Written by: -dreamsinwords

LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA, USA

August 15, 7:00 PM

When I returned home and flung the flashlight off my Mini2Go scooter, I didn't expect it to tumble to the ground and land at the feet of Maheri Mikhaylov.

Half-slouched against the stairs leading to his doorstep, Maheri turned away to puff off the smoke from his vape. "What's that?" he asked, motioning to my scooter.

"How do you expect me to get to work, eh?" I replied, taking a seat on his front porch and nestling the flashlight in my pocket. "Catch the Amtrak?"

He snickered. "You should ask the alien overlords," he pointed up,"to bless you a ride."

I snorted and glanced at the towering spaceship: it was a magnificent monstrosity glimmering in the darkened sky, a searing light streaming down from the middle. Just a day before, ink-black darkness shrouded Lynchburg — but now, the blinding brightness bounced off windows, basking us within a dim, haunting glow.

Maheri straightened his back. "Fucked up shit."

"It's like an SNL rendition of an UFO skit. In what world does a giant turd show up to block the sun?"

"It's pretty circular," he noted.

"Never had a circular shit? Or if you're me, you haven't because I'm scared shitless," I said. "I also haven't seen you since everything went down, so..."

"Well, I..." he waved his hands in the air. "Stocked up on my vapes, biscuits, ramen, and chilled in a dark corner."

"You, chill? You're telling me you —"

"Okay! Okay, I was freaking the fuck out, all right?" He sighed. "Thank fuck there's some light now. And whatever that is, you saw the news, yes?"

"Electricity gone kaput."

"Rigged the dynamo. Maybe I'd get you some supply, but it doesn't do much," he said. "Apparently that heavenly UFO light-bulb has this ionizing... air. Thing." He shrugged. "Happy particles. They sent in a reporter who acted like he downed a whole bottle of Edibles."

"He was... high?"

"Yep."

"Do you really trust the government saying that, Maheri?" I pursed my lips. "Maybe they'd wanna bait us to the centre so they could force us to evacuate."

"They weren't wrong," he said, taking another drag of his grape-flavoured nicotine. "It's on us if any shit goes down, you know. God knows what that floating timer is for."

"Countdown, in minutes, to my next mental breakdown," I retorted.

He snorted and pushed his dark-brown locks away from his forehead. His hair had grown into a messy mullet — paired with his lack of shaving, Maheri looked like he had aged from 24 to 30 in the span of days. Unzipping his winter coat, he stuffed the vape into his pocket and entwined his palms around one knee.

"Vini," he started, "I wanna go there."

"There?" I glanced at the light, and then over to him. "Why?"

He frowned. "It's not like I have Edibles or the patience to spend my unemployed time jerking myself off."

That evoked a very specific memory, which I immediately shoved to the back of my mind, and then let out a sigh. "I don't have great ways to spend my unemployed time, either."

"Hm?"

"Got fired today."

"Oh. Fuck."

"And" — I suppressed a laugh — "they offered me the Ultimate Detox For The Ultimate Lady package, after I'd cursed out my boss for ignoring every one of my marketing suggestions."

"Generous!" he remarked. "The school just sent me home with my Kool-Aid costume, and then I didn't see daylight for a week."

I sighed, shook my head and held out my hand. "Lend me a puff?"

"Nope. Last canister."

I sulked, and we sat staring at the saucer. God's prophecy, some called it. The Second Coming, the End of the World. And in the half-darkness peppered with a ghostly aura, it simultaneously felt like those words were both bogus and the greatest truths. Maheri, meanwhile, unzipped his coat and pulled out a scrunchie to tie back his hair (which could have been mine), and then got up to his feet.

Throwing me a glance, he asked: "How fast does your toddler scooty go?"

"Yeah, no —"

"— you could come along."

"You... do know how most of our trips end, eh?" I crossed my arms. "Spare us from it. I have wine, and my couch isn't half bad."

"Fuck that." I had never seen him reject any offer with that much conviction. "We have fifteen days before that thing detonates or some shit. I've vaped myself out of my mind, Vini." He buried his hands into his pockets, still staring at the light. "Sit around or die trying."

I rested my hands on my hips, biting my lips, and then shrugged. "I'd go grab another scooter."

"More of that Mini2Go?" he asked as I kicked it to him. "Good, god."

***

"Holy hell, it's burning into the ground."

Maheri scuttled over, hauling my scooter in one hand. It was a shorter ride than we expected — 15 minutes, I said when we first got on, but it proved itself to be a sweet seven-minute ride.

It was a chilling descent into the light. With every metre, the darkness around us slipped away in tendrils, the light sharpening soft edges, contouring Maheri's cheekbones and flooding his dark-brown eyes. The silence that strung around us now, near to the halo, was different. Not eerie, just peaceful.

We stared at the pavement now cut through by the halo, leaving a thick, black radius.

"Wanna become a roasted duck, lovely boy?"

Maheri shook his head, pointing into the halo — just at our vision's edge, a group of people were sitting together, laughing. "I don't think so, cynical Vini."

Name suits me. "Look, I don't have a death wish."

"I don't think that matters." He pointed to the countdown. "The Gods are already doing it for us."

"How you do know —"

Maheri pushed the scooter away and walked towards the halo.

"Stop."

He took off his coat and tied it around his waist.

"Maheri!" I yanked his elbow. His gaze met mine and it was unwavering — and subtly firm. I let go and he straightened his back.

"Vini," he started, eyes fixated on mine. "Look. I want to be a carefree, just for a little while."

"You cannot trust—"

"Trust for what? Just, look around..." his voice trailed before he caught it. "You're seeing this, right? A fucking spaceship, ticking down from 30. Fucking barren lands, and" — he waved his hands — "we're still here because, hey! My boyfriend's gone and I hate the world; and, your dad's gone and you hate the world; and, the soldiers who came to evacuate are gone, and... We hate the world." He exhaled and buried his hands in his pockets. "Let's be real, too. We've seen worse."

"Heri," I whispered. "We can't just..."

"Just what?" He inched away. "Unless you've got a stash somewhere, I won't survive."

"But it's burning into the ground!"

He tilted his head — the light slowly kissed the tip of his curls. I backed away, biting my lip, my throat winding tight.

He stumbled into the light, staring up.

Silence. I tore my gaze away and squeezed my eyes shut, until I heard his voice again — slow, steady, and in a breathless whisper, almost like his words were a sigh of relief.

"Vini. I'm here, still."

My eyes grazed him — fleeting and in fear — before I took another look, and yes, he was there. Still standing. I expected his skin to start searing, but no, he was there still. I stared. He was there. I walked up to him, and he was there still. I was almost waiting for everything to combust spontaneously, but he was there, still.

With shaky hands, I touched his shoulder. He was there, still, and he smiled. Not like his good morning! smile or a throwaway smirk, but he smiled. He stared again at the radius of the streaming halo, I did too — and now, I was feeling the pressure and the shivering dissipate from my hands. I grabbed his shoulder with both my hands, and a small beat of pure joy nestled itself in the corner of my heart. He grasped my wrists.

Breathing in, I leaned closer and stumbled into the radiance.

It took me in, like a warm embrace. My body eased, ever so slightly, with my knots relieving as I took another step. And another. I was gliding with a tinge of giddiness until I stopped and took the deepest, most satisfying breath.

"Wow," I mustered. "What the hell."

"Heaven," Maheri corrected. He had his hands in mine, and I ran my finger along his knuckles. He nodded to a nearby shop nestled between two ghosted office buildings, where an old woman sat singing. "Heaven, and ice cream."

And there we were, moments later, sitting on a bench with two butterscotch cones in hand — for free. In this economy, darling? the woman asked, digging up the biggest scoops I've seen. Who knows what dollar bills are, haha! Enjoy!

"Some did stay, eh?" I asked, taking a lick. "There's a person every 500 metres, and some families."

"Why wouldn't they?" Maheri replied. "It feels like being high, but it's not. It's strangely beautiful."

He smiled through ice-cream stained lips, and I laughed. I hadn't seen him this happy — or even happy — and I couldn't look away, because... maybe I wanted this Maheri. Not the Maheri who smelled like the lovechild of grape and marijuana. Not the Maheri who was enough with a barebone routine in bed, just there for barely a hit of pleasure.

"Not really a bad idea," I said. He licked a small stream of butterscotch that had run amok along his wrist. "You're even better than when you're high."

He chuckled. "What am I like when I'm high?"

"You deadpan at the ceiling."

"That's boring." He bit into the last of his cone, a mess of ice cream sticking on his scraggly beard. Cautiously, I tugged at the hem of my plaid, waiting for him to lean ever so slightly — and then I wiped his lips with my sleeve.

"Oh," he said with a tinge of surprise. "Thanks."

I tilted my head. "That's it?"

He threw me a questioning glance. "Hm?"

"Just thanks?" I asked, confused. "You always say 'Liwei's gone, I wish I had someone who'd hug me' — and that one time I kissed your forehead, you acted like you'd never experienced that before in your life."

He shook his head and laughed. "Of course I have."

"Yeah, but..." I shifted closer to him and our shoulders grazed. "Is it just me, or am I feeling this wave of so many different things?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Huh?"

Silence. I stared at his golden-brown eyes, his pupils dilated.

"Damn," I remarked. "You're just zoinked out."

"Right?"

"I mean..." I waved my hands. "You're happy, yes."

We had now started to wander around the neighbourhood, where ten-o-clock flowers had once bloomed in now-barren gardens. A slight breeze blew along and playfully burrowed itself beneath my shoulder-length locks. Stray cats and dogs stalked the barely-inhabited lands. My chest felt like a tethered helium balloon — filled to the brim and aching to float, and at that moment, all I wanted to do was let myself feel free. But as I looked up again at the blinding halo and then at the silent carcass of a neighbourhood, that swelling feeling slowly abated. It was beautiful, but that was about it — we were still alone, very alone.

So, I did the next best thing: I intertwined my fingers with Maheri's.

He squeezed my hand back slowly as we strolled along ghosted roads. Nothing more — just an acknowledgment of my existence. It was strange to me. Does your chest feel jumpy, I asked him. Does it feel full? How does it feel?

"Nothing," he said, staring straight ahead.

"You always tell me you feel like nothing, but you're feeling everything."

We turned around the corner — he thought of my words in the silence, and then nodded. The walkway ahead of us was filled with dustbins that no one had the time to clear when the state of emergency was declared. And as we passed building after building, the waste started morphing. It started morphing from unshredded paper documents to uneaten food, to the remains of a bird smeared against the road pavement, to a dead husky in the middle of our path — eyes half-open, fleas crawling over its body.

I could only smell traces of flowers and fresh-cut grass — jarring to my senses. As we looked down at the pretty creature gone too soon, I grasped Maheri's wrist.

"No..." I whispered. "He looks so much like your Bailey."

All Maheri replied was with an "mhmm". I paused, a twinge of uneasiness threatening to take root.

"Heri, he's... dead."

"Poor thing," he said.

"No, you — this..." I let go of his hand. "You can't just — stare at nothing. You pet every damn dog you see on the street. Heri. Do you hear me?"

His eyes, though fixated on me, held a far-away gaze. He was entranced, in apathetic silence, entrenched in peace so deep that nothing mattered any longer.

"So, you feel nothing, huh?" I clutched his shoulders. "I'm here, feeling everything. You're the one supposed to feel that, you."

His eyebrows furrowed before he returned to a melancholic smile.

"You're the one drunk-crying in my bed and then claiming that you were absolutely fine in the morning. But I feel nothing" — I took a deep breath — "because I deny it and it all goes away, and I'm all okay."

Silence. Maheri's blank stare turned to one of confusion, and he ran his hand through his hair. "You shouldn't do that."

"And you shouldn't be this lifeless, but..." I let my voice trail off. "It makes us feel good. I'm bursting with everything because I never do, and you've got nothing because you never shut up about feeling something."

I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. His lips parted in subtle silence — he looked down at the dead husky, and then caught my eyes again. And then, while still wearing a smile, he said, "I don't — understand the feeling."

"I don't, either," I admitted. "Because, you're you, but you're not you. I'm not me." I stared up at the halo, and then at him. "It feels illegal, Heri. I was the girl who just took a half day off to cremate Pa, signed off with 'Vinitha Deshpande', and then went well, another Deshpande down." My words gave me a strange sense of relief, not pain. "I told you 'He'll be back' when you were unbuttoning your shirt in my hallway and asked where he was."

"I saw the urn."

"I know. You hovered over me until I told you," I said. "Because you know what it's like to feel, and you stayed for me. I didn't know what it was to feel, so I just offered myself as a rebound girl when Liwei broke up with you."

His smile wasn't as bright anymore.

"I don't know why you dragged me here," I continued, "But I want you to be happy, because..." my voice struggled as I stared at him.

"Because?" he asked.

"I love you."

His gaze wavered, his eyebrows furrowed. And that was it.

Compared to the giddiness seeping into my head, his reaction was nothing. I slid my hand across his shoulder, but all he did was return a painfully-peaceful stare: it was as if my heart was bursting at its seams, but so much so that it hurt — and he didn't see that.

And then it hit me.

It hit me like a slow wave, a gentle crash through my chest. I looked up, and then at him — and I started walking away, almost by instinct. But all I heard was silence from him before his slow footsteps followed, and I paused to look behind.

"Don't follow," I whispered.

"Where?" he asked.

Biting down on my lip, I turned the corner, passed the ice-cream shop with the singing lady, and then the bench we had sat on, eating our cones. And then I finally heard footsteps catch up to me.

"Where are you going?" he asked, eyes locking with mine and his reverie-ridden gaze now sobering.

I gave him a half-chuckle. "We're fucking fools, darling." I stumbled backwards, looking up. "A halo's not gonna fill any hole in our hearts. Are you happy? No, you're a zombie," I said.

"Don't," he mustered, his eyes widening at whatever was behind me.

"The darkness?" I asked, throwing a glance behind. "I'll take that."

"Don't."

"No. I see me in you now, Maheri. Nothingness doesn't make you happy, it makes you nothing," I said. "You remember — the time you stuffed the okroshka you made inside my pani puri, and I said I loved it?"

He took a step forward, but I stepped away.

"You said 'That's me! Your Russian stuffed Indian!' and then when we laughed, you asked — 'Do you love me?'" I felt the greying cold hit my back, coming closer to the partition of the halo. "I said nothing, Maheri. And I wish I had. I know how you feel now."

"No, no. It's all okay," he said, with a small trepidation in his eyes. "We'll survive this."

"We'll never know." I closed my eyes. "If we don't survive this, it's okay. The world returns to okay even if we're fucked and dead, but..." my voice trailed off. "I wish we didn't have to be."

And I stepped into the darkness.

Emptiness tore into me, as if it had always been waiting. Serenity shattering with a snap of a finger, I struggled to take a breath, tears stinging against my cheek. I'd already been crying, but under the spell of the shining halo, all I had to show was a smile. All we had to show was a smile.

I fixed my gaze on Maheri at the edge of the halo. My heart — now hollowing out into a bittersweet pit — begged for just a touch of the halo again, so the quiet ferocity of my feelings could return. But his vacant eyes said otherwise: who would love a peaceful abyss?

I toed the line, a small something flowing through my body every time the light hit my sandals. And as I glanced up, I felt him move closer, his wrist brushing against mine, a loose long lock falling against my neck. A gentle heave of my chest and I averted my eyes, straining for words.

"Who do we have but us?" I asked, grasping his hand. "We're second-class, lumped together with conspirators who didn't want to leave. Uncooperative, useless — we're nothing. Not a reporter, not a renowned spy, and hell, not even employed citizens." The number on the spaceship was now in sight again. "If we die, Heri... they wouldn't even step in here to put us in a body bag."

His gaze flickered up.

"Running into pleasure just ruins us more," I said. "Nothing has made us happy for so long, Maheri, but we made us happy."

Running my hand along his knuckles, I tugged his palms to the darkness. His fingertips grazed the grey nothingness — he instinctively moved, eyes widening as the shadows fell against his jaw. But he stayed in the light still, pooling against his cheeks and now mine as I basked in the light happiness that traced my collarbone. He angled in, face half-shrouded. His smile faded slowly, while I felt my lips stretch into one.

"Vini," he said my name breathlessly, the first time since we were there.

I cradled his face in my palms as his muddy-amber eyes finally focused on me. I traced the edge of his scraggly jaw, the nook of his earlobe. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed and leaned closer, his breath warming my skin. I buried my hands in his locks. His fingers interlock behind my neck.

His lips met mine.

A cold tear of his smeared against my cheek, and he kissed the corner of my lips, the tip of my nose, and my shivering eyes. I pulled myself in as his arms wrapped around my waist.

He gingerly inched more into the darkness, and then kissed the top of my head. "I love you, Vini."

I stifled a whimper, burying my face in his shoulder.

"I love you."

Blinking away a tear, I stroked the back of his head. "I love you, Heri," I whispered. "I love you, too." 

<<<<< END >>>>>

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Mittu Ravi is a poet and experimental long-form writer. They are currently working on their paranormal dark comedy, All Hell's Broken Loose, and have written adult contemporary works such as A Little Love for Pennies and Life, On Hold. Mittu hails from South-East Asia and is dedicated to BIPOC and queer representation in their arts.