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 21st
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.
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