“Get your nose out of that book, Melga!” my father yelled from the door as he stood at the entrance to my room.

“I will, dad,” I called out as I flipped the page.

“Go and study! I never see you studying,” he frowned.

I sighed from my comfortable position on my circular bed, which was like a beanbag and easily folded into body shape. “Dad, the exams just ended.”

“Well, study for the next exam then.”

“Year 10 is yet to begin. I don’t even have the books yet!” I said, diving back into the novel I was holding.

Suddenly, my dad was on top of me and snatched up my novel. “Then go out to play something, Melga. Find some friends. I am sick and tired of seeing you reading every waking second of your day!” he said in a low voice, and I actually saw dark circles under his dark green eyes, and his dark skin was hanging in loose folds. I don’t know how he got them, or maybe I just didn’t notice. Guilt rose up in me as I bit my lip. Maybe I hadn’t been observant enough. Not caring enough. Every night he came back from his blacksmith’s work, I never checked whether he ate his dinner or not. When he entered, I was too lazy to realise it was late at night and he would leave early the next morning, we barely got time together these days.

“Ok, dad. I will. Have you had your breakfast?” I decided to ask. It did not make up for my previous ignorance and carelessness, but I wanted to try to help.

“No, Melga, but I will as soon as I complete this one project.”

“But dad! You should eat first. You are only home on Sundays, at least you should treat yourself to a proper meal on those days!” I said as I climbed out of my bean-bed.

My father was a bit hesitant. I jumped to him, and grabbed his hand to lead him to the dining room, which was on level two, right above my bedroom on level three. Our cook, Limia, had left behind a pot of steaming hot stew. I poured some into two bowls and laid them out into the table, and sat there to make sure my dad relished the food.

“Thanks, Melga. I’ll be going now. I need to go to the workshop.” I noticed that he still sounded tired. And suddenly, it hit me. It was mom’s birthday.

Mom died when I was only four, leaving us grief stricken and devastated. Five years later, we discovered that she was still alive, and had left us behind to run away with a circus. I cried so much over that, while my father took it inside and kept it all bottled up. I had gradually seen his smiles and laughs disappear as he locked himself farther and farther away from me and my sister, Phimine. I think he blamed himself, but I blamed myself too, and my sister blamed herself. We all were filled with guilt, but none as deep or as evident as my dad.

He had more memories with her, and he missed her more than ever on her birthday. But I didn’t want my dad to be so sullen the entire day. “How about you come out with me? Phimine is already out to the library to study, and I’m sure your project can wait. We haven’t gone to the Dwarf History Museum since a long time,” I smiled down at him.

His own face seemed to have developed a glow, however unnoticeable. “I guess I could join you,” a nervous smile crept onto his lips. I jumped back down to my room on level three, changed and wore my shoes, and dragged my dad outside from the door on level one.

The view was breathtaking, many would say. To me, it was just terrifying. I looked down the drop of almost hundred metres, with the schools, offices and other official buildings on the ground. Houses, on the other hand, hung from the ceiling.

The underground caverns for us dwarves were lit up by long strips of LED lights that ran along the edges of the huge cuboid, and sometimes in tube lights on the roads. Our living areas were always short of space, so in the caverns we built buildings on the ceiling as well as the floor. The dwarves were amazing craftsmen and engineers, and the Hanging Houses rarely ever fell, even during earthquakes. While there were roads on the ground, we had small bridges or Paths between the houses. They connected the entire system on the ceiling with bridges made of wood and rope. They strong enough to carry three dwarves walking side by side at one point of time, and strong enough to hold at least twenty.

Vehicles, on the other hand, were pulled along by hooks in the ceilings that could pick them up from their houses. They could drive the hooks through the entire ceiling where the lines ran, and near the edges there was a pair of parallel bars with hooks that would take our cars to the ground, where they could ride on the roads with their wheels.

My dad and I navigated through the Paths near the ceiling, where I could barely hold back my fear and vomit. Looking down always brought upon a wave of nausea, and I tried not to imagine plummeting down. The railings were just simple ropes, which never gave my mind enough assurance. My father shot a disgusted look at me as he walked ahead of me, while I followed behind trembling. We snaked through the tall four story houses that hung around in our neighbourhood, and reached the West corner elevator. There were elevators for pedestrians from each corner of the cuboid to lead them up or down wherever they wished to go. The elevator descended to ground level, my father and I standing inside it with the operator and an old dwarf woman in awkward silence. Finally it thudded to the floor, and I dashed out of the opening doors. I hadn’t seen the Museum in a long time, and I was excited to be out with my father again. He didn’t share my enthusiasm, but he did have a smile on his face as he followed me out and grabbed my hand to prevent me from being run over by a car in my buoyancy. We walked; correction, I skipped and my father walked to the museum near the centre of the ground level, trying to stay on the sides of the roads and not get run over by cars. We passed many different dwarves, who glared at me as I towered over others my age, and rose an inch above my father. While they all had thick, olive brown and light brown skin, mine also had a peaches complexion. My black hair was tied up in a bun over my head, and my father often told me that I had my mother’s grey eyes. While hers had been ones of a ravishing beauty drawing in dwarf men, mine reflected intelligence and the stores of knowledge inside. Other dwarves around me wore their hair in crazy, vibrant colours, but all eyes were the same, pure black and deep, like a window to the soul.

“Those scoundrels!” my father cursed under his breath as we reached the gates of the museum, a closed sign hanging from them. It said something else also underneath. Human found inside. Precautions are being taken.

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MEMORIES OF MOTHER

“Vermin of the earth!” spat my father, as we walked back towards the elevators. His face was red and he looked like he was about to burst anytime. I had never seen him like that before, so angry and frustrated. And more importantly, I had heard about the humans but I didn’t know much about them. They lived in the world above, having driven us underground and we had been hiding from them for a long time. But Didn’t really know what was wrong with them. And if the present generations didn’t know about our existence, how did a human get into our city of Rothem? It was a big question.

We had barely delved into the topic of humans back in school, and all we were told that they were a taller species who lived in communities like ours on the surface, spoke the same language, used the same basic necessities. I had never met one, and despite other people’s animosity towards them, I was just curious.

The elevator dinged on ground level and my father climbed on, grumbling under his breath. I followed him, keeping my head low lest he lash out on me. We rode up in uncomfortable silence, and I followed him through the Paths on the ceiling without interrupting his rage. After what felt like an intolerable eternity, we finally reached our house. My father banged open the door, marched into the living room where my sister was studying, and slapped down his fist onto the table. I flinched silently as my sister looked up, worry lines creasing her brow. “What happened dad?”

“Those useless humans! They deserve to burn in hell!” he declared, and stormed out of the room. I heard him climbing up to level one, where his workshop was. He sat there all day, repairing other people’s jewellery and furniture, and making his own small things from iron like armours, weapons, shields, keychains, chains. I exchanged a glance with my sister as we heard him start banging on something upstairs with his hammer. “What was that about?” my Phimine asked.

“I’m not sure. We saw that the museum was closed due to a human break in, and he flipped out,” I shrugged.

Anxiety filled Phimine’s deep black eyes. I wondered what was up. “Why, though?” I asked. “Why does dad loathe the humans?”

“I don’t know either, Melga. But since mom left, I have noticed his hatred towards humans. he doesn’t like to talk of them, and he gets angry at every little thing they do. Don’t mention it again, or he will get triggered,” Phimine explained, her bob cut of bright pink hair bouncing as she spoke.

I found it a bit hard to keep a straight face as I nodded. Then I noticed the book she was holding. BASICS OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD. Queer. That wasn’t part of her syllabus. “Shouldn’t you be studying your geography? I thought you were planning to become a cartographer?” I asked. Phimine was only a year older than me, about to begin with grade 11, where she had to decide her career. But to begin training and school, each student had to give an exam based on the subject and life that they wanted. Phimine had been focusing on her geography for the past two weeks so much that I had seen only maps, diagrams and geography textbooks attached to her. Dad’s mother had been a cartographer too, and he had been delighted to see Phimine taking that up for her studies and job. Our grandparents were no longer alive, the maximum age dwarves reached was around seventy, and most of my classmates didn’t have living grandparents.

“I was, and this has a bit of geography,” she said, her voice low and her eyes down.

“But…?” I prompted her.

“But I want to be an Explorer. I want to go out into the human world and find out what it is like to live in the outside world!” she declared, finally meeting my grey eyes.

I stopped short, unsure of what to say. Being an Explorer was another profession altogether, she would have to change her entire test and subjects. And it was said to be a very dangerous job, surviving among humans would be challenging. I was a bit nervous about the prospect, even if it didn’t concern me. But I knew that dad would be even more disturbed by it.

“But… Why, Phimine? What about your dream of becoming a cartographer?” I asked, still flabbergasted.

“It was never my dream. I just said that to you and dad so that he didn’t worry about my career choice, and neither would he contradict me. But all my life, I have actually dreamt of going out there, meeting a whole different species of intellectual creatures, living without a layer of soil over y head. Most of all, I dream of seeing the sun. I had thought that it would remain a dream until it popped into my head that I could be an Explorer.”

“But Dad won’t approve,” I pointed out.

“I value dad’s opinion, believe me, I do. But this is my life we are talking about here. And if he truly loves me, he wouldn’t mind me pursuing my passion. And anyways, he doesn’t need to know right now.”

“You’re not going to tell him? He’ll be heartbroken when he finds out,” I said, still trying to accept the fact that my sister was going to go out into the upper world. It came as a huge shock to me, carrying a wave of helplessness and fear. In my mother’s absence, Phimine had become a second mother to me as well as a best friend. I couldn’t imagine her leaving for good, after I had come to depend on her so much. And while the hardships out there did not daunt my courageous sister, I was honestly worried for her.

“I’ll tell him when the time comes, but I will manage him. He’ll be accepting it in no time,” she tried reassuring me, but the banging of dad’s hammer overhead appeared to be at odds with her.

“But-“ I wanted her to stay, but I realised that she was following her dream, and I would have to let her go. At least I had another year to spend with her. “I hope you do well in your exam tomorrow,” I hugged her.

“Eww, little sister sweat!” she tried backing away, and both of us went into a fit of giggles.

The bell hanging from the door to the staircase rang, signifying there was a visitor. The switch at the main door was connected to an iron bell on each floor to alert us, and Phimine and I made our way up to the front door.

“Happy Birthday Geraki- ” the woman at the door trailed off as she saw the two of us at the door. “Who are you two?” She was holding a big, beautifully decorated apple pie, but it was only half finished. I hadn’t seen the plump little woman since a long time, who was a foot shorter than me, but I recognised her. She had been my mother’s best friend, and they had been inseparable before my mother got married. Then Mrs. Heloma, the woman with the pie, got amnesia. She still sometimes believed that Geraki was alive, and had delusions that they were back to the good old days of twenty years ago. She didn’t even remember us, her hallucinations existed from before we were born, and her mind lived in another time altogether. Sometimes she would come back to the present, but I had heard her husband telling dad that her amnesia and schizophrenia was only worsening.

Standing at the door, looking at the apple pie with ‘Geraki’ written on it in brown icing and smelling the cinnamon that my mother often used to smell of, I burst into tears.