The explosion

I saw a large explosion far at the zenith of a big hill or may be a mountain. Strangely though, there was no sound. Before I could tell others around me, there were a series of explosions at distant places towards my left. Everyone panicked and ran towards a series of rooms. Me and a friend of mine, don't know exactly who, occupied the first room. I was not in India for sure but where was I, probably America because just after one of the explosions I saw a big statue lying meekly on the ground holding the torch in its hand.

 I closed the room from within, we could hear rhythmic steps of death at our door steps, we were thinking who could these people be? Chinese, Russians, Arabs...And then they were visible, hordes of them walking on the road with a clear mission of massacre of one and all. All of a sudden I had a scimitar in my hand, I don't know where it came from, but will I be able to fight the mighty army with just a fancy sword, instead I wanted a nuclear bomb to blow-off everything and become a martyr.

Outside the room I could hear the movement. They were out there to kill me, I was not thinking about my friend, in fact he was not in sight, where was he, he can't go anywhere from this small room except through that door where the killers awaited us.

But I was not afraid, there was not a trace of fear within me. All the while I was pretty sure that the Americans in retaliation would bomb them before they fire a single bullet on me. Americans!! Why? Was that America for sure?

They opened up the door, and all of a sudden I woke up; I was dreaming and had a terrible feeling about why I was not afraid in my dream. Is it that I realized in my dream that it was a dream. I was pretty much confident that nothing is going to happen to me. From where that foolish confidence crept in?

Was that normal? Do people tend to lose sanity when death is in front of them or they apply a simple logic that there is no point in being fearful of a death that was so certain.

I was still thinking and there was a thuderous knock on my door. Ohh they are here. They have chased my dream. But how is that possible? Or was that not a dream at all?

'Son, get ready soon we need to fix a lot of things before we leave for America.' a familiar voice, in fact much like my dad's declared.


--sudharm baxi