Weight of Unbalanced Karma

 

I wake up with a jolt as the bulky jeep screeches to a stop. Bhuto gestures at me to wait while he hurries out, slamming the door shut. I yawn, and try to stretch out my arms, but grimace to grab my shoulder instead. A sharp shooting pain is knotting up in my neck. Cursing Bhuto for choosing the bumpiest of all roads, I try to massage out the discomfort.

Bhuto is back soon with hot tea in a clay pot accompanied by toasted bread and questionable butter on a steel plate. He smiles at me revealing his stained buck-teeth. A stench from his unwashed mouth fills the air inside the jeep. I pass him a gum and proceed to get out.

“It’s not safe, babu,” protests Bhuto and extends his hands to block my way.

“Shut up,” I say and slap away his arms.

I sit down on a tree stub to have my breakfast while Bhuto, with his huge frame, tries to block me from view. Two men are visible at the eatery across the street but their worried faces seem to be enveloped by whatever issues fate has chosen to hurl at them. But Bhuto imagines that they might want to keep an eye on me.

The food would have tasted good actually, had it not been for the scratchy, fake moustache that Bhuto has pasted onto my upper lip. I look angrily at Bhuto. He looks back at me with devotion.

“How much longer?” I ask after placing the empty plate down.

“Two hours, at the most,” he promises as he opens the door of the jeep for me. I peel off the moustache, hand it to Bhuto and enter the jeep.

He tries to object but stops when I pull down my oversized cap to cover the most of my face. He seems to be more bothered than me about concealing my identity. But honestly, I also do not wish to be recognized or photographed in this part of the country.

Bhuto runs to return the plate to the shopkeeper. He comes back quickly after paying the bill and gets in behind the wheel.

Soon the jeep roars ahead over the rugged terrain and I drift back into the past instinctively.

Bhuto was only five when I had rescued him from his native village. His father had left after selling his unwed mother to an oil baron located in the middle east. Hapless Bhuto was at the mercy of the villagers when I took him under my wings. I stationed him at the safe house I owned in Ratanpur. In due course of time, he grew up to be a fiercely faithful henchman. When he seemed to be ready, I handed over the charge of the safe house to Bhuto. I was giving him the gift of freedom and power. But the wastrel still cried his eyes out when I drove out of Ratanpur for the last time. He knew I would not bother to keep in touch. It would be too risky. That was more than two decades ago.

And, in the last week, when I was recuperating in the deepest emotional abyss of my life, Bhuto decided to call me and urge me to meet him. I was about to disconnect the call when he said that it was about Hiya. Immediately I prodded him for more information. But he insisted that the phone lines might be tapped and it would be dangerous for him to divulge more. So, I had to meet Bhuto again.

Hiya is my daughter, whose charred remains I have cremated in the last month. She had gone on an excursion with her friends from college. The cursed bus had toppled off the road, catching fire and killing all the children.

My vision haze at her thoughts and I quietly wipe off the accumulating tears. If Bhuto sees me crying he will begin a litany of insufferable consolations. I look out and try to marvel at the beauty of nature, instead.

Tall trees with scanty leaves whizz past our jeep. The red soil starts to look alive as the glow of the morning sun begins to brighten. The place is notably warmer than I remember it to be. The trees are fewer too. I wonder if there is truly a correlation between the two. My idle thoughts and the simple scenery could have combined to form a neutral experience for me but my memories would not leave me alone. They are rushing in incessantly to meddle with my present.

I used to come here often along these same roads. My wife Pramila had no idea about my dealings in Ratanpur. She has always been the typical good wife, dutiful and silent, just the way I had wanted her to be. She happily bore me four wonderful sons, never questioned my decisions and accepted my sovereignty over her body. In return, I loved her dearly. That is why I had to visit the safe house to satiate most of my carnal fetishes. They were too disgraceful to do with Pramila.

When my wife was pregnant with our fifth child Hiya I decided to let her have the baby even after we found out the gender. The trend of flaunting daughters was on the rise among the powerful. Having a daughter could boost my public image.

I was quite shocked when Hiya was born. She had inherited my facial features and her mother’s porcelain complexion. Looking at her beautiful face I realized that I too had the potential to qualify as a handsome man; it was just my pitch dark skin that had stood in the way for all these years. Since then my baby girl took up a place in my heart that I had never known to exist.

Incidentally, it was soon after Hiya’s birth that I had distanced myself from the operations of the safe house in Ratanpur. Earlier, I used the safe house sometimes to hold secret meetings with my guests from the business world. Countless deals were sealed there which went on to pave the way to my steady rise. The meetings would usually be followed by a night of debauchery and merry-making. But with political ambitions in sight, I needed to be more discreet. My new connections chose to hold conferences at other safer places. And with the generous growth in my net worth, aspiring models were more than willing to take care of my sexual needs. I had simply outgrown the amenities of the safe house. However, I could not just dispose of the women who entertained there. Also, there were clients who had grown into the habit of visiting the place. That is when I promoted Bhuto to manage the safe house and cut the Ratanpur episode off from my life.

And now, here I am, travelling with Bhuto to Ratanpur, praying desperately to see my only daughter saved by some miracle. But, as I travel deeper into the hinterlands, my hopes begin to dwindle alarmingly. There are things far more sinister than death itself, that could have befallen Hiya. I can no longer push away that menacing trail of thought. I clutch my hair with both my hands and feel like tearing them all out.

“Stop the jeep,” I growl.

Startled, Bhuto thumps down on the accelerator and I almost get thrown out of the seat. I yell curses at him.

Bhuto tries to calm me down.

“What exactly has happened to Hiya? Is she dead or alive? What did you do to her?” I ask him fast. “I can’t wait any longer. Tell me now.”

“Babu, I only tried to help her,” Bhuto says. With his six footer frame of all muscles, the idiot still trembles at my yells.

“We are very close to the safe house now.”

He points his thick and calloused finger at what seems to be a dead end. In a flash, I remember the illusion that hid the safe house from clear view. I nod and try to pacify my racing heart. The jeep rolls on at a slower pace for a while, before turning right sharply to get into an unseen alley. The jeep twists its way for another minute to lead to a clearing. Right in the middle of it is the safe house. It looks bigger somehow. Bhuto has gotten it painted in absurd shades of red and blue. But I have no time to give him the earful he deserves. I run wildly to get inside.

All the windows on the wall facing me are open and I begin to peek in through them one by one. It is through the third window that I spot her. She is sitting with her back to the window. Her head is drooping towards the front, covered by her cupped hands. Is she crying? Two raw, red wounds sprawl across the fair skin on her exposed back.

Scenes from the past begin to flash back rapidly, of me and others disrobing the unwilling girls, to reveal their firm, young bodies.

My blood begins to boil as I see Hiya seated there. I turn around and find Bhuto right behind me. I slap him hard on the cheek. It probably did not hurt him one bit but he takes a step back.

“After all that I have done for you,” I say. “You couldn’t even protect my only daughter?”

I take two steps ahead and push Bhuto hard on the chest with my hands. He starts to chatter something in defence. I have no wish to listen to his explanations. I start to punch him recklessly.

This is when Hiya and the other inmates run out to investigate the source of the commotion.

“Baba,” exclaims Hiya. “I can’t believe you kept all this a secret for so many years.”

My daughter is now standing in front of me. She is alive. But she looks weak, drained. I shudder as I think of the possibilities that she had to endure in the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, sensing the distraction, Bhuto has moved a few feet away from me. The clout knows that he is stronger than me and yet makes a big show of being afraid.

I glare at him.

“Baba, stop being angry with Bhuto,” urges Hiya. “From now on, I accept him as my dearest brother. You should happily accept that too.”

I feel like someone has punched my guts out. Bhuto has chosen to betray my faith in the worst possible way.

Yes, I had sired him a long time ago. Yes, I had sold his mother off. But I did repent my actions. I made sure that he got a comfortable life with sufficient power.

I was the one to give Bhuto a life. And today he is trying to take mine away.

I guess he has put in a lot of effort to trace his father. When it turned out to be me, he got greedy. I slip my hand into my right pocket and place my fingers firmly around my pistol. He needs to learn one final lesson.

“You shouldn’t have revealed my shady past to my daughter,” I mutter. “It doesn’t matter that I fathered you. You’ll always be the son of a whore.”

Before I can take out the gun and shoot Bhuto, Hiya lets out a piercing scream. She always does that to get my attention.

“Baba?” she sounds hurt. “What’s going on here?”

“Babu…babu-” Bhuto stammers.

I notice that it sounds very similar to “baba”. It fills me with disgust.

“Tell me all that you know,” Hiya commands Bhuto.

Scared, I observe his countenance. It looks all muddled. Did I just leak my own secret? Did he not find things out?

“I only know that my father pushed my mother into prostitution,” he mumbles as he stares hard at the ground. “And then he abandoned me.”

 “Don’t talk to Bhuto,” I warn my daughter. “He runs a covert racquet that deals with human trafficking, drugs and what-nots!”

“No, baba,” she speaks firmly. “He runs a facility where he puts up the people he saves. When our bus caught on fire, I was thrown out through a broken window. And I lay on the ground for hours, unconscious. My back was badly burnt and there were bruises all over me. Some local goons on finding me had decided to quietly sell me off at a port. That’s where Bhuto appeared like a messiah and intervened. He brought me to this shelter and put me under care.”

“It’s not a shelter,” I shout out. “It’s a brothel.”

“No, it isn’t.”

This time it is the inmates replying in chorus. Some begin to narrate tales of how they have been saved by Bhuto to be rehabilitated.

 I turn towards Bhuto. In my pocket, my fore-finger is still placed on the trigger. Bhuto is looking away.

“And, what were you talking about, baba?” asks Hiya. “What shady past? Are you really his father? Tell me the truth!”

Her voice is now laced with acid. I have no answer to her questions.

“He meant that he has always been like a father to me,” says Bhuto in a small voice. “And, in the past, he had helped me to escape from the police by erasing my criminal records. Maybe, babu thinks I am still the same man.”

Hiya looks relieved with the explanation.

“Baba, you’re being really rude to Bhuto,” she preaches to me. “He is a saviour now, forget the past.”

I keep staring at Bhuto who refuses to look me in the eye.

“Bhuto?” I ask, my voice much softer. “So this place is no longer what it used to be?”

“Nothing is no longer what it used to be,” replies Bhuto. When he finally looks up his gaze has changed. The devotion that I have been so used to is suddenly gone.

Come on, go ahead and hug him. Tell him that you are proud. Tell him that you are sorry.

My conscience screams out to me.

I know I cannot do that. Why can I not? Why is there a weight heaving down on my bosom? I do not know.

Maybe, my maker has all the answers.

So, I wrench out the pistol, lodge the nozzle between my teeth and pull the trigger.

 

 

 

Ex Home

 

I unlock the huge padlocks to step into our old one-storied house. From tomorrow it will have a new owner. That’s a relief.

For more than five years my sister Mila and I have been trying in vain to sell it off. The house has 3 bedrooms, a study, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Yeah, that does sound pretty good but a closer look reveals how poorly planned the property was. The rooms were boiling hot during the summers and stony cold during the brief spells of winter. The backyard was infested with thorny shrubs that never flowered. Power supply was unreliable and no amount of sanitization could keep the pests away.

Mila and I now live in comfortable apartments. Father has passed away and mother lives with Mila. This house had become an annoying baggage to us. I managed to sell it off after a long agonizing wait. So here I am, on my final visit to our old home. Most of the furniture have long been shifted. It is only a nondescript cupboard which I have to remove before the new owner moves in.

I have made an arrangement with a scrap dealer to get the junk picked up. A look at my smartphone tells me that I have about 30 minutes of time before the men come over with the collection truck. I walk up to the cupboard and jerk open the chipped door to look at the piles of useless material hoarded by my father.

Rows of old exercise copies are stacked inside. Those remind me of our lacklustre childhood and annoyed, I shut the door. Perhaps I have banged the door too hard for the door rebounds and a sketching book falls out. A scrawny, cross-eyed girl dressed in impossible colours is now staring back at me from the open book. It is little Mila’s work from preschool.  I tear out the page and fold it neatly before pocketing it.

As I place the sketching book back my eyes fall on another copy. It is mine…it used to be mine. I pull it out and read through casually. Looks like I often had tried my hand at poetry. I stop at one poem, titled “My Dream Home”. It describes a simple house with four rooms and a small backyard. Right at the bottom of the page my father had signed and remarked, “Excellent!” I check the date. Three decades have passed! The poem was from a time when we used to stay at a tiny rented place. Was I a simpler person? With simpler hopes and wishes? I start to read the piece again but the loud doorbell interrupts me.

I stuff the copy in my purse and run to answer the door.

The men are here. They need brief instructions. And then they begin to stow away the lone cupboard. I lock the main door and start to walk away. And then…I don’t why…I burst into tears.

She and The Sun

Keep her in the shade,

Far away from the sun.

She is too frail.

The rays could burn.

She keeps getting weaker,

She looks pale and thin.

Seal all the windows.

Maybe the sun is seeping in.

She gives up the fight,

She passes away.

The doctor comes in,

Nods his head in dismay.

He looked for maladies,

But there was none.

She was just a plant,

And they kept her from the sun.

Curse of the Cosmos

Once upon a time, there lived a king named Kosm, to whom glory and might were kind. He ruled over a kingdom so vast that the borders blurred into nothingness and no mortal that ever lived had been able to view all the splendour that lay hidden in the ends of his empire.

King Kosm had sired two baby boys through a nameless woman and in due course of time, they grew up to be fine young men. The princes stood tall and broad, their bodies rippled with muscles that spoke of unimaginable strength.

Though they both looked alike, yet if their charm was to be measured then it was prince Spatius, the elder one who was more becoming than the younger one, prince Maare. So exquisite were the features of the elder prince that any maiden who had set her eyes upon him used to blush herself into silence. They were different from men and in those days, what went through their minds no one in the kingdom could tell. But it would be fair to suppose that the maidens longed for his company because in his presence their demeanour shifted to a level of coyness that only passion could induce.

The younger son of the king, prince Maare had a fairly charming face as well and unlike his reticent brother, he was eloquent with speech. A maiden who happened to cross the path of prince Maare usually fell for the wizardry of words that he could spin sans much effort.

Prince Spatius was entrusted with the duties of the space while prince Maare was in charge of the oceans. It seemed to an untrained eye that both these young men had an equal chance to succeed king Kosm one day and to inherit the throne. The decision, however, had been made by their father a long time ago and one of them stood no chance against the other one.

Once the princes came of age their father Kosm set out ten messengers to go in ten different directions to find out a worthy bride for the future king. It took 5 eons of time for the messengers to complete their arduous task but eventually, they found one such maiden called Terra who was not only endowed with bedazzling beauty but was also blessed with a heart that was filled with goodness. King Kosm was pleased with the choice as he could clearly envisage princess Terra as the bride for his chosen son.

A royal invitation engraved in letters of precious metal was sent away to princess Terra. As King Kosm waited for her to arrive, he decided to send for his prime minister who had always given him wise counsel regarding the affairs of his kingdom. The time to officially coronate the next king was approaching and Kosm needed to work his way out in the presence of a revered minister.

It was for an eon of time that Kosm and the minister discussed the situation and at the end of it, it was decided that prince Spatius was to inherit the kingdom as well as the royal bride Terra. And following the custom of their land, prince Maare will be banished to the ends of the kingdom, to the faraway lands of Obliviana, from where no one could ever return.

For some time king Kosm felt a pain within his chest thinking about the fate of his younger son. But he knew that the kingdom needed a queen who was silent and graceful, nurturing and observant. Prince Spatius brought out these qualities in a maiden while prince Maare was equipped with no worldly wisdom and in his company, the maidens seemed to develop a fervour for the wild and the unknown.

King Kosm had made his decision and now he had to play out with care the charade of following the royal protocol to choose the crown prince. For this, the coins, Lunas and Solis were summoned and soon these coins of great wisdom had been fetched to the king’s court.

“I allot a quarter of an eon to you both to travel and see our kingdom,” bade Kosm to the coins. “Come back wiser before our ceremonial toss.”

Lunas and Solis made good of this opportunity and they travelled far and wide, building new friendships on the way. It was the sight of the two coins making mirth that alerted prince Maare about what was upon him. He had known all along that their father preferred Spatius over him. A sense of foreboding filled him up and he put in his effort to befriend the coins, in the hope of forging the grand decision in his favour. Lunas and Solis were both loyal to Kosm and they cleverly declined to have any association with the princes before their duties were done.

In despair prince, Maare mounted his horse and off he rode to the lands where princess Terra lived with her maimed sister Theia. It so happened that prince Maare reached her a little while after the royal proposal from king Kosm had come to Terra.

Prince Maare was received with great hospitality and he took no time to engage in delightful conversations with Terra, who had never heard or seen someone who spoke of all things wondrous, in a beautifully lilting voice. His words soothed her much and even though Terra found him to be wanting in the matters of appearance, she felt herself growing attracted to the young man. Still, she held herself restraint and asked prince Maare for his name. The prince cunningly hid his name and only identified himself as the one whose father was the great king Kosm. At this Terra was greatly pleased for it was known to her that she was soon to be betrothed to the son of the great king Kosm.

And in this while there went on huge proceedings in the empire of Kosm to begin the ceremonial toss that would pick their future king. Prince Spatius was bathed and dressed in a gaiment that was studded with stones that fell from the space. Prince Maare was not to be seen for a long time and this pleased Kosm to some extent. His waywardness would make him fall in the eyes of the subjects even before the toss had taken place, he thought. Prince Maare managed to present himself on time though; and he was already robed in the finest attire bejewelled with rare rocks from the depths of water.

King Kosm made a great show of blessing both his sons before taking the centre stage. The minister handed to him Lunas, the white son of Fate. Kosm clasped Lunas within right fist and closed his eyes. He urged the coin to show what the heart of the king desired and then, with great reverence, he threw up the holy coin in air. Lunas rolled in air and fell down at the feet of Kosm with a tinkling note that lingered awhile. And from the spot in the ground where Lunas had touched, sprang up a shower of stars to signify the realms ruled by prince Spatius. The verdict was out. Spatius was to be crowned as the next king.

The royal hall reverberated with applause as Prince Spatius stood up, made a measured bow and flashed a matching smile to all those who had cared to come. Prince Maare bowed down right to the ground in obeisance and to all it seemed like he felt no grief for the misfortune that had come his way.

The toss of the golden son of Fate, Solis was to be held in the next epoch of time and both the coins were allowed more time to explore the kingdom and to keep themselves merry. Now the toss of Solis had no practical significance in the court of Kosm because Solis was supposed to reveal and reiterate what Lunas had already shown. Not once in the previous ceremonies had Solis broken this convention and none had ever expected him to do so.

However this time a distraught princess Terra found out that she was to be wedded not to the prince who had taken her heart but to the brother of the same. And this became the sole reason for her to go twelve times around Solis, requesting him to show the name of prince Maare when his turn to toss came. Solis refused to disobey the king each time so while going around him for the thirteenth time Terra put a spell on Solis that altered his mind.

The toss of Solis was inaugurated amidst much fanfare. This was to declare the prince who will be father to the future rulers of the kingdom. Thus it was obvious that this toss would elect the same prince who would be getting the kingdom and the chosen bride. Kosm spun the golden coin up in the air without any fear or worry in his heart.

Solis turned in air for a dozen times before falling down at the feet of Kosm at the thirteenth turn. A spring of water began to gush out from the place symbolizing prince Maare as the father of the future children of the land.

Absolute silence fell upon the court of Kosm and all turned their heads towards the king seeking reason and meaning of what they had witnessed.

King Kosm never had to face defiance ever and he stood there seething in rage at what seemed to be treachery by Solis. Solis shook in fear as he came to terms with the damage that Terra’s spell had bidden him to bring about.

“It is princess Terra’s doing,” explained Solis to Kosm.

“I command you to take your place in the realm of Spatius,” pronounced King Kosm. “You will burn for eons of time and provide for princess Terra at whose bidding you chose to betray me.”

“Lunas, my faithful coin will be placed in the same realm,” continued the king. “And he will glow with loveliness in the sky without having to burn himself out so that you can see him each day and repent your act of silliness.”

When princess Terra found out what sentence had befallen upon Solis, she took mercy upon him and vowed to go around Solis for as long as she would be there. Thereafter she added that if she were ever lucky to have children of her own, she would make them revere Solis and place him at a rank higher than that of Lunas.

Solis and Lunas took their positions in the sky as decreed by the king and it was time for Kosm to put things in order by announcing the royal wedding.

Prince Maare and princess Terra waited with hope but it was with prince Spatius that the wedding of Terra was fixed. Lunas and Solis were the children of fate and none could alter what they had already pronounced. At this point prince Maare left the royal court and for an epoch of time he lost himself in the forests of the far east where grapevines of the wilderness gave him shelter and food. And since then men, spurned in love, have often turned to seek solace in the sweetness offered by the fruits of the wonder vine.

King Kosm knew that he would not be able to banish prince Maare to Obliviana for it would mean a barren future for his own bloodline. At length it was decided that prince Maare could stay in the kingdom if a maiden chose to take the curse upon herself. Princess Theia, the maimed sister of Terra, came forward proclaiming her desire to offer herself as a sacrifice to the cause of the one she loved dearly. The curse, thus deflected, crushed Theia into myriad pieces which prince Maare garlanded together by a drop of his own tear and put them as a decorative wreath around Solis.

The royal wedding took place amidst much grandeur and king Kosm did all that he could to canopy the tension that brewed in the minds of his subjects. Prince Spatius ascended the throne and his new queen Terra took place by him. It was time for all to bestow their love and blessings upon the couple while prince Maare hid himself away in the crevices of the empire.

Terra and Spatius began their wedded life although the new queen had Maare in her heart. But as time passed, she slowly began to be charmed by the fetching looks of her husband. And for eons they made love and the flames of their fierce passion could be seen from all corners of Kosm’s empire. This pleased the ageing Kosm hugely as he was expecting the news of a grandchild to happen defying the prophecy of Solis. However no child was ever born to the couple and after a few epochs had passed, their passion began to wane as well. Terra, once again, began to long for the one she had loved at first, Maare.

King Kosm would have never allowed Maare to be the husband of Terra but it was his good old minister who brought him to senses. It was time, he said, to allow Maare and Terra to live as a wedded couple. Maybe then, there will be children born of them, who will continue the bloodline of Kosm.

So it was decreed that king Spatius would remain the ruler of the kingdom yet he would give up his bride to his brother Maare. Terra and Maare began to live together as one and soon life began to stir in the womb of Terra. Grandchildren of Kosm were born and they proliferated fast, nourished by their kind parents.

Spatius who now was the mighty ruler of the empire of Kosm was angry at the betrayal and a terrible curse he hurled upon his own brother and wife. It was pronounced that doom shall be brought upon Terra and Maare by the life born out of their love.

At this Terra and Maare trembled and hugged each other tighter. Kosmic curses cannot be avoided, they knew. Ever since, their love has grown only stronger, for they know in the epochs to come they will witness their inevitable fall, in the hands of their own children.

A Stitch in Time

AD 3478

Ralph chewed onto the last bit of nail on his little finger as he stared blankly at his laptop. It displayed back the compiled code to him. No errors, a few minor warnings and seemingly perfect; yet it was throwing up the wrong output on each run.

There was a light tap on his shoulder and Ralph turned back to find his wife Karen, bending down with a broad smile on her face.

 “Time for dinner honey,” she declared as she proceeded to shut down Ralph’s laptop.

“Hey, I needed to work a bit more on that,” he protested meekly.

“Well, I fixed some of your modules last week and have mailed you the corrected code too,” replied Karen. “You can compile it after dinner.”

She slammed the lid of the laptop and pulled her husband up from his chair.

Ralph was not surprised. Karen had the odd habit of hacking into his system and solving his algorithms for him. It frustrated him. He could not figure out whether she wanted to help him or to neuter him. And that frustrated him further.

“I cooked a small meal,” said Karen as she led Ralph into the kitchen. There was a nice juicy steak with steamed broccoli and baked potatoes on the side waiting for him on the counter.

“Enjoy,” she smiled as Ralph sat down on the high stool.

“You made all of these?” he smiled gratefully as he dug into his meal.

Karen winked playfully. For the next few minutes Ralph ate ravenously while his wife watched him patiently.

“Thanks Karen,” said Ralph as he finished his meal. “You are a terrific cook.”

“Can you guess which meat that was?”

“Umm, seemed like rabbit to me,” guessed Ralph as he ran his tongue along the insides of his mouth to savour the aftertaste.

“Rabbit?” Karen laughed out aloud. “It’s that...what you ‘forbade’ me to explore!”

Ralph’s smile vanished and his countenance curled into a frown as he slowly turned red.

“You couldn’t have,” he muttered.

“Oh yes, I did,” Karen smirked. “And I’m proud of myself.”

“You crazy woman,” yelled Ralph as he got up and began to rampage around the kitchen.

“You won’t find any more of that in here,” Karen stated calmly. “Look, it is perfectly safe. I’ve fed it to rats, to orangutans and even to other human beings before serving it to you. In fact, I have tasted it too.”

“It is not about food safety,” shouted Ralph.

“You are right, this is bigger than that,” Karen sat down and folded her arms. “Because this can help us to solve the world’s hunger issues.”

“There’s not a tiny shred of ethics left in you,” said Ralph as he suddenly threw himself at Karen and linked his fingers around her neck.

For a second Karen felt that she would choke but her reflexes were well trained for emergencies like this. She swiftly reached for the pouch of Calmnex in her pocket, tore the wrapper and stuck the button on Ralph’s bare neck. The tall and lanky frame of Ralph immediately went limp and his hands slid off Karen’s neck.

She helped him to their bedroom and laid him down on the bed.

“I am trying to solve the biggest concern of our planet,” she elucidated. “You can choose to be by my side as I go on to be the greatest messiah of all times or you can choose to be a failed scientist. We will discuss this when you wake up.”

She turned out the lights and left as Ralph fell into a deep slumber.

……………………………………………………………………………………..…….

It was hours before the drowsiness began to subside for Ralph. The low hum of the vacuum cleaner woke him up. He peered through half closed eyes. The house boys Xiu and Ming were cleaning the bedroom. Ralph quickly shut his eyes back. Karen paid the boys handsomely and treated them well. They were never going to help him.

Xiu walked up to Ralph and rearranged the blanket neatly over him. He then placed a tray full of snacks on the bedside table when his phone started to ring. Xiu fumbled with the stuff in his apron’s pocket for a while. He had to lay out the bunch of key cards by the food tray before he could fish out his phone. And then, as he spoke earnestly into the phone in fluent Mandarin, Xiu began to walk out into the balcony.

Ming was still scrubbing the bathroom floor and Ralph realized that this was his opportunity to steal the key-cards. He had managed to take a copy of the front door key-card when Xiu walked back in. Ralph fell still. The boys were done after a few more minutes and, despite the silent prayers of Ralph, they locked his bedroom from the outside on their way out.

For the next one hour Ralph lay in the bed, plotting his escape. Karen, he knew, would be gone for a day to attend a conference in a different city. He had some food and waited patiently till Xiu and Ming were gone. And then he went out in the terrace and looked down. The first floor balcony was right below him. He held on to the low guard wall and swung his body out.  He then carefully lowered himself as much as possible before letting go of the rim. It was a small fall and Ralph found himself on the first floor balcony, unhurt. He got up and darted towards the main exit. The heavy door slid back without protest as soon as he punched in the stolen key-card.

Ralph closed the door behind himself and ran out of the sprawling campus as fast as he could.

Once in the main road, he paused and took in a few large breaths. There was only one person who could help him out of this mess. His ex-girlfriend, Jill, whom he had dumped to marry Karen.

Jill was a maverick scientist who now lived a quiet life in her villa close to Elm Avenue. It would be highly inappropriate to ask for her help, thought Ralph. At that very moment a taxi was zooming by and he spontaneously waved his hands to make it stop.

“Elm Avenue,” he found himself saying before hopping in. Ralph told the driver to stop a few kilometres away from Jill’s place. He looked into the meter and clicked the pay-button. A scan of his retina settled the bill before he got off.

Ralph walked along a short-cut route to reach a cliff by the sea. He stood atop the cliff, facing the sea, inhaling the salty air and trying to find coherence in the wild plan that was taking shape in his mind. A narrow stretch of beach was visible with private properties along them. The first house belonged to Jill. He knew exactly how to reach there. If Karen tried to trace his retina scans, she must not find his location right away.

Ralph closed his eyes for a few seconds and recalled his younger years which he had spent doing deep sea diving in the idyllic beaches of Australia. He opened his eyes and jumped straight into the water. The tide was tame and he easily swam across to the beach.

Jill was sitting on her front porch, sipping cold beer and staring at the magical colours of the setting sun when Ralph hauled himself up from the beach, dripping wet, and began to walk towards her.

She continued to stare at him with no hint of surprise. Ever since the break-up she had been seeing Ralph everywhere. So she calmly assumed him to be another figment of hallucination.

It was only after Ralph’s wet fingers held her by the shoulders and gave her a shake that she realized him to be real.

“Ralph?! You came back,” Jill squealed and hugged him tight.

And Ralph felt again within his heart, a sharp twist of self-loathing. Despite her devotion, kindness and undivided love; all that he could manage to feel for Jill was a deep sense of pity.

 “I need your help, Jill,” he managed to say as he released himself softly from her grasp.

And Jill nodded eagerly, her eyes shining in a way that stung Ralph hard.

“You were working on a time travel project,” he came straight to the point.

“It has been marked unsafe by the latest protocol,” Jill shrugged her shoulders. “The grants have stopped.”

“Who are you kidding? You don’t need their money,” Ralph pulled Jill towards himself and looked into her eyes. “Your parents have left you enough to fund your projects.”

“Why would I tell you about it?” Jill snapped. Her eyes glistened with pain.

“I was stupid Jill,” whispered Ralph and hugged her.

“I still love you,” he lied and Jill wept into his shirt. “You have to help me to stop Karen.”

“Brief me about the situation,” said Jill as she wiped off her eyes and took Ralph inside.

 “Remember the times when we watched the sci-fi movies? Remember what my greatest fear was?” began Ralph.

Jill handed a beer can to him and snuggled closer.

“Mine was that I might lose you,” said Jill as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Ralph ignored her comment and kept talking.

“Most of the movies portray the aliens as malevolent megalomaniacs; and it made me wonder if we, humans, are pre-disposed to behave in a similar manner if we ever find ourselves more powerful than the alien life forms.”

“Are you saying that we have found life elsewhere?”

“Yes, lower forms of organic beings have been detected in a host of planets,” said Ralph. “Karen is leading one such projects and she has gotten the first batch of aliens transferred to our planet.”

“Oh dear,” exclaimed Jill. “Is she kidnapping them without any attempt to get their consent?”

“Worse. She is planning to use them as food,” said Ralph. “In fact she tricked me into eating one of them.”

Jill got up and took a few steps back. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open with indignation.

“Don’t hate me Jill,” Ralph begged. “Help me…help me to stop her. All the approved time travel routes are monitored and hence, accessible by her.”

“Don’t run away from this,” urged Jill. “Fight her, expose her to the government, to the world!”

“Karen is a genetically engineered human being,” said Ralph. “She is several times brighter than me. The woman is unstoppable.”

Jill sat down, staring hard at the floor.

“I was thinking that maybe I can go back in time and negotiate with the previous governments. I can get certain files classified. Or, I can talk to scientists and ban proliferation of certain segments of knowledge. I know the details of the work that led to the detection of the aliens.”

“Come with me,” said Jill as she walked toward her laboratory.

She unlocked the door and took Ralph inside. A metallic apparatus took up the most of the space. Jill turned on a few switches to power it up. A whirring sound was heard but nothing else was visible.

“This is my stabilizer,” she explained. “And that is the wormhole generator.”

She pointed to a closed room. A mesh of wires came out through a switchboard and connected to an upright rectangular box, big enough to fit an adult.

“Is that it?” asked Ralph.

“Yes,” said Jill. “The bad news is that my stabilizer is not robust enough to support a wormhole that can accommodate a human being. The time machine is working fine but for smaller animals. I have sent back ants successfully. The biggest that it can support is a dog.”

Ralph raised his eyebrows. “How will it help me then?”

“Well, I’ve built a converter too,” said Jill. “It can physiologically convert you into a lower animal and transport you back in time.”

Ralph sat down and began to rub the sides of his head.

“How much time would you need?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Give me your blood samples,” said Jill. “I can work all night and prepare the data for a safe physiological conversion.”

That night Ralph and Jill had dinner together.

“Ralph, you do know that you can’t come back?” asked Jill.

He nodded in assent.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Jill began to sniffle.

Ralph rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Well, if I stay back, Karen will probably have me killed,” he consoled her after a while.

And then he retired into the bedroom without further conversation.

The next morning Jill started by enhancing Ralph’s endurance with a couple of shots while he brooded over his new plans. He had hoped for sane discussions with people from the past and now his plans veered towards biting the relevant people instead.

Soon it was time for him to enter the time machine. Ralph planted a kiss on Jill’s lips and thanked her before closing the door, forever.

Jill set the coordinates for Woolsthorpe, on the 22^nd of June, 1679, at 10:30am. She double checked every set of data for an hour and then she activated the system.

She leaned back on her chair and stared at her work. The entire process would take 32 hours of time. However, once back in time Ralph will have plenty of time to fix the situation. The only problem was that he would come out in the past as a small Pomeranian dog.

Jill sighed and got up. She knew that Karen will soon be coming. Jill had to hold off Karen from finding the laboratory till Ralph was safely back in time.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

AD 1679

Ralph found himself curled up on a vast emerald lawn. It was a nice summer day with a pleasant breeze blowing. He got up and walked about for some time, feeling a bit disoriented. And then he heard human voices approaching. Ralph peered through the trunks of the trees and the sight that he saw almost took his breath away. His idol from childhood was taking a walk with some of his students.

Ralph forgot everything about the severity of his mission and began to run as fast as his short legs would carry him, to meet the legend. Soon he was at the legend’s feet, trying to say a whole of things. But all that came out of him was a series of excited barks along with a vigorous wag of his tail.

But it was enough to impress the legend, who picked him up with a smile.

“Gentlemen, a dog appears just at which hour I wast mourning the death of mine own pet,” he said to his students.

Then he flashed the most beautiful smile at Ralph and went on to tell him, “Thou art a gift from the heaven. I shall nameth thee Diamond.”

As Ralph leaned against the warm coat of Sir Issac Newton, he realized that he had to betray the trust of his new master if he had to save the future.

In the next few months, Newton’s fondness for Ralph increased fast and soon it became a ritual for him to work at his desk in the evenings with Diamond curled up by the fireplace. And then the opportune day arrived when a distinguished guest paid Sir Issac Newton a visit while he was working in his study. As he left the room, Ralph observed calmly the gradually diminishing figure of his master who walked away towards the hall.

Without wasting another moment Ralph leapt up onto Newton’s desk and with one precise kick he upset the lit candle over the wooden cupboard that contained his master’s research work.

Ralph watched in silence, unable to cry, as the lead to alien detection among many other things went up in flames. After several minutes the sound of crackling wood alerted people. The maintenance staff came running along with the master himself.

Ralph crouched in a corner, yelping in fear while the people attempted to douse out the fire. But Sir Issac Newton picked him up as gently as ever and said softly, “O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the damage thee hast done.”

Ralph’s ears drooped and he looked away. Unexpressed guilt tore away at his heart as his mater continued to treat him with affection.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

AD 3478

An entourage of cars stopped outside Jill’s villa. Karen stepped out of her car and began to march ahead.

One more minute and Ralph will have crossed over, calculated Jill as she waited to meet Karen at the gate.

Suddenly there was a spell of dizziness that took over every mortal being on earth and then it passed.

Karen stopped a step away from Jill and took a moment to steady herself. And then she flashed a broad smile.

“I came to invite you,” she said. “For my book launch next week.”

Jill smiled back happily. The alternate timeline had come into play.

“I’ll be there,” she promised as she shook Karen’s hands.

In the new timeline Jill and Karen were friends from school. Jill was a reputed scientist while Karen was a rising author. The new reality began to sink in slowly for Jill.

She chatted with Karen for a while before waving her goodbye.

Jill felt tired as she walked back in. She was the only one who had memories of both the timelines. 

Over the next 24 hours the new reality will completely replace her memories of the past timeline.

She thought of Ralph and realized that she did not want him anymore.

“Wish you find a good bitch there,” she said out aloud and laughed at her own joke.

Jill turned towards the mirror. She looked great. She smiled and ran out for a swim. She felt happy after a long time.