//------------------------------//
// A Whirlwind Inside Of My Head 
// Story: TCB: Beneath My Skin 
// by Madrigal Baroque 
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The world changed all but overnight, it seemed. There was a strange new reality emerging in the western ocean, and the promise of a new life in a bright new world awaited.

But it came at a price too high for some to even consider.

Trevinder sat with his parents in the living room, perched on the sofa beside his mother. She was quietly weeping. Trev's father stood quietly nearby, his face calm and thoughtful.

"We always knew this world is doomed." Trev spoke with all the passion of a teenage boy who has just found his true calling. "Even the most optimistic projections give Earth a hundred years at most. And that's the best scenario. There are experts who don't even give us thirty years before what's left of the ecosystem collapses. All our tech won't keep us alive then. We'd have a better chance of survival by moving to Mars–if they hadn't trashed the space program. We're stuck on a planet in its death throes. If we stay here, we die."

Bamil put a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

Trev touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mother, but we have to go. It won't be so bad. It's beautiful in Equestria, isn't it? You saw the holos. We can live in a world that's still green and beautiful, under a sun that still gives life. And it's not like we'll be living like animals out in some field. They have houses, and markets, and–"

"Enough, Trevinder." Acharjeet held up a hand to stem the rushing tide of words. "Is it in your heart, my son, to go to this 'Conversion Bureau ' they are opening? To surrender the shape given you by God, to exchange it for that of an alien equinoid? To leave the place of your birth, your family, never to return?"

Trev looked at his father in desperate confusion. "We're all going to die, Father! If we stay here, it's no better than committing suicide! This is our only chance to stay alive."

Acharjeet's heart swelled with pride. Trevinder was a good son, as concerned with the welfare of others as his own. He did not simply tell them what he had chosen, giving them no say in the matter. Nor had he quietly disappeared rather than risk confrontation.

Acharjeet had heard disturbing tales of other families in their community who had lost loved ones to this emerging crisis–fathers who never came home, mothers who abandoned their children, sons and daughters who slipped out in the night, never more to be seen. And it would only get worse as the days and weeks passed and the horrific hopelessness of the situation began to truly sink in and the general public realized there was no hope for humanity to continue existence as they had for so many millenia.

There was, in fact, no hope for humanity at all.

He regarded his wife. Bimal was a good woman, utterly devoted to her role as a homemaker, a wife, a mother. He knew the reason for her tears. She wasn't weeping for their son, because of his choice, but for herself. And her husband. And the decision she knew he would make.

If Acharjeet could have been swayed from his convictions, Bimal could have done it. But she was too wise to even try.

"Why don't you say something, Father?" There was anguish in Trevinder's voice. Scream at me. Tell me I'm a bad son. Tell me I can't do this. If you forbid me to go, I won't run away. I don't want to die with this planet–but better that than making you hate me.

As if Acharjeet could ever hate his bright, creative, brave son.

"If this is the choice you have made, Trevinder, then neither I nor your mother will attempt to hinder you. If you wish, you can leave for San Francisco in the morning. I will make the arrangements for you."

"We all should go! Father, it's not going to get any better here. If we go together, we can stay together. Otherwise we might never find each other." Trevinder stood, eyes earnest and pleading. "I don't…I don't want to leave you here to die."

In answer, Acharjeet reached up and began unwinding his dastār, something he seldom did outside of the bath or bedroom. His long, shining black hair fell well past his shoulders, almost to his waist. He stood tall, proud, the plain binding cloth held loosely in his hands.

"I am Sikh," he said. "I am blessed to be a member of my community. I strive to uphold the Five Virtues, while resisting the lure of the Five Evils. I cherish my family, my neighbors, and all those who dwell on this planet, as we are all equals in the eyes of God."

He gestured to his fall of hair. "It is because we believe in the sanctity of what God has made that we do not alter the form given us. We do not shave our faces, or cut our hair. We wear no piercings, and we do not carve pictures into our flesh. We do not alter our bodies…in any way."

Trevinder's jaw was stiff, his eyes haunted, but he raised no protest. He awaited the pronouncement of his death sentence, the words that would forbid him to go to the Bureau, to become a true Equestrian.

"That is the way of the Sikh. But you, my son, have never taken the vows to follow our path. The choice made by me, by your mother, is not for everyone. Your fate lies at the end of a different path, in a different world. It is a call you are meant to answer."

"Baapu…" Tears welled in Trevinder's wide eyes. "I don't want you to die with the Earth."

"The Earth is already dead." Acharjeet's tone was somber, resigned. 

"Then why?! You can't believe that God would want you to stay here, knowing you'll die! Isn't suicide a sin against God?"

"The Sikh has no concept of 'sin', my beloved son. There is only a distinction between what is right and what is not right. And the first and greatest prohibition forbids the alteration of the form God has granted us." 

Trevinder looked from his father to his mother. Bamil still sat on the sofa, eyes streaming, but she did not speak a word.

With a cry of anguished despair, Trevinder turned and bolted from the room. The front door slammed shut behind him as he left the house where he was born and raised, the only home he'd ever known, for the final time.

"Farewell, my son," Acharjeet murmured, his own eyes misting. "Go with God…or with Goddesses, if that is your will."

Bamil broke down into sobs that were almost wails. She fisted her hands on either side of her head and rocked back and forth, inconsolable.

Acharjeet knelt before her and folded her into his long arms. He let his tears fall, tears not for his son, who would live, but for himself and his wife, who would likely never see their only child again in this life. Or in any other.

Acharjeet Singh believed his wife was weeping for their son. She was not. While she was sad that he was gone, she was happy because he had a bright new life before him. Bamil wept for her strong, brave husband, who was unable to make the same choice because of his devotion to God. She did not think him wrong for this, but she couldn't help wondering, blasphemous as it seemed, that perhaps…just perhaps…would God in His benevolence not want  His children to choose life over certain death? Would the Creator of all that is not have dominion over all worlds? Could they not worship Him there, whatever form they wore?

Could any benevolent god be so cruel as to demand self-sacrifice when it would serve no purpose at all, save the end of existence?

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