Lesson

Life as I had known it had been destroyed. Nature had delivered twin knock-out punches to the island state in quick succession. A devastating earthquake had flattened out every structure, most of them wooden single stories. A couple of hours later, when the survivors were out in the open thanking their gods for sparing their lives, an earthquake induced tsunami, probably the biggest known to man, had struck going right through the island from one side to the other sweeping everything in its path into the ocean. Pacifasia, formerly a heart-shaped island of about 28400 square kilometers with a population of 1.1 million inhabitants was destroyed more effectively by nature than any WMD attack ever could. Symbols of civilization were completely wiped out. Nothing remained but an uneven barrenness –remnant of a once flourishing nation. If you happened to have survived and looked, chances were you would not see any signs of life – human or anything else. Dead fish lay everywhere. The stench would have overpowered you if you had a half-way decent sense of smell. Fortunately, I could not smell anything because I had a nasty cold. It was two days since the apocalyptic event and there had been no apparent rescue attempts from the nearest continent 1700 kilometers to the northwest. I wondered if the whole world had been destroyed.

I, Tommy Pentar, had no idea how I had survived the tsunami. I had been on my way to a seaside village Kormi whose residents the Korimo were reputed to have unique anthropological characteristics. I was keen on adding these people to my research on lifestyles that had survived the onslaught of civilization for millennia. The taxi had dropped me off about 15 kilometers from my destination. The rest of the journey had to be on foot, but I did not mind that. I was used to walking in my line of work and had once trekked over forty kilometers, hacking through dense forests in the Amazon just to study an old tribal burial site. I had just covered three kilometers of the barren, uninhabited stretch when the earth shook for at least seven minutes (though it seemed longer) with the alarming instability of a tiny boat on choppy waters. Then the shaking land seemed to tilt slightly upwards to the east. I had experienced earthquakes before, but this was by far the strongest one yet. I tried calling the hotel from my cell but could not get a signal. I debated with myself on whether to go on to the village or return to Psasi. I decided to continue because I might not get another opportunity to study the Korimo anytime soon if I abandoned this attempt. I had walked a couple of kilometers more when I saw the approaching wall of water in the distance. There were no tall areas or structures where I could take refuge. I knew at that moment that I was doomed. But the instinct to survive is strong and I began running in the direction that I had come from. I had seen a tall banyan tree and if I could climb all the way to the top maybe I would be above water, assuming of course that the tree would remain rooted. I had just reached the tree and scrambled on to the topmost branch when the wave hit. Both the tree and I were submerged. I would have drowned and was about to let go of the branch when the tree was uprooted. This was when I passed out.

When I came to, the sun was beating down with no shelter anywhere. I found some tattered banana leaves and fashioned a kind of a headgear with them. Hungry and thirsty, I shambled in the direction of Psasi, capital city of Pacifasia.

Suddenly I heard screams, desperate ones from a man and agonized ones from a woman – and then a smattering of vicious laughter. The man’s screams stopped abruptly, and the woman’s screams subsided into painful groaning. There were apparently other survivors but none that I wanted to join by the sound of it. I crept towards the sound and saw three men standing over a still body. A woman lay on the ground in fetal position clutching her stomach.

One of the men prodded her in the ribs with his foot and sneered,

‘What are you moaning about? You ought to be happy. You just got serviced by three horny cons.’

The other two laughed. Then one of them said,

‘We need to find drinking water. It’s all salty everywhere.’

‘Water’s goin’ to be the problem. Plenty of fish to eat for now. Let’s not waste time here.’ Said the first ‘The river used to be a few miles thataway. We should go see if it’s still there’. He pointed away from where I lay hidden.

‘Get up lady. We goin’ for a walk’

I deduced that they were convicts who had been freed by the earthquake and had somehow survived the tsunami. The jail in Psasi had been built on top of its only hill and probably had been the only high ground that had not been inundated by the tsunami. May be there were other convicts marauding, now lords of all that they lawlessly surveyed.

Utopia had quickly turned into dystopia.

‘Chief lady, upsy daisy’ said one of the cons and roughly pulled the woman to her feet. She wobbled a bit and then steadied herself. She looked at the prone form of the dead man and started crying again. I inched backwards till I could no longer see these people. My heart ached for the woman but I was realist enough to realize that any attempt to help her by showing myself would only be suicide.

‘Stop that sniveling and get moving.’

‘We had been married for nine years. Let me be here with him’ said the woman.

‘Oh yeah? And what do we do when we get horny again. Get movin’!’ The last was barked out.

The sounds faded eventually but I lay still for a long time before cautiously edging towards where the others had been.

I stood up and went over to the spot where the body lay. I saw that the dead man was naked. The cons had stripped him of all his clothes and footwear. The imprints on the moist soil signaled a tale of struggle and depravity. This saddened me. The civilized man was only civilized under threat of societal retribution. I covered the dead man with sand and walked away from the spot. I did not know which direction to take but walked towards where I hoped would be away from those horrible men. Footprints in the soil made this easy.

I was hungry and thirsty but being a life-long vegetarian, I would not eat the fish that lay everywhere. The only water I had drunk was from the rain last night. Unfortunately, there had been no way for me to store any rainwater. During the night I had caught a chill. I had wanted to blow my blocked nose to clear my nasal passage but could not do that without giving myself away. Now that I was alone again, I blew my nose expelling a blob of snot and hoped I was not coming down with a fever.

A gold chain with a large heart-shaped locket glinted on the ground. It must have belonged to the woman and must have fallen off during the struggle. It had no value under these circumstances and wondered what I would do with it. I decided to pick it up anyway and rationalized that I would use the direction it had pointed to move on. Luckily, I had to head in the direction opposite to the one taken by the con. I picked up the locket, wiped the mud off and put it in my pocket and started walking. I must have barely walked half a kilometer when I came across an outcrop of rocks and among them, a deep pool of water. I thanked the locket for pointing me in the right direction, cupped my hands and drank. Thirst quenched, I wandered among the rocks and came across an overhang that created a cavernous shelter - survival necessity number two. I crept into the hollow and fell asleep. A crab woke me as it scuttled over my arm. The sun was nearing the horizon. My belly growled. I crawled out of my niche and wondered what to do about food. With fish lying around and my new-found water treasure I could have survived for a few days without moving but my lifelong commitment to vegetarianism would not permit it.

I continued in the direction that had led me to water and shelter. I blew my nose again and found I could breathe a little better. My worry now was getting caught in the dark and losing the way back to my oasis. Experience told me that I had a couple of hours of daylight. There were other survivors too. I spotted a few birds, a cockroach, and some very hardy shrubs.

After a few kilometers, the rocky terrain turned sandy. Just ahead was a huge oddly shaped sand dune. Closer inspection showed it was not a dune, but a sand covered forty-foot container probably swept in by the tsunami. Twisted out of shape the container’s doors, on the far side, were partly open. I pulled at one of them to get a better look inside. There was a light switch which to my surprise worked and I found survival necessity number three - canned food, biscuits, soft drinks, and chocolates. I was only disappointed that there was no reading material. My hunger satisfied I washed the food down with lemonade from a bottle.

I survived on these goodies for many weeks, undiscovered but undisturbed. My cold too was cured. I had enough of a supply in here to subsist on for months and realized that it was only a matter of searching diligently to find more food and drink. I was self-sufficient in every way except for clothes, so I rinsed the ones’ I wore regularly in the pool while I bathed. I also had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. On my normal days, I would have been pressed for time, rushed for ideas, with piles of work to catch up on.

But now a month later having nothing to do I discovered that the locket could be opened and found a folded piece of paper inside. The note scribbled on it hit me with an understanding that surpassed all my knowledge of human invention.

As a renowned anthropologist, my life had revolved around scholarship rather than kin and companionship. An introvert by nature I had, as a young man, chosen a career path that afforded me extended periods of solitude to pursue my intellectual curiosity and spared me the discomfort of having to socialize. The note in the locket opened my eyes to the ultimate human reality. I read the note many times cried, smiled, cried, laughed…

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Since the earthquake measuring 9.6 on the Richter scale had broken the island into two with more than a third of it sinking into the ocean taking its only airport with it, rescue could be mounted only after almost a month. They found Tommy exactly 32 days after the disaster.

‘There’s an old man here’ shouted one of the rescue team.

A paramedic leaned over Tommy and said ‘He’s gone. Looks like he offed himself. Cut his wrists open. Been dead for a day tops.’

‘Why the hell would he do that? He had enough stuff to live on for a year.’

Then they found the message in the locket.

“I am so bored that I could kill myself.”

Tommy Pentar, thinker, and anthropologist had survived two of the most apocalyptic events known to man but had not survived boredom.