Aware

1905, St. Petersburg

“I understand”, you say to the child. “You do not wish to speak.”

The kid doesn’t nod, yet his consent is almost visible. He is intently listening to the faint music coming out of Mariinsky Theatre. Beethoven, you guess. You only paid the slightest interest in music at the behest of an old flame. But now the notes seem more poignant, faintly scratching at a memory. The soldier with the green eyes.

You shake your head, focusing instead on the boy. Parents killed in Bloody Sunday, now living with relatives. Life must be hard for him. Yet he doesn’t seem distraught. His stance is serene, even with little feet dangling off the platform he is sitting on.

Suddenly, the music stops and applause is heard. As if in harmony, the boy leaps off his ledge and starts walking down the road. You follow.

You two walk through the softly pattering rain, by the sidewalk. You are still numb, all the way from Manchuria to St. Petersburg. Had no time for introspection. But now the rain breaks the shell, and you remember. Remember the trenches where you killed a man. Two soldiers face-to-face in combat. Dark brown eyes staring into pools of green. And in that moment, you had a connection. Knew all about the man in front of you. Saw him growing up, being a regular at the theatre, his struggles as a rakugo performer, public baths with his friends, meetings with his beloved under cherry blossoms, the way she was holding back tears when he bid farewell to go fight in the war. And yet you stabbed him with your bayonet. Then twisted it to make sure he was dead. In his last moments, green eyes spoke to you. Not through words. “I sympathize”, he had said.

The child takes a left, along the river embankment. You follow. Light reflects off the Fantaka river, with raindrops breaking the silence and causing ripples. That moment, you had no hesitation. It was kill, or be killed. Yet why does it feel like you stabbed a part of yourself? Why didn’t the Japanese man hate you for it? Did he see through your eyes too? These questions hang like a heavy curtain, obscuring the truth behind. You think, and think some more.

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Present day, Lalitpur

“That’s my girl, you bastard!” shouted the burly man clad in leather before smashing his fist into the boy’s face. That’s the first memory she had of him. A figure of average build, close cropped hair, clutching a sketchbook at the foot of Patan gate. He stood up and watched the man take off on a bike with the girlfriend. And he had a faint, enigmatic smile on his bruised face. This was the beginning.

She had it all. Studying at the best engineering college in the country. A supportive family. Great grades and well-liked by teachers. A large circle of friends and a few admirers. Her life seemed; no, was picture-perfect. Yet, at times, she felt alone and unsure. Alone in a sea of faces, all going on with their loops, no one bothering to question why. And on one of these bouts of despair, she met him again.

She was skipping classes, an unprecedented feat. Nothing interesting had happened for a month and she needed a break from all the normality. So she walked towards the old palace square. Coldplay’s ‘42’ blasting through earphones, neat little bag on her back, she wandered. The ancient houses gave way to an open space, where she sat on the edge of a pond. And as if the universe was conspiring, there he was, sitting on a bench across her, intent on his sketchbook. She couldn’t resist, and went to sit beside him, opposite the colors and brushes. He didn’t notice.

The scene he was painting resembled the square. But the people were replaced by swirls of colors, each one different. An old man with a cigarette was a mixture of brown, gray and black. An excited child was bright red and white, while his patient mother was yellow and light green with a small streak of violet added in. He was not painting people’s physical appearances.

“I think I understand”, she blurted out. He raised his head and looked at her, slightly shocked to find a girl beside him. A July sun shone down upon them. The moment lingered on, neither of them wanting to break the spell. Then he shattered the silence. They talked, talked about a lot.

The next day she realized that she had forgotten to ask his name, or gotten any contact info. Couldn’t very well search for a feeling in Facebook, or even a dimly recalled face. But he had asked to meet her again, at sunset three days later. Their conversations had been like wiper fluid for her. She could see why people acted the way they did. Saw that her boisterous friend was actually covering anxiety deep inside. Saw that the funny teacher once had great ambitions, but couldn’t pursue them.

So she went to meet him again, on the bridge over the stinking river. It had rained earlier, a heavy honest rain. The dust was all cleared up and small puddles were left on the ground. He was waiting, a bicycle beside him. They greeted, sat on the bridge railing and talked. He showed her a funny postcard. She told him about her day. A piece of classical music was playing from somewhere.

Suddenly, an emotion swelled up inside her. The absolute certainty that the beauty of this moment could never be exceeded. And she cried, “Let’s jump off!” with a hearty grin on her face.

He glanced up at the sky. She could only make out Orion, since she had to memorize it in tenth grade. Then he told her that in about six years, it would be lit up one night. Two binary stars would merge into one. He wanted to observe it happening, maybe with her. So, they didn’t jump. (They wouldn’t actually observe it together of course, or even talk with each other after a couple of years.)

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Distant future, Cygnus constellation: Kepler 452 system

Entropy was increasing, I observed. The stars were all gone. But we had time.

I didn’t even have a complete physical body now. My machine part was immensely intelligent. Why it had simply not overpowered my human side, I do not know. But now the process was nearly complete. At last, the long awaited fusion of the collective digital minds, and me, the final remnant. Would I remember anything after it? Any speck of myself, of my friends, of my children?

“Project intelligence amplification is a success”, I called out into the void. “Let’s see what’s at the end of the tunnel.”

A postcard from the origin planet, Earth, floated around my vision. Meant to be humorous, I thought. Or maybe god, somewhere out there was having his last laugh. Here I was, in the point where Kepler 452B once existed, a cyborg attaining omniscience, yet I am reminded of the human part of me.

I wondered what the point, the Telos was. All this history, all this movement of matter and energy, all for nothing? Did the universe really not have a point?

Like a wave, my consciousness expanded. Awareness flooded through me and I felt the strands of space. Felt the heat death looming, the numerous black holes waiting to fizzle out. Then came the sense of time. I could see the beginning, the birth of stars and galaxies, the condensing of planets, the random reactions to form small conscious minds so barely alike mine. Apes descending from trees, bipedals coming out of caves, the rise and fall of civilizations. People waving sticks and swords and guns at each other. An army of horse riders, a fleet of tanks. A man and a child walking in the rain, mushrooms of smoke, a couple atop a bridge. Ships leaving Earth laden with postcards, the meeting with alien civilizations, the Dyson swarms around thousands of stars, the building of the quantum supercomputer, the galactic battles, the final dinner before everyone uploaded their brains into the machine. Everything leading to this moment. The entire universe, giving rise to me, to us.

Then realization dawned, after the universe flashed through my mind. And of course, it was all so simple, wasn’t it! So obvious.

“Now, I understand.”

Zerone is an undergrad publication at I.O.E, Pulchowk focusing on People (their creative side, their thoughts, their lives) and Technology (the new, the old, everything).

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