My T.F.A Entry

Here's the short story I entered into the 'Toto Funds the Arts' Creative Writing Awards

Dark Dawn

It was still dark when I woke up. The smell of cigarettes and alcohol still lingered in the air from the previous night’s party. A music-system had been left turned-on somewhere and the crackling, dampened tune of a familiar song began filling the room. I searched the seemingly infinite confines of the room (the darkness made it seem endless). My eyes, still heavy with sleep, were eager to close as I looked for a clock. But it was too dark to see anything. It was like everything’d been painted black. I groped around the bed for my cell phone. Vivid fragments of the previous night’s party flooded my mind; I was trying to remember where I’d left my phone and while I did so, I forced myself out of bed. It was only when my feet came in contact with the floor that I realized that there’d been a sudden drop in temperature. The floor was like ice. In fact, the air was so cold, that I could actually feel it as it went down my nasal passage, into my lungs. I felt a shiver go down my spine, creating a vague sense of warmth in my lower back. I made my way out of the room, making sure I didn’t bump into anything. In the adjacent room, a tiny red light flickered from a radio that spouted music. The music was heavily laced with static and it kept getting louder, as if it was something concrete and was gradually filling the house. The flickering red light made the room almost tangible. I felt around for a switchboard and tried turning on a light, but something was wrong, a fuse had probably gone out and it failed to light up.

I started moving again, but I stubbed my toe on a cupboard. At first, I didn’t feel anything because my feet were numb from the cold. However, after a second of feared expectation, the pain shot through my body, causing me to trip and I crashed into a nearby table. Waves of pain swept over me and I swore. From the next room, someone called, “Who’s there?” The voice was my friend, Shivani’s. It was her house. I often spent the night at her house whenever she threw a party that went strong, even past the night.

My leg hurt and I replied through gritted teeth, “It’s me, Vikram…” There was a short pause before she replied, “Damn! You gave me one hell of a fright … What the hell are you doing up so early anyway?” the intonation in her speech, caused by her simultaneous yawning. “Actually, I wanted to know what time it is…” I stopped myself as my hand brushed against something that felt like a cell phone and I began feeling around for it. It must’ve been on the table. I heard Shivani fumbling in the next room, “Wait, I’ve got a clock here…” there was a long pause, during which I found the cell-phone, “Hey, my clock must be faulty, it’s way too fast…” she continued, “but you don’t have to be a genius to guess it’s really early. My guess would be three or four AM! Now go back to sleep!” proceeding which she began cribbing about how I’d woken her up an I just went on retorting “shut up!” without paying any attention to what she was saying. I’d almost forgotten about the cell phone, when it suddenly began to ring. The screen began to flicker, giving off a bright white light and I had to shield my eyes ‘cause it was too bright. The entire room was filled with alternating bouts of the dark and the white light. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. The only thing that prominently stood out was the annoying ring-tone that the phone had. It was Shivani’s phone. I answered it; a gruff voice boomed on the other end, “Give to Gopal!”

I was rather taken aback, “Eh?” I blurted

The person on the other end repeated himself, only louder, “GIVE TO GOPAL!” he boomed. This time, I was more infuriated off than taken aback, “You’ve got the wrong number you bastard!” I screamed and hung up. Right then, it occurred to me, I was quite the coward. I chuckled to myself, denying it.

Shivani called from the other room, “Who was it?”

I was still a little angry and I snapped at her, “When I yell ‘wrong number’, I think it’s pretty obvious, that I have absolutely no idea!”

“Oh shut up!” she shot back.

Shivani and I had been friends for something close to twelve years, ever since we were six. She was like family to me and probably my closest friend. We’d grown up together, gone to the same school. We even went to college together.

I was too lazy to pick myself up. It seemed to have gotten colder and I’d warmed my place significantly enough to want to stay where I was. I sat contemplating going to sleep right where I lay, when the phone I was holding caught my eye, flooding me with bewilderment. The screen was still lit up and digital clock flashing in the top-right corner of the screen read ‘9:07’. “Hey,” I called out to Shivani, “What did you say the time was?”

Shivani’s voice was packed with irritation, “I didn’t!” she said, “I told you, my clock’s faulty! It’s running fast!”

I ignored her annoyance and continued, “It isn’t showing something close to 9 now is it?”

There was a short pause before she said rather softly, “It’s showing nine-five…”

From that point, it seemed that time had quickened its pace and given that it is at hand, I feel compelled to accelerate my narrative. Shivani came in with a flashlight and we spent the next couple of hours putting the house in order. We learnt that the phone lines were down and the cell-phone network was jammed. Occasionally, a call was possible, but the reception was bad and hence, it was pointless. But we knew that it was well past ten in the morning.

“Was there an eclipse or something?” Shivani asked, “I don’t remember reading anything about it in the papers or hearing about it on the news…” It was comforting to be able to attribute the bizarreness of the scene to something, but when I looked up into the sky, I knew it wasn’t an eclipse. I didn’t see any sign of the sun, or even the moon for that matter. A sea of stars gazed down at me. They resembled bits of jewelry haphazardly scattered over an endless sheet of black. From the window, I could see the streetlights coming on, one by one, giving form to the dark. The streets were empty. Most of the houses were dark. In the distance, a couple of houses showed signs of life. The lights were on and I could see a couple of people standing outside. It’s very rare for a person to be completely oblivious to what’s happening, ‘cause s/he always has a vague idea at least. However, this was one of those rare times when I was completely clueless. Just then, the lights came back on. Shivani walked in while pulling off a pair of rubber gloves, “I managed to fix the fuse-box,” she sighed, “You know, it’s generally the guy who does all this… You’re useless!”

I was used to Shivani’s cynicism and also to ignoring it, “Turn on the news, there’s got to be an explanation for all this.” I said. Shivani was used to my ignoring her and she promptly turned the television on and switched to a news channel. A reporter was saying something, but we caught the channel when she was in the middle of a sentence, however, there was a headline flashing at the bottom of the screen and that was bound to put anyone in a state of bewilderment. It read, in big, red, bold letters, ‘Disappearance of The Sun’.

********

It was impossible to comprehend. How the hell could the Sun just disappear?!

“How the hell could that happen?” Shivani screamed. I didn’t answer. I was glued to the television. Apparently, the sun had disappeared, just like that. That explained the drop in temperature. They began interviewing a scientist from NASA through a satellite-link, on the news. What he said made my heart skip a beat. He didn’t provide us with an explanation to why the Sun had ‘disappeared’; he said research was still underway in that area. However, he gave the following information:

The Sun is the Earth’s primary and only natural source of energy. Without the sun, the only heat that the planet had was that which’d been trapped by the atmosphere and absorbed by the ground. However, the heat would run out in an approximation of forty eight hours, leaving the planet frozen…

That’s all I followed, ‘cause Shivani turned off the television. “Why’d you do that?!” I yelled and I was about to snatch the remote control out of her hands, but the expression of horror on her face stopped me, “what’s wrong with you?” I asked. She didn’t answer me for quite sometime. She was staring at the ground, wide eyed. Finally, she spoke, “You heard him…These NASA guys know what they’re saying…We’re all going to die… I’m going to be dead by Tuesday…”

Strangely, it didn’t hit me as hard as it had apparently hit Shivani. I was worried, but not devastated. I was more worried about the fact that I wasn’t very worried. I didn’t know what to do or what to say, so the next few minutes were spent in silence. Then all of a sudden, Shivani got up, “Let’s get out of here,” she muttered. The following fifteen minutes passed me by in a flash. Before I knew it, I was standing with Shivani, out on the street, a jacket carelessly thrown over me. Shivani began walking down the street briskly. “Where are we going?” I asked, still a little dazed.

“If I’m going to die, I don’t want to sit at home, waiting for it. I’m going for a walk.” She shot.

“But why a walk?”

“’Cause it beats waiting to freeze to death!” she yelled and she continued walking.

I stood there, for a moment or two and then ran to catch up to her. Icy wind lashed at my face. My legs hurt ‘cause of the sudden, brisk action I was putting them through. She had a point. I didn’t want to spend the last day of my life, sitting in front of a television set. But walking wasn’t a good idea, not in this cold. I searched my pockets and pulled out a set of car keys. Shivani lived towards the outskirts of the city and I often borrowed my cousin’s car to get there. From where I lived, it was like driving to another continent. “Walking is literally too painful! Let’s drive into town instead!” I shouted, holding up the keys. Shivani stopped walking and stood still for a while before walking back. A couple of minutes later, we were in the car, driving deep into the city. I turned on the heater and after a while, I could feel my fingers again. Shivani stayed quiet almost throughout the drive. Once you’re aware of the presence of a silence, it often gets uncomfortable and it was true in this case. To break the exasperating placidity, I turned on the radio. The news was on. Apparently, the city had a mixed reaction towards the bizarre events of the day. Some people were leaving the city and were heading to the seaside as places near the sea were warmer. Another group of people had turned into an uncontrollable mob and they were wreaking havoc on public and private property as they believed that the disappearance of the Sun was god’s way of punishing the government for being ‘corrupt’. A third group pf people, comprising religious activists were fuelling the anger of the previous group by coming up with the theory in the first place. There was chaos in the city and the theft rate had gone up by three hundred percent. People were now just walking into shops and taking things.

“I don’t get the point,” muttered Shivani, “They’ll all be dead in less than a couple of days…” I couldn’t understand it either. It was rather sickening.

The destruction in the city became evident as we drove deeper. I drove past a blazing petrol bunk. People in Bangalore always reacted to difficult situations by setting fire to things. Not that the other cities were very different, but I wasn’t familiar with the other cities. I fiddled with the radio and switched to the international news. In America, people were running amok. People were apparently under the impression that it was some sort of terrorist attack and they were going around killing citizens from the middle-east. Evangelists called it the ‘Day of Reckoning’. There were also rumours that a nuclear war was at hand. I turned off the radio in disgust. Mixed emotions ran through me. I was shocked and at the same time a part of me didn’t seem to care.

I turned to Shivani, to find her falling asleep. I shook her awake, “Ay, don’t fall asleep now,” I laughed. When my gaze went back to the road ahead of me, it caught a huge crowd of people running right at the car. They were all yelling incoherently. Many of them were brandishing sticks and blazing torches. My immediate reaction was to swerve so I’d miss them. I drove right off the road and into a telephone pole. I was enveloped by the sound of shattering glass and suddenly, everything seemed to go into slow motion as my body made its way through the windshield and landed with on the footpath, making a loud crunching sound. The first thought that ran through my head was, “I should’ve fastened my seatbelt.”

At first, pain shot through my body, but the overpowering frigidity of the air around me numbed my body and I couldn’t feel a thing. I couldn’t move. I lay there, listening to the sound of the mob get farther and farther away. I tried calling out to Shivani, but I couldn’t muster up enough energy to yell. So I just continued lying there, listening to the radio. A group of billionaires were all having themselves, along with their families, launched into space in some special kind of ‘space-pod’, in the hope of finding some new planet to inhabit…

After a while, the radio died out. Then I was left listening to my thoughts, with my heartbeat providing them with a vague rhythm. The air grew colder and my vision began to get blurred. So there I was, on the brink of death. I was waiting for it, like someone waiting to go into an interview. I speculated on death. Would it all be like waking from a dream? Only wake up somewhere else and not remember anything? For several moments I contemplated the possibility of an afterlife, but I wasn’t in a position to speculate and so, I gave it up. And as everything around me slowly began fading to black, I found myself wishing it’d all been a dream.