The Destiny of Shaitan

by Laxmi Hariharan

  “No — not the kind you have got in the real world. You would have been born with the ultraviolet barcode on your back. Just strip and I’ll show you.”

  Realising that resistance is futile; Yudi wordlessly strips off his shirt and turns his back to Fu for inspection. The pinhead on Fu Zebox’s forehead lights up all of a sudden and he scans Yudi’s back. Yudi is almost bent over from the waist. He looks at Tiina, questioning her wordlessly.

  Humming under his breath, Fu Zebox chuckles suddenly. “Hmm, yes it is here … Very light, very faint, but here, nevertheless.” He pats Yudi’s behind, not without affection, much as a father would an errant ton. Then, growing serious, he says, “The dyes have faded off your back, eh? How many times have you been put through the wringer of life, then?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” replies Yudi.

  “Ah, well.” Fu sighs. “You young people of today don’t even make an effort to remember your past, do you?”

  He leads them out of the large cinema. They follow him down yet another corridor. This one is dry and lit moderately. They hear the faint sounds of someone speaking, then a crash and a gun going off. They pass a broken-down confectionary stand with aged pink cotton candy vending machines.

  As Fu pulls aside the curtain leading into the preview space, Tiina hesitates. “Can you give us a minute? Alone? A last chance to talk?”

  “OK,” says Fu, “come when ready.” He smiles and walks through into the inner sanctum.

  Tiina waits for him to pull the black curtain behind him and then retraces her steps back towards the broken showcases. She sinks down onto the floor, crosses her legs and leans against the wall, a little plastic broken goo goo doll.

  “Tiina, this is not a good time to meditate,” says Yudi.

  “You change your mind?” Rai asks Tiina.

  She shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says, “I can’t get over the ‘If’.”

  “Again?” asks Yudi in surprise. “I thought we had that one out of the way earlier.”

  Rai says patiently, “OK, if this is bothering you so much, then let us talk about it.”

  Tiina looks at him gratefully.

  “Better to do this now than when we are even further along with no means of turning back,” he says.

  Tiina says, “What if, in fact, all this is terribly wrong and none of this is really happening? What if this is all in our heads?”

  “You mean it’s all a dream?” asks Yudi. “So perhaps we have never met and are in fact not in Bombay now?”

  Tiina nods. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  Yudi walks up to her and pinches her sharply. “Ow,” she exclaims, rubbing her upper arm. “What is that for?”

  “It’s not a dream,” he says.

  “But you have to admit, it’s probable,” emphasises Tiina. “So, the possibilities are killing me.”

  “You have always been sure that we are the chosen ones, right?” asks Rai.

  “Yes,” says Tiina, hesitantly.

  “Well, so if we are the chosen ones, then all this should be real... Don’t you think?” asks Rai.

  “Oh! Forget about the chosen ones!” Tiina exclaims.

  “Really?” asks Yudi. “You are finally coming around to my way of thinking.”

  “But why would you think so?” asks Rai. “Why be normal?”

  “Why not be normal?” asks Yudi. “A job, kids, house in the suburbs, picket fence. I see nothing wrong with this picture.”

  Rai interrupts “It’s just boring.”

  “Where’s the popcorn?” Tiina asks, looking at the crumbling walls around her.

  “So do you want to just give up then? Go back to what you were doing because the way forward is hazy?” Rai asks her

  “I don’t know. Oh!” Tiina’s face crumples up.

  “Come, then,” says Rai, “jump. We have nothing to lose, have we?”

  “Except our souls,” says Yudi.

  “Jump and you shall be caught,” says Rai under his breath.

  “Eh?”

  “Trust in your destiny, Tiina,” says Rai. “After all, you are writing it yourself.”

  He walks up and touches Tiina’s cheek. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me on this.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No,” says Rai, “I’m going in.” He walks towards the entrance to the small preview theatre, lifts the curtain there, and turns to ask, “Coming?”

  Yudi and Tiina watch him enter, then look at each other.

  Yudi follows Rai’s example. When it is his turn to lift the curtain, he turns back to look at Tiina, raising his eyebrows in question.

  “I’m in,” says Tiina.

  They step over the threshold into the theatre. The black curtain falls back from the silver screen in an angelfish swish and the opening credits of Roberto Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn roll up on screen as they walk in and seat themselves uncomfortably in the centre of the fifty seat theatre. There is now no sign of Fu.

  Yudi says, “So, folks. Sit back. Relax. Enjoy the show.”

  Rai adds, “Well, for the moment at least, why not?”

  Each of them unconsciously decides on the path of least resistance. They have had a few adventures, with many more to come. All they can do for now is enjoy the respite afforded to them and literally just take it easy. If they looked closer, they would realise that the other seats are also occupied, by the ghosts of Half Lives before them, people, entities from various parts of the world, who tried to make the same journey and are now cheering them on silently.

  They settle into the old bucket seats to enjoy the movie. It could have been a normal trip to the Cineplex. Tiina and Rai occupy two seats in the centre of the cinema, with Yudi in the row behind them, behind Rai. His eyes dart around the place trying to pierce the cloying darkness. He has picked up on Tiina’s nervousness and, as the worry builds, he does his best to quell the anxieties that grip him. He fidgets with his hands, moves his hips around in his seat, shuffles his feet and sighs again.

  Tiina whispers to him, mock dramatically, “Oh! For some popcorn.”

  Yudi whispers back, “A final treat. Oh, yes please.”

  “Shush,” Rai admonishes them.

  They settle into their seats, trying to overcome the feeling of awful apprehension that has crept over them. Steel claws embedding into their backs, tightening their hold on their misery. Finally they quiet down, falling into some semblance of calmness and manage to even get engrossed in the movie.

  Their first inclination of a world going insane is Fu Zebox appearing on screen and winking at them.

  “Did you see that?” whispers Tiina excitedly.

  They look at each other and then back to the screen, where the movie relentlessly sweeps on, a yellow rubber ducky bobbing on the tidal wave of confusion emanating from the lost trio.

  George Clooney (at-least they think it is him) and Fu Zebox, the very same person who they met earlier in flesh and blood, walk into the bar as the movie unfolds. Then the young Chinese boy who is Fu’s son on screen looks at them and steps out. One moment they are watching the movie, the next the boy is walking towards them, over the small stage in front of the screen. The movie continues to roll.

  They sit motionless, dominos waiting to be knocked down. All three of them wear the same look of surprise, doubts churning inside.

  Yudi leans towards Rai and whispers, “Just when you thought it was safe to go out ...”

  Rai slaps him mildly, then says, “I have to agree. After all the adventures so far, I wouldn’t have thought I could have been surprised, but this is unexpected.”

  “Hello there,” says Tiina to the young boy.

  “My pleasure and greatest honour that the three assembled divinities called on me.” The boy puts out his hand, his voice ringing with a clear American twang.

  Yudi wonders if he should laugh now or give vent to his hysteria later. Tiina senses rather than sees the ripples extend out from Yudi’s sh
oulders to the tips of his palms, and before he can incriminate himself further, she plunges in.

  “One-directional, one-eyed, one mission,” she proclaims, looking at the boy, who replies instantly, “Eye of the needle.”

  “Innocent, yet numb to the really important stuff,” she says.

  He thinks it through, mulling that one over. Then replies confidently, “Single-minded.”

  Then he says, “My turn now.” Turning to Tiina, Rai and Yudi, he proclaims, “Together a unit. An egg and yolk. The first trips. He falls down and does not get up, the second moves on to find a new mate. The first then gets up, and is shocked …” He pauses. “Well, would any one of you care to complete that?”

  “The first gets up and, shocked, decides to form a boy band, singing eulogies to the one they lost …” bursts out Rai, as the other two try to fathom the reasoning behind what they have just heard.

  The boy laughs, pleased. “The two of you have passed the test. We are on the same wavelength.”

  He then looks at Yudi, the flashing lights from the screen reflecting off his face, his white shirt glowing, and the buttons seemingly fluorescent. “I know that all of you have questions,” he says. “What is it, Yudi?”

  “How do you know my name?” asks Yudi in surprise. Then, in answer to his own question, he shakes his head and says, “No.” He puts up his right hand. “Don’t even answer that. I am the only one dancing in the dark. After all, I am just the stooge, while they,” he gestures to his companions, “they play the lead, right?”

  Tiina moves over to him and holds his upright hand. “That’s not true, Yudi. We want you on this journey. If you don’t come, what will happen to our story?”

  “Your guardian figure, who silently watches over you, guides your invisible cord, tying you back. Both of you have one? Well guess what? I do not. So, what’s the deal, eh?”

  Mic smiles then, not saying anything.

  Sensing that the situation is more humorous to the others than to him, Yudi flares up angrily. “And what are you smiling at, you … what’s your name anyway?”

  “I can be anyone you want me to be,” he says.

  “Flaccid?” Rai asked bewildered. “How …?” His voice tapers off and Rai sinks back into his seat, shaking his head.

  Tiina looks at the boy trying to determine the truth. Truth or dare? Halley’s comet, which burnt out?

  “Are you by any chance also a mermaid?” asks Rai in a droll voice.

  In answer, the boy looks down at his hands and holds them up for inspection ... “Look, no scales.”

  “Why mermaid?” Tiina asks Rai, puzzled.

  “Well, just this crazy dream I had been having, eh … and I had been wondering who was responsible for it,” answers Rai.

  “Of course it was me,” says the boy. “Don’t you love my holographic skills? Those manifestations were my best work,” he says

  “What’s your name by the way?” asks Yudi.

  “Mic,” says the boy, and waits for the inevitable question.

  “Mic?” asks Yudi, interrupting. “Mic?” He blows air out in a rush. “What kind of a name is that, anyway?”

  “Acronym for Man in the Computer,” Mic answers, still smiling.

  “Of course,” says Yudi. “Of course. Ask a stupid question.” For some reason, Yudi finds himself getting even more upset.

  He shakes off Tiina’s hand and walks up to Mic. Then, leaning down from his height until he is eyelevel with the boy, he hisses, “Well, tell me who you really are and why you have been messing around with our lives?”

  To Rai and Tiina’s surprise, Mic draws himself up to his full height and says, “What would you like to know, Yudi? What do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to talk about how the jazz, blues, bhangra, beats, rock, and swing, all of the music as you know it, is going to fade away from the future? That we are going to lose the music in this world? That you are looking at the destiny of the unreal? That you are trying to make the future, as you do not know it yet, come into existence? That you are trying to mow down anything that comes in its way and you are going to do it all wrong, for in destroying the bad, you will also destroy the good?

  “No, Rai,” Mic says then, “it’s not going to be like Mad Max, and Tiina, no, it’s not going to be like The Terminator or The Postman or anything close to Hollywood’s visions of the end of the world as such. However, they did come close, in envisioning everything you see here,” he gestures.

  “All this will give way to a new beginning. A future which exists only in the minds of you, the visionaries, born of the decisions made by you on the road to their future, everything depends on which bend in the road you are willing to take.”

  He stops and looks at them.

  At his words, Yudi can feel his heart speed up, that old wretched, feeling of hopelessness washes right through him.

  He doubles over, huddled against the pain growing inside.

  Tiina runs across to him. “Yudi, what?” She holds him, trying to comfort him.

  Rai looks at Mic. “We want him to come with us, he belongs with us.”

  “Well, the two of you are more powerful, you know that,” says Mic. “You may need him now, but he will just turn out to be more of an interruption than a help to you in any way. I suppose he could come as a bit of light relief, if you know what I mean.”

  Tiina looks up at him. “What are you talking about? What are you doing to him?”

  “Does it matter?” asks Mic.

  “Of course,” she says, horrified, “of course it does.”

  “Let’s just say that Yudi did the right thing in tracking you down and bringing you on this journey. For, as you have always known, he is your soul mate. Twin souls in many ways, he is the unwanted one. To be cast off at some point.”

  “So I am now an extra ... extra ... thing,” he says searching for the right word “Something to be cut off and thrown away, never to be missed?” says Yudi weakly.

  Tiina sits back right there on the dusty floor between the seats on the aisle. She is silent. And right now all she can feel is how incomplete it is without Yudi.

  The overpowering urge to protect him sweeps over her. She looks at Yudi, his head cradled against her breasts. Yudi looks up at her and she can see the tears forming in his eyes. “Tiina?” he whispers through the pain. “I am sorry for hurting you. It is only after you left that I knew. It was all so clear. I cannot leave you ... Cannot ... live without you …” His voice dies down and Yudi closes his eyes. Tiina panics as his breathing begins to slow down.

  Her mind races back, whispering over his skin, back to the feeling of being immersed in him, the comfort of oneness, the terrifying loneliness without him, the being buried under the weight of his body giddy-light-headed sensation ... she feels it all at the same time.

  "Yes/No — tick the right answer, please”, she whispers aloud. Then, making a decision, says aloud, “I still want him with us.”

  Mic shrugs. “It’s your decision. Don’t say that I did not warn you.” He turns then to walk towards the screen, his cover, his home carried on his back.

  “Wait,” says Rai, and Mic turns around.

  “Who are you? Really?” asks Rai.

  “Don’t speculate, Rai,” Mic says. “Does the truth have anything to do what you think I am or was anyway?” He sighs. “Look at me carefully. You see me now, don’t you?”

  Without waiting for them to reply he goes on. “I am the everlasting thread and the light that beckons. I am here to guide you the chosen ones to the origin.”

  “This is crazy ... he is raving mad,” Yudi groans from his place on the ground where he has curled up as if back in the womb. Fear seems to vibrate from him in waves washing over the room, its light cold fingers gripping Tiina’s heart in its death’s grip.

  “Next he’ll say that we are not really here and all this is a dream,” Yudi coughs.

  “Yes,” says Mic, “born of technology which is, was, and will be the same. All thought throu
gh. The chosen ones will play lead roles in this film. Born with a special gene sequence, a third strand in the DNA.”

  “A third strand?” Rai asks, interested despite himself.

  “It’s not a secret,” says Tiina, sitting up and looking at Rai. She rises to her feet. “I’ve read a bit about it. Apparently, over the years geneticists have discovered the occurrence of a third strand in the cells of many Half Lives. But it becomes active in only some people.”

  Mic nodded. “Very good, Tiina.”

  She continues, trying not to flush at his praise. “And so the strand, on being rekindled, gives rise to …”

  “Perception? Psychic powers? Sensitivity?” Rai finishes the sentence.

  “Yes,” adds Mic, “and in your particular case, the strand in question was activated from the moment you all set foot in Bombay. The base energy vibrations of the city act as the trigger to unravel the special protein sequence which all of you have been born with.”

  Tiina adds, “Bombay. Where we can trace back the origins of the first Half Lives. The experiment of the future, providing the ideal conditions for the mating of the first human with alien species. It’s special enough.”

  “So that’s why the gateway to the other dimensions exists here?” asks Rai.

  “Yes,” replies Mic. “So the other species could come and go as they pleased. And it provided a safety valve to balance all the strong passions created from destiny being changed. Rocking the established world order to give rise to the new age. Bombay is on the threshold of the many worlds and hence its energies have to be kept in balance.”

  “So the most good and most evil reside here,” concludes Rai “Newton’s third law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

  “It figures,” says Tiina. “There has to be a minus for the plus.”

  “Or there would have been if the three of you had followed the original plan,” says Mic.

  “Isn’t that what we are doing right now?” asks Rai.

  “No. You’ve been changing the sequence of events all along, fighting too hard.”

  “Changing everything we came across.”

  “Sadly, that’s just how you Half Lives are. You always have to interfere, don’t you? But then it does show that you have the instincts and the intelligence, so in a strange way confirms that I was right all along. But you know that already, don’t you ...Tiina?”