The Gas Giant

The gas giant filled the sky. It had come close to doing so on a few previous occasions, though not quite as completely as today, late in the evening, seeming close enough to touch.

I peered at it with a vague sense of disquiet. I could hear the sounds of the City below me, normal as ever. There were no unusual noises to be heard, no evidence that anyone else had noticed the nearness of the gas giant. 

The gas giant obscured the stars and shielded most of its own moons, except for two minor ones which were silhouetted, frozen, against its face. The evening was warm, very warm, for this time of the year. Or perhaps we had dozed through many comfortable evenings lately and had forgotten what warmth was. I had used up most of the morning walking aimlessly in the City park with Anait. She had delivered her usual monologue about the decline that had set into the City, a decline that, apparently, only she could see. Anait always carried a string of many-coloured worry beads around with her. They whisked silently and incessantly through her fingers as she walked and talked. They were fascinating to stare at, especially when it became necessary to tune out her voice. 

The morning had been rather warm, too. The gas giant had not been seen through most of the day. I wondered if Anait was watching it now? Unlikely. She had no interest in the sky. I thought of her preoccupation with the decline of the City. I didn't quite believe that the City was declining, but then perhaps there had always been something poignant, even perversely elating, about the fall of any city in history. Troy, Carthage, Rome, Berlin, and so many others, had eventually fallen, leaving behind gigantic legends that had long outlasted the chaotic events that had spawned them. Every city had to fall eventually, it seemed. 

Monstrous, shadowed clumps of orange gas marked the surface of the gas giant. I could now see details that I had never noticed before. The crests of the gas were swirling and breaking up slowly, picked out by sunlight. If only Anait looked up, she might even find the gas giant pretty, a sky-spanning carnival. 

The City fell, inexorably, into the gas giant. 

Pune, May 2017