Zero Survivors

In the event of a disaster, the deceased leave behind a string of broken victims. Whether they change into survivors or remain victims is the ultimate question.

The blades of the ceiling fan rotate lazily above her and she stares right at them, her thoughts sluggish, matching the pace of the fan. She is in the room again, the four walls of enclosed space which she never could relate to as ‘hers’.

It is stripped bare of any sharp objects- even her toothbrush is taken away after her supervised shower time, which was twice a day. The room is painted a muted shade of white and has just an iron bed, a white book-stand, a white night shelf and a white cupboard. A few belongings lay around, memories of a life long outlived. There were a few books around, but she felt no interest in them. Papercuts hardly hurt and she needed to feel a lot more pain than just a few drops of blood and a tiny piece of slivered skin.

The fan casts shadows over her as the sun goes further down the horizon. She hears the call of birds as they returned to their homestead for the night. She had wondered how flying would feel. The notion of weightlessness as she roared through the air for just a split second, before gravity would blessedly pull her towards the earth had put a brief smile on her face. 

She had wondered how her blood would pattern the sidewalk, pondered about the angles which her broken limbs will be bent into, speculated about just how long would she be alive to feel the blissful pain. She had speculated on all of this that fateful day at the hospital. 

As soon as all the formalities were complete and she was free to go home, she went up to her neighbor's terrace.

She ascended the water tanker at the top, something she never had the courage to do in the Before. Gentle breeze had caressed her naked face and the city lay peacefully like a patchwork quilt before her. She had widened her legs and had taken the stance. 

But before she could leap, her neighbour had pulled her down. Everything went blank from there and the next thing she remembered, was being brought into the hospital again. The nice doctor later told her that she was hysterical and they had had to tranquilize her.

The sun went lower and it was now time for the bars on the windows to cast shadows. Seeing them let her reminisce about the time a bird had somehow gotten trapped in her classroom. This was of course, in the Before. She no longer went to college and she no longer cared. The bird had gotten in through the open door and couldn’t get out since all the windows in that room had bars as well. The bird had valiantly tried to find a way out, completely forgetting the way it had gotten inside.

Those bars in that classroom were supposed to keep evil outside and they ended up trapping an innocent life. What were these bars for? Are they for keeping the evil inside of her to ever get out?

The bird incident was in fact, very close to the beginning of After. It was actually just a couple of days before the Event. It was slightly funny how she would sometimes be struck with crippling recollections of the most mundane things which happened in the Before. 

The most burning of it all was the Event, for obvious reasons. She could picture the entire day, as if it had happened just yesterday.

The wide open door of her house.

Her entire extended family and friends, traipsing in and out.

The smiles on the faces of her parents, as bright and as constant as the sun.

The huge white cake, in the shape of her graduation cap.

The black robes she had laughingly insisted on wearing the whole day.

The copy of her admission letter in the most prestigious institution for her chosen Masters.

All these memories had a happy tinge to them. The happiness was still painfully tangible to her. She could taste the vanilla cake and she could still feel the warmth of the champagne. Her mind was still imprinted with the photograph of her and her friends in their black capes, throwing their caps into the air. She was sort of glad that she no longer had the actual picture. Everything was lost in the Event, both literally and figuratively.

Her recollection then took on a slightly black haze as she remembered the shaking of the floor under her 4 inch black pumps. She was back in the brightly lit living room, with the neon balloons and the floaty streamers. Her eyes took in the oft repeated scene in front of her.

Ducking under the heavy, wooden dining table out of instinct.

Watching in mute horror as the entire roof fell on all of her beloved.

Concrete covering up the sides of the table and she could no longer see.

Praying in the dark, using up every molecule of oxygen, her lungs burning for more air, her organs slowly beginning to shut down.

She could still conjure up the haunted dreams that her slowly dying brain presented her. They say that when one is close to death, they usually walk in a long, dark tunnel which leads up to the famed light. But, all she could hear was wailing noises and see flashing lights. In retrospect, that really should have been the sign that she was, unfortunately, alive. Her next memory was waking up in a bright, white hospital room, very similar to this one. Turning to her side, she wondered why all the medical rooms, in what seemed like the entire world, were designed in the same manner. In the Before, it might have led to a hilarious discussion with her friends. In the After, she did not have the will to laugh.

She had seen the headlines later on, from the hospital. The earthquake was, by everybody else’s accounts, a small one. 

Everywhere else, no lives were lost. Only a few walls had fallen down and the city was mostly praised for its effective disaster management. Only the epicentre had reported causalities. 

47 dead, 1 survivor. 

A tagline she would have to always live with. She wishes that she can tell them that there were no survivors that day. She is a victim.

She now knew how almost dead felt like. She had come very close to it, the day she had jumped into the sea. It was right after she had left the hospital for the second time. She had been declared mentally fit, 4 months after she had tried to jump. She had gone to her newly rebuilt home and had eaten a lunch of dry bread and jam before going over to the docks.

She recalled with relish, the feeling of floating under the water’s surface, watching the blue sky get farther and farther away. Instinct forced her to not breathe in the water but her gag reflex had finally won. As soon as she opened her mouth, water rushed in and burned her lungs. Everything slowly started to shut down.

The dark tunnel with the light at the end of it? She can now say with proof that it is all true. Before she could reach the light and beyond that, reach her beloved, she was pulled out by strangers and sent to this place. She is now on Constant Suicide Watch which involves being locked up in this white room during all times, except when it is time to talk to the psychiatrist. 

Survivor's guilt, with major suicidal tendencies. That’s her identity now, in the midst of the rest of the crazy folk.

The sun has now completely gone down and the last vestiges of light tinge the sky a lovely shade of pink. She suddenly feels a little breathless, though she was flat on the bed. Struggling to take deep breaths, her mind wanders to something she had once read for her Philosophy class. 

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living”

The memories were so vivid, that she could almost feel them surrounding her.  The love in her parents eyes, the warmth emanating from her friends, the tight hugs from her aunts, the proud pats from her uncles, the stories from her grandparents and the laughter of her cousins. They crowded around her, suffocating her, squeezing her chest.

She gasped and rolled on her bed, unexpectedly falling out of it to the floor, onto her back. Tears ran down her cheeks as she took stock of all the symptoms wracking her body. Tightness in her chest, shooting pains traversing through her arms, her stomach rolling with nausea, her struggle to take a breath.

Heart Attack.

The finality of her self-diagnosis calmed her down and she relaxed into the pain, occasionally flinching. She smiled at the irony of it all. A broken heart could do what trying to drown, jump  and cut couldn’t do. Her life flashed through her eyes 

like a movie reel; giving her a short glimpse of all the labels she had been given.

Daughter

Granddaughter

Niece

Cousin

Friend

Student

Patient

Survivor

Suicidal

As she took in a breath of her limited ones, her eyes finally closed down, no longer able to be propped open. Her dying brain echoed with the calls of her loved ones and her failing heart lifted a little at the thought of being with them again. Her last coherent thought was whether they would finally change the title. 

48 dead, no survivors.

Author's Note

Reviews and criticisms are much needed and appreciated!