What if the Earth was the other way...?

20. A question from the... sky?

Kulwant Singh

"Sardar ji! Chaya!" the tea boy banged on my door. I was still on my bed and he is worse than the alarm clock at my side. 9:00 a.m., it read. I got up from my bed and fixed my turban on top my head. I walked outside, took the glass, half filled with tea kept on the doorstep.

That boy! How many times did I ask him to keep it on the table next to the door? He never listens. The day was just like any ordinary day. I had to reach my office at ten, so the boy would bring me tea from the nearby stall. I downed the now cold tea and kept the glass on top a small table near the doorstep.

Today, my mother and sister were visiting me. I have been working in Calicut for almost two years. Calicut town was busy and bustling. It makes me miss the wide and vast farmland with maize and wheat crops moving in the cool summer breeze. Punjab was a spectacle of its own. People here talk in Malayalam and I got accustomed with it. Although I try speaking in Malayalam, I switch back to Hindi fast.

My room is cramped like any other cheap rental flats in the locality. It has an adjacent bathroom and a kitchen and some space for a bed, chair and a table. I also managed to get a TV inside. Weekends alone can be boring. The room is dull. The room is built with wood with uneven cement floors and a low ceiling with a ceiling fan that makes a lot of noise while moving. It was the cheapest rental I could find near my workplace. Sometimes I think of shifting to a much cleaner place, but apartments are way too expensive.

Anyway, I got dressed for work and took the local bus towards the beach.  I work in the National Institute of Research and Development in Defense Shipbuilding. I am a scientist there. Although my stipend is rather a handsome sum, I still have a family in Punjab to feed and hence the shabby rental.

The bus reached rather early today. So, I thought of enjoying the beach before I got to my office room to work on a perfect design for the new submarine, we have been thinking about.

Today, the beach looked disturbed. The cool air that wafted across the Arabian sea was much colder and the sand felt wetter than usual. The clouds got darker; the sky blacker. Must be a rainy day today. People who came to enjoy the sun have lost their interest and were heading home. What a waste of time, I thought as I walked towards the huge building near the sea shore. The building stood near the beach but since it's a government building it was off limits to other people.

As I walked towards the facility, the air above me started feeling denser and a huge shadow filled the place. I looked up towards the sky to see a huge spaceship over our heads. People started panicking, as I could hear screams and yelling and running and all sorts of mayhem. A few brave or rather stupid ones took out their phones to snap pictures. I for one just stared at it. The thing seemed to be coming down rapidly and guessing from the projectile in which the thing was moving, it was heading towards the water body and not on the sea shore.

The thing fell with a huge splatter of water and since my prediction was correct and since people had evacuated from the immediate seashore, none got injured. I quickly called my team and Rajesh, my colleague mentioned that they were on their way with the equipment. It was really astonishing, how the thing fell near to our facility. Now that the meatal contraption that I think is a spaceship has sunken, people started crowding the sea shore and navigating through the crowd was exhausting.

One day I think of coming early and something unusual happens.

As I reach towards the waters, I spot my team with a huge crane and other equipment, trying to get the monstrosity out of the waters and into our docks. People were clicking pictures and videos and in no time the press had swarmed the beach.

During the bustle and chaos, I could make out a white streamlined vehicle, almost the size of a jet plane and it was compact and only had a few scratches here and there. There was something written on it with red and black paint.