Deja Vu
It was a lonely, midsummer afternoon. As lazy Saturdays go, this one could have won the “Most Forgettable Day” award.
Post a hearty lunch & a heartier binging session on Netflix, I was scrolling through complimentary comments on my recently uploaded music video, taking heart in the fact that people took time out of their day to express their support. Some of my favorites were:
“You’re s***!”
“I will never get these 5 minutes back” and
“From 2:51–2:55, you could’ve increased the Reverb levels by 0.15 and decreased the track volume by 0.05.”
It’s moments like these that make you realize what drives you as a creator. It is the pure joy of making something from nothing. Okay, not nothing. It’s years of experience, of gathering dissimilar knowledge, of having molecular thoughts and a trained brain that is able to put these pieces together for those who can’t afford to invest the same amount of time to come to the same conclusion. After all, isn’t that why we read the works of celebrated minds?
Coming back to my lonely, midsummer afternoon, I thought it might be an opportune time to exercise my writing mind and get some “encouraging” feedback in a different art form. That’s when I came across a short story I had written for a newsletter at least eight years ago. Here it is, in most of its glory, and I hope you enjoy my stab at a little fiction!
Our protagonist survives in a galaxy far, far away. The Andromeda galaxy, to be specific. He barely gets through each day, on a planet quite similar to ours, orbiting around one of the trillion stars that dot the galaxy.
Living on this planet is a utopian dream. No one ‘lives’ on Khzar (or M31A43, as we call it). They trudge throughout eternity, looking to satiate their bellies and soothe their lungs. Food is hard to come by, and clean gas is a prime resource, hoarded and breathed in by the strongest of the species.
No one ever dies a natural death on Khzar. There is no concept of ageing, science took care of that a long time ago. The poor beings are sentenced to exist until their heads are crushed using huge stones, or throats sliced by the stronger of their own species, or…well, you get my flow. There is complete anarchy without a shred of morality.
There was a time when Khzar was pretty much like the Earth, as we know it. Sturdy trees with blue foliage, rivers & streams of fresh water, sparkling like liquid emerald and a cool breeze were not uncommon. An eclectic mix of animals fed on the luscious pink berries that grew everywhere they could.
But if there is one constant metric for this Universe, it is time. Time changes in only one direction, forward. As times change, situations change. Actions alter outcomes and twist the river of fate. For good or bad, is anyone’s guess.
So, the river twisted and turned for Khzar. Some animals evolved into intelligent beings, and to cut a long story short, these beings destroyed their planet. They became victims of their own intelligence, and an era of decline dawned on this once beautiful planet. Every good thing comes at a price and sometimes the price can be too steep.
The bright green skies became overcast with smelly brown fumes, let out by the clever ones, holed up in their holdings, in the promising pursuit of creating something revolutionary that would save the planet. Well, that never happened. Situations went from bad to worse, when these unnatural gases began to mess with the mental development of these creatures. Their growth became stunted & deformed, and their cerebral train derailed. Despite protests and revolts by the few enlightened ones, this trend continued. They were badly outnumbered.
The Khzar-ites began de-evolving. They began to lose their intelligence and started to become more and more like their predecessors, trusting their primal instincts. They did understand that they were changing, and their surroundings were changing. But as each day passed, they understood this to a lesser and lesser extent, till a day arrived that they had completely relapsed into what they took thousands of Khzar years to break out of. Knowledge and understanding had been masked by the limbic system of the brain, working on the principles of fear, anger and survival. Mother Nature always has a way to reset a bad experiment.
This is the present day scenario on the ill-fated planet. Gifted immense natural beauty and the ability to sustain life by Providence, Khzar is now home(?) to an ever-increasing population of despicable, savage creatures.
Our friend, let us call him Smecz, is one of the earliest inhabitants of this planet. He has been around for more than 76,000 years. He has seen the pretty sights of an untouched environment, as well as the horrific events of a civilization gone wrong.
Smecz is out in the wilderness, a wilderness of abandoned shelters and eerily quiet surroundings, looking for anything that could solve the growling riddle being posed by his stomach. His keen eyes scout the periphery for prospective chow. He hasn’t eaten in a week and is on the brink of an extremely painful stomach-ache.
He ambles across the area that was previously his home. He has absolutely no recollection of the same, and moves on. He ventures out of the urban mangle and into the defiled countryside. The trees are just stumps, and the sandy soil is absolute hell for any plant with the slightest will to bloom.
Smecz grunts a sigh and keeps moving on. Suddenly, he spots a tiny bush hiding behind the thick trunk of an ancient tree. This bush has enough berries to keep him going for a week. Delighted with himself, he starts picking them and putting them in an old pouch, popping a few in his mouth at times. So amazed is he at his good luck, that he fails to realize that something is watching him closely.
He picks up his pouch and retraces his steps, trying now to locate any shelter he could spend the rapidly approaching night in. Finding himself in a thick grove of tree trunks, Smecz navigates through the arrays of previously majestic trees. His stalker follows him, keeping a safe distance, plotting a scheme to seize those berries all for himself. The vile Khzar-ite overtakes Smecz from the side, about 20 yards away, and hides behind a tree, lying in wait.
Clueless, Smecz continues on his merry way, just to be bludgeoned by a pretty heavy rock a couple of minutes later. All this, for just a few berries.
Hi there, thank you for reading my work! I’m on a mission to find the good side of the Internet. A side that engages in meaningful conversation and provides constructive criticism. If this sounds like you, my doors and windows are open @_sagar_gurnani . I’d love to have a chat with you!
