To the Milky way and back

I look at the digital watch above the steering wheel, it says 12. I don’t know if that is true. There’s no way of being sure. The cockpit seems to be in working condition, the ignition is on, the autopilot’s green glow assures me. I look out the window from my co-pilot’s seat, shooting stars after shooting stars. So many I have seen, since the rendezvous at Mars. Captain Scion had assured me he’d be back in 24 hours at most, but he never came.

I look at the empty Captain’s seat. Any minute now, I expect Captain Scion will graze his scraggly beard and doll out a command. Bound to the moon. Bound to home. Someplace. But I have come to terms with the fact that he is not coming back just like the rest of the fleet. Such enthusiasm there was, to be the first people to land on the red-planet. “We are the first ones!” Captain Scion had bellowed as the rest of the team listened intently. “The very first ones to inhabit the uninhabitable. The pioneers, the only hope of the entire human civilization.” Much to everybody’s delight. Who remembers the second astronaut to walk on the moon after all?

365 days. It has been exactly a year since that terrible day. The meteors had begun plaguing the space around the ship in which only I remained, waiting for the mini-bots to bring the pioneers back. It had been 48 hours. Communication ceased within the first 10 hours. To save myself, I had to press the hyperdrive button. And now, I did not know where I was.

Queen Rajendralakshmi went inside a wormhole and came out of another. The fuel went out immediately after. Somehow the nuclear reactor did not give away and I was all set out to live my life in this apparition of a home, floating in the dark abyss with no hope of ever going back to the life I had.

The first few weeks I tried very hard to work the radars. I packed all kinds of signals into a sinusoidal wave and boomed it past infinity, hoping somebody somewhere would find it.

“Hello. This is Raman. I don’t know where I am. All I see is endless shooting stars. Rescue me. Please!”

The messages got more desperate as I ran out of ways to spend my time. It was only “rescue me” until I still liked playing table tennis with the wall in the recreation hall. When the wall could win me no more, it was “Please rescue me or I’ll die. Please. Please. Somebody!”

What did I expect, this was space after all! The answer was a deafening-silence. The only way to look at the space was through the cockpit where the walls were all transparent. If you shut off the lights across the spaceship and went to the cockpit, the only difference between you and the universe would be the shimmering green signal of the autopilot.

I spend a lot of time here looking at the stars, meteorites, several Suns that line up in the horizon. But unlike in the blue planet, these Suns don’t bring daylight here. They are round enough to be labeled as a Sun but not bright enough to be called our Sun. Millions and millions of stars stay unmoving, exactly where they are. I have names for several of them. Swopnil, Subekchya, Shristhi and there are a group of stars 69’ing one another. I call them pervy matters. They are the only thing comedic here. Rest is a series of endless tragedy.

Before I joined the space expedition to Mars, I was a regular Electronics Engineer working in the Nepal airlines. I wasn’t bright or anything, I just did whatever my parents told me to do. They said, study engineering. I did. Then they said, prepare for the public service examinations and start working for the Nepal Airlines. They have a lot of money. If I hadn’t come here, they’d have probably married me off to a long-nosed Brahmin girl. But a newspaper ad changed everything.

“Become a part of something much bigger than yourself.” It said, “Join the expedition to Mars for us — the entire human civilization.”

I liked the ring to it. I applied without believing I’d ever get accepted. But NASA accepted me immediately. An Apache even came to pick me up. It turned out, we were an experimental lot, the expendables. As enthusiastic as every one was about going to Mars, not many wanted to be a lab-rat. The Scientists at NASA explained the conditions to us. There was a very probable chance that we’d never come back. I thought about it. The picture of my uneventful life came to me. I had a lot of people expecting of me. But no matter how many of their expectations I met, there was always going to be some more. So, there was no point of being important to anyone and as I looked at the future my previous life held, I could predict, exactly where everything fell in. I signed the papers and blasted off to space with the rest of the team.

Nobody could have expected this, nobody! I said to myself as the dark expanse of nothingness remained apathetical to my plight. When the engines are turned off, other than the hum of the oxygen cylinders pumping fresh air around the spaceship, a strange and captivating silence takes over. You can hear your thoughts. You can hear different people in you fighting. The Robinson Crusoe in me tried really hard to make a human out of me in this inhuman place but gradually, in the nakedness of this vast expanse, he gave away. I drew a face on the big pillar adjoining the cockpit with the rest of the ship. I talked to him. I shared my feelings. But I soon realized I didn’t have much to say.

I understood then that back home, my parents lived through me. The society lived through me. I was a proto-type of their aspirations. I tried my best to be what I was expected to become and I became that. Perhaps I thought I would feel some form of accomplishment when I did that. But no. Nothing happened. After a certain while they moved on and I was stuck at the lonely radar up a hill in the Nepal airlines.

Now sitting here, I had nothing to talk about, nothing to hope for. Maybe that’s why the big pillar didn’t change its expression when I talked to him since I had no substance. And maybe, that is what is keeping me alive.

“So, this is how it ends.” I thought as I noticed Shristhi twinkling a little bit.

Out of all the stars I have become friends with, Shristhi is my most beloved. All the stars remain in close alignment with one another and if you have all the time in the world, which I do, you can draw any kind of constellation in the sky. Come to think of it, maybe the 69’ing stars are a product of my own perverted mind.

Shristhi is different. She is aloof from all of them and no matter how many geometrical shapes I try to craft, I can’t include her in. She is like that one kid in school, who you never notice and when the school ends you are dumbfounded to realize she was in your own classroom. I look at the digital watch again. It is already 3 in the morning, not that it even matters.

“Enough stargazing.” I mutter to myself and switch on the lights. The engine starts rolling and Queen RajendraLakshmi comes to life. I don’t like to keep things quiet when the whole shuttle appears like a lavish village fair. Some song is always playing in the backdrop, I make sure of that. Right now, a melancholy violin number echoes throughout the shuttle. As I head to the central part of the orbiter, I see the portraits of the Shah Kings who ruled Nepal at one time or the other, lining the corridor. The hatch to the central orbiter parts to let me in. Inside are the bunks of the crew members. It always makes me sad at this point. But the stern face of Queen Rajendralakshmi, on whom this ship is named after says to me “You pathetic piece of shit. I grabbed the balls of hard men, opposite of how you are, and ruled the country not to mention the numerous victories I ensured so you can go on your little space explorations. Especially when our enter gender was treated like a slave!”

I feel guilty and immediately fall asleep.

When I wake up, I go to the space toilet, take a dump and then use my space toothbrush to brush my very earthly teeth. After that I head to the cockpit again, taking the same route, out of the orbiter through the corridor lined up with the portraits of Shah Kings. I settle down on the captain’s chair and my good robot Falame brings me morning bitter coffee. As I sip on my coffee, I realize today it is even more silent, if that is even possible. The engine is on and “What a wonderful world” is playing through the speakers and yet I still feel a strange silence creeping in.

I decide to indulge in my favorite past time activity again, that is “Stargazing”. The Suns are there still, there must be about a 1000 of them I think, you know, splendidly paneling the horizon. Subekchya is there right above Swopnil and the 69 gang today is involved in yet another blasphemy. It’s doggystyle now. God damn, I need to get laid, I think to myself, but with whom, I wonder. I roll my eyes further away but I don’t see Shristhi. I squint. I still can’t see her. I never remembered her being that far away. Trust me when I say I have the perfect mental picture of this little scenery plastered irrevocably on my head.

The star is gone. For no reason in particular, a painful feeling rows across my heart, making me feel extremely sad. I adjust my chin on my palms and let my head slump down. I don’t want to move a fiber. When you work in an office and you see the same people every day, gradually even the subjectively ugliest girl begins looking beautiful. That’s a fact. So, I guess my heartbreak over a star is well-justified. But, is it? I don’t know.

“Raman?” A sweet voice calls out. Sounded like that of an opera singer when she is not breaking mirrors with her voice.

On my guard immediately out of reflex, I scream, “Who is that?!!”

“Why are you so startled?” The Opera singer continues. “Don’t you want to share this place with somebody else?”

From the dark corridor, a beautiful face presents itself. She has a long nose, crimson lips, large eyes, lengthy eye-brows and eye-lashes that could cast a graceful shadow on my meek heart. Clad in a yellow-kurtha without the shawl, she seductively walks to the co-pilot’s seat and makes herself comfortable, while I stare without moving a tendril in my body.

“You are worried about Shristhi, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But how do you know?” I ask her.

“Who do you think I am?” Another one of those smiles. She might just kill me with them.

“Shristhi?” I cry out, bewildered.

How can a star metamorphose into a beautiful girl? What’s happening here? She realizes my uneasiness and says reassuringly,

“I am only a product of your imagination. Don’t worry. I’ll be gone if you want me to.” She pauses. “Do you want me gone?”

“No, of course not.” I hear myself speak.

For some time, she does not speak and sits there, legs crossed, looking at the stars. Tonight, comets race past like the manifold medieval arrows fired in perfect co-ordination with one another. The only difference, the comets are on fire and I see windows 98’s wallpaper live, right in front of me. I steal glances of her from time to time, she sees me do it but makes no comment.

“You think I’ll die here?” I ask.

“Well, you know I don’t have the answer to that, don’t you? I am only a figment of your imagination.”

“True true.” I agree.

She stands up, takes my hand and pulls me over. While she does it, I notice for the first time her sizeable breasts protruding from her yellow kurtha. Her hands are warm and the whiff of her hair, reminds me of a gigantic waterfall in Sundarijal. She leads me on, not letting my hand go, no that I want her to, like an elder guiding a little kid cross the road, hand in hand. The hatch opens up and we enter the bunk. She settles down on my bed and I sit a few inches away from her.

Wrapped up in my blanket, she smiles at me and says invitingly, “Come.”

I am not thinking straight. I have so many things speeding through my brain.

“I am utterly lost Shrsithi.” I unravel. “Not only in space you know. I feel lost. Am I making any sense?”

Before I was even finishing the sentence, a familiar smile came over her face but she let me continue. When I am done, she pulls me over, this time I go in. Her body heat has spread across the bed sheet and every inch of it is fragrant with a distinct womanly odor.

“Before you went AWOL on the entire human civilization, when you were still an entity on Earth, were you found then?”

The question hits deep.

“No.” I agree. “I was as hopeless and lost as I am now. I was always a lone space traveler, stranded on a ship.”

I take a long breath and let out, “And most of us are, wouldn’t you agree?”

A comical crack appears in between her elegant lips, “I am made from stardust. I wouldn’t know. But enough of that. Come closer, kiss me.”

My head goes blank when her lips touches mine and I lose myself again, this time the way I like it, without the unsettling feeling, when I enter her.

I slept for a long time, without any dreams, after a long time.

“No woman no cry, no woman no cry!” Bob Marley sang from the cockpit. As I open my eyes, I notice another kind of brightness enveloping the bunk other than the CFL tubes, like when you fall asleep without turning the lights off. You wake up in the morning, irritated out of your mind because of the overwhelming dual luminosity, one electric and the other solar. But how can that be? Here, in outer space?

Shrsithi sleeps quietly with the remnants of yesterdays smile still lingering on her face. She seems to be having a pleasant dream. I don’t want to disturb her so I gently cover her with the blanket and head to the cockpit wearing nothing but my boxers. On the corridor, late King Birendra’s portrait is illuminated more than usual, so much so that it seems to be reflecting a little bit. Maybe we have entered the atmosphere of some planet, I can’t say for sure.

All my doubts are cleared away when I reach the cockpit. Huge milky clouds are ahead of us with thunderstorms striking dangerously close. I maneuver to the controls and immediately begin initiating commands.

“Falame, how close are we to the clouds?” I ask, my hands trembling as I try desperately to change course but everywhere I look I see sandy storms with the occasional lightning.

“15 seconds!” Falame replies in his inhuman metallic voice.

“Fuck! Why didn’t you notify me? I was not even aware we were drifting!” I demand.

“Falame didn’t notify as the question was never raised.” Again, with the indifferent tone.

As the ship prepared to move into the clouds of death, I longed to see Shristhi one last time.

The shuttle begins experiencing violent turbulences as the blinding lightning strikes every time a few seconds. Grabbing anything I can hold on to I head towards the corridor. Shrsithi has just come out from the hatch. She doesn’t seem to be troubled. Wearing my Slipknot T-shirt, she pleasantly smiles at me. I wish to savor it. She is the most real thing I have experienced in my life after all.

“Sir, there’s a message on the radar!” Falame interferes.

“What?” I question. Not particularly happy. I look at Shristi. She has fallen down but sits on her butt, waiting and hoping for the turbulence to go away.

“Put me on.” I answer back, obeying the commands of my common-sensical mind.

“Is this the Rajendralaxmi? Over.” They want to know.

“Yes, it is. Over.”

“Your ship is on the fringes of the Milky Way, dangerously close to annihilation. We are sending a dispatch to save the crew. How many in there? Over.”

With every back and forth, the quality of the signal deteriorates making communication barely audible. I look over at Shristhi. I can’t move because if I do, I don’t know on which part of the ship I’ll find myself in. She gestures to me with her hands. She shouts from the top of her voice.

“Go. Go! I will be with you. I am after all, made up of only your thoughts!”

I know that. All the life I’ve lived, I’ve never felt more like a human being than when I was with her. How amazing is it, that to feel significant and loved I had to lose myself in my own mind and when I’ve been found, they seem to want me lost again. I don’t want to go.

I slouch on the metal floor. I can’t move a muscle.

“How many in there? Over”

“Dat dat.. Last call… How many…dat dat”

When Shristhi senses my unchanging resolve, she stops trying and looks away. Time freezes for a while and I float in an empty ship again. There’s no gravity and I float effortlessly through the ship. I take a last look at the royal portraits. The Kings must have gone through a lot of pain to get their paintings done I conjecture. Old artifacts, most of them extinct now, litter the backdrop. Khukuri, quills and drapes that are not manufactured any more, stuff like that. Makes me think about my village where simple minded folks sat beneath a Banyan tree usually talking non-sense. The time was different back then. How simple it was. There was always warring to go to. No space and no time for your own thoughts and besides what will you ever achieve by swimming in the vast ocean of your mind? Just like the Universe, it does not have a beginning or an end. In Prithvi Narayan Shah’s portrait, I see a tree on the background. The smell of these heavenly objects, reminds me of home. Sadly, I don’t remember their redolence any more. I have played in their bosoms and climbed on their branches pretending I was a monkey. The greatest warrior the Himalayas have ever known, looks at me with his fierce eyes. I don’t know what he is trying to say but the tree in the back ground has its leaves brushed by the wind. Oh, I get nostalgic! The cool swift stroke of the wind. How can I ever forget? The cool swift stroke of the wind.

I am bought back to reality. I immediately grasp the amplifier from Falame’s hands and shout, “One member. Over!”

Shristhi is gone. A solitary star returned to its place I imagine.

“Only one member. Please rescue. Over!”

“Hold tight!” They receive my message. “Time to go home.”