12 October 2009

This is my first attempt to bring stupidity into story-writing. Where can stupidity not venture into? Its really really long for my blogging standards and I’m sure to make more enemies than already in the process. But who cares?

It was a really cold night. The breeze rumbled so hard, leaves were dropping from the trees like raindrops from the sky. Not a single soul braved to go out in such weather. The nights were usually cold, but that night was exceptional – the ravaging gushes of wind swept everything in her path. The student was glad to be under the protection of his apartment. His own apartment, for which he was paying about one-third of his stipend money. He wasn’t that upset to be on the lowest level in the pay-chain. Graduate life eventually takes over and masquerades the impoverished lifestyle one’s living.

There were sudden flashes of light. Late undergrad partygoers often were found driving their cars in unearthly hours with glimmering lights that would creep into the rooms of every apartment and disturb everyone’s sleep. But this was not a mere flash of light, it was more like beams of light being focused on his room. With inquisitive eyes, the graduate student pulled his blinds up and peeped outside. His eyes widened. Heart rate doubled. He would shriek, only if his voice came out. And before he got back to his senses, he felt himself being pulled out of his bed, across the window and thrown into the frigid sky with force. He was sucked into the spaceship. That was when he blanked out.

In other places, more people were picked up in this way. The same beams of light. They too blanked out as they were being sucked into the alien craft. The darkness seemed eternal.

“Is this America?” said the President as he scanned his surroundings. The place looked dismal. Craters, darkness, desert-like, not a soul to behold. “We must be in Texas. That’s America!” said he to himself again.

And then, it walked from one of the craters.

As the President prepared to launch a “Yes, we Can” speech at this extraterrestrial in order to fight it off, the strange creature stood up on both its legs, as though it was human. It was pretty hairy, fat glasses, unkempt hair and a shirt that would never match with the trousers. “Are you American?” asked the President. “Yes of course. I was just working on my grants when I suddenly felt air-lifted. I tried to finish off the remaining sentences, although the phenomenon of being air-lifted posed certain technical glitches to my progress. The next thing I remember is waking up here in this place, which according to my calculations based on the speed of my airlifting, the diameter of the spacecraft and the classic features of this place, is our natural satellite – the MOON” said the advisor, with impressive hold over his vocabulary. And disturbed by this verbal bantering from the advisor, more people walked out from the craters – the lab technician in the thong, the dangerous NRI uncle and finally, the graduate student himself.

The President stood on one of the bigger rocks. He tried to adjust his tie only to realize he was still in his mickey-mouse pajamas. He started off his emphatic speech.

Its apparent that five of us have been selected by someone or something to live on this place we call Moon. Whatever that selected us did so for a reason. Because the five of us represent the heart and soul of America. The advisor whose research brings bigger problems to society, the lab technician whose drinking habits build our economy and hence more employment opportunities, the NRI uncle – the shrewd engineer who knows where to get the cheapest deals in this dire time of recession, the graduate student – cheap labor from whom we can get anything done, and me, your President of course, the Nobel laureate, the messiah in distressing times, especially during these times when cafeteria burgers have become dearer by 36 cents.

“You lie!” screamed the graduate student. His voice thundered across the moon and stunned everyone. “No its true!” retorted back the President. “Burgers are dearer by 52 cents. That’s why I have been eating a lot of Ramen these days” screamed back the student. If anyone closely observed, they would find tiny drops of tears emering from his eyes.

The President continued…

As I was saying, we have been thrown into this challenging environment. America always chooses to use challenges as an opportunity to build itself. Its because we can!Yes, we can! The NASA probe has shown to us that moon has water. At least, we won’t be thirsty.

“Anyone for a drink? I know this really good place right around that corner behind that big rock. Drinks are half-priced around this time” smiled the confident lab-technician. One of two things were true. She had gone bonkers after her experiences in zero-gravity or she had no frikkin clue where she was. The advisor, who was finishing up his grant proposals by etching the moon floor with sharpened pieces of rocks, glared at the technician. She sat down with a grimace. The student was fast asleep. His concentration time of exactly 15 minutes had surpassed. He was dreaming already, of being a post-doc and coming to lab whenever he wished and yet being able to have his own Mac in the lab.

Undeterred by the disturbances being caused by the rest of the troupe, the President moved on…

So lets build this place from scratch. Because we can! Yes we can! For ourselves. For America. But let us not bicker and quarrel with each other in the process. I intend to keep this nobel peace prize for a while. The advisor can write a paper on what we need to do in order to build a society from scratch. The student can do all the labor. The NRI uncle can be in charge of exploration to find anything worth using here. The lab technician and me will be in charge of building a good population around here. She’s our only hope for civilization.

And then the wild party just started. The NRI uncle went on a wild goose chase to search for stuff he deemed would be worth auctioning if he could ever get back to earth. Or he could do it there on the Moon as soon as the Moon currency went into circulation. The advisor broke into a series of calculations, and although he came across a brilliant plan to sustain their existence on the Moon, he deicded to collect some preliminary data, get a couple publications and then implement them. The graduate student of course was flabbergasted to have found signal even at such great distances away and had begun using facebook on his iPhone. His status updates read – “I’m in moon. Check out my new youtube video where I do the moonwalk”. And somewhere behind the big rock where the lab technician’s hypothetical bar existed, Obama and the tech were taking a walk.

Very soon, all hell broke loose. It was the shrewd NRI uncle who found it first. The abandoned spaceship. The source of hope to return back to earth. Upon inspection, it was found that the spaceship was a prototype of NASA’s crafts running on Windows Vista. It came with the standard 4-seats in the cabin. One person had to be dropped out of this mission. The mission to earth!

The spaceship took off after a couple of restarts and running a few spyware scans. The graduate student watched in awe as the craft lifted off leaving darkness and silence.

He looked at his watch. It was 9pm; March 12, 2014. Something was to happen around this time. He racked his brains but couldn’t figure out. He scanned through numerous web pages and came across an article – India successfully launches Chandrayaan 3 – the first manned mission to Moon. And in the distance, he could see a speck of light coming right towards the moon.

2 weeks later…

He had quite a story to narrate. The youngest person on Moon. The graduate student was enveloped by an ocean of media personnel. His return to earth on Chandrayaan 3 was a pretty eventful one. Everyone wanted to know his story. He was winning acclaims and awards. He was winning fellowships. He was winning cash prizes. He was on Broadway. He was on Time magainze. He was everywhere!

Meanwhile…

The ruckus created by the President’s “Yes, we Can” speech, the advisor’s (mis) calculations on the trajectory to earth, the NRI uncle’s moon-rock collections (through which he intended to make a lot of money) adding to the weight of the craft, the lab technician treating the entire craft as a party hall and the blue-screen-of-death on all the monitors of the spaceship shifted its path towards the rings of Saturn.

The graduate student opened his eyes. He looked around. A pile of papers covered his study table. He didn’t even remember if it was a wooden table. His breakfast dish from yesterday was still beside the window sill. He woke up reluctantly. Brushed his teeth. He didn’t utter a word. Grabbing his cellphone and backpack, he slowly walked towards his lab thinking, “Only if dreams came true!”

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