Apocalypse is Certain

Sharing Confusion

Somu kept on scrolling through the phone book. He was engrossed in what he was seeing. Jacky was patiently waiting for him to finish checking it and hand it over to him. Somu’s expressions suggested that he too was getting a bit confused. However, Sumit had expected his expressions to get much more bewildered than they actually got. After all, the content of the phone-book had been the most confusing thing for him. Despite that the faded impressions of some supposed experiences were not so faded as far as their effect on the mind was concerned, he had not actually trusted his mind till he checked the phone-book which convinced him beyond doubt that there was much more than he could remember that he had experienced in the recent past. Somu, however, seemed to have found some sort of explanation for the bizarre entries in his phone. Initially, his expressions had changed according to Sumit’s expectations but they soon shifted back towards normal. Not that he had not been affected at all by what he saw on the phone, but he did not seem to have got as affected as Sumit had got when he first found that his phone had entries of some calls made about 2 years ahead, in future.

Somu passed the phone to Jacky who was eager to check what was happening. He began scrolling through the entries and Somu seemed to be lost in thoughts. Although, he did not seem to be exceptionally confused.

Jacky had checked just a few entries when he said, “What is this? Did you, somehow, manually change the settings of date in your phone?”

“Why would I do that?” Irritation was visible in Sumit’s voice despite that he could understand well that what he had understood  out of what he saw in his phone could not be expected to be the most natural thing to come in their minds too.

Somu put forth his idea, “How likely is it that the phone encountered some technical problem and changed the dates?”

“Firstly, how did t return to its normal self to show correct dates for the calls I made today to call both of you? Secondly, even if we accept the possibility of some technical issue that could have changed the dates displayed against the calls, how could it introduce new numbers in the dialed list distributed over a period of about a month? And, how could it selectively delete  all the calls made to you and the other numbers that have been saved in the phone? If you say that it might have failed to read the numbers as saved numbers, why are the names visible for calls made a month ago, according to the timeline the phone is displaying in the dialed list? Also, don’t forget that none of the known numbers, including yours, has been recorded over one month or so, even as an unsaved number.”

Somu did not have an answer. He realized that he had probably taken it a bit too lightly. He had missed the points Sumit just made since he had taken the possibility of technical problem in phone for granted. After all, the possibility of having made phone calls from future was too absurd that everything else standing against this idea seemed acceptable. 

“And so far I have talked only about the things I have physical evidence for. The things I am feeling are bizarre like anything but are far from being unbelievable due to the depth of the impression it has left on my mind. I mean, it is very hard to explain. I remember almost nothing of what I have experienced but am still feeling terror from the very interior of my sub-conscious. It is not like the fear or pain that we sometimes feel due to a nightmare despite having forgotten the events that were witnessed in sleep. Such fear settles down in a while. Moreover, there would be something in the mind that would counter the effect of such fear by convincing us that the fear could not be real and could be ignored safely. Neither of it is happening in this case. I have been trying desperately to not think about it and to forget the discomfort but the tension is not at all ceasing to pester. Honestly speaking, I have never before experienced this kind of fear, not even as a kid. The sensation is unprecedented. It has made me an escapist. I feel that trying to remind myself what I experienced is going to create too huge a stress for me to bear. You can relate it to the feeling when you see someone close to you dying in a nightmare and for some time after waking up you continue feeling the sorrow caused by the death in the dream and you feel afraid of reminding yourself what had happened there despite holding clear awareness of what had happened in a corner of your mind. But it is just relatable. Right now, I neither have enough reminiscence of what I experienced nor is the feeling of dread fading.” He was, surprisingly telling it all in quite a casual tone. He did not seem to be scared from his tone nor was he stressing on any of his words in an effort to convince them. He knew very well that his statements would be taken seriously by this gathering, even if what he was asking them to give a thought to was yet unbelievable for himself too. Another thing that enabled him to wear this casual tone, overcoming the intensity of the confusion and disturbance he was facing, was his belief that sharing the issue with these friends of his would definitely bring out some solution for the problem, if there actually happens to be a problem needing attention, and solution.

And his belief was not mistaken. Somu and Jacky were listening to him carefully. They wanted him to finish telling all he could before they begin a proper discussion on things at hand. Anyway, whatever they had heard so far was too bewildering that they could not even think of a logical question to place in between his narration. Whatever Sumit had told so far was too incredible to be understood properly. But they were listening patiently. However, both were failing desperately to analyze what they were listening to. So, they had simply decided to discuss it only once Sumit had shared all he knew or felt about the situation. The belief that Sumit just had an extraordinary nightmare had not been discarded yet although they knew Sumit too well to consider it to be too strong an option. But they had no idea how to begin with to interpret the situation well.