JASON GOES TO SPACE

        Jason had his face pressed hard against the stern, cold surface of the glass pane, his nose skewed to one side of his face by the pressure applied by his eagerness. In fact he hadn’t felt this eager or excited about something for a very long time now. ‘Probably since the day dad got me the antique VCR player’, he wondered.    

       His dad, a grounds operator for the IASR (International Association for Space Research) very well knew about his fascination for gadgets and technology used in the last century. ‘Seriously? How did they enjoy the ‘2-D’ness of a tele-vision’ he would often think to himself. Yet his awe about the way people lived in the 21^st century had to wait this day as it was replaced by another.

        He strained to look out the window which boasted a sensational, albeit at this time, a fog ridden view of a massive clearing. This clearing looked engineered, worked on and rightly so as it would be the space sporting the launch pad for one the most ambitious efforts of human advent into the galactic era of the space age. But fourteen year old Jason did not know this then.

       All he wanted to do was catch a good glimpse of the cool, sheen black, humongous, vertical structure that stood right in the middle of the clearing. “Stupid fog. blocking my view”, he mumbled. If you have ever tried to look out of a window during the dark, you know that it can be quite a task for our poorly gifted human eyes. Jasons’ were no exception. First he struggled to block out his own reflection on the glass pane, the darkness of the wee hours of the cold December morning. However tough this task, all of us who have tried this, know that it can be done. With great difficulty, overcoming his own reflection, Jason now focused on the thick curtain of ‘foggy fogginess’ that hung between him and his eye candy. But he was a patient lad.

     And then his patience was rewarded. From the farthest point on the horizon, the first rays of light started trickling through the fog. The sun rose, ever so slowly and Jason looked on, more appreciatively now. Light reflected off the tip of the smooth black vertical structure, finally revealing its true magnitude and significance. There stood, like a tyrant God among mortals, so wonderful, so terribly breathtaking, a space ship. Jason couldn’t believe that he actually got to see this marvelous creation of man with his own eyes. So dauntingly it stood, like a judge waiting to announce his verdict on lesser men. For Jason, the landscape became the most beautiful painting ever painted.

      At this point, this fourteen year old’s inquisitiveness should have died down and I wouldn’t have any story to tell you but since you are reading this you have already realized that, that’s not what happened. Something inside him nudged at him, a restless feeling to know. It egged him on. 

ALI: Living the present in the past

            Drop by drop the rain, getting heavier like some enormous tap had been opened in the heavens above, started pounding on the roof of the black Skoda parked at the roadside of a beautiful and somber, albeit somewhat deserted Marine Drive, may be at the exact center of the Queen’s necklace arch. So hard the hammering of them rain drops became that it sounded to Ali like a thousand African drums being played at once.’ In no synchronization’ he added to his thoughts. He was looking out of the window, the imagery now skewed by the trails left by the droplets sliding down the glass pane.  Ali did not mind looking at portions of what he saw through the glass all skew-whiff. He had the choice to bring this window down and look at the world around him as clearly as the world could perceive itself to be. But he chose not to. This choice gave him some form of empowerment, the distortion, a sense of calm.

       The first rains would always make him daydream, lost in thought. A lot of memory signals would throw him into thought, for he was a self absorbed, mostly silent individual. But there was something so much more special about these August rains. Just as is their periodic nature, they never failed to make him wonder if Allah truly had a plan for all his children. That he moved because he thought himself to move or that really a higher power had put that thought in his head after all. Since that very first day he saw her walking down the street, drenched to her bones, shivering like a new born baby placed on a cold tray, his mind was thrown into turmoil with questions regarding destiny and free will. And for a fifteen year old to have such an epiphany, being no joke, he remembered those first rains of 1994 very clearly.

    “Ali! Ali Hassan! Are you listening to me?” she shouted over the battering of the rains, the woman who sat in the driver’s seat. How long had it been since he had forgotten that tonight, he had company. He gave her a hard look.  Her lips were blood red, just like the one-piece skirt she was wearing. She wore a shimmering pearl necklace, an obvious fake. The thin silver bracelets around her left hand jangled as she tugged onto the black jacket she was wearing. In fact, he looked at her for quite some time before he decided to answer. Her face was pleasantly triangular with a sharp jaw line but soft features. This lovely young woman had crossed all of the T’s and dotted all the I’s. She proceeded to leaning forward to pick up her glass from on the dashboard. “Where are you?” she asked, halting before taking the last sip of some cheap vodka. Her lush black hair were still damp from the bath and from where he sat, she wore the light from the streetlamp like a gold, wiry crown. He didn’t realize when she pivoted herself to face him and extended a hand. Smirking, she snapped her fingers. The bangles jangled again. This brought Ali back from his daze. As social norm would have him behave in certain manners when faced with certain situations portraying him self as an average, sensible nice guy, he responded with a smile.

                                                 “ I was looking at you.”

          She smiled back. But it was a distant smile, frozen in time where innocence had left it. Ali was okay with that. He cared more for the prospects the night had laid for the most primitive of his desires than the woman itself. ‘Everyone has an animal in them’ he thought. That thought gave him reassurance.