Apocalyptic air

 Jet lag. I awoke before the muezzin's first call to prayer. I felt heavy still with dreaming and the brief consciousness I was brought to throughout the night by the smell of smoke. I was familiar with this late autumn routine - the farmers to the north set their wide fields on fire to clear the stubble, and waves of smoke engulfed Delhi night and day. At night, my brain must sometimes have received the signal and panicked, woken me up so that I could flee the fire. There was nowhere in all of North India to flee, however. I took my dog out into the dark, swarms of dust illuminated by the street lights, wearing an expensive filtered mask strapped over my face. The birds were up on tree limbs laden with dust. The light spread but the sky remained leaden. I thought of the term "nuclear winter." I thought of 9/11, of the ash covering lower Manhattan. I thought what a shame it was that in all of the months of lockdown, no plot had been hatched to save us from choking on air, a now annual event in this capital of 20 million.