The Death Toast

The legless dinosaur

The coastline of the Boorbunk Bay shared a direct border with United States of America and so extradition for the redeemed prisoners was very direct. The Boorbunk bay was at the tail end of the entire Dexter Islands and was surrounded by a powerfully built barricade to prevent the rest of the world from having a glimpse at it from even in the highest of towers and to prevent those within to see the daylight outside of it. The latter was rather unnecessary because each ward of the prisoners was heavily fenced already with huge tall walls. Looking at the entire structure from above, each ward was like a single different world on its own, demarcated and entirely sequestered by the walls. Each one with about a hundred prisoners, dealing with themselves and locked within with no noise or pandemonium in the outside world.

But there was and the seven People states were completely tearing apart. They were called the People states because they contained the ordinary hoi polloi; mere masses. The last state termed as The Sovereign State was Reckdette.

Dexter used to be a different place with internal peace filled with beautiful people and places. All the problem they had then was with foreign powers since they blatantly shunned all forms of external relations; from foreign exchange to immigration of other people into their country but putting it in a more approving way, President Dale Gaughan, the then president of Dexter Islands would say, ‘The Dexter Islands would not condone any form of dependence from any other country! We will remain a single people, a sovereign state! And nothing is going to change that!’, the people of the country would then cheer. The only nation that had managed to become allies with her was the United States. It seemed right in their eyes and so it remained like that, there were no immigrants in the country and no foreign products in the country. Whatever products that were consumed by the people were manufactured within the country. It seemed like the right thing to do as the economy grew really high and they didn’t have foreign ties that would take the glory, no debts to other countries and no country was benefitting from the abundant natural resources that the island had been blessed with.

The only downside to it was that the nation constantly got involved in wars and battles with invading countries surrounding them. None of the attempted invasion was ever accomplished as the nation had enough manpower in the military. There was even once a released statistic that stated that one out of four male adult Dexterrans was in the military.

Nevertheless, everything changed twenty-five years ago and the internal peace of the nation was ruined leading to an imbroglio that the nation was still facing. A terrorist group had broken out that had been identified as The Order Of The Quppis. The military of the nation which seemed so invincible to have tackled other nations and stopped them from taking over their nation could not handle this team. They were all out, killing, destroying, bombing and almost every day on the TV news, there was always one or two video clips that had the disclaimer: What you are about to watch contains disturbing scenes.

Reckdette seemed to be the only seemingly untouchable place across the nation because they had a higher concentration of security operatives keeping the lives of the president, ministers, top government officers, past and present, politicians, wealthy individuals and celebrities safe from the hands of the enemy or maybe because the terrorists weren’t looking that way, yet. The latter became the more likely suggestion following the death of the former president while giving a speech at the Reckdette Hall of Fame a decade ago during a remembrance programme for the victims of the terrorist attack. Not only was the president killed, ninety people lost their lives that day in the middle of Reckdette where the entire military power was concentrated. The men who had conducted the assassination were never found despite the instant locking of state boundaries and search of every single home throughout the one thousand square kilometres of the state. No trace was found and that incidence had made the media announce that no state was safe at all. Other media units, however had stated that the incidence was a one-off. However, it would be a two-off when Chuck Hawthorne was killed in the same arena, on the same podium while giving his speech.

It seemed the terrorist group had just come to show them what the rest of the country was facing. On an average, the probability of dying was more than that of living in states like Tifftam, Redtwuft, Kebstarek Gollogher, Baskers, Hustarbull or Yolyarkshire.

The map of Dexter looked like a dinosaur with no legs. Its protruding mouth represented Baskers, it was where the boundary of Dexter Islands and it was surrounded directly by water which exposed it to heavy floods and cyclones. The state was pretty small and had the lowest population of people and so rather than building lots of houses, it was filled with a lot of farms as farming was the main basis of their living. However, all the people of the settlement were peasants living in small cottages and bungalows, quiet people, religious in all their doings. The few times when The Order Of The Quppis invaded them, they really never killed anyone, they just abducted as many people as possible, mostly children. They would go from house to house and then let the parents scream as they silently went off with their children, smashing the heads of anyone who tries to struggle with them, it was fatal and other times, not.

The slender neck was where Reckdette lay. It was the smallest state in the country and it was quite populous. It looked like a single estate with extravagant mansions, luxurious penthouses, hotels and skyscrapers lying everywhere. It was presumptively the only state that had completely tarred smooth roads throughout it. The beauty of the place was something that a normal citizen of the country might never see till he died. One time in the past, a local newspaper The Testimony managed to get pictures of certain places in the state and then placed them in contrast with the poor conditions of homes and environment in other states and then titled it, ‘How the powerful turn their eyes away from the masses’. What happened after then? There was a large outcry from the people for a change and the newspaper was fined by the government for hate speech which led to another outrage among the people. THE PEOPLE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH! MAKE THINGS RIGHT! They shouted endlessly but the walls of Reckdettean mansions and statehouses were completely soundproof.

Down from the neck to the middle of the entire abdomen lay the largest state of the country and the capital, Tifftam. Ironically, it happened to be the poverty capital of the country too. About eighty-five percent of the population were said to be worth below a thousand Dexter Dollars which was approximately ten U.S Dollars. All they were in the street were shacks, set of dilapidated buildings and the same kind of people with the same kind of clothes, smelling the same way, those that smelt different were using the same heavy pungent perfume that all the little kiosks and shops around the street sold, all walking the same way along the streets, hurrying wildly, Get-out-of-my-way kind of thing, everyone mumbling something to themselves, sweating, fatigued and annoyed; all struggling through each day. There were only about eight elementary schools and a lot of children did not go to school. When people thought of Tifftam, what came to their minds was a really dark place that the sun did not exist in, that was filled with hopeless and ruthless and grey people, people who were killed day after day and didn’t have any food to eat or house to sleep. In real sense, that was what it was. A bleak town with no hope; no silver lining in its cloud.

Then the rest of the abdomen (its belly) comprised of three states: Redtwuft, Kebstarek and Yolyarkshire which all used to be one single state until they got stratified. The single state, Dairione used to be the former capital and the seat of the president. But now it isn’t either, neither is the present capital the present seat of the president. However, it was still as if they were one people, and the borders created and the fact that they had different governments was only a formality. Most people in the region still mentioned that they were from the state of Dairione and more preferably, they had mentioned that they were from the state of Western Dairione which meant Yolyarkshire, the state of central Dairione was Redtwuft while the eastern part was Kebstarek.

Gollogher was the slender tail. Yet another place with no good news to be heard and nothing to laugh about, except of course for The Humour Sect. A place with no painted houses, hundreds of bistros and neighbourhoods of ancient chimneyed family-houses with lead-darkened walls. Above all, the people of Gollogher were known mainly for their radical ways of communicating their problems to their deaf and mute government; the violent protests, the rallies, the ever-loud and unbreaking voices of the people in accordance, the local activists who usually stood up for different causes and most of the time got themselves in jail and got accused for ‘hate speech’. An incidence that will cause more protests. It was not as if the protests made any difference, the government never seemed to know that they were people who existed, whose voices mattered more than any other person. So, they were left to their problems, left to hope that each day wasn’t their last, pray to God and hope He hears them.

In between the Gollogher and the last state, Hustarbull was the largest part of the country; a forest. The Singalort Forest had been said to be the second largest and densest rainforest in the world after A****n, it remained unexplored.

Hustarbull which was the final region at the tail end of Dexter. It was like a little village with Catholic churches and monasteries everywhere feet were set. It wasn’t really hit by the Order Of The Quppis, only seldom explosions that usually claimed a lot of lives and destroyed a lot of properties. Everyone here was religious and quite less unsophisticated than the rest of the people, everly believing in the Bible Verses: One thousand shall fall on my left, a thousand on my right but it will not come near to you, you will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked… The minister would read out every Sunday and the others would proclaim with their eyes closed, with enthusiasm, in fervent prayer with all the amount of faith they could muster. The monks and the nuns will remain kneeling in their synagogues, clinging on to their rosaries and their crosses looking up with shaking, humble eyes to the image of Holy Mary and his son, Jesus Christ praying silently for the nation, for their state for long hours.

Just behind the villages in Hustarbull was The Boorbunk Bay and the only part of it visible to the outside world was the large barricade that surrounded it on all sides. Zooming out on the large island and the totality could be seen from the clouds, a large sea wrapping its land all around.

The most expensive painting in the whole of Dexter was called The Red Balloon, titled after the day when the biggest war Dexter ever experienced – The Invardi War – came to an end. Everyone had set out from their hidings and each family lifted up red balloons in the air to celebrate a happy ending. But the irony of the Red Balloon painting was to show the present day in Dexter. Rather than depicting bright red balloons floating together in the blue sky, it showed a great load of debris that the nation had become. Grey, black amounts of waste. It was only accessible in the Reckdettean museum. Naming such gloomy, pestilent picture The Red Balloon was to show contrast. But even then all the luminaries that resided in Reckdettean didn’t get the idea, they didn’t even really care about the idea. They just wanted the painting up for auction so they could boast to their other wealthy contemporaries, that on their mansion’s wall hung the most expensive painting that the nation ever had.

No matter what the nation faced, the government remained in utter comfort watching them impassively. Their tears didn’t count, their cries didn’t, their blood didn’t either and not even the ugly videos that they watched in their pavilions about how the terrorists laid them out like cattle and did terrible things to them; cutting off their heads and placing them on different platters like they were souvenirs or goods for auction and sometimes the terrorists released videos of how they peeled off the skin of the people like vegetable and let their skinless bodies bleed until it was dry and empty. Yet, nothing seemed to count. They all at one point or the other in their lives wished they could climb up the ladder and change the lives of their fellows, change the system of their deranged state, city or country or even better still, leave the entire system alone, leaving the country but unfortunately, there was little or no chance for them to do either.

So, with all the masses in the People States left stranded in darkness, they were left to protect themselves, struggle for the most time of their lives, learn to cope with the fear of death, create hope and happiness for themselves, cling together and keep each other warm, tell their families and friends with all the light they could see: WE WILL SEE ANOTHER DAY.