Simzone
Vikram Ramakrishnan
On our birthdays, we would huddle together in the back of Appa’s truck on the way to the only simspot in Vellur, an old Shiva temple-turned-Simzone. It sat out on the edge of the village, a screaming neon trident announcing its marble facade. On my seventh, Appa and Amma had scraped up enough sats drying fish for us, but they still spent an hour wheedling an attendant for a group discount. On Nandini’s eleventh, we flew through the skies as clouds that touched the Himalayas and then burst into snow, which fell onto the mountains. On Guhan’s twelfth, we were lightning bolts that struck the earth, blossoming into lumbering creatures covered in jasmine and bougainvilleas. Appa and Amma would wait outside and then we’d hop into the back of the truck and plod along, listening to tires crush dirt and vines. Our other days were full of fishnets, fish guts, and fish stinks. The sims were an otherwise acknowledged privilege.
One hot week of my birthday, there were no more fish. Our shared pool of water had dried out, and the river that fed it only went up to my ankles. We mixed petrol with kerosene and cooking oil to get us to the beach, but by the time we reached the shore, a congregation of pink saris, green lungis, and bare chests had beaten us. The trip back was bitter and bumpy, and I could taste sour and worry in Appa and Amma’s mouths. That week lasted a year, and then two more. Guhan and Amma died after getting sick eating things from the river floor they shouldn’t have. We had to cremate them under the burning sun, sharing wood with the neighbors who did the same for their own. Appa’s face turned ashen and Nandini held my hand as we watched the smoke curl.
By the time Nandini’s birthday came around, Simzone was a memory long past, and we worried about finding food. We lived off of tulsi leaves, rose petals and dry milk rations handed out by visiting soldiers. Occasional fights broke out over those red and white packets. Then our home got robbed, the flowers started dying, and just like that Appa was gone.
A few weeks later, my legs felt heavy, and I had trouble moving. Nandini would brace her arm around my shoulder, her knee against mine, and together, we’d shuffle like two penguins I saw once in a sim. I started coughing and couldn’t keep any food down and then felt like a dead bag of mangoes that Nandini had to heave onto the truck bed. I tried asking her where she got petrol, but all that came out of my mouth were gasps. She put her finger over my lips and told me to hush. Then she got into the driver’s seat and we bumped along the same way we did so long ago.
Simzone was empty when we got there. No lines, no attendants, just the buzzing hum of a local transformer that kept Shiva’s trident lit. Nandini asked me to gather any strength I could, and we stumbled in the dark until we sat on the cold metal floor, our backs to the wall. She ran out and I don’t know how much time passed, but when she came back, she held my hand and rested her head on my shoulder, her cheeks wet. A light musical hum of sitar played until a steady tabla beat started, and we were comets coursing through the galaxies, gathering stardust until we were suns at the center of the universe.
Vikram Ramakrishnan is a Tamil-American writer who was born in Bangalore, India, and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He writes fiction and is a computer programmer in New York City. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in SAND Journal and AE–The Canadian Science Fiction Review.