Our world was snuffed out, when I drew one final breath.
Amit stared at the coffee pouring into his mug. The espresso machine was novelty purchase number five this year. But it did make good coffee.
Anwar walked into his office with his own mug in hand, “You know, one of the reasons I wanted you to take a vacation was so that I could have this baby for myself.”
“What makes you think I’ll leave it here if I go on vacation?” Amit replied, his mug almost full now. Anwar pushed him aside and held his mug under the nozzle of the CafeKing 5000.
“Aww, Seriously dude?” Anwar said.
“So, what’s happening with you and her?” Amit asked.
“Uh, I mean, you know,” Anwar hesitated, “It’s just stupid. I mean she knows I’m right, but she won’t let it go”.
“Uh huh, sure”, Amit said.
Anwar sensed the hint of sarcasm in his voice, “What, am I wrong here?”
“Well, that’s for you two to decide. If you’re done with your coffee, please get out, I have a lot of work to do” Amit said.
“Sure thing man, but please, take it easy.”
“Will do”, Amit said as Anwar headed out, “I will fucking take it easy” he muttered under his breath.
For a moment, Amit felt like his heart stopped beating when he saw the notification pop up on his laptop screen. It was impossible; Maybe it was a prank Anwar and Tara were pulling on him. It had to be, right? He accessed the primary data server and opened the stream of raw data from detector one. Ok, so it was surely not a prank, a glitch perhaps. He looked at data from detector two. Same thing. The probability of two detectors glitching at the same time was low, but not zero. Possible scenarios were running through his mind at a million miles a second when he saw Anwar rushing into his office, with Tara just behind him, struggling to catch up.
“Did you see?” Anwar asked. He was pure adrenaline right now.
“I did, it’s not real. Right?” Amit asked.
“What? What are you talking about” Tara asked, looking at Amit then Anwar, in hopes of getting an answer. Anwar had nearly dragged her out of her office when she was checking her mail.
“It probably is, I mean, two detectors glitching, it’s…” Anwar said.
“Highly improbable, yeah” Amit said.
“Guys, is someone going to tell me what’s happening?” Tara said, sounding pissed off. She hated it when the two went on talking about shit and she was left out of the loop.
“The sun’s gone supernova,” Anwar said.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, to put it simply, in eight minutes, or less, we’ll be dead.”
AntarikshCo. was Amit and Anwar’s brainchild. A space tech company that specialized in super-low-cost reusable rockets and satellite launches. In its initial days, when the two were straight out of college with a shiny new degree in aerospace engineering, they were clueless about anything other than building rockets. It looked like their product might end up just in powerpoint presentations and sales pitches and never actually in space. That’s when they met Tara.
They knew her from college, but they got properly acquainted at a party. Amit and Anwar, as usual, were going on about their idea of a space tech company. The few who were initially interested, left because they preferred getting wasted over listening to their pitch for the thousandth time. But Tara found it intriguing. Tara always dreamed of building a start-up. She absolutely abhorred the idea of having to work at a desk and the few months of interning at a firm had confirmed it. So, when she heard the two talking, quite passionately, about their idea, she knew she belonged in the project. And so, they hired a CFO that night, amidst people drinking like there was no tommorow. It had taken a few years for them to take off, but when they did, there was no stopping them. In 7 years AntarikshCorp went from being a sales pitch to a multinational venture.
One of their more recent projects was a solar probe built in collaboration with the Indian government. From the outside, it was a standard space mission. Equipped with state-of-the-art cameras and detectors. But what no one knew was that another detector was included in the roster. It would detect solar anomalies and send a signal. Normally it would take 8 minutes and 20 seconds for any information traveling at light speed to reach the earth, but the detector which Anwar had designed would do it almost instantaneously.
When the government caught wind of this, it swiftly imposed a ‘secrecy order’ which prevented Anwar from publishing about it. The three were thoroughly pissed and in a spirit of defiance, Amit and Anwar went to the solar probe project site, in the guise of routine inspections and began installing the detector. After 48 hours of racking their brains, they came out with triumphant pride. They expected nothing out of it, certainly not the sun going supernova, but it had happened and they were the only ones who knew.
Six minutes remained.
Amit picked the bottle of wine up from the cabinet in his office. His father-in-law had gifted it to him when he got married. He always thought he’d open it when he and his wife celebrated some kind of milestone anniversary. But, nothing of that sort happened. His wife died in a road accident two years ago and the bottle was left in the cabinet. He had almost forgotten about it. To anyone from outside, Amit would seem like the most resilient man on Earth, working twelve hours a day even after his wife’s death, but Anwar and Tara knew, and perhaps Amit did too that, it was not his resilience, rather the unwillingness to accept the fact that she’s gone and she’s never coming back. It was too much for him. His work kept him from going off the deep end. But his belief that he could keep avoiding facing the truth was coming undone.
He had been drinking; a lot recently. Enough to call for an intervention. No one knew, not even Anwar and Tara, but they knew something was not right. They kept asking him to take a break from work and he had always given them the same answer, “Why do I need a break? I’m perfectly fine”. He sat down on the couch, beside the window and poured the wine into his coffee mug, which still had traces of coffee from earlier. His father in law would have killed him for that, but fuck it, he thought. On a different day, he would have counted day drinking as a new low, but well, it would be a waste of good wine if he didn’t drink it. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his mobile phone and opened the gallery app. He scrolled to the bottom to find a photo of him and his wife, at some beach. He only ever saw the photo when it was getting too difficult. It was a testament to a time when he was happy and with it came a hope that he could find some sort of happiness again. Too late, eh? But then again, there’s this.
He took a swig of the wine. He looked at the picture once again, “What would you have thought if you saw me right now, like this? Pathetic, huh? Well, the fucking world might be coming to an end, so it doesn’t matter, I guess.” He took another swig of the wine.
Anwar nearly shattered the glass door of his office as he entered it. “I have five minutes or so, goddamnit! I can’t make it there”. He picked his mobile phone up from his table and FaceTimed her. His anxiety was growing as he saw his phone dialing. When her face finally appeared, he felt relief flowing through his body like a glacial river.
“Hey, what’s up?” She said without intonation or expression.
Well, she’s still pissed. “Uh, nothing much, I just wanted to check on you, how are you?”
Her expression stiffened as she leant forward on her chair. “I’m fine, but what’s up with you? You never call from the office.”
“Well, you see, I”, he hesitated, “I just wanted to say, I’m sorry. It was my fault, I should have been more considerate. I hate that we had that fight last night and this morning too, we couldn’t even look at each other’s faces and I’m just…sorry.” He looked like he was on the verge of tears.
Shock hit her, along with concern. Anwar wasn’t one for saying ‘I’m sorry’. No. He was the kind of person who’d logically deconstruct your arguments until you yielded. That was a mighty good skill in a debate club, but not in a relationship.
“I…don’t know what to say.” She said, as she let out a laugh of confusion.
Anwar still with a stern expression said, “You don’t have to say anything, I was wrong, and I knew I was wrong even then. But it’s hard for me to accept that.”
“It’s okay, Anwar, really and I’m sorry too. But what’s wrong? You don’t look too well. Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s all right. Don’t worry.” He said, as he tried to put on the best smile he could manage whilst trying not to cry. She noticed that but before she could say anything, he said, “You know what, let’s go to that restaurant you’ve been wanting to try tonight. Love you. Bye”, blew her a kiss, and hung up.
He started weeping as he put his phone down.
Tara strode into her office, not quite present in the moment. Having worked out of this office complex for 5 years now, her muscle memory was developed enough for her walk without bumping into things.
She sat down on her chair and stared outside, the clouds cleared and at first a beam of sunlight illuminated her previously unlit office. So that has exploded now? And we are only experiencing the after-image before the real thing catches up with us? What the fuck?
She rested her head over her hand. “What have I been doing with my life?”, she said as slumped on her chair. Sure, she enjoyed the work, but was it all there was to life? She had promised herself to make a name for herself, to leave a legacy, someone who she would have looked up to as a young girl, and she had achieved all of it. “But is it enough?”
While she was busy getting existential, something was nibbling and tugging on her shoe. She looked down to see Fluffy, her Welsh Corgi.
“Oh fuck, I totally forgot about you”, she said picking the dog up, “Are you hungry boy?”
The dog recognised that tone; it was usually followed by food. She caught him salivating and laughed. “God bless Pavlov.” She reached for the drawer in her desk. The dog wagged its tail when it saw the bright yellow-coloured packet appear from below the table.
“Sorry, I forgot your bowl, you must make do with my hand, I guess.” The dog didn’t care much for crockery. It hurriedly ate out of her hand, finishing the fistful of the food in record time and looked at her wagging its tail.
“Greedy little fucker, aren’t ya? She said, and emptied the bag onto her desk.
The dog was confused now; It ate - glancing at the food and back at her, as if asking “You sure, human?”. “Go on”, she said, “No point in saving it for later”.
Three minutes remained.
Anwar and Tara walked into Amit’s office, once again, calmer this time. “Hey, have you come to terms with our impending doom?” Amit asked.
“Yeah, piece of cake, really.” Tara said.
“Well, I just had a difficult conversation.” Anwar said.
“Was it bad?” Tara asked.
“No, quite the contrary. I have a date tonight.” Anwar said. He realized that Amit had duped him. This was clearly the better office. The view was spectacular. He never noticed it, despite coming here everyday to get his coffee.
The city below them looked tranquil amidst the chaos. He noticed a child and his mother, walking on the sidewalk. The kid was pacing ahead of his mother, with a bright red balloon in hand. The kid lost his balance and fell down and started crying. The mother picked the boy up, patted his clothes, and kissed his forehead. The helium-filled balloon was gone though; The child and the mother headed back to buy another.
Elsewhere, he noticed a bunch of people causing a commotion in the middle of the road. Two drivers, who’d nearly missed an accident, got out of their cars and started hurling poetic expletives at each other. On the other side of the road, a busker was playing his violin; As if she was soundtracking this kerfuffle. Anwar couldn’t hear it properly, but just enough to make out it was Summer by Vivaldi.
Tara finally broke the looming silence, “Should we have told everyone? That the apocalypse is approaching us.”
“At light speed, no less.” Anwar said.
“Maybe, maybe not. But all of that doesn’t matter now. To be fair to us, we probably have done the world a twisted kindness.” Amit said, looking out the window. He noticed the busker, who had moved onto a calmer piece. “I always wanted to learn to play the piano, but never got the time to.”
“We have time now. only if we had a piano…”, Anwar said with a cheeky smile.
Amit didn’t even try to retort. “Fucking time, eh? One moment you seem to have a whole lifetime’s worth of supply of it, the next, you learn it’s gone.”
Tara smiled. It has not totally been worthless, this life.
“Hey, look outside.” Anwar said.
The sun was illuminating every glass pane on every building now. It looked serene. The star’s symphony was in a crescendo, but no one else knew it. The three basked in its warmth and light one last time.
Twenty seconds remained.