Skyfall
Wishes strung on cloth like beads, crystallised in stone. Murad and Azhar wish for things almost the same but subtly different - will the stars heed them?
Apparently, a long time ago, shooting stars were seen as omens of death or bad luck. When he heard that, Murad was struck by the thought that time had a way of sometimes changing things for the better. Those falling chunks of space debris got a good deal, in his opinion. Azhar only laughed when his brother made comments like that; spacey, out there and laced with a touch of cynicism tinged with the last traces of childhood awe.
They saw them a lot, up on the edges of the mountains where chasms bled inky darkness from the centre of the earth to the sky. It was a poor night when they didn’t see at least one, and they often glimpsed two or three before their mother called them inside to bed. Then, tucked under blankets with elbows propped on the windowsill, they’d whisper the count higher until their eyelids grew too heavy to lift and they fell into sleep.
Of course, they wished upon the streaks of light, so far above them that they seemed no more real than a dream. Murad tied his wishes into his handkerchief, tangling knots in the fabric to catch the hope and make it real. Azhar picked up pebbles and strew them through his pockets and on the floor, each one a dream made solid and held tight in grubby hands. And as children do, they got distracted and their wishes slipped away piecemeal. Stones skipped across the mirror surface of the lake, knots undone by mother’s fingers for the wash.
That didn’t matter at all; they never forgot the wishes and once they were made, it was all in the hands of the gods. Who cared if a stone skimmed across the water and sunk to the bottom with a soft plip the only sign of its passing? What difference did plaid or plain, faded or coloured make to the fulfilment of a secret desire? When the ripples faded to nothing and the edges frayed and tore, it didn’t matter.
Some things did matter, though. Bright flowers amidst sterile white walls and crisp white sheets. Homework spread over the floor and on the bedspread, with smudges and ink blots and the smell of gaajar ka halwa drifting from the kitchen. Smiles and scraped knees, tumbles down hills and the steady beep-beep-beep of machines. These things mattered.
When Azhar drifted to wakefulness from fitful sleep, blankets tangled sweaty around his thin frame, he always saw Murad by his side. Sometimes no more than a dark lump in the bed opposite, sometimes leaning on the windowsill staring up at the night sky, sometimes a weight on his chest as his brother slept peacefully curled up against him. On star-gazing nights, when his head was lucid and his tongue worked for more than a croak, Azhar talked to Murad. Their whispers wound through the starlight to make soft tapestries in the vast darkness and they anchored him to the shores of reality.
Once, he asked if his brother was cheating, spotting the knotted handkerchief twisted in Murad’s fist. Azhar wanted to know if he was making up shooting stars, to trick the gods into granting his wish.
Murad had just smiled, although pain pulled his lips down at the edges, and said that he wouldn’t do that. He wanted the wish to come true, after all. And in the morning, when watery sunlight seeped through the curtains and lit the room with soft golden light, there was another handkerchief to hang on the wall. They brushed Azhar’s head where they hung on the doorframe, and old posters peeked out from beneath the new, patchwork wall decor.
Like shooting stars, it was said that twins used to come burdened or blessed with superstition. Science had done a lot to explain the mysteries behind fallen stars and multiple births, but nature held close its deepest secrets, things no human should see. Twins, identical yet just different enough. The same stars, but captured in knots and stones.
These things mattered. Songs bellowed at the top of their lungs on long trips, city-bound then homewards. Kisses on foreheads, warm embraces and the sound of a heartbeat thudding in a chest. Tests, tests and more tests. Exams, filled with cramped handwriting and red marks. Diwali and Holi, spent together amid light and colour. Needles, sharper than the smell of disinfectant and chemicals. A driver’s license clutched tight in one hand, a battered old pick-up with peeling paint pulled up outside the house.
Murad no longer unravelled wishes, carrying them with him like a magician’s chain of silk hankies. A polished piece of bloodstone rested in Azhar’s pocket, something to pick up and store star-wishes in, destined to never go dancing across the lake’s still surface.
In summer, each the last and each stretching beyond imagining towards the void of the clear night sky, the brothers went out to watch the stars. One, two, three, four. Azhar’s pebble raised puffs of dirt as he lifted it, dropped it, each trip upwards a wish and a dream unspoken. Five, six, seven. Murad didn’t need to see his fingers working on the knots; he kept his eyes trained on the heavens, his mind bent to his brother beside him.
Murad’s pick-up rattled to a stop beneath the open sky, and the brothers clambered into the back amidst pillows and blankets. Nearby, the lake reflected the cosmos overhead - twice as many stars to wish upon, Azhar joked. His brother smiled and shook his head a little, but when the first star flashed overhead he tied two knots in his handkerchief. The sounds of summer cocooned them as they wished, nightbirds crooning gentle lullabies to the world at large, and for a moment they were small again, and carefree. Far from the city, far from home, far from everyone, and it seemed as though this distance extended even to their troubles. Everything was far away and inconsequential for one perfect moment beneath the stars.
Three stars flickered past at once, shining bright against the velvet sky. A weak laugh escaped Azhar as he watched them flicker and fade, and he reached out to squeeze Murad’s hand.
“Three! That’s got to be good luck.”
His brother smiled and leaned carefully against his shoulder, gripping his hand tightly.
“Must be. Our wishes are bound to come true, now.”
More stars began blaze to life, tumbling through the sky leaving only afterimages to remember them by. The brothers stared upwards in wonder, hardly daring to breathe, as the heavens disgorged their stellar load.
The sky was filled with streaks of light, hundreds upon thousands of falling stars, until the brothers couldn’t even see the darkness. Just the burning lights of dying stars, plunging earthwards. Murad’s fingers stilled their frantic knotting when he ran out of handkerchief, and he could no longer hear the rattle of Azhar’s pebble being picked up and put down again beside him. There were just two boys, nearly men, in the silence of the night, with a billion unanswered wishes reflected in their eyes.
