A Dire Awakening

Epifanio

This is a story about…no, wait, scratch that. 

Once upon a… Nope.

So, this is my story and here it goes…

A decade ago, everything was thriving. We had good food, we drank pure water, we went to work and we worked hard. We were given breaks to rest in between, we had clean air to breathe. We all danced around and lived happily ever after.

Not exact on the last couple of words but you get the sense, right?

This is not coming from me, but my own ancestors, who have passed on this tale over generations, as they procreated, flourished and withered away, all within the confines of this world. 

At least, this is what I was told about when I was born. The assessment of my surroundings made it a little hard for me to believe it. You see, when I, Epifanio, was pro-generated, things were the very opposite of ‘thriving’.

Struggling and barely surviving, more likely.

The mise en scène had changed harrowingly since then. The sanctity of our world had been intervened by the life outside. Contentment, no longer; torment and bane, was all there was.

We still ate, worked and rested. But the premise had changed drastically. Rules were still being followed, but so many had started to succumb to those regulations and more often than not, death struck every other day, and on some days, every hour.

Funny how, even though everything was decided for us, with every little detail organised, things were still falling apart.

From the moment I was born, I witnessed nothing but death and destruction around me. Everyone passed on the stories about how all this didn’t start over in a day. 

No.

First, the food changed. It was never the healthiest to begin with, but it plummeted to a cheaper quality, something, that if consumed for long, would not be able to sustain life. Grease. Filth. Many a times, preserved and canned food was all we got for days on end. It burned our insides. They didn’t care. 

The abundant alcohol came next. Why is that bad, you may ask, because it came with its own toxins and a paucity of water. No, wait. I should know better. They specifically ‘denied’ us water. Alcohol was cheaper. So, they switched to it from something priceless. Do you know the toll it takes on human body, living dehydrated, thirsting for water, begging them to give us even an ounce of it. Try going without it for months. Just a glass or even less, in a day. You won’t like it.

But you know what, it seems irrelevant against bigger problems like smoked air, for instance. When you don’t have a choice between clean air or clean liquids, you are forced to consume both unclean. It burned red for days. Pain and suffering struck every living being in existence, which is why that generation suffered the most. They procreated before they died, so that many after them could come take their place and maintain the order of this institution.

Noone dared to rebel. Not even a mere ‘why’ was argued. Instead, fear was instilled amongst all. The army came for them. 

They came for us, surrounded us on all sides, poked and prodded us with their weapons, injected us with molecules and chemicals that digested us alive. It started within our bodies. It spread and dissipated everywhere, burned our organs, our core, our very existence. And to make a mockery out of our misery, they did not just stop there. No, they made sure that we were cut into tiny little pieces and then they left us to the scavengers. 

This is it. Our lives. Procreation to termination. Our short and sad lives. And mind you, it wasn’t sad before. We really did love working for them back then, in return for the basic necessities and respect, living a normal lifecycle. We don’t know why we are like this. Where do we come from or why, exactly? Where do we go once we dissolute and are scavenged? Are we reborn as our similar selves? But one thing is for sure, that it had always been in our conscience, to be born to work for this institution. Therefore, we never explored the why and the how.

But why am I telling you about our current grim little world right now? A cosmos where our fates have already been sealed and packed into neat little scrolls, passed over generations and given to every regulator, ranger and soldier who keeps an eye on us. How do you even dare to raise a finger or own a choice when there is no hope for the future.

My friends cry in the cell next to me, simultaneously working the pumps. They have never been as curious, nor had an awakening like me. A desire for inquisition, a search for a solution. They don’t even want to help themselves, why would they think about their community. 

The last time these soldiers murdered someone, who fell sick one day, they marched in front of us, injecting death into them, they sliced them up, to make it easy to dissolve their body. I had a dire awakening that day.

I was shaken to my core as I realised that what was happening everywhere around us, could very easily happen to me, too, any day, any moment. I could fall sick and get killed. No one would even bat an eye or hesitate to clean me up. Life would move on.

I was horrified to realise how alone I was, how vulnerable, without any control over my life. We were never rewarded. We were only punished. So why did we work? Again, I cannot know the answer to this because I was born without one; it was engraved in my mind, my neurons, to follow the rules. 

But then again, rules are meant to be broken, right? Exceptions. Anomalies. A mutiny. A mutant.

So while I was lost in work one day, I did something. I dared to think. 

A thought that was new, to me and to those around me. A plan. Unbeknownst to all but me. I would rebel. I cannot snatch the resources from them. Because I think even they don’t have a control over their food and water. I cannot clean the air alone. I cannot, single-handedly as such, stop the killings. I am weak without much fuel or energy and not a match to those hefty soldiers or their ready-to-kill injectables. 

But I had one power. Something I could hide even from their constant surveillance. 

Did I tell you that we have something called a form-shifting ability in us? Procreation in our world, through time and evolution of our bodies, has made it possible to change our ways to exist. We wouldn’t have to work for them anymore. We would live for ourselves, think for ourselves and stay alive. We can endure the torment better this way. A little mind of our own. A little power to ourselves. And how do I know all this? How am I aware of this even being a possibility?

Because I listen. To the same ancestors who passed on the tales of glory and injustice alike, also conveyed the rumours of rebellions that happened in other worlds around us. Places we might never see in our lives, but can communicate with, through signals. They told us it had happened somewhere, sometime back. It comes with evolution.

So I ponder over this question. What if we use their method to start a mutiny here? And by we, I mostly mean, myself. Because noone is brave enough to do this with me. Or maybe I should ask around and see.

“Psst!” I whistled to my co-workers. “I have a proposition for you guys. Please listen before you decide.”

Noone broke their rhythm because according to the rules, you cannot stop working. But I know they were listening. So I began.

“I know we are all starved and suffering. We don’t have enough energy to do something big, to counteract their power. But what if I tell you that together as a whole, we can do something about the conditions we are living in right now? After all, our only wish is to survive in this world.”

Whispers were passed out. And I knew I had their attention.

“They can kill us anytime for any number of reasons. They, themselves, have no control over the food, water or the air. So it can be said, that noone knows how to restore the harmony there once was. Not them, not the soldiers and certainly not us. So what else is left to live for? What else is under our control?”

“One thing!” I said and looked around. 

“Procreation. Increase our numbers. Combat them in a group, instead of one. Change our form. Change the way we survive this. I know they have an eye on us at all times. But give this a thought, they cannot stop us once we start! They will be bound to send in their army, to put the situation at ease. But, under the disguise of our changed forms, the alarm bells would not even begin to ring. They would never know. And no troops will be dispatched for us.”

“Why put all of us in danger?” A voice broke out to my right.

“Yeah, do it yourself if you are so eager about it!” Another chimed in.

I knew this moment would come. Questions will be raised. And I am not afraid. Not even a tiny bit scared of the consequences. Because instead of living under the emblem of a sealed fate, I would rather like to take a chance on curiosity and the same eagerness that they look down upon today. And believe me when I say, the day they will see the results favouring me, us, they will sooner or later join in instead. 

Which is why, with all the valour and heroism in me, I stepped forward to take this leap of faith, to rise against the violation, like a Phoenix reborn, from the ashes of years of abuse and mistreatment.

And I chose my own fate.

“I’ll do it!” I said.

***

Epilogue

Caleb

Few months later.

“I am afraid we have some bad news Caleb.” The doctor said. 

A sheen of sweat glazed Caleb’s forehead, his tremulous fingers rested on his lap. Dr. Duvane looked at his patient seated across the desk, waiting for him to register the fact that his biopsy results from a week ago were remarkably bad.

“Do you want some water?” He asked. 

“Just give it to me straight without sugar-coating anything. All of it. Now.” Caleb demanded, scared to his bones.

“Okay. The results of the biopsy have shown cancer in your stomach. The cells had been under distress for a long time because of various factors. They changed irreversibly. I am afraid the cancer has spread throughout your stomach.”

“How?” Was all that Caleb could manage to utter. He gulped and unclenched his throat, dreading the expected answer.

“As we know from the history you had provided at your last visit, the major risk factors for this might have been years of consumption of alcohol and nicotine. Given your older age, it could be another added, if not, a direct factor.”

Caleb wiped his forehead and took a sip from the glass of water placed in front of him. Then he nodded at the doctor to continue.

“You’ve mentioned here that you started smoking ten years ago, right? Which is a long period of stress on your body. You have stated that your diet mainly consisted of packaged and junk food, it could have been a contributing factor, too. We have no one way to point out what exactly caused the cells to mutate and multiply into cancer. It is rather a relative combination of diet, health, environment, co-morbidities and also our genes, that push the body’s cells too hard and too far.”

“The lining of the stomach, the ‘epithelium’, undergoes inflammation in response to such stressors. The individual cells may respond to that by trying to adapt to it at first. If the body is healthy enough to fight it off, these cells are killed in the beginning, by the body itself, to remove the injury from spreading further. We use the medical term, ‘Apoptosis’, a way of programmed cell death, by our body, a form of defence mechanism within us. These cells can be killed and their pieces are scavenged by the white blood cells and macrophages, the soldiers in our blood, thus clearing up the problem once it arises.”

“But if the factors remain in play for a long time, supported by the mutations we carry in our genes or receive sporadically from our environment, the clearance of such cells becomes difficult. Our genetic information is like scrolls of DNA inside every cell of our body. These mutations and genetic susceptibility may cause the such self-defence mechanisms to fail. The cells keep on adjusting and proliferating into newer forms. They procreate in abundance. The lining of the organ may change. We call it dysplasia at first, which is nothing but the abnormality of the cells. It might still be reversible upto a certain point. But under continued duress, we’re looking at a number of changes, all leading, eventually, to cancer.”

The doctor’s words were incomprehensible to Caleb, as he explained the various ways of how the body can change. All Caleb could hear was the word ‘cancer’. 

Dr. Duvane kept speaking, “Our bodies are an institution of balance. They fight a lot before they succumb to an injury. Warning signs are usually eminent. But if one ignores them, it stops listening to them, too. Once the cancer develops, it fights against the body for more of its resources, more amount of energy, oxygen and blood. It starves its surroundings. Although it goes differently with every case, this might be how it adapted, in this one.”

Caleb struggled to breathe. The world as he knew, had come to a standstill. He didn’t change. So his body did. It adapted and morphed into a cancer, that was consuming him alive.

“Is this the end?” He asked the doctor. 

Fate had played it’s card. 

Circumstances aside, for the past decade, he had treated his body poorly, feeding it in the worst way possible. He had destroyed the sanctity of it. 

The many days of eating easy and fast, the food he had swallowed had harmed his gut. The smoke he had inhaled and filled his room with, had suffocated him from the inside. From the everyday eye-opener to the empty bottles lined up on his table, after coming home from work, he had destroyed his chances of a healthier future. It was all catching up with him now. Not to mention the genetic susceptibility, the doctor had mentioned. Genes, DNA… No. this was all too much for him to bear right now. He needed a drink. And he needed it now. 

“Caleb, listen to me.” The doctor caught his attention. “Although the oncologist will be able to explain you better, but my word of advice would be to start your treatment as soon as possible. The cancer has to be tackled as early as we can after its diagnosis. It would increase your chances.”

It barely registered to him because Caleb was busy thinking. 

Fate had decided for him. 

This is how it had spoken.

A promise to take care of himself, he had broken. 

So, the destiny, too, didn’t wait for him to start caring. It changed.

Surely this couldn’t be the end?

“Can you beat fate?” He thought.