Magic Touch

The alarm rang shrilly in his ears. He woke up slowly with a throbbing head and a burning body. The pain erased his sense of time momentarily. He looked at the time piece: 11th February, 2295. Getting up with an aching body, he began to get ready for another day of heightened sensations. Already, he could hear the noises of his parents shrieking at each other, his siblings beating one another and his neighbors quarrelling loudly. As he splashed water on his face, the sensitive skin on his hands and face became pulsating red. He got ready and left for work avoiding his family and without having breakfast.

He had been feeling isolated since last year. He began walking to his office. Morning brought the first round of gunshots from a distance. Someone had either taken their own or someone else’s life. It was a routine for people to succumb to the excruciating pain and pressure that their bodies felt constantly. A sigh escaped his lips. The ailment they had was beyond anybody’s control, but he was trying to master his reactions towards it. While others complained, shouted and got frustrated, he decided to battle it silently, trying to find a way around it.

They suffered from a rare neurological and skin disorder which came into effect after the Last Great War. The chemical weapons used in the Last Great War left them with an incurable malaise by completely altering the nature and function of skin receptors. Their tactile sense had been magnified by thirty percent so that their bodies’ physical sensations of pain and pressure increased significantly. The last three generations had been living with this burden. The food was either too cold or too hot; the air was blazing, or bitterly cold; the body’s physiological functions; irritating and unimaginably agonizing. Numerous research failed to find the cure for this disorder. Humankind was subjected to a living hell.

Everything changed after the war. Government was in the hands of a few corporate authorities, who enclosed the population inside carefully guarded and highly secure large compounds. The citizens were allotted all necessities within their respective compounds. The government controlled all resources and strictly regulated movement and information.

Walking briskly, he reached his office building: Centre for Innovation in Medical Technology. The camera scanned him, and a calm automated voice granted access to him: “Clearance granted, Neo Solomon.”

Seventy-five hundred miles to the east, a parallel government-regulated compound was located. The bombs that had dropped here affected the population so that their tactile sensibility reduced by thirty percent and they felt numb permanently. They lived in the dark dungeons of apathy sparked by occasional desire to experience the vitality of life. So, they cut open their bodies and blew each other to pieces and bled profusely all in the hope to feel something, yet… nothing!

Zaha Amr was a citizen of this eastern compound. She was a competent entry level administrator and had recently become a part of the Task Force on Operations against Illegal Migrants. The government had been lax towards the illegal migrants for a quarter century. Various laws had been enacted every time there was a break-out, but this time the upper echelons were tense because of rumors of some uprising. Zaha was unsure about the effectiveness of the task force. It comprised a bunch of lethargic oldies who looked as if they would sooner welcome getting killed by the rebels, than stop them. Nobody knew who the rebels were and what their motive was, but it was suspected that they wanted government control. After four consecutive inconclusive meetings, Zaha rolled her eyes and muttered to herself, “If this is the level of motivation of administration, the citizens would welcome the anarchists with open arms!”

Neo was working in the records department on a personal request. He was happy at being left alone. All he had to do was to maintain old records. He came across an old research which looked interesting in the confidential records section a week ago. Nobody knew he was using his digital expertise to access this section. The report was from the year 2260. Neo continued reading the report. A scientist Mc Mohan had claimed that he had found the cure for the tactile disorder. The scientist stated that the solution was quite simple. If an infected individual touched an oppositely charged individual, the physical and emotional nature of intimacy could potentially reverse the neurological imbalance in the principal couple. Any future offspring could be permanently normal as in pre- war times. Neo could not understand what “oppositely charged” meant. He delved into further research.

To his utter shock, he came to know that a compound like his own existed on the other side of the world where people lived in completely different physiological conditions which caused them pain. All his life he thought that his world was the only world! His whole reality crumpled like a house of cards.

A little more research revealed that Mc Mohan was incarcerated on charges of treason soon after his research. It could only mean that Mc Mohan was right, and the government was deliberately hiding the truth to keep the citizens crippled for life. Neo’s head spun like a Ferris wheel. How many had been persecuted like Mc Mohan for knowing the truth? Neo thought there must be a way out, but this cataclysmic reality was beyond his wildest imagination. The key to a normal life for millions of people was in his hands. But what could he, a junior researcher and records-keeping employee, do? He continued searching for answers desperately.

Zaha, like every other government officer, was getting frequent calls at her public liaison number. The citizens wanted to know the facts behind the breaking news. A guy named Neo Solomon had made a 3-D video and launched it on communication waves. He claimed to be from an unheard part of the world. He had to work strenuously to bypass existing mechanisms of media control and launch his video so that everyone could share his discovery about the trickster corporate government, their concealment of two separate kinds of people and their locking up an old research about mankind’s cure. He also announced his intention to illegally migrate because he did not want to get incarcerated after his video made it to the public. He hoped to join the rebels whom he now praised as the only sane and truthful human beings alive.

The proof the guy had given inverted reality for millions of people. Zaha had long suspected that the higher- ups and their progeny themselves were normal human beings from the pre-war times who had somehow escaped the chemical aberration. They maintained their nefarious authority by keeping everyone else broken and miserable. It was all connected now.

The dynastic members called the Sages living in mansions that were shut off for the community. Their orders were delegated by a few trusted advisors. The latest breaking news confirmed many suspicions. The Sages had likely caused the war and the disease and then maintained the status quo for personal benefits. They had kept the community incapacitated and embroiled in their own misery so that no one could question their dominance. Their anxiety about the uprising was another proof of their guilt.

Zaha could figure out the nature of the rebels now. They must be a resistance faction who had dared to think for a solution. They were migrant men and women from both compounds who had hit upon the truth one way or another and managed to break free of the conventional authorities. They must have lived wholesome lives and raised normal kids. They must have relished the food they ate, the warmth of a friend’s touch, the pleasure of a kiss, the joy of holding a baby, the relief felt upon the soothing touch of a loved one…

Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of missing life’s most basic joys. They had been subjected to live a diseased life deprived of normal physiological functions - a life where they could not think beyond a day at the most. All that kept them going was hope…

She decided to seize the moment. She made up her mind now and decided to attend the public’s calls. She could mobilize the masses by speaking in support of the discovery at the expense of her job. She knew a few of her colleagues would also do so. The people also had a right to know the truth. If the revolutionaries promised a release from this hellish life and a better world, they were more than welcome.

It was 13th March, 2295. The resistance groups entered the two unguarded compounds and a peaceful transition of power occurred. People welcomed the Saviors and sent the Sages cowering in the depths of their mansions in awe of an awakened and united community. The wretched citizens looked on with hope at the newly- arrived people - the only completely whole and trustworthy humans amidst them. They were those who had knowledge and had acted upon that invaluable treasure at enormous risk. They were those who selflessly brought welfare to everyone in the form of a long-sought cure. The migrants and their children had managed to invent DNA-based injections in their meagre resources. Now, they successfully inoculated people to restore their neurological balance and set up new mechanisms for vaccine manufacture and equitable access to all. The tide had turned, and its greatest beneficiaries were not a few self-centred chosen ones, but all commoners.

It was the advent of a generation of empaths whose imbalanced tactile sensibilities had sensitized them to one another’s pain and led them to create a fairer, beautiful world.