Emit Eht

By Ratna Srivastava

Move over superheroes, superpowers, men, machines, and weapons with unending noisy ammo. This time when humanity is in danger, it is a humble but not-so-humble kindergarten teacher who must save the world with just the tools of her trade. In the process, she learns the mystery of time, which may solve the puzzle archaeologists and historians in the real world have been struggling to discover.
A hypersonic plane. A hypersonic love story. An apocalypse too great for words. A survival technique hinging on the powers of the mind that can defy death and thousands of years—thirty-five thousand years to be exact!
Emit Eht is a tale about discovering secrets of our past and asking ourselves if what we know about human history is all a lie. Is our past more closely connected with our future than we know?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781665581783

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 Ratna Srivastava. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   11/13/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8179-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8178-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Clock image Book Cover by Jawahar Srivastava

To

Shrish and Hanu, my little big universe!

My special thanks to Jawahar for

always being there for me!

Contents

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1    The Encounter

Chapter 2    The Pluck

Chapter 3    The Night

Chapter 4    The Dilemma

Chapter 5    The Decision

Chapter 6    The Idea

Chapter 7    The Offer

Chapter 8    The Vista

Chapter 9    The Flight

Chapter 10    The Impossible

Chapter 11    The Inferno

Chapter 12    The Dance of Death

Chapter 13    The Hell

Chapter 14    The Farewell

Chapter 15    The Struggle

Chapter 16    The Epiphany

Chapter 17    The Plan

Chapter 18    The Journey

Chapter 19    The New Terrestrials

Chapter 20    The Roots

Chapter 21    The Resignation

Epilogue

About the author

About the book

Preface

One evening as I was meditating, images started flashing in my mind—images of Earth that were so startling that I couldn’t forget, couldn’t ignore, couldn’t describe, and couldn’t ‘not do anything’ about.

For the next few days, I was in a strange state of emotions. I knew those images meant something concrete. I was consumed with an urgent desire to share them. I felt I was no longer alone or no longer able to decide this issue for myself, because it had already been decided for me. The need to tell overtook me. The question was only ‘how’.

It was then that I started to weave an imaginary story to fit the visions.

I resigned from my teaching job and started writing Emit Eht full-time. Uncannily, the things I wrote about would appear in the news within next few days, in a weird coincidence. There were eerie instances when I wanted to write something I had no idea about, and that situation would be on BBC or CNN days later, giving me the first-hand information I needed. The eruption of Kilauea Volcano on May 3, 2018, and the Tham Luang cave rescue incident in Thailand during June and July 2018, are glaring examples.

I began documenting these coincidences. They can be found on my website with date entries.

Dear readers, I am not a novelist. I am not even a writer, at least not in the sense we are all familiar with. Apart from wanting to be a writer, I have none of the talents or qualifications required to be one. Yes, I have always been fond of writing, but my writing was strictly confined to private journals, concocting children’s stories for my four-year-old students, and occasionally writing my thoughts on Facebook. Wanting to write a novel was like wanting to row a tiny dinghy across the formidable Atlantic without any boating experience.

But, as I said, the need to tell this story has compelled me to row my tiny dinghy across the Atlantic, having no protective gear about me and practically no experience.

Dear readers, please note: Emit Eht is just a story, just my personal thoughts, just my personal perspective. There’s nothing right or wrong about it, nothing like prophesying the future or starting a blame-game war with anyone.

It is just a story. Go die! as Eva would say.

Prologue

Do we learn anything from our past? Does

our past actually change our future?

‘Hmm, good coffee!’ He took the first sip while discreetly scrutinizing the young hottie sitting in front of him. ‘So, what are you studying at the university?’

She sipped her coffee gingerly, careful not to upset her shocking cherry-plum lipstick. ‘I’m a history student. What? You look amused. Is something funny?’

‘Sorry, no offence meant,’ he apologized but still continued to smile. ‘I have actually always wondered why people study history.’

‘To learn about our past, of course.’

‘What’s past is past. How is learning about past times beneficial to us?’

‘It helps us understand ourselves better.’ She was beginning to feel weird with this audacious guy and his freak questions.

‘Fucking bullshit. I understand myself as well as you do, even without a history degree.’

‘It helps us avoid committing same mistakes again and be wiser.’

‘Fucking bullshit again.’ He burst out laughing. ‘Numerous wars have been fought in past times; none of them ever prevented any future war. Everything happens irrespective of what happened in the past. History never changes future. It never has. It never will. Have you heard that shitty phrase history repeats itself?’

‘Yes.’ She stood up. ‘It is for assholes like you who don’t understand it, which is why history has to repeat itself.’

‘No.’ He stood up too. ‘It repeats itself because it has bloody nothing else to do except fuck with people again and again without originality. The American Revolution didn’t prevent the French Revolution but caused it. World War I didn’t prevent World War II but caused it. Admit defeat.’

They left their coffee unfinished and stomped away, each in different direction, without even saying goodbye. But she couldn’t shake off the new doubt he had planted in her mind. He did sound right. Why did history repeat itself, other than because it was a jerk? Why only history? Why?

Mind is a technology we haven’t started using yet.

Chapter 1

The Encounter

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A bitch for a bitch, a saint for saint,

Because a bitch for a saint or a saint for a

bitch will just be unfair, blissful torture.

What did Steve Jobs, sleeping pills, and a messed-up watch have in common in this world? They were all crazy, they were all mine, and they defined my whole world like a faithful friend.

Some say this world is big, some small, and some call it the sum total of heaven and hell. But for me it was just one fucking piece of shit between me and my dreams, and the bottomless pit of my hatred for pretty much everything else. The question was not why I was like this. The question was why this fucking piece of shit was a fucking piece of shit. The world, I mean.

I swallowed four sleeping pills without a shadow of guilt and stole a look at my watch lying rather seductively on Steve. Go, bitch; go die! It was probably 23.30—I wasn’t sure I had read the time correctly. This watch was clearly as messed up as me. One had to see it to believe it. It had thirteen numbers instead of twelve, and none of them in places where they should be. If it hadn’t been set in gold with an inlay of precious stones and handmade by my father as a birthday gift, I wouldn’t have minded serving it to vultures for their dinner or shattering it with a hammer, with pleasure so dark and malicious that demons would blush. Eva, shut up and die. Either something is wrong with you or with everything and everyone else.

I caved in my warm duvet, feeling the boring, useless heat of my naked body in sharp contrast to the busily snowing, vile, and vicious winter night outside.

A scorching sun rained its fiery heat down on me with the fury of the Asian monsoons. A blazing brilliant-blue sky overhead appeared suspiciously closer than normal. There was a naked, rocky mountain that I climbed desperately, urgently, bare-handed, running for my life. I climbed higher and higher like a skilled acrobat. An inescapable sense of urgency pushed me on with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.

I stole a fearful glance below. The foggy nothingness dizzied me. I was quite high up already, and yet I must keep climbing if I were to save myself. My hands and feet turned into a bloody, muddy, splotchy mess. My clothes tore on the jagged rocks. My long black hair fluttered in salty winds. I paused to take a breath, wiping my tears with a bloodied hand. How far is there to go? I asked myself. I looked up at the summit. Ah! Dauntingly too high—so high in fact that I appeared to have just begun. But there’s no time!

A cruel convocation of ravenous eagles circled ominously in the sky above me, waiting for me to die, to become their fresh meal. Much as I appreciated wildlife, I could not approve of the way these predators regarded me. No, I told myself firmly. I can’t let them do that. I cannot let anyone do that to me. I must not stop. I must go on. I must keep climbing. But there’s no time… I missed a footing and screamed, No, no!

Die! Fucking same old nightmare again—my silent, constant companion since the day I was born. This nightmare will never change, never betray me, never forsake me till I die. Every night I met this dream like a nocturnal knight-lover, who briefly made love to me, then vanished in the silky fogs of winter breath. Love him or hate him, there was no escaping him, no matter how hard I tried. Fucking, fucking dream! Shouldn’t there be more to my life than just a lousy D-grade nightmare every night that couldn’t even frighten a housefly? I couldn’t live; I couldn’t die. I couldn’t laugh; I couldn’t cry. And now neither sleep for me nor the effect from the pills unless I took another ton.

I turned and tossed in my bed restlessly. Fine! I lived alone in a single-room eighth-floor apartment with no baggage of responsibilities other than myself and my teaching job at a kindergarten; but at the very start of my life, at barely twenty-three years of age, I was so sick of everyone and everything.

A proud nerd, a prouder lone wolf, I hated people. They seemed to exist just for the sake of the luxuries of life—friends, food, films, fun, and fucking being the topmost commodities on their survival list, before oxygen and water. I hated people who showed off everything they had, from their nail clippers to their underwear. I hated people who fell in love and hung around their beloveds like toxic smog on a polluted city. I hated religion; it was just the mind weapon of the gods. I hated God. Who was He and why was He almighty, omnipresent, and omniscient when He could not see suffering people? You didn’t need a God if you had a mobile phone anyway!

I hated my neighbours: they were full of everything I hated. I hated my colleagues: they were too smiley-smiley, Facebooky, Instagrammy, and Twittery just to show me everything I wasn’t. I hated my boss for trying to find fault with me and telling me how to do my job when I knew I did it better than she did.

I hated laughter; it sounded silly and empty. I hated love; it was meaningless and stifling. I hated couples who flaunted their marital bliss like military medals and decorations. I hated meeting familiar faces in the lift, on the street, or in the metro—it just meant having to indulge in poisonous politeness. I hated festivals, social gatherings, and parties. I hated holidays and weekends. I hated cooking; I hated eating food. This world would be so much more tolerable if there were fewer people, fewer rules, and less free time available to humanity. Being alone and hating like a demon could be so liberating—and a curse for all others, but who cared? Go, die! I was born this way and meant to die as such. I revelled in my world of hatred as much as a guy did in his wild nights… or so I had heard.

Heavy footsteps lumbered in the corridor above my floor. I knew the fellow. Through his noises of course—noises of all kinds, from farts to fucks. He lived upstairs with his wife and two hyper-boisterous children. Shrill peal of doorbell. Opening and shutting of door. Irritation swept over me. I abhorred the way these apartments separated the occupant from everything but sounds, so even a fart could be heard by everyone as if broadcast live on FM.

Let’s hope there won’t be any more sounds.

I glanced slothfully around my apartment—more books than furniture. I smiled indulgently. At least there was something that was just perfect: my books! History, fiction, historical fiction, biographies—Elizabeth, Victoria, Henry, Charles, Napoleon, Gandhi, Steve Jobs. Steve! Steve! I sighed with longing. Apart from my adorable Einstein, Tesla, and Sherlock Holmes, Steve was the only man who had everything I had ever searched for, had ever wanted and admired. His intelligence and intellectuality; that deep, soulful look on his face; his scintillating, starry eyes full of pulsating vision; his resolute mouth… He was a man of dreams! Dreams! Fuck, no. Not dreams. I was scarred for life by that forbidden word.

Never party too early!

Brutally ripping the pristine shrouds of the midnight silence, a child upstairs broke into a piercing cry: ‘No! No! No!’ I could handle any amount of howling at the kindergarten, but not here in my home on a cold, snowy, sleepy January midnight when all I needed was my sleep. I hadn’t slept for three days despite the pills.

I twisted my pillow around my head like steel wires. The cries became louder. I buried my head in a pillowy grave. In vain. I opened the side table drawer to get my earplugs as the undulating waves of howling—now loud, now soft—continued to pour into my ears like molten metal. No earplugs! Where could they be? I always kept them in that drawer. I rummaged harder among the varied contents. No earplugs. I pulled the drawer. It jammed. Is this some kind of joke? My demons were rising. I swore savagely and pulled harder. Off it came with a violent jolt, knocking down the glass of water with it. The water spilled over Steve Jobs. That was the last straw. I could forgive ear murder; I couldn’t forgive wet Steve Jobs.

‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ I screamed. Picking up the drawer, I javelined it across the room and shut my ears and eyes. I heard it hit the main door. Door? Shit! I hadn’t intended that! I opened my eyes and witnessed it landing complacently on the wooden floor, spectacularly scattering all its humble contents in its wake like a meteor shower. The howling stopped—then recommenced even louder than before. The second child joined in too.

I grabbed Steve and my pillbox, wiped him dry with my naked thighs, gulped down four pills, and buried my head tightly in my pillow, with Steve snuggled safe and warm near my heart. Please, God, please… I haven’t slept for three days. Anything, go die, just let me sleep tonight.

That’s the problem with caring neighbours. You cough and they fear you are dying. There’s no trifling with their concern; they can wrestle with the gods of death to wrench you safe away and choke you to death with their queries of concern. And you aren’t even sure if they wanted to save you for your sake or rescue themselves from their boredom.

Some windows and doors opened and shut hurriedly. Crisp footsteps. Excited voices. Ah! Come on. The world hasn’t ended. An urgent knock on my door. Then several. Will I never have my peace?

‘Hello? Hello?’

‘Are you all right? We heard something falling. Are you OK?’

Go. Eat your blood. Just die. I snarled and pulled up the covers over my face. Let Tutankhamun curse anyone with deadly plague, who dares keep me from my sleep. I was all right. I was deliciously falling asleep after three days.

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Epically late for work!

I entered the kindergarten wishing Ulrike, my manager, to be dead, fired, retired, absent, or at least obscured, with duct tape over her lips if not also over her eyes. She stood right there in the middle of the doorway. My universe’s infallible law: I never find things I search for; I always run into things I run away from.

‘You are late,’ said she in icy tones. She had a strange harsh-and-sweet voice that sounded sweetest when she wanted to hurt the most. It always made me imagine a cactus-thorn soup tempered with honey, with all its finger-long thorns still delightfully raw and sharp, sliding down one’s throat like a chakra descending vertically. Ouch! That must hurt.

‘I… Er, I had a bad night,’ I stammered meekly. ‘I couldn’t sleep and—’

She looked me up and down with a dirty gaze. Does she think I have been…? I’ll chew her teeth and swallow them with a glass of red wine. I am a PhD in Bitch Bible, just saving my charms.

‘Eva, this is unacceptable. I must report you to the boss right away. Oh, and just to let you know, there are other complaints against you.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Parents are not happy with you. The boss checked your files. She wasn’t happy either.’

Go. Die. I looked away, imagining in my mind’s eye how I would like to sew her horny, corny, thorny lips. I wasn’t a fool not to know good work from bad and compliments from complaints. But I preserved my energy and time for things far superior than these people would ever know.

I entered my group with a rebellious heart. The little children left their activities and ran to hug me lovingly. The other teachers looked away in oh-so-hard-to-suppress irritation. Of course. Go, go, die!

‘Eva, Eva, Eva!’ I knelt down and hugged all of them together.

‘Look, Eva, my mama has sent a card for you.’

‘A card! Why?’

‘Mama and Papa like you very much. Mama made it herself.’

I opened the handmade card. The mother had written: Dear Eva, thank you for doing the impossible with my child. You are amazing!

‘Oh, that’s so sweet. Do give my thanks to your mama.’

This place, with all these little children smiling gleefully, was the happiest, warmest, most beautiful, most wonderful place for me in the whole world. Here I loved and was equally loved in return. This was my microscopic paradise, my own miniscule bubble of true happiness, with laughter and sunshine that nobody could understand. This was my flawless world. Just an atom of my existence…

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I loathed the staff room as sinners loathe saints, particularly during my breaks. Suffering grain-brained colleagues meant attempted suicide for my mouth, my ears, and my entire nervous system. In all probability, I was as much a bitch in their eyes as they were in mine. Forty-five minutes! Hmm, how would I talk so much and about what? I had zero tolerance for normal people—and minus one hundred for fools.

‘Hi,’ I greeted the other teachers with unabashed fake politeness and slumped on a couch. My body still hurt with lack of sleep. If only I could nap for thirty minutes…

‘Why is she such a weirdo?’ I heard a whisper. Go on, die. I smiled to myself. I don’t mind being a bitch to bitches. It is orgasmically satisfying! And dumb bitches? You don’t even exist in my universe.

Rocks! Huge, jagged rocks tearing at my skin. The blistering sun blinding my teary eyes. Ravenous eagles circling ominously overhead. I climbed on without stopping to rest my tired limbs. The foggy drop below, the dizzying height above… I must go on if I want to live. But there’s no time!

Eva…

I must go on. Come on, climb harder… harder…harder!

Eva, wake up.

Climb higher. Don’t stop! I can’t afford to stop…

Wake up.

Climb harder… Oh God. This is too much.

Wait. What the hell? How come Ulrike is on the rocks with me?

I tried to make sense of those devilish rocks merging into Ulrike’s face staring down at me in arctic annoyance. The rocks grew fainter and fainter until they disappeared, but Ulrike grew steadily clearer and clearer. I stared, stupefied, not knowing if I was awake or asleep. Ulrike’s face was barely inches from mine. It looked like I was awake and in far graver trouble than I had ever been on the mountain. Two nightmares in a row and the only time in my life when I didn’t want to run away from my original one.

I blinked.

‘Eva? Eva, wake up. Are you OK?’

I rose unsteadily. My head swam. I still struggled to figure out if I was looking at her or the rocks. They were like…like…one image superimposed on another, both visible, like vision-mixing in movies.

‘Ulrike, give her a minute. She was probably having a nightmare. Eva, are you OK? Here, drink a glass of water.’ Izabella helped me sit up while I, still shocked and bewildered at the strangeness of my nightmare, tried to make sense of it all.

‘You have been sleeping during your work time. I will not tolerate this!’ Ulrike thundered, slamming the door shut as she left.

‘Is everything all right with you?’ Izabella looked at me concernedly.

‘I haven’t been sleeping well lately.’

‘Go get a coffee and some fresh air.’

‘Can’t. I must get back to the group.’

‘Forget Ulrike. She is such a beast! I’ll cover you till you come back. Now go.’

For the first time in my life, I felt actually thankful for somebody’s gesture of help. I hastily brewed my coffee, keeping a wary lookout for Ulrike and feeling quite like a serious fugitive from justice. Fuck! I could hear her close by. No time for coat and boots. Couldn’t risk more blood. I grabbed my coffee and ran out.

The kindergarten was in the middle of bustling Munich, having an inner face towards a garden and an outer one facing the main street. Cars were parked on either side, and the street traffic in the middle was in full swing. Snow had covered everything in white, and it continued to snow.

My plain red wool-knit dress over black tights and indoor, long Uggs wouldn’t keep me warm for long. Leaning against a freshly parked car—the only one without a towering heap of snow on it—I took a sip of coffee, closed my eyes, and turned my face towards the heavens in deep relief. Coffee and solitude go beautifully well together. I let the coffee slide slowly down my throat, feeling its rich warmth and refreshing aroma that chased my sleep demons away. Tiny snowflakes fell on my warm face and melted.

I took another sip and continued my wordless conversation with my solitude and the beautiful, almost angelic silence of the snow. It was a noisy street, made even noisier due to speeding cars on the snowy surface. The naked trees stood on the sidewalk like colossal sentinels, as if guarding us indefatigably, protectively. The contrast between the quiet snowflakes and the noisy road was interesting, even soothing somehow. Like some kind of order in chaos, some kind of silence in noise, some kind of serenity in unrest. Despite the roaring noise, I found a healing peace such as only solitude lovers find.

‘You love the snow?’ A voice near me forced my eyes open. I looked around with annoyance.

A man stood right in front of me, looking at me candidly with an amused smile on his face. He had long blond hair, a patchy, hardly there moustache and beard, and somewhat interesting, attractive features.

‘No,’ I replied tautly, lowering my gaze to conceal my irritation. I was in no mood to talk. I never was.

‘Why else would you be out in snow without so much as your coat, hat, and shoes? Moreover, you are meeting the flakes on your face.’ He came closer.

‘I don’t want to talk.’ I finished the whole coffee in one distasteful gulp. I felt annoyed at him for ruining my solitude. I had been in conversation with my silence, and he had broken it. The magic of the snow, the language of the trees, the calming noise of the road were all suddenly destroyed, replacing my precious moment of tranquillity with glaring, upsetting realties.

‘Why?’

‘I hate talking to strangers.’

‘I am Christopher,’ said he. ‘Christopher Adam. I like talking to everyone, even strangers. Glad to meet you.’ He extended a friendly hand for a shake.

‘I don’t make friends.’ I coldly ignored his outstretched hand, walking past him, carefully stepping in a pile of snow so as not to soil my feet.

‘At least you can tell me your name. I just told you mine.’

‘Let’s stay strangers, shall we?’

‘But you said you hate talking to strangers.’

‘Oh, I hate a lot of things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Everything you can possibly think of.’

‘Why?’

‘I see things as they are.’

‘The world is beautiful. You see it as something else?’

‘I see it as crap.’

‘No, no, no, no, no. That’s not true,’ he protested emphatically. ‘Life is beautiful.’

‘Life is double crap.’

‘Love is beautiful.’

‘That’s triple crap.’

‘And happiness?’

‘Foolish illusion.’

‘Sunshine?’

‘Too bright.’

‘Night?’

‘Too dark.’

‘Flowers?’

‘Too delicate, too weak, too short-lived.’

‘Stars?’

‘Too faint, too distant, too unattainable.’

‘Dreams?’

‘Oh! Trust me,’ I scoffed. ‘They are sickening.’

‘Movies?’

‘Hate them.’

‘Even ‘Saving the World’? That’s the latest blockbuster.’

‘World rescues and apocalypses—they are all myths,’ I fumed. ‘In reality, only doctors, nurses, and grocery store workers are heroes, not those teens and spidermen fighting singlehandedly with aliens and zombies, like we see in all films.’

‘And what’s wrong with apocalypse?

‘Humans are just not made for apocalypse.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘During virus lockdown, all people had to do was to stay at home, and they found it unnerving. If staying at home was hell, living through an apocalypse certainly won’t be a Caribbean holiday.’

He slowly broke into a smile. ‘I admit, you have a point. You have interesting opinions on everything.’

‘I also have one about you.’

‘That is?’

‘You love everything.’

‘You’re right.’ He grinned affably. ‘I love everything.’

‘You see? That is sufficient reason for me to hate you.’

‘You’re Miss Hatred, eh?’

‘I like that name.’

‘What’s your real name? Do you hate that as well?’

I raised my hands, catching fast-falling soft snow flakes melting as they settled on my palms.

‘We’re strangers, just like these snowflakes on my hands—a momentary bubble in the ocean and then they are gone. What’s the point of knowing the name of

Reviews for Emit Eht

[Maya Romani · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The time it took to read this, the time told in this story, and the time that emit from inside of me as I read; were all the same. Infinitely better