Just Another Short Story

"Oh No! Not Again!" gasped out Partha.
"Yes, sir, the lift is out of order from late afternoon today!" Replied the watchman, quite nonchalantly.
And so Partha grumbled along as he trudged himself up the stairs to his apartment. It had been an especially tiring day for him, once the Client meeting got extended way beyond office hours as the Client, as sticky they may be, were quite persistent on finalising on the delivery dates for all the Final drawings on today iteself. This was followed by the terrible traffic snarl caused due to some political rally held by the opposition party, and so this out-of-order elevator was the last thing that Partha needed to make his day worse.
But a surprise was waiting at home. New Curtains! And a colour which he has always despised! Dark Purple or is it Dark Mauve! The discussions were on in his house about a change in the curtains, and though Partha was not very adamant on the shade of colours to be used, but his only preference was for anything light; he always feels that adding any dark colour would have visual effect in making the rooms smaller and duller. So, with a sense of huge loss, too tired even to protest, Partha pulled himself together straight to the dinner table. He just wanted the day to somehow come to an end.
A few moments later, after he was done with gulping down his dinner, inside his head the reverberations from the evening rally was still beating down hard. The shrill feminine voice shrieked beyond all the honking and general commotion, “A new dawn is at your doorstep. A new beginning will be ushered as the sun shines again in your lives.” Partha adjusted the alarm of his clock; the dark curtains were a sure symptom for oversleeping, and he was not in a position to be late for office tomorrow.

“Beep beep beep!”The digital display in the alarm clock was staring at Partha with 6:00 AM etched on it in bright fluorescence. Is it time to wake up already; was the thought that slipped through Partha’s mind. Why is it still so dark? The thought process reached its deduction pretty fast. I knew it, Partha had a eureka-feeling from inside, It’s the dark curtains. And now he had real reasons to despise dark purple more!
As he moved out of the bed, it seemed to him that it was just minutes before when he had moved into his warm bed last night. He moved towards the window, and slid the curtains. The lower jaw dropped, the eyes widened as far as apart they could be, and the amazement was way beyond any surprise that Partha had ever faced. There was pitch black darkness outside. Partha checked his watch again, and it was showing 6:11 AM. How can this be true? What is wrong? Is it with me only? He cleared his vision once more, and yet the darkness persisted. No improvement!
He turned around in his room, the bed tea was steaming in his bedside table, and the early edition of his morning newspaper was lying beside that! Everything around seemed normal, except what he had to see outside, rather what he was unable to see. How can it be so dark when it is almost 6:30 in the morning? It seemed something has gone wrong, bizarrely misplaced.

Partha reached out for the Newspaper. The front page flashed the headline – “END OF DAYS!” He rushed through the news. The part he grasped while he was rushing through (and between, as well) the lines was this: Due to some astronomical catastrophe, the earth was pulled away from its orbit due the effect of a giant meteor of some sort, and has moved far away from the solar system away from the sun, and its gravitational effect. A catastrophe of astronomical amount without any doubt! A sense of relief and fear seeped into Partha’s mind in parallel! A relief as he now knows the reason for the darkness at dawn! And the spine chilling fear of what happens now, and beyond? Soon this sense of fear had overpowered the sense of relief, and with the newspaper in hand, Partha slumped back into his bed!
The newspaper had only one thing in it, and quite naturally so. The political news had the headline as “Scam”. And it contained a brief interview with the opposition leader, where she had blamed the ruling party for the situation and categorically pointed out to be a conspiracy so that they are unable to keep their promise of bringing about a new dawn in the country! The ruling party message was just below that, it read “Wait and see”. And that’s what they had asked the general public to do as a 8 member strong team has been appointed for this and they are now dedicated in finding the plausible reason for the scenario and a possible remedy!
He was flabbergasted! He put on the television to his favourite news channel. The breaking news was:
“The land of the rising sun had darkness at dawn: Japan misses its first sunrise in this millennium”.
Partha could take no more. He was now actually getting late for office! Office? Today as well? Nah! The world seems to be doing quite well, pretty normal without the sun as well! And is it all because of the deep purple curtains in his home? He glanced at the window once more, to the new purple curtains and the darkness beyond! He then looked back at the watch to see how late he was getting for office. And just at that moment the watch beeped back at him:

“Beep! Beep! Beep!”

Partha jumped out of his bed with a start! Oops, it was all a dream (or was it?). He wiped a few drops of sweat from his forehead, a few drops which had appeared even in this December winter!
And he looked up towards the window, to see the early morning haze breaking into his room through the purple curtains. It was not that bad after all!

(Recreated, with permission, an idea from Partha Banerjee, colleague at Foster Wheeler!)