During bewildering times such as the present, the divide between fiction and reality is increasingly blurry and we turn to stories to make sense of our predicament. With our brand-new #DystopianTales series, we bring to you exclusive short pieces on a world that seems to be falling apart.

A Lockdown Fantasy

by Cyrus Mistry

Endlessly, I toss and turn all night: or so it seems.

But when I open my eyes the morning is dazzlingly bright. Somehow, I stumble out of bed. The splash of cold water on my face feels delicious. In that instant a ridiculous, jumbled-up dream—should I call it nightmare?—comes back to me.

Narrow, twisting lanes abound in my neighbourhood seething with hopelessness—deserted, but not peaceful. It is very late. A solitary streetlamp glows in the distance; refracted by the night’s weird alchemy, it appears oddly bent, as if crippled by age. Every now and then its dim fluorescence flashes bright, goes out, then flickers to life again.

Across the road rows of shops have their shutters down. Except for one kirana store, with a side hatch that’s still open. The man standing inside is wearing a muzzle over his mouth and nose. He serves a customer who has his back to me. Purchases done, the customer turns and strides away. I see that he too has a checked cloth wrapped around his mouth and nose. Like a bandit, I muse.

Still asleep, I recall that for many months, a deadly virus has been on the rampage, silently decimating the elderly and diseased of my city. Its tally, ever increasing, occupies peoples’ obsessive fears like little else—the possibility of being struck down by an obscure pestilence.

Just then a pair of uniformed policemen storms up to the grocery waving their batons, yelling threats at the man inside. The shop-man abjectly begs forgiveness for infringing the rules of lockdown, switches off his light abruptly and slams shut the half-open hatch. The crash that creates resounds in the eerie silence.

But there’s no peace here: not in my dream, nor anywhere under the bewitched moonless sky. Even in sleep I am aware of great movements outside, dark, shambly irruptions. Large possés of the poor are on the move—decisively deprived of sustenance, they slink through desultory streets, covering immense distances on foot—before the scorching heat of day subsumes highway and countryside—just to make it back to their homes, their villages. If death by starvation is inevitable, they reason, isn’t it preferable to meet it while in the arms of loved ones?

As they march on, I see that even the ragged and beggarly conceal their faces behind bandanas and strips of cloth, as has been mandated by the powers that be.

Ironically, the supply of cloth masks—even the officially approved N95s—has dried up for weeks on end.  You can’t buy them anywhere—not for love or money—not in malls or medical stores.

So imagine my surprise when at dead of night I see a tall, strapping stranger wearing what looks like a sort of reinforced, deluxe model of the N95! He is dressed to the hilt, in fact: a knight in shining armour!

In my dream I hesitantly approach this odd figure and ask,

‘Hey, where did you find that nifty mask? Are there any still available, do you know?’

The mysterious masked man towers over me by at least a foot. His head is entirely concealed. I see only his fiery eyes brilliantly glittering. As I stare up at him in trepidation, I imagine a chortle from behind the coat of mail that is his face gear. What weirdo is this, returning home after a fancy dress party? And during a pandemic?

Then from the interior of the protective helmet he is wearing, a deeply modulated voice floats out,

‘Where I come from, little man, we don’t use masks anymore….’

Did I exclaim something by way of flabbergasted response? The other one kept silent, but I could swear we were still communicating, wordlessly. In the dream world, of course, mindspeak is not unheard of.

‘And where would that be, sir, what region or district do you hail from, may I ask?’ I repeated. ‘I really like what you’re wearing. I’d give anything for a mask like that.’

‘I come from a place so many light years away, friend, it wouldn’t make sense trying to describe it to you….’

Incredulous, I froze, but tried not to show fear. The voice continued,

‘You see, the virus is a part of the planet I come from,’ the voice had dropped now to a chilling whisper. ‘We have lived with it for so many millenia, our masks have mutated withour physiognomies…they have appropriated our faces, taken the shape of our very souls, you might say….’

I think at that moment I sat up in bed, terrified: what if it wasn’t a dream at all?

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Cyrus Mistry is the author of Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer, Passion Flower: Seven Stories of Derangement, and The Prospect of Miracles.

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