Streaming Time 001

Streaming!

Streaming!

Time !

Time !

001 001

The Sheep sensed it first.

A distant rumbling.

The edge of the flock jerked.

A deep hum, and an unnatural rip.

Suddenly, the entire flock was bolting, faster than I had ever seen.

That’s when I saw it.

It passed over me with a Sky-splitting Roar.

Chaos.

The object careened past me, flattening me onto the hill. Spitting out bits of grass and mud.

Sheep tumbling over me. Desperate blood-shot eyes. The agony of bleeding ears. Slipping and falling again. Desperately looking around the edge of the flock. Sprinting, falling hard.

Chasing the stragglers. Heading them off towards the camp. A deafening crash. Fabrics ripping, massive clouds of dust and dirt. Cries.

Screaming voices. Running again, fast. Eyes blurry. Legs pumping.

I feared the worst.

The Camp was destroyed.

All the elders were out, staring openmouthed at the sky, screaming at the men to gather up their belongings, fearing another attack. Women, children scattered around, some wounded, most out of their minds with shock. The faint trail that the object had left was still in the sky, far over the distant hills.

Then, a familiar scream.

Blood curdling.

A small, helpless, lifeless, bloody, sticky mass on the floor of my Father’s tent.

My Unborn brother.

I would never feel his tiny fingers around mine.

My mind goes White.

Father cradling my mother. I walk slowly out. My vision blurred, blinking back sharp dusty, mudstreaked tears. My ears still ringing from the sound.

Was it a Chaksu attack? No, they are equally in anguish. I began walking towards the large dusty cloud, a short distance away. It is still smouldering.

The walk lasts a lifetime.

A massive crater announces its presence.

It has torn it’s way into the deep Earth.

I blinked slowly as I make my way over it’s crest.

I had seen nothing like it.

It glowed like a small sun in the evening light, sizzling like fresh fatty meat on fire. Perfectly round.

Perfectly gold.

It’s perfection mocks me, my dusty clothes, my muddy tears, my dishevelled presence, my entire tumbled-down-village.

I am hypnotised.

As it cools, it changes.

Reflections become sharper, it shows me the world it sees.

I can see myself in it, angry and unforgiving. It softens my glare, challenges my anger. A deep wonder begins within me. I stand up, and look over my shoulder.

I have to know.

Moonrise.

At last I turned away. I walked slowly past the camp-fires, crossing the tents of my Raika family, where the muted crying had still not stopped.

I did not stop.

My eyes were fixed on the distant hill, where the smoky trail had all but disappeared.

“Dhruv!” I heard father calling. I turned back, and he saw it in my eyes.

“Be safe,” he said quietly, and walked back in to console mother.

I walked through the night, stopping only once at a small wayside temple for a sip of water. The smoke trail was almost completely gone, but I had fixed my sights on the distant hill where I had seen it last evening. I scaled the hill in the early morning, and slid silently over a low fort wall.

The distant cries of Eagles circling high.

I settled in to wait, and watch.

Suddenly I saw it.

It all made sudden, violent sense.

A Gun the size of a house was being pulled by 4 massive elephants, rotated and ushered carefully into a shed at the top of the Hill. It was still hot.

Around the base of the Gun, there was a flurry of activity. Men hurried about, large water baths were being emptied, there was a lot of running around and shouting of orders. The Elephants went about their job calmly, butted into place with sharp sticks.

A few paces away, I saw a small colourful tent.

Under the canopy sat two men, cooled by large fans, sipping their morning tea accompanied by a gurgling hookah.

It was the Sawai.

The King of the Land.

He was the murderer of my brother.

I waited.

I watched.

I dozed at night under the stars, and hid in the Keekar through the days.

He seemed not to sleep much, awake, walking the grounds in the morning, spending time with many instruments, squinting at the sun, meeting with many old people, huddling around large sheets and always surrounded by books. At night, in the light of oil lamps, he paced the grounds, looking up at the star-filled heavens. One night, after almost a full pakhvada, I noticed the Royal Elephant being walked to the gate.

It was time.

He left with a small band of soldiers, followed by a covered carriage. I followed, keeping to the sides, mingling in the crowd. The fledgeling city of Jayapura parted their ways for him, the murderer.

I slipped by.

Unnoticed.

Jayapura was dusty, chaotic and muddy.

People from all over the Rashtra worked here, building this vision for the murderer. I crested a low mound. Suddenly the breath caught in my throat.

A million lines of rope stretched further than I could see, tracing the outlines of a future city.

Thousands of kilometres of rope, of a hundred different thicknesses, criss-crossing over landscape, around trees, marking wells. An earthly constellation of a unbelievably meticulous nature, governing and structuring how people walked, where they stopped, where they rested. Men were deep in concentration amongst it’s mesh, tying, adjusting, consulting, tightening and serving the massive network.

I slipped by.

Unnoticed.

Jayapura was a city unborn, and it was being birthed by the Sawai.

It’s residents lived within the meticulous markings of the Jayapura, inhabiting it as they would the actual city in the Future.

Finally, the Sawai’s procession stopped at a large clearing.

This was where his vision had reached it most frantic, most exalted, most meticulous expression.

The Ropes I had seen tied throughout the city seemed here to reach heavenwards, intertwining and intermeshing with more complexity than the roots of an entire forest.

I could see the ghosts of a number of unborn structures that defied definition. Large arcs in the ground of suspended ropes, long lines of stretched ropes, clusters upon clusters of staircases and observation decks.

Now the Sawai climbed to the top of a fragile platform, alone, settling down to wait.

This was my moment.

My sheep knife slipped into my hand.

Climbing up the narrow ropeway, I kept as close to the rickety platforms as possible, making no sound. Even as I reached him, he spoke softly, without turning.

“What is your name, Boy?”

“ Stay your knife a moment.

You have arrived at a time when even the Heavens bend to my will.

Let me show you what you have looked at, but not yet seen”.

“You have come to take my life at a most amazing time. Do you know what time it is?

Do you know what day it is? Do you know these things? Tell me and I will lay my head at your feet.”

I shook my head.

Deep wonder replaced deep anger.

I remembered when, just a few weeks ago, I had stared deep at the Sawai’s messenger of death, his polished copper cannonball. I needed to know.

“Tell me Sawai”, I said. “Convince me, and I swear, on my dead unborn brother that I will spare your life”.

“Here, where we stand, understand Boy, that we stand parallel to the axis of our Planet.”

He delicately touched the massive tangle of ropes and knots that seemed to radiate from him into his unborn City.

“Those two ropes, delicate like the wings of a dragonfly, lie exactly parallel to the planes of the Equator”.

See those orange ropes, they mark the passage of every hour. See the thinner blue strings boy, there. Those mark the passing of each quarter hour, each Sawai.

And look deeper. See those silk threads, the green ones.

Those mark the passing of every 2 seconds.”

“Time races or crawls, depending on what set of strings you are observing.”

"You, dear boy, with your blunt sheep knife, are standing atop the largest clock on Earth.”

“Do you know what Day it is ?

This is the day of Vishuva, the Equinox. The Day and the Night balance each other perfectly. Today is studied and puzzled over and scrutinised across the planet since antiquity, ever since Man first became curious about studying and learning the Heavens.

Learned men, far more learned than you or I celebrate this day of rebirth, of new beginnings and of new Life.

And y0u chose to kill me.

Truly Amazing.”

For the first time, the Sawai turned to look at me.

“Tell me your name, Boy.”

“Dhruv.”

He stopped.

A shiver in the evening wind.

He closed his eyes for what seemed like an Eternity.

When they finally opened, they shone kindness, familiarity with a firm resolve.

He held out his hands slowly, stretching to touch the vast cluster of Ropes that emanated from him.

“Do you know what fascinates me about all these lines, Dhruv. They reveal the workings of the Universe to me. I can feel the planets dance. I can hear the ticking of the cosmic clock. It meshes within me. Everything you know, you feel, you sense - is but the dance of Time”

“And there are other lines.

Lines of Planetary dimensions.

Lines that challenge our conceptions of time and space.

Lines whose tyranny it is impossible to escape”

“Do you know it is a single line, moving indescribably fast, that separates Night from Day. A line that moves across the entire planet, constantly, a line which moves faster than the fastest horse, faster than my fastest creation.

I cheated time, Dhruv. I forged a cannon, my Jaivaan.

An exquisitely polished copper ball fired from it, that moved across the earth at exactly the same speed as that line. Do you know what that means?”

I knew exactly what that meant.

Now imagine being that Cannonball.

Flying across the surface of our planet, as Day turns to Night. Fired at exactly the right time, at the Twilight hour, as the Sun’s dying light races above you, you are one with the fading light of the Sun, you move across the Planet like a Ghost, a Thought, a Poem.

Suspended between Night and Day. But our Planet is a great and wondrous place, where a million different lines create a million different landscapes in time.

There must even be places on our giant planet where a man can walk faster than that.

There will be a day Dhruv, where Man will fly at that speed, over a 1000 kilometres an hour. There will be a day where Man will watch the fading of the Day with equanimity, as he fades with it.

“Dhruv.”

“Come here boy.”

The Sawai held my hand, and led me to a small platform, suspended within the dense tangle of ropes.

“Bend down here boy, and look along this blue rope. What do you see?”

I looked, and saw a single bright pin-prick of light.

“I see a Star Sawai. Which one is it?”

“Let me tell you it’s story boy. There was a boy many centuries ago, with a mind of great determination, fixed and unwavering in his devotion. When he bent the Gods to his will, his only wish was the wish of Stuti, to learn a divine hymn. There are many degrees of Heaven, and only the most exalted reaches are reserved for those of no self-interest. He needed no help to travel to outer space, or travel between Planets instantaneously.

That, my boy, is Dhruva.

It will continue to exist even after the great dissolution. Every other celestial body in our visible heaven circles this, paying their respects to Dhruva, the unshakeable one.”

“What is Time?

Time is my Playground.”

Time is the terrain where all these lines intersect.

The circles of the seasons, the motions of the planets, the circular times of harvest, and the cyclical coming of the rains. Circles intersecting other circles.

The straight lines belong to Man, the circles belong to the Gods. This place, my Jayapura is inscribed with these lines, and they reach up to touch the heavens.

Look boy.

Look at Dhruva, the immovable.

All these lines dance for you.

“Do what you may with this knowledge. I am an old man, living in violent times, and I fear my work will remain unfinished. Help me now, stay and birth this Astrolabe, this divine city with me. Play with me along these lines and see where they take you.”

“What of my murdered brother Sawai”, I asked.

“Grieve him, Dhruva. But know that his passing occurred at the speed of the day. He witnessed the fading of his day at the speed of the terminator line that moves across the entire planet.

How many of us will be fortunate enough to die that death?”

The Sawai turned and walked away.

I waited for a moment, and followed him, my knife slipping from my hand.

THE END! IS HERE.