The Sky is Falling

I 

I was walking down the street at noon and as I looked up, a deep, blood red sky greeted me. I was surprised that I wasn't surprised looking at an unconventional sky. I kept walking. I met a few of my friends. They were laughing. I started laughing too.

 "The green sky is so weird" One of them said. 

"Hey, it's violet!" Another protested, still laughing. 

I looked up again. It was black now, engulfing everything within its purview, slowly advancing towards where I was standing. I screamed.

"Wake up! Claire! What happened? Why are you screaming?" 

When I opened my eyes, I saw the worried eyes of my husband looking at me, his hands on my shoulder, shaking me gently. I sat up on my bed and looked around. I was sweating profusely and took some time to adjust to reality. 

And then I realised it was a dream. I felt relieved and gradually my heartbeat slowed down. 

George handed me a glass of water and sat by the edge of the bed, looking worried. 

"Tell me" he implored. 

"It was a dream, rather a nightmare. The sky …" 

I stopped midway as my eyes fell on the streak of light coming in through the window. I felt my eyes would bulge out of the sockets. My heart beat raced up as I jumped down the bed and started running towards the terrace.

"Claire!" George screamed, perplexed. I saw him coming after me.

When I reached the terrace, I felt I would faint. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the sky innumerable times but neither did the sky change nor did I wake up, this time. 

The sky was blood red. 

II 

"How can it change? Is it some scientific phenomena? Apocalypse? Is this the end?"

 I was pacing the room, impatient. 

"You say it was red?" George asked. He was sitting on the sofa, legs crossed and an expression of excitement like a 5-year old, pasted on his face. The red light kept pouring in through the window to the left of the sofa in our living room. I nodded, absent-mindedly.

"But I saw a different colour. It's Green" 

"What!" I looked at him, completely caught off guard. He shrugged and leaned back.

 I didn't expect this. "I think the internet might have something to say" 

I kept searching for an answer frantically in the internet, television news channels and weather reports but, in vain. There was not even a hint of such a drastic change. Was it just us? 

The day passed quickly but the sky didn't change. In the evening, the colour changed to orange. George said he could see a light green colour. At night, everything faded to a reddish black for me.

A bleak possibility that George was lying, about seeing the sky green tormented me, but I didn't want to consider that possibility then, not with a red sky above my head.

III 

The next day was Monday and the sky was blue. I was relieved for a day, and tried to forget the previous day like it was a bad dream. But on Tuesday, the sky turned to blood red again, for good.

On Wednesday, I reached college in due time. The sky was still red, the colour imposing its texture upon everything I could see. It seemed that I was suddenly looking at the whole world through a red filter. 

I didn't talk to anyone regarding the strange sky. I was sure everyone would take it as a joke or think I was mad. A red sky!? I wouldn't have believed it myself. 

When it was time for my class, I thought I could actually try a little test to see if there were other queer people like me and George. All the students were seated when I reached the classroom. I kept my diary on the table and turned towards them, a book on Ancient Civilizations in hand.

"Let's begin our class" I said, slowly, making up my words, "The climate is changing fast" I scanned the whole room to see if anyone's expression changed. "The weather is so strange today isn't it? The sky specially…" 

Everyone looked blank, nodding to what I said, except one.

 Ashley, a second year student who I remembered as a rebel and who didn't quite fit in with others, came up to me when the class was over. 

"I wanted to talk to you" 

"Sure" I smiled. 

"It's about the sky" I knew it.

"Let's talk outside" 

We came out of the classroom and walked together towards the park. 

"So, you can also see a different sky?" I asked.

 She took a long time to answer "A broken sky" 

I looked at her, completely out of my wits. 

"BROKEN?" She nodded. 

"The whole sky appears dark blue but broken. I can see the sharp edges jutting out. What do you see?" I looked at her, really worried.

"A blood red sky. It seems as if blood would drip on me if it rains. Why is it that only a few of us can see a strange sky?" 

She was unusually quiet. "Is this a message?" 

I called up Maria at evening, because there was no other person I could trust with this weird secret. She arranged to meet me in Coco's Cup at 5 pm sharp. 

"A red sky?" 

I nodded. I almost thought she would burst out laughing but she didn't. I quietly praised myself for my choice of a confidant. 

"Is there anyone else?" she asked. I told her everything. 

"Well…I have to think about it" 

Maria was a writer and I knew she looked at the world with different glasses. Moreover, she wrote about things that mainstream society disapproved and which dealt with queer religious faith, sects and occultism. Perhaps, she could find the answers. 

IV 

"Claire!" Maria screamed into the cell at Friday night 

"You were right. It's dark violet!"

 "What? The sky?" I screamed back, knowing the answer.

 "I don't know what this means! I took a nap just now and when I woke up, the sky had changed. It seems like it’s falling!" 

Falling? Was my nightmare coming true? Would the sky engulf us all? Or, just a few of us? 

"I am just very scared, Maria. No one can see a strange sky apart from the four of us" 

"I am sure there are more" she said, suddenly very calm.

 When I hung up, George came up to me. 

"Peter can see a white sky" He said "An empty canvas, he said. I also asked Natasha. She sees a normal blue sky. She thought I was joking" he laughed. I smiled sadly. 

What was going on? When a week passed without answers, I began questioning my sanity. Queer, broken with sharp edges and falling skies clouded my senses. I could no longer teach or do simple daily chores. 

There was something going on, for sure. 

V 

After two weeks of red sky, the weather report for the day forecasted rain. I was curious for I wanted to know if it rains blood. 

I was mentally prepared and that was why I didn't scream my heart out when I saw red liquid falling on the ground. Slowly, I extended my hand out of the window. It wasn't blood. It just was coloured water. What was the colour of the water anyway?

I thought I was going mad. 

The whole thing was outrageously ridiculous. Half of the days I woke up believing it was all a bad dream until my eyes fell on an intense red sky and my mind went back to the labyrinth. Most of the times I refused to believe my eyes. I avoided looking at the sky. But denial only made things worse. 

In the preceding days, I had asked a lot of people if they could see a strange sky. Some could but the majority of them thought I was mad, as expected. 

I had also used a diary to analyse the whole matter. The total number of people with queer vision was 15. I looked at the names and thought about us all the time and tried to find some pattern, some similarity between the 15 people, who were supposedly special. The following day, Maria called all the 15 people to her house. 

She said she had found something.

VI 

"What do you mean?" 

Maria had kept a medium sized diary on the table which left us staring at each other. "This diary has all our answers?" Ashley asked. 

Maria nodded.

 "This diary has all the information I collected in the last two weeks. After days of searching on the internet and the National Library for some lead, I found an article in a website. It is stacked in such a remote corner of the internet that I was lucky to find it. The article was an excerpt of the incomplete research on a manuscript named The Social Prism " 

"I have heard that name!" Ashley cried out. 

"Where?" I asked, curiosity mounting. 

"In a book. Now, I have forgotten what it was about" She started thinking, when Maria interrupted.

 "Maybe you will remember when I reveal everything to you. Well I couldn't have done all the research without Alan and Esther here, who are my dear friends. Alan knows a great deal about Alchemy" 

"Alchemy! That's so cool!" George exclaimed.

 "Tell us about The Social Prism" I said. 

"Yes. It was written about 2000 years ago. No one knows who wrote it. As society evolved, people forgot about the manuscript. It was unearthed much later in the 19th century and is in the National Archive now. 

A research was initiated but left incomplete because the government banned any kind of research or study on the manuscript. The unpublished findings of the study is available over the internet but much of it is lost now" 

"Why did the government ban the study?" Victoria asked, acting mouthpiece for all. 

"Because the government claimed that the theory was anti-social and would give rise to a deviant sect that would destroy the structural foundation of the society. The society thinks the theory is false, only it isn't" Esther explained.

 There was tangible silence lingering about in the room. I felt I could touch the tension if I wanted to. 

"Woah!" George exclaimed. 

"What's the theory then?" Ashley asked. 

"According to it, society is an external fact that influences our being. It is a social fact. It exercises social control. We know all this. What we don't know is this. 

There takes birth a certain number of people every generation who are not conformist, who are not mute imitators of what the society imposes. For them the world is different. Their colours are different. It goes through the prism, here, the social prism and comes out as different colours, not the colour the society tells us. Our colours do not merge with everyone else’s. That's why we see different colours, sometimes even broken" Maria looked at Ashley, softening visibly "For us the world is what we are" 

The world is what I am? 

"The blue sky is normal, a conventional sky for the society. But for us, normal is what we make it. We do not fit in, because we have the courage to stand out. We belong to that group"

 VII 

"Claire" George cuddled up to me. We were in the terrace, lying on the mat, and gazing up at the queer sky. 

I looked at a reddish black sky and he, at a dark green. We were special indeed! 

"Are you still thinking about it?" 

"It's a little hard to believe you know! It's incredible" George said and I agreed. 

 "But I am still not satiated. She didn't tell us why I see a red sky and you green. Why does Ashley see a broken sky of all the people?" 

"She would tell us tomorrow, Claire. It's just a few hours. In the meantime, we could actually think about it and reach at our own conclusions you know!" George raised his eyebrows at me. 

"Well, red stands for passion, power and danger. Isn't it? Does that mean I am dangerous?" I laughed. 

"But it's the colour of love too" George said in a gentle whisper "You are fiery Claire. You are emotionally very intense. You are strong and passionate. Perhaps that's why you see red" I was seriously impressed by his explanation.

 "And you?" I said "Green stands for freshness, vitality, life and energy. It is justified. You are always jovial and cheerful. You feel so fresh" 

"But green also means jealousy and greed" George said "It's like everything in this universe has a white and a black side" 

"Ashley must be broken inside" I wondered.

"Maybe" 

We stared into space. 

"You see, we are different. Remember how you'd fought for your freedom, for your job when mom said, you couldn't work after we married? I supported you. We are different Claire and above all, we are not scared to be different. We don't live fearing the unknown, submitting to the norms we have created. I would rather see a green sky forever than a blue one, you know!" 

I looked at George and smiled. 

"Will the sky always be like this? Would it rain red liquid?" I thought aloud. 

George clasped my hand in his, still looking at the sky. 

"Can you see the stars, Claire?"