Apocalypse

On Monday, the 31st of December 2012, Shubhanan Sen takes his last breath. The explosion happens at twelve noon. The target is the Nizampura Petrol Pump. The blast hits Shubhanan approximately one and three quarter seconds following the detonation; the windows of the three oldest buildings in the lane behind the Petrol Pump all crack simultaneously. Shubhanan’s house is shattered. He doesn’t notice though, on account of being an integral part of the debris by this time. He isn’t the only one of course, but being my brother and all, I think he deserves a special mention.

This is not his story.

In a tiny sweet shop in Arpan Complex, Panna Ben is talking to one of her oldest customers. As she hands over the old lady's Dhoklas, she notices the flour on her hands. It wafts off her fingers and is caught suspended in the light streaming through the tiny window in the back. The little particles hang in the golden air and then, as the shock hits, they sway in one fluid motion and Panna Ben’s glasses break. The blast stops her customers pacemaker dead.

This is not her story.

A little way to the west, near Fahtegunj, three children witness the sky break. Baraf gollas are dropped, as is the dirty red bike, as they watch the clouds form. They surge upwards and then billow out as force meets atmosphere and the sky dims. The force that hits the three children is not harsh; it causes the little toddler to stumble and the solitary tyre they were playing with to roll away down the street. All three pairs of young ears pop simultaneously and in the sudden quiet that always follows huge events they hear the cracking windows. The cloud hasn't finished growing and now races towards them, shooting over their heads and blocking out the summer sun.

This is not their story.

It is mine.

As I stand and watch the chaos explode around me, I wonder for the first time if what I did was really a good thing. I'm surprised; the thought has never crossed my mind before. But my house is wrecked, and there are bits of my brother stuck to the ceiling and the walls around me. There's smoke everywhere. There's blood everywhere. There's even blood on my bookshelf.

The visitor would never have let blood get onto my bookshelf. The visitor has always been mild. Amiable. Inconspicuous. Well apart from the bright blue cloak of course. The visitor never actually did anything. For a long time, the visitor was just... there.

Until one day, when he wasn't.

When the visitor first made an appearance, I was twelve years old and bored and sitting in the school councilors office for having punched Neeraj Mohan Pandey in the nose because he tried to snatch my Terry Pratchett away from me. ‘Night Watch’ had just been released a few weeks back and I had finally managed to get my hands on it. Everything was dandy, right until Pandey decided to put on a particularly puerile display of inanity and walked up to me during recess, making his usual remarks about me being a chashmish, moti, “rosogolla” Bengali who ate non veg and all sorts of snakes and lizards. And then he made a grab for my book. It wasn't my fault. If someone doesn't understand that Pratchett’s world can NOT be interrupted, that the selected few chosen to be immersed in this phantasmagoric world are a respected people and that you don't tease them about anything, then they deserve to be punished. And because I hadn't mastered the art of using Sorcery yet, I had to resort to punching him.

But punching Neeraj Mohan Pandey landed me an appointment in the councilor’s office, and this meant I had nothing to do for the entirety of the next couple of hours. The councilor in our school was an extraordinarily busy woman. Normally this would have meant two hours of utter boredom, without even a book to relieve it. But this time, it was different. This time, the visitor was there.

He first appeared to me when I was in the empty office, trying to keep myself occupied by stretching myself and holding on to the houseplants on one either end of the sofa. One moment I was playing twister with domestic vegetation, the next there was a figure dressed in shiny bright blue standing ten inches in front of me. I flew two feet up into the air, slipped on the polished floor upon landing, and kicked the visitor in the shins.

"Watch it!" said the visitor irritably.

Then he waved a hand, and I was pulled to my feet. He waved his other hand, and the potted plants, which had fallen during all this, uprighted themselves and sat back innocuously as if nothing had happened. He then adjusted his hat which was blue and had yellow stars on it. And a sharp point.

"Sorry," he said, as an afterthought. "We Wizards have a knack for arriving at the most inopportune moments, you know."

I stood. I gaped.

It would be the first meeting of many.

The visitor was my only friend. In the real world, nobody knew the ways of Sorcery, or even the difference between a Golem and a Gnome. Nobody cared. Well, almost nobody. My brother was my one sole ally until the visitor came. We were outcasts, scorned for believing in what people were sure was high fantasy. I had my head in the clouds. My brother, on the other hand, was intrigued by fantasy. Not obsessed. I knew someday he would end up betraying our passion. I was right. I never told him about my visitor. He didn’t deserve to know. By the time I was fourteen, he rejoined the mundane and chose to be an engineer. He went off to Himachal Pradesh to study Computer Science. By the time I was fourteen, I could lift a desk without touching it – but I had sworn never to reveal my abilities to the outside world. The visitor had made me promise. By the time I was fourteen, I was alone in the world.

I spent hours inside my room, listening to the visitor's tales of the Discworld. When I wasn't listening to stories, I was training – sourcery, rune reading, archery. The visitor told me that my Split-vision Barebow aim was much better than that of any native Ankh Morporkian of my age. I was less a citizen of the star system I lived in than the one I only ever read about.

As I got older, the visitor stayed longer. I would ask him question after question after question. Sometimes, he would bring friends, but only if he was staying for a short time.

Once I asked, "How do you come over here? Onto planet Earth?"

He said, "You'll find out soon enough."

I found out soon enough.

He told me I had to strengthen my mind. As I sat staring at illustrations and listening to stories, the Discworld became increasingly real to me. And as it became increasingly real, the visitor brought an increasing number of friends with him into my bedroom. I shook hands with a History Monk, an Auditor of Reality, an Orc.

"You're getting stronger," he told me. "Your imagination is powerful. You will someday bring the Discworld alive." It wasn't until almost a year later that I found out what he meant by that. By then, I could focus hard enough to bring a whole army of characters onto the planet.

Now the time has come. The Earth cannot exist as long as the Discworld is to be made real. The banal inhabitants of this world need to be annihilated. Their departure will make way for the grand arrival of the creatures of the Discworld. I'm sure when the general population of the earth imagined the End of the World, they never expected archery and swords to be involved. Neither did they expect magic wands or walking rocks or pixies. But this is because their imaginations are limited. This has proven to be their downfall. They will not survive the apocalypse of the imaginary invaders.

As I watch the flying carpets descend and the broomsticks soar, I feel glorious.

But beside glory there is doubt.

As I stand and watch the chaos explode around me, I wonder for the first time if what I did was really a good thing. I'm surprised; the thought has never crossed my mind before. But my house is wrecked, and there are bits of my brother stuck to the ceiling and the walls around me. There's smoke everywhere. There's blood everywhere. There's even blood on my bookshelf.

Would a Sorcerer really have let the blood of innocent people stain their walls and robes? Would a Sorcerer really have stood back and watched as the creator of the universe that has become their own was murdered by the objects of her own imagination?

I know the answers to these questions, but somehow, I don't care. Because the world is ending, and a new era is dawning. And in this era, it will not matter if I am a true Sorcerer or not.

Because in this era, I will me more than an outcast. In this era, I will me more than a lunatic.

I smile slowly at the wreckage beneath me. This is just the beginning.

In this era, I will be Empress.