There was once a story that was only a story. But it was a story that cannot be forgotten because the possibility of it haunts us. It was the story of the sky falling on our heads. What a calamity that would be, a calamity that nobody will live to tell. What happened after? That nobody will ever know because when the sky falls on our heads, it will be the end of things.

But we can think of a few good things that will happen. We are allowed time to do that before the sky falls upon us. Many good things may happen. People who kill us with their foolishness and people who kill us with their isms, or people who kill us with both, will die. Hooray! The children of the gods, of the greater gods and the lesser gods, who are proclaiming from battlements which is greater and which the lesser, will die. They all will. Those who claim to keep their gods alive and those who bestow the gods their greatness. Their lands. Their birthplaces. Befitting monuments and memorials for them. Cradles of silver. Thrones of gold. And should blood have to be shed along the way, oceans of blood. Should lies and hatred have to be employed as means, oodles of lies and banquets of hatred. Such folks, such conceit will die. When the sky falls.

When the sky falls, nothing shall remain. Because above and around us — oh, accepted this planet we inhabit is round because what goes around comes around and things move in circles because people die and people are born and there is only one shape to it, which is the shape of a circle, can’t be a square, for whoever’s sake, and can’t be a triangle, imagine it being a triangle, like genes being cannoned across double helixes — there is only sky. And when the sky falls, it will fall completely and from all sides and God knows what will happen. What is the weight of the sky? Easy. The weight of the innumerable constellations, the countless stars, the planets and their satellites, known and unknown, the meteorites flying about, the landers and space stations, the weight of the humans within, the galaxies, the black hole, the weight of that entire void, Shoonya, and all the sound that has ever been made. Put all of that together. Just add it up, someone. There, you have it. That is the weight coming upon us. May actually be a good thing. It will kill things, everything. Poverty will die. Hunger will die. Need will die, imagine not needing an air conditioner! Hai naa? Inequality will die. Disparity will die. Prejudice will die. Injustice will die. Greed will die. Love will die. Longing will die. Sadness will die. Animus will die. Currency will die. Ownership will die. Employer and employee will die. Disease will die. The need for cure will die. Science will die. All those weapons it curated will die. All those cures it invented will die. The lights will die, and when light dies, the limbs of science will die. Myth will die. All of their creatures and creations, factual and fanciful, will die. Desire will die. Loneliness will die. Memory will die. History will die. We will have nothing. We will have tabula rasa. A new beginning. A brand new day.

But there is a difficulty. Who will be here that brand new day? We too will be dead. When the sky falls, it will fall on us too, and the tabula rasa will emerge from all of that lonely and unattended. So, for all the good things the falling of the sky might usher, fear for it and brace up. Shut your windows, close your doors tight. Perhaps the falling sky will come knocking and hear nobody answering and go away. Perhaps we will be safe, behind the shuttered window. Perhaps we will be witness to the end of everything and the beginning of everything. Perhaps we will come upon it all virgins with merely the birthmarks of our previous sins. Perhaps the falling sky will fall on the other side of the street. And it will be them and not us. Hooray!!

Put your feet up straight

Go on, let them face the sky

Block the sky falling, be not late

A bird’s job, that is how they die.