building without being wounded, somewhere unlucky but still lucky to have only minor injuries.
“All the Sunyas, take your breakfast and we are going for the work.” The leader of the Nirbhaya troop declares as if it’s compensation of what we have faced outside.
But it isn’t.
“Aren’t you hungry?” my father asks as if nothing has happened outside or we haven’t passé through a storm of sand and stones and scraps.
“Do you think one can eat after barely surviving in the storm?”
“No,” he pauses, here his voice becomes worried, “but yes if you are going to work for constant eight hours and aren’t allowed to eat anything before the work ends.”
“You mean they won’t allow us to eat.” I stammer, “We have to run on this breakfast for the whole day.”
“Yeah,” he smiles, “you can get help from your adrenaline.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Now you are looking like a Sunya.”
“Which I don’t like,” I say as we head to get breakfast from the Nirbhaya troop, they are distributing all some type of food packets. I wonder what would be inside the packets.
“I know.” My father says and then we get food packets, standing in a queue for fifteen minutes.
My father leads me to a broken chair. It is made of old and rusted iron and was in poor condition like us. I sit there with my father and open my food packet. The food inside isn’t unknown to me, it is a bread. I have seen the traders eating them. When traders come in the wall to trade they never eat our food, they have such round food twice bigger than the size of a frog and they call it bread.
I take a mouthful of it.
“Stop,” my father says, opening a small red pouch, “apply this paste on it.”
I do as my father says. After the paste, it becomes tastier. The paste is nothing but tomato.
“Hi” I look up to see Kajal standing near my chair, “how are you feeling now?” in her hand is bread.
“Well,” I say, “thanks.”
“Welcome,” she makes face, taking a bite at her bread.
“I won’t forget you have saved my life,” I say, politely.
“Don’t keep it in your memory,” she says, “it was just to save your life. Don’t you know I have a target in my life?”
“I don’t mean that,” I stammer, “I’m not talking about the way how you save me. I’m just talking you save me.”
“Then okay.” She smiles, “I have a boyfriend in the wall.”
“Lucky is he.” I smile back.
“Atul is his name.” she seems me talk active, “do you know him?”
“He is my friend,” I say, “childhood friend but now I think there’s more to him than meets the eyes.”
“Why?”
“He is my best friend but he hasn’t told me his love story?”
“Have you told him about your?” she demands.
“Yeah,” I say, “he knows about Padhma. She is his friend too.”
“Is she the girl who dares to jump in the water to get fish from the channel?”
“So he has told you about her?”
“No, I have met her, once. She was with him in farmer’s market.”
I nod, “yes, she is.”
“Lucky are you,” she makes face as if taunting me, “to have such girl.”
“I’m.”
“Okay, my father is waiting for me.” she finishes the last bite at her bread and speaks through the content of the bread in her mouth, “goodbye” before she leaves.
I observe the building closely after eating. To do so I am here. My teacher has told me to observe every small thing and get the details which others have missed.
The sunlight coming through the broken windows is littering the floor around us. The floor is made of huge stones, all in shape of a perfect square. I look up to see a ruin of a building, massive holes ripped in each floor all the way to the roof; it seems this only the steel infrastructure is keeping the whole thing from coming down.
I know Pralaya has damaged it but can’t imagine what exactly has caused it all to happen.
First I think the storm.
But NO it can’t.
The storms are nothing but horror, still unable to cause so destruction over such a huge construction.
No change in the climate of the earth could cause such a thing; it really seems to be something else.
There must be something else; they are hiding behind Pralaya. It must be something, but to know that something I need something – the book, right book for it, and written on a parchment.
***
To be continue.....
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