The limb passing through the girl's head ended up at a pond and there was no continuation ahead. I stared into my own reflection in the vast pond, with cranes and obscure birds flying around, maybe looking for fish to gobble up. Just then my phone had a notification. It was a message from Mr. XY.
'See, I am very much pressed under guilt myself. Not like it's my fault. But there were some things I could have done to prevent it.'
'Like?', I texted back.
'Like not telling Zuschter about Apeisynthecoid at all. I never knew it would end up like this'.
'Why are there no effects on me? But there's on Sam?'
'I honestly don't know. My only guess is that because he is related to someone from Zuschter, his fate is now mixed with the Apeisynthecoid of this city as well.'
I ran from the pond towards Sam. I had a feeling that I had finally understood the shit.
I kept running and I saw Sam lying on the road with Jessica frantically talking to him and caressing his head, the limb through his head was more visible than anything else under the sun. Even the thin tentacles through his body were visible. I ran up-to him.
"Listen to me, Sam. Also for you Jessica. Just don't think about Apeisynthecoid" .
"What good will it do? I am fucking dying".
"Listen," I said," Do you remember what XY said about Mr. Hayato's death?"
"What?"
"The more you think about it, the more you are aware of it. And the more you are aware of it, it just becomes more real. And then when you know it's capable of telling you your future, you think about it even more and try to feel where it's headed to. And then it materialises into a real big limb and bursts through your head, which happened with Mr. Hayato. And other devotees also."
"What do I do? I can't avoid it now!", Sam screamed, holding the limb as tight as possible. Large, pulpy veins had now emerged on his red forehead.
"Look at me. While I was walking there, I saw people busy with their work. And they were the ones with no signs of Apeisynthecoid's limbs through them. They were all very present in the present. They never thought about the organism or what their future might be. Be in the present, Sam. Don't think about the future like you do always. I know you have tried to feel the limbs and have tried to know of your future. I know. But that will just make things worse. Just don't think…"
"Don't say to not think about it! He will then definitely think about it", Jessica screamed at me.
It felt a bit weird. But in chaotic times, the chaos is the new normal.
"We have to take him out of this fucking city. You feeling well, Jessica?"
"Yeah, I am fine."
She was not fine by any stretch of imagination. She looked pale and already devastated by Sam's condition.
I picked up Sam on my back and we all began running towards the Simeon office because that's where the cabs eventually were. While running, we tried to be alert to not get hit by the long, big limbs hanging from the jeely filled sky. If you looked towards the sky with too much focus, you could even see the face of the Apeisynthecoid materialising. It was moving constantly which made the grim pink sunlight vibrate. The birds and other flying creatures now began coming down or setting on some pole or window ledge due to the increasing viscosity or density of the atmosphere due to the jelly while some of the eagles seemed to have sticked to Apeisynthecoid. What was astonishing was that Sam's limb also led towards the office. As we reached the Simeon office building, I got a message from Mr. XY.
'I quit'.
I stared at it. Possibly so much caught up in the mayhem, that I couldn't really access things.
In a few seconds, the members of the second floor of the office, whom we had met earlier that day, all began to fall off the building. Along with all the other things like desks, computers, white boards. Then it struck me.
Mr. XY was commiting suicide.
As I saw this, I began to feel a tug in my head as well. Long before I realised, I was cursed by the Apeisynthecoid too.
"Ben", he said, the calmest he had spoken in the last three hours.
"It will be alright, Sam", I said and I tried to normalise my high heartbeat as I saw thin streams of blood flowing down his chin, with his forehead cracking open as the limb grew thicker and thicker.
"Listen to me, listen to me," I begin speaking to him to divert his attention from Apeisynthecoid," Aren't dinosaurs the worst? I mean no respect for any other species or plants or anything. Just completely gorging away on anything possible. Aren't we humans the dinosaurs of this age?"
He nodded his head while Jessica lay down there with a confused face. The office workers of the second floor kept falling down on the cabs and other parked cars.
Sam smiled and looked his eyes. Long before I know, his head ruptured and my face was filled with blood and my heart pumping up blood as fast as it could.
Seeing this, Jessica got up and walked away silently, not even caring about the large limbs dangling from the jelly overhead.
It struck me that she was going to the pond to commit suicide as the limb passing through her, stopped there.
I got up to stop her but then realised that, that was her fate. Even if I manage to change her mind, she will anyways end up there. The huge limbs moved around me like dangling jelly towers and began hitting the office building. As I stood there, contemplating about whether to stop Jessica or not, the Simeon building collapsed.
I ran as fast as I could but I got pressed under it's ruins. As I lay unconscious under the collapsed building, my phone began ringing heavily. Who was it?
Nina found me and pulled me out. She stayed with me in the hospital for days till I regained consciousness and took great care of me.
One fine day, we were just chatting while the TV was on. And then the news came in about a certain Mr. XY who had returned about twenty billion dollars to the banks that he had hacked and stolen from. And another thirty billion dollars to various NGOs around the globe.
"Did you keep my promise?"
I looked at her, taken aback as she came up with that question randomly.
"Yeah."
"Maybe he already knew what I do. That's why he loved some other girl".
She looked down, terribly squished under the sadness of his death and the fact that even if he was alive, he would have been dead for her.
"Which was mean of him".
Five minutes of silence, except the TV, in the room. We looked at each other and there was a kiss out of nowhere.
This morning, as I walk through the city of Zuschter, I keep in mind to keep never think of the organism or the future. Maybe not only in Zuschter. Anywhere. Because as humans, at any point of time, we are either so old that we keep dwelling in the past or we are so young that we keep thinking about the future.
But I have not come on this nostalgia trip alone. I have brought my seven year old daughter as well. As I walked through the street holding her hand, she asked me a question.
"Dad, did dinosaurs really exist?"
I couldn't spare myself myself a smile and I looked at her as the sun shined brightly without any barriers.