Wake Up!

Wake up. Were you dreaming or having a complete blackout? Was it a dream, or a nightmare? The eyes would not open. A feeling of being dragged down into another vision is so overwhelming. An illusive sweet dream slowly cross-fades into a terrible surreal nightmare. The presenter says, “Stay tuned. This program is brought to you by…”

Static noise, followed by a sudden silence! The nightmare begins.

The round old world turns into a flat new world, with a dark river flowing through it, terminating at edge of the world. I close my eyes, and happily jump into the cold waters of this river to the sound of music, and try to swim against the flow. Yet it drags me away from luxuries of the land towards an unknown destination. And there are many more in this senseless competition, trying to be the first to reach the end. We all swim happily, as we are dragged backwards towards the edge of the world. And then as we fall off, with fear flowing through our veins, the audience laughs and the presenter takes the first commercial break.

In front of a waterfall, the orchestra plays a symphony of Beethoven at the tempo of chewing a chewing gum. “Sugar is injurious to health”, reads the low-carbohydrate diet message. But the good news is that they have a sugar-free version too, manufactured in some remote part of South America with customer support in Asia, competing against the rival product which has 1 more calorie. All hail the free market.

I stop a cab and sit inside. As it drives away, I notice that there is no driver. A familiar chill runs through my spine again. But then I just open the window and look outside. The sky is blood red, and it is raining human body parts. They say the clouds came from the newly liberated lands of the old world. The smoke from the fallen towers is suffocating children thousands of miles away. The cab speeds up, and wouldn’t stop. The traffic light ahead turns red. I close my eyes and try to wake up. The presenter takes another break.

A car with crash test dummies inside hits the concrete block and airbags deploy. One of the dummies has borrowed my eyes. I see the windshield shatter to pieces as the dummy’s head bangs into the airbag breaking its nose. The audience cheers the marvels of science for human safety. We all move on.

The newsroom is full of schoolmasters from the British colonial days. Their canes are capable of marching out of the television screens and radio speakers, fixing up the viewers and the listeners till they believe in what they see and hear. They enter every home and every office. The entire population wears the same uniform, and repeats the lesson after them. The chalk powder from the blackboard blinds my eyes when I try to wipe it clean. One of them walks out of the television screen, with fire in his eyes and cane in his hand. The presenter switches to a public service message.

The state is offering distance learning programs for all citizens. These programs are free of cost, and pushed inside homes of everyone, everywhere. There are no electives, and no one escapes the mass education. The audience remains fascinated and absorbed as blind faith takes another form in the new world.

The lovers of democracy paint Mars blue. They say it was too red, a threat to the free world, and they don’t want it to turn green. At a good distance from Mars, lakes of hydrocarbons, lack of warmth and lifelessness fascinates the oil companies to shift their businesses to Saturn’s moon Titan. They take most of the oxygen from the old world with them. Somebody lights a cigarette, and the whole moon bursts like an atomic bomb. The presenter mechanically follows the regulations.

This time the message is, “Smoking is injurious to health”. There is no one left to hear this message. The lack of oxygen on Earth caused a fight over the rights to breathe, triggering World War III. Soon, all nations religiously blew up their arsenal of nukes and conventional weapons, sucking up remaining oxygen. There is no one left to breathe either. The presenter’s head blinks his eyes and looks around at the world in ruins. He says, “Now where is the rest of my body?” and closes his eyes.

Blackout and static noise, followed by deafening silence! It is high time to wake up.