Chapter odd:
You just received this mail, and you are thinking, ‘oh! What a pretentious title’, you scroll down to the end, four pages, bloody hell; there is not a devil’s chance that I am reading this piece. This writer is such a presumptuous, attention seeking, boring, superfluous and despicable quack. you part your thumb and index fingers apart methodically, one on ‘shift’, other on ‘delete’, your manager would be furious if he notices this, you have a delivery as always, got to call a friend today, it has been such a long time. Then a thought occurs to you, well, what the heck, let me just give one quick glance at this piece, you roll over through the pages and curiously enough you are attracted by the side headings, it does not look like an ordinary piece, and it does look like it has got something to do with aliens. So you decide to keep it, no deleting, at least for now, got to read it in leisure time. Before hitting on ‘alt’ and ‘tab’, you read through the first page.
You just received this mail, and you are thinking, ‘oh! What a pretentious title’, you scroll down to the end, four pages, bloody hell; there is not a devil’s chance that I am reading this piece. This writer is such a presumptuous, attention seeking, boring, superfluous and despicable quack. you part your thumb and index fingers apart methodically, one on ‘shift’, other on ‘delete’, your manager would be furious if he notices this, you have a delivery as always, got to call a friend today, it has been such a long time. Then a thought occurs to you, well, what the heck, let me just give one quick glance at this piece, you roll over through the pages and curiously enough you are attracted by the side headings, it does not look like an ordinary piece, and it does look like it has got something to do with aliens. So you decide to keep it, no deleting, at least for now, got to read it in leisure time. Before hitting on ‘alt’ and ‘tab’, you read through the first page.
Chapter even:
A cold chilly winter breeze was flowing as I strolled through the park. With arms folded across my chest, exhaling snowy white breath, I kept pulling at my gloves closer into the loose openings of shirt cuffs to avoid cold air from gushing in. I was wearing a soft woolen cap, heavy shoes, protected from head to toe, arm to arm, only my eyes were left uncovered, I did not take pity on them, and it was alright. Then, as if from nowhere, a speck of dust somehow forced itself into one of my eyes, and I grew impatient with every twitch and turn of my eye ball, I tried to blink imperceptibly to force it down the eye sockets, but with every attempt, my discomfiture just multiplied and I was left increasingly aware of the situation. I could no longer concentrate, I tried closing my eye for a moment, it did not help much, it was as if a bump had been found on a convex curve up the apotheosis, and was piercing its way into the meaty portion. The blood vessels inside the eye sockets, over the eyeballs, and behind the eye lids cried in unison, it was intolerable; the whole world seemed to have gone perplexed as I forced my eye close and stroked it with my index finger raucously.
"Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot?"-George Eliot.
Chapter odd:
Meeting! Oh man! What the hell, I mean, hello! Oh! Not that ‘defect analyses again, anything but that, I just hate it. Your manager is walking towards your cubicle, you don’t have to stand up to confirm it, you can tell by the way he walks, with quick agility, you hit on ‘alt’ and ‘tab’, now you are working. ‘Meeting? No, see I got this delivery today, client commitments and that sort of a thing’. Your manager leaves after some more explanation or words to that effect, now that he left, you open the piece again.
Chapter even:
The council’s component:
Q: The council of inter-universal affairs has decided to cut down the supply of gravity on all the stars in your universe which includes sun, when that happens earth would be tossed out of its orbit tangentially, the council decried the profligacy adapted by earth-men, “shooting sparkling metallic shafts into the space, travelling in them, but, misusing gravity for their return journey” would you plead ignorance to this allegation?
A: well, for one thing, I never travelled in a sparkling metallic shaft, was it rockets you were referring to?, what do you mean by "misusing gravity", it’s called freefall you moron, here on earth, we are unused to converse that way, all I can say is, we either use, underuse or overuse something, we know nothing about misuse. By the way, I forgot to ask, which part of the universe do you hail from?
I could not stand the alien's insufferable countenance; he was looking upon me as I would when an insect that had just bitten me was presently stealing its way around my back and on confronting craved for a honest appeal. The alien now assumed a more appropriate position and stood me up. Unlike my arteries that were located deep inside the skin beneath the epithelial layers, his were stuck out and were pouring out profusely some kind of a viscous fluid, which he had me believe was his blood. His whiskers were longer than elephant trunks, his head sort of a bubbling mess with liquid oozing out of the top as from a boiling pot. His arms were more like tentacles, rugged as a crocodile's skin, only much more pronounced; his feet were curiously out of place, out of, out of.......
'Incorrigible' pronounced the alien, apparently he put me out of my misery; the word just evaded my searching mind. the alien then proceeded to explain in a soothing sort of calm and courageous manner, something of profound importance to me, he told me that he knew everything that I have experienced in my whole life, the wars I have fought, the people I have killed, the pain and suffering that initially instilled in me the hunger for revenge, and how I vindicated myself with the wars that I have raged, wars I have created out of a pure instinct of indulgence. He told me that the death toll I carried forward upon my shoulders hunched, was close to eight hundred thousand people. I found the number strangely familiar. ‘Wait a minute' I thought, this alien was mistaking me for Hitler.
"All I see is Terror. All I see is pain. All I see is mothers dragging children to their graves"-kreator, German thrash metal band.
Chapter odd:
Now you are telling yourself, ‘ok, that was something, it started out on a promising note, that alien stuff was weird though, and the q & A, well, what can I say, think I should get back to work’. Then you start doing your work, but you can hardly concentrate, you want to finish this thing, once and for all, you open the piece again, scroll through till the end, well, ‘three more pages’, you contemplate, your estimate, say another fifteen minutes. You think, what is fifteen minutes, let me read it. You found the narrative good so far, so you want to continue reading, although you hated his previous works, this one kind of, is surprisingly good.
Chapter even:
The committee’s component:
Q: When was the last time you saw an atom with all of its electrons revolving around the nucleus, it has been reported to the ‘committee for the greater good of universes’ that earth men have been stealing electrons that are a tad too far away from the nucleus, and making fireballs of them with playful humor. Our sources claim that you along with other earth men have sworn to the ‘pledge of indifference’ to these scientific endeavors. How do you defend yourself?
A: my friend, you seem to be in a great distress, otherwise why on earth would you confuse honest scientific inquiries with stealing electrons, and for one thing, it is not stealing, it’s called electron transfer, when an electron transfers from a higher energy level to a lower energy level, it sort of emits energy. I appreciate your concern, it was very kind of you to notice and bring it to my attention, but too late, atomic bombs have already been built and put to emphatic use. and, what do you mean 'pledge of indifference', it was not like I had a choice, I simply happened to be here on earth when it happened, and for the record, I never heard the name 'committee for greater good f universe', what a bloody disgusting rot you guys are, to show up after the events took place, after everything sort of finished up, like it happens in the movies.
This committee comprised of aliens from the inter-galactic frontiers, one had more tongues than the other had heads, one had more eyes than the other had nostrils, one was floating up and down in earth's gravity, other one was an arsenic compound of some sort. there was this alien at one end, who was snoring while awake, and the other perhaps of opposite sex, I presume, for I had no idea how many sexes these multicolored, multi headed, multi nosed aliens shared, they somehow relied on supersonic gurgling sounds. Some communicated with their foreheads deforming into an expression, some gesticulated vigorously, and others were merely engaged in blissful observance.
committee was multi dimensional in every aspect, but they were unified in one particular strait, they all proclaimed universal peace, but I distinctly remembered that we were kind of ostracized from the universal happenings, last time we tried to explore the outer space, to find alien life outside the planet, we never received replies to our radio signals, we, Earth men were perhaps too inconsequential and unworthy of attention. They show up, when they figure out, out of the blue that we, earth men, could add up greatly to their numerical preponderance in elections, otherwise they simply ignore us.
“An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.-T.S. Eliot”
Chapter odd:
Ok, this was just the kind of garbage, beyond anything a living person could manage to conjure up; you are neutrally inclined, so far so good, and about the quotes at the end of each chapter, they looked little out of place at times, but the total ‘out of ordinary’, something that defied the standard story narrative kind of hooked to it, you managed to read through till here, but you don’t want to finish it up so fast. So, presently, you walk to the pantry, have some coffee, and now you are thinking, good one, he had me there, the writer sort of wrote, for once, something good. The conference room’s door is open, and you failed to notice it until now, you rush back to your place, and your manager is already there, he did not look furious or anything, but, curious definitely. He suggests that you should go through your part of defects at least, and that he will forward you the damn excel sheet, you entertain him with a couple of questions, otherwise he would know your indulgence, so you act crazy preoccupied. He leaves, and you open the piece again.
Chapter even:
The Bank’s component:
Q: Earth men have been found guilty of unlawful campaigning, a presidential candidate campaigning for the intergalactic president ship from earth has been reportedly promising the construction of a worm hole that would allow you to start all over again from 600 BC. The 'Universal bank of trust' has made no such promises to support this extravagant project, yet we see earth men relentlessly supporting this party man in question. Are you supporting him too?
A: well, I have had enough of this crap, what are you guys anyway, what are you after me? Does it matter? And your bank of trust or whatever it was must be ashamed of itself, for weaving conspiracies, a bloody mess. Of course earth's representatives are highly likely of making extravagant promises, that is what we do here, and you know it, so you had better make some concessions for earth's representatives, so don't you again come barging into my privacy with your inane inquiries.
this bank of trust faxed me the inquiry on a sheet of paper that melted before I could even rest my eyes on it, it just melted, whatever it was made of, it also melted the interiors of my fax machine and the plastic body sort of protruded out; the indentations were letters, apparently I had to turn the plastic frame upside down to read it, it was quite a mess. The bank's representative stood silently watching me in compelling serenity. it was fascinating to watch him stand there, nonplussed, I could not comprehend for the life of me, why after taking so much pain in sending a fax that burns itself and the machine, did the bank send a funny looking guy, what for? I asked myself. presently, bank’s representative, the stout marine occupant with silver hair and swan like structure noted down something on what looked like a notepad and left, all I could do was, make a best guess, feedback, yes, but, I did not give my feedback, well, he must be one of those aliens that read minds, what an evolution that is, I longed for that.
"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this"-Bertrand Russell
Chapter odd:
Ok! So! What is this piece? Is it about aliens? Is it about quotes? Is it about Q & A? You don’t design to rack your brains over it, its perplexing, yes! That is the word, its engaging, it’s also disturbing; what with alien invasion and all that sort of thing, and it is definitely moralizing, well hints of it here and there. Then you think, ‘why am I being judgmental suddenly? Let me just read it, and leave it at it, it was a concoction sure, it was daring, may be, it was kind of funny, well parts of it’. Phone rings, you pick it up, credit card, no you don’t want credit cards, not any more, you tell this guy, that you got CRR 4 or something, what with recession and everything, so you are being kicked out, so you don’t have money and that sort of a thing. And the poor fellow hangs up at the other end, now you proceed to finish the tale.
Chapter even:
light at the end of the tunnel was getting closer, it grew brighter and brighter, it was burning hot, so hot that I could feel the sweat beads drying up instantaneously, it was just intolerable, somehow, mysteriously, I could not turn my head over, it was as if, by an inexplicable force, I was pushed further and further into the heart of this blinding light. Then a sound, a voice, distant, and was closing in, now faint, now sweet, now clear, and.....I woke up, my mom was pulling the blinds open, and the sun as if having waited impatiently outside since dawn, came rushing in, and was presently gorging on my naked face effusively.
"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.”-Leonard Cohen.
I had the most intriguing, most inspiring, most thought provoking yet unlikely, yet funny, yet profoundly true dream in a multidimensional dreamy space.
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