To Infinity and Beyond

#idan

Bangalore, Year Unknown

As dawn neared, the city slumbered under the lull of rain and wind. The Gulmohars swayed rhythmically, playing to the weather’s tune, their falling leaves and flowers painting the roads and pavements in their colours.

The rhythmic sounds of raindrops on leaves and rooftops created a soothing melody that seemed to echo through the alleys and roads of the metropolitan city. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a reminder of the primordial forces of nature at play.

In a rowhouse complex owned by Future Inc., to the east of the city, a young man slept, his dreams full of chaos.

“Wake up, Idan.”

Stars exploded with bursts of light around him while Gravity Wells whistled past him, threatening to swallow him into the never-ending void at the bottom of space and time.

“Break free from the shackles, Idan.” Voices whispered through the darkness.

He was falling, desperate to not to be torn apart by the chaos around him. He plummeted deeper into the void caught by the unyielding pull of a black hole…. his scream, unheard.

“Your reality is just a projection of the collective consciousness.”

Suddenly he felt his feet land on grainy soil with a thump, without the impact he had feared and his mind rapidly calmed the panicked beats of his heart pounding through every part of his being.

Through dizzy eyes, Idan found himself standing in a large cave, dimly lit with eerie crystals that grew out from the walls and ground with a pale green light. The air was thick with an oppressive silence, and the atmosphere felt as if it was weighing down on him, making it difficult to breathe.

The crystals began to grow, brightening the cave and three figures emerged from the shadows surrounding him, cloaked in black robes. The hood of the robe was pulled tightly over their heads, casting a menacing silhouette against the flickering green light.

“Break free from the shackles, Idan.”

As they spoke in harmony, the crystals in the cave began to pulse and resonate with a low, droning hum, vibrating through the air and causing Idan’s body to tremble involuntarily.

“Break free, Idan. Your reality is an illusion.”

“What are you talking about?!” Idan asked loudly but his voice felt muffled. “Who are you?!”

In the background, the sound of rainfall and wind intensified, as if nature itself were echoing their words.

The figures began to close in on him and his heart raced in panic. Images began to flutter under his feet. The ground was gone, replaced with memories that he was certain were not his.

He caught the image of a boy running through a cobblestone street from the chaotic stream of memories beneath his feet.

Something familiar nagged his subconscious.

“It’s time.”

The memories shook and Idan lost his balance.

“No!” Idan shouted.

“Wake up, Idan.”

His racing subconscious was revealing something but the incessant banging of his bedroom door made him open his eyes and let go of his personal oblivion.

“Idan! Wake up! You’ll be late for college!”

His eyes snapped open and a dull white ceiling stared back at him. His heart was racing and he was drenched with sweat.

Had he been dreaming? He tried to recollect the dream but only drew up a haze of fading sounds and images.

“Idan!”

It had been a while since he had experienced an intense dream that woke him with sweat and an elevated heartbeat.

“Idan!”

“I’m awake!” he shouted.

“Open the door then,” his mother shouted back. “How many times have I told you not to lock the door!”

“God,” grumbled under his breath.

“Idan!”

“Coming, coming!” he snapped.

He crossed the length of the room in three quick skips, unlatched the door that his mother was attempting to break down and hurried back to bed, skipping on the cold floor as she walked in, looking stern and exasperated, wearing pyjamas and a formal shirt, holding a book in her hand. The one she was using to break down his door.

Idan smiled sheepishly as her glare intensified when she saw him pull his feet back into the blanket.

“Idan!” she scowled.

“It’s cold,” he muttered. He glanced outside the window and saw the rain dripping past the wild branches and leaves. “I think classes are cancelled,” he said. He sounded more hopeful than truthful.

“It’s not. I already checked with your department admin. Now, get ready quickly. It’s seven and your class starts at nine!”

Idan stopped listening at ‘checked with the department’.

“Mom!” he gasped, anger and embarrassment fostered in his mind.

“I wouldn’t have to check if you got up on time!” she retorted. “Now do you want me to call and inform them you’ll be late because you overslept?”

Idan jumped out of bed.

“I’ve kept the geyser running since six,” his mother added before he slammed the bathroom door in her face, not sparing her a dirty look.

As soon as the door was shut, he sighed and his anger drained. This was just routine.

His bedroom was small but cosy with a single cot bed placed snugly by the window, providing ample natural light during the day. The floor, a fading red-oxide, which complemented the white walls nicely. The room was spacious enough to accommodate a study table against the adjacent wall, flanked by a couple of bookshelves filled with a mix of history and fiction. A cupboard was built into the wall beside the door and the doors were plastered with various quotes and small posters from famous authors, philosophers, artists and scientists, all of which resonated with him.

His eyes lingered on the window beside the balcony door and realised his clothes, left out to dry, were soaked.

“Oh well,” he muttered, took his clothes off and shuffled into the bathroom.

With everything almost within the reach of a stretch of his arm he stepped under the shower and turned the knob to full power.

He felt the tension in his muscles melt away as the warm spray enveloped him as his thoughts wandered back to his dream, wondering if it was just a random occurrence or something more significant. It wasn’t the first time he had woken up from a dream this intense.

He reached out for the corner shelf and strained to reach the bottle of shampoo but it was just a hand width out of reach. The warm water cascaded over his body, and he didn’t want to disturb its perfect stream so he concentrated on grasping the bottle, willing it to be in his hand and a moment later, his grip tightened around the cool slippery plastic.

As he lathered up his hair, Idan couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease. The dream seemed to be a jumble of memories and disjointed thoughts. It was almost as if his subconscious was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t quite grasp onto the words, which felt just out of reach but ever so close.

Five minutes later the hot water began to run out and he quickly finished up. Idan dried off with the towel and wrapped it around his waist. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and saw that it was already half past seven. He knew he didn’t have much time if he wanted to make it to class on time.

With a deep breath, he stepped out of the bathroom and began getting dressed. As he pulled on his jeans and shirt from the cupboard, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It was as if his dream had left an imprint on his mind, a nagging sensation that there was something important he needed to remember.

He slipped into his old yellow raincoat which was hooked to the back of his chair. It had been his father’s. It was the only thing he had of him and that was only because the coat was so darn good! It defied the elements in all weather conditions. He loved its dull colours, matching his cloudy mood.

Idan assessed himself in the mirror behind his door. His jet-black hair, still damp from the shower, chaotic and untidy. With a quick run of his hands through his hair, he pushed his hair back, to bring some order amidst the morning’s unrest.

Not wanting the smell of damp room to return back to, he took his towel out to the balcony and threw it up on the cloth line hanging above. He took a moment to admire the trees shuddering in the wind, their leaves stockpiling raindrops that eventually fell to the ground below in large splatters.

The thought of the cold began to bum him out. He wanted to bunk class.

“IDAN!”

His name echoed through their house. Grabbing his bag, propped up against the wall, from behind the door, he rushed to the living room to find his mother waiting for him with a dosa in her hand

“Mom, no!” he protested almost immediately, dodging the tiny dosa she was attempting to stuff into his mouth.

“Don’t even think about telling me you’re feeling sick,” she scolded. She wrapped the dosa in tin foil and forced it into his hand. “I can’t handle the stress of a backlog.”

“Yea, yea,” he grumbled.

She softened then, pulling him into a brief hug and planting a kiss on his forehead. “Do well today, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom. Have a good day at work,” he replied, managing a small smile.

He ate his dosa quickly as he climbed down the stairs and crushed the foil to dump it in the trash can at the entrance of his building.

Pulling his hood low over his brow, Idan stepped out into the languid rain and set off towards the main road . The cool rain soaked his sandals, feet and the bottom of his trousers as he walked through the ensemble of houses that sprawled seamlessly amid the forest-like landscape. The wet fabric clinging to his legs. But the discomfort barely registered in his preoccupied mind.

The lush surroundings, curated by Future Incorporated, curling around each building, providing shade on the pavement and road, in a cloak of greenery, blurring the border between the built and the natural environment, evidence to Future Incorporated’s commitment to being carbon negative in all their aspects.

Rain dripped erratically from the leaves above and the ground was covered in beautiful red flowers, glistening under the rain.

Resisting the urge to call an autocab, easily summoned from the kiosk at the main road but today, the urge to remember his dream persisted and making a spontaneous decision, he crossed the main road and decided to take a detour through the quieter jogging parks that led to the metro station. This path, though longer, offered solitude.

There was something very real about the dream. It kept clawing at the back of his mind as if it wanted to be remembered, wanting him to remember something that could shatter an illusion masquerading as reality.

His attention was briefly distracted by the ominous silhouette of the tall communications tower, creaking and groaning as it resisted the pull of the relentless wind. Its unnatural structure seemed out-of-place against the backdrop of the boulevard of trees that acted as a natural barrier against the chilly breeze.

As he strolled through the parks, sidestepping the morning joggers, he was aware of the passing time. He was certain to miss his first lecture and if his contemplative mood persisted, he’d probably miss the second one too. But he found it hard to care. Both his heart and mind were entangled elsewhere today.

For the life of him, he just couldn’t remember. It was no use. His mind just drifted to the sounds of the rain splashing against his coat and the puddles on the stone pathway.

The sidewalks stretched out as he neared the station, making way for the early morning crowd. His eye caught the lazy rise of a nearby Sativa shop’s shutters. A lovely girl in a yellow salwar kameez was engrossed in her daily ritual of lighting agarbatti. The fragrant tendrils of smoke curled around her fingers before being carried off by the morning breeze, and he breathed in the gentle blend of Sativa and incense.

His fingers itched with the urge to reach for an indica stick, a welcome reprieve from his jumbled thoughts. But he quickly stifled the temptation. The image of his mother’s stern face flashed in his mind, followed by the daunting prospect of missing not one, not two, but three classes. That kind of trouble was something he preferred to avoid, especially today.

Dismissing the idea, he continued towards the station, the hustle of the early morning crowd growing around him. Soon enough, he was stepping onto a half-full coach bound for college. He huddled in his seat, drawing his coat tighter around himself as the train’s air-conditioning blasted against his damp skin. He huffed in annoyance, giving his legs a vigorous shake in an effort to generate some heat. Despite his attempts, the chill continued to seep into his very bones, uncaring of his discomfort.

The coach slithering above and below the skeletal web of interconnected metro rails, a serpentine linkage rendering personal means of transport as relics of the past.

An LED hoarding flickered to life as the train slipped through the commercial district, illuminating the carriage with its luminescent glow.

“Do you feel a void gnawing at your existence?

Do you fear that the peak of human evolution has already been reached and we’re on a downward slope?” The advertisement’s words echoed through the PA system of the coach.

“Shed your worries and embrace Future Inc. Your destination for the next phase of human evolution.”

The advert’s climax coincided with the train’s arc across the expansive open space, the sense of timing adding a dramatic flair to its message.

As Idan’s gaze drifted over the cityscape, his attention was drawn to the floating advertisements that loomed like hovering spectres above the government buildings. The bright LEDs cycled between various department slogans, each one painting broad strokes of the government’s objectives.

One moment, he was reading: “Illuminating lives, sparking possibilities” - a motto credited to the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL). The advert was followed by another that read: “Your world, interconnected”- a tagline endorsed by the Karnataka Telecom Department (KTD).

Each pixel of the city seemed etched with code, a testament to the evolved corporate industry where software was the lifeblood. Those fluent in the digital language held the reins, steering a gargantuan species towards a utopian future.

The city streets teemed with automated rickshaws and pedestrians, while the air hummed with the persistent whir of drones, darting back and forth, ferrying supplies from point A to B. The city no longer merely existed; it functioned, fuelled by artificial intelligence. From a quick meal delivered by drone to virtual AI doctors diagnosing your ailment, every aspect of life was touched by the digital revolution. The city had transformed into a symbiotic entity of humans, cement, and code, where the lines between the virtual and the physical were whimsically blurred.

Idan stepped off the coach, feeling the abrupt change from the air-conditioned cabin to the humid outdoor air. All around him, the bustling college stop teemed with students in animated conversation, their chatter intermingling with the urban hum of the city. He manoeuvred through the crowd, their banter merely background noise in his introspection.

As he waited for traffic to halt at the pedestrian crossing, his gaze was drawn to the college’s entrance: a towering steel archway. Wrought from the metal itself, an intricate infinity symbol with minutely etched figures of scholars of the past, was sculpted in the centre of the archway, symbolising the college’s belief of boundless learning.

The light turned green and he crossed the road, instantly feeling a wave of comfort and tranquillity as he stepped past the gates, ready to begin a new day.

Authors Note: Welcome dear reader. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter and do drop a like, a review... share your thoughts! Love to read them.

Cheers,

Ra

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