The Spectator

Second Contact - Chapter 6

Days stood motionless in the heat haze.

Two flights of stairs brought me to the terrace. I stepped outside. An unrelenting brightness stabbed my eyes. The sun was a blind disc scorching my retina. No sign of rain. As far as I could tell no storm in the offing either.

The top left pocket of my shirt was empty. No. 10s and my sunglasses were not there. This gave me pause. But small oversights like these seldom counted when measured against the larger scheme of things. The pupils are evolved to react within microseconds. They constrict and compense against the glare. As for cigarettes, their absence was cause for concern.

My mouth was dry, cells lining the epidermal layer parched. Mouth open wide I swallowed air, ran tongue over teeth and moistened the gums. The air tasted of drying sweat.

Tan colored pariah dogs rested anywhere they found ground unoccupied by man and kin. They panted and sprawled with scant regard for blazing sun or dappled shade.

I gathered pebbles and broken bits of masonry, aimed for the dogs, and when I heard half-hearted yelps I knew I had scored a hit.

Behind me was the river and before me the city slaughtered by the drought. Sunlight reflected from windshields of slow cruising taxis. Heat was unlocked from concrete lining the sidewalk. Heat galvanized the air. The air bucked, folded, a current running through it.

Shortfall of post-monsoon showers hadn't helped the situation either. People, who could, remained indoors, to avoid the late-afternoon sun, trapped behind dirt-blind windows and crumbling brick walls. Taps in their kitchens and bathrooms left open to announce the thirty-minute supply of municipality water each evening and morning.

Nearby, a children's slide cast in shape of a prehistoric predator with purulent green scales languished, abandoned. The city was at a stand-still, its inhabitants lost in some acute and half-remembered cretaceous languor.

I wiped sweat from neck, the face. Father's initials embossed one corner of the handkerchief-a discolored 'E' overlying a faded 'R.'

An unnatural light softened the foolscap edges of the day. A feverish sky, it had shifted through a spectrum of colors all afternoon. At noon the sky was pale eggshell blue. Some hours later I noticed it had taken a yolky luster. By 5 pm the color washed away, a few clouds bringing with them the crumbling texture of desiccated albumen. At 5.30 pm the sun was near the horizon. Sunlight reflected, sparkled the clock face across one panel of the turret, setting the roman numerals ablaze. The turret cast a shadow towards the east. I walked to the shadow.

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Time passed. Darkness settled and cloaked dimensions, removed stylization, reduced form to its basic elements. But the sky was still bright, lit by a hallowed glow.

Streetlights switched on. Revealed patches of light enveloped by wider tracts of black. A grid of sparkling streets connected me to the city. Across from the Barracks stood other buildings. Not one resembled the other. Yet, in a sense, these buildings were alike. Decaying tenements: spavined, overcrowded, unsanitary. The weather-beaten facades a measure of their decline.

Tugging at my sweat-soaked vest, I bunched up the fabric and rubbed it against the skin. I couldn't think of a way to stop the sweating.

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