Sailee had been devastated before she received the news that the world was going to end.
The day had begun with the alarm clock, reminiscent of her long dead mother, both in tone and intent, catapulting her out of bed. Only to realise she was the mother here, and had to get her seven year old to school on time.
Atish always woke up at the first, half-muted mention of his name. He would fold his blanket, iron out the creases on the bed sheets, moving sideways like a crab along the perimeter of the bed, anticlockwise. He’d brush his teeth and dry the toilet seat when done, and wait patiently for his glass of milk- not too hot, not too cold, just right. Atish was a dream child, till he was not.
Today had been a tough one, when Sailee refused to give in. A meltdown. Quiet time. One-to-one talk. Marching Aatish to the school bus, where he sped to his usual seat left free by his partly understanding, and partly bored schoolmates.
Sailee had rushed into the shower, the lava of her tears scalding her cheeks a burnt cherry red. The doctor’s words washed over her, again. A year more to live… on constant medication. An imminent collapse into the way of an infirm. Shut up!
Bone marrow dysplastic syndrome. Cells not wanting to mature, and populating her system to the point of collapse.
Dysplasia? Really? To be this mature single mother to a ‘special’ child, while she crumbled with this ‘dysplasia’ on the inside? How was her ‘special’ boy supposed to manage when she was gone? His teachers yapped no end about his ‘special’ abilities- art, scenes from memory, or a map of the city of their choice. Mentioning offhand about his extremely limited speech and the unique ‘inclusive’ policy of the school management.
Folks leaving out a parking spot at rush hours, while she launched herself in and out of her vehicle in an effort to leave before the signal turned. Because she had a tag of misery on her collar, and everyone bought it. God damn empaths! Why could they not act all normal and wrestle with her for mundane things, and thus not muddle the inner chaos that came with being such a ‘special’, secretly dying parent? Was that how her regular cells had behaved towards her first ‘dysplastic’ cell, letting it have its way through the marrow traffic, spawning offsprings as dysfunctional as herself?
The attempt at drowning in the bathtub did not count. The phone ring was not the saviour; it was the excuse she used to hop out of the shower. She was not going to die on her Atish, anyday. But the call changed all of it, of course.
It was from the state division of the Ministry of Welfare. The flat pre-recorded droning about some notice received from the Universe about the scheduled closedown of Earth. The one she did not dismiss as a prank call, taking it as a divine intervention to lift the cloud hovering over her mood for days. Only once she emerged from the cub hole of her apartment did she realize the entire neighbourhood had received the intimation, and the world was trying to disentangle itself from the spool of crisscrossing conspiracy theories.
“Who sent the message?”
“Who is the Universe?”
“How are ‘they’ not calling out the scam?”
“They have been sitting on this information for a couple of days. A select few are flying out to undisclosed, well furnished space stations.”
After perhaps a decade, Sailee had collapsed into a fit of self-enabled, manic laughter.
***
A month later
Sailee beams at the crowd in her shoebox balcony. Middle aged women wearing Zara, their Louis Vuittons flung carelessly alongside desi rubber slippers of another classmate. The industrial honchos with their loosened ties smudged with the wet mud that also covers their cottony palms. This is the smallest of her twelve sold-out batches, and the folks spill over onto her sparse drawing room, sitting on their haunches, the potter’s wheel in front of them.
Her part-time pottery classes that had often needed shutting down for lack of funds, are now ‘the thing’ people decide they need, to cope with this end-of-the-world situation. The spinning of the potter’s wheel offering respite from compulsively counting the Earth’s rotations, the finite number of those left. As if moulding the lump of clay gives them some control, while the dams of their patience crack along the faultlines they never knew existed.
Tomorrow, the little lop-sided clowns of pots would make it to the kiln. And her students, fuzz smeared teens and mutual fund managers with flaking confidence, would peek at their handiwork with impatience. Where is the hurry? She would want to tease them, but would only smile.
The looming threat of the apocalypse is the only sunshine Sailee needs.
In one corner Aatish sits cross legged. On a tray sit miniatures of listless men and women. Cars on a crowded clay street. The very street that now peeps from their window to watch him at work. Moulding the clay, wiping his fingers repeatedly. A tic of sorts.
The figurines now smile. But they are stationery ofcourse. Solid and fluid at the same time. Wet clay. Like her boy, quiet and speaking at the same time.‘Impatient street’- he stamps his initials on it. Then turns his back to the audience who is watching his masterpiece dry under the fan.
There will be enquiries from buyers which she will field, while Aatish will walk to his room, wash his hands at the basin, scrubbing the dirt crescents from his nails. Only then, he will look up into the mirror and smile.
Sailee will set up dinner, her eyelids heavy with the drugs that numb her pain, and her heart light with the tune of twilight floating in her head.
The world has only a year to live. And Sailee has an entire lifetime.
