(My first attempt at a science fiction, read and comment if you like it)
George woke up with a start, his dream fading bit by bit like a far away land. He gulped and searched for his hot coffee to wet his dry
throat, his blurry vision settled on a mug on the wad of papers that had filled
the last 6 years of his life, he smirked while picking up his cold coffee for
all those equations and calculation had seemed blurry even with his horn
rimmed glasses till a night 8 months ago when epiphany had struck. He swallowed
a sucrose filled coffee and put on his frames to see the results of the
simulation. The bar showed 46% complete with an estimated time of 4 hours. He had been running hypothetical scenarios for controlled mutations for the past four months, each baffling him with the smaller and smaller chance of survival rate. The best organisms with small life span and huge number of individuals which had already been extensively studied on were E.Coli, so he put his wager on them. The Physics part of it was fairly easy, at least compared to the chance factors in the organisms. He
checked his Swiss, the radium illumination which always reminded him of Nina.
He set aside the manual and sleep walked into the wash room. The light was
harsh on his dilated cornea, which contracted instantly. He sprayed some cold
water over his face and stared into his eyes in the mirror. The tired eyes of a
geek who had transformed from a lab rat to a celebrity, he had changed world
view and was about to change the course of the world, or so people thought. The
world that loved him from far away would never get to know the real George Will.
In pure sense of honesty he felt no pressure of it, except on the face of
public confrontation, where people’s awes accumulated a fear, a dark and crumbing emotion. His
lab was another world where things were simple, where unknown lurked but did
not scratch his back constantly.
The craving for
fresh air drove him out, into the ill maintained green house, on the
terrace. The skyline between his smoke
puffs from his e-cigarette was soothing. Between puffs he drifted over time…..time
that filled him full and emptied him, moments that had pressed him against the
wall and moments those gave him wings to fly………..
It was his graduation year, his thesis was over and all he
was doing was counting days. Mood swings were the trends of the time, so he and
Karan, his mate has decided to put an end to shallow moods through the best
feasible option- weed. Fun was like the
curve of Tan theta between 0 and pi by 2. Slow motion became a reality, ear to ear smiles got pasted onto their faces and thr escalation stirred his thoughts
towards Nina.
'Nina……I just wanted to see her, talk to her, go on a long
walk with her. She got me!!
Sometimes even more than myself!!........ If time would be
right I could kiss her and blame weed..
So with Karan at shoulder I swirled around the campus like butterfly
for the right flower. One of my expensively maintained spy, texted me her
location - “ seminar hall ”. Some Paleontology hype about a fish that could
walk, I couldn't care less. We entered the hall from back, when the speaker was
shouting enthusiastically and urging the audience to chant the word ‘Tiktaalik’.
Before my eyes adjusted to the dimmed lights Karan had spotted Nina…….my angel (sometimes
shady). We made way through the seats of some awestruck sophomores, depressed
post docs and absent professors. Found some doctoral students seated right
behind Nina. Emptying the seats was easy, just intimated them that their
guide was going crazy searching for
them. Through my eyes Nina was like the Sun in the solar system, all else was
space.. ..empty space. She said hi! and I settled with a long breath filled with
her pheromones. I whispered into Karan’s ear,” Don’t let me do nothing stupid!”.
He nodded .
All else was a blur
that evening, except some picture perfect images. One was the taste of ripe
strawberries, a close quartered stare into Nina’s eyes and a stupid graph, a
distance v/s time plot of field of vision and geological time.'
George shivered from the morning breeze on the terrace, his e-cigarette was showing a low battery and a chill went up his spine, he didn't know because
of the breeze or Nina. As a science student, especially as physicist he was trained
and told repeatedly, that miraculous minutes were myths, myths for the mad. Life had held a lot of buts for him, this was
one….. the day his life changed, the day he had borrowed
money to get high and never paid back the debt, for it couldn't be paid in money. Walking back George saw the words "Staff Researcher" on his door, he always felt words could just not carry the weight of their meanings, their implications,
words merely remained a medium and their realization was an idea, an idea that
fills every corner, every inch, till it become the person and even more, trying to explain that in words in itself was a paradox.
Back at his computer
the loading bar showed 67%, for science took ideas, effort and most importantly
patience. George sipped away stale coffee from his mug, with NASA printed on
it.
