When Anish came outside, after knowing the possibilities from Udaya Khanti, he didn't believe that it could be memory distortion. But after realizing that there was a chance that his mother, father, and sister might just exist in his memory and not in reality, he sat outside looking at the moon, watching it blankly.
After a while, Maam Khanti came outside and sat beside him without saying anything.
Anish asked without any expression, "Why is the moon red
...
And what were those black fragments in front of the sun?"
"The sun's fragments were an energy source for humans for a long time. Now, without maintenance, it has broken down from the sun's rage," she said plainly.
"And the moon?" Anish asked again.
"It happened long before the — what you can basically call a disaster. Before that, humans tore open the moon," she said with a slight frown.
After a while of silence, Anish asked in a flat tone,
"So first we extorted the sun, then made the moon bleed?"
Udaya Khanti looked at Anish, about to say a lot of things. At the end of the day, she just said, "Yes, basically."
After a bit of silence between them, she said again, "You are wearing the ripped clothes from last night. Maybe change into fresh clothes?"
"Yeah, sure."
She said with a slight smile,
"What type of clothes would you like to wear? Similar to what you are wearing, or similar to what Makriva is wearing?"
After thinking for a bit, he said similar to Makriva, thinking those clothes were similar to what he used to wear.
Udaya Khanti went and brought a man — woman? Anish was not sure. That person was wearing full baggy pants and a cloak-like garment tied at the neck, covering the upper body.
"She is Kavith. She will take you to get your clothes. She can choose the right size for you. I have explained enough to her, so she will just show you the room and the clothes."
Anish guessed by her voice and her subtle behaviour that she might be of the third gender. He just decided not to ask Udaya Khanti anything about it.
Anish followed Kavith. Coming here he had been healed, but was still disoriented. He was finally noticing the place properly. He sometimes stopped, sometimes looked over at Kavith. The buildings had more than two floors, maybe four? Six? Anish was not sure. Some people were still there, but not as many as in the morning. They were on the second floor. The hallway, more like a bridge, was connecting eight buildings opposite of each other. The bridge was floating in mid air.
While going outside the building, the intense smell of the first raindrop hit Anish.
At the bottom, a big eight-sided water body went downwards, and the sides of it were stairs going down and meeting the water body. Crimson light was glistening on the water.
Anish was not sure how the bridges were supported by themselves, because they were in the air without any visible support. He once thought of asking Kavith, but dropped the idea — first, the language barrier, and second, he didn't have the energy to act it out.
As they moved away from the water body, the fragrance slowly faded away.
They reached the clothing room. Kavith went in to show where everything was, then came outside and stood waiting for Anish.
Inside, Anish saw many similar clothes. He thought, "Are these school uniforms?"
He went in front of a mirror and finally saw the whole body of him — or her.
Anish thought, looking at the mirror,
"So that is her... I don't know if it's you or me. Hopefully... I — I don't know what to hope for..."
H — She was tall, taller than most of the people Anish had seen in his old life, if there was any. Her hair was flowing down her back. She was also wearing a two-part outfit. Anish had ripped the clothes from the top part to tie her wounds, and the bottom part was wrapped around her two legs separately. Her eyes were bigger than any human he had seen here, her nose was a bit smaller but structured, and her face was rounder than he had imagined.
He moved away from the mirror to change clothes. He didn't want to look at someone's body in this state. The changing of clothing was unavoidable, so he avoided looking at the body as much as possible.
While changing, he thought, "I don't know, was that one of Viriya's favourite dresses? If someone did that to my clothes, I wouldn't be happy."
He saw clothes similar to Kavith's and decided to wear those. The baggy pants, a simple shirt, and a cloak-like thing on top. It was easier to wear and maintain than the saree.
In the end, he looked at the mirror. He looked fresh, but his hair was a mess — it looked like it was flowing nicely, but it was a tangled mess. He just kept it like that and said, "Sorry Viriya, I don't have any energy to fix it."
...
Then he thought and laughed a little, "Maybe it's just me, ehh, hair is overrated anyway."
When he came outside, Kavith made a slight face seeing him, then became normal again. She started walking back the same path. Same hallway, same floating bridge, same intense smell, and back to the same room. Kavith knocked at the door and said something to Maam Khanti.
Maam Khanti said, "Come inside, Ananta, sit down. I do need some preparation for tomorrow."
After getting up, she said something to Makriva, then said to Anish, "Ananta, I will send some papers with translated words of Hindi and Thamaily. The language spoken here will help, at least in some way."
"Stay here with Makra. I am leaving now."
They just existed in that room without anyone uttering a single word.
Later, Makriva brought the dinner, they finished it.
Makriva opened up his braided ponytail for the night.
After doing his hair, he came towards Viriya, pointed at his hair then at Viriya's, and gestured at making a braid. Anish didn't completely understand what Makriva was saying, just understood that it was something about hair. He just nodded.
Makriva went to the back of Viriya, and with some difficulty split the hair into two parts, then split those into three parts each — six parts in total. Because of the tangled mess it wasn't the best, but it was manageable.
While doing the braids, Makriva started humming some music, but stopped after a little while.
Slowly, with some redoing, the braids were finally done.
In the end, Anish had two rough, tangled braids.
Anish took those to the front and... just watched them for a while for no reason.
After doing the braids, Makriva made the bed, then gestured for Viriya to sleep. Anish laid down but was hesitant to sleep because of the earlier nightmare. When he started getting sleepy, he sat up. Then started walking for a while. Then sat down again. At last, he fell asleep while sitting.
___
At night, Anish had a dream — not a nightmare, a weird dream. He was in a blank space where he could move freely. There was no floor, no walls, no ceiling, just blank. Not black, just blank. After travelling there for a decent amount, Anish woke up on his own and thought in relief, "At least it wasn't a nightmare."
Anish noticed Makriva wasn't on the bed. He sat up and noticed Makriva was lying awake at the side of the bed on the floor. Makriva noticed Viriya as well.
He was about to say something, then remembering the language barrier, didn't say anything and just tried to sleep again.
___
No more dreams occurred that night.
When Anish woke up, Makriva told Anish with a smile in Hindi, "You, how are?"
Hearing that, Anish smiled a little and replied in Hindi, "Good."
Makriva said, "These, translations, Maam Khanti gave. I learn little these."
Anish took the papers and saw they had Hindi words and Thamaily pronunciation in Hindi. They also had some weird words — Thamaily? he thought.
Anish looked around in those pages until he found something specific and asked in Thamaily, "You yes?"
Makriva, after thinking a while about what Anish might be trying to say, replied in Thamaily, "Good."
After all this time, Makriva could finally talk even a little to his sister. And Anish could finally talk to the first person who cared about him, or the body he was in.
Makriva said, "Be ready. I have work.
You stay with Maam."
Makriva showed the things and areas around so Viriya could freshen up. Makriva also gave her similar clothes to what she wore last night and other necessary things.
When Anish was taking his bath, he was remembering the moment of the translations. He somehow understood some of the words already, and seeing them made that feeling more concrete, like he already knew these words very well.
He broke down a little again, "Then all those really were fake?" Instantly he assured himself, "No, there is a possibility of them being real, they have to be real. But is Viriya...? Never mind."
Anish went into the room. After a while he couldn't really fix his hair, so he somehow dried it and left it open.
"That's why Ambi used to cut her hair?" Anish thought after somehow drying the hair.
After Anish came out of the room, Maam Khanti came and told her, "You are staying with me today. We have a lot of work to do. Let's go, let's go."
From her abrupt arrival and talking, he was startled for a moment. Then Anish just followed Maam without overthinking.