“Breakfast time!” yelled Mrs. Cooper straining her tender voice making sure her family of 102 was warned. Each of her 100 kids, lined up like a regiment on call, waiting patiently for their share of measured, balanced meal carefully aged and composted by Mrs. Cooper. As the kids snaked out, with their tiny mouths and tummies full, it was Mr. Cooper’s turn. A doting father, an affectionate husband and a kind-hearted Samaritan, Mr. Cooper was revered by his folks. No wonder, he was the elected leader of his clan and the most learned and well-traveled soul on the SPECK.
SPECKKKKK! Well yes! A Speck.
The Cooper family was amalgamate of microbes living for generations on a speck. To give one a perspective of the size and location of the Cooper family, the detailed postal address read as below:
The Cooper Family,
On the Moldy Valley,
At Speckle Land,
The Grand Crevice,
Great Amazonian Forest, The Earth.
Well! The Speckle Land, i.e Cooper’s world, was nothing but a tiny pollen size fuzz ball stuck for years inside one big crack of our colossal Earth. Shielded from seasonal vagaries, perils, and disasters, Speckle Land was a peaceful biosphere where the Cooper’s, like many other microbe families, survived for generations.
“Sunday! At last!” chirped Mr. Cooper happily.
A break, well-earned and carefully planned by Mr. Cooper. Meditation followed by Yoga in the morning, an afternoon swim with kids in the neighboring Squishy Pool, followed by a scrumptious home-cooked dinner of nature’s best waste. A recipe for a perfect Sunday!
Mr. Cooper, often called ‘The Learned One’ was genetically more evolved than most of his species. While meditating, Cooper often saw the Universe at large. He shared stories of seeing mammoth size flowers, towering grass blades and enormous, gigantic dragonflies hovering over Speckle Land. The Commoners often dumbstruck listened to Cooper’s stories of crossing the realms of the biosphere and reaching a domain where everything was of herculean proportions.
Inhaling the infectious staleness of his morning compost cup, Mr. Cooper was all ready for his deep thought session. Chanting ‘Om’, he closed his eyes and in no time was in a hermetic, relaxed state. Pearls of sweat surfaced on his face. Confused, if it was the bizarre vision or the heat from Mrs. Cooper’s oven baking a fungal pie which made him so hot.
Cooper shocked by the disturbing visions of the outer space, ablaze and burning suddenly opened his eyes. All looked normal on Speckle Land, but his sixth sense forewarned him of some impending disaster.
“What? Is it so hot or is it my pesky hormones going berserk again?” wondered Mrs. Cooper. “Weird and freaky, what is wrong with the weather?”
Cooper babies grumbled of excessive heat and queued in the kitchen for fermented ice cream to cool themselves.
TV rallied news of microbes, especially young and old dying of heatstroke. The marshy pools and the food reserves were drying suddenly leading to fights due to food shortages.
Several neighboring families planned short vacations northwards to the hills to escape the sudden heat.
No one except Cooper knew what was happening to Speckle Land. Cooper had already, had the vision of the burning outer universe. The Amazonian Rainforest, the wettest place was now smoldering, choking the lungs of the Earth.
Cooper recalled how his rambling about pollution and holes in the ozone layer of the Speckle land had been swept under the carpet. With a damaged outer layer, Speckle Land was now doomed to disaster. In no time the consuming fumes and heat of the burning forest monster would engulf Speckle Land, swallowing generations-old legacy within seconds. Charged with a lightning urgency, Cooper called for a public meeting. In no time a zillion microbes collected at the parched cracked city square. Anxious blobs of head dotted the square, as Cooper looked down from the citadel.
“These are challenging times for our land and I foresee apocalypse hitting soon,” blurted Cooper. He felt responsible for the safety of the sea of microbes looking up to him. But the catastrophic fire in the bigger universe of Speckle land was beyond intervention.
“We must pray collectively” urged Cooper to his tribe. Bewildered at the unexpected occurrences, zillions of terrorized commoners sat in meditative silence with folded hands. Even before their unified prayer could reach God, the bigger universe was fracturing and collapsing. The towering Wild Rubber tree which had sheltered the Grand Crevice for years, was now burning and disintegrating. Searing and torched, it belched out black spurious smoke which had even penetrated Speckle Land’s atmosphere. Baby microbes eyes bled and they coughed incessantly with the black soot choking their tiny lungs. Worried mothers rushed for emergency aid to the nearby trauma relief centers. Speckle Land indeed was going through a meltdown.
Thudddddd!
An ear-splitting, crashing thunderous sound jolted Speckle Land. A huge tornado of dust capped the speck bringing with it a devastating meteorite shower and cosmic fireballs. The poor microbes were zoned out with no escape.
“Today, indeed is The Dooms Day!” worded Cooper gaping at the downpour of fireballs and stones from high above. The impact of the mammoth tree falling had sent a whirlwind of dust along with a devastating windstorm in Speckle Land. The hapless microbes ran berserk in all directions. Millions died in the stampede that followed. Cooper, stunned! Stood frozen at the sight of the decimation that played in front of his eyes.
“Honey! Help us!” wailed Mrs. Cooper seeing her 100 offspring succumb to death one by one.
Oh God! What next?
Speckle land was now flying free in the wind. A typhoon, blew the microbes off ground. The impact of the hurricane had dislodged Speckle Land from its haven and it drifted freely.
What had not happened for centuries, happened in a moment!
Speckle Land wafted through the black smoke, as the microbes swept away by the cyclonic winds, held onto objects to hold ground. Holding onto each other, they struggled hard to stay onboard. A Strong draught blew across the speck, uprooting colonies, microscopic trees and hurling microbes in the air. A small chunk of Speckle Land had already disintegrated and went flying down, with Johnson’s family plunging towards sure death.
Holding onto a protruding rock, Cooper too ducked low to stay grounded. Though he knew little about Speckle Land’s fate, yet he thanked God for uprooting it out of the burning ridge. Clouded by black, poisonous smoke, Speckle Land was windy, dark and gloomy. Minutes seemed liked days, as the Speck flew, hurling its inhabitants on a roller coaster ride. Destruction was foreordained, yet Cooper, the believer prayed for Speckle Land to be saved from complete extinction.
The terrorized microbes, heaved a sigh of relief as the wind slowed and for a moment the Speck seemed to hover midair. The microbes waited anxiously for the turbulence to end. Surprisingly the heat that engulfed Speckle land, had cooled off too, which meant that the microbes were out of the blazing fire. Cooper silently prayed for his Speckle Land to land safely on new turf, a benevolent outer universe.
Some strange laws of physics prevented the hot air from settling down and that kept Speckle Land suspended midair for a long time. The gravitational law took a back seat and the microbes kept experiencing mild disturbances and movements. The weary microbes lulled into sleep as a gentle breeze wafted in the sweet smell of flowers.
Wiping off sweat from his forehead, Cooper relaxed a bit, yet knew that the fate of Speckle land was still unsure. In a moment the speck could land in a gigantic forest brook and get flooded and disintegrated. Or it could settle on a massive leaf which could become a small part of the diet of the next herbivore visiting that part of the forest. His tiny Speckle Land and its zillion inhabitants could be martyred for somebody’s insignificant thankless meal.
“My friends, we must pray again” urged Cooper. “God has brought us out of the apocalypse and if we are alive, we are indeed truly blessed.”
Aggrieved and enervated by the loss suffered, the distressed microbes once again unified their voices in prayer. Power of collective prayer, finally pulled the speck down and almost as if choosing a safe place it bobbled in several crevices before finally getting hooked onto the underside of a sharp ridge, overlooking a deep ravine.
God had finally blessed Speckle Land with a mushy, mossy, dark, slimy world, which was always damp with the trickling mountain stream. The blessed world, promised new life, abundant food, and a safe den to Speckle Land to thrive once again.
The surviving microbes, fed on hope, energized and started resurrecting life. In no time the Speckle Land got back its flourishing, lush green look with a desirously high Gross National Happiness quotient. Cooper now old and close to attaining Nirvana, spent most of his time in deep meditation and in leading serious evolutionary developments of his clan.
Recalling the DoomsDay ,Cooper often thanked God to let him live through that, so that he could breed the next generation of microbes with more evolved brains and higher resistance and adaptability to survive any future Judgment Day.
Sipping his fermented cup of compost tea, Mr. Cooper closed his eyes once again and traveled across realms of consciousness to explore the universe beyond his tiny microscopic Speckle Land.
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Photo By: Unsplash
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This is an entry for #InnsWoods, #Artales18, A Room8 writing event. Checkout the event guidelines here: https://writers.artoonsinn.com/artales18
The event is sponsored by Manoj Paprikar, Author of Death at Midnight by ArtoonsInn room9 publications. Manoj Paprikar is a doctor by profession and a writer at heart. Through his latest venture with room9publications, he earnestly brings forth the plight of the medical profession that affects both the healthcare providers and patients at large.
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