Ganga Ram - October 7th, 1947

The madman zigzagged around the lawns, immaculate, pristine. The manor stood, still derelict, but it was imbued with a different sort of light. Even though the sun was out, and in full force, even though it was noon, the middle of the day, and everything else was bright and sunny, the power that had given the manor life had also given it an excess of shadows. Shadows creeped up the ivy wall, creeped around the moss at the back, shadows crept on the ceiling of the manor. It was as if they knew this was where everything would begin. They were waiting before their master would be summoned. Their Rajah. They did not know if he would be summoned here, but here they were. They knew something very important for the prophecy would happen here.

The man zigzagged, running, careening around the immaculate lawns, the ones that had been restored, and were now lush and green and covered in a thick blanket of shadows. The lawns smelled of green, and the madness that had settled on this place long before the experiments had begun.

The man flailed his arms as he ran, for no apparent reason, but the orderlies who had run out after him, and were now standing in the large door to the manor, nodded their heads as if by virtue of being mad, it all made sense. The air tasted cool, but it had only been weeks since they had come and had begun their work. Soon even the air would be rotten. Plagued with madness.

The man screamed, yodelling in a language that had not been invented by man. Not yet. He wailed. He prayed for the world. He prayed for its safety. He sometimes spoke in Punjabi, sometimes in Urdu, sometimes in Pashto, brief intersperes of English. Most of it was unintelligible. But some of his words were from these languages four. He spoke of a prophecy, a dice that would be rolled, devastation that would thunder upon the world. He screamed, and he spoke. And he careened, and he zigzagged. 

His file said his name was Kohath, it said he was a traveling heretic. Spewing apocryphal visions, and it said much more. Much more that no one could possibly know, since he was barely intelligible. But they knew. It had only been a few weeks, but they had begun perfecting the art of collecting files. His said he had come from a land far away, been born in a time far from here. It said his age was in four digits, though most of the orderlies assumed that was false, a typo. Tsk, as if the man who had collected this file could be accused of such a thing.

The man wailed, and flailed, and zigzagged. He tore open his gown, and relieved himself on the bushes, the shadows slithering around as he did. No one bothered to come for him, the place was walled. Soon, he would return inside, by himself.

Above, in the manor, in the principal’s office, a man stood watching.

Many hundreds of miles away, Kohath’s wife would give birth to a son with beautiful eyes.

One and fifty years from now, a girl would be born again.