It was a normal day in the remote town of Tobane in Lyria. The
streets bore a deserted look, with damaged buildings in the background that had
random graffiti and posters. There was an eerie silence filled with occasional
gunshots and echoes of distant explosions. The people of the town had almost the
same expressions. Nobody thought about
the next hour, leave aside the next day or next week. The official channels of supply
for food and essential goods had been cutoff for almost a year now. All the
public institutions had been destroyed and reduced to dust or serving as
ammunition depots. This was a normal walk for Ali every day, who would go out
in search of bread and water to feed his family. He walked at a very balanced
pace, as walking too fast would make him a probable target for the sniper
wolves hiding everywhere. Walking too slow was certainly not an option. He knew
this because he had been on the other side, supplying food and ammunition every
day to the ‘freedom fighters’. His elder brother had been in one of the
buildings when rocket strikes obliterated the entire area.
Ali was wading through the streets filled with spent
cartridges, propaganda pamphlets and ripped shreds of clothes with dried blood
stains. He met his old uncle on the way, who told him to be careful, waving a
piece of paper in the local language. The headlines read ‘Gritain joins the Lyria
War, will begin air strikes soon’. The news was always 2 or 3 days late in his
town. He was not shocked, as it was already raining fire from the skies every
day, and this was just one more cloud. Ali took the last turn for his home,
when he heard a distant whistling sound in the sky, which kept on increasing as
he walked further. Before he could look up, there was a huge explosion and an
ear numbing shrill echo followed. There was darkness, mixed with smoke, rubble
and dust. Down the street, where his house stood, among many others, the
ground was flattened. There was nothing left but a huge crater with all the debris
falling into it, as if a black hole had been created. The entire neighborhood
was wiped off, and nothing was left. As he gained back his hearing, all he
heard was the incessant sound of the burning debris and small concrete pieces
raining from the sky. All he could see was the ash and dust flying on his face.
He was out of emotions, as if the black hole sucked those too.
The next morning when he woke up, he found himself lying
inside a small house. There were a couple of motionless bodies lying next to
him. For a moment, it felt as If he was in a mortuary and this was an afterlife
experience. Before he could look around more, a lady appeared, and announced
very clearly in local language, “You seem to be fine now, there are only minor
injuries. You were really lucky, nobody survived in the whole block. We are
sorry about your loss but there is no place left here now, we have to attend to
other people, please leave in the next hour”. He had no choice but to leave, he
thanked his saviors and started walking towards his street. He kept questioning
himself, if he was really lucky. He decided to go back and check if there were
any hopes of finding his family. The walk was on the same path that he had
taken one day before, but things had changed. He was unstable and his walk was
slow, but he was no more afraid. His mind was confused between the past and
present. Was it the same day? Was he still having a nightmare? May be his
mother would come and wake him up or his kid brothers would come and start irritating
him. But as he approached closer to the street, the scene of devastation woke
him up. He could not have even imagined this
in the worst of his dreams. He was standing at the same spot where he was
standing last day. The fire was still raging and the old wood from the houses
had turned into crackling pieces of coal. He looked through the thick cover of
ash and smoke. With his head bent down, he approached closer. He couldn’t
breathe and it was getting hotter. But He kept looking with his watery eyes, in
search of his mother, the small kids, the house and the neighborhood. He kept
staring and started blowing very hard to clear the smoke, until a very strong
hand landed on his back. This was followed by a loud and angry voice, ‘Ali,
aatish… aatish (coal fire), table 7.
The jolt was so hard that for a moment, he felt more heat on his back than the
hot holder full of burning coal. The sonic boom brought him back through time,
to an uptown Nargile (Hukka) Café in a
tourist city far far away from his small street in Lyria. Hiding his tears in
the smoke, He quickly started walking towards table No. 7, where a group of
Gritish tourists was waiting anxiously to relish the exquisite flavored smoke…
