Silence. Not the bird chirping, cricket crying, water flowing type. More of the dog howling, batwing flapping and wind whispering type. The reason behind this silence was quite precise. Just after the prophecy, the overeager part of the population had rushed to the third house on elm street, only to find that the house was inhabited by a pair of strangers, who were infinitely interested in each other, but in a bid to justify the existence of the word ‘ego’ in this sentence, were infinitely adamant to behave the opposite. So, within this grimly behaving atmosphere, a meeting of the elderly council, comprised mainly of three year old telemarketing agents, was being held. For the sake of simplicity, their names here are shown as Dave, Dave, Dave and Dave (The four upper strata members who took all the major decisions, and well, were the only ones who could talk legibly).
Dave started, “We have a problem here. The two resident’s in house number 003 on elm street refuse to copulate, thus rendering the prophecy ineffective. Some of the…..”
“I object on the usage of the offensive term”, interrupted Dave, while adjusting his diaper with a sudden relaxation of the facial muscles, “We have older people listening on to this meeting, so I’d rather that we replace the word with something more appropriate such as “become one”, or “unite”, he said, looking at the typist clacking at the transcript of the meeting.
Dave retorted, “We are discussing grave matters here, so can we quit being poetic and sound official?”
Dave leaned back and sighed, “Here they go again.”
Dave replied, “I refuse to withdraw my opposition. If it shall not be adhered to, I will withdraw my support to this meeting and leave with my own faction. And I’ll start a strike, and I’ll….”
“SILENCE!” commanded Dave, “I command SILENCE”. Dave was usually listened to and feared, especially by Dave, him being ‘the’ Dave. “Stop quarrelling like babies or I’ll reduce your monthly quota of cereals AND playdoh by half!” Dave and Dave immediately stopped in mid sentence and looked down shamefully. Dave rather enjoyed the situation, even though he realized by the cereal-cum-playdoh threat that Dave was quite serious about the matter in hand.
He began “We have observed the people of Bollytopia and found that similar behavior is often ended by playing self composed music and dancing around trees. So, as the situation demands, we have planted four trees and three reality show singers around the house to achieve the desired. But so far, no results have been observed.”
Dave suggested, “Why not use brute force?”
Dave retorted, “Are you out of your mind? As a matter of fact, you are, but let’s leave that alone. No, we are a civilized civilization so brute force is a no-no!”
Dave leaned back on his chair, looked up at the skies, and sighed, “Oh! Sometimes these problems make me weary, make me aware of my age. Lord, we need some divine intervention!” He raised his hands to the skies and at that moment, their problems were instantaneously solved by a lightning strike on the third house on Elm Street, burning it and its two inhabitants to ashes, thus creating a new third house on Elm Street, i.e. the house beside it.
Arnab Mukherjee 