Nothing ventured, nothing done. For days I delayed writing on the words given by Nidhi’s friends, giving preference to others. And the ever patient Nidhi never once demanded why. Finally unable to bear the burden of my own guilt, here I am trying to do justice to her. I’m combining the two sets of words this once. Take 1 and Take 2 are bonus. Take 3 is what I had planned to do for her. Hope you like it, Dinni!
AISHWARYA’S WORDS : GLASSES, GALAXY, ANIMAL
KEERTHANA’S: VEHICLE, PLANT, WATER BOTTLE
Take 1.
Bhayya was such an animal. She had carefully hidden her box of Galaxy, which Chachu had gifted her on Diwali, but somehow His Snoopiness had ferreted it out of her hiding place and emptied it. She had not even tasted one. In rage, she took his Armani glasses, wrapped it in a wad of kitchen towel and placed it carefully inside an old water bottle. She first thought she’d throw it into the depth of the dustbin in the kitchen. Then she thought she’d bury it in the huge potted plant, her father so lovingly nurtured….No, she told herself, next time he worked on the soil, he’d find it. Justice must fit the crime, she thought. She looked out of the window. The Pizza Hut van had just parked and the delivery boy came out carrying two boxes. She quickly took the water bottle and slipped out of the flat. She gently wedged the plastic bottle under the left rear tyre of the van. Quickly she ran up and watched as the driver reversed the vehicle, crushing the water bottle with her Bhayya’s glasses in it. Serves him right, she thought. Revenge was as sweet as the taste of the uneaten galaxies.
Take 2.
I will kill these animals, she muttered to herself as she collected the broken pieces of the expensive water bottle she had bought for the Ladies’ Walkathon. If I had my way, I’ll parcel these monsters in an airtight wooden box and mail it to a faraway galaxy… they were not pets, they were pests! She had told her kids that she would not…do you hear me?… WOULD NOT …clean up after the mess created by their pets. No probs, Mumsie, they had chorused. We’ll do everything. And that, they had- exactly for 48 hours. Now the confounded animals were in her care. I have heard of families having a cat or a dog for a pet in a flat. But having both a cat and a dog is a bit too much! She yelled at the two animals that cowered before her. Especially when the two hated the sight of each other and chased each other all over the house.
Yesterday the blasted dog had dug up all her potted plants trying to bury his stupid plastic bone in them. The other day she had just washed her new set of crystal glasses and left them to dry on the dining table. CRASH! The cat had jumped onto the table smashing them to smithereens!
Her newly bought vehicle’s, her precious Pathfinder’s interior was scratched by the two beasts- gratitude for having taken them for a joyride. I’ll poison them…she thought. I’ll put them both in a sack and throw them down from the thirteenth floor… I’ll drug the monsters and take them in my vehicle to a far away place and abandon them…..she fumed. Yet, she knew she would do none of these as her kids loved their pets and she…., she loved her kids and would suffer any pain for them!
Take3.
JPX393 watched the screen in front of him. There it was again. Last mooncycle he had seen that thing float past in the screen. He had thought it must be some asteroid on its way to meet its annihilation. He watched it now. It was approaching his space ship. He put on his Space-spy glasses. By calculating its apparent speed and the depth of emptiness around him, in exactly four days and thirty-nine hours’ time it would float past his planet.
He reached the Transportation Plant. JPX390, his dna-donor was the Chief Executive there. The animals guarding the huge plexi-glass doors did not stop him. They could smell that his dna matched! He carelessly scratched them behind their ears and proceeded to the manufacturing section of the plant. This was JPX390’s dream project and he would be found there. Quickly he apprised him of the strange sighting on his screen. JPX 390 was excited too. He consented to let his Clone3 borrow the latest Space-O- Cart, the futuristic vehicle they had just test- launched.
Four days and thirty-nine hours later:
The vehicle was ready to be launched. Timing was crucial. JPX393 started the SOC. Soon he was hovering beyond his Ionosphere. The Emptiness of the space seemed to drag his vehicle. His eyes burnt as they came into contact with the ‘dark-nothing’ around him. He put on his oxy-glasses. He waited, peering anxiously into the monitor in front of him. T-h-e-r-e it was…. slowly floating nearer. Just as it floated past the SOC he activated the ATTRACTRAY at the tip of his glove and aimed it at the object. Attracted by the ray, it glided smoothly towards him and soon fitted into his gloved limb.
It was curiously shaped, cylindrical and brightly coloured. He kept it on his screen but it slipped and fell. A part of it broke, a domelike structure and something fell out. JPX393 took that curious thing out. He decided to take advice from JPX390 who had a Trans Galactic Translator which would explain things to him.
JPX390 unfurled the colourless piece of something and placed it on the scanner slot. The
TGT took a long time to decipher the marks on it. #@%****^#@@!!!!&&&^%%%%%%##@@mmmnnnngggHHHttttt!, it went.
Roughly translated for the benefit of earthlings, here is what it said:
Hi ,Whoever Finds This: My name is Jeremy Parker and I live on the Earth, a minor planet in the Galaxy called Milky Way. People normally drop their messages inside bottles in oceans and seas. I thought I’d be different and throw mine in the sea of nothingness. My dad is an astronaut and he is going on a space trip trying to start his business on Mars. I have asked him to drop this out of his spaceship into the space. If you find it please contact me at the following address. I know there is somebody out there like me in other galaxies. It will be nice to meet you, whoever you are. Do visit me.
A year later:
The following was a news headline .
UFO CRASH LANDS IN ANTARCTICA
An Unidentified Flying Object seems to have landed at the South Pole. The alien craft seems to have been totally burnt down. Heads and scientists of the Big 5 have congregated at the site to study the implications. There is a theory that the UFO was shot down by the Americans, the Chinese or the Russians. No one wants to believe a ten year old boy, Jeremy parker and his family who were at the South Pole claiming to have received a dream from an alien named JPX393 to meet them there. ‘Impossible!’ say authorities….. ‘There is nothing called UFO!’
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