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MYTH XXVI - THE POLLINATOR

THE POLLINATOR - by Radha Pandey

INTRODUCTION

A myth is a truth that is close to one’s heart. It is something that is more a feeling, than a story. It is a truth you cannot pin down as right or wrong. It is a true story or a story that is based on the truth.

Structure of myth

According to me there are two ways in which one can approach a myth.

One is from the very beginning. Introducing every single character in that point of time and their relationship to another and then continuing with the story as it slowly unfolds upon reading it.

The other, is to start from what you think is the middle. You start by showing the myth, instead of telling it. So what one reads/ writes is an incident, one of many, one that cannot really be located at any point, at that point of time, in the myth. But the story before and after unfolds from there; and locates it.

The relationship between the various characters, takes form from there.

A myth contains a general overview- a show and tell, if you will, of all that is around. Not explaining, but hinting at the existence of that certain environment. It moves onto the main characters/ introduction of the hero as one of the characters (who may later evolve to take on the role of the hero); then families and tribes- communities, and their individual stories. This is followed by conflict, and then a resolution and hence the evolution of a new situation/event/series of events/circumstance.

About my myth

The Dream-time Myth is based on my version of how the planet we live in today came to be. It is about what kind of life existed before we came about as a race, and what traces of it remain till today. There are traces, but we fail to take notice/see them. They are the reason we exist, in the first place. We came from them.

The traces that remain of an earlier time, today, are plants, trees and crops. The planet earlier was one single mass of living breathing green flesh. Not in the typical sense as we know today, but literally, they were life- All life. They had dreams, thoughts, and feelings which traveled skywards and formed a collective consciousness through which they were all able to communicate and emote to each other. They were highly aware and sentient beings, and retain their sensitivity even today. Through a series of events that the myth takes one through, a creature is evolved from what is shown to be a mandrake root that is the result of the dream-time of the hero of my myth- the Pollinator. It plays a key role, up until the physical manifestation of its Dreamtime, in the creature.

Why is my myth important?

This is not the future the green flesh families envisioned for themselves or us (their direct descendants). So in the end, where does that leave us? This myth will (hopefully) help us realize that the world we live in today is not just ours- it belongs to be everything around us, even more so, than it does to us. All living beings have more of a right to be here, than we do. We haven’t been here long enough, to live the way we are living, and destroy all that we touch. We have to learn to love, to protect what we don’t yet understand. We cannot afford to fear it, because IT is what keeps us alive. And we need something to remind us of that every single day. To make us think twice about the way we live our lives. How every single action affects all that is around us.

Why is myth important?

I think myths give us a sense of belonging. They make us feel like someone has been there before us, and there will be others after us, and we are not alone. We have a history. Whether by we, I mean culture, or race, or religion or country or the world- we have a history and it is a glorious one. We create myths to feel alive- so we don’t feel it’s all for nothing. We create myths to exaggerate reality, to make us write a truth or an untruth to share with the world, with the future that we know may or may not come. It’s a mark that says we were here and this is what we achieved, and it was the truth. It was real. Remember us for this.

It is what makes me, me. And you, you.

THE POLLINATOR

Part one: Prelude

Somewhere between then and now- then, being about a million million million million (one with 24 zeroes after it) years ago, and now, being about a million million (one with 12 zeroes after it)- the earth as we know it was in fact a soft glowing orb. Around this orb were gases we now know as helium, oxygen and hydrogen. The source of this wonderful glow was, on closer inspection, was tiny particles of water that caught the light now and again, as a meteor would pass, or as the stars near by would combust…

One would wonder what water was doing on an orb this size- it seemed so small and fragile. Like a soft porous stone made of chalk. The glow was a greenish one, as the water droplets were reflecting the true colour of the orb itself.

It may be time now, for a closer inspection on what we think is this orb. It is a living mass of green flesh. It seems to have been alive and breathing forever. This mass on closer inspection is a ball of plants- intertwined, heaving, breathing, loving- alive! This ecosystem is self-sustaining. The plant forms are adapting continuously. The entire planet is covered with green. Not a single bit of space shows through all the green. No colour shines through, except the green of the leaves, the stems, the trunks of trees, the vines and the particles of water that hover over it too, reflect this green.

These plants live in families that are flung, what seems to be, randomly, across the planet. They cluster and live - one species all together. Like one big joint-family, all together. There are different kinds of families; nocturnal, and diurnal. Both these families dream- powerful dreams and thoughts. They know what the other is thinking and can feel. All their thoughts, and feelings from their dream-time float up and are trapped in the tiny particulates of water. This is their collective consciousness. Be aware- I do not refer to this as a subconscious or unconscious- these are very conscious and meaningful thoughts. This dream-time holds importance and helps this planet grow and flourish harmoniously - as a collective.

In this world of green flesh, lives one other creature, different from them all. It is a Pollinator- for lack of a better word. The Pollinator is the only one of his kind on this planet. It is also born of necessity and is the connection between the different plant families. The families are not oblivious of this creature, and yet are not dependant on it. There are plant families that mate, and wait for the creature to appear from time to time to unite their male and female parts. And then there are plant families that do not need sexual organs. They hold birth within themselves, their strong roots, pull up from the orb-center tiny bubbles of water. As these bubbles travel through the stem, it is birthed with a small leaf and a small root within it. The bubble of water (the baby carrying bubble) travels up and out of the plant. At the end of this cycle- the plant babe springs out and down the mass that awaits it, while the water bubble (still intact), floats up, with the new plant memories, thoughts and dreams- and it joins the collective. The entire planet knows, and welcomes the new born.

The Pollinator thus cannot be called plant or animal- it’s a tiny form which is somewhere in between. It has elongated stick like legs with roots for feet that enable it to crawl through the undergrowth without much trouble. It can anchor itself wherever it pleases, aiding it in its pollination process. Its body is a thick ball of pollen, tightly held together, so dense that you cannot fathom its nature.

This Pollinator, can tap into the collective dream-time and read all the dreams of the life that surrounds it. Its own dreams float upwards and join the collective.

Over time, the Dreamtime of the Pollinator is impacted deeply by the Dreamtimes of the families that surround it. It starts to dream of a form that is neither plant, nor Pollinator. This creature is asexual and births another of its kind, with a sex. When the offspring comes to life, the birth - giving creature develops a sex opposite to that of its offspring. They are then able to mate and propagate.

The Pollinator’s dreams feed into the collective as strong Dreamtimes and take the families of the entire planet through the process of this creation of a new being, neither Pollinator, nor plant.

This new creature is able to communicate, with plant families and with the Pollinator, and is essentially born of them. It is different. It contains water that is red, as opposed to the translucent green and yellow of its birth-families. This creature can read Dreamtimes. The Dreamtimes are etched like a language onto the structure of this creature.

It is inscribed onto the extensions emerging from the main stem, on the flat surfaces that we call hands. They are etched in the way the fur flows and follows a beautiful pattern on its surface. And they are written in the way the flesh stretches over the structure- covering a skeletal form and hiding the rivers of veins. The vein patterns are also Dreamtime memories.

The dreams of their collective are so powerful that this wondrous creature is birthed and is looked upon as a true creation of the now planet, Earth. An amalgamation of all that is pure, natural and clean- a reminder of the green flesh families that exist and the single Pollinator. This creature carries till today, the language of the Dreamtime, inscribed on its body, in its veins, in every cell as a constant reminder of its origin.

Part two

One million million years ago, before the creature came to be, the powerful Dreamtimes of the Pollinator started affecting all the plant families deeply. The Dreamtimes of both the plant families and the Pollinator became stronger and stronger as they fed into, and took from, the collective.

The planet started growing more and more, far beyond its capabilities and it could feel itself growing stronger and more powerful, but where this new strength would take it, it had no idea.

The Pollinator stood alone. As light would break every now and again and as it would fade, the Pollinator would find the plants, trees, shrubs etc. that needed to be pollinated, by tapping into the collective and deriving their location, and state of need. If it sensed that the time was right, it would advance towards their territory and carry out the pollination process. It would make its way through the planet catching pollen from the male plants and releasing them over the female plants. It played an essential part in their creation cycle. Unlike the asexual plants, the male and female plants waited for the Pollinator to arrive. The veins would peel away from the leaves and reach skyward in welcome, when it did. The male would sway towards the sky, emoting to it.

On sensing this, the Pollinator would brush itself against the male using its root-feet to prod it up. It would then advance towards the most mature female plant and begin to circle her, moving faster and faster. The pollen would float briefly in the air and be gently swallowed in, by her inhaling body. This act would impregnate the female with a small grain of pollen. Water from the stem would slowly surround it. This grain would then grow into a tiny leaf with a root. It would then follow the same process as the asexual plants and release the bubble into the air.

The recent Dreamtime strength of the collective resulted in large numbers and subsequent growth. This led to a new phenomenon. The Pollinator now retained bits of the pollen that it had collected over days as it went from family to family, species to species. The families cross-pollinated. Sub-species began to emerge in large numbers, as plants took on new forms.

The asexual liverworts and mosses that earlier lived under shrubs and primarily formed the undergrowth now started becoming plant-like. They began taking life from each other and giving life to each other. They were evolving and forming liverwort plants, and moss trees. The tree tops of all the green flesh families began to grow and grow and grow. Their branches and leaves merged into one another. Where one tree began and the other ended, was impossible to tell. Their branches melted into one another and new branches were formed. Vines began standing on their own, they too were becoming plant-like, free-standing and independent.

These new forms fed fresh Dreamtimes into the collective. Over time the collective formed a constant stream that was visible for light-years- much like our milky-way.

As the green flesh families begot sub-species, so did they. The sub-species begot saplings and they begot their own, until entire families were born. And they begot sub-sub-species and they begot saplings… and so on and so on.

With each birth, the green flesh families grew even stronger, as did the collective. It had taken on a somewhat physical manifestation that hovered over the entire planet. [At this point the Pollinator began to dream of a creature that was neither Pollinator nor plant, and thus from the collective came new life. The creature bled into the massive trees, the tops of which caressed the collective. It slid down through the veins in the leaves and following the trunks, found its way into the roots below.

It is essentially from these roots that it was born. It had witnessed the spectacle as the center of the orb; not just felt it.

Everything that grew within this planet was born with all the knowledge that it would need to survive. The same followed for the creature, and its offspring. ] – don’t know if this should be included in this section…

The first divisions faced by all occurred in the collective.

The Dreamtimes of the mother species that began all life, formed one stream in the collective; the sub-species, another; the sub-sub-species, another, and so on and so on. The Pollinator’s Dreamtime was a part of all these streams; even the creature’s, which formed a separate stream altogether. The streams were still connected, held together in one whole, but within that whole is where the first tribes emerged.

Part three

Soon after the formation of the tribes within the collective, the green flesh families began to slowly spread further and further apart from their mother species. The Dreamtime differentiations led to plant inbreeding and new, weak plant species came into being. This inbreeding led to a curious phenomenon among the green flesh families. The survival of the fittest is what followed and a new breed of carnivorous plant species emerged.

These carnivorous clans were nocturnal and secreted tiny drops of acid into the air at nightfall. These droplets consumed only the buds of those flowering plants that grew near these carnivorous clans. The acidic droplets would have a film of coolant enveloping it. These were interpreted as moisture by the buds and would be absorbed in immediately. The acid would then eat away the bud from the inside out. Taking these buds destroyed any hope of reproduction for that particular species. Although the process was extremely slow, these clans polished off entire colonies of certain plant types. This process took a similar form in the collective. The Dreamtimes of the carnivorous clans would slowly trickle into the Dreamtimes of the species they were feeding on.

This wasn’t the only phenomenon that occurred. As the mosses grew into trees; the liverworts took on plant-like formations; and the trees that touched the edges of the collective began merging into one another, they began casting dark shadows over large areas of land. This resulted in the growth of more and more nocturnal plant species. Diurnal plants began adapting their present states-of-being to accommodate the gradual but drastic changes that were affecting the entire planet.

At this time, a strange event occurred in the collective. The Dreamtimes began merging, once again. This time it wasn’t becoming a whole, as it was before. Similar Dreamtime memories seemed to be merging. The Dreamtimes of the over-shadowing trees and the Dreamtimes of the plant species that were becoming nocturnal as a result seemed to merge because of similar circumstance. They were feeding into each other and learning in greater depth, the consequences of their actions. The changes were a part of an evolutionary process that had engulfed the entire planet. Apart from the tapping into the collective consciousness which the plants had been doing for eons, they were now physically able to tap into other plant species and families, through the collective. It was as if the physical states of the green flesh families were bleeding into the collective and feeding into one another’s Dreamtimes from where they could be accessed.

This ultra-awareness that developed would feed into the milky-way sort of manifestation that was surrounding the orb. The collective seemed to be spilling out ever so slightly into whatever lay beyond its existence. The Dreamtimes of the green flesh families were able to tap into what lay without and so were their now physical states that bled into the collective.

The knowledge of the with ut led to, among other things, tumultuous weather patterns within the orb. The boughs of the trees that were earlier kissing the edges of the collective now grew further into the collective itself.

Larger areas of space were taken over by these heavy branches and leaves and these prevented the water particles from making their natural way through and above the collective. The droplets that used to surround the orb and that were symbolic of the life force of the planet itself, were now trapped, save a few that managed to make it all the way through. These trapped particulates collected and produced mild rainfall until all the droplets ceased to exist. As the plants reproduced, over time, the droplets would collect and rain would follow once again.

The occasional advent of the ‘monsoon’ affected life on the planet to some extent. Carnivorous plants began to change their feeding patterns, as the buds they depended on now received their moisture from the rain. They now turned their attention to fungus and moss that were still in their early stages of development. They adapted their methods to suit their new prey. They would line their structures with the droplets they earlier secreted, and wait for the mosses and fungi to sense the moisture. Once they advanced towards the moisture-bearing carnivorous clans to latch and grow on, the plant would release its acid and slowly consume its victim. The carnivorous clans managed to filter their Dreamtimes so that the mosses and liverworts couldn’t sense their true nature.

The only other creature that knew of their existence was of course, the Pollinator.

They shared a symbiotic relationship. The clans were dependant on the Pollinator to aid their reproductive cycle, and the Pollinator in turn, was dependant on their coolant enveloped acid drops.

The monsoons proved to be a threat to the survival of the Pollinator. The moisture that the air contained earlier was more than appropriate, but now that the weather patterns were taking a turn for what seemed like the worse, the Pollinator’s life force was under threat.

When the collective divided into tribes and clans, the Pollinator was able to tap into and sense information out of all these. When the carnivorous clan came to be, it sensed their feeding process immediately. Because the Pollinator plays a key role, all should be transparent before him- and so it chanced upon the curious habits of the carnivorous clans.

As the monsoons descended, the Pollinator put to use its knowledge. It followed a similar process as to when it was pollinating a female plant. It moved around a particular family in the clan, moving faster and faster, until it managed to soak in the droplets that they exuded.

As the rains would arrive, the Pollinator would be safe in its fresh coat of acid. As each drop would fall, it would sizzle and evaporate immediately on touching the surface of the creature. It worked, thus. The coolant envelope would stick to the Pollinator and create a thin film over its entirety. The acid would come to rest over that. The coolant would prevent the acid from seeping into the Pollinator and the acid would prevent the rain from destroying it. Equally miraculously, as the brief monsoon would wear off, so would the film of acid and coolant.

During the monsoons, there would be lesser need to pollinate, and so the role of the Pollinator shrunk in size. Although the rains did not last very long, it would do so only in certain parts. The Pollinator would then travel across the orb in search of green flesh families that needed pollination, carefully avoiding the depressed areas which tended to collect water. These water bodies initially disappeared after the monsoons first came to be, soon after the rains had died down, but eventually, they lived on. Some grew larger than others. Some stayed where they were and maintained their original size, others would flow down from the leaves of trees, down their trunks and among the plants, throughout- even when there was no rain, there would be streams of water towering high above the earth-bound green flesh families. The liquid was born of the green flesh families and of the collective, and hence formed a part of the collective. It was a separate stream, situated much lower than the rest, almost as if it were resting on the water surface around the planet.

With this elixir, came new life.

Part four

This magnificent liquid, this elixir, brought about tremendous changes within the orb. The vaster of the water bodies that were created submerged countless families and species. Their Dreamtimes were in turmoil.

They started dreaming of their time above the water surface and once again absorbing air that wasn’t trapped in such small pockets in this viscous element. Their individual Dreamtimes weren’t able to project themselves much further than the surface of the water that seemed to be drowning them. They formed a separate stream that merged with the Dreamtime stream of the liquid. The Dreamtime of the water floated just above it; and formed a part of the collective as well. The thoughts and dreams of the submerged species combined because of similar circumstances; and as a result of this combination, their Dreamtimes were indirectly transmitted to the collective.

An evolutionary change took place at this time. The submerged plant species began to detach themselves from the now-underwater bed; and started to rise slowly up. Others managed very well in their new underwater abode and decided to stay. The law of the survival of the fittest once again took hold, driving many a species to extinction.

Some curious species sprang up. Floating plants with thick waxy leaves that spread themselves out over the water surface sprung up and reproduced more than most others. Other submerged flesh families adapted to their new home by shrinking their leaves to mere twigs. Their roots became as strong as their stems and reached skyward, above the water surface in search of air. Out of these roots were born newer, younger, flower-bearing families that were able to breathe outside the water surface, just like their ancestors, and many others around them were still able to.

A close relation of this plant species of the same family was one which could physically move itself out of the water, by literally crawling out, using its strong roots. These moving plants, morphed into what were no longer plants, but they were not yet animal. They were the newest creation of the Now orb.

Taking this major evolutionary change in, the green flesh families all over the orb, whether without or within the water, within the collective, or without, had experienced another element in its entirety and had evolved from it. The orb had experienced its second major evolutionary change.

Part five

The water-born plants that crawled out of the water and emerged out onto the land were stronger than any other green flesh creatures that the orb had seen. They seemed to be the distant relatives of the carnivorous clans that had once been found increasing in number on the orb. The earlier clans died out because of the emergence of water. These new species came from the water itself and seemed to be virtually indestructible. They slowly ate away at their cousins that were awaiting their arrival on land. The collective had been flooded with Dreamtimes of all the green flesh families. First, with the emergence of water, then, with the strong Dreamtimes of the submerged flesh families that emoted ever so strongly.

Now, the, Dreamtimes of these new flesh creatures, neither animal nor plant, were being absorbed into the collective as a separate stream. It had earlier been intermingled with that of the water, but as these clans took on their new forms, their stream began to rise, but just above that of the water stream. And there it stayed.

A few families that were essential to the survival of the orb survived these changes. The undergrowth, mostly, and some plants, whose properties were considered symbiotic, were left in peace. Apart from these, the new clans created havoc on the Now orb.
Nothing seemed to be left, when they began advancing towards the large overshadowing trees, that had begun reaching into the without.

Curiously, they took on the form of the trees. They began growing as them, and eventually merged with them. Though their plundering days seemed to be over, what was left of the remainder of the orb left a lot to be desired; within the collective and the Dreamtimes.

The flesh families that remained, under the water and on land, felt a gap in the collective. The families that were; had left vast channels of missing streams. The Dreamtimes of the flesh families still fed into the collective, as it used to, the reproductive cycle still went on as it did, but the gap was there. And it was felt by all.

The Pollinator had been away. As the monsoons had descended now and again, the Pollinator had found a way to shield itself from the moisture. But ever since the rainfall became more and more frequent, and large parts of the orb now began to retain the viscous liquid, the Pollinator had decided to flee.

It took refuge in those parts of the orb which remained virtually dry. It still played a small but nevertheless important role in the reproductive cycle of plants that weren’t able to adapt to the emergence of water.

The Pollinator sensed the major evolutionary changes that were frequenting the orb. It sensed the distress of the green flesh families as they were being slowly wiped out by the new water-born hybrid flesh families. It sensed the gaps that were now formed in the collective and these affected it deeply.

The new hybrid species didn’t need the Pollinator to reproduce. They were asexual and were able to grow at a much faster rate. In its Dreamtime the Pollinator began to dream.

It dreamt of a creature that was neither Pollinator nor plant. A creature very different as compared to what had come upon the Now orb. It used its Dreamtime energies in the collective, consciously and replaced its increasingly shrinking role in the reproductive cycle with an urgent need to create by itself.

Thus from the collective came new life. The creature bled into the massive trees, the tops of which were now embedded in the collective. It traveled down the water-streams that the boughs of the tree held up high above the earth-bound flesh families; it followed the trunks, and found its way into the roots below from where it grew.

It is essentially from these roots that it was born; and it took into it the form of the roots from which it came. The root was a mangled heap that resembled a mass of flesh and it came to rest above the surface of the orb. On touching this outer covering of the orb, it came to life. It immediately sparked off a powerful stream in the collective, and this stream, similar to the Pollinator’s, was embedded within all collective streams. This root-creature contained water that was red, unlike anything that the flesh families had sensed before. It was different, but still, it was a spawn of the Now orb- and was growing more and more everyday. It sensed the Dreamtime of the Pollinator and communicated with it through the collective. It didn’t need the Pollinator to reproduce. It would birth its first offspring asexually. The new born would have a sex and as it matured, so would the sex of the mother creature. They would then procreate and propagate.

When this major evolutionary change took place, the collective and all the green flesh families felt the presence of its overbearing stream. Although this creature was a part of them, they gradually responded by, over time, embedding the memories of their journeys throughout their time on the orb, across generations to come so that they never forgot their origins, where they came from, and the parent green flesh families that birthed them.

They did this because they were aware of the drastic changes that their precious home was to undergo over the millennia. They created their memoirs by extending a part of their roots into themselves and extruding them so that they became visible from without. These memoirs were embedded when every seed was born and it physically established itself finally when the sapling grew into its mature state. This way they would never forget.

Their Dreamtimes were etched like a language onto the structure of the creature.

It was inscribed onto the extensions emerging from the main stem, on the flat surfaces that like leaves divided into five. They were etched in the way the fur flows and follows a beautiful pattern on its surface. And they were written in the way the flesh stretched over its structure- covering a skeletal form and hiding the rivers of veins. The vein patterns were also Dreamtime memories and a part of the collective.

The creature was looked upon as a true creation of the 'now' planet, Earth. An amalgamation of all that was pure, natural and clean- a reminder of the green flesh families that existed and the single Pollinator. It carries till today, the language of the Dreamtime inscribed on its body, in every cell, as a constant reminder of its origin.

(THE END)

MYTH XXV - THE WHOLE COMPLEX STIG

THE WHOLE COMPLEX STIG - by Aashim Raj

1

A tiny speck was all that there was in the beginning. Yes, as improbable as it seems…In this vast empty space…existed just an extremely small speck of light. This speck soon realized it could think. It started out by analyzing and observing the environment it was in before turning its attention to itself. The speck spent some time speculating over its next step. “Discovery is the key to the problem”, it thought. Discovery was made soon enough and it was not a very pleasant one. He soon realized, like everything in the environment, it needed company. Yes, the very moment of revelation revealed that TWO is company…. Therefore through the great amoebic powers it split itself into two. It soon found out that the previous revelation had a loophole. When the company is just another speck of light… IT GETS BORING. And so, the tiny specks of light, soon, through the great amoebic powers once again, reproduced. Then there were four more specks of light…..and then eight…then sixteen…..then so on and so forth, till a giant speck of light was formed. The light from this expanding, giant speck of light made this speck of light……doesn’t matter which one…….. realize its actual neighbours were rocks who had got together by the same powers of Amoeba. The spheres of rock decided to use the light and heat of this rather large speck of light and also divide it equally between themselves. Each had its own needs for the requirements, as everything in this “space” did, and therefore found that circling the rather large speck of light was the solution to this problem. And so the present space we now call the “universe” was begun! While this tiny speck grew and made a working system, little did it know that tiny specks everywhere and tiny pieces of rock everywhere were joining their own systems. This is how everything came into existence, the universe, the solar system, the Milky Way, the planets, the earth and so on so forth. Now what we can only imagine is how many tiny specks of light there were and whether all the rock spheres found specks of light.

With that the story of the recurrent beginning of the world ends. The starting of new forms of clusters which bind together by virtue of the same characteristics present in almost every species known to us and, I am sure, those which are not yet known to us.

2

After this basic structure was complete, small, unforeseen changes took place in this perfect universe. There were tiny clumps of rocks which did not get into a larger group of rocks because of certain deformities present in these clumps of rocks. They were the outcasts of this society. They sometimes and very rarely possessed a fluid of some kind. As transparent as transparent could be and as pure as a single speck of light. These also came together by great amoebic powers.

There were others who had specks of light trapped inside of them. These specks of light were dying to be in the company of their own kind and were displeased at the prospect of spending a moment more with the lowly rocks. They periodically made an arrangement with the rocks to be released in the presence of the pure fluid to form what we now know as lava.

There were ones which had rotating rings of light and rock. All individual but living in peace and harmony. They enjoyed this desire to be apart and free rather than stay in a structure. Ones with crests and troughs and atmospheres which consisted of tiny gas particles all joined together. All these deformities in these rock clumps made it possible for the intermixing of various types of different unit elements to form new structures.

One such rock clump happened to be rather more open to the mixing of these various unit elements. On this rather open minded rock clump were based the makings of structures which were more complex and confusing. The need for the particles to mingle among themselves hit an all time high. Structures also themselves started to get together and form even more complex structures. It was at this time that a highly complex structure evolved. In it were involved two very similar and yet two very dissimilar units. Both had a structure reminiscent of a spring. The only difference was in the way that they were aligned. Clockwise and anticlockwise as we would learn to term the absent. These two structures came together and made a “double helix” as we continue to term the absent in the future. This double helix felt different from the other structures and soon through amoebic separation created another double helix. They continued to breed among themselves.

On another very fateful day, a single tiny speck of light got caught in one of this now rather large group of DH’s. This speck of light got embedded in the heart of this structure. The speck of light then caused an irritation among the DH’s. This literally sparked off a conflict within the structure. The speck of light being deemed as the precursor to the entire universe got the priority in this case and decided to exercise some “power” over these DH’s and thus came into being the ability to think.

The DH’s morphed from being benign to a thinking and living organism in a matter of a few moments. It simply said to itself-“I think….therefore I should be…..” They finally morphed into an organism which made use of the atmosphere, pure fluid (water as we would learn to call It.) and the crushed rocks strewn everywhere the water didn’t cover. The concept of power still stuck in this organism’s head polluted it. Thus the great speck of a combination of many things, MAN was discovered.

What man did not realize however was the fact that a few DH’s had escaped before getting polluted. These DH’s decide to form their own version of man and created the anticlockwise of man…….a woman.

3

Ah, the complexities of these double helix combinations had created two of the most unique creatures known to this one solar system. Man and Woman.

The irresistible beauty of woman and the ruggedness of man. The evolution process had taken a bit of a setback with the emergence of these “superior beings”. The ones which had come about earlier had no ability to reason or to think like these two had. They moved from place to place with the help of two long projections emerging from the end of the torso. These were longer compared to the two on the upper end of the torso.

Their heads were coincidentally the throne of power in the course of their life span just as with the earlier ones. They contained lenses to see through, drums to hear through and breathing devices which triggered off a highly complex system of vessels carrying fluids red in colour which led to a pump which circulated this red fluid to every end of this organism.

Inside the head sat a thinking machine of some sort. It had thick convolutions of tubes through which tiny specks of charged light passed. This important and menacing looking thinking machine controlled everything in this system. It was as if the life of the entire being was concentrated in that machine.

It was the memory of the being.

It was the sanity of the being.

It was the curiosity of the being.

It was the why, the where, the how, the who and the huh of the being.

It was what made the being a human being.

Now after the first man and woman had discovered all this, they set off on the next logical step to take; and that was “Discovery”. The man, the epitome of curiosity, discovered there must be more to his existence than going around talking gibberish, eating raw meat, and of course smelling his own armpits. Needless to say, it did not get the lady’s attention either.

One day; unlike every other day because it was a ‘fine’ day; Man decided to take the left turn to his cave from his daily hunting grounds. The decision was taken with much care and deliberation. The route from the right had been blocked off by a strange herd of flightless birds. They had no wings and they incessantly cried - do....do………do..do……….do..do”.

Man being cautious and practical decided to leave this strange procession and take a detour.

While walking carrying the carcass of a dead fat warthog, a tree standing very still as they always do was split in half by a very powerful speck of light from far far far away in a different system. The speck of light travelling at a very high velocity had effectively destroyed the tree and now all that was left, man noticed, was a fluid-like vapour. Orange on the outside and blue on the inside. It moved with the wind. Man walked towards it with the keen eyes of someone who actually looks at something for the first time. The fluid vapour was hot to touch and could not be physically controlled.

After burning his fingers a little, man discovered he could use it to impress woman and soon discovered a way of transporting it using a tree branch. That day to get woman’s attention he added lots of tree branches together to make a giant flame. The flame was visible to every being far and wide and man found himself surrounded by every other creature other than woman.

Getting bitten by every insect known to man, man felt strangely out of place. It could have been the rather large majority of other beings buzzing, roaring, chirping, squealing and other audibly distinguishable sounds surrounding him but he decided that was not it.

The need for the outcaste to find his fellow partner grew like a flame on a thousand tree branches. He even tried talking to his present companions but to no avail. The acoustics of the drums on their heads were all different. Communicating with them had become a problem.

Communication, decided man, was essential. Gone were the days he would spend endless hours chatting with small winged insects who would want to sit on him during the wee hours in the night preceded by a small one sided conversation which man heard as-‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnennnnnnnOwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn’. Gone were the days where he would spend the whole day gurgling under the water, trying his best to talk to that finned creature that would only spit out bubbles.

Man had discovered hierarchy.

Hierarchy made man use the other beings. The concept of power seeping through his body like a flame on two thousand tree branches, he established his future ‘rule’ over the other beings.

Man discovered slavery.

Slavery put the other beings in shackles, beings tormented by man to please his woman. Savage Animals, as they were termed by man, were made to do the manual labour which man knew he would never be capable of himself.

Man discovered laziness.

Woman meanwhile noticing these changes in man decided to keep quiet about the whole thing. The discoveries were not to her liking. Man in control of the Earth was a scary thought to say the least.

Meanwhile in another part of this lush and giving environment, great complexities were arising. Another creature was being made. What made this one special was the fact that it had the complex DH structure of man himself. This is how it came about....

Man on a hunting trip next to an active volcano one day, slipped on a banana peel and fell down resulting in him landing straight on a slithering snake. The snake tired and weary, was not very thrilled at having a rather large weight landing hard suddenly on his back. The snake lashed out at man with his two fangs glistening in the light of the lava river flowing near by.

The bite was a good one and spilt a lot of man's blood.

Man discovered pain.

While screaming and writhing uncontrollably in this rather uncomfortable state the snake quietly sneaked away realizing that man's wrath could be overwhelming to say the least.

“Heeeninweeneeeineineneneieineneneienneeineneinein” said woman to man when she saw him lying writhing and screaming uncontrollably on the ground. “UGHHRUMMPHPHREUUMPH” shouted man in reply.

(For the readers convenience I will now translate primitive linguistics)

“Are you like……. Ok?”

“YES! IN FACT I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE SPILLING MY RED LIQUID ALL OVER THE BLOODY PLACE!”

Man discovers sarcasm, wit and snappy replies all at once.

“I was just asking, no need get touchy about the whole thing now…..”

“TOUCHY?? TOUCHY?? I WILL DIE WITH THE RED LIQUID LOSS OVER HERE!!”

“If you are going to shout I’m going to leave you here like this and not help you at all….”

“WAIT!!....wait and help me, will you?”

“Hmmmm…. All right I will help you….on the condition that you give me something!”

“HUH? What could you possibly want from a place that is…well…..empty…..”

“I was thinking of something more…..well personal……a bone for instance…”

“WHAT?? I AM DYING OVER HERE AND YOU WANT ME TO GIVE YOU A BONE!!!??”

“It’s for you to never forget that I helped you in your most dire need…..”

“May as well take an arm and a leg then……..”

“I just want a rib”

“DONE! Now get this pain out of me immediately!”

Using her great talents to man’s benefit, woman proceeded to stop the blood flow using some plants she found that stopped pain. She first gave man some herbs which made him woozy and dazed a little so that he could feel no pain. For some reason he felt light-headed.

Woman then completed the deal by taking a rib out of man. Using thread she found from the worm who fed on the blue berry bushes, she sewed up all the gashes and ailments which affected man.

After the exhaustive procedure, man feeling reinvigorated with his new and well functioning body felt something for the first time.

Man discovered feelings.

Man and woman sat up till late in the day talking about their experiences and how they should have met each other earlier because they gelled so well together and all that kind of chit chat.

A time arose when both of them stopped talking and for the first time looked at each other.

Lightning struck once more on a rock near by and sparks flew.

The complexities of what happened next are too vast to even put down on paper without going red in the face. The union of the two humans was inevitable and it paved the way for a race of a new kind and of reproduction other than the great amoebic powers.

Besides it was way more fun.

Now we get back to a more important factor that man and woman had forgotten about. The red liquid (now called blood because of its colourful usage by man in a moment of painful spontaneity) spilt by man by the snake, had casually made its way into the small stream of lava flowing nearby. The complex compositions of both these different liquids fused together creating for the first time; and I fear for the last time as the timing and quantity was just right; a being unlike any seen before.

It rose out of the lava and revealed itself to…be...well…itself. It had a long straight face, deep sunken eyes which one could not see clearly, a small mouth with a prominent lower lip, a long thin body and a very grim expression on its face.

Lava does do that to you sometimes.

This magnificent being jumped straight out of the lava jumping and screaming a little like man had done. His skin being tougher left no scars or marks on his frame.

He looked around him in wonder as he moved using his legs (yes the long projections out of his torso were named legs.). he seemed to be aware. Aware of everything that had transpired in the world around him. He knew of man, woman, water and everything man already knew about.

He picked up a stick. Linguistic abilities being at an all time low since he was just born, he said “Stig”.

That was to be his name he decided. Short and sweet as he would say later, Stig went to quench his thirst of knowledge. He knew he would be very important one day.

He was right.

4

As time progresses so do the mysteries around us begin to fade. Discoveries were made by man and his companion woman. Through the new reproductive powers they had discovered, man and woman together had expanded their species. They multiplied at will and they showed no mercy to the other species. What started of in the beginning as being an instantaneous reproduction slowly became more complex over time. Woman was feeling the strain on her bad back while man to fulfil his cravings and desire would relentlessly carry on the barrage.

Woman discovers headaches.

The time for reproduction slowly increased and through the increasing amount of time the time of instantantaneous reproduction was lost to everyone. Woman decided on 9 months, 9weeks, 9 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes and 9 seconds.

Why 9 you would ask me and to be quite honest about it…. I really don’t know……. It’s a secret all of woman kind know and I am sure they do not want to disclose it. It does have something to do with the woman who started the reproductive schedule. Yin was her name.

Before we digress I must stress on how man and woman were slowly becoming the bane of the earth. They scoured the earth’s lands in search for their place of belonging. They were in the sense wanderers, searching for a match in their counterpart. They were usually found in groups. Never one alone. Man and woman had realized since their meeting that communication was a factor to overcome all. The feeling of communicating and connecting with someone was far more satisfying than hanging around a bunch of species who were not as complicated as they were.

Communication led to sharing of ideas, beliefs and systems. The discovery of power led to mans struggle for it. Land was his first power grab. Man kind everywhere were demarcating their land. The spirit of competition was in every man’s mind. Competition was the sort of driving force for the modern man. Higher, faster and stronger.

Woman not to be outdone herself also jumped onto the band wagon.

The human era on earth had begun. Their discoveries began to gather momentum.

Only one being (presumed by him) was watching mans progression into the unknown…..Stig.

Reclined on a float in the middle of his private pool in his private mansion, sipping on a ‘sex on the beach’ as these humans called it, Stig finally gave into the fact that he quite enjoyed mans many discoveries. The musings of a being who had seen everything. His extraordinary methods of travel and camouflage had made him a voyeur in some sense. Travelling was done by converting himself into tiny grains of sand which the winds carried quite quickly in fact to his desired destination. The deal stuck with the tiny specks of air had made life so much easier. He chuckled appreciatively at his own communicating skills. A sort of ironic chuckle since he himself had lived apart from everyone and communicating only when needed to. He stayed alone and entertained himself by observing the humans all over earth.

Stig’s extraordinary mind set him apart from the regular being. To put it coherently…. While man discovered the wheel Stig was driving a complex machine equivalent to a ‘Ferrari’. He was always ahead of the humans. He even felt the need sometimes to help man with his discoveries. The arrogance of Stig was justifiable. He had been the cause of the many wars.

He was Napoleon’s right hand man,

He was Hitler’s foremost general.

He made the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbour.

He gave nuclear technology to Man.

He dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He was everywhere where there was a sense of fear, hatred, jealousy, anger, loathing, rage, antagonism and all the words you could use to describe the same. In a ‘grenade shell’ as he would like to say, he had a ‘different’ sense of humour.

Stig kept his glass on the floating table next to his float. It had been an exhausting day, even for a higher being. The nuclear deals in every country had been completed successfully. Soon there would be no distinguishing between one nation and another…. Even if they were coloured differently.

Instilling conflict in the humans was turning out to be a breeze. They some how liked the idea of control. Humans were vulnerable when they let their emotions take over. Stamping their identity over others of their kind was all that mattered to them. Their ‘ego’s’ took over them in a vice like grip. Its reassurance they tell themselves reassuringly. The rational decision is forgotten and stubbornness bores its deep holes in them. Revenge was what the game was about now. The equal and opposite reaction to every action was taking its toll on the earths existence and of the humans as well.

Stig chuckled again. He came back to what was troubling him since he had gained his infinite knowledge on well, everything. The humans had been his only source of entertainment. They themselves destroying themselves would not help his cause one bit. The need to find company was hurting him from the inside.

Television had kept him awake long nights. After being given the technology by him, the humans had done a good job of creating mindless eye candy. He did have his favourite shows none the less.

Stig transformed into the dust and the wind immediately picked him up and put him in his room.

He didn’t like getting wet.

Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Stig drove up the gates of Caesar’s Palace. A frequent visitor to the hotel, the valet immediately recognized Stig and opened his Aston Martin DB12 car door

“Goood Eeevening Mr. Good. It’s a pleasure having you here.”

“Good evening…. (Scanning the name plate rather hastily)…Jesus!”

“Uh… its je’ sus’ sir….”

“Ah yes well always have been bad at names. How are you liking your job je` sus`?”

“To be brutally honest with you (as most people were compelled to be truthful around Stig) not to good….. my closest valet friend ratted on me taking a bugatti out for a spin. And then my boss decides to make an example out of me and nails me clean on the………….”

Stig had lost interest in this conversation ever since it began. These humans and their long winded self pitying stories. He walked on while je` su`s went on animatedly to a crowd which had collected around.

The hotel was very large. The receptionist in the main lobby was busy attending phone calls and Stig decided not to interfere in her communication escapades. The hotel cum casino was ornately made, but it was still nothing compared to the likes of what he had seen. Caesars palace in Rome was a magnificent work of architecture.

Stig had made the blue plans for it………..obviously……..

Heading straight to the casino, Stig picked up a drink from a traveling waiter. A long stemmed glass goblet containing wine. Stig swirled it around the goblet just as he did in the vineyards of France. A small sniff of the wine was in order, before taking it in and swirling it around the palette of his mouth before swallowing it. The invention of alcohol had been one of Stig’s greatest inventions. Truth serum as he would like to call it.

It had a habit of loosening the human tongue and cause unforeseen circumstances which could go either way. It was how Stig relaxed.

Swirling the wine around in the glass, Stig was all set to hit the tables and collect some money. Stig never used any unfair advantage while gambling. Gambling he felt depended on probability and of course face reading. This was true for his favourite game of all time…Poker. He made his way to the table where his seat was reserved. That particular table was for all the high stake players. Old men with a whole lot of money to throw.

Stig made quick work of the first two rounds winning at ease with the same cards twice. He got a triad of sixes (666) which was more than any of the geriatrics could manage.

Feeling the need for some more wine, Stig turned around to find the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She captured his every emotion in every dazzling step she took towards him. It was unlike anything he had experienced before. Her every motion was fluid like water and just as pure.

She was looking straight at him.

Stig discovers Hopmore.

5

As the world runs on a cause and effect, the birth of Stig had to be balanced sometime later. Later would turn out to be pretty soon.

While man and woman tried out the new reproductive process, woman’s blood was spilt.

The blood fell into a small stream of water. The recurrence of the mixing complex structures took place in that fateful stream. The water and woman’s DH’s joined together. Hopmore rose out of the water, as graceful as the word suggests. The water ran down her pale skin. Her hair a pale, off whitish colour itself, was surprisingly dry and cascaded down her body till her knees.

She was beautiful.

Hopmore was blessed with such a complex structure that has been lost to everyone now, knew she could do things ordinary humans could not do. She had been born with the ability to travel at extraordinary speeds using the moisture in the clouds. Her body would dissimilate into tiny water particles and she would be transported from cloud to cloud and then come down by leaving the clouds which the humans came to term as ‘Rain’. Her beauty was such that no man could resist looking at her if she desired it so.

She was quite picky in that sense. She preferred to be left alone. It was not that she did not like humans, she adored them….it was just that she was different from them.

She was an immortal.

Hopmore had lived through all the years. She had seen and heard almost everything ‘humanly’ created. She had also had the ability to be forgotten almost immediately by any human. The way she changed her appearance from being loud to being discreet always helped her in her lifetime. She had always liked helping the humans do other things other than trying to blow themselves up. The hara-kiri nature of the humans was always omnipresent. She had dedicated her life to help man in saving himself. She was there treating men in the war next to Florence Nightingale.

She had written Martin Luther King's speech on the equality of people.

She had walked along with Gandhi during the Salt March.

She was the nun helping Mother Teresa do her job.

In short she was the instigator of love peace and kindness. She had spent countless life times struggling with a single thought on her mind. She had not been able fathom the idea of some being able to negate her spreading of goodness to all of human kind. There was some foul play afoot and she was going to find out.

Many a time while travelling through the skies in the clouds, she had noticed spectacular dust clouds travelling at immensely high speeds. It had never interfered with her flight path and she chose to dismiss it as some new human activity.

On one very curiosity filled day she decided to follow its path. She kept her distance from the cloud in the fear that she might cause an accident. The bellowing cloud moved towards a city in the desert. The city of Las Vegas. She had heard of this place but had kept away from it. The digression of human kind had reached its lowest over there. She had always wanted to know why and this could be her opportunity to do so.

She saw the cloud suddenly dive downwards in a spiral. She proceeded to do the same.

Rain descended in the city of Las Vegas that day. Hopmore caught a glimpse of the cloud descending into an Aston Martin DB12. She followed the car in a cab and her keen sense of tracking the gas fumes from the car didn’t leave her far off the track even though it was travelling at an increasingly fast rate.

This was certainly not normal human behaviour. The speeds this car was travelling at seemed unimaginable at times. The accuracy of that kind of driving required the responses of a cat on steroids.

She arrived at her subject’s destination, Caesars Palace. A human looking man stepped out of the car. His big collared trench coat made it impossible to see his face clearly. Hopmore for the first time felt curiosity of such intensity as never before.

She had to see the face of that man.

She walked into the hotel behind him, making a few people stop and listen to the story of a valet who had just been rudely treated by the mysterious man. She followed him through the lobby where he indulged in some of those awful alcohols. Disgusted by this revelation she started to question herself on why she was so interested in him. What made him different from any other man she thought. These thoughts were short lived as a sudden decision came over her.

She decided she was going to dress up for the occasion.

When she saw him amble towards what was called the ‘poker’ table, she side stepped into the woman’s section of the wash rooms.

Hopmore looked at her reflection in the mirrors that lined one side of the wall. She always knew she was of exceptional beauty. It was just that she never felt the need to use the full extent of her womanly wiles.

This was one of those exceptional occasions. After making sure no one was in the wash room, Hopmore stepped back in front of the mirrors to reveal a very very revealing blood red dress. There was a certain sense of determination that came over her at that moment. Her hands moved across her face to finish the look. As soon as they were put down, they uncovered a face capable of bringing the world to an end.

Simple diamond stud earrings and a silver choker make up done to highlight the right areas of her face, and a small wicked smile for the first time……..

She was going to come to his table after all Stig thought to himself. Her beauty was unlike anything he and ever seen and that was saying a lot. Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Marilyn Monroe could have never matched her for even her breath.

The way her long confident strides matched her perfectly proportioned figure made her seem unreal. How was it that a woman with such beauty had not been picked by the human media was unimaginable. A woman like that should be worshipped he felt.

*SNAP*………come back to reality, Stig thought. He closed his eyes for a second. Why was it that he was getting overwhelmed by an ordinary woman?

“That’s it!” he exclaimed rising quite suddenly. She was not ordinary and that’s why he should be even more wary of her he thought to himself.

The quick motion of him getting up caused a series of rather messy events. He hit a passing by waiter who was carrying a rather expensive bottle of scotch which in turn caused him to drop the bottle on the floor. The spilt scotch caused several other waiters carrying alcohol to slip on the rather wet floor. This further caused the walking customers to slip and fall down.

Stig took a long deep breath.

Everything around him seemed to be happening in another galaxy. He was standing face to face with the one woman who had for the first time rendered him incapable of rational thought.

A white space enveloped them.

Stig was still staring unbelievingly at Hopmore.

She came closer and closer still.

Till there was but a hair's breadth between them, she advanced on her ‘prey’.

Stig could feel her breath on his hard skin, his rather big collars doing no good to shield him in anyway…..as if he would want that……

She opened her mouth to speak with Stig for the first time. “Are you okay?” she said, her voice beginning to reverberate softly in his head a thousand times over in way that he felt he could feel ‘okay’ with her around.

A definite feeling of comfort.

Stig realized that that what he must be doing to people….but he would never be asking questions regarding good health! This thought snapped him back into his present environment and out of the dream like sequence of one of those ‘Hollywood’ movies.

“Hey where have you taken me?”

“A place where we could have some kind of privacy...”

“WHAT??............what are you if I may be so bold to ask.”

“I was going to ask you the same thing dearie…….”

“I asked first…….”

“I feel this will take along while….” Said Hopmore and two cloud chairs emerged from the white space.

********* overview

The explanations from both the parties shattered both of them equally and they could not believe how they had managed to work with the humans without either of them knowing what the other did to negate their work.

Conversations then ensued on various human and earth related topics. They ranged from how why she felt that the humans should be prevented from causing their own destruction.

Stig and Hopmore had discovered one thing of common importance…… they both found each others company strangely fascinating and wanted to meet each other more often. They decide to meet each other every day. The destination they alternated between themselves.

Hopmore would take Stig to places which were peaceful and there was harmony in every human present over there and Stig would take Hopmore to places which he had helped man create.

Stig and Hopmore began to appreciate each others work in their very opposite approaches towards the humans. They began to see the how complex the whole situation was. How one factor was connected to several other factors.

How the interdependency of different species living on the earth were slowly losing importance to the ego, ergo the human race.

The time was too late to stop them now.

Countries all over the earth had amassed the same amount of arms and ammunition.

All it needed was something to spark it off. A fight, for instance.

This was always a certainty between two highly complex and evolved beings to have a fight. On the fateful day this happened human kind would realize the true meaning of apocalypse.

The fight came about because Hopmore was an hour and a half late with her meeting with Stig. Stig erupted at the thought of someone not obeying him completely.

After a verbal throw of words at each other Stig left to sell all the remaining stocks of nuclear arsenal to even the most underdeveloped nation on the earth. Hopmore could only wait and watch as the end of the world began.

Countries attacked each other out of anxiousness. Not wanting to be the last to start an attack the battle of the earth did not last very long. Within a few minutes the entire human race and all the living species in it were exterminated.

Stig standing over a pile of rubble gazed longingly at the ruins of Las Vegas. He had transformed himself into dust as soon as the first attack had begun. He had not expected it to be this bad. He did not actually want this to happen…..

He heard a sniffle behind him. He did not turn because he knew who it was. The only other being alive in this destroyed earth. Hopmore took two steps closer to stig and then hugged him from behind and crushed her face into his back, tears streaming down her face.

He turned to hug her back.

“This was not how it was supposed to turn out…”

“It would have turned out like this even without you … you just hurried it up”

“Hmmm the air is thinning quite fast…. The ozone specks must be completely obliterated…”

Without saying another word Hopmore handed Stig a box. “I picked it up before the attacks…thought it might be useful…”

Stig opened the box to find a small human made potted plant.

Stig and Hopmore then decided to turn into dirt and water respectively and give the plant all the nourishment they needed to continue for eternity.

The plant immediately took root in the soil the last beings had created and grew into an enormous tree with just a solitary fruit on it. The fruit would nestle seeds for further trees until the tiny specks would all come back and thus the world would be reformed.

Just like the tiny specks of old.

(THE END)