Venue: Somewhere on earth
Time: Early morning
The following happens to you when you binge-watch Transformers and alien invasion movies before bed.
Scene 1:
It was dawn. The golden hour looked perfect. The room was pretty basic – a wooden bed, table lined with a white tablecloth, chair, and my husband, N, sleeping beside me. I look at my fancy watch for the time – 6:00 AM. This is weird because I have grown out of any kind of accessory, and wearing a watch overnight seems unlikely. I woke up and walked toward the bedroom door.
I was on the first floor. The house was made of black rocks – more like a wada. The pillars were beautifully carved like the ones in temples. All the rooms were connected by a corridor that overlooked the chowk/courtyard. Our courtyard had tulsi, a bunch of other herbs, and two Autobots (of course). Let’s call them Bee and Dragon for now. They looked comfortable. Surprisingly, my dream-self felt that herbs and alien-transformers in the courtyard were normal. Weird. As I descended the stairs, I saw my in-laws. Excellent life choice to have everyone under the (same) roof guarded by the transformers!
Scene 2:
All the family members gathered in the courtyard. N and I had been entrusted with the responsibility to go out and buy supplies (for the foreseeable future) that day. Okay, this means going out all the time was not routine. It was not related to the pandemic.
We walked on a surreal landscape. The road was more like a vast ground lined by dense forests on both sides. A fleet of jets continued to land at a distance. The sky was lined with huge spheres made from hexagonal glass-like structures. Fancy but scary. They were the extra-terrestrial beings about to attack earth. Apparently, our town/city was at the center of the attack. Fun. The month-long supplies, transformers in the courtyard, and the unending queue of fighter jets made sense then. A war was about to begin.
I panicked. I frantically started checking my phone and smartwatch for any ’emergency’ warnings from the government. I begged N to return home. He said he would go ahead and buy the supplies all by himself, and I could return home if I was scared. I was so proud of him at that moment! So brave! There were no emergency warnings yet – we still had enough time to get things done. We got all the supplies.
Scene 3:
The sun had set. The war was about to begin. The vulnerable population – population older than 60 and younger than 18, differently-abled, and a few war-volunteers had been transported to safe bunkers. I was amazed by the technological advancements we had –
- Smartwatch – Everyone wore a watch that was almost imbibed in their body and connected to the pulse. The smartwatch was a fit-bit, phone, communication device, and teleportation device. If you were hurt and needed medical help, you could simply teleport yourself to the nearest designated medical bunker. You would then be transported to your assigned bunker, where you would reside till the end of the war – months, years, or decades.
- Bunkers – The bunkers were of different kinds – medical bunkers, temporary holding bunkers, permanent bunkers, etc. The permanent bunkers were in deep seas for safety reasons! Of course, there was a central bunker that would co-ordinate with all bunkers for better/worse. All bunkers were equipped with technology and supplies to last for a few years. Bunkers were used only in catastrophic events.
- Ammunition – Civilians fought alongside the Autobots and super soldiers of the earth! You could buy the arsenal at random auto-repair shops. Had the earth become so vulnerable to attacks from the outer world that auto-repair stores sold weapons of mass destruction? We went to an auto repair shop to buy more bullets! There is a sentence that I never thought I would ever write/say/think about in my life. The salesman tried to sell us deadlier weapons with a sales pitch. I was in a shady auto repair shop at midnight, in the middle of a forest, where my husband was testing his new gun. What had I gotten myself into, even if it were in my dreams!
I heard loud thumping noises. The war had started. I opened my eyes. It was N. He was thumping his keyboard. The laptop had ceased working.
This is it. The aliens are coming, and they have taken over a scientist’s laptop, to begin with.
More to come.
Of Sun and Sand 