This is a very, very long issue of mush and might go beyond gmail’s limit so let’s get straight to the point. I hope you’re well and that you’re safe. We have a continuation of Farshogar Vazifdar’s story Touch, along with a photo/narrative piece by Raqeeb Raza, leading into our closer by Rohin Bhatt. I love you all, please stay safe.
One last thing, mush strives to publish narratives that are meant to be sat with and absorbed over time. So slow down and take as much time as you need, we’re not going anywhere, we promise.
x Veer Misra (@v.eird)
Touch: For some reason you all disintegrate. Disappear. Poof! by Farshogar Vazifdar
The scientists wanted to build a portal. We don’t know why, we don’t know to where. All we knew is that the science was close to getting there, and scientists from all over the world were trying to be the first to be able to open up a gateway out of nowhere, but for some reason the experiment never succeeded.
That was until it finally did. It was one of the Swiss scientists, if I remember correctly, that finally managed to do it. What we know what happened (at least, what we could decipher from the rubble that was left there when it all opened up) was that some ray of light at a particular wavelength hit some particular atom at just the right angle – the odds of that happening were way too slim for it to have been an accident – and before they knew it, the slit in the cathode sheet was too volatile to control. Of course, experts believe that the change in the air pressure in that moment, coupled by the fact that an entire planet stood where it didn’t a couple of seconds ago, would have killed the scientist and his assistants (and everyone almost ten kilometers around) almost instantly.
But citizens from all over the earth could not believe what they saw.
The Vatican believed that a new God had risen, the Americans believed that they were under attack, the Indians believed that Kalki had finally arrived. But not a single soul knew how to react to a planet identical to our’s accelerating into the sky. Of course, the two earths soon began spinning around each other in a double helix. With all the chaos of an alien planet, there was a period where our fears were compounded by the idea that the gravitational pull from the other planet would put us off our path around the sun, but I guess some astronomer somewhere helped us collectively breathe a sigh of relief when they calculated that we were safe on our trajectory in the Solar System.
We did lose our moon that first night, though. There was no place in the night sky for two large satellite rocks hurtling through space, and our moon was flung out into space and was never seen again. Some say that she was set on a path straight to join Saturn and her many moons. Some say she’d return every few years or so as a comet. Some said that she had flown right into the arms of her lover, the sun. No astronomer had the heart to tell us what really happened to our moon.
But we weren’t alone when we looked up into space anymore, for there we were, looking right back at an identical planet. Like clockwork, every 12 hours, the other planet would pass overhead. And even if you couldn’t see, you’d feel it passing right over you. You’d feel this tingle in your stomach pulling you towards the west as it rose up over the horizon. And as it would go higher into the sky, you’d feel the tingle crawl higher and higher until it finally reached the back of your neck. Light objects like stationery and clothes would start to float ever so gently in the air. Those who had long hair would find it difficult to keep it down as it stood up pointing accurately to where in the atmosphere the planet was moving. And when you’d jump, you’d feel slightly afraid at how long it would take you to come back down.
Those 385 seconds as the other planet passed overhead would be some of the most magical moments we’d ever experience. There’d be this certain excitement in the air every time it happened. You’d hear people screaming with joy as they see yet another object float a few inches in the air. The wind would blow slightly faster almost as if it were tugged by our planet as it passed by. And if our twin happened to pass right in front of the sun (which wasn’t a rare occurrence) the sky would suddenly go dark, birds would start chirping loudly, and you’d be able to see their green masses of land against their blue water very clearly.
And we found our peace with the planet. No one knows who sent the first parcel but very soon everyone began sending gifts of fruits and postcards in their own little homemade air-pump rockets across space to our neighbours. You’d have to launch right as the planet appeared over the horizon just for the rocket to catch the gravitational tug and land on the destination planet. You never know who’d receive your parcel, and who sent you the one you find in your backyard; but any opportunity to open a gift from them always turned into a communal occasion, and the bounty would be shared amongst everyone who attended. World leaders too sent their official diplomatic gifts with remote controlled drones, of course, that delivered it to specific locations, but we regular folk loved the element of surprise with our endowments.
And as the days turned to weeks, we grew fond of our new anonymous friends. We were still unsure about who they were and what we intended to do with them in the long run, but we learned to enjoy their company. The conspirators soon proclaimed alien life forces, the religious fanatics began to get nervous and the capitalists drafted plans to explore their lands. But everyone soon found their peace with their neighbours. I don’t think there was ever a moment in humanity’s history where there was as little conflict as there was those weeks.
That was until the headline came out. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. They retold stories about how they came to learn about the warning more often than stories of the incident itself. I mean, what could you do when you’re told that the planets were inching towards each other ever so quickly, that within a year they’d collide?
People moved back in with their families. They learnt to cherish their dear ones even more. Coastal cities were evacuated because we were warned that the tides would soon get stronger and rush in further. Families migrated to the mountains, rushed inland to their villages; taking with them their bare essentials as rations were set to ensure everyone got a fair share of supplies. The situation soon turned post-apocalyptic even before the apocalypse occurred.
We taught ourselves to cherish the little joys. The moments with our friends and families that we knew would be cut short very soon. But we all knew we couldn’t truly be happy, not with the end of our planet literally looming over our heads.
And as weeks soon passed, we began weighing down our belongings, ensuring nothing flew too far when the planet flew overhead. We could jump higher than ever before! Some say that you could jump from a ten storey high building and you’d glide down gently like a feather. And when we’d look up at the planet as it passed by, we no longer saw shapes of lands, but roads, trees, little houses with their humans walking around like ants, looking up at us as we looked up to them.
Sometimes we were certain we saw them wave. We were sure we saw a couple of them glide as they jumped. Some say they could even see them dance! And in that fleeting moment as we crossed horizons, all the humans on either side were certain of their inevitable end.
We’d still send them gifts, though. We no longer needed special rockets, and could now send across all our presents through gas balloons that we let go of in backyards and remote controlled toy planes.
And as we’d live through each day, we’d see the planet coming closer. And we’d realise we could jump higher. And we’d receive yet another book or CD collection for a TV show that we’ve already consumed before.
The rumours spread really quickly, that some man in some other country jumped too high with too much power and landed on the other planet. We never heard if he managed to make the jump back home again, but we’d keep hearing stories of people jumping up and not returning. Soon governments advised against heading outdoors as the planet made its passage overhead, and banned the transfer of gifts through non-official carriers.
Until the day finally arrived. Scientists had calculated the exact date and time (and location where the planets would eventually make contact. Two entire worlds sat, surrounded by their loved ones, waiting, patiently for the ball of fire or earth shattering earthquakes or volcanic rain or whatever it would be that would wipe them out forever. People shuttered their windows, climbed down into bunkers, holed themselves up in mountainous caves waiting for the predestined moment.
The predestined moment that never arrived.
At first we thought we were the lucky few that survived the disaster. That somehow our concrete walls or our boarded up windows had managed to protect us from whatever had happened out there. Yet, when we stepped out we saw no red sky burning with fire, no acidic rain, no chaos and rubble in the street. It seemed like not a single pebble had shaken when the two monolithic planets collided. We were all just as confused as we were the day the other earth arrived. And now it had evaporated just as suddenly as it disappeared.
That seemed to be exactly what happened. No sooner had the planets brushed each other did the alien planet begin to vanish. And it did – as witnesses often retold – almost too quickly. Those living nearby couldn’t even hear the entire rocky planet as it faded into thin air.
What they did hear were the screams of the other citizens as they glided slowly down to our planet.
Up until now we had had no contact besides the packages we’d send. But now, they were here. In front of us. On our planet.
And they were just like us. Quite literally.
They... were us.
At first we greeted them warmly. We welcomed them into our houses. We offered them our food. We let them build their communities in our abandoned cities. They were human. And we couldn’t deny them the kindness we had an abundance of. They seemed to know their way around very well though. Their planet had apparently been identical to our’s. And soon they wanted to go back to their countries. They wanted to move back, if not right where they used to live, but nearby. They were understanding of the fact that resources were scarce now that the population of this planet had suddenly doubled, and they were willing to compromise. So we let them travel back to their homeland.
We built them towns, cities in fact, with buildings with plumbing and sewage channels. They built their schools, their places of worship, their institutions. And to hasten this process, they used the same blueprints as the cities they once inhabited. They knew their places of residence well, and were happy to live a life identical to what they once had on another planet. Once the identical townships were built, their neighbours began to visit to welcome them.
And that’s when things went awry.
The reports of the Other Humans disappearing soon began to spread. At first we considered it to be crimes of hate, of our planet’s citizens not wanting to share the space with those from another planet. But the number of people disappearing was way too high for it to be random acts of violence.
You see, we all had naively drawn the line of similarities at the fact that our planets were similar, that our biology was the same. But what we soon realised was that we were identical. Right down to our DNA. What the scientist had managed to do barely a year prior was a lot more than cut through the dimension and pull up another planet. They cut through space and time and pulled up our planet! Our very own earth, with all its humans and plants and water bodies, living its own life in a parallel universe.
----
“And that’s why we gave you your own area.” The Other E finally exclaimed, his soft voice ringing over the silence from the dozens of stunned faces in the tiny Council House.
“A walled community so that you don’t, even accidentally, come in contact with one of us. After all these decades, hell it's been more than a century and a half now, and we’re still not sure what happens to you when we touch you, but for some reason you all disintegrate. Disappear. Poof!” His arrogance was extremely offensive. Could I have really loved him if I was from the other universe?
“It's what happened to your planet so many decades ago when it collided with our’s, and it's what happens to anyone that comes in contact with… ummm, themselves... from our planet. Something about the same atoms being unable to survive within the same universe or something, I’m not sure. I never really paid much attention in science class. But that’s why we built the walls around your towns.”
“But you need to understand that you all, this entire community, is taking up space that belongs to us. And our population is growing at the same rate your’s is. And we need our space back. For our families, our communities and our children. Our future!”
“And what about our future?” I heard myself speak up. Everyone’s eyes snapped towards mine. No one had dared to interrupt the Mirror while he spoke. And now his boyfriend (does he even know that I’m his boyfriend?) suddenly found the courage to question him.
“I don’t really know, man…” he replied. “All I was asked to do was scope out the area and get back with information about the place. But it looks like you guys more or less live identically to where we do.”
“You mean there’s more coming!?” Someone else spoke this time.
“I mean, yeah! All of us are going to have to be there right. How else are we going to ensure that all of you are gotten rid of!”
The townsmen and women finally began to murmur to each other. Some even began to hurl abuses at the Mirror. My father, seated right behind the chained and cuffed E, motioned to call me towards him. I walked in his direction, never breaking my line of sight with the prisoner. He reeked of pride. And his cheeky smile began to fill me up with rage.
“Go out and get your mother and brothers.” My father said softly. “Tell them to pack just the essentials and take them to--”
“To the bunker below your outhouse?” E interrupted. “The one right with the entrance near the gate at the wall you share with your neighbours?”
My dad froze. Silence crept back into the tiny room.
“You lot have lived so ignorantly all these years, that it seems to me your brains are beginning to rot! You live in a town, built by our people, designed exactly like the town you used to live in on your planet. Which, surprise surprise, is exactly like our’s!” He paused between each of the words in his last sentence, mocking us with his patronising tone.
“You can surely hide wherever you want. But remember, it’s exactly where we would go and hide ourselves on the other side of the wall. We know this town like the back of our hands. After all, we technically lived our lives here as well.”
The room was silent once again. No one knew how to respond. No one even expected that this regular Saturday morning would shatter the very illusion of their existence. I could clearly understand what they were going through. I had twelve hours more to process this information, and I still wasn’t sure what was going on. The silence in the Council House pierced through my ears and clouded my mind. I couldn’t think clearly. Even the dogs outside seemed to have gone silent. The birds had stopped chirping and the air was deathly still.
All of a sudden, the silence was broken by a large explosion, followed by something collapsing far away.
“What was that?” my father exclaimed, asking someone to go investigate.
“Looks like they’re here. I mean, we’re here” E replied. “They were expecting a response from me last night, but they must have assumed that I was captured or something. It normally happens to the scouts anyway.”
“You mean to say that you’ve done this before?” I asked.
“Not me, no! The others, from the other towns and cities. We’ve been reclaiming our land globally for the past couple of years now. In fact, you guys are some of the last few hundred townships left to reclaim.”
Someone ran into the room. “The North section!!!” she shouted, trying to catch her breath from the run to the meeting, “By the cemetery… The wall!!! It collapsed! The mirrors are storming in!”
E smiled. “I think it's best you untied me, M. I really don’t have much to do now that everyone from my side has already figured out their way in.”
“And oh!” he directed this at the frozen faces in the room, “We’ve promised that we will try and make your death as painless as possible”
E shrugged. And that’s when hell broke loose in our little wooden Council House.
Until, Forever by Raqeeb Raza
I woke up sweaty that dawn, more than twenty-four hours after I had slept the day before, spent an entire day and night sleeping, dreaming; living in nightmares. After waking up, I couldn’t make sense of time anymore, all I could see were fragments of the dreams that I had. I dreamt of my former partner, embracing him, loving him, unloving him, all those steps, all those years, like a kaleidoscope of moving-images, one after another, without any sense of chronology. Everything seemed to be crumbling down in my head, my heart still bleeding from the pain, my eyes still drowsy after excessive rest, my arms and legs in an unimaginable pain like it wanted to separate from my body. I got up from the bed, shaking my head obsessively to get rid of all these thoughts.
Into the day, I still couldn’t get rid of those thoughts, all I could think of was him, almost two years after separation. I couldn’t wrap my head around the pile of work that was pending for weeks; I couldn’t gather the energy to go about my everyday chores. On days like these, I usually submit and go back to sleep, but something was telling me to do something out of the line that day. Suddenly, a memory popped up on my social media, it was a photo from the hills, the first trip I took with my former partner. The next thing I knew, I had booked my tickets to the hills for that night. I was ready to revisit the memories that haunted me still, I was ready to go over all the steps again in a bid to forget, in a bid to realise the loss, in a bid to un-love.
The bus leaves the city at 9 PM; I reach the bus stop around 8 PM. I board the bus, half in excitement, half in anxiety, and then I take a sigh of relief on realising that my 2-seater doesn’t have another customer. I never have had issues sleeping on a moving bus or train, but I remember the last time I traveled with him, he did, and I was cajoling him, taking care of him as he slept on my shoulder through the journey. I wake up in the dawn again, to a view of the raging hills and the thought of him being on my shoulder, only to realise the emptiness. I gather myself and stare outside at the hills where the life never seems to have changed. It is still the daunting, magical creations that stand the test of time, that remain unchanged unlike human relationships or human lives, for that matter.
It was 11 am, and I decided not to make myself go through all that revisiting again. I decided that I will go upwards and not stay at the hamlet. I went upwards and stayed there for two days, but something was calling me back to the hamlet, asking me to revisit, demanding that I face my demons. The first night up in the hills was disorienting, all I could think of was suffocation, of clothed mouths, of closed eyes. I had nightmares of suffocation, breathing for air, contradictory to the atmosphere I was in, where all I had was fresh mountain air. I woke up sweaty again amidst snow-clad mountains, and realised that it was just a nightmare. I took a sigh of relief and went out in the balcony to look at the majestic snow-clad Himalayas.
A day later, I decided to revisit. I woke up in the morning, trekked my way to the bus stop and boarded a bus towards the hamlet. On reaching the quaint hamlet, I started reliving every moment that I did five years ago. I had six hours till my bus left for Delhi, and a beautiful hamlet to explore again. I could see the daunting Parvati river flowing by the hamlet, unchanged, unfazed, unafraid of human spoils. Last time I was here, he was gleefully looking at the river as it was his first time to a hill station. I am reminded of an image I had taken of him on the bridge over Parvati, the bridge still remains, crowded by other people making memories of their own. I decided to confront that one moment which had made me feel like it was my forever, some five years ago.
A soft trek through the rugged terrains leads you to a quaint town of some 20-30 families. I remember trekking to this place five years ago, and how tired we both were when we reached the town. But midway, there was this place, forested and rugged, by the river Parvati. Over the huge stone fragments, people sat and relaxed as the cool breeze from the river blew through the area. Five years ago, we had spent some 2-3 hours on the same spot. He was singing to his heart’s content, and I was an avid audience looking at him in awe. I remember how my eyes sparkled whenever he dedicated a song to me. I sat at the same spot again, took a picture and sent him and switched off my phone. I was looking at the sparkling water and suddenly there was this urge to let it all go.
I broke down, folding myself into a child in womb, lying below the pine trees and over the green grass. I stayed there for 3 hours, went through every emotion that was plaguing me for the last two years, wrote a letter of riddance, wiped off my tears and drank a bottle of water. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and opened it to the view of the snow-clad mountains and the ever-flowing river. I was feeling lighter, the whole incident was cathartic. It made me go through pain, but only to reach a state of static. From not being able to breathe, to breathing to heart’s content, this journey had seen it all and as I went to the bus stop to board my bus back to the hustle-bustle of Delhi, I looked out from the window, one last time. I was reminded of him, of the memories that we created, of the memories that we could have had, of the time we decided to separate. Something had changed, I was reminded of him but I didn’t have the urge anymore to think of him. In my head, I thought, let love be the imagined utopia that we live by, and let heartbreak be the dystopia that haunts us for ages. My love for him would perhaps never cease to be, but my heart was, at least, looking for other reasons to be happy. What do you call a heart that has not entirely healed yet, but is ready to love again? Optimistic? Opportunistic? Or just a romantic fool?
Auld Lang Syne by Rohin Bhatt
I was watching an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. And I received a notification on Grindr. ‘Hey mate’, flashed the message on my screen. I can recall the exact minute when it happened because I was outside the theatre in 10 degrees smoking a cigarette in the intermission, and shivering, from the cold as well as the anticipation. The profile picture showed a handsome man with a beautiful smile. His boyish beauty triggered a wave of warmth to rush from my chest and scorch my earlobes in the unforgiving cold.
What happened over the course of the next two days left me fundamentally altered. I would sneak into his hotel room, and be kissed as I had never been kissed before. We’d walk hand in hand in the daunting streets of London, with me clinging on to his hand, like one clings on to the rapidly fading sequences of a morning dream as reality forces its way in and demands to be acknowledged. I was afraid that if I lost him in this whirlwind of a city, I would never meet him again. We did everything that I had always hoped to be able to do with a man. We went shopping for books. We went to a museum. We held hands in London tube, and in double-decker buses. We went to a garden where I lay in his lap as he kissed me.
Growing up in India, the thought of displaying affection for another man was doomed to give way to the perpetual fear of its consequences. But here, in London, we were nobodies- free, unknown, and inconsequential to the megapolis around us. He showed me that perhaps, it might just be possible for me to fall in love with a man, and be able to express it unabashedly. It were as if all my dreams of being in an English romantic novel were coming true, and as my friends who accuse me (perhaps rightly so) of being an anglophile would attest, those dreams were crisp to the last detail, and extravagant in that detail. But when I was with him, I barely paid attention to any details that were not a part of his person.
For months after London, we would be talking to each other on texts or tagging each other in memes incessantly. But the distance between us grew- physically and metaphorically. We were ridiculously, almost stereotypically different from each other. I, the incorrigible romantic, and him, the unrelenting realist. I would call him ‘Babe’, and he would be visibly revolted. I would reply to all my messages immediately, perhaps annoyingly so, while he would fade them to oblivion and take hours, perhaps even days to get back to people. I could not go without smoking for a day and he would thoroughly disapprove of it. I noted the dissimilarities, and my vulnerable heart tore itself out while my brain enjoyed its giddy, pleasant dysfunctionality. Simply put, I fell for him.
Later that year, I picked up an internship where he lived, so that I could be with him- this time in India. But it was nothing like our time in London. Perhaps the intense romance, that bustled with dramatic tempestuousness, became overwhelming at some point. It was perhaps my brain swimming in chemicals completely alien to me that kept me from seeing when our intimacy fizzled out, and wide abysses swelled between us. As the arguments became more frequent and tiring, we parted ways on Christmas. Whether there was a definite moment when our distance became apparent, or whether it was gradual-- I have no recollection of it. Perhaps it was one of those morning dreams, where your elementary school principal officiates your marriage to your celebrity crush in your University classroom, overlooking a cliff in Hawaii, until the cliff disappears, followed by the crush-slash-spouse, followed by the principal and you spiral downwards with increasing velocity and panic, and land in your bed. Perhaps it was the thrill of an intense romance in a foreign land, bound to ebb with the tide of time. Perhaps it was the literal seas between us than the metaphorical tides, which washed away any chance that we might have had. Perhaps it is better not to chase the answer to those questions, perhaps ignorance does hurt less than the irrefutable knowledge.
While parts of me chose callous indifference, there remains a part which attempts to wriggle free in its yearning for him. I think it would break free, if only I could be surprised by a text from him. I thirst to prance around London with him, arm in arm, one more time. If only we could ever have a moment where we could simply chuckle and revel in the merrier memories; a day when we are just two men comforted by each other’s presence, unhindered, unattached, unencumbered by the nudges of the great force called tomorrow. There are days when I yearn to relive that rush of adrenaline as I snuck into his room, and in his arms as we spent hours talking pausing only to exchange kisses. I often pine to make the silliest, and the most inappropriate jokes which would make his quiet surface erupt into the most delightful laughs. I wish we could be strangers again so that we could run into each other for the first time, again. But I am grateful for the time we had. Before him, I was nervous about queer love. After him, I'm only daunted by the idea of love, and I suppose that makes me like everyone else. So perhaps I'd be willing to do it all over again, for old times’ sake. For auld lang syne.
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