I had no idea how I would face them after what had happened. I kept trying to justify

the scenario with how I was provoked and it was important to stand my ground, and

demonstrate my independence. But little did I know, I made a huge fool of myself in

front of my only friends. The psychiatrist did a great job in penetrating my psyche.

She showed me how ugly I really was.

Not only did my actions jeopardise all the progress we had made together, and all

the great things we achieved, but also made me feel actually alone, and completely on

my own. It was a different kind of lashing out and one that was detrimental – the most

consequential to myself.

I came to several realisations. So what if Jeter texted differently. So what if Nin

called back her car. These were small, and definitely misunderstood acts against the

myriad of wonderful care, sympathy and empathy that had been exchanged in our

group from the very start. It was stupid and insensitive of me to jump to conclusions

the way I did. My self evaluation rejuvenated me with the spirit to apologise for my

mistake and the will to make matters right.

The next morning, with a heavy heart, I made my way to Jeter’s room, in the same

stealthy fashion as before. Unfortunately, I did not see him there. It looked as if he

had gotten up early and left for the academy, since there was no one in the kitchen

either. As a matter of fact, there was really no one anywhere. I then remembered,

today was the day the miscellaneous staff would be evicted from their positions. The

automated computer sets would be installed, and all those dismissed would return to

their village jobless and helpless. Jeter’s entire mansion seemed empty – or maybe

that was just a coincidence. I thought I would xuxx myself to Nin’s room and check if

she was there.

Upon reaching there, the situation repeated itself. Nin was not in her room. I snuck

out of it and tried to check if I could detect her presence anywhere else in the mansion

but it was futile – she was not in her usual places, and a pattern had become to

emerge. To corroborate my theory, I xuxx-ed myself to Harris’s bedroom and saw a

confirmation of the scene, as he was not there either.

Maybe they had come into my shed last night to tell me of a certain plan, and my

arrogance prevented that. I thought about checking out Izhar Academy and waiting

for them there, so that the first chance I got in talking to them about my

misdemeanour and making friends again, would allow me the space in my road to

redemption. But I decided against it since I was in no mood coming into contact with

Judge Firdous if she happened to be there, which she would, provided I never heard

her ever spend time in an actual courtroom. I also decided against going to Pervez

Sahab lest some eliteratti would bring me into contact with Mr. Kit. Still reeling from

the disgust of yesterday’s encounter with the psychiatrist, I wanted to keep my mind

clear of all that rotten and unnecessary negativity in order to set my record straight.

What I needed to do, under all costs was get to Left Arrow. But given the unnatural

quietude of the elitist neighbourhood and the possibility of all the miscellaneous

staff’s prompt evacuation, there was no way I could get there in time on foot. There

had to be another way. I went down into the Mahmoods’ garage and saw all their

three cars set together in perfect alignment. They were also vacant. Since there was no

time to be lost, I thought about executing a rather complex plan instead of dilly

dallying any further. I recalled Nin once telling me about a driver’s class that was

given in one of the sheds in her gargantuan backyard for her family’s six personal

chauffeurs. And since I was convinced of the absence of all eliteratti from the three

main mansions, I boldly treaded the grass I had never previously traversed. Inside the

shed, my outrageous idea proved fruitful, and I discovered a driving manual – it was

probably one of the driver “students” and had several notes and explanations

scribbled on the corners and sides.

Putting all that information into good use, I got into one of the cars. Instead of keys,

it was password automated, and I had to say the driver’s name, which to my good

fortune was written in front of the manual. “Oppar Neru”. The car’s buttons lit up and

the engine was revved up. Due to the one sidedness of all professions in the town,

there were never any issues with the security of car management or the fear of having

a stranger’s car hotwired and stolen. This worked in my favour, as I began operating

the automobile as per the directions of the super comprehensive manual. To my

surprise, I got the car to start and operate, and owing to my good memory of the route

we took to Left Arrow, I hit my foot on the pedal and zoomed away. I would be more

than happy to look up Oppar Neru in Left Arrow and thank the chap profusely for his

great comprehension skills.

All in all, it was a fairly good ride. The car gave me no trouble and I proved to be a

great driver on my first go! But this was probably because there was ZERO traffic on

the motorway and I had nothing but a strip of absolutely clear road to drive on. It

saved me a great deal of time as well since I reached Left Arrow in the astonishing

period of twenty five minutes.

Parking the car by the familiar grounds of BaBa Goushi’s bakery, I went to him and

asked if workers had begun pouring in from the city. He told me there was an almost

preternatural amount of miscellaneous workers who returned to their home with the

strange news that all their jobs had been replaced by computers, and how the eliteratti

did not require their services any longer. There was a lot of crisis in Left Arrow –

back, front, right, left and centre there were confused workers who were frantically

discussing the random firing by their employers and the ramifications it would have

on them since they would not be paid for the only service they knew they were born

to perform.

I asked the baker about the petition and he told me Badriya had one.

‘Do you know where I can find her?’ I asked.

‘You will probably find her by the theatre,’ he replied, ‘now, now break it up you

lot!’ he said to a group of miscellaneous workers who looked like plumbers, fighting

over a loaf of bread.

There was going to be complete anarchy everywhere. In fact it had already

happened. The village was a lot dirtier than before, and the designated garbage

collectors could not keep up, and gave up since they were not getting paid for their

professions anyway.

I had to go find Badriya. Maybe the two of us together could make some sense of

reality. However, the simple act of passing through narrow passageways became

incredibly cumbersome, owing to the influx of what felt like thousands of new

miscellaneous workers. I was going to get squished to death. Holding on to a piece of

cloth that dyers had hung out to dry against the wall from the roof, I climbed onto the

ceiling of the mud houses. But as I was trying to make a jump to the neighbouring

ceiling, my foot slipped and I instead fell into a small hut that was sandwiched

between the houses. Straw had been used as its ceiling and was scattered everywhere

on the floor since I broke through the framework. Without letting the comfort of the

soft, cold muddy floor lull me, I got up frantically, and saw before me an

extraordinary looking woman. Chocolate brown face, beautiful dreadlocks, flappy

skin that looked like a long skirt made out of several patches of different symbols and

images and an orange chest – I was standing in front of the descendant of the great

African teacher who had been a part of the original eliteratti quartet – the founders of

Silverns Town.

‘Excuse me?’ she asked, ‘are you all right?’

I started coughing because of the dust. ‘I’m so sorry, I did not mean to break through

your ceiling,’ I said awkwardly, taking the straw out of my hair.

‘That is no problem, take a seat,’ she said bringing a small stool next to me.

‘My name is Ekene,’ she said, adjusting her necklace beads, ‘what brings you here?’

‘I am trying to be the agent of change in this egocentric universe and lend an equal

voice to all,’ was my unintentionally poetic answer.

I then told her my entire narrative and also the unfortunate space I was in at the

moment.

‘That is extreme what they have done now,’ she acknowledged after letting out a

laugh, ‘my grandfather always used to say man has a terribly bad habit of repeating

the past. No matter how strong the initial intention of finding refuge in a place free of

skin colour prejudice may be, there will always be the birth of new ways of

discrimination.’

‘I agree, and not to mention how corrupt the very basis of justice is. Justice is

supposed to be that one equalizing factor in life, but not in Silverns.’

‘Oh, justice!’ she said with another chuckle, ‘if you think justice will unite the

miscellaneous and eliteratti under one roof, that is a gross understatement. The

sentences for both are very different. In a fair system, miscellaneous and eliteratti

defendants who score the same number of points under this formula would spend the

same time beyond bars. But the grand Silverns annual statistics board found that

judges disregard the guidelines, sentencing miscellaneous defendants to longer prison

terms in 70 percent of felony cases, 88 percent of serious, first-degree crimes and 55

percent of burglaries. In third-degree felony cases — the least serious and broadest

class of felonies — eliteratti Silverns judges sentenced miscellaneous defendants to

30 percent more prison time than the elitist defendants.’

‘Woah, you really know your stats,’ I said impressively.

‘I do a lot of reading around matters like these,’ she said while pouring herself some

green tea, ‘would you like some?’

‘No, thank you,’ I said, ‘but you know this kind of scenario that the eliteratti are

perpetrating now is worse than the simple separation of the two races before. Now it

is like Left Arrow will cease to exist because they have been cut out of the picture

completely thanks to their computer toys.’

‘This takes me back to 1900 when the American South was what we call Jim

Crowed. Segregated. The African Americans had to face an almost insurmountable

number of obstacles. There were restrictions on voting, there was violence, along with

segregation, poor sanitation, zero to none education… the miscellaneous are not told

what their profession entails like the so called expert classes the eliteratti receive and

those classes are not carried out here because they believe the miscellaneous

professions are not worth being explored or properly taught,’ Ekene said.

I looked down. She was right.

‘There are many issues and concerns,’ I said quietly.

‘Absolutely,’ Ekene agreed, ‘Another issue is in order to make sure that the

miscellaneous do not attempt to assert themselves in any way, whether it is through

voting or whether it is through trying to buy land, the Silverns eliteratti resort to

terrorism to keep it all in check. This terrorism is a legacy that never stopped from the

time of the Silverns Civil War, when some miscellaneous who spoke out were

brutally put into their place by the eliteratti, all the way up through this period,

reaching an intensity in the early 2000’s and then cooling off again in the middle,

when you came into the picture, and now it will become intense again.

‘In the beginning,’ she continued, ‘in order to make them adhere to the status quo, it

consisted of lynching the miscellaneous, it consisted of burning the miscellaneous and

it consisted of whipping the miscellaneous. It consisted of all kinds of violence

against the miscellaneous for asserting themselves in any way. And that is what

terrorism is about. It is about keeping people from doing something that you think

they may want to do. And so it was not just enough to close these avenues to the

miscellaneous, it was designed to show them that you can't do it and so don't even try.

But terrorism is very much a part of the legacy of the eliteratti and it is something the

miscellaneous have lived with. They had periods in which it was not as bad as others,

but,’ she raised her eyebrows and did a hand motion, gesturing towards the times.

That was a very deep insight into the situation. It was much more understandable

given the kind of terrorism I was subjected to at the hands of the psychiatrist – a

seemingly Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario on the outset… but

Hyde the monster all the way.

‘I need to go and find Badriya. She has the petition and if we are going to move

forward with anything, we need something concrete first. Initially, though

simplistically, we thought we could have the miscellaneous boycott the eliteratti, and

not provide their services, and hoped that would be substantial enough to set the ball

rolling on our plan to revolutionise Silverns. But they kind of turned the tables on us,’

I ruminated sadly.

‘Yes, of course, the vultures will always circle rotting meat…they will starve if it is

healthy and living. No, what you really need is another agenda. Pursue your plan of

getting the petition, but get it for something greater, like, education,’ Ekene said

excitedly, putting down her mug, ‘you must show that educating the miscellaneous is

the only way they will become self sufficient, and not care about how the eliteratti

have their windows cleaned. You are so privileged to not have been born looking like

an employment… giving you the freedom to go after anything and keeping your

horizons open.’

I smiled. It was hard to resist breaking into dawn at getting to hear some semblance

of positivity when all I had been plummeted with in the previous hours was nothing

but racial bigotry and unnecessary hatred spewing from all four corners. This was a

much needed optimistic comment that reinforced my stance. And quite true, too. The

miscellaneous should be given that kind of freedom in any sense and not simply

because they are born looking like they should. To know the extents of their skills if

they choose to stick by what they were born looking like, or to go after something that

intrigues them other than their biology, like what my father was trying to achieve, is

precisely the point of all our endeavours to shape humanity.

‘I must try and contact my father. I started doing all of this for him but now it is like

that course just went into oblivion. I have no idea where he is. And the worst part is

even if I wanted to find him, I don’t have a clue where I’d begin from.’

‘Write him a letter,’ Ekene suggested, ‘and give it to the “Connections Beyond”

shed. They will post your letter for you. It is designed to help connect you with your

loved ones – particularly, those you cannot find.’

‘That is fascinating. Who came up with this idea?’ I asked.

‘I did,’ she replied with a little smile, ‘I was out of touch with my family too. After

the divide of the golden quartet, things got bloody, and a lot of family was lost. It was

like the 1947 partition of Pakistan. There was no miscellaneous to be found on equal

footing with the eliteratti without heads being torn apart and so separate villages had

to be established for the well being of people’s lives. I lost a lot of my family, and my

grandfather was always travelling, always accommodating the hundreds of displaced

miscellaneous bodies. So I came up with this a few years ago to help people build a

community here.’

‘I see…a strong community’s our best chance at survival anyway. There is also

something that I want to know. Tell me Ekene, why did the golden quartet break up in

the first place?’

Ekene closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, smiling. She took another sip of

her green tea and took a deep breath.

‘My grandfather wanted everyone to have access to education. But the others

believed what they specialised in was difficult, more complex and therefore superior.

So they wanted to create a kind of monopoly… and owing to the special genetics of

Silverns, it was a demarcation in the most literal of senses. Obviously the teacher

disagreed, and so started a long feud.

‘Just now before you “dropped in”, I was reading a book that articulates the essence

of what you seek to revolutionise,’ she continued.

‘And what book is that?’ I asked.

‘Critical Race Theory…it is about the whole social construction of race, exactly

what seems to be the focal identifier in Silverns. See here?’ she motioned towards the

paragraph she was reading, ‘Ian F. Haney López casts doubt on the idea that race is a

biological reality. The distinction he presents is between a slave and the free white

man. And here? A person born to a miscellaneous woman is a miscellaneous, one

born to an elitist woman is an elitist. I find it hilarious, how López documents that

three generations of enslaved women sued for freedom in Virginia on the premise that

they descended from a free maternal ancestor, and so would automatically be assumed

as free all those years ago. Can one not make one’s own identity? Can there be no

respect accorded to one based on their own self? Society will forever be obsessed

with their human fate dictated by ancestry and appearance.’

‘Ah, Ekene. We keep asking those questions but don’t ever answer them.’

Ekene put down her mug, and grabbed her satchel. I clutched my bag pack as an

affirmation of what was really to be done, since philosophical talk had a way of

suspending time and drugging the brain into a temporary laxative state.

‘What subject do you teach?’ I asked as we got out of the hut and walked towards

the special shed through Ekene’s secret underground passageway given the huge

crowds.

‘Before I answer this question, there is something I would like to make clear. The

ability to teach someone something lives in everyone. We do it everyday. That means

we are all teachers of something or the other. Therefore I believe a teacher is never

restricted to one subject alone. I teach history, geology, literature, a little arithmetic,

geometry, algebra, science, and perhaps even some art.’

‘That sounds exciting! Who do you teach it to?’

‘Anyone who listens. I teach to people specialising in their areas but the eliteratti

would never take up my assistance. To bring back a teacher into their elitist sphere

would be blasphemous.’

‘So you basically specialise in almost all the professional areas,’ I realised.

‘And that is another, maybe even truer reason behind the feud,’ she said, ‘my

grandfather knew a lot about everything and that was a threat to the “expertism” of

the others. Their tragedy is that they never did anything about it because it clashed

with their main professions, and so ostracised the one who did. Of the teacher’s role

in society, Toni Morrison said,

“…the work they do takes second place to nothing, nothing at all, and that theirs is a

first order profession.”

’

It was quite a complex web, indeed. And the fact that the entire concept of Silverns

was based on an even more ridiculous idea than previously understood, made the

entire notion of discrimination more and more unreasonable. That the idea of not

letting anyone be an all rounder because it would make everyone equal was one way

of letting the world know only you could be the best. Being “golden” was a sham!

We reached the shed – it had an eclectic vibe to it; the walls were dark purple and

there were dark red lights embedded in the table that contained the distinct papers

used as letterheads that bore the “Connections Beyond” emblem on the side. Taking

one of them, I seated myself in one of the booths on the right, and under the reading

lamp penned down the letter to my father.

Instead of wasting time on how I ought to structure the letter and make it articulate, I

just began immediately and spilled my feelings all over the place in a fragmented

sense - whether that was because of the urgency of time or because there was no

coherence in anything, remained unclear, among other things.

Dear Dad,

I am well and I really, really hope you are too. Silverns is not a good place to be in

right now. Not for people that aren’t the eliteratti. They’ve built computers, dad.

These things have already started taking over all of the miscellaneous jobs and will

completely destroy their lives. And in all of this, you seem to be completely missing.

Where are you? Why did you break contact with me? I hope you do not think that I

am ashamed of you??? Father, I am very proud of you – of how you were the one who

dared to dream to become something other than what was expected of you – you

dared to follow your dreams – knowing that they were not easy – knowing that there

may not be success waiting for you at the end of the tunnel – and knowing all the

rejections you would have to face – yet you soldiered on. You are a source of

inspiration to me, and were to mother as well. There is no denying that. She had so

much faith in you… I have so much faith in you. And because of that I am on a

mission to transform society for you, because of you. But please know, even if I fail, I

love and owe you for giving me a sense of purpose. The purpose of striving for a

positive change – a feeling I did not have before coming into contact with your

passion. Please write to me. Please meet me. Please! There are so many dark

moments. Moments of loneliness and doubt and anxiety, although your strength gets

me through! Father, I have met some amazing people and together we have a petition

that demands equality in education. We’re going to go to Judge Firdous and see which

door we can open next. But in all this, I want to know we can walk into a new era,

together.

I love you.

I posted it and felt like a huge load had been lifted off my back. I thanked Ekene for

helping me start piecing back my situation, which I felt was not under my control

previously. With that we took off in the secret underground passageway again in

search of Badriya.

‘I know that actress,’ Ekene said, ‘she is so passionate and fiery, yet she often

performs the most polite and passive characters. It is an interesting dynamic

especially once you have made her acquaintance.’

‘Where can we find her?’ I asked, ‘it may take us forever… or not.’

Right as I had uttered “forever”, Ekene and I took a turn, entering a tiny space,

where we climbed a ladder to get to higher ground. As soon as we set foot above root

level, we beheld Badriya, scribbling something on a long piece of paper.

She immediately looked up at Ekene and both of them greeted one another, ‘Jambo!’

Badriya and I embraced as well; it had been a while, and now, several roller coaster

rides later, we were embarking on one more.

Thankfully, what seemed obvious to me was in fact true, Badriya had been signing

her name on the petition, and due to the influx of miscellaneous that entered Left

Arrow, the amount of signatures reached one thousand – as we had wanted.

‘Once Harris told me about what was happening, I thought about setting up a booth

right towards the opening gate of our village, and get people’s signatures, since I was

able to have this (motioning towards the petition) circulated around and get the

miscellaneous to put down their voice. But of course, not a lot of them knew why they

had to sign this, they just did it because of my connection with them, you know, free

entries to some of our earlier plays and everything since our community is very close

knit, and we know each other here,’ she said rather breathlessly.

‘Badriya, I am so ecstatic to hear that… all of us will go together to Right Arrow,

where nothing is right,’ I cringed a little at my unimpressive platitude but at the

moment, it did not matter to me provided we just went and executed what had been

long overdue.

‘Also you are right about this side of Silverns being close knit and well connected,’ I

added just at the end, ‘before everyone is brought to their final wits, we have to act

out now.’

‘We agree,’ Ekene said, while Badriya nodded her head.

‘I have a car that will take us to Right Arrow, follow me.’