Extinct

I headed towards the cycle parking, took my bike and left for home with two more friends of mine, discussing another day at school and our chemistry teacher, blanking us all by filling carbon in our heads. ‘With me being an element I am instinctively attracted to Natasha’ said Ankit. To which Aman wit fully replied ‘then this would lead to a very complex compound  with all the guys including Nakul and me being attracted to her forming single, pi and other emo-chemical  bonds’. After few more stupid conversations, Ankit and Aman were off and I took the third lane of express way, thinking life without different lanes for different vehicles.

Reaching home, I switched on the TV to find it was the last set of men’s singles Australian Open finals with Ashton Murray  at 6-4, 7-3, 5-6, 3-6 & 5-5 alongside William Nadal, both son of you know who of tennis, with Murray eventually taking the cup. I took my phone to see a message from Pavan about today’s football game with our senior class.

After the game in the evening, I came home just when, my father was parking the car. I came in telling him about our game, taking my mom also into the discussion, while she was in the kitchen. I stopped near the refrigerator, to see my wristwatch on the floor; I suspected it was our neighbour’s children who must be home and whenever got a chance; they set off experimenting with every new object they’d discover.

I picked up the watch, it was a Timex ‘Explorer’ having GPS with an analogue dial cased into steel and glass shell. I then set it to today’s date being Monday, the seventh of July 2031.

There was a lot of noise from vehicles and people talking outside, I thought it was almost morning but then it was still dark. I saw the time, and it was 4:40 in the morning, I went out, to see the row of vehicles lead to the gas station about fourteen blocks away. I woke up my parents and switched on the TV to see for everyone’s blow that the American government and the leading oil companies around the world had kept all the other governments of various countries and people unknown about the quantity of oil reserves in the earth. It was clear now that the oil left would be used up in a month’s time. 

In the next two hours reactions from all over the world kept flashing one after the other. Flights everywhere were completely taken off air and passengers stranded in different places. Another part of people were at the gas station filling up as much as they could. All the shipping and industries were halted resulting in an all round catastrophe.

Offices and schools throughout the country were shut as declared by the Prime Minister in the course of second ever emergency in India. Leaders all over the world came together to discuss what would be the next step.

Dependency on electricity increased two folds leading to an all around power crisis. The result from the days of talks and discussions didn’t come to any conclusion with United States taking a clear stand opposing an increased dependency on nuclear power as it had a 60% market share of the oil producing gulf countries almost sunk in debts.

Two more weeks went in vain discussions. The next bold step came from Google that promised solution for power by setting up smart-o-puters that harnesses electricity from motion, light and temperature. Not very well reviewed, but the month passed with people deserting their old cars to book the new Chevrolet ‘Electra’ which was now almost waitlisted to be delivered.

Weeks passed, and life got back to its older pace, with electricity replacing the oil. Another two months passed and the Google technology was in market. This smart piece could be connected to any device and it harnessed and stored electricity from the stimulation of electrons, with physical (air) movement close to it, speech (sound waves) and even when we breathe (temperature). Smartness even followed us driving, with street lights switching on wherever we went.

The emergency subsided finally and the biggest crunch my exams, had finished, throwing me into another pit hole of class 12 boards that hasn’t changed ever. Time flew a further two months solving another big problem of overseas travel when the athletes first landed Delhi for 2032 Olympics in hydrogen fuelled aircrafts.