They tinkered with the settings for a bit. Everything was ready. It would soon begin.
The brilliant orange flame receding deeper into the clouds that covered the blurry horizon was one of those untold beauties of nature that called for silent appreciation. He looked at it silently, and thought of food. His lanky frame belied a great appetite, that was as great for jest as for more material needs, food being one of them. He started the long walk back to the main reading room, that had become one of his favourite ha’nts in his past four years at Greenbelt,MD.
Soon he would catch a glimpse of her; he had timed his walk so perfectly. This was the part of the day that he looked forward to with the greatest anticipation. The sight of her slender form silhouette against the receding sun had become a sight as beautiful (if not more) as the beloved telescope he worked so hard to maintain and use. Sometimes she would stop for a word or two, and then the rest of the day would be a blur, the unspoken challenge in her unpredictable words as inebriating as the strongest cocaine.
Today, however, she did not turn up, causing him at first to doubt his calculations, and then his watch. But both held true to scrutiny, and so he waited. It was harder than he could imagine. He felt he had counted every ripple in the lake behind him, and given so many baleful glances to the frog croaking soulfully in front of him, that even it had left. This, he felt, was a very intelligent move, and should be emulated. He set off.
As he entered the vast campus, he remembered that their rather eccentric project manager had called them for a briefing, and though he was not exactly in the best frame of mind for attending lengthy meetings, he decided to go anyway. He broke into a swift trot. There was still a lot of distance to cover.
“Mission Accomplished: Leaving Hubble Better Than Ever (05.29.2009): Take one space shuttle, seven highly trained astronauts, tons of equipment, and one legendary orbiting telescope and you have the 5.3 million-mile odyssey that was Hubble's final servicing mission.”
“Even though this has been one of the world’s frontier institutions for those interested in space, earth and above all, technology, we, the cream of the world’s scientists should not get complacent. The individual that I shall now present before you, an untrained graduate,” (heads turn, searching for the smart‘alec, a few sniggers are heard) “has presented a serious security vulnerability in our website. (This time, however, faces turn red)” Madame, do come in.”
She walked in, and his heart missed a few beats, the dilated time seeming to stretch on as she slowly ascended the podium, the epitome of grace, and he felt a tad jealous. However, as he paid more attention to her, he saw the tightly clasped fingers, the bitten fingernails, the white hands and instantly felt like rushing to the podium and wrapping her up in his arms, remorse for being envious of her washed over him. Her tension was palpable when she accepted the microphone graciously held for her by the pro-man. When she started speaking, however, her voice was stable.
“Insofar as I see the situation, the Goddard website is hosted on the NASA servers. If a bot is deployed as the web linking takes place, the server can be decrypted, rendering the website open to attack by any two-bit virus…”
He lost her there, in those limpid pools of light that people described rather unpoetically as her eyes.
Later, in his room, he confided with his friends, “I have found the love of my life.”
They laughed, and continued their previous conversation.
He slumped down comically and covered his face with his hands. “Why doesn’t anyone ever take me seriously?”
“It’s because that’s impossible. You’re asexual. When you decide it’s time for you to reproduce, you’ll probably split into two or something. Something like this has to be a joke.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“We could not care less.”
He stalked out of the room in a mock huff. This was something he had to do alone, and he knew it. Although his mates’ torpor irritated him, he knew they would stand by him when the time came.
To his considerable surprise, he discovered that she was a visiting intern at the university, and hence very much a part of the campus, and immediately made plans to approach her at the earliest opportunity that presented itself. Yet it was after four days of hectic work, programming the Hubble’s next payload and supervising the shipment, that he finally got a chance to speak to her. He ran (literally) into her in a corridor carrying a truckload of paperwork. After disentangling themselves from the subsequent mess, he began to pick up the papers, his face too red to look at her. She on the other hand, looked at him with an amused expression, and said,
“Hi.”
“Er, hello. Rather sorry for crashing into you like that.”
“I’m fine, in case you were going to ask.”
He was racking his brains to come up with something that was witty, sensitive and racy, yet would impress the girls, but all that came out of that useless orifice he had mistaken for his mouth was a croak not unlike the soulful croak of the frog he had seen on that fateful day. He ended up saying, “Did you know, that the farthest objects Hubble has seen are galaxies well over 12 billion light years away. This distant observation has been named the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, or HUDF.”
She said, yes, she did, so what of it?
He replied that no, he had merely thought that she would like to know. His face was once again hidden behind the papers. ‘Great work. Now you really impressed her. Get out of here while she is unsure that it is you, and not too much damage has been done.’ Was he alright? She asked. His mumble as he started walking away was incoherent. Would he like to have a cup of coffee? Happily depositing the heap of papers on the floor, he went off with her.
The days that followed saw him immersed in work, the infrequent times of leisure punctuated by foosball, hockey, and the rare talk with her, sometimes the rarer walk at dusk. She had begun to consider him a good friend, and he could not wish for more. It mattered not that she was a wild flirt, because he loved her beyond all flaws, but it certainly didn’t help. Once, lying under the stars, he asked her,
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that you were a coder par excellence, or the fact that you would be coming here as an intern?”
“The same reason that you didn’t tell me that you were one of the pioneers behind the Wide Field Camera 3, that will be responsible for most of the Hubble’s imaging in the future, thanks to its ultraviolet to near infrared ranging capabilities. The expression on your face when you found out then, as it is now, was worth seeing, and laughing at.” She smiled. It was these moments that he liked, when she was happy.
“Thank you, Miss Encyclopedia.” her smile became wider in the approaching cover of darkness. He had rehearsed this before; he would now ask her out.
“I first saw you on the way back to campus, if you remember. I was entranced by your graceful, lithe figure twirling like an arthritic rhinoceros on ice skates, your sweet voice, like the melodic siren of a fire alarm, and thought...”
“Why did you slap me?” (Indignation and desperation, his last resorts)
“Oh! Come on. Figure that one out, will you?”
She stomped off in a mock gesture of indignation, leaving him red and blustering. He sighed. Why didn’t anything ever come out the way he wanted it to? Then again, he had got to talk to her, and at the moment, with the world at a graceful lull, insects around him rushing, chattering and doing all those things that insects tend to do, nothing else mattered.
Time went on. Their friendship grew closer, yet it never crossed the imaginary line that society had decreed that friends must abide by. It was some time in their second year together that he started seeing her going out with someone else, and expected the pangs of a lover’s jealousy to bite into him. The only feeling he felt was an odd kind of dejection, like the feeling of losing a doomed race. After all, their social circles were different, and she was beautiful, smart and impossibly attractive, whereas he was not tall, not dark, and definitely not handsome.
The only thing that bit him was a red ant that happened to crawl across his neck, that reminded him sharply of her newest species of arm candy. With a loving caress, he squashed the bag, and walked on.
He met her a few days later. She sat on the pavement, teary-eyed and bleary-faced. He strode up to her, contriving to look serious and comical at the same time, external appearances that belied internal strife. He had never seen her so depressed after a breakup.
“W-We aren’t toget…”, she began, her usual immaculate diction being slurred by inordinate amounts of mucus. He sighed, and stopped her mid-sentence.
“Here, use a handkerchief.” [A buzzer goes off in his head. Wrong attempt. Try again next lifetime.]
She looked at him, hoping perhaps, for consolation, or a change of topic, wishing that he wouldn’t give her any false sympathy. Why should all men act like they care?
“Ancient Chinese saying that I just made up.”, he said. “If looking for fish, don’t climb a tree.”
She was taken aback. Here she was, expecting some serious drivel, and he gives her this. Despite herself, she began to laugh.
“What? Don’t laugh, the meaning is very deep”, he said, barely concealing a chuckle himself.
Soon they were chattering away, she was pouring her heart out like never before, and he was trying to do the same. It was as if his Adam’s apple was blocking his windpipe, preventing himself from doing anything but nod mutely at her words. ‘Words. Why do they mean nothing and something at the same time?’ he mused sadly. Yet, this was probably when he was most happy, listening to her babble on like an indulged infant.
What followed was three months of pure bliss, at least to him. For three months, they worked together, laughed together. Yet every night, as he went off to bed, his failure to confess his true feelings rankled him, the absence of her soft touch upon his cheek made itself felt, as the king of dreams claimed him as one of his own.
It was a morning like any other. They were on their way to the main observatory, riding on cycles, late, as usual. As they rounded a blind corner, they came upon a pack of wild dogs they had never seen in the campus. Aware of the fact that flight would be useless, they stopped and watched the pack warily. One of the dogs must have caught the scent of the lunch that she had packed, for it started approaching her cycle in a way that made both of them wonder why they had ever thought of dogs as friendly creatures. Sensing what the dog was about to do, he caught her lunch basket, and raced off.
Instantly, all the other dogs were in hot pursuit. He didn’t get far, but enough for her to escape unharmed, he thought. Now for this dog problem. With a lithe bound that seemed incongruous for his size, he was off the bicycle, and was using it as a shield between himself and the dogs. The battle raged for about fifteen minutes, he countered the dogs move for move, almost. Suddenly, a bold rabbit’s passage across the clearing distracted them from their defensive quarry, and just like it had begun, it was all over. He slumped down, one or two dogs had bitten him during the course of the fray, and his leg couldn’t support his weight any longer.
Without a word, she hoisted him up on her cycle, and pushed him to the infirmary. His feeble attempts to engage her at conversation were falling woefully short. In his pain, he failed to see her clouded brow. After the doctors had stitched him up, she marched up to his bed, and sat on his injured leg. He yelled.
“What the hell was that for?”
“You dumb creature. What was all that misplaced bravado for? You could have gotten hurt.” Tears were glistening at the corners of her eyes.
“Your lunch was going to the dogs. How could I let that happen?”
“This is no time for levity. Be serious, for once.”
“What do you mean? Do you have a problem with what I did? I save your sorry ass, and this is what I get in return? If you reflect, then...”
“Cut the crap. You know it as well as I do. Why did you put yourself in danger just to save me? That too when you could have just thrown that stupid lunch basket away. You… you idiot...”
“What do you want me to tell you? That I love you? That I would give anything to be one of those endless string of boyfriends that you have. That the desire to be that one transitory bead in your life is one of my most heartfelt desires, one of my deepest secrets? “
The silence that followed could be termed either an awkward silence or a pregnant pause, it would not really make a difference. They stood, not looking at each other, he was fiddling with his crutch, she was playing with her hair. She was the first one to break the silence.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“Stupid question, really. It would have ruined this perfectly splendid platonic gig that we have going.”
They looked at each other. She smiled.
“Well, maybe we can still figure out something…”
Pleasant sensations, soft sounds. The slow ascent to a frenzied pitch, the subsequent crescendo. The sea of calm, of tranquility that follows. Sated, unblemished sleep.
***
He stirred.
For a few moments he just flexed his limbs, regaining mobility lost to sleep. HE opened his eyes. A dull reflection in a nearby puddle caught his eye. A tramp, well into his middle ages, the clothing on his frail, emaciated form torn, an unshaven beard on his chin, stared back at him. He glanced at the tattered cap beside him. Someone had put in a few coins as he lay asleep. His stomach rumbled. He remembered. He needed to beg for food.
As he set off on his daily fight for survival, he remembered having a dream. Something pleasant, some remembrance of better times, yet even as he tried to hold it in his memory, it slipped out, like sand from between his weathered fingers. The harder he tried to remember, the faster he forgot. Hunger won over him.
The vagabond shrugged, clearing his head, and walked off. It might have been former fact; it might have been pure fiction, fantasies of his depraved mind. He did not know.
It did not matter anymore. For something of no cost, those memories were priceless.
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