'Once I sat on a rock for a whole afternoon, on top of a pretty hill, watching a forest fire', Helen muttered, stirring the demerara sugar into her morning coffee. 'It was quite far away, glowering away into the general dry heat of the evening. We were on a day's trek, Martin and I, to Torna, in Pune. Somewhere between Zunjar Machi, and Budhla Machi, the fire started, and we sat for hours together, watching the slow burn and the embers. As it got darker, we thought we saw agitated groups of Crimson-backed Sunbirds and some Rufous Babblers flying in our direction, perhaps looking for safety.
Damayanti gave a wry smile. 'Always acting out of natural instinct. Thanks for the coffee, Helen.'
She returned to her desk - with alert neurons. There was a buzz on her phone. It was Rowan from HQ, and the conversation drifted to mundane things like 'profile checks', 'security', 'training'.
The TV was full of dystopic news, and Damayanti wished it was all a bad dream. She would just call up Ma, who would suddenly say, 'wake up...it's a nice winter morning. I will put the kettle on', and they would sit with the morning newspaper as the sun rays tickled their painted toe nails. In a moment, all the dystopia would vanish.
But Rowan's voice lingered on, breaking through her reverie. Be on alert. Ready for the apocalypse, like that group of birds on that warm summer's dusk, many moons back.
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