The doomsday date, p.1
The Doomsday Date, page 1
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For my sister Tamera, who reminds me every day how ancient
I am, having been born in the 90s
Contents
About this Book
Title Page
Dedication
A brief note on the historical setting
Chapter one: 31st December 1999
Chapter two: Number five on the Doomsday bucket list
Chapter three: Number six on the Doomsday bucket list
Chapter four: How to win you best friend back
Sanjeet’s Doomsday Bucket List
A letter from Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
About the author
An exclusive extract from FOUR EIDS AND A FUNERAL by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and Adiba Jaigirdar
Also by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Copyright Page
Our story takes place long, long ago; in an ancient time when dinosaurs roamed the aisles of old Blockbuster stores; when mobile phones were still the size of large blocks of cheese. A time before modern inventions such as Instagram, TikTok and sliced bread. When keeping your Tamagotchi1 alive was a main priority. When scary spice was in fact a person and not just another name for chilli paste. And when wearing outfits comprised solely of denim was seen as a perfectly sound choice to make and not at all a cry for help. What time was this, you ask? The 1990s, of course.
And it was during this ancient time when arguably one of the most important historical events ever came about, at midnight on the 31st December 1999: the end of the world.
Or, rather: the day the world was meant to end.
As you can probably tell from the fact that the earth is still somewhat intact2, the world did not cease to exist on the 1st January 2000. However, given the fact that millions and millions of people around the world sat with bated breath, waiting impatiently for the world to explode, it is safe to say that the 31st December 1999 was a pretty intense day.
And that’s where this story starts. With one of the people who truly believed that the world would end that fateful Friday, many centuries3 ago.
On the day before the world was meant to end, Sanjeet Joshi dyed his hair pink.
He wasn’t quite sure why – pink was never a colour he’d particularly liked – but it was on the Doomsday bucket list he’d created weeks before. And he’d promised his past self that he’d complete every single weird task on the list. Including dyeing his hair.
So far he’d already eaten sweets for breakfast (which he never usually did), smoked his first (and last) cigarette (which tasted like the grim reaper’s sweat, by the way), and ridden his bike without wearing his helmet.
He’d done four out of the ten things on his list, and he was determined to do them all by midnight…even the last one. The one that scared him the most. The one he’d sworn he’d never do, unless it was a life-or-death situation. And, well, now it apparently was.
The apocalypse was coming – or as some were calling it, the Y2K bug. When the clock ticked from 11.59 p.m. on the 31st December 1999 to 12 a.m. on the 1st January 2000, computer systems were going to fail while planes fell from the sky, the world was going to explode and everyone was going to die.
This was what Sanjeet believed, along with millions of others around the world.
The Y2K bug would kill them all, and there was nothing he could do about it but live his last day to the fullest.
Sola Akindele didn’t believe in conspiracies. Especially not the ridiculous ones her best friend and next-door neighbour Sanjeet believed.
When they were five, she’d had to break the news to him about both Santa Claus and the tooth fairy – which he hadn’t taken so well.
When they were ten, she’d stayed up with him when he thought there was a UFO outside his window, ready to abduct him and snatch him away from his friends and family for ever. Turned out the “UFO” was just a Frisbee stuck to the lamp post.
Now that they were sixteen, Sola hoped that by distracting Sanjeet with his strange bucket list, when midnight did come around and the world didn’t explode, he’d come to his senses and stop letting his imagination play tricks on him.
One might ask how such different people came to be best friends. Sola: the mellow and unafraid cynic who hated people and life, and generally kept to herself at school, blending into the shadows.
And Sanjeet: the lively but anxious boy-next-door, who loved life and people. But the answer was simple, really. Born on the same day, in the same hospital, with mums who were also the best of friends – it was literally written in the stars. The two were practically made for each other.
There was no Sola without Sanjeet, in the same way that the solar system could not exist without the sun.
They’d known each other since before they could form words or walk properly. They’d taken more bubble baths together than Sanjeet would like to admit, and they told each other everything.
Well, almost everything.
They were each other’s favourite person, and even though Sola would do and say things that made Sanjeet even more anxious, and Sanjeet’s conspiracies made Sola want to gouge her eyes out, they loved each other more than words could express.
Sola sometimes suspected that she loved him a little more than she was meant to… And that was why, instead of being at home, reading another Octavia E. Butler novel in the comfort of her own room, she was in the very tidy dungeon4 that was Sanjeet’s bedroom, coating his now-bleached hair with copious amounts of pink hair dye.
When she’d received his SOS call that morning – aka rocks thrown at her bedroom window at the crack of dawn – and he’d told her about his bucket list, she’d suspected he’d finally lost it. However, as Sola had watched him eat gummy worms for breakfast, ride his bike like a hyperactive kid through their neighbourhood, and choke on the toxic fumes of the cigarette he’d been keeping hidden away in his room specially for today, she didn’t suspect it any more. It was confirmed.
Sanjeet had completely lost the plot.
Never in her life had she imagined Sanjeet dyeing his hair, let alone bright pink. It seemed like today, anything was possible. Who knew, maybe he’d invent time travel next?
She wondered what else he had on that ridiculous list of his.
“Be honest,” Sanjeet started, once they’d washed the dye out of his hair. “Do I look bad?”
Sola inspected his face, taking in the drastic way the pink stood out against his dark-brown skin. She tried to ignore the way her heart jolted a little as he stared up at her from his seat on the bed.
He looked like a rock star.
But she’d never admit that out loud.
“Honestly? Yes,” she lied. She didn’t like lying to him, but sometimes it was necessary.
Sanjeet sighed, grabbing a folded-up sheet of paper from the pocket of his hoodie and ticking Dye my hair pink off the list.
“Thanks. At least I’ll die knowing pink isn’t my colour.”
Sola forced a smile.
“At least there’s that,” she said, ignoring the dread in the pit of her stomach.
She felt like something was coming, something that could change everything. Not the end of the world, but something else…something bigger, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
“I look like one of those creepy trolls your mum used to collect,” he said, squinting at himself in the mirror.
Maybe that’s why it’s sort of endearing, Sola thought to herself. Her mum used to collect all sorts of things: strange mugs with bright graphics, rainbow shoelaces and wrinkly trolls with neon-coloured hair. They were practically all Sola had inherited.
When Sola’s mum had died four years ago, she and her older brother, Tobi, had been left with their tiny house – and the bills and rent that needed to be paid, which Tobi, in his big-brotherly fashion, dealt with via his many part-time jobs – as well as a whole box of really pointless things.
“Hey! Don’t insult the trolls, they look way better than you do,” she said, which made Sanjeet raise an eyebrow at her.
Sensing that an object could be flying her way any moment, Sola braced herself to duck.
“Well, not all of us are models like you, Sola. Some of us have to get by on being charming and hilarious.”
Sola smiled, her stomach doing that annoying twisting motion again.
“True. So since you’re not charming or hilarious, what do you have going for you?”
Sanjeet grabbed his pillow and tossed it at Sola’s head.
“My aim,” he said, smile as bright as his hair.
1 Old-timey gaming device
2 FYI climate change is real and we need to take action fast.
3 Twenty-five years ago
4 Not an actual dungeon, Sanjeet’s bedroom just happened to be in the basement.
The bucket list found them this time inside the belly of a pigeon – more specifically Pigeon Park, aka the public gardens down the hill from where they both lived. And even more specifically, in the centre of the park, in what locals nicknamed the belly (mostly because the floral arrangements around the park formed the shape of a bird and so the middle of the park was thought to be the pigeon’s stomach).
Sola was
Sanjeet had been standing on the skateboard in the pigeon’s large intestines for a while now, eyes closed, legs shaky.
To the outside observer, it might have seemed like this was not a big achievement, but to Sanjeet, it was. They’d been at this for half an hour, trying to get him to balance, and while he wasn’t exactly skateboarding, he at least hadn’t fallen, cracked his head open and died.
(Yet.)
“Okay, I’m going to try to move,” he said.
“Sure,” Sola replied.
“I’m going to do it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Any minute now…” he said.
Sola looked at him sideways. “Sure you don’t want me to help you along?”
Sanjeet shook his head. “That’d be cheating, I have to do this alone.”
He took a deep breath, staying completely still, while praying to the universe that he’d be okay, that this wasn’t going to kill him.
Then he shifted back a little and, as he felt the world move from under him and his life flash before his eyes, he did what any person on the brink of death would do and screamed.
“Did I do it?” he yelled.
“Kind of…” Sola replied.
He did the same thing again, and moved a bit more, yelling “Oh god!” as he felt the board shift beneath him.
He opened his eyes, expecting to be at least a few metres away from Sola, but it was almost like he hadn’t moved at all.
Sola was seated on the park bench, watching him with the smile she only ever gave him.
She was finding this funny.
He pulled his bucket list from his pocket and gave the spot where it read Learn how to skateboard a reluctant tick, before pocketing it once again.
“If I had more time, I’d be a pro at it…Tony Hawk-level good.”
“Sure,” Sola said, grin getting wider.
Sanjeet felt his stomach turn. He checked his watch. It was already 5.30 p.m.; he only had a few hours left to complete his bucket list and say goodbye to everyone for good.
He thought about what it would mean to have to say goodbye, to never see his mum or dad or his sister Anika again. The end of all the things he loved most, like the crisp pappadums his dad always picked up from the grocery store for teatime, or his mum’s smoky chicken biryani and warm chapatis.
His eyes met Sola’s.
No more sneaking over next door to hang out and stay up playing video games. Or watching Sola’s favourite old movies and dancing badly to her latest pop-song obsession in the living room.
No more Sola…
“You hungry?” Sanjeet asked Sola, pushing the bad thoughts and the anxieties that came with them away.
“Always,” she replied.
It was dinner time in the Joshi household. Sanjeet and Sola were seated around the oval walnut-coloured table in the cosy nest of the dining room with Sanjeet’s sister, mum and dad. His mum had made an assortment of dishes, which were spread across the table in bowls. The smell alone would have been enough to lure them back home from their adventures outside, but there was also the fact that Sanjeet’s mum did not like it when he was late to dinner and so he always rushed back to avoid a lengthy lecture about timekeeping.
In some parallel universe maybe this truly was one of their last meals – in which case, Sola was glad it was this. Nothing beat Mrs Joshi’s chicken biryani or Mr Joshi’s home-made chai.
“Sanjeet, you’re not eating…” Sanjeet’s mum said, after watching him shovel food up and down his mostly untouched plate. Sola was already onto seconds.
“I, umm, had a big lunch,” Sanjeet lied. He hadn’t had any lunch thus far, or a real breakfast. The only things he’d consumed had been sweets, half a cigarette and probably the fumes from his hair dye – which his parents hadn’t commented on, presumably because they, like Sola, assumed he was going through a quarter-life crisis.
The real reason why Sanjeet wasn’t eating his mum’s incredibly delicious food was because of number six on the list.
“Oh, well then, you should still try to eat. You can’t grow if you don’t eat good food,” his mum said, while his dad nodded vigorously. Sanjeet’s mum was a nurse, and Sanjeet’s parents were suspicious of all processed things.
“It’s true. Your mum’s right, growth is important,” Sola replied with a mouth half full of rice.
“Thank you for talking sense into him, my dear,” Sanjeet’s mum said warmly to Sola, who had become as much of a member of the Joshi family as Sanjeet over the years.
Sanjeet squinted his eyes at Sola as he begrudgingly shoved a large spoonful of rice into his mouth. She squinted back teasingly, and then grinned, exposing her wide rice-riddled teeth.
“Do you enjoy being a menace to society or does it just come naturally to you?” Sanjeet asked, as they found their coats so they could head out into the cold late-December air once again.
“A bit of both,” Sola replied. She slipped on her brother’s padded denim jacket – which was basically hers now seeing as she’d borrowed the jacket many moons ago and had never got around to returning it. “I guess it’s payback for the time you killed my Tamagotchi,” she said.
Sanjeet tried to look innocent as they made their way out the door. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Convenient,” Sola said with a smile, nudging him softly as they walked along the path to their next stop.
Because of his parents’ love of home-made food, Sanjeet had never had any sweets or chocolates (especially not for breakfast) and he’d never ever eaten fast food before.
He’d spent years watching Sola inhale an impossible number of hamburgers, without ever actually trying one. But on the 31st December 1999, that was going to change.
Sola slid into one of the booths at the only American diner in town, formally known as The Parlour and informally referred to by Sanjeet’s parents as The Diner of Death. Upon first glance, there was nothing seemingly special or unique about the diner; however, once inside, the reason for its name immediately became clear. The decor was set up like an actual old-fashioned parlour. There were pictures of the owner’s family hanging on the beige wallpapered walls of the diner, floral-patterned armchairs in place of dining chairs and mismatched plates, cups and furnishings to drive home the cosy English home-made theme, which was at odds with the American diner food they served.
Sola loved The Parlour, not only because of the way it looked and felt inside, but also because it was the one place she, her mum and her brother would always go to whenever they wanted to have a special meal or outing. Having a family holiday was never financially feasible, so this was their treat instead – usually twice a month and on birthdays.
Seeing as Sola was the expert and Sanjeet a novice in this department, Sanjeet put Sola in charge of the ordering.
“Here we are: two super-stacked burgers with a side of chunky chips.” Sola arrived back with their tray of “goods”.
Sola immediately got to work, diving straight into her cheeseburger.
The smell of fried food wafted into Sanjeet’s nose. He wasn’t sure if it was because he’d ended up eating a whole plate of rice under his mother’s watchful eye, or if it was the fact that the burger looked as though it had been dowsed in a bucket of oil, but he was starting to feel queasy.
Maybe his parents did have a point when they called this place The Diner of Death.
He stared at his bucket list open on his lap in front of him. The list might have seemed like it was filled with trivial things, but each item served a very specific purpose, acting as a constant reminder of why it was important he completed this challenge.
Sanjeet was only sixteen, but he felt as though he’d wasted his entire life before today.
He’d hardly ever taken any risks or done anything truly exciting. He lived life by the book, and what for? So that he could die never having lived?
The thought of that scared him more than anything on this list.
