It was mid-March, 2022- a time when nothing could soothe him, not even the birds trilling outside. They had no idea what a dystopian world had been unfolding all around them, no idea that humanity was hurtling down an abyss. They continued their trilling, happy with the music they were creating, but, alas, it was drowned in the cruel chorus of a chaotic cacophony.
The sunflowers drooped, houses were destroyed, people were rendered homeless, children became orphans, wives became widows, and husbands became widowers. Unfazed by it all, the birds trilled on, singing happy songs, in unhappy times.
There was a hot pain in Ivan’s temples and a dread in his heart. Wonder how many lives were lost? How many houses destroyed in this newest missile attack? The birds were not bothered; they trilled on, hopping from one branch to the next.
He sat outside his house on a boulder, brooding, looking around with a forlorn air. His cat walked up to him, nuzzling against his legs. His house was intact, but the other houses all around him were smoldering. When would his house also fall victim to these attacks? He shuddered at the mere thought.
In the distance, he could see flames shooting up as if a volcano had gone off. Why is there so much hatred around? Why this cannibalistic ferocity? Why this human craving to kill humans? Why these senseless wars? Why all this needless conflict? Is there any courage involved in being cruel?
Thus deeply engrossed in his thoughts, his eyes fell on a woman dashing towards him, flailing her arms, muttering something. She looked at him with pain in her hazel eyes, trying to say something, but her speech was an incoherent jumble of words. He recognized her and turned his eyes away.
The past came hurtling back to him, almost crushing him with its sinister overtones. The woman’s husband, Igor, and he were partners in a small enterprise, but he had embezzled money, and overnight, friends had become foes. Igor had died of a heart attack a year back. Now before him stood his distraught wife, Anastasia, face tear-streaked, pointing a shaking hand towards her house- a house which now was just a crumpled heap of bricks and mortar.
“I cannot find Vasyl. I cannot find Vasyl.” She was screaming, her words tumbling over each other. “I know he was not in the house when…this…happened. I can’t find him, I can’t find him. I will not be able to survive if …if…” Her face contorted by grief, a barrage of hardly coherent words came out of her mouth.
“Where are you? Where are you Vasyl?” Her wails rent the air, as the drones overhead rumbled. He could feel the strength going out of his knees, suddenly feeling all the shackles that had tied him down, falling. He cast a withering look in her direction, and this time did not turn his eyes away. He raced towards her, to find her swaying. He put a quivering hand on her shoulder, shocked to see how pale she looked. Her skin was deeply creased by the sun, and she seemed to have aged in just one year. Emotions smoldered under that dazed face, and strands of hair from her undone bun flew around. Her black boots were crusted with mud around the heels.
In the immediacy of the moment, the grouses that he had harbored against her disappeared. The threesome, Igor, Anastasia and he had been childhood buddies, living side by side in middle-class households in a beautiful suburb of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, for many the most beautiful city in Ukraine, on the hills near the Dnieper River. As kids, they would often go fishing in the Dnieper River, the surroundings echoing with their yells of triumph when they succeeded in baiting a fish. The swish of the fishing rod was nothing short of music to their ears. Could anything be more beautiful than those idyllic surroundings?
As they stepped into adulthood, both the boys fell in love with Anastasia, harboring hopes of marrying her. Anastasia chose Igor over him. Igor and Anastasia got married, and Ivan could never find another girl to love and stayed unmarried.
Now, the very same Anastasia stood before him, pale and shaking. He felt his mind shattering into a thousand pieces, as he saw her. Was he being sucked deeper and deeper into a terrible vortex? Thankfully he was saved, as he saw her pointing a shaking finger towards something under a tree in the distance.
All around the tree, there were smoldering buildings, and people were running around like rodents derailed in a rodent derby. Journalists were speaking into their mikes, giving a running commentary on what was happening around them.
He raced towards the tree. Hens scurried past him like maniacal break dancers, several of them trotted after him, as though he were out on a walk, and they did not want to be left behind. Under the tree, there was a boy’s body lying face down on the ground, and all around him, there were tongues of fire, trying to gobble him up. Undaunted by the fire, he navigated his way through burning cinders, shrapnel, and shards, and reached the tree, Anastasia’s petrified screams ricocheting against his ears. With quivering hands, he turned over the body. “It is Vasyl! It is Vasyl!” Anastasia’s hysterical cries once again filled the surroundings. “He is dead. He is dead! My son is dead!” Her shrieks became louder. Ivan bent low, putting an ear to the boy’s heart. “He is breathing. He is breathing. He is not dead. He is not dead. Can’t you hear me?” He yelled, shaking her by her shoulders. With a sheepish pang of guilt, he recalled how on many a sleepless night, in spurts of insane jealousy and the wounded pride of a twenty-one-year-old young man, he had harbored plans of shooting Anastasia and Igor both, or strapping them both into electric chairs, poisoning them, putting their house on fire, or giving them some lethal injections. Now, he shivered at those thoughts of insomniac nights, ashamed of his own culpability in the sinister hatred all around, and almost hid his guilt-ridden face in his sleeve.
Still hiding his face, he picked up eight-year-old Vasyl, hoisted him over his shoulder, and raced towards his home, zigzagging his way through burnt tanks, charred vehicles, food packets, and petrified folks looking for survivors in the rubble. Anastasia was racing behind him, screaming, “Are you okay, Vasyl? Are you okay?” On the way, they came across a knot of scruffy-looking people standing, holding placards that said, “The War is not over yet”. As he ran, the sunflowers in their beds, straightened their drooping spines, and turned their heads in their direction to see what was up.
The moment he put Vasyl tenderly on his bed, his eyes flew open, and he looked around with a dazed look. Miraculously, he had not received a single injury on his body, he had just fainted out of shock. When his eyes fell on his mother’s face, his lips quivered into a smile, and Anastasia hurled herself at him, smothering him with kisses, gingerly taking hold of his arms one by one to see whether there was any injury there. Mother and son spent the night there; Anastasia on a sofa next to her son’s bed, and Ivan in the next room. Early morning he was back in their room. “Hope he does not have an internal injury?” Anastasia asked him, her brow furrowed. Suddenly her eyes fell on the bruises on his arms, and she exclaimed: “Oh, the fire has burnt you.” “It is nothing. I have already applied an ointment.” He said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “My bruises will soon heal, what is important is that Vasyl has been untouched by the fire. He is as fit as that first ray of the rising sun”, he remarked, pointing towards a ray that had filtered into the room, and the cat was merrily playing paw-paw with it. “It was very courageous of you to have jumped headlong to save my child, unafraid of the fire.” Anastasia said, her whole body a picture of gratitude. “There can be no hurdles to love”, Ivan mumbled, eyes fixed on Vasyl’s face.
Ruffling Vasyl’s tousled hair, Anastasia smiled a tired smile in Ivan’s direction, and from the bed, Vasyl waved shyly at him. Right there a miracle took place. Ivan felt all his internal bruises and injuries healing. Outside, the war was still on, but his heart had declared a cease-fire to that inner conflict that had been raging for the past eleven years. He was at peace with himself- A thirty-two year old, young man, robustly convinced that soon the world would also heal itself, and love and peace would once again reign, and he believed that there was nothing naïve about it. Thoughtfully moving his fingers over his face, he felt the golden light of the sun falling right over his face- and the entire room seemed to glow in that light.
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Bio
Essayist, poet, short story writer, novelist, TEDx Speaker, Dr. Santosh Bakaya has been acclaimed for her poetic biography of Bapu, Ballad of Bapu [Vitasta, Delhi, 2015], and has more than twenty published books across different genres, including a well-received biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Her two collaborative e-books: Vodka by the Volga [with Dr. Koshy, Blue Pencil, 2020] From Prinsep Ghat to Peer Panjal [with Gopal Lahiri, Blue Pencil, 2021] have been Amazon bestsellers. Her latest book of poetry is Runcible Spoons and Pea-Green Boats. She runs a popular column, Morning Meanderings, in Learning and Creativity. Com