Eyes locked on the other end, he looked at the sky shrouded in a palpable eerie darkness. As if the universe was telling him the long-held secret; perhaps the storm of destruction is in the making! He looked around and there was still a hint of late-afternoon spark. He smirked at the “Cautionary” weather messages coming on the internet.
“Worse thing, I would get little late. But at least I would explore this mystical world. There is nothing to worry.”
This was his way to console and make himself ready for the ultimate dive into the ocean. With the desire to go deep into this uncharted ocean, he marched ahead, took a deep breath and dived. He started feeling his body getting clammy, and in no time the outside noise vanished into oblivion. Opening his eyes, he moved back and forth to evade the fear induced by the quiet stillness. The eccentric view of the profound ocean was in his grasp, which he had only imagined till now.
He kept sailing through for the next two hours, without realizing that the little bit strength left, required to go back home, was getting sucked up. His legs were not able to support his body weight anymore. “Nothing to get paranoid! I can do this”. He kept mumbling to himself.
A sparkling fruit caught his attention. He stretched his hand with great struggle to finally make this expedition fruitful, in literal ways. Hoping to taste it like a sweet elixir, he rolled it over his lips first. Instead he felt a half-cooked flesh let loose in his mouth, making him feel lightheaded.
Suddenly there was a loud thud!
He tipped his head into the rock-strewn bed of algae. A very horrid creature was gazing at him. It seemed the creature was chasing him from some time. “Help!” He cried out in fear! The creature started teasing him in a fiery way. The protruding head and an obnoxious smell made him throw up more. He had no idea what was going to happen next, but he knew one thing that it was too late for him to go back now.
Whether it was his hallucination or the effect of this mystical place, the creature seemed ready to engage in a dialogue with him. The creature had the power to navigate him back, but only with one condition. He should be inside a metal cage with thousands of such sparkling fruits. He must go back and distribute those fruits to everyone around him- the ambitious one, the naive one, the evil one, the good one, the young, the old…everyone.
Considering this as a NOVEL harmless demand, he agreed.
A hot tear tingled his eyes as he woke up in a wheelchair. He couldn’t see anyone familiar nearby. His mind was trying to reach back to time when he was still on the other end of the shore. “Would things be different if I had taken the warning messages seriously that day?” He kept thinking this in a loop. The evening wind was never this gloomy and harsh. The roads look dusty. Why there are less people to be seen? A voice from the television interrupted his chain of thoughts.
“There will be a nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure towards the Coronavirus pandemic.”
P.S: All images are a result of Google search and I have no copyright over them.
Ruminations of mind... 